Master of Science / Department of Psychological Sciences / Patrick A. Knight / Despite the functional importance of performance appraisals in organizational settings, rating inaccuracies persist and have been a widely researched topic for decades. Contemporary efforts to explore the problem have turned to components of accuracy to foster a more detailed understanding of the influence of situational factors and individual biases. In particular, a great deal of research has examined the role of rating purpose (e.g., administrative, developmental) on subsequent accuracy, consistently revealing greater leniency for administrative ratings than for developmental ratings. On the basis of spreading activation theory, rating purpose was conceptualized as a priming event, and in combination with rating strategy priming, was expected to prompt predictable enhancements to specific components of accuracy. Participants for this experimental study were 160 undergraduate students. Participants were randomly assigned a rating purpose with “real-world” implications, and exposed to a strategy priming task designed to promote specific rating cognitions. Students viewed video-recorded competitive marching band performances, and rated them. Participants’ ratings were compared to those made by experienced raters to compute accuracy estimates. Results were largely non-significant, but in the directions expected. Limitations and future research opportunities are discussed.

Thesis advisor: Ce Shen / A compelling body of literature suggests that negative appraisal may be associated with adverse reactions to traumatic stress (Ehlers & Clark, 2000). However, very few studies have examined how cognitive appraisal influences posttraumatic adaptation in people with serious mental illness (SMI) despite evidence of disproportionately high prevalence rates of trauma exposure and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in this population. The major purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between negative appraisal and PTSD symptoms among adults diagnosed with SMI. It was hypothesized that negative appraisal would have a positive and significant association with traumatic stress symptoms in a clinical sample of community clients diagnosed with major mood and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders when controlling for gender, total lifetime trauma, substance use, and severity of symptoms associated with SMI. Multiple regression was employed to conduct a secondary analysis of clinical data from 291 community support clients who were receiving services from three community mental health centers in the state of Rhode Island during March to September 2009. Results supported the main hypotheses that all three types of negative appraisal with respect to self, world /others, and self blame as well as overall appraisal were positively and significantly associated with PTSD symptoms. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

This thesis provides a trajectory policy analysis of post-1994 appraisal systems in South Africa by capturing the dynamics of these policies between different levels as well as the reasons these policies have changed and evolved in the way they did over the past 10 years. Its aim is to understand why and how various post-1994 South African teacher appraisals were negotiated, formulated and re-negotiated with their different impact on schools, taking into account the various tensions and contestations within appraisal and between stakeholders. The study attempts to make the following claims around issues of appraisal, policy analysis, multi-method research. First, because appraisal policies are socially constructed and politically contested, they are fraught with inevitable socio-educational tensions around the balance between teacher development and accountability, coming from the negotiations between the main stakeholders at various stages of the policy process. Second, because current policy analysis approaches have failed to address the increasingly complex domain and gap of policy-practice in an era dominated by the interplay of conflicting agendas and interests of various policy communities, an eclectic approach to policy analysis is used and recommended. This approach relies mainly on a political analysis, which conceives of policies as both constraining and empowering structures and texts which create space and opportunities for policy agency and leadership. Such political approach has to conceive of three different policy powers to reveal the various tensions and contestations around policies and the conditions of possibilities as well as to unravel how stakeholders interpret and mediate policy processes which are often fragile settlements constantly re-negotiated. This study focuses on the notion of enabling policy leadership and its mediation strategies to reveal how different agencies position themselves and strategize around policy tensions in the hope of strengthening their agendas. This policy leadership is also iv critical in ensuring a sufficiently strong policy settlement between education departments, schools, teacher unions and professional bodies over how to develop teachers and make them accountable for their performance Third, it argues that, despite post-1994 South Africa embarking on an era of stakeholder democracy, various stakeholders were gradually pushed to the margin of education policymaking, leaving teacher unions (because of their privileged position in relation to the ruling party) as the main party with which the department of education consulted and bargained. This exclusion of other stakeholders involved in quality education meant that professional associations were absent even though their input was desperately needed to negotiate how appraisal could feed into the enhancement of teacher professionalism and identities in the post-1994 school system. Finally, this study uses a multi-method research approach, involving formal research instruments as well as various data collection mechanisms involving different forums with stakeholders, such as oral hearings, review teams, seminars, conferences and written evidence over a period of two years to provide a richer form of triangulated data with rather interesting results. This data was analyzed and interpreted to identify patterns of policy contestations, negotiation and mediation strategies which assisted in theorizing further the policymaking processes and politics around appraisal as well as the role and limitations of policy leadership. This multi-layered empirical research work is essential if the complex and fluid positions and strategies adopted in various policy processes over time are to be unraveled.

Submitted by William Justo Figueiro (williamjf) on 2015-06-15T19:18:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 16.pdf: 596260 bytes, checksum: ff24d3a283ec5ce7eb8fc55ad1bf075a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-15T19:18:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 16.pdf: 596260 bytes, checksum: ff24d3a283ec5ce7eb8fc55ad1bf075a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05-08 / Nenhuma / No contexto de pesquisa, a Appraisal Theory (AT) lida com a compreensão do processo de avaliação de eventos que resulta em emoções (Scherer, 2001, 2005; Ekman, 1992), pensando-o através da produção linguística dos falantes (Martin e White, 2005). Dentro dessa dimensão, o presente trabalho se propõe a compreender como a AT pode ser utilizada para apoiar a investigação e a análise da emoção de satisfação de alunos de cursos EAD, na tentativa de esgotar possibilidades de análise linguística a partir do corpus. Nesse sentido, as emoções são pensadas como consequência do processamento cognitivo e consideradas através das escolhas lexicogramaticais realizadas pelos falantes para o compartilhamento de emoções (Martin e White, 2005), pensando a linguagem como representação emocional (Johnstone et al., 2001). Para viabilização da análise proposta, foi realizado grupo focal com alunos de curso de graduação de instituição privada de ensino superior. O roteiro de realização do grupo focal foi guiado pelo modelo componencial da AT em sua perspectiva dentro da Psicologia Cognitiva (Scherer, 2005; Demir et al., 2009) e a produção linguística resultante foi registrada e analisada a partir das possibilidades indicadas por Martin e White (2005). Esses registros foram rastreados em busca de grupos coerentes de palavras reunidas para expressar avaliação de satisfação, identificados como grupos de appraisal (Whitelaw et al., 2005). No total, foram mapeados, transcritos e analisados treze (13) grupos, verificados com relação às escolhas lexicogramaticais utilizadas pelos falantes, tomando-se como base a AT.

This thesis addresses the following question: What is the role of judicial training (JT) and performance appraisal (PA) in the organizational reform of judiciaries? The research studies the effects of various JT and PA mechanisms upon models of judicial organization. In light of the great diversity of judicial systems and variable configurations of JT and PA, the research strategy is twofold: First, the study focuses on the judiciaries of Chile and England and Wales being representatives of contrasting judicial organizational traditions. Second, I use typologies of judicial organization to focus on the main organizational aspects of judiciaries only, reducing the complexity of multidimensional analysis. After critically reviewing existing typologies of judicial organization, the thesis argues that these analytical constructs cannot fully explain contemporary changes in judiciaries, owing to their one-sided focus upon authority as a central organizational dimension. Rather, the thesis highlights the importance of the values and beliefs implicit in JT and PA arrangements in the normative evolution of the two judiciaries. The research employs a grounded theory methodology to uncover the organizational variables that underpin JT and PA arrangements in the two contexts, using them to develop a new typology, and to explain the role of these mechanisms in the organization of judiciaries. The empirical data shows that JT and PA bear normative content that can influence the reform of judiciaries. The functioning of these mechanisms also expresses different conceptions of authority, organizational cultures, and levels and types of formalization. The thesis proposes an organizational typology to analyse the role of JT and PA in changes to judicial organization. The results help to: 1) explain reforms in judicial organizational models; 2) understand how JT and PA contribute to such processes of change, and 3) highlight the relevance of the type of formalization for the normative analysis of the resulting organizational models.

Thesis (MPA.) --University of Limpopo, 2009. / Human Resource Development (Employer)

Using a conceptual model of a water supply firm, the necessary conditions for production and market efficiency are derived when renovated wastewater is considered as a potential water resource. The nature and extent of the supply augmentation due to recycled reuse is demonstrated using classical optimization techniques. Three stages of short-run supply corresponding to no recycling, partial recycled reuse and complete recycling of all reclaimable water are identified through appropriate Lagrangian Multipliers as well as graphical techniques. A mathematical programming model is structured to determine the optimal water resource allocation and pricing policy for Salt Lake County. By maximizing the sum of consumer and producer surplus (the difference between total willingness-to-pay and total cost) economically efficient equilibria are derived. The feasibility of recycled reuse for municipal purposes is examined in a planning context. The impact of higher water quality discharge standards on the attractiveness of water recycling option is studied. To ensure social acceptability of renovated wastewater for culinary purposes, blending restrictions are imposed, which stipulate that the amount of water for reuse be less than a fixed percentage of the water from other sources. The effect of such a constraint on the prices and water allocation are delineated. The hydrologic uncertainty in water supply is treated using stochastic programming techniques. Application of the concepts of single and joint chance-constrained programming are illustrated. The resulting changes in pricing and allocation policies are discussed.

The current study examined the effects of citizenship performance, task performance, and rating format on overall and task performance ratings. Levels of citizenship performance (high, medium, low), task performance (high, medium, low), and rating format (inclusion or exclusion of citizenship performance) were experimentally manipulated in a 3x3x2 between-subjects full factorial design. Ratings were provided by 360 undergraduate psychology students evaluating experimentally developed supervisory logs of first line financial managers. Targets' levels of citizenship and task performance were positively related to raters' judgments of overall and task performance. The prediction that this relationship would be moderated by task performance level was not supported. Furthermore, replicating the findings of J. M. Werner (1994), task performance ratings, assigned to targets with high levels of citizenship performance, displayed significantly more halo than ratings assigned to targets with low or medium levels of citizenship performance. Rating format did not influence raters' judgments of the targets' overall or task performance. Our findings indicate that including OCBs in job performance assessment fails to increase the accuracy of performance ratings. Study implications and limitations are discussed.

This thesis explores the process of an annual appraisal strategy, ‘clinical conversation’, from the perspective of seven nurses who were assessed using this technique. The findings demonstrate that clinical conversation is a strategy which facilitates reflection, both as a solitary exercise and with others, to ensure that learning from experience is optimized. The research used a qualitative interpretive approach informed by the model of Grounded Theory espoused by Strauss and Corbin. All eight nurses who were assessed using the clinical conversation strategy were advanced practitioners working within the scope of sexual and reproductive health. Two of the actual appraisals were observed and seven of the nurses were interviewed within eight weeks of being assessed. The outcome of the clinical conversation was primarily one of learning; the acquisition of new insights into self as practitioner. The learning was facilitated through the process of narration; telling the story of clinical practice. Three distinct narrative cycles were identified, each an experiential learning episode. The experience of undertaking a variety of assessment activities created a narrative with self and triggered an internal reflective thinking process; the experience of working with a peer created an additional narrative, a mutual dialogue reflecting back on practice; the experience of sharing practice with an assessor created a further and final narrative, a learning conversation. Each narrative can be seen as a catalyst for change. Primarily, the nurses felt differently about themselves in practice, the way they saw themselves had shifted. Such a change can be described as an alteration in perspective. These alterations in perspective led all nurses to identify ways in which they would change their actual clinical practice. In this way the nurses attempted to align their espoused beliefs about practice with their actual practice. My study shows that each nurse responded differently to each narrative learning cycle: for some the conversation with the assessor was more of a catalyst for change than for others. In this way clinical conversation may be flexible enough to respond to a variety of differing learning styles. Learning was person specific which is an imperative for the continued professional development of already highly skilled clinicians. The implication of the research is that whilst clinical conversation was designed as a tool for appraising clinical competence, its intrinsic value lies in supporting the professional development of nurses.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Abstract This thesis explores the use of the interpersonal resources of English in argumentative/persuasive essays (APEs) constructed by undergraduate international students from East-Asian regions (EAS), in particular, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and also by Australian-born English speakers (ABS). High-graded essays (HGEs) were compared with the low-graded essays (LGEs) in order to identify the relationship between their deployment of interpersonal features and the academic grades given by markers. In addition, the essays constructed by the EAS writers were compared with those written by ABS writers. A major complaint of academic staff about ESL Asian students concerns their lack of analytical, critical voice and formality in their arguments. The linguistic evidence for this explored in this thesis is based mainly on interpersonal systems of interaction and evaluation recently developed within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Iedema et al., 1994; Iedema, 1995, 2003, 2004; Martin, 2000a, 2003c; White, 1998, 2004; Martin and Rose, 2003; Macken-Horarik and Martin, 2003; Martin and White, 2005). Within interaction, the thesis draws on work dealing with the metaphorical realisations of commands in a bureaucratic administration context. Evaluation is based on appraisal theory, which is concerned with the linguistic inflection of the subjective attitudes of writers, and also their evaluative expressions and intersubjective positioning. In order to explore the use of interpersonal resources from a perspective of writer and reader interaction, this study incorporates a social interactive model derived from ‘Interaction in writing’ alongside Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986) dialogic literacy. Under this broad interdisciplinary approach, the interpersonal aspects in APEs are examined from three main perspectives: Interactive (schematic structures), Interactional (the metaphorical realisation of commands), and InterPERSONAL meanings (the three main appraisal systems: ATTITUDE, ENGAGEMENT, and GRADUATION). The sample comprised six overseas students and six Australian-born native English speakers. They were all participants in the English for Academic Purposes class in the Modern Language Program offered by a regional university in southern New South Wales. These students were required to write APEs as a part of their course. Discourse analysis was applied to the essays at the genre, discourse semantic and the lexico-grammatical levels. Interviews were undertaken with markers to identify the relationship between text analysis results and markers’ comments on the essays and the grades. The results indicated that students’ use of interpersonal resources is a good indicator for judging quality of APEs. The analysis reveals significant differences in the extent to which HGEs are interactive by showing awareness of audience in argument structure, and making interactional choices focusing on command and interPERSONAL choices of appraisal systems. These differences are reflected in the use both of strategies of involvement by being interactional, and strategies displaying distance by being formal. The differences are also reflected in the presentation of personal opinions by being evaluative and of intersubjective claims supported by evidence. While there were no significant differences between the EAS and ABS writers in terms of the argument structure, ABS texts are more interactional, having a high degree of authority and conviction characterised by a formal tone. ABS writers also display a stronger voice through frequent exploitation of GRADUATION resources of appraisal. Overall, it can be said that while EAS students display problems with raising their own voices in argument, ABS students display problems in supporting persuasion. Educational implications for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing curriculum design include the desirability of enhancing a context-sensitive approach in writing, raising audience awareness of language teachers in relation to the interpersonal use of English, and promoting the dialogic nature of argument by reconciling individual creativity with social voices and community conventions.