A national survey was conducted to assess student perceptions of the helpfulness of specific instructional development factors in a distance education print-based program. Participants were all students who had successfully completed at least one distance education correspondence course with Global University or were currently enrolled in their first course. Instructional development factors studied included lesson openers, lesson outlines, lesson artwork, written objectives, amount of information presented before a study question is asked, typographical features, graphic art, study questions, answers to study questions, self tests, and unit progress evaluations. Basic demographic information was collected and survey respondents located their perceptions of instructional development factor helpfulness both on a Likert scale and on a rank-order scale. Respondents also were asked for comments on the instructional development factors studied. Differences among respondent groups were examined. Major findings include a tiered ranking by all groups showing formative evaluation factors to be the most helpful, content organization and presentation factors next most helpful, and visual enhancement features (graphic art, typographical design) the least helpful. Overall, perceptions of the facilitative nature of the instructional development factors were similar among most groups. Older students seem to focus more on organization while younger students exhibit a balance between their perceptions of the facilitative nature of content and testing. Students enrolled in their first course perceive several of the formative evaluation factors to be less helpful than do more experienced students while at the same time perceiving content pacing to be more helpful than do more experienced students.

Twenty-first century learners have bought into a cafeteria-style mentality for obtaining higher education that learning should be available at the student's convenience. Institutions that ignore this postmodern trend will likely find their applicant pools dwindling along with significant reductions in entering class sizes. Students will simply choose other schools able to provide respected, accredited, and useful learning which fits their busy lifestyles. Since 1987, Dallas Theological Seminary (Texas), a 76-year-old graduate school of theology in the conservative, evangelical, free-church movement, has offered distance learning classes in both extension and print-based delivery models. Because the faculty plays a pivotal role in the successful or unsuccessful implementation of online courses (McKenzie, Mims, Bennett, & Waugh, 2000), the present study uncovered the attitudes of full-time, graduate theological faculty at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) regarding distance learning and the likelihood of faculty to adopt this delivery innovation. Bruce Manning's (1976) Trouble-Shooting Checklist (TSC) for Higher Education Institutions was the instrument used in the study. The TSC is a nonparametric test designed to uncover differences between the observed and expected levels of acceptance that a department, program, or institution possesses regarding change toward distance learning in contrast to residential learning. The checklist's two major purposes are to provide an overall norm-referenced, predictive score estimating the organization's likelihood of adopting and implementing an innovation and to profile the strengths and weaknesses of an organization's environment (culture) relative to the adoption and implementation of innovations. Five scales provide a comprehensive understanding of the organizational climate, personality and leadership characteristics of participants, communication pathways within the organization, the degree of sophistication or expertise within the organization, and the receptivity of the students. An official administration of the instrument was conducted involving all full-time faculty at DTS. Frequency counts, percentage distributions, and the chi-square goodness-of-fit statistic were used to analyze the data at the .05 alpha level. A summary of findings from the questionnaire was prepared indicating that significant change must take place within the faculty culture of DTS before distance learning innovations can be implemented.

This thesis aims to understand the relative influence of institutional, cultural and organizational factors on the adjustment of the United Nations’ (UN) and multinational companies’ expatriates in Egypt. The research makes a contribution to the field of expatriate research through its application of the institutional lens in examining the factors impacting on adjustment; and through testing a traditional adjustment model in an under-researched host context. As a result of the research this thesis proposes a new framework for understanding the factors impacting on adjustment which adopts a contingency perspective and incorporates a stronger focus on institutional determinants and the organisational infrastructure supporting the management of expatriates. The study relies, for its theoretical basis, on certain cultural and organizational factors borrowed from the expatriate literature, in addition to introducing other factors (mainly institutional factors) which have not been previously examined in the literature as predictors of adjustment. The research questions the utility of these organizational, cultural and institutional factors, especially those from traditional models, when applied to relatively new national and organizational contexts, the Egyptian national context and the United Nations organizational context. Both contexts are under-researched areas in the expatriate adjustment literature and in the international human resources management literature in general. The Arab cultural context introduces many differences to the Anglo-Saxon and European context, more traditionally the subject of research studies and thus it provides an opportunity for testing the wider application of expatriate models. Equally the UN is a highly multicultural organisational context with a socio-political mission which is highly distinct from the ‘for profit’ based multinational. Thus both these contextual factors offer fertile ground for the further development of a framework for understanding expatriate adjustment during contemporary times. In addition, the novelty of the context brings to the fore the opportunity for examining the utility of institutional theory as an alternative or complement to cultural theory as a way of understanding the factors influencing expatriate adjustment. In terms of the method, the research relies mainly on quantitative data obtained by surveying expatriates in multinational and United Nations organizations working in Egypt. In addition a qualitative technique (interviews) was used to aid questionnaire development and data contextualization. The results highlight the role of institutional measures in explaining expatriate adjustment. The evidence suggests that the institutional variables provide additional explanatory power beyond that provided by traditional factors studies. However, the research also demonstrates that the institutional measures do not replace the cultural measures and therefore there is not a substitution factor at work. Rather, we would argue that the institutional lens provides additional understanding and is tapping into other factors not already captured through measures of culture. The research puts forward a contingency model incorporating additional organisational and institutional variables which are often overlooked or underemphasised in some of the traditional organisational focused models.

The study was conducted to investigate the result of three differential seating arrangements in college classrooms on anxiety level, acquaintance volume, and perceived social distance among students.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were differences in the levels of awareness and perception concerning distance education among the leadership at the seven campuses of the Texas State Technical College (TSTC) System.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

patients and their families. The purpose of the study was firstly, to explore and interpret the meaning of the experiences of critical care nursing students about clinical accompaniment in open distance learning (ODL). This aspect has not been researched before and as such, there is no empirical data about the clinical accompaniment of the critical care-nursing students in ODL. Secondly, to develop guidelines for facilitation of clinical accompaniment in critical care nursing in ODL. A qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted. Non-probability purposive sampling was used to select participants to provide information about clinical accompaniment in ODL. Data was obtained through in-depth interviews supplemented by field notes compiled during fieldwork. The study findings revealed that participants regard relationships and communication as important for clinical accompaniment. The distance factor inherent in distance learning was problematic for student’s motivation and support. The presence and visibility of the lecturer was pivotal for the students. Of importance also were the relationships with the managers and colleagues. The perception of participants was that managers of clinical facilities were not as readily accessible as would have been the lecturer. Although negative experiences were described, paradoxically these experiences seemed to have empowered the student to develop survival skills, patience and assertiveness to take action on how to deal with the situation. From the findings the researcher was able to develop guidelines the implementation of which, is hoped to ensure effective clinical accompaniment of critical care nursing students in ODL. / Health Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies)

Le titre anglais de cette thèse, Soyinka’s Language – calqué sur celui de l’ouvrage de Frank Kermode, Shakespeare’s Language – est traduit librement en français par Les mots de Soyinka en mouvement pour évoquer la richesse poétique de ‘language’ dans ce contexte littéraire. Cette étude adopte l’approche de Kermode pour analyser un corpus d’oeuvres de Wole Soyinka (neuf pièces de théâtre et deux essais), dans la tradition critique anglaise de ‘close reading’. Les mots nous pénètrent malgré nos efforts pour nous tenir à l’écart de l’expérience (The Lion and the Jewel; le diptyque Jero). Ils peuvent également rendre concret le passage d’un monde à un autre – par exemple, à travers un vocabulaire pédagogique qui tombe rapidement en désuétude (The Road; Madmen and Specialists). Comment exprimer, comment articuler sur scène la notion ambivalente de la distance – d’un côté, la distance de la théorie, de l’objectivité; de l’autre, l’absence d’empathie, de compréhension humaine – (The Strong Breed, A Dance of the Forests, The Bacchae of Euripides, et The Burden of Memory)? Il s’agit d’un problème rhétorique qui s’apparente à un risque d’autarcie ou de solipsisme. Désamorcé dans la prose de The Man Died, ce risque sert de repoussoir, pour Soyinka dans Myth, Literature and the African World, à l’articulation d’une conception (yoruba) de l’existence, dont les tensions constitutives s’expriment à travers les ressources rhétoriques de la poésie orale. Cette étude se termine par une lecture de Death and the King’s Horseman, expression exemplaire de la tension entre l’affirmation de soi et le retour à la communauté, entre l’être et le non-être. / The title of this thesis is an allusion to Frank Kermode’s Shakespeare’s Language. There, Kermode directed his attentions to Shakespeare’s dramatic verse, its poetry, demonstrating how the demands which words make on the ear might attune us to the insinuating possibilities of language, if attended to by a patient reader. This thesis adopts the same methodological principle, in approaching a number of Wole Soyinka’s dramatic and prose works in English. Throughout, it is concerned with his intelligence as expressed through literature. To this end, it does not hesitate to speculate, in the manner of Shklovsky, as to schemata which Soyinka might have used in order to ‘make’ his works. At the same time, it sees in formalism, for writer and would-be critic alike, the danger of words’ being cut off from the common human constituency and experience which assure their meaning. Words penetrate us, undermine our attempts to stand apart, draw us into a realm of consequence (The Lion and the Jewel; the Jero plays). Consequence, in turn, implies passage between two distinct moments, inviting us to reflect on how language can become strange (The Road; Madmen and Specialists). What happens to words in one who is content to look on from a distance, instead of participating? This is the starting point for a discussion of Soyinka’s interrogations of justice in The Strong Breed, A Dance of the Forests, The Bacchae of Euripides and The Burden of Memory. Implicit in onlooking is the risk of self-sufficiency. Warded off in the prose of The Man Died, self-sufficiency provides a foil to a Yoruba conception of being and tragedy, as articulated in Myth, Literature and the African World. The study culminates in Death and the King’s Horseman, which best enacts the tension between self-assertion and commonality, departure and return, being and non-being, in and through poetic language.

This study looks at the difference in accessibility to green spaces within the four largest Scottish cities. Having access to green spaces provides several physical and mental health benefits while also providing important ecosystem services. Previous studies show that the frequency of use of a green space declines once the distance surpasses 300 m to an access point. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used to analyse the service area of an access point to a green space, from which the rate of accessibility is established. The study also analyses the difference in accessibility between Euclidean and network distance. It is found that the Euclidean difference underestimates the distance needed to reach an access point and that 300 m recommendation by Euclidean distance is more closely resembles 500 m network distance. This study recommends that a distinction be made between which measurement metric is used when stating distances regarding accessibility, in order to create a more consistent approach.

Distance education is being used increasingly for both pre and in-service teacher education in both developed and developing countries (Robinson & Latchem, 2003; Kwapong, 2007; Perraton, 2010). In Rwanda, the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) introduced its first distance education programme in 2001 with the aim of upgrading the qualifications of under-qualified high school teachers, including those who teach English, using printed materials as the main teaching/learning resource. This study has aimed to investigate the role of the 2010 version of these materials in addressing the professional needs of high school English teachers. It was centrally informed by theories of the sociologist of education, Basil Bernstein (1996, 1999), about curriculum and of the sociocultural psychologist, Lev Vygotsky (1978), on mediation, by Shulman’s (1986, 1987) work on pedagogic content knowledge and by literature on English language teaching, on language teacher education and on distance education materials design. The investigation involved textual analysis of a selection of KIE’s distance education materials for English teaching and focused on the content selected for these materials and on the mediation of this content on the page. After this analysis, one section of these was re-designed by the researcher. Nine teacher-learners enrolled in the programme for English teaching were interviewed to determine their responses to both the KIE materials and to the redesigned section. The findings suggest that Kigali Institute of Education’s distance education materials for English do not adequately address the academic and professional needs of high school English teachers for four main reasons. Firstly, the content selected for the materials does not respond sufficiently to the interests and needs of foreign language teachers of English. Secondly, it is not externally aligned to the curriculum at the level that these teachers are supposed to teach. Thirdly, the mediation of this content does not adequately support the development of subject and pedagogic content knowledge and skills of teacher-learners and encourages surface rather than deep learning (Biggs, 1987). Lastly, with the exception of sections on some literary genres, the materials list useful ideas and language teaching approaches and methods but consistently fail to explain to the teacher-learners how to teach different aspects of language. These findings suggest that these materials do not adequately assist teacher-learners to develop pedagogic content knowledge (Shulman, 1987) for the teaching of English. The limitations identified may result from a lack of knowledge, skills and experience in distance education materials and graphic design among the KIE materials designing team and from inadequate resource provision (including time) by the institution and suggest that there is a need for changes to the KIE distance education materials designing process.