This study examined selected components of faculty-led study abroad programs and determined students’ changes in global perspectives after participating in faculty-led study abroad programs. A census of the population of interest (N=19), included undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the Texas A&M Namibia Technological Change and Agricultural Communications and the Texas A&M Guatemala Agricultural Leadership and Service Learning study abroad programs. Participants were asked to complete a study abroad course evaluation upon return to the university during class time. The researcher-developed course evaluation included items to measure students’ perspectives of orientation sessions, course delivery methods, program type, program staff, and individual development. The Global Perspective Inventory (GPI) was administered during pre-departure class meetings using the General Student Form. Post-experience administration class sessions were used to collect participants’ global perspectives using the Study Abroad Post Test form. The GPI tests measured changes in global perspectives along three learning dimensions; cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal. Descriptive statistics (mean, frequencies, and standard deviation) were used to report the data. The results showed that (1) the academic programs were intellectually stimulating; (2) student’s individual development consisted of being more receptive to different ideas; and (3) student’s improved their global perspective with regards to cognitive and intrapersonal development.

Full-time employed and unemployed adults' life level of analysis future time perspective (FTP) and work level of analysis occupational future time perspective (OFTP) were evaluated to measure differences between FTP conceptualizations and the validity of OFTP in the work domain. A final sample of 304 full-time employed and 98 unemployed job seeking adults completed a self-report online battery including demographic, work history, FTP, work-related attitudes, and personality measures. Results found the three FTP conceptualizations [Carstensen and Lang Future Time Perspective Scale (CL-FTP); Zimbardo and Boyd Future Factor (ZBF); and Consideration for Future Consequences Scale (CFC] were differentially related to achievement striving and planfulness. The CL-FTP scale was weakly, significantly and not significantly related to the CFC and ZBF scales, respectively. In addition, results indicated OFTP had a significantly stronger relationship with chronological age than CL-FTP and OFTP added incremental validity beyond general CL-FTP in predicting work-related attitudes. Lastly, mean differences in CL-FTP and OFTP scores by employment status were obtained, indicating that OFTP may be susceptible to change via work characteristics. Further exploratory analyses and theoretical and practical implications of the current findings are discussed.

This study is about the child’s perspective when it comes to work with financial assistance. The purpose of the study was partly to describe how social workers regard the child’s perspective in their work with financial assistance and partly to look into whether they impose a child’s perspective in their practical work. To fulfill this purpose the authors used a quantitative method and sent out a web based survey to all the social workers actively working with financial assistance in Stockholm town. This study is based on the results of 93 replies. The results show that the social workers believe to a great extent that they have an understanding for the child’s perspective. They also claim to practice the child’s perspective to a relatively great extent. The social workers are less inclined to acknowledge the principle of children’s right to make themselves heard. According to the Convention on the Rights of Children as well as Swedish law children have the right, when it comes to matters that involve them, to express their opinion and have it taken into consideration, with regards to their age and maturity, but in the financial assistance procedure that right is not being met

The aim of this essay is to investigate Face Theory, from a gender perspective, in the 19th century’s novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with the help of Speech Act Theory including direct Speech and indirect Speech. The special focuses of this investigation are if Elizabeth has a stereotypical use of FTAs strategies for different genders.

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of mothers perspectives of their childrens experiences in inclusive physical education. It describes the value mothers placed on physical education, the meaning they ascribed to their childrens physical education experiences, the role of the Personal Program Plan (PPP) in mothers communication with the school, and the other means of communication they used to share their thoughts about childrens participation. The stories of mothers of elementary (1 boy, 3 girls) and secondary (2 boys, 1 girl) aged children with spina bifida were collected and analyzed using the hermeneutic phenomenological methods of semi-structured interviews, artifacts, documents, and field notes. The thematic analysis revealed three themes: A Good Thing But, Connection to Disability Sports, and Beyond the Curriculum. Peters (1996) model of disablement provided the conceptual framework for the interpretation of the findings.

Video games are currently stigmatized in general culture as a lesser form of entertainment, and much of the current scholarly debate on them is unable to identify those games that also function as works of literature and to perform appropriate critical analysis. This thesis aims to rectify the above through two separate engagements. The first engagement demonstrates that the current scholarly debate over avatars can be redirected into a more productive debate on perspectives: the way in which a player is situated within a game and how this alters how the game story is told. The second engagement is with Espen Aarseths concept of ergodic literature, and thus demonstrate how this unique property of video games allows for the traversal of a video games narrative. These two issues when considered together provide a method for determining whether a video game is attempting to also be literature.

This Thesis will begin by highlighting the significance of social media networks and e-Commerce in today’s business environment. The purpose of this paper is to develop an external marketing strategy that can be employed by start-up firms operating in the e-Commerce of reverse auction sites.   The paper will particularly focus on the company EarnBidWin.com and the marketing strategy will be based on the Service Perspective. EarnBidWin.com is an online reverse auction site that is new and unique compared to other existing models of reverse auction. EarnBidWin.com is a web-based advertising and networking platform that features e-Campaigns (performance-based advertising) and reverse auctions. EarnBidWin.com’s unique business model within a social-business network offers a win-win situation for all parties concerned.   A qualitative research method is conducted by using a case study. The data is gathered through the primary source of interviews with the CEO of the company, along with the secondary source of extensive academic literature. Finally, the results are presented in a discussion of a proposed marketing strategy based on the combination of the Service Perspective and the Critical Success Factors of high growth start-up firms in the e-Commerce arena.

Play is an important part of children´s everyday life, it is through play children develop. Play occurs a lot in kindergarten and in this study, the aim is to examine how play activities play is used in preschool teaching and the role of the teacher´s in the play. Video recordings of play activities done and qualitative methods (conversation analysis) has been used to analyze the video recordings. The results of this study show that play are widely used as a pedagogical tool in preschool. It is through play children develop. When teachers are present in children's play, they contribute to the activity and encourage children to play. The teachers know that they have responsibility for children's development and ensure that children get the help they need. Role play is central to play in both free play and in the teacher-driven games.

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In the 1970s and 1980s, Sweden held about 15-20 certified health resorts that wanted to improve peoples’ health with vegetarian food and alternative medicine. This essay aims to explore the popularity of health resorts through a patient’s perspective. What did the patients look for at the resort, which they could not find in the official health care? A basis for the analysis is Bonnie Blair O´Connor’s theory of Health Belief Systems. In short, it claims that all medical systems are equal, from a patient’s point of view. A patient in the 1970s and 1980s could turn to the Health Belief System of conventional medicine, or chose an alternative – for example the Health Belief System constituted by Swedish health resorts. The material for this survey comes from one of the most famous health resorts in Sweden, Föllingegården in the north of Jämtland. From 1976 to 1990 Mrs Lilly Johansson, who advocated a very strictly vegetarian diet to people with various health problems, ran the resort. The archives of Föllingegården have recently been discovered, and this is the first time someone looks at the patients’ bookings, journals and letters. The survey reveals that about three quarters of the patients were women, that the average patient was about 50 years old, and that he or she was most likely to be a white-collar worker. About half of the patients were explicitly ill, and suffered from different kinds of aches, rheumatism, allergies, eczema, bowel problems or other chronic disease. In their anamnesis, and in evaluation forms concerning their stay at Föllingegården, the patients reveal their motifs for coming to the health resort. Many of them had been let down by conventional health care. They were tired of heavy medication and/or careless doctors. At the health resort, they searched for a more personal contact with their healer and a more natural way of curing diseases and improve health. This essay shows that patients in the 1970s and 1980s contributed to the popularity of health resorts by trusting the health resorts with a wide range of health problems, by persuading doctors of the official health care to refer to and finance their stay at the health resort, and by taking responsibility for their own health in an era when official health care started to prove insufficient.