Grammar is one of the most problematic areas when it comes to teaching a language; to know if or when, and how grammar should be taught, are relevant questions to all language teachers. The aim of the study was to investigate teachers’ attitudes towards teaching grammar, and how much, how and why they use the methods that they do. Therefore semi-structured interviews were undertaken with six 9th grade English teachers. The main results showed that all six teachers were positive to formal instruction, and they considered implicit knowledge of grammar superior to explicit knowledge. The teachers found it problematic to estimate the time spent working on grammar, mainly because half of them saw working on grammar in a wider perspective. All the teachers used the deductive method of teaching, but only half of them also used the inductive method. All but one teacher mentioned the students as being the most important factor that influences their teaching, and also time is mentioned and considered by two of the teachers as a reason for using a text book. The results of this study may be of help to foreign language teachers, or student teachers when considering how to teach grammar.

<p>Two studies examined whether stereotypes can be created using different learning paradigms and whether the resulting stereotypes will have different properties that affect their activation, suppression, and explicit knowledge. In the Pilot Study, participants were able to learn to use clothing cues to predict membership using both an explicit paradigm that made declarative statements of group membership and an implicit paradigm based on feedback learning. In Study 1, implicit learners performed worse after a depletion task and better following a control task. Explicit learners did not change based on the depletion task. High trait self-control as measured by the Brief Self-Control Scale was shown to predict better performance in depleted implicit learners and worse performance in depleted explicit learners. In Study 2, participants in both the implicit and explicit learning conditions saw decreases in performance when trying to inhibit a previously learned cue. Trait self-control did not predict the ability to suppress the use of a specific cue. In both studies implicit learners made more accurate estimations of the cue probabilities, suggesting a stronger explicit knowledge of the relationship between the cues and group membership. These results provide initial evidence that the method of stereotype learning can have an impact on later stereotype usage although the mechanisms that lead to these differences require additional research.</p> / Dissertation

Although recent studies have begun to examine potential factors that might affect sexual appeals effectiveness, many questions remain unexplored. Based on previous studies relevant to sexual appeals, this study firstly distinguishes and explores two types of sexual appeals: implicit and explicit. Furthermore, this study compares the effects of two types of sexual appeals when product types are considered. In addition, sensation seeking is also incorporated into this research to examine how it may sway the effectiveness of the sexual appeals. The present study uses experimental design to investigate the advertising effects of different types of sexual appeals (non-sexual appeal vs. explicit appeal vs. implicit appeal) and product type (sex-related vs.non sex-related). A 3X3 factorial design is conducted. The ad effects are measured by purchase intention and attitude toward the brand to observe the response under different scenarios. The results indicate that when a sex-related product is promoted, sexual appeals are more effective than non-sexual appeals. There is an interaction effect between sexual appeal and product type. To be specific, the explicit sexual appeal is more effective than the implicit sexual appeal when a sex-related product is promoted. However, such superior effects disappear as it turns to non sex-related product promotion. Additionally, for individuals with higher sensation seeking, the explicit sexual appeal is more effective than the implicit sexual appeal when the product is related to sex. On the opposite, for those with median degree of sensation seeking, the implicit appeal is more effective than the explicit appeal to promote the product which is not sex-related. Finally, for those with low degree of sensation seeking, there is no difference in advertising effectiveness between explicit and implicit appeal. According to these findings, this study suggests that marketers should consider not only the product they promote but also the sensation seeking of the target consumers before choosing an appropriate sexual appeal to maximize the advertising effects.

An agent based-model of mobility of pastoralists was developed and applied to the semi-arid rangeland region extending from southern Ethiopia to northern Kenya. This model was used to investigate temporal adaptation of pastoralists to the spatial heterogeneity of their environment. This dissertation describes the development, structure, and corroboration process of the simulation model, Pastoral Livestock Movement Model (PLMMO). PLMMO is a spatially explicit, individual-based pastoralists-animal foraging and movement model. It simultaneously simulates the foraging and movement behavior of individual pastoralists and their livestock in a rangeland ecosystem. Pastoralists?? herd mobility patterns and other measures of movement were compared to data from field studies. Predictions of the model correspond to observed mobility patterns across seasons. The distances moved were found to be significantly correlated (r2 = 0.927 to 0.977, p<0.0001) to drought and non-drought climatic regimes. The PLMMO model therefore proved to be a useful tool for simulating general movement patterns of pastoralists relative to movement range sizes in the pastoral rangelands of southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. We then used the PLMMO model to explore the impact of emerging changes in rangeland use in the study area. The ways in which pastoralists?? mobility patterns adapt to emerging challenges in the study area were explored by simulating the following four scenarios: 1) climate change with concomitant reduction in forage yield, 2) climate change with concomitant improvement and higher variability in forage yield, 3) increased livestock population densities and 4) improved access to water. The climate induced change scenario with increased and more variable forage production resulted in the shortest distances moved by pastoralists in comparison to all other scenarios. The total search distances under this scenario were only 20% of normal season distances. The improved water access scenario also returned a significant (p=0.017) drop in distances moved. There was, however, no significant impact on either increase in livestock numbers or reduction in available forage on mobility. We judged the agent-based model PLMMO developed here as a robust system for emulating pastoral mobility in the rangelands of eastern Africa and for exploring the consequences of climate change and adaptive management scenarios.

Dissertation--Freie Universität Berlin, 2005. Titre de soutenance : Die historische Analyse der uigurischen buddhistischen Kolophone.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-71).

This study investigated the effects of teaching high school students with mathematics disabilities rates/ratios and proportions using explicit instruction with multiple attempts at guided and independent practice. Three students participated in the study and received carefully designed instruction over eight lessons. Results from the study indicated mean score improvements, positive trends, and a high percentage of non-overlapping data points. Analysis of the data indicated that each student improved overall in their understanding of rates/ratios and proportions and were able to maintain those results over time. Implications for the study and suggestions for further research are discussed. / text

Samhällsdebatten om de nedslående resultaten som redovisats i PIRLS 2011 visar att läsförståelseundervisningen i Sverige inte ger de resultat som förväntas. Syftet med denna litteraturstudie var undersöka vilken betydelse faktatexters struktur har för läsförståelsen hos elever i årskurs 4-6. Inledningsvis redogörs för innehållet i skolans styrdokument som rör läsförståelse samt Skolverkets analyser av resultatmätningar. Dessutom redovisas Skolverkets rapporter och annan pedagogisk litteratur i frågan om vikten av att alla lärare undervisar i läsförståelse oavsett ämne. Metoden som använts är en systematisk litteraturstudie där sökmetoder och urval redovisas. Studiens resultat visar att elever som undervisats i olika texttypers strukturer inte bara förstår texten bättre, de får också bättre förutsättningar att producera egna texter i olika genrer. Vid användning av grafiska modeller som är anpassade till aktuell struktur ökar möjligheten till textförståelse och textproduktion ytterligare. En slutsats från studien är att förutsättningen för att elever ska utveckla sin läsförståelse är lärarens explicita läsförståelseundervisning i alla ämnen.

Background: Organizational spending on marketing needs to be justified and therefore measured. New technology has enabled new ways of conducting market research. Research question: How can knowledge be transferred from a crowd of consumers to a company operating in the retail industry? Purpose: To explore the process of knowledge transfer in a new type of market research company by creating an understanding of (1) how to gather knowledge through engaging and motivating a crowd to share information, (2) how to analyze and transfer it to the clients, and in the end (3) how the clients receive the information and are able to create knowledge internally. Methodology: Qualitative single case study through semi-structured interviews with the case company and two of their clients. This was combined with secondary data and observations. Conclusions: Motivated users are important when gathering knowledge through crowdsourcing. Focusing on gathering and transferring explicit knowledge makes it more actionable and therefore more valuable when it comes to market insights. Externalization was found to only be partly possible in the case company, which strengthens established theories published after Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). Absorptive capacity and relationships had influence on the knowledge transfer and how the results were acted upon in the client organizations.

Background: How to facilitate the knowledge transfer between projects is a field that has obtained a lot of attention in research. Despite this wide attention, many organizations still experience difficulties to efficiently transfer knowledge between their projects and thus the problems still remain, which appears contradictory. Previous research has had a tendency to assume that all knowledge can be articulated and codified, which has resulted in that solutions to these problems often have been directed towards the side in the transfer that creates the supply of knowledge. However, limited research has taken the receiver of the knowledge into consideration when analyzing these difficulties, who is considered to be equally influential to motivate a transfer. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of the challenges concerning the knowledge transfer from past to future projects, by exploring the importance of incorporating the receiver’s perspective in the analysis of knowledge transfer practices. Methodology: This study has applied a qualitative research methodology where the empirical data has been obtained through an interview-study with nine onsite interviews in two different firms, ABB and SIEMENS. Furthermore, documents were studied in order to compliment and increase the understanding of the information provided in the interviews. Conclusions: By incorporating the receiver in the analysis we can conclude that the practices applied are not efficient in actually transferring the complete knowledge. Herewith, socialization becomes vital as a complement to these practices in order to also transfer the ‘hidden’ explicit knowledge as well as tacit knowledge that the receiver is in need of. The findings thus demonstrate the importance of taking the nature of knowledge into account when investigating the challenges with current knowledge transfer practices.