Shifting from traditional face-to-face education to online mode of education (or online learning)  presents several challenges, such as increased difficulty for students to get immediate feedback and  lack of social interaction. To tackle these challenges, supporting learners' self-reflection process is  seen to be crucial to help students achieve academic success. Students in higher academic institutions  are generally not exposed during their education to self-reflection, and it is a skill that teachers  consider many students lack. However, there is a lack of studies that focus on self-reflection in online  environments. In this paper we aim to investigate in what ways can online learning platforms support  university students’ self-reflection. In this study a self-reflection tool was developed for an online  environment and evaluated through a set of iterations in a mixed method approach. A total of three  iterations were conducted, with their respective evaluations. Results show that participants perceived a  clear improvement of their learning process through self-reflection. Findings also show that there are  a few requirements not present in traditional self-reflection tools, which suggest a clear need for  self-reflective methods tailored to learners' needs. / Skiftet från traditionell salsundervisning till nätbaserad kunskapsförmedling innebär många  utmaningar, t.ex. det är svårare för elever att få omedelbar feedback och de saknar socialt utbyte. För  att komma tillrätta med de här utmaningarna anses det viktigt att den som studerar får stöd genom  självskattning, för att målen för studierna ska kunna uppnås. Den som studerar på högre nivå får sällan  tillfälle till kunskapssjälvskattning under sin utbildning och lärare anser att det är kunskaper som  många studenter inte besitter. Samtidigt saknas det studier som fokuserar på självskattning i en  nätbaserad studiemiljö. I den här uppsatsen så undersöks hur utbildningsplattformar online kan främja  universitetsstuderandes självskattning. För undersökningen har ett verktyg för självskattning inom  nätbaserad undervisning utvecklats, ett verktyg som utvärderats genom en serie iterationer och  tillämpning av mixad metod. Totalt har tre olika iterationer genomförts med respektive utvärdering.  Resultaten visar att deltagarna upplevde att deras inlärningsprocess tydligt förbättrades med hjälp av  självskattningen. Svaren visar också att vissa förutsättningar saknas i traditionella  självskattningsverktyg och det i sin tur pekar tydligt på att det behövs metoder för självskattning som  är anpassade efter elevernas behov.

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The following study investigates Swedish university students’ views on online education during the Covid-19 pandemic, with a focus on the students who are enrolled in the English language teacher education program and programs with a substantial English subject component. With the outbreak of SARS-COV-2 in late 2019, universities all around the world including Sweden shifted to online teaching. Such a transition to emergency online teaching fueled discussions on the effectiveness of online education, and students’ views and opinions on the subject, therefore need to be investigated. Against this background, a mixed-methods study was carried out using a survey and interviews with university students. The findings show that participants have a divided opinion when it comes to their views on online teaching, especially when it comes to social interaction, motivation, group work, and technical aspects of teaching. However, participants seem to largely agree that the ability to improve their language learning skills turned out to be one of the biggest obstacles during the pandemic. Overall, the participating students had different ways of adapting to and dealing with this new learning environment. Based on the findings from the study, it can be argued that online teaching requires a great deal of self-discipline, and willingness to adapt to a changing learning environment.

Yes / Purpose Medicine shortages have a detrimental impact on stakeholders in the pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC). Existing studies suggest that building resilience strategies can mitigate the effects of these shortages. As such, this research aims to examine whether resilience strategies can reduce the impact of medicine shortages in the United Kingdom's (UK) PSC. Design/methodology/approach A sequential mixed-methods approach that involved qualitative and quantitative research enquiry was employed in this study. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 23 key UK PSC actors at the qualitative stage. During the quantitative phase, 106 respondents completed the survey questionnaires. The data were analysed using partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Findings The results revealed that reactive and proactive elements of resilience strategies helped tackle medicine shortages. Reactive strategies increased relational issues such as behavioural uncertainty, whilst proactive strategies mitigated them. Practical implications The findings suggest that PSC managers and decision-makers can benefit from adopting structural flexibility and proactive strategies, which are cost-effective measures to tackle medicine shortages. Also engaging in strategic alliances as a proactive strategy mitigates relational issues that may arise in a complex supply chain (SC). Originality/value This study is the first to provide empirical evidence of the impact of resilience strategies in mitigating medicine shortages in the UK's PSC.

Online travel agencies (OTAs) play an important role in the online travel market. OTAs offer various features, rich information, and numerous hotel choices for customers. All these hotel choices, accompanied by detailed information and supported by various website features, are generally beneficial and advantageous for hotel customers. They allow hotel customers to evaluate numerous hotels based on different characteristics, including price, location, amenities, and ratings. However, the reasons why OTA users postpone their booking decisions and switch to other hotel booking channels remain unclear. Therefore, this dissertation aimed to explore the determinants of OTA users' intention to postpone their hotel booking decisions and their intention to switch to other hotel booking channels by developing and testing a conceptual framework based on the integration of stressor-strain-outcome (SSO) framework and information processing theory (IPT). A sequential exploratory mixed-methods approach, comprising two phases (i.e., qualitative and quantitative) was employed as the research design for this dissertation. In the first phase, themes that hold significance in influencing OTA users' intention to postpone their hotel booking decisions and intention to switch to other hotel booking channels were explored by conducting thematic analysis on qualitative data collected from OTA users through three online focus groups. In the second phase, the themes that emerged from the qualitative data analysis were utilized to formulate a quantitative survey instrument for a more in-depth investigation of the research problem. A total of 700 online surveys were collected, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to analyze the quantitative data and test the study hypotheses. The study results revealed that information overload, choice overload, and system feature overload, as stressors, positively influenced strain factors including similarity confusion, ambiguity confusion, time risk, psychological risk, performance risk, privacy risk, emotional exhaustion, decision task difficulty, and untrustworthiness toward OTAs. The results also indicated that similarity confusion, performance risk, emotional exhaustion, decision task difficulty, and untrustworthiness toward OTA, as strain factors, had a positive impact on OTA users' intention to postpone their hotel booking decisions. The results further indicated that ambiguity confusion, time risk, performance risk, decision task difficulty, as strain factors, had a positive impact on OTA users' intention to switch to other hotel booking channels. This dissertation provides valuable theoretical contributions to the existing body of knowledge in the realms of travel, tourism and hospitality industries and offers significant practical implications for OTA operators to generate effective and efficient strategies to be more competitive in the travel market and avoid unwanted consequences.

The study examined the integration of Creative Writing (CW) into Swedish upper-secondary education, focusing on enhancing student motivation and engagement. It was hypothesized that CW, by fostering autonomy, competence, relatedness, and enjoyment, could improve students' intrinsic motivation, and engagement, as guided by Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Given the frequent issue of student dropouts, there is a recognized need for teachers to identify effective strategies to increase students’ motivation. The researchers propose incorporating CW alongside traditional methods as a potential solution. By raising student motivation, this strategy hopes to boost academic achievement and lower dropout rates. The study incorporates CW in an attempt to make learning more motivating and interesting while also meeting the diverse needs of students. The study enlists a mixed-methods approach to investigate the effectiveness of a CW intervention. The intervention involved students creatively reimagining endings in classical literature, facilitated through digital resources to ensure broad access, and engagement. The effect of the intervention on student motivation was measured using surveys in a pre- and post-test design. In addition, semi-structured interviews were used to gather qualitative data. Results indicated that substantial improvements in students' enjoyment, motivation, and ability to express themselves were achieved, suggesting that CW can bridge traditional teaching methods, and contemporary educational demands. The study highlights the potential of integrating CW into curricula, proposing that such innovative pedagogical strategies can revitalize student engagement and foster a more dynamic, and enjoyable learning environment. These findings advocate for broader application and further exploration of CW within educational settings to enhance student motivation, and their engagement with literacy.