This presentation will discuss experiences using visual concept mapping as a pedagogical process in a beginninglevel curriculum studies course.

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In 2024 a new method of conducting food safety control in Sweden will be implemented. One of the changes is the way businesses are classified according to the risk they pose; another is the transition to direct debiting instead of yearly fees. This changes the practice of food safety control in Sweden and the affected regulatory authorities and food business operators will need to alter their methods. This study aims to investigate if the implementation of these changes is efficient, how it is received by regulatory authorities and, by extension, how organisational changes in general affect the working environment and how attitudes can affect their implementation. A large-scale change is naturally met with some resistance that may affect how beneficial it ultimately is. In this case the changes seem to be moderately well-received but there is some criticism, most of which is connected to the reduction of control time for businesses close to consumers. There is also a worry that the change will be administratively heavy and large municipalities express more concern than small ones, possibly due to the large number of businesses they are responsible for. The transition to direct debiting is believed to be a positive change for food business operators but time-consuming for regulatory authorities. Further evaluation after these changes have come into force is needed to learn their actual effect on food safety control.

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Background & Objective: Higher levels of institutional trust have been associated with increased health care utilization, greater adherence to treatment plans, better treatment outcomes, and improved overall health. Though numerous studies have documented the influence of institutional trust on important outcomes, there has been little attention to understanding approaches to improve patient institutional trust. This project sought to identify approaches to improve patient trust in health systems. Methods: The project used group concept mapping (GCM) to directly engage 18 insured individuals living within the Upper Darby community with at least one visit to a primary care provider within the last two years to elicit their perspectives on ways to improve patient trust. Participants first brainstormed in a group setting to develop a list of ideas about how systems could improve trust, then each participant sorted the idea into thematic domains and rated the statements based on both importance and feasibility. Results: Four primary domains for improving institutional trust emerged: privacy, patient-provider relationship, respect for patients, and health system guidelines. Overall, participants rated the “privacy” domain as the most feasible and important. The average overall cluster rankings varied based on age, where the aggregate importance ratings for individuals below the age of 40 rated were higher for the “respect for patients” cluster. Conclusion: We identify four domains that are important to our population for improving patient trust of health systems, with multiple actionable items within each domain. We suggest that efforts to improve trust of health systems will be most effective if designed to directly impact these domains. Next steps involve exploring the importance of these domains across other populations and developing interventions. / Public Health

This study investigates a process of technological innovation in the classroom, and a range of related issues. It discusses the development of a technology-assisted tool, ThinkSpace, combining computer-based concept mapping and a wiki, aimed at facilitating collaborative and critical engagement with complex study material. The study adopts a design-based research approach in order to develop in tandem the technological implementation of the tool as well as the pedagogical practices for the use of the tool in the classroom. ThinkSpace was introduced into two schools where it was used by A-level history students. In close collaboration with the teachers practical uses for the tool were developed and implemented in the classroom. Data were collected through classroom observation, student and teacher interviews, as well as gathering evidence of students’ work with the tool. The thesis engages with questions of developing pedagogical practice to incorporate technological tools. It provides insights into the processes of working with teachers and students on collaborative innovation projects and the ways in which technology and pedagogy can gradually be aligned to achieve shifts in classroom practice. The project also investigates opportunities for developing productive uses of wikis and concept mapping in the classroom. The results of this study highlight the gradual and incremental nature of innovation in the classroom. The study concludes that innovation with tools such as ThinkSpace requires changes to deeply-seated learning practices, which are closely linked to student identity. If such practices are to be altered, it is necessary to think more carefully about supporting students through the pedagogical changes that some technological innovations endeavour to put into place. Possible ways of providing support in the processes of innovation were found in the present study through the scrutiny of the ways some students were beginning to appropriate the ThinkSpace tool. This suggested more targeted ways of encouraging conceptualisation and collaboration practices, which were the target of the innovation presented here.

BACKGROUND: School discipline—how schools manage and respond to student misbehavior—is a central component of how schools seek to create safe and productive learning environments. School suspensions have been a popular discipline strategy in recent decades. Yet, recent studies have demonstrated the association between punitive discipline strategies and poor outcomes in youth, including increased high school dropout rates, decreased odds of enrolling in postsecondary school, and increased mental health concerns. There is an urgent need to examine alternate mechanisms for addressing school discipline other than punitive exclusionary or reward-based systems. This dissertation seeks to develop an integrated model of promising approaches and define how such a system could work. OBJECTIVES: This dissertation is made up of three studies addressing three aims: (1) to synthesize the existing literature on how school discipline has been constructed and its impact on student well being; (2) to develop a novel conceptual model for an alternate discipline approach, "kind discipline," and; (3) to develop and validate a measure for assessing the practice of kind discipline in elementary and middle schools. METHODS: Study one is a theoretical review utilizing a social ecological model to frame how school discipline models address an individual, relational, or structural level. Study two is a formative evaluation that develops a novel conceptual model for an alternative discipline approach. This study utilized concept mapping to elicit and integrate perspectives on school discipline from teachers, administrators, school staff, and other stakeholders involved in school programming. The concept mapping included a brainstorming phase, a statement analysis phase, a sorting and rating phase, and multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis of the collected data. It culminated in a map that visually represent the group's ideas and how they are interrelated. Study three validated a newly developed measure of kind discipline through an assessment of the measure’s internal consistency, an exploration of convergent and discriminant validity, and a descriptive analysis of the strength of relationships between kind discipline and school-level discipline frequency. RESULTS: The theoretical review illustrated how different school discipline approaches address disparate explanations of what may lead to student misbehavior. The formative evaluation developed a conceptual model for kind discipline in which three core themes emerged from 11 identified clusters in the conceptual model: (1) proactively developing a positive school climate, (2) responding to conflict with empathy, accountability, and skill, and (3) supporting staff skills in understanding and sharing expectations. When mapped onto a social ecological model, the identified components of kind discipline encompassed all levels of that model including the individual, relational, environmental/structural, and even community levels. In the study validating a measure of kind discipline, teacher and student assessments of kind discipline were strongly correlated (Pearson’s Correlation -.772, p=0.005). Convergent validity of the measure was supported by our finding that the more positively students assessed kind discipline in their schools, the lower the school disciplinary action rate (β=-0.759, p=0.05). Mixed linear models showed teachers' perceived kind discipline at the school level predicted individual students' perception of kind discipline. Girls reported higher levels of kind discipline than boys; and students in higher grades reported lower levels of kind discipline than students in lower grades. CONCLUSIONS: Effective school discipline programs may need to operate on multiple levels. There is increasing support for the importance of a relationship-level component to disciplinary approaches. This contrasts with the dominant individual-behavioral discipline approaches that focus on fewer levels and may not lead to sustained student and staff motivation. The findings from the concept mapping illustrate the importance of setting and communicating clear expectations and the need for them to be collaboratively developed. The student and teacher measures for assessing the level of kind discipline in a school show promise as tools for evaluating schools working to improve approaches to discipline and for guiding interventions that aim to promote positive and relational motivation strategies.

Selvan Naidoo, Student no: 0215998E. MSc Education, Faculty of Science, 2006. / This study used concept mapping to explore South African Grade 11 learners’ understanding of the function concept. Learners’ understanding of the function concept was investigated by examining the relationships learners made between the function concept and other mathematical concepts. The study falls within a social constructivist framework and is underpinned by the key educational notion of understanding. The research method employed was a case study. Data for the study was collected through a concept mapping task, a task on functions and individual learner interviews. In the analysis four key issues are identified and discussed. They are concerned with (a) learners who make most connections; (b) issues related to learners’ omission and addition of concepts; (c) learners’ use of examples in concept mapping and (d) the nature of connections learners made. The study concludes that concept mapping is an effective tool to explore learners’ understanding of the function concept. The report concludes with recommendations for classroom practice, teacher education and further research, particularly given the context of school mathematics practice in the South African curriculum where concept mapping (i.e. use of metacogs) has recently been incorporated as an assessment tool.

Complex social problems are at the forefront of our awareness. We are witnessing intensifying political, social and environmental challenges and waning confidence in our ability to engineer solutions. We are also seeing a proliferation of large scale, multi-agency interventions that seek change at the level of systems, and through which actors pursue adaptive learning as a means to develop effective solutions. Proponents assert that the prediction and control on which conventional program design and evaluation are based are not available under complex conditions. They propose instead that learning through experience in a program’s own context can create more responsive, impactful and sustainable interventions. These ideas offer a potentially transformative opportunity. However, they need to be complemented with a better understanding of implementation - the ‘ways of doing things’ that bring them to life. This study focused on developmental evaluation as an example of an adaptive learning (AL) approach for the development of innovative social interventions. The study was informed by ‘sensemaking’ theories and research in organizational learning, knowledge mobilization and program evaluation. Through an exploratory lens and a mixed methods design, this study sheds light on the role of specialized intermediaries in an AL process; how the role is performed in practice; and what this implies for adaptive learning in the domain of social interventions. The study documents how an intermediary can help actors navigate recognized challenges of developing interventions under complex and dynamic conditions. The findings have implications for how an AL process is understood and implemented. They provide an empirical contribution to an emerging field of study on the design of AL systems, to support future research and real-world practice as AL approaches become mainstream.

在概念構圖的相關研究中，並非每一次的教學處理都 能達到顯著的效果，其關鍵應該包括哪些因素？此外，有 一些概念構圖研究中，教學者本身並未深入研究過概念構 圖，所以對於概念構圖之所以能夠產生學習效果的機制可 能並不清楚，甚或這些教學者本身的信念是否可以接受這種新的教學法，尚不得而知，教師若只是在上課時間內用 少許的時間呈現該學習單元的概念圖，或是「模仿」了一 套概念構圖的教學程序，是否能夠產生概念構圖教學應有 的學習效果就更令人懷疑了。 因此，本研究的進行即是先進行整合相關的心理學研究與理論，從不同的理論來審視一個有意義學習的歷程， 教學者在教學上應該注意哪些因素或持有哪些信念，然後 再由研究者親自進行概念構圖學習策略的教學，並透過各種指標來考驗學生的學習效果，並嘗試回答以下的問題。 一、接受以概念構圖為學習策略的兩組學生(實驗組)，與未接受實驗操弄的學生(控制組)，在教師自編測驗的成績表現上沒有差異。 二、接受以概念構圖為學習策略的兩組學生(實驗組)，與未接受實驗操弄的學生(控制組)，在高層次思考測驗的成績表現上沒有差異。 三、接受以概念構圖為學習策略的兩組學生(實驗組)，與未接受實驗操弄的學生(控制組)，在記憶保留量測驗的成績表現上沒有差異。 四、學生的學習能力(高、中、低)與教學法(傳統、概念構圖)之間沒有交互作用。 五、「以概念構圖為學習策略的教學法」對不同學習能力的學生(高、中、低)之促進學習的效果沒有差異。 本研究的結論如下： 一、接受以概念構圖為學習策略的學生(實驗組)，並未比未接受任何實驗操弄的學生(控制組)，在教師自編測驗中有有較佳的表現，其原因與測驗題目的類型有關。 二、接受以概念構圖為學習策略的學生(實驗組)，只有合作學習式概念構圖組的學生，會比未接受任何實驗操弄的學生(控制組)，在高層思考的試題上有較佳的表 現。 三、接受以概念構圖為學習策略的學生(實驗組)，只有合作學習式概念構圖組的學生，會比未接受任何實驗操弄的學生(控制組)，在記憶保留量的試題上有較佳的 表現。 四、合作學習式概念構圖組中，不同學習能力的學生與教學法之間有交互作用。 五、以「合作學習式概念構圖」為學習策略的教學法，對中、低學習能力學生的學習促進效果，優於高學習能力組的學生。