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This participatory auto-ethnography was conducted to explore the use of creative activities to enhance the self-esteem of individuals who have sustained an acquired brain injury (ABI). There were five participants in the study, including myself as the researcher/participant. Three questions were researched: how do ABI patients feel when they have completed a creative task, how does the way ABI patients feel when they complete their creative endeavors affect the way they feel about other aspects of their lives, and, how can ABI patients learn things about themselves by doing creative activities, which will help them be more successful in other aspects of their lives? The genre or methodology 'participatory auto-ethnography' was chosen for two reasons. Firstly, an auto-ethnography includes autobiographical writing, so the epistemological problem which can result because the researcher is from the same culture as the participants is eliminated. As the researcher, I could freely express my own experiences without fear of lessening the validity of the views of my participants. Secondly, a participatory paradigm includes alternative representation. Three were used: a short story, a play, and a pictorial representation of the data. Data were collected in multiple forms, including participant observation, conversations with the participants, field notes, and a focus group interview. The data were analyzed, and emerging findings were triangulated. The report was written in a narrative format designed to attract readers both within and beyond the academic sphere. The findings suggest that engagement in creative activities is a positive addition to ABI rehabilitation because of its favorable impact on self-esteem. I concluded the study by highlighting areas that may benefit from further research.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to encourage high school graduates to voice on the impact past teachers had on their motivation to learn, and to determine if this impact has affected their post high school lives. Through a focus group strategy, 21 high school alumni participated in three separate focus groups. Participants discussed their former teachers' emotional intelligence skills that influenced their motivation to learn. On the review, teachers were identified as a major factor in a student's motivation to learn. This research was guided by Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory of Motivation (1986) and constructs related to learning and motivation from Carl Rogers' Humanistic Views of Personality (1961), and from Brain Based Learning perspectives with a major focus on the area of Emotional Intelligence. Findings revealed that the majority of participants identified teachers who most motivated them to learn and who demonstrated skills associated with emotional intelligence. An important and disturbing finding was that some of the participants had negative experiences. Further work is recommended to expand this research in a post secondary education study to gain insight into the long-term benefits attributable to experiencing positive teachers and the negative impact teachers have on students' motivation to learn, specifically on student anxiety and learned helplessness.

On the basis of theoretical work on the self, coping, and self-determination, the goal of this thesis was to understand the role of both structural and more flexible self-related variables in the process of adapting to change as well as the consequences of this adaptation process. It was hypothesized that, in a changing situation, a structural aspect of the self, namely, the sense of self, would predict more positive appraisals and less negative appraisals toward this change. Appraisals and coping, in turn, were hypothesized to represent adaptation processes mediating the associations between sense of self and various consequences. The consequences investigated included psychological well-being, as well as changes in some more flexible aspects of the self, such as in the importance attributed to a new self-component and in self-determined motivation. Three studies were conducted to test these hypotheses. Study 1 (N = 35) was a preliminary laboratory experiment designed to induce change (experimental condition) vs. no change (control condition). The impact of the change manipulation on the associations between sense of self and appraisals was first tested using hierarchical moderated regression analyses. While a stronger negative association was found between sense of self and negative appraisals in the experimental (i.e., change) than in the control condition, sense of self did not predict positive appraisals, both in the experimental and in the control conditions. Through mediational analyses, negative appraisals were found to significantly mediate the sense of self - well-being association. Study 2 (N = 80) aimed at further testing these hypotheses by including another mediator in the sense of self - well-being association, namely, coping strategies. Again, a stronger association was observed between sense of self and negative appraisals in the experimental than in the control condition. Furthermore, mediational analyses confirmed the mediating role of (1) negative appraisals in the sense of self -disengagement-oriented coping association, (2) task-oriented coping in the positive appraisals-well-being relationship, and (3) disengagement-oriented coping in the negative appraisals-well-being association. Using a three-wave longitudinal design, Study 3 (N = 311) aimed at testing the entire hypothesized model among university students as they were experiencing the transition to university. Using structural equation modeling involving true intraindividual change analyses, sense of self was found to predict both positive and negative appraisals toward the transition to university. While positive appraisals positively predicted task-oriented coping strategies used to deal with the transition and negatively predicted disengagement-oriented coping, negative appraisals positively predicted both forms of coping. Finally, task-oriented coping positively predicted psychological well-being as well as increases in both identification as a university student and in academic motivation, whereas disengagement-oriented coping predicted less well-being and a decrease in academic self-determination. Through tests of indirect effects, the mediating role of appraisals and coping was confirmed. Implications of the findings and future research avenues are further discussed.