Contextual issues have considerable role on learning outcomes of instructional design process. In this dissertation study, an instructional multimedia design and development course was explored to understand how contextual issues influence the experience and processes of Novice Instructional Designers&rsquo / (NIDs) activities in an instructional design project. The main participants of the study were 47 junior Computer Education and Instructional Technology students who were enrolled in the course. Besides, 26 students who took the course in previous years also participated in the study to verify the results. In the course, the students followed an instructional design process, including analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation (ADDIE framework) phases while developing instructional multimedia products. The researcher, as one of the facilitators of the course, aimed to guide the project teams iteratively to make them effectively collaborate with the community consisting of target group students, teachers, group members, graduate students and subject matter experts. Moreover, the researcher and other facilitators provided methodological and technical tools that novice instructional designers needed for their projects. Thus, the researcher was a part of the natural context. A qualitative approach was used to collect the data and Activity Theory (Engestr&ouml / m, 1999) was utilized to analyze contextual issues, find out interrelationship between contextual issues and present the results. Results showed that especially expectation and motivations of NIDs, team working skills, role of facilitator and role of target group was important to understand the instructional design experience and quality of processes which was conducted in instructional design. The results will be useful in improvement of instructional design course settings to strength practical skills of novice instructional designers.

The aim of this thesis is to get a better understanding of the role of practical work in physics education in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). The Lao PDR is one of least developed countries in the world with a weak base for science, and poor market opportunities for science graduates. The rapidly expanding educational system has many problems concerning quality of the infrastructure and staff competence. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used in the study in order to assure reliability of the results. Data was collected through questionnaires, interviews, video-recordings, and my own ethnographic experiences of working in the Lao educational system for more than thirty years. The study was informed and results analysed with help of curriculum perspective and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). The findings show that Lao physics education curriculum at all levels is dominated by very traditional forms of teaching with an almost total absence of practical. Official curricular documents have statements prescribing teachers to do practical work in high school and university courses. However, few institutions have functioning equipment and skilled teachers for organising practical activities. Therefore, the majority of Lao students come to university and even can finish university without experience of practical work in physics. This shows the gap that exists between intended and implemented curricula. The majority of the students understand the importance of having practical activities in physics. However, after being exposed to laboratory experiments in an introductory physics course, they expressed criticism about the quality of instruction and the process of the practical work organisation. The laboratory group work analysis showed that discussions were mainly focused on understanding the experimental procedures, manipulating equipment, and collecting data for the report rather than on the physics content (object of activity, in CHAT terms). Based on the research results, it is possible to suggest that a systemic approach is needed to stimulate the development of a new practical work culture in schools and universities. This approach should include training and incentives for science teachers, development of assessment strategies including practical work, maintenance structures for physics equipment, and technical support for the organisation of demonstrations and laboratory exercises.

In recent years, distance courses combining online studies with physical meetings on campus have become increasingly common as an alternative to regular campus courses, even in vocational training programs with extensive practical skills components. This thesis is focused on the implementation of distance firefighter training in Sweden and the ways in which this intervention has affected training activities and participants, as well as on the impact that historical and contextual training aspects have had on the implementation process. Based on a sociocultural and activity theory framework, a longitudinal, comparative study was made of the distance and campus study modes, focusing on those challenges, contradictions and changes resulting from this intervention that have had the greatest impact on the students’ learning processes, the instructors’ teaching roles and the basic training program as a whole. Four data collections were made over a period of about five years. The data consisted of interviews with students and instructors, observations of practical exercises, logbook notes and general documents pertaining to the training programme. Three phases were identified in the implementation, viz. an introduction phase, an extension phase and a consolidation phase. The introduction phase was characterized by a focus on instructor-driven approaches where the instructors’ traditional one-way knowledge transfer approach to teaching was gradually re-assessed, which made possible the introduction of a technology-supported, more process-oriented and student-centered course design. This resulted in the distance students beginning to take greater individual responsibility for their studies than the campus students, who proved to be more dependent on the knowledge imparted by their instructors. The extension phase, during which other instructors, usually with little experience of technology-supported teaching, and additional student groups were included in the distance training, was characterized by a normalization of the changes brought about during the introduction phase, meaning that, to some extent, they tended to shift in the direction of the traditional knowledge transfer and practice-oriented approaches of the campus training mode. This tendency can be attributed to conflicts between the instructors’ conceptions of the online learning environment and their views of how vocational training should be conducted. The manner in which they dealt with these conflicts can be summarized as quiet resistance, manifested by reduced online presence, less support to the distance students and a continued focus on their commitments on the campus program. Over time, this appears to have resulted in the distance students adapting their study strategies to the dominating attitudes in the training program and spending less time interacting online. Although these patterns also occurred in the consolidation phase, it would appear that during this phase the distance students developed their own goal-oriented and self-directed learning strategies. An important conclusion of this thesis is that the traditional attitudes commonly found in the firefighter profession had less impact on the distance students’ learning processes than on those of the campus students. Furthermore, it was found that the implementation of the distance mode was a catalyst that brought to light conflicting views about the program’s goals and core content, and contributed to established attitudes to teaching and learning being challenged. However, it also contributed to some extent to changes in the approaches to teaching. Finally, the thesis demonstrates that the gradual changes in course design and the division of responsibility between instructors and students in the technology-supported distance mode resulted in the students becoming more goal-oriented, more focused on exercise preparations and better able to participate in exercises in a manner that deepened their understanding of the complexity of exercises.

This thesis makes two contributions to environmental criminology. The first contribution is a rational choice event model for mobile phone thieves. This is based on interviews with 40 mobile phone thieves. In addition, the deterrent effects of 23 designs of phone are assessed. Comparisons are made between the responses of offenders and non-offenders; and between experienced offenders and less experienced offenders. The results show that mobile phone thieves make discerning choices about which model of phone to steal at the point of theft. The factors affecting handset choice reflect Clarke s (1999) CRAVED characteristics. Mobile phone thieves are differentially deterred by a variety of design solutions, the most effective of which reduce the resale value of stolen handsets. In contrast with offenders, non-offenders are more easily deterred, and statistically significantly more deterred for five of the 23 designs presented in this thesis; do not appreciate the importance of resale value; and are not so aware of the possibilities for circumventing or neutralising security technology. The differences between offender and non-offender responses mean that offenders are arguably best placed to assess product use and misuse in the process of designing-out crime. The second contribution of this thesis is a Mobile Phone Theft Index which controls for phone availability in the absence of handset sales data. Mobile phone theft is arguably a form of pollution (Roman and Farrell, 2002) and can, therefore, be controlled using traditional pollution control instruments (Farrell and Roman, 2006). Informing the public of their risk of victimisation according to handset ownership would make security a marketable aspect of handset design, incentivising industry to decrease theft rates. Industry action to date shows evidence of obstructionism and pre-regulatory initiatives (Newman, 2004) meaning that a novel instrument such as the Index is necessary to alter the current status quo where industry costs UK society an estimated £1.2 billion per year (Mailley and Farrell, 2006).

This research explores the potential of image and visual literacy in the postsecondary second language classroom to contribute to learners’ motivation towards the acquisition of the second language. The pedagogical approach used in this project is based on the research on multiliteracy, and the learning model adopted is implied by the activity theory. The intervention took place over a period of six weeks, with 39 students registered in two different first year French courses at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. The research hypothesis was that analysis, interpretation and fabrication of images would engage and motivate the participants towards their second language acquisition (SLA). Data gathered from participants’ comments suggest that more than two thirds of them, that is to say 71%, have supported my hypothesis. A series of comparative analysis indicated that the research experience was more appreciated by the group Fren 195, probably because of specific expectations regarding the nature of their course. Another series of comparative analysis suggested that the sub-group immersion Fren 155 had least appreciated the research experience, due to the conventions on linguistic hybridity, creative process and choices. Finally, since the activity theory is comprised of an ensemble of interactive components, the research also investigated the impact of each component on the participants’ motivation towards SLA.

The aim of this thesis is to develop knowledge about what students actually learn in lower secondary school science, regardless of intentions and policies. This is conceptualized as a study of the lived curriculum. During the last decades, new ways of organizing classroom work have evolved in Sweden. Students are to an increasing extent expected to take responsibility for what, when, and how they study. The aim of this thesis is therefore delimited to the study of which lived curriculum is constituted in such an individually organized science classroom practice. The theoretical foundation is a cultural-historical activity-theoretical perspective on human learning and development. The point of departure is that what we learn must be understood as an aspect of the activities we engage in. The research approach is ethnographic; field studies were conducted in two science classes, grades six and seven (ages 12 to 14 years old), in a Swedish midsized compulsory school during one school-year. The first result is that two different practices are discerned in the studied science classroom. One classroom practice is a criteria-based practice, where students work individually with local school criteria determining what students must be able to do in order to get a pass or a pass with distinction in the natural science subjects. The other classroom practice is a laboratory practice, where students do laboratory experiments and write laboratory reports. The second result is that students, in both practices, participate in different actions; either production and reproduction of correct answers or development of conceptual relations. These actions correspond in varying degrees to different motives; as a consequence, different scientific formation is made possible in the two different actions. A third result is that classroom practice supports student participation in the action of reproducing correct answers; while participation in the development of conceptual relations is a more risky and uncertain endeavour. However, there is evidence that students’ ways of participating can change, to a more qualified, as conditions for work change. A conclusion is that work in science classroom practice cannot, as suggested in previous research, be comprehended in terms of cultural border-crossings, between a culture of science and student cultures. Rather, work in science classroom practice must be conceptualized in terms of schooling.

Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) are used to support the modelling, analysis, and enactment of business processes. The key benefits WfMSs seek to bring to an organisation include improved efficiency, better process control and improved customer service, which are realised by modelling rigidly structured business processes that in turn derive well-defined workflow process instances. However, the proprietary process definition frameworks imposed by WfMSs make it difficult to support (i) dynamic evolution and adaptation (i.e. modifying process definitions during execution) following unexpected or developmental change in the business processes being modelled; and (ii) exceptions, or deviations from the prescribed process model at runtime, even though it has been shown that such deviations are a common occurrence for almost all processes. These limitations imply that a large subset of business processes do not easily translate to the 'system-centric' modelling frameworks imposed. This research re-examines the fundamental theoretical principles that underpin workflow technologies to derive an approach that moves forward from the productionline paradigm and thereby offers workflow management support for a wider range of work environments. It develops a sound theoretical foundation based on Activity Theory to deliver an implementation of an approach for dynamic and extensible flexibility, evolution and exception handling in workflows, based not on proprietary frameworks, but on accepted ideas of how people actually perform their work activities. The approach produces a framework called worklets to provide an extensible repertoire of self-contained selection and exception-handling processes, coupled with an extensible ripple-down rule set. Using a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), a selection service provides workflow flexibility and adaptation by allowing the substitution of a task at runtime with a sub-process, dynamically selected from its repertoire depending on the context of the particular work instance. Additionally, an exceptionhandling service uses the same repertoire and rule set framework to provide targeted and multi-functional exception-handling processes, which may be dynamically invoked at the task, case or specification level, depending on the context of the work instance and the type of exception that has occurred. Seven different types of exception can be handled by the service. Both expected and unexpected exceptions are catered for in real time. The work is formalised through a series of Coloured Petri Nets and validated using two exemplary studies: one involving a structured business environment and the other a more creative setting. It has been deployed as a discrete service for the well-known, open-source workflow environment YAWL, and, having a service orientation, its applicability is in no way limited to that environment, but may be regarded as a case study in service-oriented computing whereby dynamic flexibility and exception handling for workflows, orthogonal to the underlying workflow language, is provided. Also, being open-source, it is freely available for use and extension.

This thesis is an investigation into the exercise of autonomy in the practice of collaborative, project-based classrooms. The investigation set out to answer two research questions: What are the forms of autonomy expected of students in project-based classes?, and What are the factors that mediate the employment of autonomy in these classes? The investigation gathered qualitative data from students and teachers of four project-based, computer-assisted courses in four language departments at The University of Melbourne. The study was carried out in two stages, over two years. In all, a total of ten 14-week classes run by four teachers were investigated, containing a total of 136 students. The first year (stage one of the investigation) focussed on teacher practice and course syllabi, and addressed the first research question. The second year (stage two), focussed on student practice and addressed the second research question.

Στην παρούσα έρευνα επιχειρείται να αναδειχθεί ο παιδαγωγικός ρόλος των δραστηριοτήτων στην οικειοποίηση από παιδιά της προσχολικής εκπαίδευσης μαθηματικών εννοιών, όπως η μέτρηση της χωρητικότητας δοχείων. Ερευνήθηκε η ηλικιακή επίδραση στο επίπεδο κατανόησης της έννοιας της μέτρησης της χωρητικότητας δοχείων. Τέλος προσπαθήσαμε να επαληθεύσουμε αποτελέσματα παρόμοιων ερευνών. Το δείγμα της έρευνας αποτέλεσαν 30 υποκείμενα ηλικιών 5–6 που φοιτούσαν το σχολικό έτος 2009-2010 σε δύο ελληνικά δημόσια νηπιαγωγεία και κοινωνικοοικονομικά ανήκαν στα μεσαία στρώματα. Η έρευνα διεξήχθη σε τρεις φάσεις: στο pre-test, τη διδασκαλία και το post-test. Στο pre-test, ελέγξαμε αν τα παιδιά μπορούν να πραγματοποιήσουν άμεσες (απευθείας μεταξύ δοχείων) και έμμεσες (με τη χρήση κάποιου κοινού μέτρου) συγκρίσεις της χωρητικότητας δοχείων. Στη διδακτική παρέμβαση προτάθηκαν δραστηριότητες, οι οποίες αποσκοπούσαν στη δημιουργία κατάλληλων frameworks σχετικά με τις άμεσες και έμμεσες συγκρίσεις. Ενώ περιελάμβανε και μια δραστηριότητα η οποία εισήγαγε τα παιδιά στην έννοια του μέτρου μέτρησης της χωρητικότητας δοχείων. Στο post-test, αξιολογήθηκε η επίδραση της teaching intervention στη βελτίωση της ικανότητας των παιδιών να χειρίζονται θέματα άμεσης και έμμεσης σύγκρισης χωρητικότητας δοχείων, καθώς και της χρήσης ενός αυθαίρετου οργάνου μέτρησης και μιας άτυπης μονάδας μέτρησης της χωρητικότητας. Τα ευρήματα ανέδειξαν το σημαντικό ρόλο που διαδραματίζει το επικοινωνιακό πλαίσιο στη διδασκαλία, που ενισχύει την αυτονομία των μαθητών και συνεισφέρει στην κατάκτηση της νέας γνώσης. / This research attempts to highlight the role of pedagogical activities in the ownership of pre-school children mathematical concepts such as measurement of container capacity. We investigated the age effect on the level of understanding of the concept of measuring the containes measurament. Finally we tried to verify results of similar investigations. The sample of the study consisted of 30 subjects aged 5–6, who attended the school year 2009-2010 in two Greek state kindergartens with the same social characteristics belonged to middle socioeconomic strata. The study was conducted in three phases: the pre-test, teaching intervention and post-test. In the pre-test, we examined whether children can perform direct (directly between containers) and indirect (using a common measure) comparisons of the containers capacity. The teaching intervention proposed activities, which aimed to create appropriate frameworks for the direct and indirect comparisons. While it included an activity which introduced children to the concept of measurement of containers capacity. In the post-test, evaluated the effect of teaching intervention to improve children’s ability to handle matters of direct and indirect comparison containers capasity, and the use of an arbitrary gauge and an informal unit of measurement of capacity. The findings highlighted the important role of communication within the teaching, enhancing the autonomy of pupils and contribute to the acquisition of new knowledge.

This thesis focuses on the experiences of former UK military personnel from all three armed services re-entering the civilian workplace. There is a distinct lack of research in this area with only limited studies carried out which tend to focus on the difficult transitions or the actual mechanics of engaging with the civilian labour market. This thesis provides a unique insight into the experiences of military personnel and their journey out of the military environment and into the civilian environment. This study uses a qualitative methodology based upon an interpretive approach to gain insights into the experiences of former military personnel who left the military for a variety of reasons. The study examined the stories of a main research cohorts of 16 individuals and a second cohort of 10 individuals were engaged to further challenge theoretical saturation. The research subjects were selected using a ‘snowball’ approach and selection filtered using a specific set of criteria. Their military experiences span a range of times since discharge and a range of civilian employment since leaving. Following a review of existing literature encompassing career theory, transition theory, narrative analysis and activity theory, open interviews were conducted with participants simply asked to “tell me your story”. The transcripts of the interviews were then analysed using three analytical frames: activity theory, storytelling and perceptions of the self. The participants mainly identified tensions in their relationships with new communities, mediated by the changed social rules and divisions of labour that they encountered in their transition. Those who identified the lowest levels of tension tended to tell their stories in a heroic mode and demonstrated multiple or mixed senses of the self, whilst those who identified the highest tensions tended to tell their stories in a tragic mode and privileged their military identity above their other identities. The data suggests that some of these experience may be connected to the concept of the unquestioned organisation that was expressed by all the research cohort and the unthinking transfer of agency that occurs on joining and leaving the military.