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国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

With increasing challenges from international competition and domestic demands for a technologically literate workforce, pressure is growing on the educational system to produce students that are literate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Integrative STEM education utilizes design-based pedagogical approaches to teach science/math content and practices concurrently with technology/engineering content and practices (Wells & Ernst, 2012, para. 2). The discipline of technology education has traditionally implemented design-based pedagogical approaches. However, the discipline has not demonstrated through empirical research that its existence and pedagogies are beneficial to student learning and cognition (Lewis, 1999, 2006; Petrina, 1998; Wells, 2008, 2010; Zuga, 1994, 1997, 2001). The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that the technological design-based approach to teaching biotechnology literacy supports students' connections of science and technology concepts. Grounded in Ausubel's (1968) theory on meaningful learning and Novak's (1980) advanced organizer of concept mapping, this study examined evidence of high school students' cognitive structural change throughout the technological design-based approach to instruction. At three key intervals throughout the technological design process, students developed concept maps to document their understanding of the biology and technology concepts presented within the instructional materials. Data for this study included the students' constructed concept maps. To analyze the concept maps, the researcher used Hay et al.'s (2008) three-method analysis for measuring the quality of students' learning, and a qualitative analysis. Data analysis across all four methods indicated that all participants experienced a varying degree of growth in biology, technology, and integrative concepts and connections. Collectively this study supports the notion that the technological design-based approach to instruction does indeed (1) encourage meaningful learning, and (2) increase students' use of higher order thinking indicated by their abilities to demonstrate their use of schematic and strategic knowledge within their concept maps. The results of this study have direct implications within the areas of Technology Education, Science Education, classroom practice, and concept mapping. The discussion and implications suggest the need to expand the research conducted within this study, and to improve the methods for concept mapping analysis. / Ph. D.

In today’s society, strategy becomes more important because of the ever fast changing environment. Companies all around the world set strategies, in order to grow and earn a profit, and wish for them to be implemented the way they were intended to be. Therefore, we believe it is important to investigate individuals’ perceptions of firm strategy. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to investigate individuals’ perception and understanding of firm strategy, and to see how these perceptions show similarities and differences. Our aim is also to see how cognitive mapping in relation to a strategic model can be helpful both for practitioners and researchers. Collection of primary data was done by interviewing five employees on different hierarchical levels in Company X that is active in multiple different business areas both in Sweden and abroad. The interviews were later analysed with the help of theories such as cognitive structures and maps, and Whittington’s (2001) generic perspective of strategy. This model recognizes four approaches to strategizing, namely Classical, Evolutionary, Systemic and Processual. The two former ones have a Profit-maximizing outcome, while the latter two are Pluralistic in outcome. During the analysis we found some similarities and differences. It was found that not all employees, individually or together, could be categorised under one specific approach. It is hypothesized that this could be because of the fact that they are at different levels and positions in the company, but they had similar perception on long-term planning as a firm strategy. The interviewees in Company X have shown different perceptions when relating to strategy. We come to the conclusion that it is important for managers and strategic decision makers that they understand and take the differences and similarities under consideration when delegating and injecting new strategies into a company. We think this could then help them to enhance an understanding of their own strategic organisation. Although case studies tend to be subjective, this is pointed out as the main limitation of the methodology. The researchers’ interpretation of the interviews lay as the foundation of the analysis and conclusion, and in order to make the study as objective as possible, clear and relevant selection of theories and literature was used to support the claims made in the thesis.

<p>In today’s society, strategy becomes more important because of the ever fast changing environment. Companies all around the world set strategies, in order to grow and earn a profit, and wish for them to be implemented the way they were intended to be. Therefore, we believe it is important to investigate individuals’ perceptions of firm strategy.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is therefore to investigate individuals’ perception and understanding of firm strategy, and to see how these perceptions show similarities and differences. Our aim is also to see how cognitive mapping in relation to a strategic model can be helpful both for practitioners and researchers.</p><p>Collection of primary data was done by interviewing five employees on different hierarchical levels in Company X that is active in multiple different business areas both in Sweden and abroad. The interviews were later analysed with the help of theories such as cognitive structures and maps, and Whittington’s (2001) generic perspective of strategy. This model recognizes four approaches to strategizing, namely Classical, Evolutionary, Systemic and Processual. The two former ones have a Profit-maximizing outcome, while the latter two are Pluralistic in outcome.</p><p>During the analysis we found some similarities and differences. It was found that not all employees, individually or together, could be categorised under one specific approach. It is hypothesized that this could be because of the fact that they are at different levels and positions in the company, but they had similar perception on long-term planning as a firm strategy.</p><p>The interviewees in Company X have shown different perceptions when relating to strategy. We come to the conclusion that it is important for managers and strategic decision makers that they understand and take the differences and similarities under consideration when delegating and injecting new strategies into a company. We think this could then help them to enhance an understanding of their own strategic organisation.</p><p>Although case studies tend to be subjective, this is pointed out as the main limitation of the methodology. The researchers’ interpretation of the interviews lay as the foundation of the analysis and conclusion, and in order to make the study as objective as possible, clear and relevant selection of theories and literature was used to support the claims made in the thesis.</p>

The ability to make sense of a wide array of stimuli presupposes the human tendency to organize information in a meaningful way. Efforts to assess the degree to which students organize information meaningfully have been hampered by several factors including the idiosyncratic way in which individuals represent their knowledge either with words or visually. Concept maps have been used as tools by researchers and educators alike to assist students in understanding the conceptual interrelationships within a subject domain. One concept-map assessment in particular known as the construct-a-map task has shown great promise in facilitating reliable and valid inferences from student concept-map ratings. With all of its promise, however, the construct-a-map task is burdened with several rating difficulties. One challenge in particular is that no published rubric has been developed that accounts for the degree to which individual propositions are important to an understanding of the overall topic or theme of the map. This study represents an attempt to examine the psychometric properties of two construct-a-map tasks designed to overcome in part this rating difficulty. The reliability of the concept-map ratings was calculated using a person-by-rater-by-occasion fully crossed design. This design made it possible to use generalizability theory to identify and estimate the variance in the ratings contributed by the three factors mentioned, the interaction effects, and unexplained error. The criterion validity of the concept-map ratings was examined by computing Pearson correlations between concept-map and essay ratings and concept-map and interview transcript ratings. The generalizability coefficients for student mean ratings were moderate to very high: .73 and .94 for the first concept-mapping task and .74 and .87 for the second concept-mapping task. A relatively large percentage of the rating variability was contributed by the object of measurement. Both tasks correlated highly with essay and interview ratings: .62 to .81.

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This experimental study investigates the connotative meaning of the concept “cash”, as it relates to the cash flow statement, held by the three key parties to the accounting communication process: preparers, auditors and users. Concerns raised in the accounting profession regarding the susceptibility of the cash flow statement to manipulation, coupled with the recent introduction of NZ IAS 7 (cash flow statement) provide the motivation for investigating the potential for miscommunication (either intentional or unintentional) between the main parties to the financial reporting process. The study investigates inter and intra group differences in measured connotative meaning of the old and new definitions of “cash”, and determines the effect of connotative meaning on decision outcomes. Further, the study considers the overall quality of the two definitions, as perceived by the three financial reporting groups. Three key findings are indicated. The first is that the three financial reporting groups do not share the same cognitive structure in which the meaning of the concept “cash” is held. An important implication is that comparisons between the connotative meanings held by the three financial reporting groups cannot be validly made. Secondly, significant differences in the measured meaning were observed across the two definitions within each of the three subject groups. Thirdly, the decision outcomes for each of the three subject groups were significantly different under the two definitions. Also there was some evidence that the differences in the decision outcomes were linked to the differences in the measured connotative meaning. These results raised several concerns regarding the potential for miscommunication between the three key parties to the accounting communication process and highlighted the importance of standard-setters assessing the effect on connotative meaning of possible changes in wording to key concepts within the cash flow statement.

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