SACM - United States of America
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://drepo.sdl.edu.sa/handle/20.500.14154/9668
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Item Restricted Exploring Arabic as a Second Language (ASL) Learners’ Imagined Communities, Communities of Practice, and Investment in Learning ASL in Saudi Arabia(The University of Memphis, 2024-09) Alsulami, Majed; Thrush, EmilyResearch on L2 learning and studying abroad has indicated that L2 students return with varying levels of language acquisition and differing reactions to the target language and host communities (Kinginger, 2009; Trentman, 2013; Quan, 2019). Scholars have examined various variables (e.g. gender, motivation, identity, etc.), to better understand L2 students’ experiences in L2 settings linguistically and culturally (Trentman, 2013; Quan, 2019). However, exploring L2 learners’ access to imagined communities and communities of practice remains under-researched, which is an important variable in understanding the complexity of L2 students’ investment in L2 settings (Norton, 2018; Darvin & Norton, 2021). Recent studies have emphasized the importance of exploring the relationship between the concepts of imagined communities, communities of practice, and L2 investment for L2 students while living in L2 settings (Trentman, 2013; Soltanian et al., 2020; Darvin & Norton, 2021). Previous studies have focused on immigrants and L2 students learning ESL/EFL (Sung, 2019; Aslan, 2020; Tajeddin et al., 2023; Savova & Azarnoosh, 2024). Little is known, however, about the connection between these three concepts in learning Arabic as a Second Language (ASL) in the Saudi context. This mixed-methods dissertation raises new questions in order to explore 116 ASL learners’ (male, n = 93; female, n = 23) imagined communities and communities of practice, and how these communities are connected and essential for ASL investment. Data were collected from three sources including an online questionnaire, 17 individual interviews, including 6 females and 11 males, and two focus group interviews, including 4 females and 5 males. Descriptive analysis and thematic analysis were employed to analyze the quantitative and qualitative results, respectively. Findings revealed that participants’ imagined communities significantly influenced their motivation. They were highly motivated to expand various ranges of possible selves through their imagined communities and believed in not distancing themselves from ASL teachers or other people or withdrawing from the language classroom. The results also illustrated that all participants males and females expressed a strong power of prior imagination, affiliation, and sacredness orientation toward learning Arabic in Saudi. However, the results showed a significant effect of gender where males expressed a higher sense of belonging regarding their imagined communities to explore possible identities and connect with desired communities more than females. Males were accessed and committed to attending various free religious lessons as local communities of practice, while females had limited opportunities to access, interact, and invest in such communities of practice, which made them less invested compared to males. This dissertation offers implications for ASL educators, policymakers, and stakeholders in ASL institutions and programs to effectively engage ASL learners in their desired communities and encourage them to be active members in multiple social and learning contexts.33 0Item Restricted SERVICE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TO GUIDE DECISIONS ON INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT(George Mason University, 2023-12-13) Alyahya, Bedor; Brodsky, AlexanderInterrelated infrastructures, such as manufacturing, supply chain, renewable energy and smart grid, are critical for achieving long-term organizational and societal goals and enabling future growth. Deciding on infrastructure portfolio investment is a complex problem, given the uncertainty in future supply and demand, the rapid emergence of new technologies, and non-trivial operational interactions among the infrastructure components. Today, models and systems supporting stakeholders in infrastructure investment decisions either (1) express the investment model in high-level financial terms, which fails to accurately express the underlying operational system behavior over the investment time horizon, or (2) are hard- wired to a siloed domain-specific investment problem, which does not take into account interactions with interrelated infrastructures across the silos and inhibits the widespread adoption and re-usability of these models. Thus, both accurate and flexible investment decision models and systems are needed to recommend investment alternatives and guide stakeholders in making Pareto-optimal trade-o↵s between competing performance indicators such as total cost of ownership, carbon emissions and quality of service. This dissertation is driven by the need to overcome the aforementioned gap of investment decisions made in silos, as opposed to accounting for the synergistic value of strongly interdependent infrastructures. More specifically, the key contributions of this dissertation are as follows. First, designed and developed are formal predictive Analytic Models (AM) for both steady-state and tran- sient Service Networks. These models express metrics, capacity, and demand constraints over a specified time horizon as functions of fixed and controllable parameters, representing investment choices and precise operational settings throughout investment periods. Second, developed is a modular, extensible repository of investment component models, such as pumps, renewable energy sources, water and energy storage, Reverse Osmosis plants, transformers, energy contracts and electric and gas boilers, renewable energy certificates (RECs) and carbon o↵sets. Third, designed and developed are Decision Guidance Systems for both steady-state and transient models for investment in Service Networks. These systems optimize performance metrics and analyze Pareto-optimal trade-o↵s between di↵erent financial, environmental, and quality-of-service investment objectives leveraging a mixed-integer linear programming solver. As a specialization in the domain of Energy and Sustainability, developed is the Green Assessment and Decision Guidance Tool (GADGET.) Finally, a case study is conducted to provide recommendations to George Mason Uni- versity’s stakeholders on the most cost-e↵ective approach to achieve its carbon neutrality goals by 2040. GADGET provides recommendations for Pareto-optimal operational settings and investment choices related to the integration of renewable energy sources and related infrastructures with existing systems.8 0