It is well established that repeated testing is more beneficial for durable learning than repeated studying of the same material, a phenomenon known as the testing effect. This study sought to investigate the role of working memory capacity (WMC) in relation to the learning process and the difficulty of the material to be learned when using a test-enhanced learning method. As between subject manipulation, participants (n = 99, M = 25.62 years of age) were divided into two groups, one using repeated studying and one using alternated testing and studying. A material of two difficulty levels, as well as immediate and delayed retention tests, was used in each condition as within subject manipulation. Further, an n-back task was used to measure WMC. Results from mixed model ANOVAs showed no significant impact of WMC on either the learning process or retention in relation to the difficulty of the material. The testing condition performed significantly higher than the studying condition on the retention tests. The testing effect is further cemented as a promising method for practical application in the educational sector regardless of both WMC and difficulty level. / Det är väl etablerat att upprepad testning är mer fördelaktigt för hållbar inlärning än upprepad instudering av samma material, ett fenomen känt som testeffekten. Denna studie ämnade undersöka arbetsminnets roll i relation till inlärningsprocessen och svårighetsgrad av material med testbaserat lärande som metod. Som mellangruppsmanipulation delades deltagare (n = 99, M = 25.62 år gamla) in i två grupper, en som upprepade gånger studerade materialet och en som alternerade studerande med tester. Ett material med två svårighetsgrader och ett direkt samt fördröjda retentionstester användes som inomgruppsmanipulation. Vidare användes ett n-backtest som mått på arbetsminneskapacitet. Resultat visade ingen signifikant inverkan av arbetsminne på varken inlärningsprocessen eller retention i relation till svårighetsgrad av material. Testbetingelsen presterade signifikant högre på retentionstest än studiebetingelsen. Testeffekten fastställs ytterligare som lovande metodik för praktisk applikation i utbildningssektorn oberoende av både arbetsminneskapacitet och svårighetsgrad.

Introduction: Temporary working agencies (TWAs) within the healthcare industry has exploded within the last 10 years. The temporary agency workers (TAWs) have a unique triangular employment agreement, resulting in leadership and employesship complexities. Leadership and employeeship has been linked to many aspects within an organization such as employee’s health and well-being, productivity, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore and describe the perceptions of desirable leadership, and employeeship in a client organization for temporary agency nurses. Method: The study is qualitative and uses the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) method and follows the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR). Results: The TAW nurses desire a manager that is sincere and involved, and a manager as a guide when it comes to leadership and a desire to work independently, collaborate and respect each other and for there to be humor when it comes to employeeship in client organizations. Conclusion: Desirable leadership and employeeship that the TAW nurses desire is foremost linked to relations-oriented leadership behavior according to the Task, Change and Relations (TRC) model for leadership. The TAWs have a unique triangular employment, that result in complexities. / Under de senaste tio åren har bemanningsbranschen inom sjukvården expanderat. Bemanningsanställda har en unik triangulär anställningsform som kan leda till ledarskap- och medarbetarskapskomplexitet. Ledarskap och medarbetarskap har tydligt kopplats till många aspekter inom en organisation såsom anställdas hälsa och välbefinnande, produktivitet, effektivitet och tillfredsställelse. Syftet med studien är att utforska och beskriva sjuksköterskors uppfattningarna av önskvärt ledarskap och medarbetarskap i en klientorganisation. Studien är kvalitativ och använder Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) och följer Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR). Resultatet visade att önskvärda ledarskapet i klientorganisationer är en ledare som är uppriktig och involverad och en ledare som vägleder. Önskvärt medarbetarskap i klientorganisationer är att arbeta självständigt, samarbeta, respektera varandra och humor. Slutsatsen är att önskvärt ledarskap och medarbetarskap i klientorganisationer är främst kopplat till det relationsorienterade ledarskapsbeteendet enligt Task, Relations and Change (TRC) modellen.

People are not always rational, rely on heuristics and are influenced by situational factors being conducive to biased decisions. Hence, the decision outcome cannot be explained by consumers’ preferences exclusively. This offers opportunities to service managers to steer the decision outcome into a desirable direction by a beneficial design of situational factors. In contrast to the discussed opportunities, situational factors can also become a pitfall for researchers and managers. I show that situational factors may compromise the validity of research results based on self reports in a service context, because the reported scores of research participants may be biased. Three perspectives related to service management are distinguished in this thesis: First, the customer independently of the service provider; second, the interaction of customer and service provider; third, the service provider independently of the customer. From the perspective of the customer, I investigate the impact of different defaults in a customization process on the decision outcome of different types of customers. From the perspective of the customer and service provider interaction, I point out a new solution to overcome a dilemma related to service productivity. Finally, from the perspective of the service provider, the possible contamination of service related constructs by socially desirable responding is examined.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka vad verksamma pedagoger i förskolan anser är önskvärd samt icke önskvärd lek i förskolans verksamhet. Studien förankrar sig i Basil Bernsteins (1924–2000) teori om inramning. Det insamlade materialet består av tolv stycken intervjuer med verksamma pedagoger och deras utsagor kring vad de anser är önskvärd och icke önskvärd lek i förskolan. Resultatet visade att det var lättare för pedagogerna att beskriva vad de ansåg var icke önskvärd lek än önskvärd lek. Det mest centrala i resultatet om önskvärd lek var att pedagogerna ansåg att önskvärd lek är lek som är inkluderande där alla barn får vara med. Sett till vad pedagogerna ansåg var icke önskvärd lek så var det främst lek där barnen riskerar ta fysisk eller emotionell skada. Enlig vår analys kunde samma typ av lek omslutas antingen av en stark eller en svag inramning utifrån de intervjuade pedagogernas svar. / The purpose of this study is to investigate what active educators in preschool consider is desirable and undesirable play in preschool activities. The study is rooted in Basil Bernstein's (1924–2000) theory of framing. The collected material consists of twelve interviews with active educators and their statements about what they consider is desirable and undesirable play in preschool. The result showed that it was easier for educators to describe what they considered is undesirable play than desirable play. The most central thing in the result about desirable play was that the educators considered that desirable play is play that is inclusive where all children can participate. Seen to what the educators considered about undesirable play it was mainly play where the children could risk taking physical or emotional harm. According to our analysis, the same type of play could be embraced either by a strong or a weak framing based on the interviewed educators response.

An ontology describing the constructs and their inter-relationships for business models has recently been built and evaluated: the Business Model Ontology (BMO). This ontology has been used to conceptually power a popular practitioner visual design tool: the Business Model Canvas (BMC). However, implicitly these works assume that designers of business models all have a singular normative goal: the creation of businesses that are financially profitable. These works perpetuate beliefs and businesses that do not create outcomes aligned with current natural and social science knowledge about long term individual human, societal and ecological flourishing, i.e. outcomes are not strongly sustainable. This limits the applicability and utility of these works. This exploratory research starts to overcome these limitations: creating knowledge of what is required of businesses for strongly sustainable outcomes to emerge and helping business model designers efficiently create high quality (reliable, consistent, effective) strongly sustainable business models. Based on criticism and review, this research project extends the BMO artefact to enable the description all the constructs and their inter-relationships related to a strongly sustainable business model. This results in the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Ontology (SSBMO). To help evaluate the SSBMO a practitioner visual design tool is also developed: the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas (SSBMC). Ontological engineering (from Artificial Intelligence), Design Science and Systems Thinking methodological approaches were combined in a novel manner to create the Systemic Design Science approach used to build and evaluate the SSBMO. Comparative analysis, interviews and case study techniques were used to evaluate the utility of the designed artefacts. Formal 3rd party evaluation with 7 experts and 2 case study companies resulted in validation of the overall approaches used and the utility of the SSBMO. A number of opportunities for improvement, as well as areas for future work, are identified. This thesis includes a number of supplementary graphics included in separate (electronic) files. See “List of Supplementary Materials” for details.