<p>Purpose of visit is one of the main determinants of destination choice. Assessing the fulfillment of travelers’ desires could thus gauge the tourism potential of a country from the perspective of travelers. The main reasons for traveling are relaxation, pleasure and entertainment, social interaction, opportunity to meet a romantic or sexual partner, educational opportunity, self-fulfillment, wish fulfillment, shopping, business, holiday, health, and transit. Meanwhile, academic research on satisfying the curiosity about a destination remains underdeveloped. The concept of curiosity is central to motivation and curiosity as a personality trait plays a significant role in the behavior of a traveler.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The goal of this dissertation was to examine the tourism potential of a destination from the point of view of travelers interested in exploring new horizons and perspectives to better fulfill their expectations and increase customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study is three-fold: (1) conceptualize destination curiosity; (2) develop a scale for destination curiosity; (3) examine the impact of destination curiosity as a major driver of international travel. For the latter, a set of integral relationships across different measurement items associated with destination curiosity and the cultural identity dimension of place identity is instituted in an SEM model in which the dependent variable is international visit intention. </p> <p>For this purpose, this study coined the term destination curiosity (hereafter, DC), which was defined as the travel enthusiasm that is reflective of a curious behavior to explore and seek fulfillment in acquiring knowledge through the actual travel experience at the destination. Aligned with Berlyne’s definition of curiosity and exploratory behavior, who is the most influential contributor to the concept of exploratory behavior, the two main dimensions of curiosity continue to be perceptual curiosity, which is more emotionally driven, and epistemic curiosity, which is information seeking behavior and cognitively driven.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Having addressed both the affective and cognitive drivers of curiosity to conceptualize DC, sensation seeking, novelty experience, need for cognition, and perceptual curiosity were incorporated into the approach. DC was conceptualized according to Fine's clockspeed model (1998). Fine’s model is related to the rate of change and includes two dimensions: process control (integrality-modularity) and decision control (slow-fast clockspeed). By incorporating this model, both the complexity and diversity dimensions of DC were considered. Therefore, DC was conceptualized in a way that illustrates how the existing or potential competitive advantages of destinations can influence the destination choices of travelers when they travel to explore new horizons and perspectives. In this study Fine’s clockspeed model—as a supply chain model defined to be used by suppliers/organizations—is incorporated in conceptualizing destination curiosity, as personality trait of a traveler, with the lens of demand expectation. </p> <p><br></p> <p>As for developing a scale through a rigorous approach via higher-order factor modeling, a scale was developed to measure DC. Delphi method was used to purify the initial measurement items that were adopted from the perceptual curiosity scale (Collins, Litman, & Spielberger, 2004), the need for cognition scale (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982), the desire for novelty scale (Pearson, 1970), and the sensation seeking scale (Zuckerman, Kolin, Price, & Zoob, 1964) in the travel context. In addition, EFA and higher-order factor modeling were incorporated to develop a scale. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Finally, to ensure the predictive validity of the developed scale, another study was designed to examine the mediating effect of DC on the impact of the cultural identity (dimension of brand identity) of a country on international visit intention. Motion pictures, mega-events, or gastronomy arguably act as instigators; while established brand persistence, geopolitics, or the existence of stereotypes about a destination act as inhibitors when it comes to one’s willingness to travel to another country. Therefore, Turkey was chosen for the context and a scenario was defined that addressed all the mentioned elements. The cultural identity of a destination was considered a proper antecedent for examining the mediating effect of DC on international visit, as the desire to enjoy unique pleasant experiences is likely to be universal. Meanwhile, culture is undoubtedly a unique attribute of any destination, whether a destination affiliated with thousands of years of fame or a non-major tourist destination which has sustained its culture. The significant mediating effect of DC in that study shows its importance in destination marketing.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The DC is arguably critical for the improvement of relations between nations. The more people travel to explore new horizons and perspectives, the more they will understand each other. In the same vein, for travelers with a high level of DC, traveling is a means of nourishing their soul that can eventually improve the well-being of the global society.</p>

Utgångspunkten för detta arbete är att införa en tidig språkinlärning av engelska i förskolan. Det tar långt tid att lära sig grunderna i ett främmande språk och barn är mest mottagliga för att lära sig språk i förskoleåldern. Vi valde att skapa en produkt som uppmanar och inspirerar pedagoger och barn till att använda engelska i förskolan. Produkten är uppbyggd i anknytning till ämnesområden ur läroplanen för förskolan med huvudfokus på det engelska språket. Engelskan är på så sätt ämnesintegrerad och blir ett medel för att uppnå strävansmålen. Ämnesområden som behandlas är: matematik, språk, socialt samspel, rörelse och hälsa, skapande samt naturvetenskap och teknik. Produktens utformning fördelas på sex berättelser om den könsneutrala karaktären Charlie som älskar språk. Till varje berättelse finns en tillhörande aktivitet som berör ett ämnesområde. Avslutningsvis finns ett estetiskt extramaterial som kan kopplas ihop med berättelserna och fördjupa inlärningen av det engelska språket med sång och drama. Övergripande instruktioner till häftet presenteras i början. Förberedelser, material och övriga instruktioner presenteras inför varje aktivitet. Materialet riktar sig till barn i åldrarna 3–5 år. Häftet består av 28 sidor med både text och bild. Produkten skickas ut till 12 pedagoger som utvärderar produktens upplägg, användningsområde samt relevans. Resultatet visar att många pedagoger tycker att engelska har en plats i förskolans verksamhet. Produkten mottogs väl av samtliga pedagoger och ansågs vara ett bra och inspirerande grundmaterial som uppmanar dem till att använda det engelska språket i förskolan. / The starting point of this work is to introduce early language learning of English in preschool. It takes a long time to learn the basics of a foreign language and children are most receptive to learning languages ​​in the preschool age. We have chose to create a product that inspires teachers to use English in preschool and find a curiosity about the language in children aged 3–5 years. The product is built in related subject areas from the preschool curriculum with the main focus on the English language. English is thus the subject integrated and becomes a means to achieve the aspirations of the goals. The topics covered include: maths, language, social interaction, movement and health, creativity and science and technology. The product is presented in six stories about the unisex character Charlie who loves language. For each story, there is a related activity involving a subject area. Finally, there is aesthetic extra-material that can be paired with the stories and deepens the learning of the English language with singing and drama. Overall instructions to the booklet are presented in the beginning. Preparations, materials and other instructions are presented to each activity. The summary booklet consists of 28 pages of text and image. The completed product was distributed to 12 educators in preschool who provided feedback and evaluated the design, use and relevance of the product. The results show that many educators think that English has a place in preschool. The product was well received by all educators and was considered to be good and inspiring base material that urged them to use the English language in preschool.

This investigation is concerned with determining the value, if any, of certain curiosity constructs and thought skill experiences upon "raw score" responses of black sixth grade pupils to selected standardized and experimenter made tests. The major purpose of this study is to determine whether the curiosity levels of black children will be increased and if gains will be made in reading comprehension and responses when selected questioning procedures are used. The study is confined to teacher-directed instructional situations where pupils are engaged in reading acts.

The study adopts Uses and Gratifications (U&G) theory as the framework to test antecedents and consequences in using fanqiang (bypassing Internet censorship) as an alternative medium along with accessible Internet, TV, newspaper and radio as mainstream media in a Chinese context. By online between-group experimentation (N = 132 in the experimental group, N = 127 in the control group), the study shows that curiosity about forbidden political content and political apathy predict fanqiang and most accessible media use tendencies. Moderation effects exist between curiosity and self-efficacy in predicting fanqiang tendencies. Disappointment as an emotional effect is directly related to curiosity and political apathy, where the mediation effects of media use tendencies are not salient. Explicit Internet censorship increases curiosity about forbidden political content and decreases the dimension of lack of interest in political apathy. However, it does not change accessible media use tendencies and disappointment levels. Still, participants show fewer of fanqiang tendencies than with accessible media, except radio. The results highlight the cognitive roots of motivations and emotional constructs as a part of gratification in U&G research, that self-efficacy as a necessary requirement for curiosity to drive media use, and that information attributes can change motivations. We urge future scholars to build broader explications of political apathy when applied to different societies, to try diverse methods like experimentation in U&G research, and to adopt a sociopsychological approach when studying the influences and effectiveness of Internet censorship.

Este trabalho abordou a pesquisa do professor sobre temas ligados à sua prática docente, aliada a processos de formação continuada. O objetivo foi analisar o processo inicial de questionamento do professor em formação e a ocorrência das primeiras sistematizações dos objetos de sua prática. Para desenvolver esta proposta foram empregados referencias teóricos sobre a formação de professores incluindo aqueles que configuram investigação de professores como um princípio norteador da formação. A curiosidade é outro referencial e foi primeiramente analisada segundo seus diversos sentidos e segundo várias perspectivas e, em seguida, estabeleceu-se uma ligação da curiosidade com a ideia da investigação do professor e seu processo de conhecimento. Nosso interesse foi saber como uma curiosidade inicial ou espontânea do professor em formação pode se tornar sistemática e rigorosa, ou seja, curiosidade epistemológica. O professor é considerado como alguém que produz conhecimento e pode desenvolver uma investigação sistemática sobre sua prática docente. Este trabalho é resultado de estudo de caso desenvolvido em uma disciplina de Fundamentos Metodológicos de Ciências e Matemática de curso de Mestrado Profissional em Ciências e Matemática. Por meio de uma metodologia interpretativa, no qual a pesquisadora realizou uma observação participativa, foram analisadas as atividades desenvolvidas na disciplina por dez professores de Matemática, além de entrevistas semiestruturadas. As análises dos dados produziram a caracterização do desenvolvimento da reflexão dos mestrandos e da manifestação de atitudes investigativas sobre questões da própria prática. Os resultados indicam que a proposta da disciplina auxiliou na participação dos mestrandos em falar e escrever sobre a própria prática docente. Os depoimentos dos mestrandos evidenciaram que eles procuram problematizar suas próprias experiências docentes, mas ao mesmo tempo, têm dificuldades com os estudos sobre Educação e Educação Matemática. Foi possível observar nexos e elementos que indicam que os mestrandos estiveram, num movimento direcionado para ultrapassar uma curiosidade inicial. Novas ideias e questionamentos sobre a prática docente surgiram segundo as experiências efetivas dos mestrandos como professores. / This thesis addressed the professors research about topics related to their teaching practices combined with the processes of continued education. The goal was to analyze the initial process of questioning the professor in training and to arrange methodically their first subjects of practice. To develop this proposal, theoretical references were used about the teachers in training, including those that take into account the teachers research as a guiding principle of training. Curiosity was also another referential and was primarily analyzed according to its various senses and various perspectives. Moreover, a link was established between curiosity itself and the teachers research idea and knowledge process. Our interest was to find out how the teachers initial curiosity or spontaneity during training can become systematic or rigorous, in other words, epistemological curiosity. The professor is considered as someone who produces knowledge and can develop a systematic investigation about their practices. This thesis is a result of a case study developed in the course Methodological Foundations of Science and Mathematics of Professional Masters of Science and Mathematics degree. Through an interpretive methodology, in which the researcher carried out a participative observation, ten Mathematics professors analyzed developed activities from the course and semi-structured interviews. The data analysis characterized the graduate students reflexion of development and revealed investigative attitudes about their own practices. The results indicate that the course proposal helped in the participation of graduate students to share about their own teaching practices. Their statements showed that they put in doubt their own instructing experiences but at the same time have complications with the studies about Education and Mathematics Education. It was possible to notice connections and elements that indicate that the graduate students were part of a direct movement to overcome the initial curiosity. New ideas and discussions came up according to effective experiences of the graduate students as teachers

Le Commentaire sur l’Ecclésiaste de saint Bonaventure se révèle être une œuvre importante dans la compréhension de la réflexion qui porte au XIII° siècle sur l’articulation entre philosophie et théologie. En effet, alors que le Commentaire reçoit une forme, la lectio, et s’apparente par sa méthode à la disputatio et à la praedicatio – toutes caractéristiques de la période scolastique –, il met en évidence l’apport de la philosophie à l’exégèse d’une part : l’importance du nombre des 89 questions au sein du Commentaire et le recours à la philosophie aristotélicienne et à la philosophie platonicienne permettent à saint Bonaventure en premier lieu de décrire et comprendre le monde, et en particulier sa mutabilité. Mais c’est aussi de la mutabilité des choses dans l’esprit de l’être humain qu’il s’agit. Quant à l’éthique, la philosophie donne des outils pour étudier la vertu. Enfin, la philosophie platonicienne fonde la distinction entre monde sensible et monde intelligible. Il met en évidence l’apport de l’exégèse à la philosophie d’autre part. Dans l’histoire de la curiosité comme concupiscence des yeux qui fait intervenir les notions centrales uti et frui. Dans l’histoire de l’anthropologie, en donnant une place très particulière à l’homme, comme union d’un corps mortel et d’une âme immortelle. Dans l’histoire de la notion d’ordre, que ce soit l’ordre de la sagesse régi par le nombre ou l’ordre de la bonté régi par le poids. Dans l’histoire de la connaissance de soi, quand l’âme se connaît comme miroir du monde et de Dieu. Toutes ces caractéristiques comptent parmi celles qui ont consacré comme un chef-d’œuvre le Commentaire de saint Bonaventure. / Saint Bonaventure’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes reveals itself as an important work to understand the reflection in the thirteenth century about the connection between philosophy and theology. Indeed, when the Commentary receives a form, the lectio, and is related by its method to the disputatio and to the praedicatio – all features of the scolastic period –, it makes obvious the contribution of philosophy to exegesis on the one hand. The importance of the number of the 89 questions within the Commentary, and the recourse to the aristotelician philosophy and to the platonician philosophy allow saint Bonaventure in the first place to describe and to understand the world, and particularly its mutability. But it is about mutability of things in the mind of human being too. As for ethic, philosophy gives tools to study virtue. At last, platonician philosophy founds the distinction between sensible world and intelligible world. It makes obvious the contribution of exegesis to philosophy on the other hand. In the history of curiosity as concupiscence of the eyes, which makes intervene the essential notions of uti and frui. In the history of anthropology, which gives a very special place to man, as union of a mortal body to an immortal soul. In the history of the notion of order, whether the order of wisdom, governed by number, or the order of goodness, governed by weight. In the history of knowledge of oneself, when the soul knows itself as mirror of the world and of God. All these characteristics are among those which have sanctioned as a masterpiece the Commentary of saint Bonaventure.

Curiosity drives many of our daily pursuits and interactions; yet, we know surprisingly little about how it works. Here, I harness an idea implied in many conceptualizations of curiosity – that information has value in and of itself. Reframing curiosity as the motivation to obtain reward – where the reward is information – allows me to leverage major advances in theoretical and computational mechanisms of reward-motivated learning. Using willingness to wait, an established measure of reward-motivated behavior, I test the reward value of information, finding that people are more willing to wait for information about which they’re more curious. I then provide new evidence supporting several predictions that emerge from this information-as-reward framework. In Chapter 1, I examine whether the valence of information affects its reward value, finding an asymmetric effect of positive vs. negative information, with positive valence associated with both enhanced curiosity and enhanced long-term memory for information. I then test an idea drawn from computational and neurobiological accounts of reward learning, which suggest that it is not the absolute value of information that drives learning, but, rather, the gap between the reward expected and the reward received. By asking people to rate both their curiosity about a question and their satisfaction with the answer, I obtain measures of the values of the reward expected (curiosity) and the reward received (satisfaction) and find that the discrepancy between the two – the information prediction error – facilitates learning. These findings suggest a conceptual correspondence between dopaminergic mechanisms of reward learning and curiosity. Aging is associated with decrements in dopaminergic functioning, but it is unclear whether these deficits extend to curiosity, as few behavioral investigations of curiosity and aging exist. In Chapter 2, I, therefore, sought to explore the effects of aging on curiosity, providing behavioral evidence that curiosity is not diminished in aging, but, rather, that it is enhanced. These findings also revealed that older adults are more likely to wait for more positive information, consistent with existing theories of emotional processing. In Chapter 3, I sought to test whether the dopaminergic reward system, particularly the striatum, plays a necessary and causal role in curiosity by examining curiosity in patients with Parkinson’s disease, a neurological disorder characterized by dopamine depletion in the striatum and striatal dysfunction. I provide evidence for diminished curiosity in people with Parkinson’s disease, relative to age- and education-matched controls. In particular, I find that participants with Parkinson’s disease are less likely to wait for lower-value rewards, i.e., information about which they’re less curious. Taken together, these results support the idea that information functions as a reward – much like money or food – guiding choices and driving learning in systematic ways.

Children typically acquire language rapidly during their first few years of life. Their rates and levels of proficiency vary, but it is clear that the development of one’s language repertoire impacts academic outcomes and future success across many domains. There are both genetic and environmental factors that affect and contribute to one’s development. For children whose vocal verbal behavior is less well developed, it is imperative that we continue to develop and implement tactics and procedures to intervene in order to accelerate their language development. Researchers have identified Naming as a critical verbal developmental capability that allows one to learn language incidentally. Are there different types of Naming capabilities? Do properties of stimuli affect language acquisition? Does the Naming repertoire relate to children’s level of curiosity about the world around them? In the 3 experiments that follow, I examined the effects of 2 types of Naming experiences and varying properties of visual stimuli on measures of Naming. In Experiments 2 and 3, I also conducted measures of curiosity to assess the possibility of a relationship between Naming and question asking. In my first experiment there were 31 participants. I investigated the effects of match-to-sample and exclusion Naming experiences on incidental acquisition of listener and speaker responses in both adults without disabilities and youth with disabilities. I examined the differences between the 2 age groups and Naming experiences. The adult means of listener and speaker responses were greater than the youth means. All adults met criterion for Naming with the match-to-sample experience, and 9 of 14 adults also achieved criterion levels with the unfamiliar stimuli following the exclusion Naming experience. The adult group’s results showed that the group’s Naming repertoire was fairly balanced for listener responses across the Naming experiences with minimal variability, and its speaker repertoire was not as balanced. The youth group’s results demonstrated similar levels of variability across both topographies. The effect of the Naming experience was significant for speaker responses. In the second experiment, I implemented an intervention to try to establish unfamiliar stimuli as reinforcers to test its effects on the 2 types of Naming probes and curiosity measures in 6 elementary age children with disabilities. There were some effects from the treatment, but following 2 intervention conditions none of the participants met criteria for Naming. The participants’ numbers of accurate listener responses were greater than their speaker responses. In Experiment 3, I conducted tests for curiosity and Naming with sets of stimuli that had varying levels of familiarity and complexity for 9 preschool age children with and without disabilities. As with the first 2 experiments, the numbers of listener responses for participants were greater than their speaker responses, and there was more variability in the speaker responses compared to the listener responses. The results suggested that the type of Naming experience or the familiarity level of the visual stimuli alone did not appear to influence the dependent variables, but rather that there may be an interaction among the independent variables. The means of responses were greater with more familiar stimuli following match-to-sample experiences whereas the means were greater with less familiar stimuli following the exclusionary Naming experiences. The results of the 3 experiments affirmed the independence of the listener and speaker components of Naming and suggest that the demonstration of Naming with unknown, unfamiliar types of stimuli may be a type of Naming capability that may not be present in all individuals who demonstrate Naming with unknown, familiar stimuli.

A partir de l'exemple montpelliérain, la présente étude s'intéresse au phénomène culturel ducollectionnisme, en appréhendant de manière conjointe collectionneurs et collections entre leXVIe siècle et le XVIIIe siècle. Considérée comme capitale scientifique durant l'époquemoderne, la ville s'offre comme un exemple privilégié pour aborder une approche croiséeentre histoire de l'art et sociologie de la culture savante.Face à une très grande diversité de sources, ce travail propose d'abord une réflexion sur lesdéfinitions mêmes de collectionneur et de collection, avant d'en présenter une analysetypologique. Le travail s'attache en second lieu à comprendre la dialectique entre lecollectionnisme et la curiosité, entendu comme désir de voir, d'avoir et de savoir. Cettedémarche ambitionne de mettre au jour les différents usages des collections et de leuréconomie, tout en abordant les différentes figures de collectionneurs, entre curieux, amateurs,connaisseurs et savants. Par ailleurs, le travail tente de rendre compte de la manière dont ceshommes, quelle que soit la nature des collections, mettent en oeuvre leur capacité de jugementen privilégiant l'expérience sensible. Lieu voué à la perception, la collection s'offre aussicomme lieu de célébration de la mémoire. Aussi l'étude s'attache-t-elle à comprendrecomment le collectionnisme contribue à la fabrique du regard. / From the city of Montpellier example, the present study focuses on the cultural phenomenonof collectionism, by approaching in a joint process, collectors and collections within theXVIth century and the XVIIIth century span. The city, recognized as a scientific capitalduring the modern period, offers a privileged example to undertake a crossed approachbetween art history and sociology of savant culture.Faced with a huge diversity of sources, the first proposal of this work is a reflexion on thecollector and the collection's very definition before presenting them in a typological analysis.In a second step, this work aims at understanding dialectics between collectionism andcuriosity, understood as desire of seeing, possessing and knowledge.This process aspires tounveil the various uses of collections and their economy, approaching jointly the differentcharacters of collectors, among curieux, amateurs, connoisseurships and savants. Moreover,attention is payed on giving account on the manner these persons, whichever the nature oftheir collection, make use of their judgement capacity while prioritizing sensitive experience.As a place dedicated to perception, the collection also offers itself a place of memorycelebration. Therefore, the study works toward understanding how collectionism contributesto the fabric of vision.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1992.