This study examined a model of children's role-taking competencies which sought to predict children's role-taking performances by taking into account both children's beliefs about the nature of knowledge (i.e., copy- theoretic or quasi-constructivistic) and the types of knowledge held by other people in the role-taking situation (i.e., physicalistic, logico-mathematical, or fully relativised). Eighty-four 3- to 7-year-old children were first screened to determine which of the potential beliefs about the nature of knowledge they held and then presented with a series of tasks representative of each of the theoretically identified types of knowledge in others. The expectation that only those children who held developmentally more mature beliefs about the nature of knowledge (i.e., quasi-constructivistic) would be capable of understanding the more complex types of knowledge possessed by others was strongly confirmed in the present study. The results of this study were seen to suggest that the proposed model could more adequately account for the development of role-taking skills in young children than previously presented typologies. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The current study was designed to replicate and extend previous research on the effectiveness of behavioral parent training. Specifically, the effectiveness of the Behavior Management and Parenting Services (BMAPS) curriculum in teaching parents to exhibit a set of parenting skills and respond accurately to a multiple choice examination about positive parenting techniques was evaluated. In addition, the curriculum was revised so that the relative effectiveness and acceptability of two role play formats could be assessed. The outcomes of the study showed an improvement in the participants' ability to identify correct answers on a multiple choice examination and apply the parenting skills taught in class within a role play format; results pertaining to the efficacy of each role play format were less conclusive.

No description available.

This paper analyzes the appropriateness of the localization practices utilized in the Japanese video game series Final Fantasy and Pokémon. Its argument is informed by survey responses from players of both series. Immersion, the ability of the player to remain in the game-world without distraction, is believed to be an important goal for successful localization. In this paper, the appropriateness of the localization of the Final Fantasy series is judged based on player immersion and enjoyment. This study finds that immersion is not essential to player enjoyment and therefore is not essential for a successful localization. In regard to the Pokémon series, the appropriateness of the heavy alteration and censorship of elements in the American localization is analyzed via player response to the changes. This localization practice proves to be appropriate and an effective model for future localization of Japanese video games targeted toward children in America. In addition, this paper explores immersion in Pokémon strategy guides released in America and Japan. The aim of this thesis is to expand the dialogue on Japanese video game localization for America and to display successful, creative localization practices which can also be utilized in other media.

Thesis (M. Ed. (Mathematics Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2017 / The qualitative study reported here was aimed at documenting and describing how agency is enacted through students‟ interactions in a mathematics classroom. A case study design was adopted and focused on a grade 11 mathematics class with all the students being participants. These participants were purposefully selected as they formed the class which was allocated to me for dayto-day mathematics teaching. The research question which the study sought to address was: how is agency enacted through students‟ interactions in a mathematics classroom? The classroom in which data was generated adopted a sociocultural perspective as a referent for its practice. Due to this perspective, agency was thus employed as conceptualised by Pickering (1995). Data was generated through interviews and participant observation. However, the interviews were not employed in their „tradition‟ view, but were mostly like focus-group interviews in nature. Data also emerged from classroom discussions, when students in their groups, worked through learning activities. These interactions together with the interviews were audio recorded. Meanwhile, observation data was recorded in a researcher journal in which entries were made after each lesson. Data was analysed following Polkinghorne‟s (1995) narrative analysis of eventful data. During the analysis the researcher listened to the audio records a number of times, and then transcribed all the audio into text. This was followed by reading through the textual data which led to a selection of excerpts used in data analysis. It was found that agency was enacted during student-material interactions, as students engaged in the „dance of agency‟ when deciding on learning a new approach or using an old one to respond to questions. Furthermore, agency was enacted during student-student interactions when students initiated either group or whole class discussion and they were able to sustain the discussions to completion without the teacher‟s intrusion. Finally, during teacher-student interactions, students accounted for their actions and shared their experience and decision making process.

Recent studies have indicated that although the Institutes of Religion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are generally successful in reaching their objectives, they have much to profit from adaptation of new teaching techniques. At the same time, some group teaching techniques have undergone a great deal of experimentation and refinement in the last decade. No one, however, has undertaken to correlate or adapt the literature available with the needs of the Institutes of Religion.

This research investigated the role religion plays in how individuals view euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. One hundred participants from each of the three major monotheistic world religions were given a seven-question survey. The seven questions consisted of statements regarding the knowledge of their own religion, how the participants feel about terminally ill patients and those who have lost vital functions, and also whether or not they believe euthanasia is morally just. It was predicted that the participants who belong to Judaism and Islam viewed euthanasia as morally just and participants who belong to the Christianity viewed euthanasia as morally incorrect.

No description available.

Though tabletop role-playing games, or TRPGs, have received some scholarly attention since the creation of Dungeons and Dragons in the 1970s, very few scholars have considered how TRPGs function as a vehicle for long-form narrative. As an inherently collaborative form of narrative, the TRPG demonstrates a unique relationship between author and audience, as participants take on both roles during play. Previous narratological models of author-audience interaction are insufficient to understand the way that authorship functions in the TRPG, and the rise of actual play shows, where TRPGs are broadcast for an audience of nonparticipants, adds an extra layer of complexity to these author-audience relations. This thesis identifies key narrative elements of the TRPG, including game mechanics, framing, and collaboration, and examines how popular actual play shows and their graphic adaptations engage with these elements to create their narratives. This examination indicates that TRPGs create complex author-webs where each participant is both author and audience, and this influence pushes actual play shows and further adaptations of TRPG narratives to expand the ways in which audiences can influence and interact with narratives as they are created. The TRPG genre continues to explore how these elements can be developed beyond traditional understandings of narrative, and this development provides a framework for further narratological study of interactive works, which will only continue to evolve and grow in popularity and complexity in the continuing digital era. / Master of Arts / The tabletop role-playing game, or TRPG, has been growing in popularity since the creation of Dungeons and Dragons in the 1970s, and the rise of the actual play show, where a TRPG game is broadcast to viewers via video or podcast, has spurred both casual and scholarly interest in the TRPG. Players of TRPGs create narratives through collaborative storytelling moderated by certain rules and game mechanics, so each participant in a TRPG acts as both author and audience, as they create certain elements of the narrative and also witness the narrative creations of the other players. This particular collaborative author-audience model is not seen in any other form of narrative, and existing models of author-audience interactions do not account for authorship in the TRPG. Therefore, this thesis examines how several elements of the TRPG, such as the use of game mechanics to structure the narrative, the multiple frames in which players interact with each other, and the collaboration inherent in every game, contribute to the ways that authorship and audience interact in the narrative. It also looks at how popular actual play shows and the graphic novels they've created of their narratives engage with these elements to create their own unique audience interactions. As audience participation in the development of the stories they're consuming become more prominent with the rise of video games and other interactive media, an understanding of the evolving relationship between authorship and audience developed by the TRPG becomes important for examining interactive works in general.

Este trabalho estuda as características textuais dos chamados role playing games \'pedagógicos\', com uma dupla finalidade: explicitar alguns dos aspectos que distinguem o jogo de aventura enquanto um tipo de texto, e refletir sobre sua utilização como instrumento pedagógico. O corpus é constituído por dois jogos de aventura com finalidade pedagógica, veiculados em dois suportes: um encarte e um livro. O encarte-jogo integra a Revista do Ensino Médio do MEC (2004) e traz um jogo de aventura bastante simplificado, A travessia do Liso do Suçuarão, baseado no romance Grande Sertão: veredas, de Guimarães Rosa. O livro-jogo traz uma aventura mais complexa que versa sobre o roubo de uma tela de Portinari, O resgate de \"Retirantes\", e faz parte da série Mini-Gurps, desenvolvida para jogadores iniciantes, publicada pela Editora Devir (SP). O quadro teórico que orienta a pesquisa está centrado, principalmente, em aportes da teoria ergódica da literatura, proposta por Aarseth (1997) e, quando necessário e pertinente, foram consideradas também as contribuições de outros teóricos do texto e do discurso, particularmente, os trabalhos de Koch (2002; 2003; 2005) e Maingueneau (1996; 1997; 2001; 2002; 2004). Os jogos de aventura selecionados foram analisados em duas etapas: uma de leitura e outra de observação de uma partida sobre um desses jogos. Na etapa de leitura, o analista coloca-se como operador do texto do jogo com o objetivo de aprendê-lo, explicitando as características hipertextuais desse tipo de texto e as habilidades de leitura que ele requer. Na etapa de observação de uma partida do livro-jogo O resgate de \"Retirantes\", o analista desvela, a partir da ação do Mestre e de sua interação com o grupo de jogadores, a atualização de uma versão possível dessa aventura: proximidade ou distanciamento em relação à aventura proposta no livro-jogo. A explicitação de algumas das características ergódicas desses dois jogos de aventura levam a rediscutir o componente pedagógico que se vem associando a eles. A finalidade pedagógica dos jogos não está centrada no conteúdo informacional que o texto de ficção ajudaria a transmitir, mas sim nas habilidades de leitura e de representação dos jogos. / This paper studies the textual characteristics of the so-called pedagogical role-playing games, with a dual purpose: to explain some of the aspects that distinguish the adventure game as a kind of text and to reflect upon its usage as a pedagogical instrument. The corpus comprises two adventure games with pedagogical purposes, present in two means: an insert and a book. The insert-game is part of Revista do Ensino Médio do MEC (2004) and offers a very simplified adventure game, A travessia do Liso do Suçuarão, based on the novel Grande Sertão: veredas by Guimarães Rosa. The book-game delivers a more complex adventure that talks about the robbery of a Portinari canvas, O resgate de \"Retirantes\" and is part of the Mini-Gurps series, created for beginners, published by Editora Devir (SP). The theoretical frame that guides the research is mainly focused on contributions of the ergodic literary theory proposed by Aarseth (1997), and, whenever necessary and relevant, contributions from other text and discourse theorists were taken into account, especially the works by Koch (2002; 2003; 2005) and Maingueneau (1996; 1997; 2001; 2002; 2004). The selected adventure games underwent a two-step analysis: a reading stage, and one consisting of an observation of a session of one of these games. In the reading step, the analyst places herself as the game operator with the aim of learning it, exposing the hypertextual characteristics of this kind of text and the reading skills it requires. In the observation stage of a session of the book-game O resgate de \"Retirantes\", the analyst reveals, from the Master\'s action and his interaction with the group of players, the update of a possible version of this adventure: proximity or distance towards the adventure proposed in the book-game. Revealing some of the ergodic features of these two adventure games leads to discussing again the pedagogical component that has been associated to them. The pedagogical aim of the games is not centered on the informational content that the fiction text would help spread, but on the reading and representation skills of the games.