Within computer science education, goal-oriented feedback motivates beginners to be engaged in learning programming. As the number of students increases, it is challenging for teaching assistants to cater to all the doubts of students and provide goals. This problem is addressed by intelligent visual feedback which guides beginners formulate effective goals to resolve all the errors they would incur while solving a programming assignment. Most current automated feedback mechanisms provide feedback without categorization, prioritization, or goal formulation in mind. Students may overlook important issues, and high priority issues might be hidden among other issues. Also, beginners are not well equipped in formulating goals to resolve the issues provided in the feedback. In this research, we address the problem of providing an effective, intelligent goal-oriented feedback to student's code to resolve all the issues in their code while ensuring that the code is well tested. The goal-oriented feedback would eventually implicitly navigate the students to write a logically correct solution. The code feedback is summarized into four categories in the descending order of priority: Coding, Student's Testing, Behavior, and Style. Each category is further classified into subcategories, and a simple visual summary of the student's code is also provided. Each of the above-mentioned categories has detailed feedback on each error in that category to provide a better understanding of the errors. We also offer enhanced error messages and diagnosis of errors to make the feedback very useful. This intelligent feedback has been integrated into Web-CAT, an open-source automated grading tool developed at Virginia Tech that is widely used by many universities. A user survey was collected after the students have utilized this feedback for a couple of programming assignments and we obtained promising results to claim that our intelligent feedback is effective. / Master of Science

This thesis evaluates the rehabilitation process with respect to client participation. The Swedish version of a client-centred structure, the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM), is evaluated from the perspectives of the clients, the occupational therapists and the members of a rehabilitation team. Data have been collected through diaries, the COPM, assessments of ability to perform activities of daily living, mobility, self-assessments of pain and health, interviews with clients, interviews with staff, and focus groups interviews. The results show that a structured method is needed in order to improve clients’ active participation in goal formulation. The Swedish version of the COPM has high responsiveness to change over time. The use of the COPM improved client participation in the goal-formulation process, according to the results from a study with experiment and control groups. The clients perceived that treatment goals were identified, they were able to recall the goals and felt that they were active participants. They also perceived they had a higher ability to manage after the rehabilitation period was completed compared to clients in the control group. The clinical utility of the Swedish version of the COPM was confirmed in focus-group interviews with occupational therapists. The occupational therapists perceived the COPM as helpful in the goal-setting process and planning of treatment interventions. Even though problems are identified, they are directly related to, and formulated as, goals. Clients receive feedback on improvement over time. The COPM ensures a client-centred approach, facilitates communication within the rehabilitation team, and encourages therapists in their professional role. Therapists need knowledge about the theoretical foundation of the instrument and have to develop a personal interview technique. When the COPM is used in a team setting, it provides the team with broader information on what is purposeful occupation to the client. The focus is on occupational performance rather than function. According to team members the use of the COPM as a team tool increased client participation, was a good outcome measure, resulted in distinct goals, and focused on goals that were meaningful to the client. Implementation of a client-centred approach is facilitated when a structured method is used, but this is not enough. Involvement and motivation from all team members are required, as well as support during the introduction and implementation period. Support from management, knowledge about the underlying theory, time for discussions and reflections as well as opportunities to develop a personal interview technique are pointed out as important factors for a successful implementation. / On the day of the defence date the status on article V was Submitted.

Issue: Swedish institutions of higher education experiences higher pressure from the surrounding society to follow development and continuously renew themselves. As an example of government owned organisations that are complex, decentralised and professional, organisations such as universities, are working towards unclear and vague goals. Conditions that could worsen the potential of achieving goal congruence, which is considered critical for all organisations, there for prevails. According to previous research internal communication is critical under these conditions. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to provide in-depth knowledge of how Swedish institutions work with internal communication of unclear goals and how the internal communication of unclear goals affects the organization's goal congruence. Conclusion: What was identified as interesting is that in spite of lack of internal communication goal congruence could prevail in the studied organisation. Since management chooses not to clarify goals they give each member of the organisation an opportunity to relate, interpret and work towards the goal in their own way. A viewpoint affected by the organisational structure of universities as decentralised and professional organisations. Through having unclear goals in this type of organisations goal congruence can prevail even without a well functioning internal communication. Knowledge Contributions: The results of this study disprove previous research that of internal communication is critical for goal congruence when having unclear goals. The results can be generalised to other organisations in similar context and conditions as the studied organisation, but first and foremost to other universities as complex, decentralised and professional organizations with unclear goals. / Problemställning: Svenska lärosäten möter allt högre krav från det omgivande samhället att följa samhällsutvecklingen och förnya sig. Som exempel på statliga myndigheter är lärosäten komplexa, decentraliserade och professionella organisationer som arbetar mot otydligt och vagt formulerade mål. Därmed råder förutsättningar som har potential att försämra organisationens målkongruens, något som anses viktigt för att alla organisationer ska nå sina mål. Tidigare forskning visar på intern kommunikation blir kritisk under dessa förhållanden. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att bidra med fördjupad kunskap om hur svenska lärosäten arbetar med intern kommunikationen av otydliga mål och hur den interna kommunikationen av otydliga mål påverkar organisationens målkongruens. Slutsats: Det som identifierades intressant är att trots bristande intern kommunikation så råder målkongruens. Ledningen väljer att inte tydliggöra mål för att ge medarbetare en möjlighet att förhålla sig, tolka och arbeta med målet på sitt sätt. Ett synsätt som påverkas av att lärosäten är decentraliserade och professionella organisationer. Genom att ha just otydliga mål i denna typ av organisationer kan därför målkongruens råda även utan en väl fungerande intern kommunikation av målet. Kunskapsbidrag: De resultat som den här studien visar på motbevisar tidigare forskning om att intern kommunikation är kritisk för målkongruens vid otydliga mål. Resultaten kan generaliseras till andra organisationer med liknande förutsättningar och kontext som den undersökta organisationen. Då i första hand till andra svenska lärosäten som komplexa, decentraliserade och professionella organisationer med otydliga mål.