In a school for children from 6-9 years in a small town in the southeast of Sweden, is areading activity program in progress since 8 years. The original purpose of this program wasto enhance the student’s reading interest. All of the students read at least one book a week andthen they review the book in front of the class. The purpose of the present study was to examine vocabulary, word retrieving, narrative skillsand grammatical abilities in children in this school. The objectives were to investigate if thechosen language abilities in these children were different compared to normative data andearlier studies in children at comparable ages. Furthermore, the aim was to study if narrative skills correlated with vocabulary, word retrieving and grammatical ability. The examination was carried out by testing 65 students in the school regarding the chosenlanguage abilities. The results showed that these students had better vocabulary compared to American normative data and earlier Swedish studies. In narratives they produced stories inchronological order and they included a large amount of information. Narrative abilitiescorrelated with receptive vocabulary, word retrieving and grammatical abilities. It was concluded that reading promoting activities may have affected these student’s languageabilities in a positive way. / I en skola för barn mellan 6 och 9 år i en liten stad i sydöstra Sverige pågår sedan 8 år tillbakaen aktivitet vars ursprungliga syfte var att öka elevernas läsintresse. Alla elever läser minst enbok i veckan och gör därefter en recension som de läser upp i klassen. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att studera ordförråd, ordmobilisering, narrativ förmågasamt grammatisk förmåga hos eleverna på den utvalda skolan. Frågeställningarna varhuruvida utvalda språkförmågor hos eleverna skiljde sig från normativa data och tidigarestudier av barn i jämförbara åldrar. Vidare undersöktes om narrativ förmåga hade någotsamband med ordförråd, ordmobilisering och grammatisk förmåga. Undersökningen gjordes genom att 65 elever på skolan testades med avseende på de utvalda språkförmågorna. Resultatet visade att dessa elever hade ett bättre ordförråd jämfört medamerikansk normering och tidigare svenska studier. Gällande elevernas narrativa förmåga berättade de i kronologisk ordning och återgav många delhändelser i historien. Resultatetvisade också att narrativ förmåga hade samband med impressivt ordförråd, ordmobiliseringoch grammatisk förmåga. Slutsatsen var att den läsfrämjande aktiviteten kan ha påverkat dessa elevers språkförmågorpositivt.

Il presente lavoro di ricerca si propone di esplorare le concezioni degli studenti sulla creatività attraverso strumenti quali la parola e il disegno, a tramite attività mentali quali il giudizio, il riconoscimento e la descrizione. Tre sono i concetti chiave oggetto di indagine della presente ricerca: il riconoscimento, inteso come l’abilità nel distinguere prodotti (e autori) creativi da quelli non creativi. Tale distinzione ha luogo nel momento in cui l’individuo è in grado di cogliere quegli elementi che portano a un cambiamento di significato di un dato oggetto che in questo modo viene considerato creativo. Il secondo concetto chiave è il giudizio, ovvero l’abilità di un individuo di valutare l’autore - o gli autori - di prodotti creativi e non creativi. Il terzo concetto è quello legato all’abilità, attraverso la quale le persone esprimono il loro potenziale creativo. Gli obiettivi declinati nel presente lavoro di ricerca sono tre. Il primo si prefigge di indagare la capacità che gli studenti hanno di riconoscere la fase di ristrutturazione - costitutiva dell’atto creativo - distinguendo i prodotti creativi da quelli non creativi sulla base del loro diverso livello di originalità. A tale proposito sono state messe a punto diverse serie di disegni che rappresentano la realizzazione di artefatti creativi e non creativi e presentate prima a un campione di studenti universitari (Studio 1) e poi di studenti della scuola Primaria e Secondaria (Studio 2, Studio 3). Il secondo obiettivo consisteva nel descrivere la rappresentazione del comportamento del creativo. Attraverso una storia è stato richiesto agli studenti di giudicare il ruolo della persona creativa (Studio 2, Studio 3). Infine, il terzo obiettivo era valutare l’espressione della creatività e la sua relazione con la rappresentazione (Studio 3) attraverso l’impiego di strumenti diversi, quali il differenziale semantico, il compito di completamento di disegni ed il test delle Linee Parallele tratta dal Test di Pensiero Creativo di Torrance (TTCT: Torrance, 1989). / The present work is aimed at exploring how students represent creativity. To explore their beliefs we used different research tools (as words, drawings), and different cognitive tasks (as judging, recognizing, describing). Three concepts will be investigated in this research: (1) recognition, intended as the ability to distinguish between creative and non-creative products as well as between creative and non-creative authors: we tried to identify if our participants were able to catch the distinctive elements that determine the change of meaning of an artifact so that it become creative; (2) judgment, intended as the ability to judge the author(s) of creative and non-creative products; (3) expression, intended as the ability to express our own creative potential. Three specific aims has been set across this research. The first aim was to investigate the ability of students to recognize the restructuring phase of a creative act, differentiating between creative and non-creative products. Different series of drawings that represented the realization of creative and non-creative objects were devised and tested on undergraduates (Study 1) and on school children (Study 2, Study 3). The second aim was to describe the representation of creative behaviour. Using a story as a baseline, students were requested to judge the role of the creative person (Study 2, Study 3). The third aim was to evaluate the expression of creativity and the relationship between expression and representation of creativity (Study 3) using different tasks: a semantic differential scale, a picture completion task and a subscale of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT: Torrance, 1989).

Stridsfordon 90 togs fram för att möta en reguljär motståndare på vårt eget territorium. Dagens krav och förutsättningar är annorlunda då striden främst genomförs i konfliktzoner utomlands, men även på vårt eget territorium. Motståndaren vi möter nyttjar andra metoder för att genomföra sin strid och agerar på ett annorlunda sätt än vad vi är övade vid. Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka hur ett förband med stridsfordon 90 lämpar sig i strid på dagens stridsfält mot en irreguljär motståndare. För att ta reda på detta så beskriver jag fjärde generationens krigföring och stridsfordon9040Cför att sedan kunna analysera och jämföra den taktiska nivån utifrån de grundläggande förmågorna. Användningen av strf 90 och mekskytteplutonens taktik mot en 4GW motståndare är lämpliga att användaapligt på den taktiska nivån. Mekskytteplutonens taktik är flexibel och sätter få begränsningar mot taktiken hos en anfallande 4GW motståndare. / Combat vehicle 90 was developed to meet a conventional opponent on our own territory. Today's demands and conditions are different, today’s battles is mainly carried out in foreign conflict zones but also on our own territory. The opponent we face uses other means to carry out their combat, and acts in a different way than we are trained for.    The purpose of this work is to investigate how a unit equipped with combat vehicle 90 is suitable in today's battlefield against an irregular opponent. In order to answer this question, I have described the fourth generation warfare and combat vehicle 9040C, then analyzed and compared the tactical levels from the theory of the basic abilities.               The use of CV90 and the mechanized infantry platoons tactics against a 4GW opponent is appropriate to use at the tactical level. The flexible tactics of the mechanized infantry platoon gives an advantage over a 4GW opponent and the tactics used by such an opponent.

Esta tesis muestra una radiografía de las evaluaciones de Historia de España en COU y Bachillerato (a través de los recuerdos de 1523 alumnos entre 1993-2003), y de los protocolos de los exámenes (410 realizados por el profesorado entre 2002-2004), en la CC.AA. de la Región de Murcia. Entre los resultados más relevantes, destacar: la influencia que los aspectos formales de las evaluaciones y los exámenes tienen tanto en los contenidos por los que se les pregunta a los alumnos como en el tipo de aprendizaje que éstos adquieren; la presencia predominante de preguntas que requieren principalmente la memorización de los conocimientos; las relaciones existentes entre los tipos de preguntas y las capacidades cognitivas solicitadas en las pruebas; la evaluación de unos temas de la Historia de España en detrimento de otros; y la influencia que dos referentes como son selectividad y decreto de currículum, tienen en las pruebas estudiadas. / This thesis shows a radiograph of the assessments of History of Spain in COU and Bachillerato (through the memories of 1523 students between 1993-2003), and the protocols of the examinations (410 made by teachers between 2002-2004) in the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia. Among the most relevant results, include: the influence of the formal aspects of assessments and examinations have so much in the content for which one asks the students as the type of learning that they acquire, the predominance of questions mainly require the memorization of knowledge, relations between the types of questions and cognitive abilities tests requested and the evaluation of the subjects of the History of Spain at the expense of others, and the influence of two references such as selectivity and Decree of the curriculum, the tests are studied.

<p>Den kunskap som ett barns föräldrar och förskolepersonal besitter om dess språk är värdefull att tillvarata, särskilt då formaliserade språkbedömningar kan vara svåradministrerade med små barn. Detta kan exempelvis göras via föräldraenkäter. Studiens syfte var att undersöka vilka likheter och skillnader som förelåg mellan bedömningar av språklig förmåga hos barn, gjorda dels av föräldrar och förskolepersonal via en enkät, dels av logopedstudenter via en logopedisk bedömning. Studiedeltagarna utgjordes av 20 barn i åldrarna 2 ½ - 3 år, 20 föräldrar och 14 förskolepersonal. Föräldrar och förskolepersonal besvarade 18 frågor ur föräldraenkäten Receptive Expressive Emergent Language Test - 2 (REEL-2) och barnen testades av logopedstudenterna på uppgifter motsvarande dessa frågor.</p><p>Resultatet visade bland annat att de genomsnittliga procentuella överensstämmelserna mellan bedömargrupperna var goda. Ingen kombination av bedömargrupper var signifikant mer överens än någon annan. Vissa tendenser till skillnader framkom när materialet analyserades med avseende på språkliga domäner och enskilda frågor. Slutsatsen var att bedömargrupperna föreföll kunna ge likvärdig, men inte identisk, information om barnens språkliga förmåga. Av den anledningen anses inhämtande av information från olika källor vara betydelsefull. Föräldraenkäter kan vara ett värdefullt verktyg i kontakten mellan logopeder, föräldrar och förskolepersonal och ökad användning av föräldraenkäter tros kunna förbättra samarbetet mellan dessa parter.</p> / <p>Parents’ knowledge about their children’s language is valuable to consider, particularly when formal tests can be difficult to administer with young children. The aim of this study was to examine similarities and differences between parents and preschool teacher’s reports on a questionnaire concerning children’s linguistic development and direct assessment by speech language pathology students. In the study 20 children aged 2 ½ - 3 years, 20 parents and 14 preschool teachers participated. The parents and preschool teachers answered 18 questions from the questionnaire Receptive Expressive Emergent Language Test - 2 (REEL-2) and the children were tested on items based on these questions. </p><p>The results showed that the interjudge agreement between the groups was high. Some tendencies emerged when the material was analyzed with reference to language domains and individual questions. In conclusion, parents and preschool teachers seemed to be able to give similar information about the children’s linguistic abilities as provided by the direct assessment. The results also indicate that it is important to obtain information about a child’s language from different sources and that parental reports might be beneficial in the collaboration between speech language pathologists, parents and preschool teachers. Increased use of parental reports can facilitate the cooperation between these groups.</p>

<p>Prosody can be characterized as the rhythm and the melody of speech. Prosodic features convey emotions, thoughts and geographic origins of each individual. Spoken language without prosody would be monotonous, without variations in loudness and rate. Children with cochlear implants perceive speech in a different way than children with normal hearing. Consequently the speech produced by a child with cochlear implants may sound different.</p><p>The purpose of this study was to examine prosodic skills in Swedish children with cochlear implants and to compare them with the prosodic skills in Swedish children with normal hearing. The purpose of the study was also to examine differences between these two groups and to characterize those differences.</p><p>Eight children with cochlear implants and eight controls matched to age, sex and regional accent were included in the study. The children’s production and perception of prosody was tested.</p><p>The results show that there are differences in prosodic skills between the children with cochlear implants and their matched controls at word, phrase and discourse levels. The differences were significant in production but not in perception. Observed differences in the speech of the children with cochlear implants included omission of unstressed syllables and function words, difficulties producing contrast of tonal word accents and pro-longed maintenance of phonological processes.</p><p>The study contributes to the knowledge about prosodic and linguistic skills in Swedish children with cochlear implants.</p>

Il est généralement admis que la vision joue un rôle prépondérant dans la formation des représentations spatiales. Qu’advient-il alors lorsqu’un individu est atteint de cécité? Dans le premier volet de cette thèse, les habiletés spatiales des personnes aveugles ont été examinées à l’aide de différentes tâches et comparées à celles de personnes voyantes effectuant les mêmes tâches avec les yeux bandés. Dans une première étude, les capacités de rotation mentale ont été évaluées à l’aide d’une épreuve d’orientation topographique tactile. Les résultats obtenus montrent que les personnes aveugles parviennent généralement à développer des capacités de rotation mentale similaires à celles de personnes voyantes et ce, malgré l’absence d’information de nature visuelle. Dans une seconde étude, nous avons utilisé différentes tâches spatiales nécessitant l’utilisation de la locomotion. Les résultats obtenus montrent que les personnes aveugles font preuve d’habiletés supérieures à celles de voyants lorsqu’elles doivent apprendre de nouveaux trajets dans un labyrinthe. Elles parviennent également à mieux reconnaître une maquette représentant un environnement exploré précédemment. Ainsi, l’absence de vision ne semble pas entraver de manière significative la formation de concepts spatiaux. Le second volet de cette thèse s’inscrit dans la lignée des études sur la plasticité cérébrale chez les personnes aveugles. Dans le cas présent, nous nous sommes intéressés à l’hippocampe, une structure profonde du lobe temporal dont le rôle au plan spatial a été établi par de nombreuses études animales ainsi que par des études cliniques chez l’humain incluant l’imagerie cérébrale. L’hippocampe joue un rôle particulièrement important dans la navigation spatiale. De plus, des changements structuraux de l’hippocampe ont été documentés en relation avec l’expérience des individus. Par exemple, l’étude de Maguire et al. (2000) a mis en évidence de telles modifications structurelles de l’hippocampe chez des chauffeurs de taxi. À l’instar de ces derniers, les personnes aveugles doivent emmagasiner de nombreuses informations au sujet de leur environnement puisqu’elles ne peuvent bénéficier de la vision pour mettre à jour les informations sur celui-ci, sur leur position dans l’espace et sur la position des objets se trouvant hors de leur portée. Nous avons montré, pour la première fois, une augmentation du volume des hippocampes chez les personnes aveugles en comparaison avec les personnes voyantes. De plus, cette augmentation de volume était positivement corrélée à la performance à une tâche d’apprentissage de trajets. Les résultats présentés dans cette thèse permettent d’appuyer les études antérieures qui soutiennent que les personnes aveugles parviennent à compenser leur déficit et à développer des habiletés spatiales comparables, voire supérieures, à celles de personnes voyantes. Ils permettent également d’apporter un éclairage nouveau sur le concept de plasticité cérébrale présent chez cette population en montrant pour la première fois un lien entre le volume de l’hippocampe et les habiletés spatiales chez les personnes aveugles. / It is well known that the visual modality plays a key role in the development of spatial representations. Hence, one may wonder how complex spatial abilities develop and how the brain is able to adapt in the absence of this modality. In order to answer such questions we investigated the spatial abilities and cerebral plasticity of both early and late blind individuals in comparison to sighted blindfolded individuals. The first experiment was designed to assess mental rotation abilities. A tactile topographical orientation task was used. The results show that blind individuals are able to develop mental rotation abilities similar to those of sighted ones. In the second experiment, we used different spatial tasks requiring the use of locomotion and wayfinding. Results show that blind individuals are better than their sighted counterparts at learning new routes in a maze. They also perform better when having to recognize a small-scale model representing a real-size spatial layout they had previously explored. Thus, the absence of vision does not appear to significantly impede the formation of spatial concepts. The second part of this thesis is in line with studies on brain plasticity in blind individuals. We measured morphological changes in the hippocampus, a medial structure of the temporal lobe. Animal lesion-based and human brain imaging studies have shown that the hippocampus plays an important role in the processing of spatial information and in spatial navigation. Furthermore, structural changes in the hippocampus have been documented in relation to the ‘spatial’ experience of individuals. For instance, Maguire and colleagues (2000) have shown structural differences in the hippocampus of well-trained taxi drivers in comparison to individuals without extensive spatial training. Like taxi drivers, blind individuals require extensive storage of information regarding their environment. This is essentially because they cannot rely on visual cues to create a representation of the spatial organization of their environment, nor can they continuously visually update their position in space and the spatial coordinates of objects outside of their reach. Here we show for the first time an increase in the volume of the hippocampus in blind compared to sighted individuals. Moreover, this increase in hippocampal volume was positively correlated with performance on the route-learning task described above. Overall, the results not only support previous findings showing that blind individuals can develop spatial abilities similar or superior to those of sighted individuals, but also shed light on the concept of brain plasticity by showing for the fist time a correlation between hippocampal volume and spatial abilities in the blind.

Experiences of teachers in SFI, Swedish for (adult) Immigrants, indicate that during their schooling earlier in life, SFI students have developed skills, abilities, values, ideas and expectations about teaching and learning that differ somewhat from the prevailing communicative oriented theory of second language teaching which is emphasized in SFI. In the thesis these aspects are referred to as different school cultural frames of reference. The aim of the thesis is to generate knowledge about SFI-students’ school cultural frames of reference of relevance for SFI teaching. The considerable number of immigrants from Iraqi Kurdistan during the 1990s has led to an empirical focus related to this geographical area. From a critical perspective, in some respects a research interest of this kind can be seen as contributing to a division between ‘us’ and ‘them’, in a wider sense a part of exclusion and a maintenance of the segregated Swedish society. In a special section is given an account of this research ethic question, together with arguments from intercultural pedagogy that support a focus on school cultural frames of reference. The theoretical platform for the thesis is sociocultural theory. The concepts of social representations, pedagogical code, classification, framing, power distance, diaspora and distinctions of knowledge also are used. The thesis is based on two data materials. The first consists of data from interviews and talks with students and teachers in SFI, all from Iraqi Kurdistan. The second consists of data gathered through observations, classroom observations, interviews and talks during two visits in the KDP-administrated region of Iraqi Kurdistan, each visit being for a period of about one month. This data material also includes text materials, mainly textbooks in EFL for grade five and six, and course books about EFL teaching used in teacher education. The thesis illuminates several aspects that provide an understanding as to why SFI students from Iraqi Kurdistan can have certain abilities, values, ideas and expectations about teaching, learning materials, learning, teacher and student roles that differ from the communicative oriented second language teaching emphasized in SFI. However, results from the study also underline the importance of a ‘weak’ use of this understanding in a SFI teaching context.

Ethnic status is one of the most protected demographic groups in terms of test bias and discrimination in personnel selection, as such bias breaches many laws, morals, and ethical procedures. To date there has only been two published studies that have used New Zealand relevant ethnic groups when analysing whether personality measures used in pre-employment settings exhibit different mean scores. The present thesis performed a systematic evaluation on the impact of ethnicity on personality traits. The study examined the impact of ethnicity on NZ Army Officer applicant personality assessment scores measured by the EPQ-R and GPP-I. Four ethnic groups (NZ Europeans, Mâori, Pasifika, and Asian) were analysed for mean trait score differences among ethnic groups, the stability of these differences across different personality inventories and models, the variance of personality traits, the impact of ethnicity on age and gender relationships with personality traits, and how these differences were related to employment selection outcomes. The analyses revealed that ethnicity did have some impact on mean personality assessment scores used in the study. However, these were mostly small differences among ethnic groups. In addition, most of these differences found on the EPQ-R and the GPP-I were not consistent across inventories and models. There were no significant variance differences found on personality traits among ethnic groups. While initial analysis suggested that ethnicity did not influence the relationship between age and gender on personality assessment, further examination suggested that the relationship between gender and personality was impacted on by ethnicity. There were reassuring results found for New Zealand psychologists and HR specialists, as only two of the twelve traits analysed showed moderate differences on traits that were related to selection outcomes. However, for the NZ Army OSB selection process the findings in the present study indicate that the Lie scale on the EPQ-R and the Vigor trait on the GPP-I may need to be interpreted with caution for Asian and Pasifika groups. These results are discussed in terms of implications for personality theory, measurement, and the direction of future research.

Ethnic status is one of the most protected demographic groups in terms of test bias and discrimination in personnel selection, as such bias breaches many laws, morals, and ethical procedures. To date there has only been two published studies that have used New Zealand relevant ethnic groups when analysing whether personality measures used in pre-employment settings exhibit different mean scores. The present thesis performed a systematic evaluation on the impact of ethnicity on personality traits. The study examined the impact of ethnicity on NZ Army Officer applicant personality assessment scores measured by the EPQ-R and GPP-I. Four ethnic groups (NZ Europeans, Mâori, Pasifika, and Asian) were analysed for mean trait score differences among ethnic groups, the stability of these differences across different personality inventories and models, the variance of personality traits, the impact of ethnicity on age and gender relationships with personality traits, and how these differences were related to employment selection outcomes. The analyses revealed that ethnicity did have some impact on mean personality assessment scores used in the study. However, these were mostly small differences among ethnic groups. In addition, most of these differences found on the EPQ-R and the GPP-I were not consistent across inventories and models. There were no significant variance differences found on personality traits among ethnic groups. While initial analysis suggested that ethnicity did not influence the relationship between age and gender on personality assessment, further examination suggested that the relationship between gender and personality was impacted on by ethnicity. There were reassuring results found for New Zealand psychologists and HR specialists, as only two of the twelve traits analysed showed moderate differences on traits that were related to selection outcomes. However, for the NZ Army OSB selection process the findings in the present study indicate that the Lie scale on the EPQ-R and the Vigor trait on the GPP-I may need to be interpreted with caution for Asian and Pasifika groups. These results are discussed in terms of implications for personality theory, measurement, and the direction of future research.