Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2016-07-14T12:32:09Z No. of bitstreams: 1 George Almeida De Oliveira_.pdf: 1203626 bytes, checksum: 54258ab2dd96b3f2309b53d61fd0ce0f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-14T12:32:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 George Almeida De Oliveira_.pdf: 1203626 bytes, checksum: 54258ab2dd96b3f2309b53d61fd0ce0f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-21 / Nenhuma / Com a popularização no mercado de consumo de wearables, ou dispositivos vestíveis, a computação móvel e ubíqua vem se tornando presente em diversas áreas como educação, comércio e entretenimento. Na área da saúde estes dispositivos têm um importante papel, pois contam com sensores para captura de sinais fisiológicos, como por exemplo, medir a temperatura corporal e batimentos cardíacos do usuário. Em muitos casos não há qualquer padronização ou comunicação entre os diferentes sistemas de cuidados ubíquos que administram os dados fisiológicos do usuário. Esse trabalho apresenta uma proposta para gerenciamento de históricos de contextos fisiológicos através de um modelo denominado GECONFI. O modelo suporta a coleta de dados através de aplicações que utilizam dispositivos e sensores de monitoramento, também define uma ontologia para o domínio de contextos fisiológicos. Esse trabalho apresenta o uso de três aplicações integradas ao GECONFI que permitiram avaliar e testar os serviços disponibilizados pelo modelo. A primeira aplicação chamada SiCuide foi aplicada com treze pacientes e um enfermeiro, que apresentaram pareceres positivos em relação a sua utilidade para o monitoramento fisiológico dos usuários. Os outros dois sistemas denominados FitBurn e Heart-Control foram aplicados em um cenário baseado em sensibilidade a contexto permitindo o acesso compartilhado de uma mesma trilha. Os resultados obtidos mostraram a viabilidade para que outros sistemas realizem a administração de históricos contextuais de maneira genérica através do modelo proposto. / With the popularization in wearables market, or wearable devices, the mobile and ubiquitous computing is becoming present in areas such as education, commerce and entertainment. In healthcare these devices have an important role, as have sensors for capturing physiological signals, such as measuring the body temperature and heart rate of the user. In many cases there´s no standardization or communication between different Ubiquitous care systems that manage the physiological user data. This work presents a proposal for historical contexts of physiological management through a model called GECONFI. The model supports data collection through applications that use devices and monitoring sensors, defines an ontology for the domain of physiological contexts. This work presents the use of three integrated applications to GECONFI, that allowed evaluate and test the services provided by the model. The first application called SiCuide was applied with thirteen patients and a nurse, who showed positive opinions regarding its usefulness for physiological monitoring of users. The other two systems called FitBurn and Heart-Control were applied in a scenario based on sensitivity to context allowing shared access to the same track. The results showed the feasibility for other systems to perform the administration of contextual historical generically through the proposed model.

This qualitative study examined how three accomplished traditional string musicians learned music in their homeschool environments. Data were derived from formal interviews of the three musicians. The research framework for this qualitative study is based upon the socio-educational model of second language learning motivation developed by R. C. Gardner (1959, 1985, 2004, 2010) and applied to the study of instrumental music learning motivation by P. D. MacIntyre (2012). Structured interview questions, triangulated by additional informal dialogues, field observations, externally documented sources, and collaboration with an expert review panel were the data collection activities utilized in the research. Five overarching themes emerged: (1) social and cultural surroundings influence musical achievement, (2) the desire to acquire the attributes and acceptance of other musicians supports musical achievement, (3) motivation impacts musical achievement, (4) learning and performing music causes anxiety, and (5) informal learning environments foster musical attainment. The examination of homeschooled, traditional musicians via the overarching themes, may provide valuable insights for educators in the area of acquisition and development of musical skill in high school students.

It is costly to train the counselors who serve in intensive Family Preservation Services (IFPS). The hiring agency must pay for traveling expenses in addition to any fee paid for training. When an IFPS worker chooses to terminate employment before the end of two years of employment, this puts a strain on an already tight budget. This problem could be alleviated by finding an efficient pre-hire screening instrument. The three personality traits described in Hardiness Theory literature: commitment, challenge, and control, are traits often used to describe the ideal IFPS worker. This study assessed IFPS workers to determine if the competent IFPS worker possessed these traits and to discover if they are satisfied with their work, and not suffering from symptoms of burnout. Twenty null hypotheses were formulated. Fifty-eight specialists from the Tennessee Home Ties programs completed: (a) a demographic survey; (b) the Personal Views Survey to measure Hardiness; (c) the Maslach Burnout Inventory; and (d) the Job In General scale to measure job satisfaction. Supervisors provided a copy of the Therapist Evaluation Form to measure employee competence. Eight specialists and three directors participated in additional telephone interviews. The Pearson product-moment coefficient of correlation statistic was used to determine statistically significant relationships between pairs of research variables. Nineteen of the 20 null hypotheses were rejected. The results of the study support the existence of a relationship between hardiness and competence, burnout, and job satisfaction. Pearson product-moment correlations were obtained to ascertain if a statistically significant relationship existed between any of the research variables and the demographic variables. Weak positive relationships were found between age and competence and between years of service and competence.

This study examines the relationship between personality traits as identified by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and transformational leadership as measured by The Nature of School Leadership. The subjects were 74 North Carolina public school elementary principals. The principals completed the MBTI. Principals also provided pertinent demographic information. Selected teachers in each school were asked to give their perception of the principal as a transformational leader by completing The Nature of School Leadership. Data were analyzed to look for significant relationships between personality and demographics as they related to transformational leadership. The analysis of demographic information yielded gender as a significant factor in transformational leadership. Females were found to have a significantly higher mean score on The Nature of School Leadership. The bipolar MBTI traits of introvert/extrovert, intuitive/sensate, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving were analyzed, and the thinking/feeling trait was found to be a significant factor in transformational leadership. A predisposition toward the thinking trait tended to produce higher scores on the transformational leadership scale.

Many schools have adopted social and emotional learning programs, but few schools have achieved significant impacts on student outcomes because of challenges with implementation quality. Although there is guidance on selecting evidence-based social and emotional learning programs for classroom use, schools need guidance on how best to integrate social and emotional learning in context. This study examines how an elementary school integrated school-wide social and emotional learning into its daily practices, using a qualitative single case study grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. The study, which was conducted during an eight-week period, identifies promising practices that could be beneficial for implementing and improving social and emotional learning practices. Data collection includes multiple sources of data, such as observations, document analyses, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups. Drawing upon Stake’s (1995) process for data analysis, the following themes emerge: (1) routines and shared practices, (2) physical environment and classrooms, (3) common language (4) school family, and (5) leadership support for social and emotional learning. The implications of this study support understandings of what integrated school-wide social and emotional learning programming look like in an elementary school context. Keywords: school-wide, integrated, social and emotional learning, SEL, school micro-contexts, elementary school, implementation, school-wide SEL programming.

Social networking sites (SNSs) are growing in popularity and diversity. Prior research has shown that SNSs use is correlated with various personality traits including narcissism. To date, no work has examined the association between SNSs use and self-actualization. Given the potential overlap of narcissism and self-actualization, the goal of the present study was to first examine the conceptual overlap of these two intrapersonal characteristics. We then sought to examine the associations between SNSs use, narcissism, and self-actualization with an expectation that self-actualization would mediate the association between SNSs use and narcissism. One thousand six hundred and four adults completed an online survey with questions to assess their demographic traits, SNSs activities, and personality characteristics. Results indicated some overlap between narcissism and self-actualization; but, in general, each was a distinct personality trait. Results also demonstrated that the association between self-actualization and SNSs usage was not significant. Contrary to our prediction, self-actualization did not mediate the association between SNSs activities and narcissism. Finally, the study found that narcissism scores were reportedly higher after using SNSs than they were prior to SNSs use.

This research addressed the influence employee age has on organizational justice perceptions (OJPs) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) through conscientiousness. Given the valuable contributions of older employees in the workforce, the aim of this study was to investigate the processes by which age affects justice perceptions, the expression of conscientiousness traits, and workplace behaviors. Additionally, a theoretical framework was provided where the conservation of resource, equity, fairness, socioemotional selectivity, and conscientiousness at work theorieshelp explain the linkages from the integrative model. A total of 179 MTurk workers participated in this study, which required participants to answer questions about their workplace perceptions and behaviors. The primary scales used in this study measuring OJPs, conscientiousness, and OCBs were obtained from previous studies that found these measures to be reliable and valid. Using those scales, three main hypotheses were tested: Hypothesis 1 predicted age would moderate the relationship between OJPs and OCBs; Hypotheses 2 predicted conscientiousness would mediate the relationship between OJPs and OCBs; and Hypothesis 3 predicted employee age (moderating variable) would interact with justice perceptions (independent variable) and predict organizational citizenship behaviors (dependent variable), through conscientiousness (mediating variable). Results suggested that age does not moderate the relationship between OJPs and OCBs; however, conscientiousness mediates the relationship between OJPs and OCBs; and employee age only moderates the mediating effects of conscientiousness in the relationship between distributive justice perceptions and OCBs. Overall, this research provides preliminary findings to a model that had never been researched before, provides theoretical and practical implications, as well as directions for future research.

Increasingly, evidence indicates that workplace interpersonal conflicts (WIC) are the most upsetting/troublesome daily work stressors (Sulsky & Smith, 2007), and within the context of nursing, WIC is a problem of high prevalence and intensity (Baltimore, 2006; Farrell, 1999). In relation to coping with stressors such as WIC, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) established the transactional model of stress and coping, where cognitive appraisals of the stressor (e.g., perceived control) are central to coping and classified all coping behaviors as either problem-focused or emotion-focused. They also proposed the "goodness of fit hypothesis", which predicts that problem-focused coping efforts used to cope with stressors of high appraised control and emotion-focused coping paired with stressors of low appraised control will produce the most effective outcomes. Contrary to these predictions, the general literature has produced inconsistent results, suggesting that context, research method, and individual difference variables (i.e., occupational tenure) should be considered when testing this hypothesis, particularly in novel contexts such as the nursing workplace. This research was part of a larger study to identify key factors in the retention of nurses in the workforce, including a weekly survey spanning 12 weeks. Across the 12 week study period, 148 nurse participants completed an online survey, which included questions regarding the most negative interpersonal conflict at work for that week, the appraised controllability of the event, how the participant coped across 8 coping strategies, and how effective the coping efforts were. I used hierarchical linear modeling to test the goodness of fit hypothesis with these data, where the interaction terms between coping frequency and control represented the key predictions of goodness of fit. Results revealed no support for the goodness of fit hypothesis, as the interactions were not significant. Consistent with goodness of fit, however, perceived control positively predicted problem-focused coping and negatively predicted emotion-focused coping for some nurses. This suggests that despite no improvement in coping outcomes, the underlying mechanisms for goodness of fit (i.e., matching perceived control with coping type) were in operation. Results also demonstrated no support of occupational tenure as a variable influential on the coping process. However, supplemental analyses revealed that as organizational tenure increased, nurses varied their coping strategies more, which then, in turn, produced more effective coping outcomes. As the first effort to examine goodness of fit within the workplace to the best of my knowledge, these results suggest that the goodness of fit hypothesis may only have limited applicability to nursing, but should be examined in other nursing contexts and workplace conditions. Moreover, the length of time a nurse spends with an organization seems to influence one's coping style and the ability to match coping efforts with situational characteristics, producing more effective coping with interpersonal conflicts at work. These findings also imply that providing nurses with training about organization-specifics may improve efforts to cope with interpersonal conflicts that arise in the workplace.

Student engagement is a determinant for students' academic success, readiness for higher education, and social agency. The purpose of this qualitative, case study was to explore ninth grade students' perceptions of the contextual and psychological factors that influence the development of student engagement profiles. The ecological systems theory was used as the framework for the study. Through purposive sampling, 15 participants were selected, and 5 groups of 3 were formed based on participants' engagement profiles as identified by cooperating teachers' categorization and the results of the Student Engagement Instrument. Using semi structured interviews, data were gathered for the 4 research questions. Iterative content analysis of interview data identified 7 emergent themes that underscored the relative importance of parental support, teacher's mood and behavior, peer relationship, and a sense of justice and safety in the classroom as factors that promote multidimensional engagement patterns. These findings may influence students, parents, teachers, counselors, administrators, community members, and organizations to create spaces, and develop practices and policies that would provide environments and relationships that enhance students' emotional, behavioral, and cognitive engagement with school and schoolwork, especially for students who might be on the verge of disengaging from school.

Business teams have been losing millions of dollars every year in cost and schedule over-runs from incomplete or failed projects. The purpose of this single case study was to explore the strategies that business managers use to determine team fit when selecting employees for assignment to cross-functional project teams. The participants for this study were 3 senior management personnel and a 6-member employee focus group, all from midsized, nonprofit organizations located within 200 miles of the tri-state region of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The conceptual framework for this study was Werbel and Gilliland's theory of person-group fit, McCrae's and John's 5-factor model of personality, and Tuckman's theory of personality and group behaviors. Data collection was a triangulation of data from 3 sources: 3 semistructured interviews, a 6-member focus group, and a review of organizational documents. A manual thematic data analysis following the basic principles of Yin's 5-step data analysis process was first used to analyze the data, followed by a second analysis using a qualitative data analysis application. Three primary themes emerged from the data: the use of personality traits, the use of skills or job experience, and the importance of diversity were all evident as factors relating to team member selection strategies. A 4th emergent theme was leadership. The leadership theme was important in creating a positive team environment during the team implementation stage. One of the primary implications of social change could be a reduction in social biases and prejudices. As business managers and other employees learn to accept diversity among team members, they may carry these new social attitudes further into their personal lives.