This study investigated approaches to studying, intellectual developments, and metacognitive skills of general chemistry students enrolled for the spring 2011 semester at a single campus of a multi-campus community college. the three instruments used were the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST), the Learning Environment Preferences (LEP), and the Executive Process Questionnaire (EPQ). the subjects were 138 students enrolled in either general chemistry 1 or 2. the results revealed that the preferred approach to study was the strategic approach. the intellectual development of the students was predominantly Perry’s position 2 (dualist) in transition to position 3 (multiplicity). Correlation statistics revealed that deep approach to studying is related to effective employment of metacognitive skills. Students with a deep approach to studying were likely to utilize effective metacognitive skills. Students with a surface approach to studying used no metacognitive skills or ineffective metacognitive skills. Multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted to ascertain which of the three variables, namely approaches to studying, ability to metacognate, or level of intellectual development, was the most salient in predicting the success of general chemistry students. No single variable was found to predict students’ success in general chemistry classes; however, a surface approach to studying predisposes general chemistry students to fail. the implication of this study is that students’ study approaches, intellectual developments, and metacognitive skills are requisite information to enable instructional remediation early in the semester.

Scholars in the peace and conflict field oftentimes argue that peace is somewhat underconceptualised. The Varieties of Peace network has made a substantial effort in furthering the conceptualisation of peace by creating a comprehensive framework, theorising peace as three different approaches: situational, relational and ideational. In this thesis, I explored how this framework can be applied in an empirical context and how the approaches relate to each other; testing the internal validity and assumptions of the framework. By shifting the common focus of peace from stability to a dynamic process of change, I studied how peace changes in an empirical context that is typically understood as static: frozen conflicts. In a case study on Abkhazia from 1994-2008, I used process-tracing to study how the three approaches relate to each other, either harmoniously or with dissonance, and to describe the changes of peace in a frozen conflict. I conclude that the Varieties of Peace framework has proven to be useful when studying the dynamics of peace and how it changes in a post-conflict setting. It has been especially useful in capturing the cyclical dynamic of change in a frozen conflict. The framework has comparative and comprehensive advantages in studying the peace as a complex, dynamic process, but inhibits some issues regarding the trade-off between complexity and parsimony and concerning the internal validity. Further research is needed in order to utilise its full potential as a framework that can be used to systematically study the varieties of peace in the world.