Undergraduate Theses

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Browsing Undergraduate Theses by Title

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    Creative Thesis: Jamie Foster, Engineer; Raising Our Voices Against Inequality Through Fiction
    (2021-04-27) English, Alyssa; van Herk, Aritha
    This Undergraduate thesis explores the inequalities faced by women in male-dominated fields. Expressed through a work of creative fiction writing, this thesis aims to exemplify how fiction can be used to bring light to situations of inequality and demand change. A critical analysis follows the creative piece.
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    Dating Ga(y)mes: Queer Performance in Farming Simulation Roleplay Games
    (2019-05) Stockton, Sam; Johnston, Dawn
    Dating Ga(y)mes: Queer Performance in Farming-Simulation Roleplay Games examines the differing ways in which LGBTQ+ people resist hegemonic structures and perform their queer identity within video game franchises such as Harvest Moon, Story of Season, and Stardew Valley. This successful genre of games contains a highly identifiable and heteronormative formula in which players must run a farm and court a heterosexual partner. Despite their popularity, little scholarship exists on these games, from a critical queer perspective or otherwise. This lack of academic attention means that these games, despite their clear, shared structure, have not yet been deemed a specific genre of roleplaying games – much less studied as a site of queer resistance. From a queer gaming studies perspective, my paper asserts that these games do constitute an important gaming genre, Farming Simulation Roleplay Games (FSRPGs), particularly for LGBTQ+ players who ‘queer’ the technonormative matrix of these games and perform resistant identities. This paper first identifies the key characteristics of this genre classification, and then examines communications about the games, taking place in microblogs, blogs, and forum posts, by LGBTQ+ players. Analyzing online communications best informs this taxonomy as they detail the organic experience of LGBTQ+ players, either as they play or shortly after they finish, as well as the conversations between members of the community about resisting the games’ heteronormativity and, in some cases, how they work together to queer these games. Ultimately, this paper creates a taxonomy of how resistive ‘queerness’ is performed within these games. The results of the methodology conclude that users queerly play FSRPGs in five ways: [1] playing at the ‘opposite gender’ to achieve the desired dating outcome, [2] using affordances to explicitly play queerly, [3] using affordances to implicitly play queerly, [4] creating a headcanon, and [5] modding the game.
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    Game-based learning in science: The use of an educational game in parasitology
    (2021) Nykyforuk, Christina; Summers, Mindi; Finney, Constance
    Parasitology is an important subject matter that is highly complex. This complexity creates challenges with student comprehension and engagement. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of an educational game called Parasite Patrol in two upper-level zoology courses: An Introduction to Invertebrate Zoology (ZOOL 401) and Principles in Parasitism (ZOOL 581). The game was strategically designed using the essential elements outlined by Malone (1980) to create an effective and engaging learning tool. Through the utilization of a pre and post-game survey design, we assessed the impact of playing Parasite Patrol on undergraduate students' knowledge of parasitology, attitudes towards parasites, and attitudes towards educational games. We identified that students in both courses had an improved performance on parasite knowledge questions after playing the game, more positive attitudes towards parasites, and enjoyed using the game as a learning tool.
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    The Poetry of Collective Life; How Post-Hardcore Bands Integrate Confessionalism in their Subcultural Music by Altering their Mode of Address
    (2023-04-05) Siddoway, Katie; Sigler, David
    In this paper I will analyze how confession manifests in Cursive’s song “Some Red Handed Sleight of Hand”, juxtaposing my analysis with texts on subculture theory, namely Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Cursive writes in the post-hardcore genre, which is an offshoot of the punk music-based subculture. It explores how subcultural artists simultaneously represent their personal stories and reflect/adhere to subcultural values. Cursive acknowledges and contributes to this trend, as they integrate a religious metaphor alongside their personalized author-speaker, making their exploration of selfhood more widely comprehensible. Intertextually, subcultural confessionals both present experiences that are unique to their authors and embrace vague descriptors that allow their stories to appeal beyond the scope of themselves. Cursive reimagines confessionalism: they enter a context of social norms and mores, and can vaguely present thoughts and feelings that would require explanation were they not expressed within subculture. Subsequently, they can present a semi-confessional that both restricts and displays blatant confession. Confessionalism is a mode of lyrical expression centring first-person writing, making an inseparable author-speaker. In poetry and popular music, confession remains a mode of self-assertion that provides authors a theatre for unabashed, uninterrupted self-display, a trend that is disrupted within subcultural music. Subcultures are social subgroups developed by collective feelings of alienation from mass culture, and the subsequent desire to corrugate in a social microcosm where previously alienated qualities are accepted. In subculture, confession’s goal becomes to separate the author-speaker from mass culture but adhere to a smaller social group’s shared experiences. It simultaneously embraces self-assertion and homogenization.
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    Using picture storybooks to communicate complex parasite lifecycles with undergraduates
    (2021) Kong, Nikki; Summers, Mindi; Finney, Constance
    The goal of this thesis was to create a storybook and implement it in two upper- division Zoology courses at the University of Calgary to investigate if storybooks are effective in communicating complex scientific concepts. This thesis also aimed to examine if the use of storybooks would facilitate the development of positive attitudes toward parasites and this educational tool in undergraduates. Findings in this study suggest that Nick the Tick storybook had a positive impact on undergraduates’ conceptual understanding of parasites. It also had a positive impact on undergraduates’ attitudes toward parasites and storybooks as an educational tool. Results and data from this study can provide a useful framework for the design and development of future storybooks for public outreach.