This thesis investigated the cost-effectiveness of a 12-month supervised aerobic walking program with or without a behavioural intervention and an educational pamphlet, compared to an unsupervised/self-directed educational pamphlet intervention, among individuals with moderate osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Analyses included an economic evaluation to assess the cost effectiveness of the two walking interventions from both the societal and Canadian provincial/territorial health care payer perspectives. A value of information analysis exploring the potential value of future research was also performed. Results revealed that the unsupervised/self-directed intervention was the most cost-effective approach given that it cost the least to implement and participants had higher quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Walking, either supervised in a community setting, or unsupervised in a setting such as the home, may be a favourable non-pharmacological option for the management of OA of the knee. The thesis concludes with a policy discussion relating to the funding of non-pharmacological therapies.

This study investigated the discharge practice of a Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) by examining records (electronic and file) of clients discharged between April 2005 and March 2006. Out of a total of 211 discharged clients a random sample of 20 clients was selected to examine the extent to which records and reasons for discharge adhere to current CMHT policies and guidelines. In addition, a sample of clients who had been engaged by the CMHT for 6 months or less was compared to a sample of clients who have been engaged for 1 year or longer to establish whether these differed in sociodemographic characteristics, diagnoses and extent of service provision. The majority of clients discharged during the specified period consisted of clients engaged for 6 months or less. The sampling process revealed that a proportion of these included clients seen for one-off assessments or duty calls, indicating that there is room for improvement to clarify referral criteria (e.g. to GPs) and the role of the CMHT. Similarly, the examination of recording practice also revealed room for improvement in the closing of care packages electronically and inclusion of required information in discharge letters. Almost 50% of clients in the sample were discharged following a decline of any further intervention the reasons for which it will be important to investigate in the form of an audit or survey of service user’s views. Clients engaged for 6 months or less and 1 year or longer seemed to differ mostly in terms of employment rates, diagnosis and previous inpatient admission and mental health act sections. The findings are discussed in relation to the limitations of this study, implications for the service and further research.

This PhD thesis looks at the meaning of website effectiveness and their influence on design decision-making. The research is focused within the context of designing by 16+ students and concerning sustainability. Design practice is explored within Advanced level General Certificate of Education (commonly referred to as AS/A2) Design and Technology, in order to define its particular characteristics. The study uses a theoretical position developed from the Assessment of Performance Unit s (APU) discussion document from 1982 as a framework to explore information retrieval within designing. The position of the study within designing and its place within research related to the use of knowledge, skills and values in designing is clarified. A literature review conducted conceived information retrieval as a characteristic of skill in the APU model. This study has established a consensus position on what is good practice in website development and design, and illustrates the structure of selected sustainable design websites, as well as assessing their navigation. The study indicates which types of information AS/A2 level student designers are seeking and how they use websites within their design work. The drivers behind sustainable design decision-making are identified. The understood consensus of sustainable development and sustainable design as an emerging area in designing is defined. The research is situated within the Sustainable Design Award (SDA) scheme that aimed to implement sustainable development into Design and Technology education and also outlines the content embodied in selected sustainable design websites. AS/A2 level Design and Technology education is used as the context for the main study. Action research was used to help develop the SDA website which was created as a primary assessment tool for the research study, concentrating on students aged 16 to 18. The usability of the selected websites was assessed by undergraduate designers from Loughborough University. A framework was developed and the effectiveness of the SDA website was measured before use, during use and after use . Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to gather data from the students such as questionnaires, folio assessments and interviews. The results indicate a prominence of website use and sustainable design within AS/A2 level design work, however sustainable design is taught as a separate entity and is not fully integrated into design practice. Sustainable design websites were accessed by half of the 72 students questioned, but only 28% had used the SDA website. The information that the student designers sought fell into two categories: specific information and inspiration, supporting Lofthouse (2001a). The use of these decreased dramatically as projects progressed in AS/A2 level and undergraduate level design education, this pattern was consistent in website use, sustainable design and sustainable design website use. Cluster analysis was carried out on the sustainable design websites with the informative cluster identified as representing the appropriate strategy for effective higher level website design. This cluster included characteristics such as comprehensive content information on sustainability, inspirational images and product examples. Appropriate approaches to the detailed design and development of the SDA website are reported. Future recommended work includes a focus on before use, to investigate the affects of increasing awareness of the website. Relating wider sustainability issues to AS/A2 Design and Technology education is discussed, investigating further the use of eco-design tools as the discussion highlights conflicting opinions. An expansion to the cluster analysis to help define further the four website cluster groups. The development of a website that correlates the emerging patterns of website, sustainable design and sustainable design website use, with work on value judgements completed by Trimingham (2007).

Organisational effectiveness has always been researchers’ main concern and interest over a long period of the time. Also, organisational culture as the main contributor of organisational effectiveness and its impact has attracted many scholars in different disciplines including organisational studies. While there is an extensive body of literature on the relationship between organisational culture and organisational effectiveness, many of the previous studies in this field have explored the direct relationship between specific culture domains and specific effectiveness measures and researchers have paid inadequate attention to mediators and moderators of the link between organizational culture and effectiveness. In fact, there is an absence of a comprehensive conceptual model of the culture-effectiveness relationship in the literature that includes the impact of mediators such as leadership style or moderators such as national culture and organisational size. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating influence of leadership style and the moderating impact of national culture and organisational size on the culture-effectiveness relationship in private sector organisations in Iran. In order to achieve the research aim and objectives this study is preceded by a systematic review of the relevant literature that leads to the development of a comprehensive conceptual model. Data collected from different management levels of 40 private sector organisations in Iran by using a survey questionnaire with a design based on previous studies, and analysed using the statistical package for social sciences, SPSS V.18. A convenience sample of 1,000 respondents from various management levels of the organisations was established, in which 353 were returned on time to the researcher that create the response rate of 35.3 percent. This research in nature is quantitative, positivist and deductive and uses survey method by self-administered questionnaire because of its obvious advantages when it comes to versatility and speed. The results of this study show that there is a strong relationship between organisational culture, leadership style and organisational effectiveness and, in fact, leadership style is a partial mediator between all four organisational culture types and organisational effectiveness apart from the adhocracy culture type. Moreover, the findings of this study confirm the importance and major impact of national culture and organisational size as moderators on the relationship between organisational culture, leadership style and organisational effectiveness. This study makes several contributions one of which is the presentation of a comprehensive framework that that explains the importance and impact of leadership style as a mediator and national culture and organisational size as moderators on the culture-effectiveness relationship. Moreover, this study provides a novel contribution to the growing literature on the culture-effectiveness relationship in private sector organisations, particularly for developing countries such as Iran. Furthermore, the result of this study provides meaningful managerial implications and can be used as a guide for implementing organisational change including cultural or managerial styles to improve organisational effectiveness.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) has been positively associated with success in the educational and corporate world, and has recently been linked with effective teaching. However, while it has been shown to be a learnable skill, studies of EI development in teachers are relatively rare. The present study explores the impact of a two-year, group-based EI coaching programme upon EI competencies and personal and professional effectiveness in teachers, the processes and experiences induced by the programme, and the elements which contributed to its success. The study was conducted in a single secondary school in Israel, and employed an interpretive, qualitative framework and a mixed-methods approach. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with twenty of the twenty-one training-programme participants were conducted at the end of the training and comprised the main research tool. Additionally, data from pre-post training Bar-On EQ-i assessments served to prompt discussions during the interviews, validate interview findings, and further illuminate the EI development process. The findings confirm links between EI and teachers’ effectiveness and indicate that EI competencies in teachers can be developed through group-based EI coaching. Stages in the EI development process and elements that supported it have been identified. It is suggested that dedicated EI development training programmes have the potential to improve personal and professional effectiveness in teachers and may lead to organisational, school-wide EI implementation. Accordingly, development of personal EI competencies in teachers within school-based CPD programmes should be favourably considered.

The impact of training on virtual team effectiveness was assessed in five areas: communication, planning tasks and setting goals, solving problems and making decisions, resolving conflict, and responding to customer requirements. A 12-page survey was developed exploring all aspects of virtual teams. 180 surveys were distributed, 52 were returned representing 43 companies. Training led to higher effectiveness in planning tasks and setting goals, solving problems and making decisions, and conflict resolution, but not in communication and responding to customer requirements. Training may not solve all the problems that virtual teams will encounter; however, training will make the challenges easier to handle.

Over the years there has been significant discussion of the connection between principal's leadership qualities and teacher efficacy. Students come to the classroom from stable, traditional, supportive home environments as well as from unstable, broken, and homeless situations. Teachers are asked to teach a classroom full of students with a wide range of learning abilities as well as a varied range of learning disabilities. The confidence to do this for the measure of a teacher's career takes a strong sense of efficacy. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teachers' sense of efficacy and teachers' perceptions of their principals' leadership qualities that enhance and/or diminish the teachers' sense of efficacy. This study utilized both quantitative and qualitative research methods to study the effects of leadership qualities on teacher efficacy. Quantitative data was acquired utilizing the teacher sense of efficacy scale and the principal leadership questionnaire. Qualitative data was gathered through a focus group meeting of teachers with measurably strong efficacy to identify principal practices that affect teachers' efficacy. The study's outcomes reported that total respondent data indicates a generally positive relationship between these two variables. Subgroup analysis revealed varying results with diminishing relationships measured from elementary to secondary teachers. Qualitative information gathered from teachers with strong efficacy reported strategies that foster teacher efficacy, make teachers feel good about teaching and inhibit the development of teacher efficacy. The study recommends that principals and school administrators be especially knowledgeable of the six components of transformational leadership as well as the three aspects of teacher efficacy examined in this study. Being mindful of how daily leadership decisions not only fit within the transformational leadership constructs, but more importantly, how they affect good classroom teaching practices, should help principals plan and initiate strategies and programs that create a campus atmosphere more conducive to comprehensive learning.

The purpose of this study was to examine how male and female leaders view their own effectiveness as compared to their objective performance. This study also examined sex and gender differences in subordinate's views of male and female leaders. Forty-two mixed-sex groups led by appointed male and female leaders were observed to assess objective and perceived leader effectiveness. Gender role of participants was assessed using the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). No sex or gender differences were found in objective leadership effectiveness. An unexpected finding was that male and female leaders perceived themselves accurately as leaders. Significant differences were found in the way male subordinates rated men and women leaders when taking into account gender role. Results indicated that the study of gender bias in leadership is complex and should be examined in conjunction with gender role. Social role theory helps to explain this bias.

The purpose of this research study was to identify the specific components of team training that contribute most to a team's ability to perform effectively. The analysis conducted involved examining the relationship between the Training Support System Survey (Hall, 1998) along with the Training Strategies and Training Content sub-scales, and the overall measure of team performance from Beyerlein's (1996) Perceptions of Team Performance survey. Results were mostly inconclusive, due to limitations of the research. However, a few interesting findings were found related to team training for different types of teams. In addition, this research is helpful in moving toward a better understanding of the relationship between team training and team performance and pointing toward the need for additional research in this area.

This study investigated the effectiveness of a two-year faculty development program designed to assist faculty in making transition from a teacher-centered to a student-centered approach to instruction at a private university in China. One hundred full-time faculty participated in the program and ultimately 52 participants who attended entire two-year workshops were involved in the research. Seven point Likert Scale survey including open-ended questions as well as live classroom observation techniques were used to examine how the participants perceived the faculty program, whether they made improvement of their learning of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and whether the participants used what they learned after the completion of the program. The findings from this study indicated that the most of majority participants (93%) had significant positive reactions to the faculty development program; they made great improvement in their learning of knowledge, skills, and attitudes (t statistic is -6.163; p value is far small than 0.05); participants started using student-centered behaviors they learned in their teaching practice after completion of the program. The unintended outcomes regarding program improvement were also found through open-ended questionnaire in this study. The results inferred that trainer's ability strongly contributed to the high degree of overall evaluation of the program. A follow-up and longitudinal research is needed to track the impact on the organization and the impact on students' learning achievement over time. More types of university contexts including both private and public universities need to be addressed for future research. / School of Education; / Instructional Technology (EdDIT) / EdD; / Dissertation;