Nesta pesquisa foram analisados dois cursos de formação continuada de professores de Ciências desenvolvidos no ano de 2006 pela Universidade de São Paulo - Campus Ribeirão Preto, vinculados ao Programa \"Teia do Saber\" da Secretaria de Estado da Educação de São Paulo. Os conceitos de formação e ambiente foram estudados e aprofundados, buscando-se reconhecer as diferentes dimensões atribuídas a esses dois termos na literatura educacional. Foram identificadas as concepções de formação e ambiente expressas no Projeto Básico da Secretaria de Educação, no projeto político-pedagógico dos cursos desenvolvidos pela Universidade, nos materiais instrucionais do curso e nas produções finais dos professores cursistas. A análise de todo o material foi conduzida por meio de uma abordagem qualitativa e quantitativa, com o uso de alguns elementos provenientes da metodologia de análise do conteúdo. Foram utilizados dois tipos de unidade de análise: a de registro e a de contexto. Após a organização dos dados, que envolveu leitura e releitura dos materiais analisados, foram construídas categorias de análise, relacionando-as a categorias pré-definidas, encontradas na literatura. Como resultado da pesquisa, observou-se a predominância de uma orientação tecnológica no Projeto Básico do Programa Teia do Saber e a predominância de uma orientação acadêmica nos projetos político-pedagógicos dos cursos analisados. Nas apostilas dos cursos prevaleceu a orientação acadêmica com abordagem compreensiva, enquanto que nas produções dos professores, prevaleceu uma orientação prática reflexiva. As concepções de ambiente, ausentes no Projeto Básico e no Projeto Político-Pedagógico dos cursos, mostraram-se presentes nas produções dos professores cursistas. O \"ambiente\" foi concebido associado à ideia de recurso ou problema, caracterizando uma formação ambiental do tipo antropocêntrica e de caráter prático e reflexivo, muito distante de uma formação ambiental crítica e emancipatória, desejada para um processo de formação continuada de professores. / This research analyzed two continuing education courses for science teachers developed in 2006 by the University of Sao Paulo - Campus Ribeirão Preto, linked to the Program \"Web of Knowledge\" of the Education Department of Sao Paulo. The concepts of training and environment have been studied and investigated, trying to recognize the different dimensions assigned to these two terms in the educational literature. Training approaches and concepts of environment were evaluated considering as documents: the Basic Project of the Education Department, the political-pedagogic projects developed by the University, the instructional materials of the courses and the final productions of participating teachers. The analysis of all material was carried out using a qualitative and quantitative approach and some elements from the content analysis methodology. We used two types of analysis units: sampling and context. After organizing the data, which involved reading and rereading of the material analyzed, categories of analysis were constructed, relating them to previously defined categories found in the literature. As a result of the research, it was observed the predominance of a technological approach in Basic Project as well as the predominance of a academic approach in political-pedagogic projects of the courses analyzed. The analysis of the instructional materials shows the prevalence of an comprehensive academic approach, while the analysis of the production of teachers shows the prevalence of a reflective practice approach. The concepts of environment, absent in booth Basic Project and political-pedagogic projects, were identified in the productions of the participating teachers. In that productions, the \"environment\" has been designed assuming the idea of resources or problem which configures an environmental education with anthropocentric, practical and reflexive characteristics, far from the critical and emancipatory environmental training, as desired for a process of continuing education for teachers.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate some of the processes that contribute to the effective comprehension of text in an adult population. The thesis begins with an assessment of component skills that are of theoretical relevance to reading comprehension skill. Experiment One explored the relation between gist-based memory processes and reading comprehension skill. Weaknesses in semantic processing have been shown to contribute to comprehension difficulties both in childhood (e.g. Nation & Snowling, 1999), and adulthood (e.g. Perfetti, Yang & Schmalhoffer, 2007). Weekes, Hamilton, Oakhill & Holliday (2008) used the false memory (DRM) paradigm developed by Deese (1959); Roediger and McDermott (1995) to assess the relation between reading comprehension and memory processes in children. In the DRM, subjects memorise lists of semantically related words (e.g. bed, rest, awake) for later recall. During recall, it is typical to see intrusions of semantically related but non-presented items (e.g. ‘sleep' is often falsely recalled following presentation of the above). Weekes et al. (2008) found that children with comprehension difficulties produced fewer such intrusions than did good comprehenders, suggesting that poor comprehenders have difficulty extracting the central theme or ‘gist' from the word lists, a deficit that was attributed to weakness in semantic processing and memory. Experiment One demonstrated that this effect was not replicable in an adult population. Although there is evidence that deficits in semantic processing contribute to reading comprehension difficulties in adulthood, these appear to be too subtle to manifest themselves in the DRM paradigm. In Experiment Two, measures of vocabulary, word-level skills (orthography and decoding), working memory and verbal IQ were taken from a population of young adult readers. These measures were used as predictors of comprehension skill in multiple regression analyses. Moderate support for the Verbal Efficiency/Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti, 1985; 2007) was obtained, in that word-level skills and vocabulary size accounted for unique portions of variance in comprehension skill. Experiments Three and Four explored the processes involved in on-line reading comprehension and, specifically, in a comprehension task that demanded integration. In both experiments, subjects took part in a coherence judgement task (Ferstl, Guthke & von Cramon, 2002; Ferstl, 2006) in which they had to verify whether two sentences cohered with one another or not. Four conditions that resulted from crossing coherence and cohesion (i.e. the presence of a lexical connection), were used: Coherent and cohesive (where sentences cohered, and a cohesive tie made their coherence explicit); coherent and incohesive (where sentences cohered, but coherence had to be inferred on the basis of pragmatic information rather than lexical cohesion); incoherent and cohesive (where sentences that do not cohere were erroneously linked with a cohesive tie); and incoherent and incohesive (where sentences did not cohere, and were not erroneously linked with a cohesive tie). Typically, the paradigm elicits an interaction between coherence and cohesion in reading times for the second (target) sentence: Targets in coherent and cohesive trials are read more quickly than targets in coherent and incohesive trials; and targets in incoherent and incohesive trials are read more quickly than are targets in incoherent and cohesive trials. Experiment Three replicated this interaction, and demonstrated that variance in its size was predicted by working memory capacity, with high working memory readers showing larger interaction effect sizes than low capacity readers. The interaction was interpreted as a monitoring effect that was triggered by target sentences in the atypical conditions (i.e. incoherent and cohesive; coherent and incohesive). It was proposed that high capacity readers were better able to engage in this monitoring. Experiment Four sought to explore the semantic deficit hypothesis in relation to this effect, with the proposal that efficient semantic processes, rather than working memory capacity, contributed to variance in the size of the interaction. Performance on a semantic fluency task was found to predict unique variance in the size of the interaction effect, over and above that accounted for by working memory capacity. This finding suggests that the effect is better explained by semantic processing than by working memory capacity, and that the interaction may be better described as a semantic elaboration effect rather than a comprehension monitoring effect. The conclusion of this thesis is that reading comprehension in adult readers relies upon efficient and accurate lexical access, comprising both lower-level processes such as accurate word recognition and decoding skill, and higher-level processes of semantic elaboration and integration.

Low socioeconomic students represent a population in public schools which is underrepresented and underserved in the talented and gifted programs. Part of the problem may be due to teachers' and parents' abilities to recognize giftedness in economically disadvantaged potentially gifted students and to nominate them for a gifted screening.;The present study attempted to determine if a training program for teachers and parents would increase the valid referral rate of potentially gifted economically disadvantaged students. Teachers at one school received an oral presentation and written summation of economically disadvantaged potentially gifted student characteristics. Teachers at a second school received the written summation only, while third school served as the control.;Results indicate a significant improvement in the teachers' understanding and awareness of traditional, nontraditional, and parent/home characteristics in general. Teachers from the oral and written presentation group showed a significant improvement in their ability to accurately refer economically disadvantaged potentially gifted students following intervention.;Teachers and parents from the treatment schools referred more economically disadvantaged students following treatment than from the control school, although not to a significant degree. However, these students continued to have difficulty meeting the eligibility criteria of the gifted program requirements, resulting in few new students following the intervention.

Using period newspapers and books, mercantile correspondence, Spanish imperial archives, and the colonial records of the Caracas City Council, Consulado, and Venezuelan Intendancy, this dissertation highlights the enterprises of those who profited from sustaining the Spanish Empire in its frail and debilitated state. Whether they had prospered from or merely survived the commercial revolutions that shook the Atlantic World after 1789, all merchants and traders calculated the economic consequences of South American independence and encouraged their contemporaries to do so too.

As the shift in demographics and the aging population of the United States make their presence felt, colleges and universities throughout the country must address the question of supporting the goals of the non-traditional student in higher education. While it is difficult to characterize a "typical non-traditional student," it is important to analyze the role that certain demographic factors play in the student's decision to go to college.;We hypothesize that the non-traditional student's decision to attend college is influenced by several factors that, in broad, general terms, include family background characteristics, the student's demographic profile and aptitude, and external economic conditions and labor demand.;The influence of family background is incorporated in our model through variables that describe the environment in which a student has grown up. Parental educational attainment, in particular, serves as a proxy for the attitudes toward education that may have shaped the student's perceptions toward higher education. Other factors such as parental income, the father's Duncan socio-economic index, the number of siblings, and the birth order, describe the family's capacity to invest in higher education. In short, the factors hypothesized to influence student enrollment were indeed shown to have the predicted effects.;By understanding non-traditional students and what influences their enrollment decisions, we will have a better understanding of how to serve this growing segment of the population within higher education. In particular, by determining the type of institutions that these students enroll in, institutions themselves can be made more aware of the particular needs of these students so as to better able to meet them.

Thesis (M.A. (Social Work)) --University of Limpopo, 2018 / This paper examines factors militating against social workers’ endeavours to undertake postgraduate studies. The model of Maintaining Professional Competence was considered to guide the study with a sample of ten (10) participants who were all interviewed face-to-face in Driekop (Sekhukhune District), Limpopo Province (RSA). An interview guide was utilised in the foregoing. Content Thematic Analysis was used to make sense of the findings. The findings indicate that social workers’ aspirations to improve their qualifications are hampered by the following impediments: heavy workloads and family commitments; financial constraints due to meagre remuneration; lack of motivation and poor prestige of the profession fueled by little or no consideration of postgraduate qualifications by employers; and poor reading habits and lack of information on postgraduate sponsors. Despite the aforementioned barriers, social workers acknowledged the value of postgraduate education in their lives. Given these findings, the researcher recommends that: • Postgraduate qualifications in social work need to be incentivised. • Social work salaries need to be improved/commensurate with qualifications, and competitive incentives provided as well. • Social workers’ heavy workloads need to be reviewed. • Social workers need to make efforts to inculcate reading habits amongst themselves. • Social workers must strive to balance work and family commitments to make time for further studies. • Social workers as well as their employers should seek or source scholarships for post-graduate studies.

Several decades of research document a growing communication gap between older adults and younger generations, with retirees limiting the information they share with younger generations. This limitation is often due to older adults' low self-efficacy and technology as a communication distraction, a trend which has resulted in the loss of intellectual capital for younger generations. The purpose of the study was to understand and increase knowledge transfer between retirees and unrelated younger people in a rural Canadian community. Communication theory of identity and social cognitive theory provided the research frameworks. The research questions examined what knowledge retirees could pass down, retirees' reasons for sharing knowledge, and the community's influence on generational communication. A qualitative case study incorporated several data sources including in-depth semi-structured individual interviews and focus groups (N = 40), and an analysis of existing literature. Transcribed recordings and field note analysis using open coding and peer debrief review resulted in 5 emergent themes. Key findings indicated participants felt they had little or nothing to share despite a variety of life experiences, found communication success with nontechnology-based catalysts, and felt the community has closed social circles. Transferring identity during retirement was difficult for many participants, a finding which supported the resulting project: a retiree social transition workshop. These findings suggest that those approaching retirement may benefit from identity transition support from employment to retirement, resulting in increased well-being in retirement, increased self-efficacy and motivations, and improved knowledge transfer to younger generations.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of current education materials on changing maternal smoking attitudes. Children are affected by prenatal exposure to tobacco smoke. Although there are educational efforts to discourage pregnant women from smoking, the practice continues in a significant number of pregnancies. New materials, based on current research, were also evaluated for effectiveness. The theoretical framework for this study was adult learning theory presented by Knowles which makes the assumption that an individual is shaped by environmental systems, that adult learning is affected by previous knowledge they bring to the learning and that adults must have a motive for change. The study sought to determine if mothers are presented with the latest research-based information about the effects of smoking upon their unborn child what extent will it change the attitude of smoking while pregnant. The research design was a quantitative, one-group pretest-posttest design. The target individuals, mothers of young children in a large preschool program, were surveyed with direct questions that yielded measurable data. The surveys were validated by three early childhood experts. The data obtained through the participant surveys were analyzed using a paired an analysis of variance, comparing pretest-posttest responses and demographic variables. The results of the study showed the affect education had on changing the attitudes and that demographic characteristics did not influence that change. Through educating mothers on the long-term negative outcomes of smoking during pregnancy, this study's impact has changed attitudes and understanding and thereby changes their behavior. The result of this research provided educational information that may change the attitude towards mothers smoking during pregnancy.

The Job Corps program is designed to provide academic and vocational training to high school dropouts. It is assumed that in order for a young person to succeed in our society certain values, such as good health, education, job satisfaction, and desire to earn an acceptable pay, are required. Job Corps seeks to foster these values in the young men and women who enter this training program. To evaluate the effectiveness of this process a study was conducted regarding the effect of value clarification on male Job Corps enrollees. Over a ninety-day period an experimental group of twenty (20) enrollees received a treatment consisting of weekly individual and small group counseling sessions with a view to value clarification. A control group of twenty (20) was also established but without any treatment involved. These two groups were randomly selected from enrollees entering the Job Corps. Each participant was administered a pretest of three instruments purported to measure values: the F-Scale, the Willoughby Schedule, and the Ohio Work Values Inventory. At the end of the experimental period each participant remaining in the two groups was administered the same three instruments as a posttest. An analysis of the data revealed no statistical significance in the measurement of values by these instruments. It was determined that the sociological milieu of the participants created a high degree of hostility toward any form of testing. There were, however, certain trends in the posttest results of the experimental group that indicated a positive effect of the treatment in identifying values. At the conclusion of the study there were seventeen (17) participants remaining in the experimental group while only thirteen (13) participants remained in the control group. If one regards Job Corps enrollee length of stay as being increased by treatments in value clarification, this study seems to be significant. It is recommended that further study be done to identify and utilize in the Job Corps program those components in the treatment deemed to be most effective.

While the literature addressing the experiences of women in higher education is expanding, the experiences of single mothers in academia remains under-explored, despite single student mothers being the largest and fastest growing student demographic in higher education institutions. The role of single mothers who are pursuing degrees while raising children assumes crucial importance in helping forge means of support that are not government-dependent, as well as enabling single parent student mothers to role model educational pursuits and achievement of degrees as possibilities for dependents. Though college degrees can provide means of financial stability and immense social and professional benefits for sole provider single–parent homes, higher education can prove significantly detrimental to the quality of parenting single parent students provide dependent children, and can negatively impact personal health, financial and economic security, and interpersonal relationships from undertaking multiplicity of roles. This study seeks to understand the challenges, needs and experiences which occur at the intersection of parenthood and studenthood for single parent student mothers, as well as exploring ideologies of what it means to be a “good parent” or “good student.” It also inquires into student mothers’ perceptions of institutional support, which may impact matriculation or attrition and seeks to ascertain whether existing college policies need to be restructured to better support the degree-seeking endeavors of single parent student mothers. Study findings revealed key themes that emerged from the data: participant awareness of constrained and competing time demands; competing pressures to produce the identities of “good mom” and “good student”; guilt arising from missed event choices; outcomes of forced choice events; guilt over lower classroom performance and loss of class standing over missed choice events; participants’ perspectives of in-class support by teachers or professors; participants’ views regarding presence or absence of institutional support tailored to their specific needs as single parent student mothers; participants’ concerns regarding student debt; and categories of unmet need and support services that would assist single mothers to degree completion. Student parents’ discursive narratives indicated internal and external pressure to perform better as students and parents. Results revealed that nearly all respondents were forced on some occasions to choose between attendance at school and family events and being present at moments which would ensure optimal outcomes in both categories of competing identities. Conflict was experienced by respondents when student mothers were forced to shift into and out of various roles and identities which made it difficult for student parents to maximize performance in any central area of personal or professional achievement. Finally, student mothers’ discourses indicated they perceived others’ perceptions of their in-class performance, class standing, and professional trajectory of their achievement suffered when a forced choice situation resulted in their absence or tardy in a course, or inability to participate in a group class activity. Student mothers revealed through their narratives instructors who shamed them in front of classmates for having to bring a child to class, or castigated them for bringing a child to an inappropriate forum in which content was not perceived as child-suitable. Student mother narratives revealed resentment regarding being exhorted to choose between being a parent and being a student, when, in their opinions, they were forced to undertake both roles concurrently, without sufficient support to engage in either role. A key deficit identified in the narratives of student mothers was their perceived absence of institutional support which would enable them to achieve their educational goals and better provide for their families. Student parent narratives indicated struggles with concern about debt following graduation, and discourse revealed speculation regarding possible forced choices at some point in the future, if debt loads were too high to be supported by income, job insufficiency was experienced, or cost of living was too high to support both debt and living expenses.