Graduate Theses
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- ItemUnderstanding Refferral Barriers: A Scoping Review of Psychoeducational Assessment Pathways for EAL Students(Mount Saint Vincent University, 2025-09) Hammam, ChristinaThis scoping review explores systemic inequities and missed opportunities in the psychoeducational referral process for English as an Additional Language (EAL) students in Canadian school systems. While research has focused on distinguishing language acquisition from learning disabilities, limited attention has been given to how institutional tools, policy frameworks, and educator perceptions collectively shape referral decisions. Guided by Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), this review synthesizes findings from 14 empirical studies and 18 Canadian grey literature sources to examine how the intersecting dimensions of race, language, and ability influence whether, how, and when EAL students are referred for assessment. The analysis identifies four key themes shaping referral dynamics: bias and misclassification, multilingual and sociocultural considerations, inadequate professional knowledge, and limitations in referral decision-making tools and practices. These themes operate across two interrelated dimensions: Educator Perception, referring to how educators perceive and respond to student difficulties, and Systemic Instruments, encompassing the institutional structures that formalize or reinforce those perceptions. Despite increasing policy emphasis on inclusion, the review highlights persistent variability in practice, a lack of Canadian empirical research, and entrenched structural norms that privilege Whiteness, monolingualism, and normative ability. Recommendations include embedding culturally and linguistically responsive frameworks into referral policy, expanding professional learning grounded in cultural humility, and generating context-specific research to support more equitable and linguistically responsive assessment pathways for EAL learners.
- ItemQuiet the Mind, Open the Heart: A Phenomenological Approach to Reading Indigenous Literatures for Non-Indigenous Readers(Mount Saint Vincent University, 2025-09) Bartlett, R. AllanaIn Canada, a growing body of Indigenous Literatures is weaving narrative threads of Indigenous worldviews into settler consciousness adding complexity and clarity, vibrancy and depth, to our collective tapestry. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada urged all to think and act in new ways to establish and maintain mutually respectful relationships between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Peoples. To think and act in new ways is, in essence, to transform. Given the power of story to tell, teach, and transform, Indigenous Literatures may be an accessible and pragmatic means for people of settler ancestry to initiate engagement in reconciliation, decolonization, and treaty relations. This was the impetus for a phenomenological exploration of transformative learning in settler readers of Celia’s Song by Sto:lo author Lee Maracle (2014), first as a solitary reader and then as a member of an established book club. Hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry extends beyond descriptive understanding to interpret aspects of experience that are externally observable, as well as aspects of experience revealed only through the narrative an individual composes as the product of the phenomenon and their lifeworld. Seven adult readers of settler ancestry provided four points of access to the lived experience: 1) one-on-one interviews to explore the reading lifeworld of each participant as the context in and through which they live and subjectively structure their reading experiences; 2) reading journals to document the intellectual, emotional, and embodied experience of reading; 3) observations and audio recording of the book club discussion to capture the relational reading experience; and, 4) one-on-one interviews to explore the overall experience as reflected on by each participant. All gathered materials were transcribed to text and underwent iterative cycles of reading, reflecting, and writing to dwell in the individual and collective experience of reading Celia’s Song. The research process revealed engagement with Celia’s Song as one of reading as reckoning rather than reconciliation for most of the reader-participants. One reader, however, formed an intention to approach the story and the storytelling by quieting her settler-colonial mind and being open to the content and the broader social and cultural context of the text. The reading approach mirrored the phenomenological research approach used in the study and suggests a framework for settler readers to engage with Indigenous Literatures as reader-witnesses.
- ItemExperiences of Young Girls in Cape Breton with Period Poverty(Mount Saint Vincent University, 2025-09) Riome, BrennaMenstruation is a natural bodily function that has been heavily stigmatized and viewed as a private issue for individuals. Stigmas surrounding periods can directly impact how people view menstruation and seek help. Period poverty is one of the impacts from stigmatization. The lack of access to menstrual products and education pertaining menstruation significantly affects one's health, education, and social participation. This thesis investigates the experiences of adolescent girls in Cape Breton, a region with little to no research on menstrual health.
- ItemAn Examination of Lexical Neighborhood Density in Young Children’s Word Learning and Phonological Awareness(Mount Saint Vincent University, 2025-09) Lewis, ChristopherThe lexical restructuring model aims to explain the developmental origins of the phoneme as a unit in implicit and explicit phonological processing tasks (Metsala & Walley, 1998). Very little research, however, has directly examined the claims of the model using experimental methods — best suited for testing causal claims. One way this study explored claims of this model was by attempting to manipulate the lexical neighborhood density for a subset of items and examining the effects on early elementary students’ word learning and phonemic awareness. Additionally, the associations between task performance for items from different neighborhood densities and early literacy-related skills were examined. Twenty-nine students in kindergarten and 33 students in grades one and two completed a word learning training task that introduced 18 nonword-nonobject pairs. Six nonwords were from sparse neighborhoods, but had phonological neighbors introduced during the learning task (creating a sparse-to-dense condition) to experimentally facilitate lexical restructuring — or direct attention to the internal structure of these new items. Immediate word learning measures and pre- and post-test phonemic blending for the 18 nonwords were completed. Measures of word reading, phonological awareness, and nonword repetition were also completed. Overall, introducing neighbors for the six items did not facilitate word learning. However, the younger group did show greater gains in pre-to-post-test phoneme blending for items in the sparse-to-dense condition compared to items in the sparse and the dense conditions. Furthermore, repetition of multisyllabic nonwords composed of syllables with few lexical neighbors explained unique variance in word learning beyond grade and repetition of nonwords with many lexical neighbors. In the final analysis, phoneme blending for sparse nonwords explained unique variance in word reading beyond grade, general phonological awareness, and phoneme blending for dense nonwords. Overall, experimental support for a central claim of the lexical restructuring model was found in the younger sample. This study also provides correlational evidence related to the idea that processing words from sparse lexical neighborhoods (i.e., areas of the mental lexicon to undergo segmental restructuring the latest in development) is a better index of the degree of segmentation in lexical representations, and thus of individual differences in word reading development.
- ItemFacing Change: A Phenomenological Analysis of Experiences of Radical Facial Change after Orthognathic Surgery(Mount Saint Vincent University, 2025-08) Dempsey, HollyThis study explores the lived experiences of individuals who underwent radical facial change after orthognathic surgery, with a particular focus on those who had mixed or negative feelings about the aesthetic outcome. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach grounded in van Manen’s four lifeworld existentials (corporeality, relationality, spatiality, and temporality), the research examines how four participants made sense of their altered appearances. Central themes include loss and grief, seeking validation, preoccupation with facial features, a distorted and evolving self-concept, resilience and becoming experts in their own experiences. While participants described significant emotional and relational challenges, they also demonstrated remarkable adaptability and personal growth. These findings highlight a critical gap in academic literature around dissatisfaction with aesthetic outcomes after orthognathic surgery and stress the importance of holistic, patient-centered care. This research also contributes to the field of adult education by offering insights that can inform healthcare professionals' training and deepen their understanding of the psychological and social impacts of radical facial change. Ultimately, this study calls for increased empathy, comprehensive informed consent practices, and integrated mental health support for individuals undergoing radical facial change after orthognathic surgery.