This research adopts a sociocultural framework (Vygotsky, 1978) to investigate how multilingual children express their mathematical reasoning during collaborative problem solving. The topic is important because North America is becoming increasingly multicultural, and according to mathematics teachers this has complicated the challenges of teaching and learning mathematics. Many educators assume that children should be competent in the language of instruction before they engage with mathematical content (Civil, 2008; Gorgorió & Planas, 2001). A review of recent research in this area challenges the idea that multilingual students need to have mastered the official language of instruction prior to learning mathematics (Barwell, 2005; Civil, 2008; Moschkovich, 2007). These researchers demonstrate that the knowledge of the language of instruction is only one aspect of becoming competent in mathematics. My research was designed to build on the findings of the current research on multilingual children’s reasoning in order to more fully understand how multilingual children express their mathematical understanding and reasoning. For this study, two multilingual families, each with 3 children between the ages of 8 and 12, participated in a mathematical problem-solving activity. Findings show the children’s mathematical reasoning was evidence-based drawing on mathematical knowledge and world knowledge.

Background: Relatives to people with schizophrenia often experience a great burden and inmany cases takes a lot of responsibility for the person suffering from schizophrenia. Nationalguidelines emphasize the importance for relatives to be involved in mental health care, butunfortunately that is not always the case. Objective: The aim of this study is to investigateand describe how relatives to people with schizophrenia have experienced collaboration andsupport from mental health services, and what requests they might have for the futureregarding the design of collaboration and support. Method: Qualitative approach. Interviewbased study with qualitative content analysis as a method. Results: Two different themes andeleven categories describing the relatives experiences and preferences regarding collaborationand support from mental health services. These two themes are; To be taken for granted butstill left out and Lack of support leading to feelings of loneliness and insecurity. The firsttheme symbolizes collaboration and includes five categories. The second theme symbolizessupport and includes six categories. Conclusion: Relatives to people with schizophrenia havepredominantly negative experiences of collaboration with staff in psychiatric care. Governingdocuments states that relatives should be involved in patient care and treatment. To developand implement successful practices around this, it is important that the staff will discussissues such as confidentiality, attitude, responsibility, inclusion and accessibility. Therelatives have both positive and negative experiences of support from mental health services.If regards should be taken to the relative’s requests about how the support should be designed,their insecurities and feelings of loneliness would decrease. Relationships, knowledge, reliefand personalized support are crucial areas that should be discussed by the staff in psychiatriccare. Quality improvement and development in this area would make it easier for relatives,staff and patients. / Bakgrund: Närstående till personer med schizofreni upplever ofta en stor börda och tar imånga fall ett stort ansvar för den sjuke personen. Nationella riktlinjer betonar vikten av attnärstående ska involveras i den psykiatriska vården, det har dock i många fall visat sig att såinte är fallet. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur närstående till personer medschizofreni har upplevt samverkan med och stöder från den psykiatriska vården, samt vilkaönskemål de har för utformandet av samverkan och stöd i framtiden. Metod: Kvalitativansats. Intervjustudie med kvalitativ innehållsanalys som metod. Resultat: Två teman ochelva kategorier beskriver de närståendes upplevelser och önskemål angående samverkan medoch stöd från den psykiatriska vården. Dessa två teman är Att bli tagen för given men ändålämnas utanför och Brist på stöd leder till känsla av ensamhet och otrygghet. Det första tematsymboliserar samverkan, under detta tema finns fem kategorier. Det andra temat symboliserarstöd och under detta tema finns sex kategorier. Slutsats: Närstående till personer medschizofreni har övervägande negativa upplevelser av samverkan med personal inom denpsykiatriska vården. Styrande dokument beskriver att närstående ska involveras i patientensvård och behandling. För att utveckla och implementera fungerande rutiner kring detta är detviktigt att personalen diskuterar frågor som sekretess, bemötande, ansvar, delaktighet ochtillgänglighet. De närstående har både positiva och negativa upplevelser av stöd från denpsykiatriska vården, om de närståendes önskemål om hur stödet ska utformas tas tillvara iutvecklingsarbetet med dessa frågor kan deras otrygghet och känsla av ensamhet minska.Relationer, kunskap, avlastning och individanpassat stöd är viktiga områden som personalinom den psykiatriska vården bör diskutera. Kvalitetshöjande utvecklingsarbete inom dettaområde skulle underlätta för närstående, personal och patienter.

Thesis (M.A. (Social Work))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

As our society merges with the digital, new issues of community, collaboration and knowledge production have risen to the forefront of the social sciences in a quest to explore what this means at both the macro and micro level. Collaborative knowledge production is the process of a large group of individuals joining forces to co-create tangible pieces of information. It only functions when a critical mass of individuals get together to co-create the resource. As these actions are unpaid, voluntary work, the challenge is to motivate individuals to donate their own resources (such as time and expertise) to the project.   This paper examines the motivations behind such actions, and whether or not a community is inevitably constructed by such actions, indeed whether or not community is even theoretically possible in the online sphere.  wikiHow.com, a popular collaborative website, was used as an in-depth case-study in my research. I chose a qualitative approach, distributing both open and closed questionnaires to participants on the wikiHow website through both snowball and convenience sampling methods. The theoretical discussion and analysis draws apon work from Wellman, Putnam, Levy, Lessig, Benkler and Maslow, among others prominent in the field.  Participants revealed they were driven to contibute by numerous, interlinked motivations, linked primarily by the high level of importance they placed on social activities. This study provides novel evidence that wikiHow users are multifaceted entities, driven by a large range of factors with a strong emphasis on seeking out and participating in social interaction. This leads us to label wikiHow as a definitively modern community and allows us to conclude that community has not disappeared, rather it has evolved and adapted to include emergent digital possibilities.

Maintaining an awareness of collaborators' actions is critical during collaborative work, including during collaborative visualization activities. Particularly when collaborators are located at a distance, it is important to know what everyone is working on in order to avoid duplication of effort, share relevant results in a timely manner and build upon each other's results. Can a person's brushing actions provide an indication of their queries and interests in a data set? Can these actions be revealed to a collaborator without substantially disrupting their own independent work? I designed a study to answer these questions in the context of distributed collaborative visualization of tabular data. Participants in my study worked independently to answer questions about a tabular data set, while simultaneously viewing brushing actions of a fictitious collaborator, shown directly within a shared workspace. I compared three methods of presenting the collaborator's actions: brushing & linking (i.e. highlighting exactly what the collaborator would see), selection (i.e. showing only a selected item), and persistent selection (i.e. showing only selected items but having them persist for some time). My results demonstrated that persistent selection enabled some awareness of the collaborator's activities while causing minimal interference with independent work. Other techniques were less effective at providing awareness, and brushing & linking caused substantial interference. These findings suggest promise for the idea of exploiting natural brushing actions to provide awareness in collaborative work. / Graduate / 0984 / amirhos.hajiz@gmail.com

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Mandated collaboration networks are an overly studied topic in the field of public administration and management, with the emphasis on these studies however focused on the failures to accomplish its collaborative aims. The role that mandated collaboration networks play today in enabling societies and governments alike,  to realize insurmountable challenges through their  collaborative efforts is however not being paid as much attention as it should be, yet through it, huge socio and economic benefits are derived.  This study recognizes the part mandated collaboration network plays by seeking to further investigate the role, power and trust play in influencing managers towards attaining efficiency. Data was collected from 7 managers from the public sector, with some public managers, tasked with the responsibility of playing oversight role and disbursing funds and other public managers tasked with implementing the services, all working towards achieving a regional goal within Västerbotten region. By conducting semi-structured interviews with them, the aim was to find out the daily encounters they faced in implementing their activities and achieving their goals. In order to analyze this study adequately, theories were derived from governance, principal agency, structuration theory, Long & Sitkin integrated trust and control framework  that enabled me to come up with a conceptual framework. The findings of this framework were particularly insightful in regards to how managers in mandated collaboration network can use trust in ensuring that they achieve their desired efficiency goals. The findings show both power and trust in mandated collaboration network play a coordinative and regulative role in ensuring that the goals are realized. Calculative trust alongside formal controls can be used to address challenges that managers encounter in realizing their goals. Relational trust can also be nurtured, however at an interpersonal level or with peers that perform the same activities but not at an institutional level such as the mandated collaboration network. Attaining efficiency in the mandated collaboration network is however also further compounded by contextual matters both internal and external that hamper its attainment.

Introduction The NHS emphasises programme approaches to commissioning (Health Improvement Programmes and National Service Frameworks) but research is limited. I evaluated the Health Care Programme Approach (HCPA) for stroke whose individual elements are: a co-ordinating group; a co-ordinator; a technical document; and agreement of priorities. Methods 1 Four rounds of interviews with managers and clinicians; observation at meetings; analysis of documentary sources. 2 Quantitative indicators of progress measured at two time points. 3 Estimation of the Programme Budget and Transaction Costs from published sources and local data. 4 Interviews with Directors of Public Health from nine comparator districts. Results 1A structured process led to a set of priorities, which were widely accepted across all agencies, allowing the co-ordinating group to focus on facilitating change. This group took two years to reach a stage where it could change services. Most peoples upportedth e approachb ut were not alwaysc lear aboutt he process. 2 The indicators showed improvements in some aspects of care. 3 The programme budget was £IOm, mostly in long-term care (£5.5m) and hospital care (£3m). The transaction costs amounted to 0.25% of the programme budget. Preface 4 All comparator districts reported changes to commissioning and improvements in stroke services, but I found more widespread change in the study district. Discussion The detailed description of process, and use of multiple methods, gives strength to the findings. A collaborative approach has developed across the NHS during the period of this study making the findings highly relevant. There were important lessons for multiagency groups including: the time needed to function effectively; the need for individuals to clarify whether they represent an organisation or their own perspective; the need to review the group remit and the group's routes of communication; and the ability to adapt to changes in national policy while focusing on improving the health of the patients who fall within the programme. Keywords Planning, Purchasing, Commissioning, Stroke Services, Health Care Programme Approach, Evidence-Based, Multiagency Collaboration, Triangulation, Evaluation, Case Study.