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The focus of this thesis is the bioremediation of oil impacted sites. Chapter 3 considered “Oil Lakes” in Kuwait, a consequence of the First Gulf War, which pose a considerable human and environmental hazard.  The data revealed that across even a small “Oil Lake”, the hydrocarbon concentration varied significantly and that hydrocarbon concentration was the most important descriptor for determining the rate of remediation.  Effective and sustainable bioremediation strategy must be led by the focused use of underpinning empirical data and its application in a predictive capacity. Chapter 4 considered a similar integrated approach to assess the bioremediation potential of historically contaminated soils from Kuwait.  The analyses reveal that an optimised combination of chemical and biological characterisation were necessary to monitor processes involved in remediation of heavily weathered oil contaminated soils.  A predictive equation derived from empirical chemical and biological data could enhance certainty in the adoption of remedial strategies. Chapter 5 focussed on the toxicity of fractionated crude oils undergoing remediation. Chapter 6 compared a full scale trial of two remediation strategies done on the same site contaminated with bunker-fuel.  This trial reveals the benefit of developing risk and hazard-based approaches in defining endpoint bioremediation of heavy hydrocarbons when engineered biopile or window are proposed as treatment option. Bioremediation, to be effectively applied requires a considerably intense monitoring regime.  For freshly contaminated soils, there is sound justification for applying a predictive capacity but as the samples age, this becomes less certain.  New technologies are evolving which when properly applied and interpreted in the correct context may enhance our ability to sustainably manage hydrocarbon bioremediation.

This study explored the formative learning cycle's ability to increase student confidence to create quality homework. Student from a socio-economically diverse school district in Western Pennsylvania reported their confidence levels on homework production on two surveys. The first survey provided a rapid response at the end of lessons taught using the formative learning cycle. The second survey was completed at the end of the study window. The results from these surveys indicate a positive correlation between the formative learning cycle's ability to increase self-regulation processes to confidently produce quality homework. / School of Education; / Educational Studies (General Education) / EdD; / Dissertation;

This thesis is about young students’ writing in school mathematics and the ways in which this writing is designed, interpreted and understood. Students’ communication can act as a source from which teachers can make inferences regarding students’ mathematical knowledge and understanding. In mathematics education previous research indicates that teachers assume that the process of interpreting and judging students’ writing is unproblematic. The relationship between what students’ write, and what they know or understand, is theoretical as well as empirical. In an era of increased focus on assessment and measurement in education it is necessary for teachers to know more about the relationship between communication and achievement. To add to this knowledge, the thesis has adopted a broad approach, and the thesis consists of four studies. The aim of these studies is to reach a deep understanding of writing in school mathematics. Such an understanding is dependent on examining different aspects of writing. The four studies together examine how the concept of communication is described in authoritative texts, how students’ writing is viewed by teachers and how students make use of different communicational resources in their writing. The results of the four studies indicate that students’ writing is more complex than is acknowledged by teachers and authoritative texts in mathematics education. Results point to a sophistication in students’ approach to the merging of the two functions of writing, writing for oneself and writing for others. Results also suggest that students attend, to various extents, to questions regarding how, what and for whom they are writing in school mathematics. The relationship between writing and achievement is dependent on students’ ability to have their writing reflect their knowledge and on teachers’ thorough knowledge of the different features of writing and their awareness of its complexity. From a communicational perspective the ability to communicate [in writing] in mathematics can and should be distinguished from other mathematical abilities. By acknowledging that mathematical communication integrates mathematical language and natural language, teachers have an opportunity to turn writing in mathematics into an object of learning. This offers teachers the potential to add to their assessment literacy and offers students the potential to develop their communicational ability in order to write in a way that better reflects their mathematical knowledge.

Abstract artikkel 1 Subjective well-being (SWB) is an upcoming concept that has caught the attention of the scientific community and society in general. Although much has been learned about the nature of “happiness” both the definition and measurements are still a work in progress. The current paper aimed to examine how global subjective well-being best can be measured based in the current theoretical understanding of the definition and assessment methods. SWB is by Diener (2009) considered to have three main components: positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction. The concept is complex with many interconnecting dimensions and correlates. The choice of SWB measurement method or instrument should be based on an understanding of the nature of SWB in addition to the study’s design and purpose. Self-report measures are the most utilized and generally shows good psychometric properties. This paper primarily recommends using the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffin 1985) combined with Scale of Positive And Negative Experience (SPANE; Diener et al. 2009) to measure SWB. Abstract artikkel 2 The interest and knowledge of subjective well-being (SWB) and its applicability has the latest decades grown both socially and scientifically. Assessment instruments validated for different languages and cultures can assist in the further development of the SWB concept as well as provide a base for monitoring communities’ fluctuations in SWB levels and operate as a social indicator index. Objective: The following study aimed at translating and validating four acknowledged SWB instruments on a Norwegian sample. Participants: Self-completion questionnaires were administered to convenience samples of senior citizens and university students in Trondheim, Norway. n = 254, 154 females, age 19-96. Design: Psychometric properties such as internal consistency, normative data, factorial structure and convergence validity were examined using independent sample t-tests and principal component factor analyses.  Results and conclusions: The findings were overall consistent with previous findings. Overall no major divergences from the scales established psychometric standards were found which suggests that the questionnaires are fit for use on Norwegian samples. Furthermore, the study supports the scales as having good psychometric properties.

The present theoretical-empirical thesis deals with the comparison of three types of interpreting performance assessment: teacher assessment, evaluation by other students in the group (peer assessment) and self-assessment of the student interpreter. The theoretical part is a review of existing literature on general approaches to the different types of assessment, their importance in the acquisition of interpreting skills, recommended methods of interpreting performance assessment and their use in the training of consecutive interpreting. The empirical part of the thesis is a qualitative longitudinal study, involving students of the third and therefore the final year of the bachelor's degree programme in translation- interpreting (intercultural communication). The aim of the thesis is to identify the similarities and differences between different types of assessment and how the assessment developed over the period of the research. The study also examines how the self-assessment and peer evaluation of students studying interpreting only in the English-Czech combination differ from those of students who study interpreting of English in combination with another foreign language, and thus attend twice the number of practical interpretation seminars. KEY WORDS teacher assessment, peer assessment,...

Ph.D. (Nursing Education)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Health Sciences, 2012 / The sciences of restorative nursing are unknown in South Africa, leaving patients with restorative needs with rather unpredictable outcomes. This study investigated the validity of four prospective nursing scales to be used for patients requiring nursing where the focus is to improve their functionality. Such patients are usually found in sub- and non-acute nursing units and suffering with chronic debilitating diseases, mental illness or recovering from trauma. Typically they are in need of rehabilitation, palliative care, geriatric services or long-term care to restore or maintain their functional independence. Inspired by the theories of nursing pioneers such as Florence Nightingale, the definitive nurse who was also an astute healthcare reform statistician, as well as Ida Jean Orlando, better known as the originator of the nursing process, the researcher, a general medical practitioner, has explored the intuitive knowledge of experienced nurses to document the links between their observations, interpretations and predictions of patient functioning. This information was used to develop four interrelated nursing scales to be used routinely by nurses to provide raw patient scores on patient functional changes. As nursing intuition was used to develop the measures, the working hypothesis was that the scales are considered valid. Therefore, the approach towards the study was deductive in nature, seeking the evidence to confirm this assumption. As the purpose of the study was to offer nurses useful scales to provide validated empirical evidence of human functional status, the research question was how scientific evidence can be used to conclude that these four scales have indeed the integrity to deliver a measurement function to the nurses. The researcher’s hypothesis of validating routine nursing measures is supported by two concepts: nursing utility and constructs validity. If nursing utility fail, construct validity is of no value to the nursing profession. With this in mind, the v study objectives were to first validate nursing utility using a qualitative design to collect descriptive data from nurses who have implemented the scales. Once positive findings were reported on the usefulness of the scales to the nursing profession, then construct validity was explored using the Rasch measurement model to qualitatively analyse the scale’s raw data collected in various sub- and non-acute nursing facilities. One scale was discarded, and three showed good to excellent results on both utility and construct validity. It has provided the restorative nursing sciences with a methodology to routinely collect patient-based empirical evidence for parametric analysis. In so doing, it delivered the missing link in Orlando’s nursing process theory; it also confirmed Nightingale’s theory that healthcare evidence provided routinely by nurse is the stepping stone for healthcare reform, provided it is useful, meaningful and valid. The ultimate beneficiaries of this new knowledge are patients who previously would have had unpredictable outcomes resulting in a poor prognosis.

The field of psychological assessment in South African schools faces many challenges at present. To be able to meaningfully respond to these challenges, it was important to gain an understanding of how psychological assessment is being perceived by educators, whether as being necessary (or not), in their workplace. The study aimed to gather information and generate knowledge in order to provide some pointers about the educators’ perceived use of psychological assessment measures. Thereafter, analyse their perceptions in terms of these assessments. It was a mixed study using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The proposed sample was seventy-five (n = 75) educators from former model-c and township schools. Data was collected through the use of a self-response questionnaire (quantitative) and then used to identify themes. The identified themes were then used for discussion in focus group interviews (qualitative). Descriptive and thematic content analysis were used for the interpretation of the research data and triangulation thereof.

This dissertation study examined the predictive validity of alphabetic knowledge and phonemic awareness assessments on word reading fluency. The participants were approximately 900 kindergarten students from a suburban school district in Oregon. The study used extant curriculum-based measure (CBM) reading assessment data collected during the 2013-2014 school year to examine the predictive validity of measures of letter naming fluency (LN), letter sound fluency (LS), and phoneme segmentation fluency (PS) on word reading fluency (WRF). Linear regression was employed to examine the amount of variance that early reading skills (LN, LS, and PS), measured during the fall and winter, explained in WRF measured in the spring of kindergarten. The relation of non-performance demographic data to student spring WRF was also examined. Results of this research are intended to inform practitioners implementing early reading instruction and interventions through an equity lens.

Situations are important in relation to behavior and personality (Lewin, 1946, 1951; Ross & Nisbett, 1991; Zimbardo, 2007). However, historical studies of situations have suffered from disagreement about their structure. The Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ: Wagerman & Funder, 2009) was developed as a tool to comprehensively measure situation characteristics. Because the RSQ is still relatively new, the factor structure of the RSQ has yet to be examined. Identifying the factor structure of the RSQ is important in order to provide an interpretation of the dimensions of situations and to make the first step in creating a smaller measure of situation characteristics that takes less time for participants to complete. Using a variety of factor extraction methods, 9 factors appeared consistently: Adversity, Social Negativity, Obligation, Cognitive/Intellectual, Mate Attraction, Sensuous, Positivity, and Competition. This study provides in-depth insight into the characteristics of situations based on a quantitative measure from an adult sample. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection