Children with medical complexity (CMC) require increased number and length of hospitalizations, and increased need for care coordination.1-3 Many complex children with neuromuscular diseases have scoliosis, or a deformity of the spine. Often, scoliosis in these patients affects multiple organ systems and requires spinal fusion surgery to repair the deformity and decrease the likelihood of further organ damage.4,5 While it is well-known that spinal fusion surgery is costly and a high-risk procedure, little research has evaluated the perioperative process of spinal fusion patients. Furthermore, few care pathways exist for medically complex patients undergoing spinal fusions.6 This study examines the pre-, peri-, and post-operative experiences of families of patients undergoing spinal fusion surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital. Providers, organization, leadership and teamwork, and overall outcomes are assessed by this qualitative study. Initial data suggest that a pathway improving coordination and communication, especially among interactions with the surgical coordinator, should be implemented to improve scheduling of surgery and appointments throughout the perioperative process

Instructional processes comprise three basic components: planning, delivery of instruction, and assessment. Educators frequently reflect on the relationships among those components to choose the most effective approaches to increase student learning. Teachers’ continual assessment of student knowledge and understanding through reliable, valid measures critically propels teachers’ effective instruction forward. Constraints on funding for public education have resulted in larger class sizes and smaller budgets for the arts, as well as a heightened focus on standardized testing, less instructional time, and fewer resources (Slaton, 2012). How, then, are music teachers effectively assessing student achievement while grappling with those challenges? To fill a gap in the research literature, the purpose of this research was to explore singing voice development assessment practices that public-school elementary-general-music teachers use with their students. The following overall question guided this research: What can we learn from three kindergarten through fifth grade general music teachers about their approaches to singing with their students? I sought to document three teachers’ singing voice development processes and assessment techniques. Recognizing that this study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, I also sought to document participants’ perceptions of the benefits and challenges of the techniques they shared, especially as they grappled with teaching singing in new learning models that were emerging; and adaptations they were using to safely and effectively guide students’ singing voice development—whether they were teaching their students virtually and/or in person. For this study, I chose symbolic interactionism as a theoretical lens and an interview-only design. Upon approval from Temple University Institutional Review Board, I invited the three participants who consented to engage in three semi-structured individual interview conversations to explore singing voice development assessment techniques, and benefits, challenges, and adaptations of those techniques, especially as they grappled with teaching singing in new instructional models that emerged as a result of COVID-19. After participants completed member checking of each of their transcripts, I used a content analysis approach to the data to identify emerging codes. Four themes summarized participants’ approaches to singing voice development assessment: teachers rely on their (a) personal philosophy formed from influences and values, (b) planning processes and objectives, (c) interactions with their students through selected techniques and tools, and (d) having time to make necessary adaptations in their singing voice development assessments. The key idea emerging from the study: the three teachers prioritized providing worthwhile musical experiences for their students. They situated singing voice development and assessment as one piece of their broader general music curriculum. A symbolic interactionist lens informed my themes and key idea by placing the context of teachers’ interactions in the forefront, and my understanding of how their experiences have shaped their views. While findings from this study are not generalizable, readers may find them transferable. Potential applications for other music teachers’ assessment practices include the following six examples: using a variety of tools to model appropriate use of singing voice, implementing pattern instruction to develop and assess singing voice, incorporating opportunities for individual singing, providing students with performance experiences, maintaining consistency in changing instructional models, and focusing on informal assessment through observation and questioning techniques. Future researchers can continue to shed light on how teachers approach singing with their elementary general music students by learning about factors outside of teachers’ instructional processes that impact singing voice development assessment, and how music teachers adapt their processes for singing voice development assessment in emerging instructional models. / Music Education

The following research is a qualitative theory consuming study which investigates China's actions in Kenya regarding the postcolonialism and colonialism theory. The purpose of the essay is to understand how the theory can be used in the actions between China and Kenya by answering the following questions: How has Kenya been influenced by China's development efforts from a colonial perspective, as well as in terms of political, economic, and cultural dimensions?  In what ways has China been crucial in the development work that has impacted Kenya's political, economic, and cultural dimensions, and how can the postcolonial perspective be applied to this development work? The research established the theory where postcolonialism and colonialism is described, with a following analysis where eight people living in Kenya got interviewed to be able to understand the problem and the actions from China. The research is separated into the following perspecitves, politics, economics and culture. The study concludes with a result that proves that both theories of postcolonialism and colonialism are difficult to apply to China's actions in Kenya today due to their ongoing nature.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina mobile phone numbers can in some way reflect ethnicity. This study will describe how and why urban youth in Sarajevo, in their own stated reality motivate and perceive selection of mobile phone companies and mobile phone numbers in Bosnia and Herzegovina according to their ethnic group. The research questions are: How do urban youth in Sarajevo reason when they choose mobile phone companies? How do urban youth in Sarajevo perceive and understand consequences of the divide of mobile phone companies and numbers in Bosnia and Herzegovina? To what extent can mobile phone numbers be perceived as an ethnic marker? By using qualitative interviews the results of the study is presented. Mobile phone numbers can serve as an ethnic marker, but it is not used by urban youth in Sarajevo to distinguish ethnicity. Finally, the thesis argues that an ethnic structure among mobile phone companies are discovered but even in this rigid ethnic structure people choose mobile phone companies of economic reasons rather than of ethnic implications.

Yes / Evidence-based national guidelines recommend that women practise pelvic floor muscle exercises (PFMEs) during their first pregnancy in order to reduce the likelihood of becoming incontinent of urine. Adherence to these exercises during pregnancy is low, although little is known about the factors that influence some women to exercise during pregnancy while others do not. The aim of this study was to increase understanding of the motivating factors for, and barriers to, performing PFMEs during a first pregnancy using data gathered from four qualitative interviews. Analysis of the interview transcripts revealed four relevant themes: knowledge and understanding; experience of incontinence; attitude to incontinence; and cues to exercise. Having adequate knowledge of the PFMEs and the benefits of these exercises, knowing an incontinent woman of the same age and believing that the PFMEs would prevent incontinence, and having a regular cue to exercise prompted exercise adherence. Recommendations are made for practice and further research.

<p>The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the implications and challenges of intercultural communication. An in-depth study was performed of the perspectives from people who work within an international organization. How they experience cultural differences and how they handle them, in particular when it comes to communication. Also, their perceptions of communicative competence were explored. The study was carried out at Svalorna India Bangladesh, at the Swedish office in Lund. Svalorna’s staff was interviewed on their experiences of intercultural communication. Both employees at the Swedish office and employees on location in India and Bangladesh were interviewed. The method used in the study was qualitative interviews where the interviewees could expand their answers fully as the interview developed. The main theory used was Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, presented in the thesis and considered in the study. It was concluded that being aware of cultural differences and having knowledge of other cultures but also your own is important for understanding the so-called non-verbal communication in an intercultural situation. There are also differences in to what extent a certain culture uses non-verbal communication. Both India and Bangladesh, according to the interviewees, are high context cultures whereas Sweden has a low context culture. All the interviewees had similar experiences when it comes to intercultural communication. A cultural difference in the perception of time is an example of when verbal communication can be inadequate, if one is not aware of cultural differences. Both India and Bangladesh use polychronic time whereas in Sweden monochromic time is used. This is indeed confirmed by all interviewees. Many of Hofstede’s cultural dimension theories are found to be coherent with the results of this study, for example the Individualism.</p>

Retro art and technology have been on the rise in recent years, the phenomenon is fuelled by the nostalgia of a sense of authenticity that the offline world can no longer satisfy. The integration of technology into human’s social conduct has made it an extension of their beings. Faced with technological progress, people also yearn to regress to the age-old days of their childhood. Nostalgia often comes with romanticization of the past, but it also offers a sense of security and realness that is seemingly lost amid the constant exchange of data in the present time. This lays ground for the rise of faux-vintage photos on social application Instagram. Bracing itself as a modern digital media, Instagram capitalizes on nostalgia for the analog and fetishization of the retro aesthetics of old media. While researchers have noted the link between Instagram and digital nostalgia, these works remained within the theoretical realm. Using a combination of interface criticism and interview, the paper focuses on human and computer interaction to study digital nostalgia and mediated authenticity on Instagram. The findings point out the complexity of Instagram as a social network and a creative tool in the emerging age of pervasive computing, in which the technology increasingly integrates and fades into the background of our everyday lives. The paper’s intention is to develop further understanding of retromodern technology, particularly Instagram, in reconstructing our knowledge of society and everyday social conduct. A better comprehension of our digital culture is crucial to the development of the self and society.

The emotional part of a museum experience is being debated and there is research pointing towards the affective part of learning. The purpose of this study is to examine how museum pedagogues reason about the usage of affective learning in their work and to investigate whether they consider affective pedagogy is a part of their work or not. Furthermore how they consider themselves working, or not working, with feelings in their pedagogy. A key factor in this study has been to work interdisciplinary with both museum pedagogy and social science with theoretical perspectives of feelings such as happiness, sadness, anger, disgust and fear, and with theories such as Feelings &amp; materiality and Pedagogy of Feeling. Methodologically a qualitative interview study museum pedagogues have been used together with observation of four Swedish state- and country museums. In this thesis it is shown that the interviewed museum pedagogues indeed have acknowledged the fact that the museum is an affective place, but the interviewed had different way of make use of feelings. They all agree on the fact that feelings can support the learning process, and that all the different feelings have their own effect on learning. Also that the museum pedagogues have some influence on the feeling that the exhibitions are to emit, which could be used in the pedagogues favor if the exhibition consists of hard and problematic feelings. However, in contrast to this it seems that few of the museum pedagogues discuss the affective influence of a upcoming exhibition or program, or evaluate a project in what feeling the visitors experienced during the visit. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.

With the so called Second internet era and the creation of Web 2.0, the amount of the internet users, who participate in creating its contect, has rapidly expanded. Open communication between the recipients and the producers of the media messages, and the wider possibilities to give a feedback as an online media reader are typical for this ongoing period. One of the ways, how to give a feedback, are the discussion forums below the articles. These discussion forums has changed in recent years and most of the Czech online media have started to moderate them or control them. The discussion forums are also not any longer anonymous. In this thesis, I am describing the discussion forums of the three most read Czech news websites - Novinky.cz, iDNES.cz and Aktuálně.cz. On the base of the analysis of the rules of a discussion and the interviews with the discussion administrators, I am describing, how many people in these media organizations work as the discussion administrators and how they moderate and control the posts. I am also dealing with the rules for the people, who want to také part in the discussion forums, whether they can be anonymous and if there are any specified rules, how to behave.

This study aims to examine how an audience reacts to and perceives news from Swedish public service versus Swedish alternative media. The study was conducted upon three news articles from public service and three articles from alternative media. To be able to examine this we used three types of methods: Eye-tracking, Galvanic Skin Response, and the qualitative interview. We used theories about news reception, encoding/decoding and “The media is the message”. Our main results showed that people, according to themselves, tend to react in a more negative way to articles from alternative media, even though the eye-tracking and GSR-analysis showed that there were no big differences in how people reacted to public service versus alternative media. It was also shown that people have a more critical attitude towards articles from alternative media than towards articles from public service.