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Using a mixed methods approach, this dissertation included two studies exploring procrastination and academic motivation beliefs of adolescents from Canada and Thailand. Study 1 examined the relationships between procrastination, motivation beliefsself-efficacy, self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, self-esteem, and test anxietyand academic performance and explored significant predictors of adolescent procrastination across two cultures. In this study, 312 Canadian and 401 Thai adolescents from secondary schools in an urban area in western Canada and an urban area in North-Eastern Thailand completed a 47-item survey containing procrastination and four motivation measures. In Study 2, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 Thai adolescents representing low and high achieving students, to provide additional information about the role of motivation on adolescent procrastination and investigate academic procrastination of Thai adolescents in more depth. The quantitative findings demonstrated that all motivation variables significantly predicted procrastination, with self-efficacy for self-regulated learning strongly influencing adolescents across cultures. Findings from the qualitative study revealed six themes pertaining to academic procrastination: a) definitions of procrastination, b) antecedents of procrastination, c) consequences of procrastination, d) overcoming procrastination, e) the role of motivation, and f) the role of cultures on motivation, achievement, and procrastination. Quantitative and qualitative findings were integrated and discussed in order to provide insights into adolescent procrastination. Theoretical and educational implications as well as suggestions for future research were also provided. / Psychological Studies in Education

Products are designed to satisfy user needs. Thus, industrial designers are expected to have a thorough understanding of user needs and to incorporate those understandings into the design of products; however, it is not a straightforward task for designers to translate their conditional understanding into a product. The gap between product and user can be even wider when latent user needs, such as cultural ones, are calculated into the problem. Therefore the meanings and functions imbued in products by the designer may not be recognized and acknowledged by users, due to the differences in cultural preferences of designers and users from separate cultures. In spite of the fact that user satisfaction has been extensively supported in the design literature, it seems that such an approach allows only a passive role for designers, who actually act as cultural intermediaries; that is, the designers' role is merely presumed to catalyze the process and match user requirements to the end product. Thus, the impact of designers' cultural preferences is considered as incidental, or at least overlooked. A content analysis method was triangulated to collect and analyze diverse visual and textual data relating to the concept generation stage of the product development process. To collect data, professional industrial designers in the two culturally diverse countries of Australia and Iran were recruited to participate in half-hour design exercise sessions to sketch to a design brief, followed by responding to an interview questionnaire. The analysis of data revealed that: (1) designers' cultural preferences do influence their approaches toward tackling the design problem; (2) there are nexuses between the design aspects of the concepts generated and the cultural dimensions of the values of the societies in which the designers were born and has lived, and; (3)potential users can unconsciously comprehend the meaning invested in the product by the designer. This thesis breaks new ground for further advancing the study of the Designer-Precedent Approach (DPA) in other cultural and social contexts, while it challenges the conventional approaches of user-centered design (UCD) broadlyperceived as the ultimate method of incorporating users' wants into products.

Errata and corrigenda inserted at end of thesis. / Bibliography: leaves 290-337. / xxii, 337 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / The objective of this thesis is to examine vasomotor reactivity in both large and small arterial vessels utilising both basic and clinical models. In 4 sections, the thesis: 1. summarises fundamental morphological and physiological principles of the coronary circulation, methods of assessing coronary vasomotor reactivity and characteristics of clinical disorders with vasomotor dysfunction ; 2. investigates regional heterogeneity of vasomotor reactivity in sheep epicardial coronary arteries ; 3. involves studies of the coronary flow phenomenon ; 4. involves a comparison of published Japanese and Caucasian coronary vasomotor reactivity studies and 5. involved an observational study of patients presenting with acute ST elevation. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Medicine, 2000

This research aimed at understanding the reading practices of two groups of international postgraduate students across three semesters. The research was underpinned by a conceptual framework incorporating metacognitive concepts with framing theory. The methodology involved individual interviews using academic text and pair think-alouds followed by retrospective interviews using general-interest texts. The interviews and pair think-alouds took place at an Australian university with Thai and IndianBangladeshi postgraduate students and at university campuses in Thailand and India. The data selected from the interviews and pair think-alouds revealed significant changes in reading practices between first and third semester at an Australian university and the participants' awareness of these changes. The participants' reflections also provided some explanation for the differences in their cognitive and metacognitive strategy use. The research study was important because, at the postgraduate level, students are faced with complex text interpretation processes. International students, in addition, have to make a significant cultural/study shift; not only do they have to become accustomed to the reading of academic texts using discipline-specific patterns but often have to adjust to different conventions used by authors from cultural backgrounds other than their own. Little is known, in particular, about Thai and Indianmangladeshi postgraduate students' reading experiences in their own countries or how their reading practices change during study at an Australian university. The research findings suggest a dynamic, multi-dimensional, developmental framework for conceptualising international postgraduate students' reading practices in first semester at an Australian university, and the changes in reading practices and the educational and socio-cultural influences on these changes by third semester; the findings, in addition, can inform the debate on literacy levels in the cross-cultural academic environment and can contribute to discussions on such pedagogical issues as reforming of curricular structure, the internationalisation of curricula and the development of more culturally sensitive supervisory frameworks.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Medicine, 2000. / Errata and corrigenda inserted at end of thesis. Bibliography: leaves 290-337.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Anatomical Sciences and Dental School, 2005. / "July 2005" Bibliography: leaves 263-273. Also available in a print form.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Medical School, Dept. of Anatomical Sciences and Dental School, 2005. / "July 2005" Includes bibliographical references. Also available in a print form.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 1985. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [72]-77).