Few would question the important role of teachers in influencing the quality of education in schools; who teachers are, how they teach and what they teach are all essential components in determining the quality of the education they are instrumental in delivering. It is a logical extension to assume that the same factors matter with regard to teacher education. This thesis explores the professional identity of those involved in the preparation of new teachers – the teacher educators. Within this group, English language teacher educators, represent a small but significant subset, and one whose role in contexts such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is expanding beyond the confines of English language teaching alone and into the wider education arena. It is hoped that this study may provide a useful contribution to ongoing discussions about teacher education at a number of levels. Firstly, it will add to research findings about teacher educators in general, and English language teacher educators in particular, and it is hoped that the study may offer some insights into the professional lives of those engaged in teacher preparation, especially in the United Arab Emirates. Secondly, it aims to give voice to a relatively under-researched body of professionals with the aim of discovering why they do the job they do and what they value in that job, in so doing it is hoped that it may be able to uncover what, if anything, constitutes the professional identity of teacher educators as a distinctive professional group.

M.Comm. (Business Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract.

Any company operating in the developing world must view Aids as a threat and have response mechanisms in place (Rosen, Simon, Vincent, MacLeod, Fox and Thea, 2003). The objective of this research was to discover how South African professional services companies are responding to HIV/Aids. The research further sought to confirm whether the response of the professional services sector can be considered ‘rational’ or ‘reasonable.’ Twenty interviews were undertaken across professional services companies to understand how the sector is responding to HIV/Aids from the perspective of their employee base, client base and surrounding communities. The findings showed that most professional services companies have neither felt nor measured the impact of HIV/Aids on their business. Most companies have implemented some sort of measure to respond to HIV/Aids internally, even if only a policy to safeguard them. Some companies view HIV/Aids as an opportunity, in that it enables the provision of additional products and services to clients. More than half of the companies interviewed are contributing to HIV/Aids causes outside of their workplace. As a result of this study, a model has been developed to classify companies according to their response to HIV/Aids. Based on the classification, companies surveyed fell into one of 4 types: shrew, responsible, uninformed or saviour. Twelve companies fell within the ‘shrew’ category, indicating a primarily rational response to HIV/Aids. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

From 1889 to 1934, Florida’s nurses belonging to a new group of professional women ushered in a pioneering phase of public health nursing in Florida. During this era, the nurses’ ability to confront health and professional issues varied a great deal but in quiet and forceful ways they tackled cultural and environmental problems to assist people who were ill or help prevent people from becoming ill. This dissertation places the development of professional public health nursing in its social context by uncovering the relationships public health nurses formed with clubwomen, the medical profession, city leaders, midwives, and others. In 1888, there were few graduate nurses in the state, no state board of health and no organized nursing service to respond to Jacksonville’s great yellow fever epidemic. By 1934, national and state leaders of public health nursing had built up the profession to become an essential part of the State Board of Health’s service to the community. Between these milestones, in the era of white supremacy and Jim Crow, public health nurses combined their professional training with a pioneer spirit of innovation and risk-taking. In the predominately rural state, the public health nurses’ resolve to overcome environmental hazards and cultural obstacles stands out as they attempted to reach those who were unserved or underserved by modern medicine.

This thesis examines if there is a relationship between competition time and team valuation, revenue and profitability in North American professional sport. The leagues examined were the major four in North America and include the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the National Football League. Using the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a guide, appropriate literature of the four BSC categories was reviewed. The four categories of the BSC include Financial, Customer, Internal Business Processes and Learning and Growth. Conceptual models for team valuation, revenue and profitability were constructed using the BSC as a framework. In order to construct the three conceptual models 51 professional sport research variables were identified as useful to this framework. The data was collected over a ten-year period for the seasons 2003/2004-2012/2013. A series of statistical analyses were examined with regression analyses revealed three distinct models for the three dependent variables. It was found that competition time has a significant impact on all three dependent variables. The results from this study will help league executives in creating new strategies for revenue growth and other financial gains. Future research will work towards creating more competition time variables that will aid in determining the proper amount of competition time that needs to be played by each league to maximize league finances.

This qualitative study offers an in-depth description of a high school professional learning community (PLC) as it focuses on enhancing the teaching and learning of the Grade 9 Applied Mathematics curriculum. The teachers’ goal in this PLC is to implement strategies they believe best meet the needs of their students. Over the course of one school year data was collected during PLC meetings and through individual participant interviews. Data was analyzed and used to answer the following research questions: How is a PLC formed and sustained, and how does it evolve throughout the process of teachers examining their practice? What happens when a professional community of learners comes together to discuss, dissect and reflect on their own practice with the intention of broadening their understanding of teaching mathematics? Analysis of the data revealed that teachers came together through their shared work of teaching in ways that address the needs of students in applied level mathematics. Through external funding and strong leadership and support from the school Principal, this PLC created opportunities to meet and collaborate. During meetings the PLC members discussed their pedagogical challenges, focused on the needs of students and student learning, designed lessons that would specifically target the needs of their students, observed each other teach these co-designed lessons, and finally discussed and reflected on the taught lesson. This process was repeated throughout the year, each time building on lessons learned from previous experiences. Although the PLC members described how being out of their class to collaborate did pose some challenges, overall they described their experience in the PLC as the most powerful professional development of their careers.

Various parts of the question concerning how random and deterministic attributes intertwine during the course of athletic contests have been explored by researchers. This study attempted to extend the research data base and formulate the initial postulates for a model to describe the random/deterministic interaction. The 1988-89 National Hockey League season was the primary focus of attention. Supplemental examination was made of the 1937-38 and 1946-47 NHL, the last 50% of the 1988-89 National Basketball Association season and the 1987-88 Football Association English First Division seasons. The data overwhelmingly supported earlier studies which argued that major outcomes (wins/losses, goals, shots) followed a random sequence. The axiomatic model developed argued that the random pattern of outcomes is quite pervasive (wins/losses, shots and goals for, against or combined are distributed randomly whether home, away or total games are examined). The pattern of outcomes (win/losses, goals, shots) is relatively independent of the size of the unit of measurement: random patterns held whether one period, two period, three period games or four-game sets were examined. Conditional probability tests showed game-to-game outcomes were independent (a win was no more likely to be followed by a win than by a loss). The pattern of outcomes (goals) is dependent on how the data is examined. If all 21 team's goals are plotted time-wise, goals are distributed uniformly minute by minute (except for the last minute of play). If goals or shots per game (or period) are tallied for home, away or both teams, the resultant frequency distribution will approximate the negative binomial distribution. However, if the time-spaces between goals are tallied, a geometric distribution will emerge. Deterministic effects were demonstrated when artificial season outcomes based on first, second or third period only seasons were found to correlate favorably with real season outcomes (wins, losses, points, goals for, goals against). Finally, comparison of hockey, basketball and soccer outcomes suggested that upset rates may vary from one sport to another. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

This study begins with a perceived crisis of confidence in professional knowledge. The traditional, positivist, "theory into practice" approach to the development of a professional knowledge base has been found to be unable to satisfactorily explain expert action—especially in situations of complexity and ambiguity such as those routinely found in teaching. Much recent literature, however, has taken the approach that professional knowledge must be constucted by the practitioner In the context of the practice. In this view, theory is developed from practice by reflecting on one's action-related knowledge. Unfortunately, because they tend to be Intellectually isolated and routinely having to deal with many clients at once, teachers have few opportunities to use this approach. The problem addressed in this study is how to provide a professional development experience which fosters reflective activity and the personal construction of knowledge by teachers within the context of their classroom practice. The primary theoretical perspectives which underpin this study are those of "constructivism", in which learning is viewed as an active process of constructing concepts by connecting new information with prior knowledge, and "reflection as reconstruction of experience" in which reflective activity is seen as a way of reconstructing understandings within the context of practice. These perspectives, together with a brief review of related literature regarding reflection within the teaching profession, provide the theoretical framework of the study. The study consists of a case analysis of a professional development activity which was designed to promote the reflective activity of teachers. The activity gave two participant teachers an opportunity to observe and discuss videotaped recordings of each other's practice over a period of several months. The resultant discussions were audiotaped by the Investigator and transcribed for analysis. Informal examination of transcripts and analysis of metaphor were used to identify elements of teacher knowledge. Instances of reflective activity were identified using a "clue structure" or set of criteria. The study concludes that elements of teacher knowledge can be identified in a such a discussion of teaching practice, that instances of reflective activity were evident during the time period of the study, and that the professional development activity was perceived by the teachers as being of personal benefit. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Drawing upon the biographical narratives of eight student physiotherapists and situated within an interpretive paradigm this thesis has explored the construction of professional identities within physiotherapy education. It has been predicated upon notions of identity as constructed through social interactions, therefore a relational concept requiring interaction, enactment and reciprocity. It took place within a contemporary professional context epitomised by increasing interprofessionalism challenging notions of what being a physiotherapist means. The main findings of this study suggest that student physiotherapists enter physiotherapy education (or very soon after, develop) with a well formed idea of what being a physiotherapist means, constructing an idealised professional self. This idealised professional self becomes the lens through which they subsequently experience and evaluate their professional education experiences. The process of constructing professional identities involves student physiotherapists in a continuous cycle of performance, mediation and impression management, through which they seek opportunities to confirm their idealised professional self. The findings of this thesis suggest that student physiotherapists exercise individual agency to construct socially and spatially situated professional identities in everyday professional interaction and supports contemporary notions of professional socialisation as interactive. This thesis contributes to the contemporary understanding of the process of identity construction. Theoretically, it emphasises the concept of role models and highlights the importance of anti-role models or disidentification. Practically, it offers physiotherapy educators the opportunity to reconsider the complexities of professional identity and its place within the learning context. Finally, for the students who took part in this study telling their stories has rendered their experiences with meaning and their stories have the capacity to become important cultural tools for future students.

Professional skepticism is a critical component of audit practice and current auditing standards direct auditors to remain skeptical throughout the duration of each audit engagement. Despite the importance and prevalence of an emphasis on professional skepticism throughout auditing standards, evidence indicates that auditors often fail to exercise an appropriate degree of professional skepticism. Prior accounting research suggests that auditors’ professionally skeptical behavior is affected by individual personality traits as well as situational (state) influences, whereby both factors contribute to auditor professional skepticism. Yet, prior research has primarily focused on trait skepticism; and little research to date has investigated the concept of state skepticism. The purpose if this research study is to experimentally investigate the impact of time pressure and trait skepticism on state skepticism, and to test a potential debiasing procedure on the impact of time pressure on state skepticism. In addition, this study examines the influence of both skepticism types on skeptical behavior.This research offers several contributions to accounting literature and practice. First, I contribute to the existing debate regarding the influences of professional skepticism by providing evidence that professional skepticism may be categorized as a temporary state, induced by situational aspects, in addition to being classified as an enduring trait. Second, I identify certain situational conditions which create differences in the level of state professional skepticism exhibited within an auditing context. Lastly, my findings may also be important to audit firms as they consider tools within their training arsenal equipped to promote an appropriate level of professional skepticism among employees. If auditor skepticism can be influenced by the frames they are provided, then audit firms may create an environment that promotes consistency in auditors’ application of professional skepticism, simply by engaging in goal framing.