No / Goal-setting is indispensable for effective healthcare management. Yet, literature evidence suggests many organisations worldwide do not know how to formulate ‘SMART’ goals. Evidence of how existing theories work in practice is scarce, and the practices in low-income countries are unknown. Therefore, this research explored how leprosy project goals were formulated to describe the theoretical practice framework of A leprosy-focused organisation in Nigeria. Using a case-study design, ten managers were interviewed individually concerning their goal-setting knowledge, experience and perspective; and documented goals of six projects were reviewed. A five-step constructionist thematic data analysis generated eleven theoretical frameworks from the concepts of the emergent core themes of ‘stakeholders’, ‘strategies’ and ‘statements.’ Further theorisation reduced them to one general framework. This revealed organisational goal-setting practice as a four-stage centre-led, top-down, beneficiary-focused and problem-based process. The stages were national preparation, baseline needs-survey, centralised goal formulation and nationalised planning. The outcome was the formulation of assigned, ‘non-SMART’ objective statements, which are then used for planning projects. Other theoretical models constructed included a Goal Effects Cycle, ‘SMARTA’ goal attributes and hierarchical criteria for differentiating goal-types. A theory developed from the goal-setting practice postulates that: ‘Assigned non-SMART goal formulation directly results from centralised goal-setting practice and is the predictor of unrealistic project planning.’ Therefore, I propose that goal statements will be ‘SMARTA’ and plans, more realistic and relevant if goal-setting is done collaboratively by all stakeholders at all stages of the process. Also, ‘Change-Beneficiary-Indicator-Target-Timeframe’ and ‘Change-Beneficiary-Location-Timeframe’ frameworks are recommended as templates for writing SMART objectives and aims respectively.

Very little empirical evidence exists linking the motivational traits portion of the motivational traits and skills framework to goal setting processes. The present study explored relationships between motivational traits, task-specific self-efficacy and self-set goal level during a computer-based task. Along with direct assessment of these relationships, we assessed whether task-specific self-efficacy mediates relationships between motivational traits and self-set goal level. In the current study, we also examined the ability of motivational traits to provide an increment in the prediction of motivational outcomes over currently accepted goal orientation constructs. Analyses suggest that the motivational traits personal mastery and motivation related to anxiety are consistent predictors of task-specific self-efficacy but inconsistent predictors of self-set goal level while competitive excellence entirely unrelated to motivational outcomes. Motivational traits failed to provide any significant increment in the prediction of task-specific self-efficacy over respective goal orientation constructs. Implications and future directions are discussed. / Master of Science

This study seeks to identify, understand, and compare the themes created by Russian and Chinese state-run media online in their framing of the United States. The study will compare the Facebook posts made by a Russian news agency and a Chinese news agency: RussiaToday and Xinhua News, respectively. The study incorporates agenda-setting, framing theory, and previous research to understand the themes present in the coverage of the United States during 2020. Additionally, the lengthy history of Russian and Chinese malign influence toward the United States, combined with the immediate nature of social media creates a unique opportunity for understanding the intersection between communication processes and international relations in the 21st Century. A total of 100 Facebook posts were collected from CrowdTangle and analyzed using a software intended for qualitative data analysis to compare the frames that exist in the selected content. The findings reveal four major topics of importance that Russia and China primarily use to frame the United States. Additionally, the frames depicted in the social media posts were compared and examined. The findings reveal that in 2020 Russia and China overwhelmingly framed the United States in a negative light by describing the United States as an enemy and by highlighting American failures. However, some positive framing – though rare – also occurred by describing the United States as an ally and by emphasizing American successes. Lastly, the findings are consistent with previous research that indicates Russia and China craft specific, tailored narratives about the United States in the pursuit of national interests. The results of this study indicate that Russia and China capitalize on polarizing events to sow discord within American society. In general, this study has the potential to provide information that can be useful for multiple government agencies in identifying counter-messaging opportunities online. / MACOM / This study examines the framing of the United States by Russia and China on social, specifically Facebook. The study utilizes the Facebook posts from two state-run news agencies – one from each country – in order to understand the way each country frames the United States. The lengthy history of Russian and Chinese malign influence toward the United States, combined with the immediate nature of social media creates a unique opportunity for understanding the intersection between mass media and international relations in the 21st Century. Recent events such as the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, and issues of race combined with a prominent social media landscape serve as the backdrop to better understand how Russian and Chinese media operate online. The findings reveal that each country overwhelmingly frames the United States in a negative light by describing the United States as an enemy and by highlighting American failures. Surprisingly, however, some content does positively frame the United States by describing it as an ally and by highlighting American successes. Lastly, the findings show that Russia and China craft specific, tailored narratives of the United States in the pursuit of national interests, which directly supports previous literature. The results of this study indicate that Russia and China capitalize on polarizing events to sow discord within American society. In general, this study has the potential to provide information that can be useful for multiple government agencies in identifying counter-messaging opportunities online.

The present study set out to examine whether negative goal-performance discrepancy (GPD) feedback for one task could have a negative effect on goal-setting associated with an unrelated, distinct task. A series of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. Results show that large versus small negative GPD feedback on a creativity task impacted levels of specific self-efficacy for a stock-predicting task, which indicated a motivational spillover effect. However, large negative GPD on the creativity task was not evidenced to impact performance goals for the stock-predicting task, as hypothesized. Results also indicate that the larger the magnitude of negative GPD feedback, the more individuals experienced an increase in negative mood and decrease in positive mood, however mood was not evidenced to impact performance goals. / Master of Science

Guided by the research on cognitive performance tasks (e.g., Wood, Mento, & Locke, 1987), the potential moderating effects of skill and outcome difficulty upon the relationship between specific, difficult goals and physical task performance were examined from an attribute treatment approach. Overall, different measures of performance yielded several convergent findings. Using a sample of 184 laboratory participants, a test of the primary hypothesis failed to support the expected three-way interaction among skill, outcome difficulty and goal setting. Models containing skill and outcome difficulty were found to provide the most parsimonious explanation of variance in performance, regardless of whether assigned or personal goal were used as an index of motivation. After controlling for skill and outcome difficulty, goal commitment showed a weak positive relationship with task performance. Self-efficacy was not related to performance among participants pursuing specific, difficult goals. Potential reasons for the failure to obtain evidence of the predicted three-way interaction among skill, outcome difficulty, and goals are discussed in the context of limitations to the present study. Future research directions are suggested. / Master of Science

Cashiers' identification-checking behaviors were observed at two grocery stores with the aim to actively involve cashiers in decreasing credit-card fraud. After baseline observations, cashiers at one store received a participative goal-setting and feedback intervention, whereby they collaboratively set a store goal for checking customers' identification. Over 23 days, the cashiers received one-to-one verbal feedback on their store's identification-checking percentages. The percentage of identification-checked purchases at the intervention store increased from 0.2 percent at Baseline to 9.7 percent during the Intervention. Then, it declined to 2.3 percent during Withdrawal, showing functional control of the intervention over the cashiers' target behavior. The cashiers at the other store served as the control group, and their percentage of identification-checked purchases were 0.3 percent, 0.4 percent, and 0.7 percent respectively during each of the A-B-A phases at the intervention store. It was also found the intervention affected male cashiers more than female cashiers. The present study also assessed the social validity of the current intervention by surveying both customers and cashiers from the intervention store. The results showed that customers do not mind getting their ID checked, while cashiers consider it important to check a customer for identification during a credit purchase. / Master of Science

(Study-Specific definition of 'Culture') For the purpose of this study, cultures will be defined by broad rather than specific categorization. The cultures of race and biological sex are material and thus more frequently observed and studied by educational researchers. However, the obvious debate about the concrete identity of one individual as belonging to only one race and one sex make the borders of these terms fluid and mutable. Unless the terms 'race' and 'sex' signify a self-identified choice by the individuals, they are just as limiting and possibly offense as the outside identification of 'gender' and 'ethnicity'. Assumption is therefore a cautious ground for educators, and a broader idea of personal identity is necessary. This study will thus refer to 'cultures' in terms of typically practiced beliefs. Since some of the beliefs discussed may overlap and apply to multiple cultures, the term will apply to the group in discussion. Teachers and educators may then avoid inappropriate judgments as they see students individually demonstrate the beliefs described and act accordingly. (Study-Specific definition of 'Reading Motivational Methodologies') Reading motivational methodologies will be defined as the actions and ideas presented by teachers, reading coaches, and tutors meant to stimulate and encourage the practice and mastery of reading. These methods may be tangible, observable, and repeatable. They may also be ideological or perceptual. (Study-Specific Areas of Exploration and Discussion) Communication is a tool. Whether verbal or written, it is created and carried out with purpose. Reading is a form of communication performed in almost every major global culture, yet utilized in different ways according to a number of factors. The values of a culture entirely define the usage of verbal and written messages. If reading is performed for different reasons by different groups of people, wouldn't it naturally follow that our purposes for becoming literate vary as well? What motivational tools will then help all students to develop a desire a read? This is a multi-dimensional question which includes many factors. One of the more complicated, qualitative factors of the answer is that of cultural perception and thought. As previously stated, communication is a tool. Tools are utilized for different purposes, and consequently different ways of thinking, of knowing, and of questioning arise within the classroom. According to Vacca and Vacca, "different cultures may place different emphasis and value on various cognitive activities"1 This implies that certain activities may intellectually stimulate familiar cognitive processes, building on student schema activation, while other activities require students to build newer processing skills. For example, "some societies ... emphasize memorization and analytical thinking over the ability to experiment or make predictions"2 Students from such societies might be able to do extremely well at language arts activities like spelling or literary essays, but have a harder time making a mind-map of the themes a story represents. In my study, I plan to explore different perceptions of important cognitive practices among groups through use of the Schwartz Model of classroom group interaction. This entails: 1) Emphasis on individual and group performance 2) Emphasis on assertiveness and a desire for group accord 3) Emphasis on reasons for acting in the interest of others 4) Emphasis on individual thought and success These differences in the reception of information create a need for different literal classroom practices. One of the most practical areas to explore and measure is that of literal classroom practices. Some areas investigated in relation to the Schwartz Model are: 1) Group setting preferences. Does the student prefer to work alone, in small groups, or as a class? 2) Auditory preferences. Does the student prefer to read aloud to the class, be read to by the teacher, be read to by a peer, be read to be an audio device, or read alone silently? 3) Visual preferences. Does the student like being provided with relevant pictures, charts and graphs, or will this make the student feel overwhelmed and inundated with information? 4) Literary analyzation group setting preferences. Does the student prefer to read and analyze literature alone, in small groups, or as a class? 5) Personal choice preferences. Does the student prefer to choose their own literature, or have literature selected for them? 6) Extrinsic reward preferences. Does the student prefer tangible rewards, or some form of teacher/peer praise? 7) Goal setting preferences. Does the student prefer specific, small goals or general, larger goals? 8) Creative options preferences. Does the student prefer to be given specific directions, or creative freedom? Other factors include technology available and content covered. The last factor which I plan to explore is that of cognitive dissonance as an affective and moral factor. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), African American high school seniors scored lower on the NAEP reading exam in 2002 than any other ethnic group. One factor clearly influenced test performance among the group: the amount of time spent reading for enjoyment outside of school. The NEAP test is graded on a scale of 1-3. 10% of African American seniors who read for pleasure scored a 3 on the test; only 6% of students with the same demographic who did not read for pleasure scored a 3. According to these statistics, the impact of the ability to find joy in reading is obvious. These statistics on are not atypical and not limited to one ethnic group, and many similar studies are also often transcendental of race. Affective topics such as this tend to be ignored, namely in later grades and at higher levels of achievement due to the fact that "research funding for adolescent literacy ... is minuscule in relation to the big bucks federal and state agencies spend on early literacy and early intervention research"3 Yet it is this aspect of literacy development which entirely influences the ability to move onto cognitive factors. 6) Extrinsic reward preferences. Does the student prefer tangible rewards, or some form of teacher/peer praise? 7) Goal setting preferences. Does the student prefer specific, small goals or general, larger goals? 8) Creative options preferences. Does the student prefer to be given specific directions, or creative freedom? Other factors include technology available and content covered. The last factor which I plan to explore is that of cognitive dissonance as an affective • and moral factor. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), African American high school seniors scored lower on the NAEP reading exam in 2002 than any other ethnic group. One factor clearly influenced test performance among the group: the amount of time spent reading for enjoyment outside of school. The NEAP test is graded on a scale of 1-3. 10% of African American seniors who read for pleasure scored a 3 on the test; only 6% of students with the same demographic who did not read for pleasure scored a 3. According to these statistics, the impact of the ability to find joy in reading is obvious. These statistics on are not atypical and not limited to one ethnic group, and many similar studies are also often transcendental of race. Affective topics such as this tend to be ignored, namely in later grades and at higher levels of achievement due to the fact that "research funding for adolescent literacy ... is minuscule in relation to the big bucks federal and state agencies spend on early literacy and early intervention research"3 Yet it is this aspect of literacy development which entirely influences the ability to move onto cognitive factors. All three factors are intrinsically linked: affective factors inspire students to read, cognitive factors grant students the ability to read, and classroom practices allow for the effective and appropriate growth of readers. The final section aims to express the extreme complexity of cross-cultural communication and the factors which can influence the positive or negative outcome of such contact while covering the multitude of options available to different forms of educators who are faced with a multicultural classroom.

(in English): This work deals with the representation of the SDG in political party programs for elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in 2013 and 2017. Specifically, the parties are ANO, Civic Democratic Party, Pirate Party, Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and Czech Social Democratic Party. In the theoretical part, through the Agenda theory, was discussed the process of forming a political agenda at national and international level. Furthermore, the concept of sustainable development is explained, including the development it has undergone historically. Then the position of electoral programs in political discourse is described. The description of the methodology is followed by a chapter devoted to analysis, where the analysis processes are described in detail, including a detailed description of the findings. In the following chapter, the results of the analysis are interpreted and, at the end, all findings are discussed and confronted with other research as well as the limits of this work.

Enquanto os estudos internacionais têm demonstrado uma grande preocupação em pesquisar a capacidade dos candidatos de influenciar a formação da agenda dos meios de comunicação de massa em épocas eleitorais, no Brasil a agenda das candidaturas não foi incorporada aos trabalhos acadêmicos de mídia e eleições. Neste estudo tive como objetivo avaliar a importância da agenda da propaganda dos candidatos para a formação da agenda da cobertura dos telejornais na eleição presidencial de 2002, bem como a relevância do programa de governo do PT para a elaboração da agenda da propaganda de seu candidato, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, nessa mesma eleição. Os dados mostraram que as candidaturas Lula e Serra conseguiram transferir para suas coberturas eleitorais do Jornal Nacional e Jornal da Record a ênfase dos assuntos discutidos em suas propagandas de televisão. Demonstraram também que o PT obteve êxito em transmitir para a propaganda de televisão da candidatura Lula a saliência da pauta discutida em sua plataforma. Com base nesses resultados, conclui que os candidatos influenciaram a agenda dos telejornais e que o PT, em particular, também cumpriu a função de agenda-setting, agendando os assuntos da propaganda da candidatura Lula na televisão. / While the international studies have shown a great concern with the study of the candidate\'s capacity to influence the formation of the mass media agenda during the electoral campaign period, in Brazil, the candidate\'s agenda has not been included in the academic studies of media and elections. In this study, my objective was to evaluate the candidates importance for the formation of the TV news coverage agenda on the presidential election in 2002, as well as the relevance of the PT for the elaboration of the advertising his candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in that same election. The data showed that both Lula and Serra succeeded in transferring to their electoral coverings of the \"Jornal Nacional\" and \"Jornal da Record\" the themes and issues discussed in their TV ads. The data also showed that the PT had success in transmitting to Lula\'s TV ads the salient themes presented by the party\'s program. The evidence I provided allowed me to conclude that the candidates influenced the new\'s agenda and that the PT, in particular, also fulfilled the function of agenda setting, by effectively influencing the content of its candidate\'s campaign on TV.

In the 21st century, water scarcity due to pollution, increasing demand and mismanagement has become a global phenomenon of growing concern. Often depicted in media reports, endorsed by global summits - such as the recent \"Rio+20\" Conference in 2012 in Brazil - and campaigned for by NGOs all over the world, freshwater issues play an important role within bigger debates on global environmental issues. Despite a clear increase in the intensity and scope of these issues over the last decades, they are not novel as such and have a history. This Ph.D. thesis analyzes the emergence and evolution of the freshwater topic on the international agenda since the early 1970s, when the first international freshwater-related conferences and conventions took place. In order to explain this genesis and evolution, the freshwater topic is situated within the broader international environmental agenda and is connected with International Relations scholarship on agenda-setting as well as international regimes. Subsequently, the empirical freshwater conventions and conference data is analyzed through these theoretical lenses, showing that the freshwater issue is in fact an umbrella topic which can be further subdivided into smaller water-related topics. The treatment of these sub-topics has led to conventions in two cases (wetlands and international watercourses) which are taken to be regimes in their own right, whereas others have so far remained limited to international conferences and events (sanitation, access to potable water etc.). Rather than seeing these as unconnected, individual regimes and conferences as has been done within contemporary scholarship, it will be argued that these in fact represent sub-regimes and parts of a bigger freshwater regime complex. Moreover, it will be argued that the origins of this regime complex are not due to specific countries´ deliberate aims of constructing international institutional overlap to subsequently explore forum-shopping opportunities to their advantage but, rather, that developments in this issue-area unintentionally resulted in this overlap for functional reasons. / No século 21, a escassez hídrica devido a causas como poluição, crescente demanda e má administração tem se tornado um fenômeno cada vez mais preocupante. Os recursos de água doce possuem um papel importante nos debates mais amplos sobre o meio ambiente, figuram frequentemente nas reportagens da mídia, são endossados nas cúpulas globais - tais como a recente \"Rio+20\" em 2012 no Brasil - e são o foco de campanhas de ONGs no mundo inteiro. Apesar de um crescimento evidente na intensidade e no escopo dessas questões nas últimas décadas, elas não são novas, mas sim integram um processo histórico. Esta tese de doutorado analisa a emergência e evolução do tema da água doce na agenda internacional a partir do início dos anos 1970, quando tiveram lugar as primeiras conferências e convenções relacionadas com essa questão. Com o intuito de explicar esta gênese e evolução, o tema da água doce está situado dentro da agenda ambiental mais ampla e se conecta com a literatura de relações internacionais sobre agenda-setting e regimes internacionais. Subsequentemente, os dados empíricos das convenções e conferências de água são analisados por meio dessas lentes teóricas, o que mostra que a temática hídrica é de fato um tópico guarda-chuva, que pode ser subdivido ainda em temas menores com relação à água. O tratamento desses subtemas tem levado a convenções em dois casos (zonas úmidas e cursos d\'água internacionais), que são percebidos como regimes próprios, quando outros têm ficado limitados até agora a conferências internacionais e meros eventos (saneamento, acesso à água potável etc.). Em vez de ver estes como regimes e conferências individuais e isolados, como tem sido feito na literatura contemporânea, argumentar-se-á que eles de fato representam subregimes e partes de um complexo de regime de água doce mais amplo. Além disso, argumentar-se-á que as origens desse complexo de regime não se devem a objetivos conscientes de certos países com o fim de construir uma sobreposição institucional para subsequentemente explorar oportunidades de fórum-shopping; mas bem os desdobramentos nessa área resultaram nessa sobreposição por razões funcionais, de forma não intencional.