This study researched effect of selected demographic variables on the self-perceived competencies of career counselors at secondary and post secondary institutions in Texas. Demographic variables were years of service, educational level, type of institution, age of counselor, size of institution, and percentage of vocational enrollment. One hundred career counselors, fifty secondary and fifty post secondary career counselors were mailed copies of the Professional Needs Assessment and a Demographic questionnaire.

Cette recherche porte sur la qualité d’emploi chez les nouveaux diplômés des études postsecondaires au Canada. Elle est motivée par les nombreux bouleversements vécus par le marché du travail, la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre qualifiée et le fait que deux Canadiens sur trois sont directement concernés par la qualité d’emploi. En s’appuyant sur la typologie de Cloutier (2008), nous nous sommes fixé deux objectifs. Le premier vise à examiner l’évolution de la qualité d’emploi des nouveaux diplômés postsecondaires au Canada entre 1992 et 2007. Le deuxième objectif consiste à évaluer l’influence du niveau d’études, du domaine d’études et du sexe des nouveaux diplômés sur la qualité de leur emploi. L’analyse est de type empirique qui s’appuie sur les données de l’Enquête nationale auprès des diplômés réalisée auprès des promotions de 1990 et de 2005 par Statistiques Canada. Concernant le premier objectif, nos résultats indiquent que les dimensions rémunération, stabilité d’emploi et qualification se sont affaiblies en 2007 comparativement à 1992. Quant au deuxième objectif, nous avons trouvé que le niveau d’études et le domaine d’études sont des déterminants importants des quatre dimensions de la qualité d’emploi considérées. Un niveau d’études élevé augmente la rémunération annuelle et la probabilité d’occuper un emploi à temps plein. À l’opposé, la probabilité d’occuper un emploi qualifié et celle d’avoir un emploi permanent sont négativement associées au niveau d’études. Par ailleurs, il ressort de nos résultats que le marché du travail valorise particulièrement les domaines qui permettent aux étudiants d’acquérir des compétences professionnelles. La rémunération, les chances d’occuper un travail à temps plein et la probabilité d’accéder à un emploi qualifié sont relativement plus élevées pour les finissants dans ces domaines. Concernant l'impact du sexe, les résultats obtenus indiquent qu’il n’est pas statistiquement significatif dans le cas des dimensions de la stabilité d’emploi et de l’accès à un emploi qualifié. Néanmoins, les hommes gagnent en moyenne plus que les femmes et sont plus susceptibles d’occuper un emploi à temps plein. / This research focuses on job quality of recent Canadian postsecondary graduates. The motivation for this topic is the significant job market shifts, the shortage of skilled workers, and the fact that two out of three Canadians are directly affected by job quality. Using Cloutier’s (2008) typology, the present study has two objectives. The first one is to examine the evolution of job quality of recent Canadian postsecondary graduates between 1992 and 2007. The second objective is to examine the influence that the level of education, field of study and gender have on job quality. Our empirical analyses use data from Statistics Canada’s 1990 and 2005 National Graduates Survey carried out in 1992 and 2007 respectively. Concerning the first objective, our results indicate that three dimensions of job quality, namely salary, job stability and qualifications, declined in 2007 compared to 1992. Concerning the second objective, results show that level of education and field of study are significant determinants of the four dimensions of job quality examined in this study. Indeed, a higher level of education increases annual salary and the probability of working full-time. On the other hand, the probability of having a job that matches the completed program, and the probability of having a permanent position are negatively associated with the level of study. We also find that the job market particularly values domains that allow students to acquire specific (professional) skills. Salary, the likelihood of having full-time work and the probability of job-education match are relatively higher for graduates in these domains. Regarding the impact of gender, our results do not indicate statistical significance for the dimensions of job stability and job-education match. Nevertheless, males earn on average more than females and are more likely to have a full-time employment.

The purpose of this study was to investigate electric guitar teacher’s experiences of digital tools in their teaching at the upper secondary school arts programme. In order to achieve this purpose I interviewed four experienced teachers in two different age categories, two in their forties and two in their fifties, to see if their attitude or experiences differed in regards to these digital tools. The study is based on a socio-cultural perspective and the result shows that all of the teachers uses several digital tools within the context of their teaching, and also in their own music practices outside of the classroom. The main conclusions are that the interviewed teachers have a positive attitude toward these digital tools, and think they have made their work easier. They also feel like the music is more easily accessible now to both teachers and students alike.

With the increasing use of social media by students, researchers, administrative staff, and faculty in post-secondary education (PSE), a number of institutions have developed guideline and policy documents to set standards for social media use. Social media platforms and applications have the potential to increase communication channels, support learning, enhance research, and encourage community engagement at PSE institutions. As social media implementation and administration has developed in PSE, there has been minimal assessment of the substance of social media guideline and policy documents. The first objective of this research study was to examine an accessible, online database (corpus) comprised of 24, 243 atomic social media guideline and policy text documents from 250 PSE institutions representing 10 countries to identify central attributes. To determine text meaning from topic extraction, a rotated latent semantic analysis (rLSA) method was applied. The second objective of this investigation was to determine if the distribution of topics analyze in the corpus differ by PSE institution geographic location. To analyze the diverging topics, the researcher utilized an iterative consensus-building algorithm.Through the maximum term frequencies, LSA determined a rotated 36-factor solution that identified common attributes and topics shared among the 24,243 social media guideline and policy atomic documents. This initial finding produced a list of 36 universal topics discussed in social media guidelines and policies across all 250 PSE institutions from 10 countries. Continually, the applied chi-squared tests, that measured expected and observed document term counts, identified distribution differences of content related factors between US and Non-US PSE institutions. This analysis offered a concrete analysis for unstructured text data on the topic of social media guidance. This resulted in a comprehensive list of recommendations for developing social media guidelines and policies, and a database of social media guideline and policy documents for the PSE sector and other related organizations. Additionally, this research stimulated important theoretical development for how organizations socially construct a semantic structure within a community of practice. By assessing the community of practice, comprised of PSE 250 institutions that direct social media use, a corpus of documents provided unstructured data to evaluate the community. The spontaneous participation and reification process of the social media guideline and policy document corpus reaffirmed that a corpus-creating community of practice can instinctively form a knowledge-sharing organization that provides meaning, values, and identity. These findings should stimulate further research contributions, and provides practitioners and scholars with tools to measure, understand, and assess semantic space for other artifacts developed within a community of practice in other industries, organizations, or distributed associations.

ABSTRACT: Purpose: To describe a research-based global curriculum in speech-language pathology and audiology that is part of a funded cross-linguistic consortium among 2 U.S. and 2 Brazilian universities. Method: The need for a global curriculum in speechlanguage pathology and audiology is outlined, and different funding sources are identified to support development of a global curriculum. The U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), in conjunction with the Brazilian Ministry of Education (Fundacao Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior; CAPES), funded the establishment of a shared research curriculum project, “Consortium for Promoting Cross-Linguistic Understanding of Communication Disabilities in Children” for East Tennessee State University and the University of Northern Iowa and 2 Brazilian universities (Universidade Federal de Santa Maria and Universidade de São Paulo-Baurú). Results: The goals and objectives of the research-based global curriculum are summarized, and a description of an Internet-based course, “Different Languages, One World,” is provided Conclusion: Partnerships such as the FIPSE–CAPES consortium provide a foundation for training future generations of globally and research-prepared practitioners in speechlanguage pathology and audiology.

Although higher education typically strengthens people with disabilities' chances to be in a competitive job market as a viable leverage to break away from poverty (Council of Canadians with Disabilities, 2014), the contemporary marketization of higher education within the era of neoliberalism has made degrees and diplomas increasingly unaffordable. The federal government responded to this predicament by increasing the Canada Social Transfer (CST) to offer up-front targeted funding to students with disabilities in 2008 (Kirby, 2011). However, virtually no literature has acknowledged whether financial grants meaningfully provide student with disabilities with an equitable opportunity to engage in post-secondary education (PSE). Using a critical discourse analysis (CDA) on government online materials that address federal and provincial disability grants for post-secondary students with disabilities in Alberta and Ontario, this thesis reveals how the neoliberal rhetoric of personal responsibility colonizes government disability grants and leaves students with "more responsibility" and "less control" over their finances in an already disabling world. / October 2015

Cette recherche porte sur la qualité d’emploi chez les nouveaux diplômés des études postsecondaires au Canada. Elle est motivée par les nombreux bouleversements vécus par le marché du travail, la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre qualifiée et le fait que deux Canadiens sur trois sont directement concernés par la qualité d’emploi. En s’appuyant sur la typologie de Cloutier (2008), nous nous sommes fixé deux objectifs. Le premier vise à examiner l’évolution de la qualité d’emploi des nouveaux diplômés postsecondaires au Canada entre 1992 et 2007. Le deuxième objectif consiste à évaluer l’influence du niveau d’études, du domaine d’études et du sexe des nouveaux diplômés sur la qualité de leur emploi. L’analyse est de type empirique qui s’appuie sur les données de l’Enquête nationale auprès des diplômés réalisée auprès des promotions de 1990 et de 2005 par Statistiques Canada. Concernant le premier objectif, nos résultats indiquent que les dimensions rémunération, stabilité d’emploi et qualification se sont affaiblies en 2007 comparativement à 1992. Quant au deuxième objectif, nous avons trouvé que le niveau d’études et le domaine d’études sont des déterminants importants des quatre dimensions de la qualité d’emploi considérées. Un niveau d’études élevé augmente la rémunération annuelle et la probabilité d’occuper un emploi à temps plein. À l’opposé, la probabilité d’occuper un emploi qualifié et celle d’avoir un emploi permanent sont négativement associées au niveau d’études. Par ailleurs, il ressort de nos résultats que le marché du travail valorise particulièrement les domaines qui permettent aux étudiants d’acquérir des compétences professionnelles. La rémunération, les chances d’occuper un travail à temps plein et la probabilité d’accéder à un emploi qualifié sont relativement plus élevées pour les finissants dans ces domaines. Concernant l'impact du sexe, les résultats obtenus indiquent qu’il n’est pas statistiquement significatif dans le cas des dimensions de la stabilité d’emploi et de l’accès à un emploi qualifié. Néanmoins, les hommes gagnent en moyenne plus que les femmes et sont plus susceptibles d’occuper un emploi à temps plein. / This research focuses on job quality of recent Canadian postsecondary graduates. The motivation for this topic is the significant job market shifts, the shortage of skilled workers, and the fact that two out of three Canadians are directly affected by job quality. Using Cloutier’s (2008) typology, the present study has two objectives. The first one is to examine the evolution of job quality of recent Canadian postsecondary graduates between 1992 and 2007. The second objective is to examine the influence that the level of education, field of study and gender have on job quality. Our empirical analyses use data from Statistics Canada’s 1990 and 2005 National Graduates Survey carried out in 1992 and 2007 respectively. Concerning the first objective, our results indicate that three dimensions of job quality, namely salary, job stability and qualifications, declined in 2007 compared to 1992. Concerning the second objective, results show that level of education and field of study are significant determinants of the four dimensions of job quality examined in this study. Indeed, a higher level of education increases annual salary and the probability of working full-time. On the other hand, the probability of having a job that matches the completed program, and the probability of having a permanent position are negatively associated with the level of study. We also find that the job market particularly values domains that allow students to acquire specific (professional) skills. Salary, the likelihood of having full-time work and the probability of job-education match are relatively higher for graduates in these domains. Regarding the impact of gender, our results do not indicate statistical significance for the dimensions of job stability and job-education match. Nevertheless, males earn on average more than females and are more likely to have a full-time employment.

In this thesis I explore issues of food security and food-identity relationships among international students at the University of Guelph and the University of Windsor. I argue students who attempt to maintain traditional diets are more likely to experience food insecurity than students who explore diverse foods because they are more likely to be negatively affected by food availability, food access and structural barriers. What students eat can also have implications for identity maintenance and identity creation. Thus in this thesis I also explore the relationship between food and identity by considering how identity and food-security can be closely related to preferred food availability and accessibility. I argue that students consume certain foods as a means to maintain and create identities, and as such I suggest that familiar food eaters may experience a sense of losing their identities as their food insecurity increases.

ABSTRACT Using a qualitative methodology, I conducted this study to identify the barriers to women’s post-secondary education in Bangladesh and to investigate the possible strategies to remove those barriers, from the perspectives of three Bangladeshi women who received post-secondary education in Bangladesh and who are currently living in Canada. To explore participants’ perceptions, I used open-ended structured interviews. I then analyzed data using the conceptual framework of subsystems within an open systems theory. The study revealed that the barriers Bangladeshi women encounter when pursuing a post-secondary education are vast and complex. The findings from this study indicated that Bangladeshi women face barriers from multi-level social subsystems such as family, financial, educational, socio-cultural, political, and governmental subsystems. Six broad themes of major barriers emerged from participants’ reports: (a) financial constraints; (b) socio-cultural practices and attitudes; (c) male domination; (d) inadequate education facilities; (e) student politics and unstable political situations; and (f) corrupt government and inconsistent implementation of law and punishment. Within these six themes, the study identified various factors that hamper women’s post-secondary education in Bangladesh. The participants suggested strategies that may help those who make and implement policy find ways to minimize barriers to women’s post-secondary education in Bangladesh and beyond. The results showed that since the barriers are multifaceted, positive collaboration between the various levels of social subsystems in Bangladesh can reduce the difficulties and may profoundly change the overall Bangladeshi attitude towards women and their education. The family or the government systems alone are not enough to remove the deeply-rooted barriers to Bangladeshi women’s higher learning. Future research might explore the perceptions of a larger sample of Bangladeshi women who are in Bangladesh but could not obtain post-secondary education. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-28 14:18:40.578

The purpose of this study was to investigate the challenges faced by first-year students as they negotiated the transition from the wrting environment of high school to the writing environment of university. The research for the dissertation was undertaken using a mixed-method explanatory design. This yielded a description of students' perceptions of the differences between their high school writing and first-year university writing environments. The research questions were as follows: what are high school students' perceptions of their writing environment; and what differences, if any, do students perceive as different in the writing environment between high school and first-year university? A total of one hundred and forty-four Grade 12 students completed a quantitative survey asking for their perceptions of the high school writing environment, and twenty students took part either in qualitative focus groups or individual interviews. A follow-up interview was conducted with fourteen of the original twenty participants while they were in the process of completing their first term at university. The results indicated that students' perceptions were very much influenced by individual teachers and instructors and by their own expectations. Recommendations, implications for further research, and implications for program development are offered as a way to extend the knowledge in this area.