Students entering academic programmes are frequently overwhelmed by the demand for extensive reading and comprehension of information derived from multiple and contrasting sources. This entails both careful and expeditious reading. The latter has been generally neglected in research and has not been the focus of many tests. Both types of reading were investigated in this study through a validation process of the summative English reading test for academic purposes taken at the end of the Foundation Programme in Oman. In particular, context validity was established through focusing on the interaction between the linguistic demands and task setting parameters and also the cognitive processes through which the students engaged with the test tasks. To establish the context validity of the test, this study adopted Khalifa and Weir’s (2009) model which not only embraced the complex and multi-componential nature of reading but also provided a workable validation framework. A multi-strategy approach was adopted. A natural experiment utilising Verbal Protocol Analysis captured the cognitive processes through which students engaged in reading. Automated analysis software and opinions of expert judges were used to compare test passages with text extracts drawn from first year academic courses. Correlation tests and factor analysis revealed these cognitive processes and established the robustness of the Khalifa and Weir (2009) model, which was thus validated in a second language context. Passages in the foundation tests were found to be generally representative of academic texts although certain features such as abstractness were under-represented.

Uma questão que se apresenta relevante, nesta tese, é que na maioria das vezes, o estudante, principalmente, o novato, demonstra grande dificuldade na aprendizagem baseada na resolução de problemas. Portanto, este precisa de monitoração, isto exige um apoio de entidades ou pessoas mais experientes. Percebe-se que, muitas vezes, por falta de domínio na área do conhecimento tratada, o estudante não analisa minuciosamente os dados do problema para poder conduzir objetivamente cada etapa de solução. Várias habilidades cognitivas são exigidas durante o processo de resolução de problemas, como por exemplo, codificação, comparação e combinação, componentes cognitivos significativos detectados em estudantes talentosos. A aprendizagem por meio do processo de resolução de problemas num ambiente online pode ampliar o pensamento crítico e aprimorar a tomada de decisão. Nesta pesquisa, foi criado um agente conversacional chamado Blaze, com o intuito de apoiar o estudante durante a aprendizagem autorregulada baseada na resolução de problemas. O agente foi desenvolvido com a linguagem de marcação AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), tendo sua base de conhecimento construída por meio da elicitação e representação dos processos cognitivos dos estudantes talentosos, alunos medalhistas da Olimpíada Brasileira de Matemática das Escolas Públicas. Utilizou-se a técnica de Raciocínio Baseado em Casos para permitir a recuperação e reutilização de experiências passadas dos estudantes talentosos. Foram realizados tantos experimentos com outros estudantes de graus de escolaridades distintos (2ª série do ensino médio, Licenciatura em Ciências e Licenciatura em Matemática) com o objetivo de investigar o engajamento e o aprimoramento das habilidades cognitivas destes durante a resolução dos problemas com a assistência do agente conversacional Blaze. Nestes experimentos, alguns estudantes interagiram com o agente Blaze durante o processo de resolução de problemas matemáticos, enquanto outros trabalharam sozinhos na resolução dos mesmos problemas. Os resultados obtidos nos experimentos permitiram verificar que o apoio do agente conversacional Blaze, no contexto de uma aprendizagem autorregulada durante a resolução de problemas, contribuiu qualitativamente para o aprimoramento de diversas habilidades cognitivas, como por exemplo, pensamento crítico, pensamento criativo, raciocínio lógico, bem como, permitiu o uso da metacognição. / A relevant issue raised in this paper is that most times students, especially inexperienced ones, show great difficulty for learning based on problem solving. Therefore, such students need to be monitored, which requires support from entities or more experienced people. Many times we see that due to students’ lack of mastery of the field of knowledge addressed, they fail to thoroughly analyze the problem data so as to objectively handle each stage of the solution. Several cognitive skills are required during the problem-solving process, such as coding, and comparison and combination, significant cognitive components detected in talented students. Learning by means of a problem-solving process in an online environment is capable of expanding critical thinking and improving students’ decision-making skills. In this research, a conversational agent we call Blaze was created in an effort to help students during their self-regulated, problem solving-based learning. The agent was developed via the AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), and its knowledge base was put together by means of eliciting and representing the cognitive processes of talented students, students who had won medals at the Brazilian Public School Mathematics Olympic Games. We used the Case-Based Reasoning technique to enable us to recover and reuse the talented students’ past experiences. Some other experiments were carried out with other students from various schooling levels (high school sophomores, and Science and Math undergrads) in order to look into those students’ engagement and improvement of their cognitive skills as they solved problems assisted by the Blaze conversational agent. In those experiments, some students interacted with the Blaze agent during the math problem-solving process, while other students worked alone on solving the same problems. The results obtained from the experiments allowed us to find that the support from the Blaze conversational agent, in the context of self-regulated learning during problem-solving, qualitatively helped the students improve their several cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, creative thinking, and logic reasoning, besides enabling the use of meta-cognition.

Cette thèse a un double objectif : évaluer la pertinence théorique du modèle du comportement planifié dans le contexte camerounais et valider un modèle intégratif d’explication de l’intention de s’engager dans des programmes de restructuration du travail informel. Nous sommes parti du constat d’un décalage entre la mobilisation croissante en vue de formaliser les activités informelles et leur paradoxale persistance dans les pays en voie de développement en général et au Cameroun en particulier. Il est question de comprendre pourquoi les acteurs du travail informel adhèrent peu aux politiques publiques en faveur dudit secteur.La littérature sur le travail informel l’aborde comme une catégorie d’analyse (Busso, 2005) et a tendance à expliquer l’échec des programmes par des causes exogènes, socioéconomiques et politiques. De ce fait, elle néglige l’importance de la dimension psychosociale dans l’implémentation des politiques publiques et l’accompagnement du changement. L’échec des programmes successifs initiés au Cameroun en vue de restructurer le travail informel justifie l’intérêt d’étudier les déterminants sociocognitifs de l’engagement dans lesdits programmes. En nous appuyant sur les modèles cognitivo-comportementaux, nous nous attendons à ce que les représentations, les croyances et les perceptions puissent permettre de mieux comprendre les intentions des acteurs du ce secteur à s’engager dans les programmes de restructuration dudit travail. Plusieurs approches théoriques sont ainsi mobilisés. La théorie des représentations sociales (Jodelet, 1996), la théorie du comportement planifié (Ajzen, 2015), la théorie du comportement orienté par un but (Locke & Latham, 2002) entre autres.Sept études ont été réalisées. La première explore les représentations sociales du travail informel et des programmes visant sa restructuration. Les six autres études sont empiriques. Elles explorent les liens entre représentations sociales, croyances et attitudes des travailleurs informels et des promoteurs d’unités de production informelles (études 2 et 3). Elles évaluent également la pertinence théorique du modèle du comportement planifié tout comme le rôle médiateur du désir (Bagozzi, 1992) entre l’intention comportementale et ses déterminants (études 4 et 5). Dans les études 6 et 7 sont évaluées l’impact de la connaissance, de la crédibilité perçue des programmes et des acteurs chargés de les piloter, ainsi que la perception de l’information sur l’intention. Les hypothèses sont vérifiées auprès de deux échantillons (travailleurs informels, N =337, et promoteurs d’unités de production informelle, N = 175, respectivement). Le modèle global est évalué.Les résultats confortent les hypothèses de la thèse. Malgré la pertinence du modèle du comportement planifié dans l’explication de l’intention de s’engager dans les programmes, l’intégration de variables nouvelles dans un modèle intégratif permet d’améliorer de façon significative la variance expliquée de l’intention. En effet, cette variance passe de 52.40% à 76% chez les travailleurs informels et de 44% à 78.30% chez les promoteurs d’unités de production informelle avec la prise en compte de ces variables supplémentaires. Par ailleurs, les résultats montrent que la connaissance des programmes joue un rôle prépondérant non seulement dans l’explication de l’intention, mais également de l’attitude. Ces résultats vont dans le sens des travaux antérieurs (Radovic & Hasking, 2013). La crédibilité perçue des programmes apparait aussi comme un déterminant majeur de l’intention chez les travailleurs informels alors qu’elle l’est moins chez les promoteurs d’UPI. Chez ces derniers, on note un effet élevé de la perception de l’information sur l’intention de s’engager dans les programmes de restructuration du travail informel. Ces résultats sont aussi consonants avec la littérature (Lunemberg, 2011) qui soutient que le désir est le déterminant proximal de l’intention. / This thesis has a double objective: to evaluate the theoretical pertinence of the planned behaviour theory (PBT) in the Cameroonian context and to validate an integrative explanatory model of the intention of engaging in the informal work sector restructuring programs. Our stating point was the observation of the distance that exists between the increasing mobilisation towards the formalisation of informal activities and their paradoxical persistence in developing countries in general and particularly in Cameroon. Our preoccupation is to understand why the informal work actors refuse to adhere to public policies in favour of the said sector. Which psycho-social variables could justify their intention and consequentLiterature on the informal work considers it as a category of analysis (Busso, 2005) and has the tendency of explaining the failure of programs by external, socioeconomic and political causes. By doing so, they neglect the psycho-social dimension in the implementation of public policies and the accompaniment of change. The successive failure of programs initiated in Cameroon in order to restructure the informal work justifies the interest towards socio-cognitive determinants of engagement in the said programs. Based on the cognitions-behaviours models, we expect that the representations, beliefs and perceptions could help in the understanding of the intentions of the actors to engage in informal work restructuring programs. Therefore, prediction models of behaviour have been mobilised in order to discern those socio-cognitive factors that can likely explain those intentions. Several theoretical approaches have been used in this framework. These include: the theory of social representations (Jodelet, 1996), the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 2015), the goal oriented behaviour theory (Locke & Latham, 2002), etc.Seven studies have been realised. The first one which is exploratory, analyses the social representations of the informal work and the programs geared towards its reorganization. The six other studies are empirical. They analyse the relationship between social representations, beliefs and attitudes respectively of the informal workers and the informal business promoters (studies 2 and 3); they evaluate the theoretical pertinence of the planned behaviour model just as the mediator role of the desire (Bagozzi, 1992) between the behavioural intention and its determinants (studies 4 and 5). In the 6th and 7th studies are evaluated the impact of the knowledge, the perceived credibility of the programs and the actors in charge of piloting them, as well as the perception of information about those programs on the intention. The hypotheses are verified on two samples (337 informal workers and 175 informal business promoters respectively). The global model is evaluated.The results reinforce the thesis. Despite the pertinence of the planned behaviour model in the explanation of the intention of engaging in the programs, the integration of new variables improve significantly the explained variance of the intention. Indeed, this variance goes from 52.40% to 76% among informal workers and from 44% to 78.30% among informal business promoters. Moreover, the results show that knowledge of programs plays a major role not only in explaining the intention, but also in the attitude. These results are in line with previous works (Radovic & Hasking, 2013). The perceived credibility of the programs appears also as a major determinant of the intention among informal workers while it is less among informal work promoters. Among the latter, there is quite a high effect of the perception of information on the intention of engaging in the informal work restructuring programs. These results are also consistent with the literature (Lunenberg, 2011) which considers the desire as the proximate determinant of the intention.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:06:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 EmanuellePLD_DISSERT.pdf: 3484229 bytes, checksum: 75e89ccc4ee9d22171dc5c5bba2d5910 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-16 / Beneath the theoretical assumptions of Cognitive Linguistics contemporary, we analyze the cognitive processes underlying the construction of the reference in the text. To do so, we choose as corpus the written textual productions of undergraduates at the Department of Distance Education/UFRN provided in sections of responses of presential evaluation activities and activities in the Moodle virtual ambience. These activities and texts were produced in the discipline of Reading, Interpretation and Textual Production taught in the courses of Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Biology and Geography we monitor during the period of 2008.1 to 2010.1. Through the analysis of discursive productions, it was evident that the construction of the reference is made by means of the activation and manipulation of information acquired through our perceptual and social experiences. Thus, we confirm the cognitive assumption that the linguistic clues available in the texts of the activities serve as guides towards cognitive domains that activate the process of building reference / Sob os pressupostos te?ricos da Lingu?stica Cognitiva contempor?nea, analisamos os processos cognitivos subjacentes ? constru??o da refer?ncia no texto. Para tanto, escolhemos como corpus as produ??es textuais escritas de graduandos da Secretaria de Educa??o a Dist?ncia/UFRN dispostas nas se??es de respostas das atividades avaliativas presenciais e em atividades desenvolvidas no ambiente virtual moodle. Essas atividades e textos foram produzidos na disciplina de Leitura, Interpreta??o e Produ??o Textual, ministrada nos cursos de Qu?mica, F?sica, Matem?tica, Biologia e Geografia, que monitoramos durante o per?odo de 2008.1 a 2010.1. Atrav?s da an?lise das produ??es discursivas, ficou evidente que a constru??o da refer?ncia se d? por meio da ativa??o e manipula??o de informa??es adquiridas atrav?s de nossas viv?ncias perceptuais e sociais. Desse modo, ratificamos o pressuposto cognitivista de que as pistas lingu?sticas dispon?veis nos textos das atividades funcionam como guias de sentido que ativam dom?nios cognitivos no processo da constru??o da refer?ncia

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-09-20Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:59:53Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 andrade_fp_me_arafcl.pdf: 531905 bytes, checksum: 167adb5226ceab33f3a09bc2276bfd89 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O presente estudo realiza uma avaliação das diferentes abordagens da racionalidade e suas implicações sobre a compreensão dos fenômenos econômicos. Neste sentido, utilizar-se-á um referencial teórico abrangente, pois a adequada compreensão desse tema exige aproximações teóricas de varias matrizes potencialmente complementares. Isso será feito com o intuito de oferecer um retrato não estilizado da racionalidade, seja na abordagem neoclássica, seja na abordagem de Herbert Simon. A concepção neoclássica se expressa através de postulados, que possuem baixa correspondência com a realidade, sobretudo, por pressupor processos cognitivos de maneira idealizada e incerteza na forma probabilística. Consequentemente, essa representação altera características importantes dos agentes e do ambiente. A concepção de racionalidade limita de Herbert Simon gera avanços nos campos explicativos e descritivos, principalmente para cenários bem estabelecidos. Em especial, permite conhecer como os agentes interpretam e representam diferentes problemas, além disso, contribui para elucidar qual o processo e as ações que ligam o objetivo ao resultado. Por conseguinte, gera avanços significativos em relação à compreensão ofertada pela teoria neoclássica, ademais essas pesquisas produziram como subproduto uma noção de complexidade, pois a racionalidade é limitada em virtude dos processos complexos que caracterizam o ambiente. Neste sentido, a utilização desse conceito em situações instáveis gerou avanços no conhecimento. Entretanto, é necessário aprofundar essa relação para se obter respostas para condições de incerteza forte, questão não restrita ao conhecimento econômico, já que se relaciona com o avanço da filosofia e métodos da ciência / This dissertation makes an evaluation of different approaches of rationality and its implications about the understanding of economical phenomena. For that, it will be adopted a wide-ranging theoretical references, because the appropriate understanding of this subject demands theoretical approximation of various matrices with potential overlapping. This will be done in order to offer a non stylized portrait of rationality, either in a neoclassical approach or the Hebert Simon approach. The neoclassical notion is expressed through assumptions, which are fairly different from reality, due to the fact that presumes the cognitive process in an idealized way and also to associate uncertainty and probabilities. Consequently, this representation changes important characteristics of the agents and environment. The notion of bounded rationality of Hebert Simon generates improvement in the explanatory and descriptive fields, mainly for well-established scenarios. Especially, it allows knowing how the agents interpret and show different problems. Besides that, it contributes to elucidate which process and actions link the object to the result. In consequence, creates remarkable improvements in relation to the understanding offered by the neoclassic theory, moreover, these researches produce as a sub-product a notion of complexity, because rationality is bounded due to complex process that characterized the environment. For this reason, the use of this concept in unstable situations generates improvement of knowledge. Nevertheless, it is necessary to get deep into this relationship to obtain answers in circumstances of strong uncertainty, a matter not exclusive to economics knowledge because it is already related to the advance of philosophy and science methods

Uma questão que se apresenta relevante, nesta tese, é que na maioria das vezes, o estudante, principalmente, o novato, demonstra grande dificuldade na aprendizagem baseada na resolução de problemas. Portanto, este precisa de monitoração, isto exige um apoio de entidades ou pessoas mais experientes. Percebe-se que, muitas vezes, por falta de domínio na área do conhecimento tratada, o estudante não analisa minuciosamente os dados do problema para poder conduzir objetivamente cada etapa de solução. Várias habilidades cognitivas são exigidas durante o processo de resolução de problemas, como por exemplo, codificação, comparação e combinação, componentes cognitivos significativos detectados em estudantes talentosos. A aprendizagem por meio do processo de resolução de problemas num ambiente online pode ampliar o pensamento crítico e aprimorar a tomada de decisão. Nesta pesquisa, foi criado um agente conversacional chamado Blaze, com o intuito de apoiar o estudante durante a aprendizagem autorregulada baseada na resolução de problemas. O agente foi desenvolvido com a linguagem de marcação AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), tendo sua base de conhecimento construída por meio da elicitação e representação dos processos cognitivos dos estudantes talentosos, alunos medalhistas da Olimpíada Brasileira de Matemática das Escolas Públicas. Utilizou-se a técnica de Raciocínio Baseado em Casos para permitir a recuperação e reutilização de experiências passadas dos estudantes talentosos. Foram realizados tantos experimentos com outros estudantes de graus de escolaridades distintos (2ª série do ensino médio, Licenciatura em Ciências e Licenciatura em Matemática) com o objetivo de investigar o engajamento e o aprimoramento das habilidades cognitivas destes durante a resolução dos problemas com a assistência do agente conversacional Blaze. Nestes experimentos, alguns estudantes interagiram com o agente Blaze durante o processo de resolução de problemas matemáticos, enquanto outros trabalharam sozinhos na resolução dos mesmos problemas. Os resultados obtidos nos experimentos permitiram verificar que o apoio do agente conversacional Blaze, no contexto de uma aprendizagem autorregulada durante a resolução de problemas, contribuiu qualitativamente para o aprimoramento de diversas habilidades cognitivas, como por exemplo, pensamento crítico, pensamento criativo, raciocínio lógico, bem como, permitiu o uso da metacognição. / A relevant issue raised in this paper is that most times students, especially inexperienced ones, show great difficulty for learning based on problem solving. Therefore, such students need to be monitored, which requires support from entities or more experienced people. Many times we see that due to students’ lack of mastery of the field of knowledge addressed, they fail to thoroughly analyze the problem data so as to objectively handle each stage of the solution. Several cognitive skills are required during the problem-solving process, such as coding, and comparison and combination, significant cognitive components detected in talented students. Learning by means of a problem-solving process in an online environment is capable of expanding critical thinking and improving students’ decision-making skills. In this research, a conversational agent we call Blaze was created in an effort to help students during their self-regulated, problem solving-based learning. The agent was developed via the AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), and its knowledge base was put together by means of eliciting and representing the cognitive processes of talented students, students who had won medals at the Brazilian Public School Mathematics Olympic Games. We used the Case-Based Reasoning technique to enable us to recover and reuse the talented students’ past experiences. Some other experiments were carried out with other students from various schooling levels (high school sophomores, and Science and Math undergrads) in order to look into those students’ engagement and improvement of their cognitive skills as they solved problems assisted by the Blaze conversational agent. In those experiments, some students interacted with the Blaze agent during the math problem-solving process, while other students worked alone on solving the same problems. The results obtained from the experiments allowed us to find that the support from the Blaze conversational agent, in the context of self-regulated learning during problem-solving, qualitatively helped the students improve their several cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, creative thinking, and logic reasoning, besides enabling the use of meta-cognition.

En este trabajo exploro la relación intrínseca que existe para los pobladores del distrito de Pomacanchi, Cusco, entre el caminar al santuario del Señor de Qoyllurit’i y la música que los acompaña. Mi atención se centra en la relación con la melodía chakiri wayri y, en menor medida, con la del alawaru. En esta relación intrínseca entre música y camino se revela, por un lado, la primacía que para los pobladores andinos tiene la unidad de lo visual y lo auditivo en los procesos cognitivos. Por otro, al explorar esta relación en el contexto de la caminata, una tercera dimensión sensorial clave en dichos procesos cognitivos también aparece claramente. Se trata del sentido de la cinestesia o sensación del movimiento. En otras palabras, la unidad de lo visual, lo sonoro y el movimiento es lo que hace de la participación en la fiesta en honor al Señor de Qoyllurit’i una experiencia única e imborrable. La obvia primacía de la unidad de los tres sentidos en la experiencia de peregrinación de los pomacanchinos al Señor de Qoyllurit’i no es única o exclusiva de este contexto festivo o de este pueblo. Simplemente esta experiencia nos permite analizar más de cerca un fenómeno que creo extendido en los Andes. / Here I explore the intrinsic relationship that for the people of the district of Pomacanchi (Cusco) exists between walking to the sanctuary of the Lord of Qoyllurit’i and the music that accompanies them. My attention focuses on the relationship with the  chakiri wayri melody and to a lesser extent with that called alawaru. In this intrinsic relationship between music and the walk, on the one hand, the primacy of the unity of the visual and the auditory in the Andean cognitive processes reveals itself. On the other hand, in exploring this relationship in the context of the walk a third sensorial dimension key to such cognitive processes appears clearly. It is the sense of kinesthesia or sensation of movement. In other words. The unity of the visual, the auditory and the kinesthetic is what makes the participation in the fiesta of the Lord of Qoyllurit’i a unique and unforgettable experience. The obvious primacy of the unity of these three senses in the experience of pilgrimage of the people of Pomacanchi to the sanctuary of the Lord of Qoyllurit’i is not unique or exclusive of this festive context or of Pomacanchi. Simply, this experience allows us to analyze more closely a phenomenon that I believe to be spread in the Andes.

nÃo hà / Este trabalho apresenta uma pesquisa de cunho quantitativo que analisa se e de que maneira o esforÃo cognitivo e a fluÃncia de escrita nos processos cognitivos envolvidos na produÃÃo escrita em inglÃs (L2/LE) sÃo afetados pela tarefa de produÃÃo (anÃncio, aviso e convite) e pelo meio (celular, tablet e computador). Partindo de uma lacuna nos estudos sobre tecnologia e escrita em lÃngua estrangeira, e tendo como aporte teÃrico os modelos cognitivos de escrita (HAYES, FLOWER, 1980; HAYES, 1996; BEREITER, SCARDAMALIA, 1987, 1992) e estudos sobre esforÃo cognitivo (KELLOGG, 1987; PIOLAT et al, 2001; OLIVE et al, 2009) e fluÃncia (KELLOGG, 1996; STAPLETON, 2010; LATIF, 2013), nosso estudo verificou o esforÃo cognitivo, medido pelo tempo despendido no processo de planejamento e no processo de traduÃÃo na produÃÃo textual em funÃÃo da tarefa realizada e em funÃÃo do meio utilizado. TambÃm nos propomos a observar a fluÃncia, estimada pelo nÃmero de palavras digitadas em um minuto no processo de traduÃÃo, na produÃÃo de gÃneros textuais distintos em celulares, tablets e computadores. Para isso, tivemos como participantes da pesquisa 34 professores brasileiros de inglÃs (LE), graduados (ou graduandos) em Letras com habilitaÃÃo em inglÃs. A seleÃÃo dos participantes se deu por amostragem de conveniÃncia. Cada participante teve que realizar trÃs tarefas de escrita, uma em cada um dos meios estudados na pesquisa. Durante a produÃÃo, a tela dos dispositivos foi gravada usando os programas Camtasia Studio e Mobizen, alÃm de uma cÃmera externa. Em seguida, foram tabulados os tempos gastos no processo de planejamento e no processo de traduÃÃo na realizaÃÃo de cada tarefa em cada um dos meios, bem como a quantidade de palavras produzidas em cada tarefa e em cada um dos meios. Realizados testes estatÃsticos para comparaÃÃo das diferenÃas no esforÃo cognitivo e na fluÃncia de escrita em funÃÃo das tarefas e em funÃÃo dos meios, os resultados mostraram que o esforÃo cognitivo no processo de planejamento pode ser influenciado tanto pelo meio quanto pela tarefa de produÃÃo. Jà o processo de traduÃÃo sofre maior influÃncia da tarefa do que do meio. Os resultados indicaram que a tarefa de produÃÃo à o principal fator influenciador na quantidade de palavras, e que a fluÃncia de escrita nÃo à influenciada pelo meio, mas pode ser influenciada pela tarefa proposta. Esta pesquisa se mostra relevante por lanÃar luz sobre como os processos cognitivos do escritor podem ser afetados pela tarefa e pelo meio, e pode auxiliar professores de lÃngua estrangeira no processo decisÃrio de como inserir a tecnologia nas aulas de escrita. / This quantitative research analyzes if and how cognitive effort and writing fluency in the cognitive processes of text writing in English (ESL/EFL) are affected by the writing task (advert, notice, and invitation) and by the writing medium (cellphone, tablet, and computer). Considering a gap in the studies about technology and writing, the theoretical foundations of this research include the cognitive models of writing research (HAYES, FLOWER, 1980; HAYES, 1996; BEREITER, SCARDAMALIA, 1987, 1992), research on cognitive effort (KELLOGG, 1987; PIOLAT et al, 2001; OLIVE et al, 2009) and writing fluency (KELLOGG, 1996; STAPLETON, 2010; LATIF, 2013). Our research analysed cognitive effort, measured by the time spent in the planning process and in the translation process of written production, in relation to the task and in relation to the medium. We also observed the writing fluency, estimated by the number of words typed in one minute in the translation process, in relation to the task and in relation to the medium. 34 Brazilian teachers of EFL volunteered to take part in our research. They were selected through convenience sampling, under the conditions of being familiar with the type of text to be produced in the research, with the medium of composition used in the research, and the condition of being a licensed (or almost) teacher, so as to guarantee the language proficiency. We pilot tested our method with 4 participants, and the results helped us refine our data collection method. Each participant was asked to write three texts (advert, notice, and invitation), each text in one of the media studied. During the production, the screen of each device was recorded using Camtasia Studio and Mobizen, and a phone camera. After all data were collected, the time spent in each task and each medium as well as the number of words typed in each task and each medium were sorted, compared and statistically tested for significance. Results show that cognitive effort in the planning process may be affected either by the writing task or by the writing medium. In the translation process, cognitive effort is more affected by the the task than by the the medium. Results also show that the demands of the task are the highest influencing factor to the increase of the number of words produced. The fluency is not affected by the writing medium but might be affected by the writing task. The relevance of this research resides in its shedding light onto the manner the cognitive processes of writing may be affected by the task proposed and by the writing medium. It might also help EFL teachers in the deciding process as to how to insert technology in writing classes.

Devido à grande discrepância entre os métodos de ensino atuais e a forma como ocorre a atuação profissional do contador, destaca-se a necessidade de estudar métodos que estimulem a interação social e facilitem a cooperação entre os estudantes. Neste cenário, a presente pesquisa dedica-se ao estudo da aprendizagem cooperativa, tema já consolidado no ensino de inúmeras disciplinas de nível secundário, porém recente no ensino superior de contabilidade e com resultados ainda controversos. O objetivo principal é avaliar se a utilização da aprendizagem cooperativa proporciona melhoria na aprendizagem dos alunos de Ciências Contábeis. Para isso, foram escolhidos dois níveis das habilidades intelectuais mais elevadas da taxonomia de Bloom: aplicação e análise. O referencial teórico se baseia na literatura sobre aprendizagem cooperativa, taxonomia de Bloom, estilos de aprendizagem e o problema de gerenciamento de conflitos em grupos conhecido como \"Paradoxo de Abilene\". O experimento foi realizado em uma turma do 1º semestre do curso noturno de Ciências Contábeis da FEA-USP. A amostra inicial era composta por 43 alunos e a final por 36. Os alunos foram divididos em dois grupos: experimental (aprendizagem cooperativa) e controle (aprendizagem individual), utilizando amostragem aleatória estratificada. Os critérios de estratificação foram: 1º) nota parcial em Contabilidade Introdutória; 2º) gênero; 3º) estilo de aprendizagem e; 4º) faixa etária e experiência. Os dois grupos responderam às mesmas questões, porém a turma de controle respondeu individualmente e a turma experimental, em grupos heterogêneos de quatro a cinco indivíduos. Os dados coletados foram analisados utilizando a análise de covariância (ANCOVA) para a categoria aplicação e análise de variância (ANOVA) para a categoria análise. Contrariando as expectativas, os resultados não apuraram diferenças significativas no desempenho dos alunos nas duas categorias. Ao final do estudo, são discutidas as percepções dos alunos sobre a experiência, limitações e sugestões para pesquisas futuras sobre o tema. / Due to the large discrepancy between the current learning methods and how is the performance of the professional accountant, stands out the need to study methods that encourage social interaction and facilitate cooperation among students. In this scenario, the present research is devoted to the study of cooperative learning, a topic already consolidated in teaching numerous courses at the secondary level. However, this is recent in higher education accounting and the results are still controversial. The main objective is to evaluate whether the use of cooperative learning provides improvement in student learning in accounting science. For this, we chose two levels of higher intellectual skills of Bloom\'s taxonomy: application and analysis. The theoretical framework is based on the literature on cooperative learning, Bloom\'s taxonomy, learning styles and the problem of conflict management in groups known as \"Abilene Paradox\". The experiment was conducted in a 1st semester of the night course of accounting from FEA-USP. The initial sample was composed of 43 students and end by 36. Students were divided into two groups: experimental (cooperative learning) and control (individual learning), using stratified random sampling. The stratification criteria were: 1) partial score in Introductory Accounting, 2) gender, 3) learning style and, 4) age and experience. Both groups answered the same questions, but the control group answered individually and the experimental group in heterogeneous groups of four to five individuals. The collected data were analyzed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) for category application and analysis of variance (ANOVA) for category analysis. Contrary to expectations, no significant differences were cleared in the student performance of cooperative learning in relation to individual learning in both categories. At the end of the study, it was discussed the perceptions of students about the experience, limitations are and suggestions for the future research on the topic.

Uma questão que se apresenta relevante, nesta tese, é que na maioria das vezes, o estudante, principalmente, o novato, demonstra grande dificuldade na aprendizagem baseada na resolução de problemas. Portanto, este precisa de monitoração, isto exige um apoio de entidades ou pessoas mais experientes. Percebe-se que, muitas vezes, por falta de domínio na área do conhecimento tratada, o estudante não analisa minuciosamente os dados do problema para poder conduzir objetivamente cada etapa de solução. Várias habilidades cognitivas são exigidas durante o processo de resolução de problemas, como por exemplo, codificação, comparação e combinação, componentes cognitivos significativos detectados em estudantes talentosos. A aprendizagem por meio do processo de resolução de problemas num ambiente online pode ampliar o pensamento crítico e aprimorar a tomada de decisão. Nesta pesquisa, foi criado um agente conversacional chamado Blaze, com o intuito de apoiar o estudante durante a aprendizagem autorregulada baseada na resolução de problemas. O agente foi desenvolvido com a linguagem de marcação AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), tendo sua base de conhecimento construída por meio da elicitação e representação dos processos cognitivos dos estudantes talentosos, alunos medalhistas da Olimpíada Brasileira de Matemática das Escolas Públicas. Utilizou-se a técnica de Raciocínio Baseado em Casos para permitir a recuperação e reutilização de experiências passadas dos estudantes talentosos. Foram realizados tantos experimentos com outros estudantes de graus de escolaridades distintos (2ª série do ensino médio, Licenciatura em Ciências e Licenciatura em Matemática) com o objetivo de investigar o engajamento e o aprimoramento das habilidades cognitivas destes durante a resolução dos problemas com a assistência do agente conversacional Blaze. Nestes experimentos, alguns estudantes interagiram com o agente Blaze durante o processo de resolução de problemas matemáticos, enquanto outros trabalharam sozinhos na resolução dos mesmos problemas. Os resultados obtidos nos experimentos permitiram verificar que o apoio do agente conversacional Blaze, no contexto de uma aprendizagem autorregulada durante a resolução de problemas, contribuiu qualitativamente para o aprimoramento de diversas habilidades cognitivas, como por exemplo, pensamento crítico, pensamento criativo, raciocínio lógico, bem como, permitiu o uso da metacognição. / A relevant issue raised in this paper is that most times students, especially inexperienced ones, show great difficulty for learning based on problem solving. Therefore, such students need to be monitored, which requires support from entities or more experienced people. Many times we see that due to students’ lack of mastery of the field of knowledge addressed, they fail to thoroughly analyze the problem data so as to objectively handle each stage of the solution. Several cognitive skills are required during the problem-solving process, such as coding, and comparison and combination, significant cognitive components detected in talented students. Learning by means of a problem-solving process in an online environment is capable of expanding critical thinking and improving students’ decision-making skills. In this research, a conversational agent we call Blaze was created in an effort to help students during their self-regulated, problem solving-based learning. The agent was developed via the AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), and its knowledge base was put together by means of eliciting and representing the cognitive processes of talented students, students who had won medals at the Brazilian Public School Mathematics Olympic Games. We used the Case-Based Reasoning technique to enable us to recover and reuse the talented students’ past experiences. Some other experiments were carried out with other students from various schooling levels (high school sophomores, and Science and Math undergrads) in order to look into those students’ engagement and improvement of their cognitive skills as they solved problems assisted by the Blaze conversational agent. In those experiments, some students interacted with the Blaze agent during the math problem-solving process, while other students worked alone on solving the same problems. The results obtained from the experiments allowed us to find that the support from the Blaze conversational agent, in the context of self-regulated learning during problem-solving, qualitatively helped the students improve their several cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, creative thinking, and logic reasoning, besides enabling the use of meta-cognition.