As the requirements for completion of a high school diploma and the standards set locally and nationally take shifts towards more rigorous coverage of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and applicability to the work place, public school curricula must evolve. This report focuses on an urban school district in Texas in the midst of transitioning towards using (i) assessments based on use of STEM principles in “authentic” applications and (ii) product-based evaluations dubbed performance tasks. Physics instructors within the district provided their experiences in the implementation process as well as their views on the authenticity of the tasks they are urged to use. The information from the physics teachers was used as the basis for identifying areas for professional training needed to support instructors in the use of authentic assessments, whether prescribed or instructor-developed. / text

Computer Science fields have a difficult time engaging underrepresented populations such as African Americans and women. EarSketch is an approach to engage these student through authentic STEAM learning involving computational music remixing. EarSketch has been used in several pilot studies. In this study, students from one pilot study participated in a focus group to understand the effectiveness of EarSketch in engaging underrepresented minorities. Qualitative analysis shows a variety of contributing factors in engagement such as motivation, confidence, identity, conceptualization, and creativity.

The thesis reviews recent and current literature on leadership, and in particular on distributed leadership and complexity leadership theories. It describes my research into the factors affecting the success of transition towards a more distributed approach to leadership in two cases: one is a large UK private company and the other is a large UK university. The longitudinal research was conducted over the period from 2011 to 2013, using repeated interviews at senior and middle management levels, document analysis and observation to collect a rich set of data about both cases. I used a template to help analyse the data from each case. Through subsequent cross-case analysis the thesis identifies certain factors that influence the degree of success in making the transition to a distributed form of leadership, which involves not only devolved decision making but also increased levels of collaboration and organisational agility, which are key concerns of leaders of large organisations according to recent research across top 250 companies in the UK (Ipsos MORI, 2015: 5). The conclusion from my research is a framework called connected leadership, which describes the critical success factors and how they inter-relate. The first factor is having senior leadership committed to being role models, which is a pre-requisite for successful transition. There are then two factors that lay a strong foundation for the transition, namely having a shared organisational purpose and vison and values-based approach to leadership behaviour. Finally there are factors that then make distributed leadership work in practice: consistently devolved decision making, an emphasis on collaborative achievement, and agility and learning. The thesis provides practitioners with insight at both the organisational and leadership role levels, based on the connected leadership model. At the organisational level, I have derived from the research certain indicators for each factor that help diagnose and plan for the introduction of a distributed leadership approach. At the leadership role level the framework provides a helpful guide to developing leadership capability and role definition. The connected leadership model represents a coherent guide for leaders to use as a template for successful transition to a more distributed, collaborative and agile organisation, which is able to compete effectively in the 21st century networked society. Academically, this thesis provides a synthesis of distributed and complexity leadership theories, as well as drawing on authentic leadership theory, in order to understand the organisational and human dynamics that influence the transition to a more distributed leadership approach. Both cases are large organisations, which means that the factor framework provides relevant insight into how distributed leadership can be effective in large and relatively complex organisations.

Very little research focuses on a follower's perception of leadership. Furthermore, black African female employees' perception of a male leader's botho and authentic leadership style in Botswana parastatals has never been researched. Research has made it evident that leadership not only needs to be viewed from a leader-centric perspective but a follower-centric perspective should also be taken into consideration. Botho and authenticity are phenomena that are unique to a specific context. The conundrum to apprehend is how this influences a leader. This study thus aimed to identify how botho and authentic leadership is perceived and experienced by black African female employees, to explore whether male leaders are perceived to possess botho and authentic leadership styles, and enquire how important black African female employees regard botho and authentic leadership styles in male leaders. The study adopted a qualitative, grounded theory methodological approach to investigate the research purpose. Unstructured and semi-structured interviews were used to investigate the particular focus area. The data collection was split into two phases. Phase one comprised of focus groups, followed by phase two with individual interviews. A sample consisting of seven black African female employees from three parastatals in Botswana was used. This sample was selected as they had experience in the field of interest. The discussions were recorded and transcribed prior to being captured in Excel. Thematic coding was adopted to scrutinise the data. The findings of the study indicated that the followers would love for their opinions to be taken into consideration more. Facets mostly illuminated by the participants included the need for better communication, transparency and guidance. Respect and compassion were found to be the cornerstone of botho. Social awareness and self-awareness were found to be the grounding factors to being an authentic leader. Furthermore, it was found that cultural context is evidently an important factor to consider when approaching leadership. Due to the subjective nature of the study, the researcher could not generalise the findings. The participants' responses were based on their social construction and experiences. Future research should focus on developing constructs that participants regard as vital when measuring botho and authenticity. Developing a measurement tool that is valid and reliable for botho and authentic leadership whilst taking into consideration the cultural context would be beneficial to the development of the constructs. / Mini Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Human Resource Management / MCom / Unrestricted

Methodology of interpretation of multilingual legislation Abstract The main purpose of this thesis is to analyze selected cases of in- terpretation of the multilingual legislation. Author identifies the basic prin- ciples of interpretation that appear in these cases. They are subsequently used to describe the general procedures of the multilingual interpretation and to solve problems related to it so that the most appropriate meaning of the text could be found. The thesis is divided into four basic parts. The first part is devoted to the historical excursion and description of multilingualism at the territories of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown in the past. The legislation on language law between 1620 and the beginning of the First World War in the lands of the Bohemian Crown is described with the use of historical literature. The second chapter of this part is devoted to the study of the cases of inter- pretation of the historical legal texts by the contemporary courts. The basic case law of the relevant courts of the Czech Republic is summarized and the general prerequisites for the successful interpretation are emphasized. The second part deals with international treaties of public law. Although these texts are not to be supposed legal acts in a formal sense, international treaties between States or with...

This quantitative research was a descriptive, statistical analysis that answered the question: "How does authentic leadership practices and the leader's quality of communication relate to organizational commitment?" / Doctor of Philosophy / Leadership practices / Leadership history / Leadership diversity / Leadership Communication / Organizational commitment / Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire / Organizational Commitment Instrument / Authentic Leadership Questionnaire.

Modern Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) contain sophisticated and valuable electronic components, and this makes them a prime target for counterfeiting. In this thesis, we consider a method to test if a PCB is genuine. One high-level solution is to use a secret identifier of the board, together with a cryptographic authentication protocol. We describe a mechanism that authenticates all major components of PCB as part of attesting the PCB. Our authentication protocol constructs the fingerprint of PCB by extracting hardware fingerprint from the components on PCB and cryptographically combining the fingerprints. Fingerprints from each component on PCB are developed using Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF). In this thesis, we present a PUF based authentication protocol for remote integrity checking using multiple PUF component level identifiers. We address the design on 3 different abstraction levels. 1)Hardware Level, 2)Hardware Integration level, 3)Protocol level. On the hardware level, we propose an approach to develop PUF from flash memory component on the device. At the hardware Integration level, we discuss a hardware solution for implementing a trustworthy PUF based authentication. We present a prototype of the PUF based authentication protocol on an FPGA board via network sockets. / Master of Science

Narratives are used to explore personal beliefs and assumptions about caring in one's personal and professional life. This dissertation recognizes the process of caring is interpretative and evolves from personal experience. I address issues of caring within the practice of nursing and nursing education from a feminist perspective. I begin with my own personal narrative in which I seek to uncover my own caring essence as a basis for inquiring into issues of caring and feminism in nursing education. Theoretical constructs from educational nursing and feminist literature are explored to develop a personal model of caring within nursing education. Nursing students must be educated within a caring learning environment so they can develop a caring stance with patients. Dialogue within teacher-student interaction is at the center of such an environment. This dialogue encourages authentic presence with students that leads to an intuitive knowing. Nursing students need to learn to let their intuitive sense guide the use of technology. Of course, that means educating their intuitions. Autobiographical vignettes are used to reflect on the experience of a nurse educator as caring guides teaching-learning activities in a nursing curriculum. Caring within clinical teaching encourages reflection and increases self-awareness. Clinical teaching is seen as an opportunity to unite theory and practice. It encourages students to be receptive to patients and places value on contextual experiences. An examination of contextual experience shows that care is relational and encourages connections with others. Care is sustained through relationships that give voice to nursing students and patients. This process of giving voice makes caring more visible to others. This visibility allows nurses to celebrate caring occasions and validates worth of caring in nursing. Caring practices within nursing education help students recognize the power within themselves to institute change. Nurse educators must encourage students to care for themselves. This process will help them stay in touch with what they need as individuals as they provide care to others. / Ph. D.

This thesis aimed to explore the coping strategies of leaders in situations in which their authenticity is put out of balance. Specifically, this means that this thesis describes the different actions shown by the leaders in order to deal with these particular situations. The literature suggests that leaders either stay with their own values and try to persuade them to the followers (Eagly 2005) or adapt to the group values and avoid showing damaging emotions (Gardner et al. 2005). As expected, this thesis shows that the leaders’ behavior does not simply fit into one group or the other. Instead, this research found that there are more nuances in how leaders respond to situations in which their values are challenged. The first action taken by leaders consists of learning, during which leaders discover and try to make sense of the new environment. Subsequently, roughly five categories of actions could be distinguished from the data. Leaders tend to adapt to small differences, adapt to large differences, avoid relationships, try to change followers or break relationships. Although these are five clearly defined categories, this does not imply that one leader only adopts one kind of strategy. This research found that the kind of strategy chosen by the leader highly depends on the conditions surrounding the leader. The coping strategy chosen has an effect on the relationship between the leader and the followers, and the leader’s emotions. Furthermore, it should be noted that in this research it is stated that leaders choose or decide upon certain actions leading from conditions; this does mean that the decision for actions can be taken both intentionally or unconsciously.

This research concerns itself with the effects of authentic leadership and a positive organisational context. Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May and Walumbwa’s (2005) authentic leader and follower development model suggests that authentic leadership within a positive organisational context leads to increased authentic followership, which in turn influences positive follower outcomes, and finally leads to sustainable and veritable organisational performance. A research contextual framework, based on Gardner et al.’s (2005) model, is developed with one significant change being the repositioning of a positive organisational context as a relatively more significant construct in the development of authentic followership. The research contextual framework and in particular the correlations between the various constructs are tested. This is performed through a quantitative study based on the completion of a research questionnaire by employees at four South African based services companies. In addition to a general testing of the various correlations, the role of a positive organisational context is specifically investigated in order to shed light on which model better reflects the authentic leadership development process: Gardner et al.’s (2005) model or the research contextual framework. It is also intended that this research will provide insights into whether general authentic leadership theory can be generalised to a South African context. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted