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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-179).

Sergiovanni (1994) believed that the rationale for shared decision making is that those who are closest to students are best equipped to make educational decisions to improve instructional programs. Liontos (1994) believed that change is most likely to be effective and lasting when those who implement it feel a sense of ownership and responsibility for the process. Building level administrators along with general and exceptional education teachers play a vital role in making educational practices a reality in schools (Kilgore, 2011). The administrator must have adequate knowledge of what the practices entail and how to mobilize staff so these educational practices are implemented effectively. In order to embrace the philosophy of inclusion, teachers must eliminate the focus on labels of students and make students with disabilities and support needs the determining factors in the provision of services and placement settings. This requires the school staff to shift paradigms when determining how best to meet the needs of students with disabilities. The overall purpose of this study was to determine whether or not general and exceptional education teachers working together had an impact on the inclusion process. These two groups of teachers collaborated to address challenges that students meet in the general educational setting. Their goal was to provide the best possible learning experience for students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment. While this study only took into account the challenges and successes of one school, in one school district, it is a glimpse of what other teachers, general and exceptional education are facing in inclusive settings. Results of the study showed that collaboration between general and exceptional education teachers clearly resulted in greater teacher efficacy. These teachers believed that they could make a positive difference. Teachers who exhibited this confidence were more likely to engage in collaboration. Some of the general education teachers who had the strongest desire for collaboration and worked closely with an exceptional education teacher exhibited a number of positive traits that led to more effective inclusion instruction. With this in mind, it is important for educational leaders to do all that they can to provide professional training and development to offer ideas and instances of collaboration to help the students with disabilities and teachers involved in educating them.

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This study, utilizing Preston and Karahanna’s framework for shared vision development and Agency Theory, explores the impact of vision development factors and factors associated with incentive plans on shared vision and alignment. Results of the study confirm the strong relationship between shared vision and alignment, and indicate that having an effective management team is important with respect to developing and maintaining shared vision and alignment within the organization. Several vision development factors such as using the language of the business, participation on the top management team (TMT), and having knowledge of the business impact shared vision through their influence on teamwork. Also, results of this study suggest that participation on the TMT by the CIO/IT leader is more important than the individual’s position in the organizational hierarchy. In addition, attributes associated with incentive plans such as achievable and clear measures, measures linked to organizational goals, measures that align the interests of the individual with those of the organization, regular plan reviews, and using a balanced scorecard approach with respect to incentive plan design positively impact teamwork and shared vision. For practitioners, this highlights the importance of incentive plans as powerful tools that can be used to reinforce shared vision, effective teamwork, and alignment within the organization. Also, the CIO/IT leader needs to be knowledgeable of the business and must fill the role of both a technologist as well as an enterprise leader. This person must be an evangelist communicating the value and benefits of IT to the rest of the organization.

This thesis describes the development of an instrument for assessing shared understanding in teams. The purpose was to develop an instrument that would be usable, understandable, objective, flexible and self-explanatory. Teams working in naturalistic settings are expected to have a shared understanding concerning common goals and how to achieve these. The problem investigated in this thesis is that current techniques and instruments for assessing shared understanding in teams generally suffer from one or more of the following drawbacks, namely that they are expensive, difficult to use, time-consuming, requiring expertise, and are often based on subjective perceptions. Departing from existing theory in team cognition techniques and theories, the research questions posed in this thesis are: 1) How can shared understanding be measured without the disadvantages of existing methods? 2) How can shared understanding be assessed without the bias of self-ratings and/or assessments by experts/observers? 3) Can team performance be better understood by the outcomes of an instrument that measures shared understanding? These research questions are answered through six studies that are presented in this thesis. Over the six studies an instrument was iterated and subsequently developed, called the “shared priorities instrument”. When using this instrument, team members are instructed to generate items and rank these in order of importance. By comparing these rank orders from different participants, a team measure of shared understanding can be calculated. The advantages of this instrument compared to earlier measures are that it is less expensive, easier to use, less time-consuming, does not require subject matter expertise, and that the instrument is distanced from subjective perceptions. Furthermore, the final study provides results where outcomes from the shared priorities instrument correlate with performance, supporting earlier research connecting shared understanding in teams with team performance. A structural equation model, a result of the final study, shows that the instrument is both valid and reliable. / Denna avhandling beskriver utvecklingen av ett mätinstrument för att värdera delad förståelse hos team. Syftet har varit att utveckla ett mätinstrument som är användbart, förståeligt, objektivt, flexibelt och självförklarande. Team som arbetar i naturalistiska miljöer förväntas ha en delad förståelse för gemensamma mål och hur dessa ska uppnås. Befintliga tekniker och mätinstrument för värdering av delad förståelse hos team är att de ofta lider av ett eller flera av följande problem: de är dyra, svåra att använda, tidskrävande, kräver expertis, och bygger många gånger på subjektiva bedömningar. Genom att utgå från teoribildningen inom teamkognition ställs följande forskningsfrågor: 1) Hur kan delad förståelse i team mätas utan nackdelarna hos befintliga metoder? 2) Hur kan delad förståelse i team mätas utan att riskera att färgas av partiskheten hos egenbedömningar och/eller experters värderingar? 3) Kan teamprestation förstås bättre med hjälp av ett instrument som mäter delad förståelse? Dessa frågeställningar besvaras i de sex delstudier som presenteras i denna avhandling där ett instrument (som kallas shared priorities) utvecklats för att mäta delad förståelse. Tillämpningen innebär att medlemmarna i ett team individuellt får generera och rangordna faktorer som de anser vara viktiga för att teamet ska nå sitt/sina gemensamma mål och därefter rangordna varandras faktorer. Genom att beräkna överensstämmelsen i dessa rangordningar erhålls ett mått på teamets delade förståelse. Fördelen med detta instrument, i jämförelse med tidigare mått, är att det kostar mindre, är lättare att använda, tar mindre tid, inte kräver någon domänexpertis, och att mätmetoden inte bygger på rent subjektiva bedömningar. I den sista delstudien erhålls resultat där instrumentet shared priorities korrelerar med prestation, vilket stöder tidigare forskning om delad förståelse. En statistisk modell (SEM) visar på instrumentets validitet och reliabilitet.

Asthma management in school-aged children, particularly controller medication use, is best conceptualized as parent-child shared management. Controller medication nonadherence is common, and leads to higher disease morbidity such as cough, sleep disruption, poor activity tolerance, and asthma exacerbation. The purpose of this study was to describe asthma illness representations of both school-aged children (6-11 years) with persistent asthma and their parents, and to examine their interdependence. The Common Sense Model of Self-regulation, modified to include Parent-Child Shared Regulation, provided the framework for this descriptive, cross-sectional study. Thirty-four parent-child dyads independently reported on asthma control, controller medication adherence, and asthma illness representations by completing the Childhood Asthma Control Test, Medication Adherence Report Scale for Asthma, Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire, and Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire. Using intraclass correlations, moderate agreement was evident between the parent and child timeline (perceived duration) illness representation domain (ICC= .41), and there was a weak association between the parent and child symptoms domain (ICC = .13). The remaining controllability and consequences domains showed no agreement. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test parent and child illness representation domain variables as predictors of parent or child estimates of medication adherence. With parent-reported medication adherence as the dependent variable, regression models used parent illness representation variables followed by the corresponding child variable. Parent beliefs about medication necessity versus concerns was a significant predictor of parent-reported treatment adherence (β = .55, p < .01). Child-reported treatment control was also predictive of parent-reported treatment adherence (β -.50, p < .01). When child-reported medication adherence was the dependent variable, the child illness representation variable was entered first followed by the parent variable. Child beliefs about medication necessity versus concerns was the only significant predictor of child-reported adherence (child β .50, p < .01), none of the parent variables reached significance. Findings from this study indicate that although there are similarities between parent and child asthma illness representations, parental illness representations do not predict children's estimation of controller medication adherence. These findings indicate that school-aged children develop illness representations somewhat independent from their parents and, therefore, are critical participants in both asthma care as well as research.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Computer Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Bakgrund: En åtgärd för att effektivisera stödfunktioner i organisationer är att etablera och använda sig av så kallade SSC. Det innebär att spridda stödfunktionerna flyttas till ett separat och ansvarigt bolag inom koncernen. Där redovisarna arbetar på SSC medan controllers arbetar ute i organisationen. Det är vanligt förekommande att arbetsfördelningen aldrig når fullt ut mellan redovisarna och controllers, vilket har påvisats på det studerade företaget. Syfte: Det övergripande syftet för studien är att öka kunskapen om hur arbetsförhållandet kan organiseras mellan redovisare och controllers när yrkesrollerna utvecklas och förändras i en global organisation. Metod: Studien innefattar en fallstudie av en globalorganisation inom detaljhandel. Datainsamling för studien har skett genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer och företagsdokumentation. Slutsatser: I studien har det påvisats att bolagsansvarig (redovisaren) har en specialistoch konsulteranderoll, som hanterar redovisning och utför viss transaktionshantering. Business navigators (controllers) har en affärsparterroll och ”navigerar” verksamheter. En rad problemområden samt åtgärder för arbetsfördelningen har identifierats och är presenterade i tabell 14. En ny konceptuell modell, figur 12 presenteras i slutsatsen.

Despite advances in image, video, and motion capture technologies, human interactions are frequently represented as line drawings. Intuitively, drawings provide a useful way of filtering complex, dynamic sequences to produce concise representations of interaction. They also make it possible to represent phenomena such as topic spaces, that do not have a concrete physical manifestation. However, the processes involved in producing these drawings, the advantages and limitations of line drawings as representations, and the implications of drawing as an analytic method have not previously been investigated. This thesis explores the use of drawings to represent human interaction and is informed by the prior experience and abilities of the investigator as a practising visual artist. It begins by discussing the drawing process and how it has been used to capture human activities. Key drawing techniques are identified and tested against an excerpt from an interaction between architects. A series of new drawings are constructed to depict one scene from this interaction, highlighting the contrasts between each drawing technique and their impact on the way shared spaces are represented. A second series of original drawings are produced exploring new ways of representing these spaces, leading to a proposal for a field-based approach that combines gesture paths, fields, and human figures to create a richer analytic representation. A protocol for using this approach to analyse video in practice is developed and evaluated though a sequence of three participatory workshops for researchers in human interaction. The results suggest that the field based process of drawing facilitates the production of spatially enriched graphical representations of qualitative spaces. The thesis concludes that the use of drawing to explore non-metric approaches to shared interactional space, has implications for research in human interaction, interaction design, clinical psychology, anthropology, and discourse analysis, and will find form in new new approaches to contemporary artistic practice.