Text in Afrikaans / The aim of this study was to determine the effect of labeling on a person's being from an educational-psychological perspective. The focus was therefore placed mainly on the following: § Labeling as a phenomenon, with specific reference to what labeling is and its effect on a person's being. § The use of the Edu-Psychological Relation Theory as a theoretical basis for determining the effect of labeling on a person's being. § The compilation of a diagnostic questionnaire within the framework of the Edu-Psychological Relation Theory that was used in the empirical study. It was found that the consequences of labeling are generally permanent and irreversible, and that they result in isolation of the individual. A diagnostic questionnaire was operationalised in terms of the Edu-Psychological Relation Theory, and was used to determine the effect of labeling. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Guidance)

This thesis is a user study within library and information science on participatory practices of a professional group in work activity. This has been investigated only to a minor extent in previous library and information science research. The qualitative empirical focus alternates between physicians‟ engagements in work practice and workplace learning within patient care. The overall research problem was to learn how people in workplaces interacted with information that was embedded, intricately intertwined, and tightly bound to the ongoing routines of their everyday work. This thesis aims at understanding information practices of professionals in occupational settings as exemplified by a team of physicians in a Nigerian teaching hospital. In this thesis, the focus was on the collective work activity, and the specific goals identified include how physicians interact and make meaning in the context of the social activities in the workplace, how professionals individually or collectively gather, understand, produce, share and use information, and how workplace learning influences information practices. Information practices are viewed as sociocultural practices that occur inside other practices. The thesis focuses on a nuanced, contextualized understanding of the interplay between the participating actors in activity, the activity per se, and the intermediary role of tools and artefacts. The epistemological point of departure is the sociocultural perspective that emphasizes the dynamic interdependence of the individual with the social and collective development focusing on mediation through tools and artefacts in cultural, institutional, and historical situations. I have chosen cultural-historical activity theory and the practice theories to analyse the dynamic processes in the context of patient care. Their underlying principles guided the empirical study, facilitating extrapolations and illustrations in the analysis. The cultural-historical activity theory was used to understand contextual issues that influence information practices in work activity: the object and subject of activity, division of labour, rules and norms, community, tools and artefacts, as well as the activity system itself and the hierarchical structure of the activity. Theories and concepts employed from a practice perspective on learning were considered useful for understanding the participatory modes in workplace and the influence of social learning communities on diverse information processes. In so doing, the study strives to provide a holistic understanding of information practices, workplace learning, and the relationships between them.The empirical data was gathered through a qualitative case study that lasted over a period of two years. Direct observation was the dominant data collection technique 5 used throughout the preliminary and main empirical studies to capture physicians‟ information practices and experiences. The observation focused on the Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (CPT) team‟s encounters with patients; the interactions they had amongst themselves, and events and situations surrounding patient care. During the main study, other data collection techniques were employed alongside the observation method. In-depth open-ended interviews were conducted with 17 physicians and 9 non-physicians who were selected to provide rich and varied descriptions of the phenomena under study. The interview time totalled at 1,535 minutes. Physical artefacts were another data collection technique employed: 30 patients‟ medical records were assessed during the empirical study. Finally, informal interactions in the research setting were an additional data collection technique used continuously throughout the two empirical periods. The results were analyzed through a combination of inductive and deductive methods of analysis. There are four parts to the empirical results in this thesis. In the first, contextual elements that showed how work environment can be an influencing factor in the information practices of a professional group are described from the perspective of cultural historical activity theory. In the second part, the nature of information access in the real-world information environment was portrayed. It was found that information sources and strategies contributed to the overarching goal of restoring patient health to normalcy. The information sources and strategies were also found useful for mediating the information environment both subjectively and intersubjectively. An equally important result concerns the authority issues related to information sources and strategies. In the third part, available tools and artefacts were presented as useful information aids that also played a mediating role. Tools were categorised into physical tools and language. Language was categorized according to the social situations or classes of speakers. The case notes were seen as useful artefact and occupied a central niche in the studied work activity. These tools and artefacts enabled affordances around which social practices were built on in the work activities. In the last part of the results, various information practices that mirror the participatory practices rather than those of isolated individuals are highlighted. Six dimensions made up and covered the most vital spectrum of the information processing: information gathering, meaning making, information sharing, information use, reading, and documentation. Furthermore, the study revealed that learning took place simultaneously with the work activity and that it influenced information practices at the same time. / <p>Academic dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Library and Information Science at the University of Borås to be publicly defended on Friday 19 October 2012 at 13.00 in lecture room D 211, University of Borås, Allégatan 1, Borås.</p>

This interpretive research study examines peer leadership in a distributed online MBA community of practice at New States University (NSU pseudonym, based in USA). It explores ways in which faculty members in a global business course, NMBA616 (pseudonym), negotiate relationships, meaning and identity in their efforts to be effective teachers and address their own needs for professional growth and development. The research participants provide insights about community formation and function in a virtual domain where they work together at a distance without meeting face-to-face. The study appears to be a new application of culture code methodology, symbolic interactionism and social learning theory as they conjoin on social, psychological and organizational levels. To my knowledge it is the first study of an MBA virtual community of practice. Research interviews were conducted primarily by distance using web-based technology, teleconferences and email, as well as some face to face discussion. The central questions are: 1) To what extent does a distributed faculty team in an online global business management course constitute a community of practice? 2) What is the nature of faculty relationships in the online global business management course? and 3) What are the leadership issues in a virtual practice setting? Findings reveal that online community practitioners are resourceful in creating peer leadership that is embedded within the group and its relationships. The study is motivated by my personal interests and professional experience, as well as by the quest of online colleagues for ways to assess, support and improve themselves and their practice. Building on personal experience as an online business communications instructor, the thesis presents an example of peer leadership in a virtual global business community of practice and in its completion stands as a case study.

The Online Student Connectedness Survey (OSCS) was introduced to the academic community in 2012 as an instrument designed to measure feelings of connectedness between students participating in online degree and certification programs. The purpose of this study was to examine data from the instrument for initial evidence of validity and reliability and to establish a nomological network between the OSCS and similar instruments utilized in the field. The study utilized sequential exploratory factor analysis- confirmatory factor analysis (EFA-CFA) and correlational analysis to assess results of the data. Students enrolled in online courses at higher education institutions located in the United States served as the sample for this study. Three instruments were used during the study. The OSCS was administered first so that the factor structure could be examined for factor validity. Once confirmed, the Classroom Community Scale (CCS) and the Community of Inquiry Scale (COI) served as the instruments to examine nomological validity through correlational analysis of data.This study provided evidence of factor validity and reliability for data from the OSCS. After the initial EFA-CFA, the four-factor structure held, and 16 of the 25 original items remained for nomological testing. Statistically significant correlations were demonstrated between factors contained in the OSCS, CCS, and COI, providing further evidence of construct validity. These results indicate that for the sample used in this study, the OSCS provides data that are valid and reliable for assessing feelings of connection between participants in online courses at institutions of higher learning.

This study examines the patterns of involvement in terrorist activities for the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) and Turkish Hezbollah members. The study is based on the assumption that terrorists differ in terms of their involvement in terrorist activities. In this sense, there are full-time and part-time terrorists. Full-time terrorists act professionally and do the assignments given by their commanders. Part-time terrorists, on the other hand, act on a non-professional basis and have their own motivations to participate in terrorist activities. For part-timers, there are various factors that may have an effect on their degree of involvement in terrorist activities. Their decisions regarding whether to participate in a specific terrorist act can be influenced by individual factors as well as the instructions and assignments given to them. In this study, these factors are categorized under four different headings; demographic, relative deprivation, frustration, and social learning. Data regarding the involvement in terrorist activities (as measured by arrest records) and demographics (age, gender, marital status, social class), relative deprivation (education, work status), frustration (school dropout, loss of a loved one in a counter-terrorism operation, family arrest), and social learning (family association to a terrorist group and recruitment method) was collected from terrorists’ autobiographies. Research hypotheses were tested using bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses. The findings indicated that relative deprivation, frustration, and social learning models can explain the differences in the degree of involvement in terrorism for DHKP/C members, but not for Turkish Hezbollah members (controlling for demographic variables). The results showed that these three models may account for some of the differences in involvement in terrorist activities.

Ce travail de recherche se situe dans le cadre de la théorie de l'activité et dans celui de l'apprentissage social. Il porte sur les pratiques des internautes qui investissent du temps et du travail dans la mise en oeuvre et l'amélioration de la plate-forme d'enseignement en ligne « Moodle ». Même si leur objectif principal n'est pas l'apprentissage en tant que tel, leur activité nécessite de créer, de diffuser et d'acquérir certains types de savoirs et ainsi de se développer professionnellement. Alors que des informations circulent au sein des communautés virtuelles sur Internet, l'enquête ethnographique proposée considère l'activité « Moodle » comme une activité sociale située génératrice d'apprentissages. Elle repose d'une part sur un questionnaire sur les pratiques des intéressés (les Moodleurs) et d'autre part, s'appuie sur l'analyse des traces écrites qu'ils produisent sur le Web social. Les résultats permettent de mieux cerner qui sont ces « Moodleurs » et quelles sont leurs activités. Ils montrent aussi que si des apprentissages sont en jeu, ils concernent avant tout des savoir-faire. Il apparaît également qu'un développement professionnel est repérable dans cette dynamique collective interactionnelle qui ne s'effectue pas dans un cadre institutionnel classique. / The research is based on the framework of Activity Theory and the Social Learning Theory. This thesis addresses the practices of the Internet users who invest work and time in the improvement and the design of "Moodle", the platform for online education.Even if their main objective is not developing their knowledge, their activity requires creating, diffusing and acquiring certain types of knowledge and consequently developing their professional skills. Since information circulates within the virtual communities on the Internet, the selected ethnographic method considers "Moodle" activity as a situated and social activity generating learning process. It is based on both a questionnaire on the practices of the involved people (the Moodlers) and an analysis of the written traces that they produce on the social Web. The outcomes, on the one hand, show how the "Moodlers" manage their activities to learn mainly in a know-how perspective. On the other hand, it appears that the professional development depends on a collective and an interactional dynamics which is not determined by the institutional framework.

This thesis studies the learning process between foreign and local knowledge in a community of organic farmers by the name Atitlán Organics in Tzununa, rural Guatemala. Foreign settlers with formal education and contemporary farming experience work alongside indigenous local Guatemalan farmers in this community, which also takes on international volunteer workers. These people of various background and differing intentions cooperate to develop the community and its business of organic food production while learning from each other. The foreigners bring global theories that relate to farming such as permaculture designs and scientific knowledge while the Guatemalans know the local land and how to work with it. This thesis outlines the learning process between these different competencies and presents a nuanced discussion on how these types of knowledge exchange can be beneficial for the people and the community. Diverse competencies can complement each other and enhance collaborative work but limitations can also occur due to difficulties of understanding other socio-cultural contexts, while risks of neo-colonial tendencies and western knowledge hegemony lure in these situations. The discussion in this thesis highlights the importance of mutual consciousness about this process in the community and what that can be done to enhance collaborative learning while avoiding such risks.

Wie Menschen von anderen lernen und wann es adaptiv-rational ist sich auf soziales Lernen zu verlassen sind wichtige Fragen in vielen Disziplinen einschließlich der Psychologie, der Biologie, der Anthropologie und den Wirtschaftswissenschaften. Trotz der geteilten Interessen dieser Disziplinen sind viele der vorhandenen Resultate voneinander isoliert und oft nicht vergleichbar, teilweise weil es der Forschung zum sozialen Lernen immer noch eines theoretischen Rahmens fehlt, welcher die gewonnen Erkenntnisse vergleichbar machen würde sowie erklären würde warum unterschiedliche Strategien in Abhängigkeit vom sozialen Kontext erfolgreich sind oder nicht. In meiner Arbeit schlage ich einen solchen theoretischen Rahmen vor, welcher sich auf der Forschung zur ökologischen Rationalität gründet. Ich benutze den theoretischen Rahmen der ökologischen Rationalität sozialen Lernens, um drei Fragen zu beantworten: i) Wie können soziale Lernstrategien als kognitiv plausible Strategien modelliert werden, die auf drei einfachen Building Blocks beruhen (Such-, Stopp- und Entscheidungsregeln), ii) was sind die wichtigsten Faktoren von sozialen Umwelten und Problemumwelten, in denen soziales Lernen stattfindet und iii) wie interagieren soziale Lernstrategien, die auf unterschiedlichen Building Blocks beruhen, mit der Struktur von Umwelten, um unterschiedliche Erfolgsniveaus zu erreichen. Indem ich diese drei Fragen adressiere, erarbeite ich die Bedingungen unter denen unterschiedlichen Strategien adaptiv-rational sind und erkläre wie unterschiedlichen Strategien in bestimmten Umwelten erfolgreich sind. Jedes der Kapitel behandelt eine wichtige alltägliche soziale Lernsituation, identifiziert die Schlüsselcharakteristiken der Situation und demonstriert wie die Building Blocks des sozialen Lernens mit diesen Umweltstrukturen interagieren, um unterschiedliche Erfolgsniveaus zu erreichen. / How people learn from others and when it is adaptive to rely on social learning have been major questions in several disciplines including psychology, biology, anthropology and economics. Despite the shared interest of these diverse fields, many of the results remain isolated and are often incomparable, in part because the study of social learning still lacks a general theoretical framework that would make results comparable or explain why different strategies perform well in different contexts. In this thesis I propose such a framework that is grounded in the study of ecological rationality. I use this frame- work to explore three primary questions: i) how can social learning strategies be modeled as cognitively plausible strategies composed of simple building blocks (search, stopping and decision rules), ii) what are key characteristics of social and task environments in which social learning takes place, and iii) how do social learning strategies composed of different building blocks interact with the structure of the environment to produce different levels of success. Through addressing these three questions I map out the conditions under which different strategies are adaptive and explain how the building blocks of different strategies contribute to their performance in certain environments. The thesis focuses on three representative classes of social learning strategies, namely, frequency-dependent, payoff-biased, and unbiased copying. Different chapters focus on important everyday social learning settings, identify key environmental characteristics defining the setting and demonstrate how the building blocks of social learning strategies interact with these environmental structures to produce different outcomes.

Menschen unterscheiden sich von anderen Tieren insbesondere dadurch, dass ihr Alltag durch vielfältige kulturelle Praktiken bestimmt wird. Diese erlaubten es dem Menschen, fast alle terrestrischen Habitate auf der Erde in hoher Dichte zu besiedeln. Kulturelle Merkmale werden nicht genetisch vererbt, sondern durch soziales Lernen zwischen Menschen übertragen -- niemand könnte ohne den vorhandenen Wissensbeitrag anderer ein funktionstüchtiges Kanu bauen. Daraus zu schließen, kulturelle und genetische Evolution seien komplett getrennt zu behandeln, wäre allerdings falsch. Genetische Evolution hat es überhaupt erst erlaubt, von anderen in adaptiver Weise zu lernen. Kulturelle und genetische Evolution müssen zusammen betrachtet werden, um die Einzigartigkeit des Menschen zu verstehen. Der offensichtlich vorhandene adaptive Nutzen sozialen Lernens konnte in theoretischen Arbeiten allerdings nicht repliziert werden. Das deutet darauf hin, dass das Verständnis über die Funktionsweise sozialen Lernens noch unvollständig ist. Zwar haben einige Wissenschaftler mögliche Lösungen für dieses Paradox vorgeschlagen, aber unser Modell zeigt, dass diese unzureichend sind. Stattdessen hält sich der Widerspruch hartnäckiger als geglaubt. Wir analysieren zwar neue soziale Lernstrategien, die den Widerspruch lösen könnten, doch das erfolgt nur unter sehr beschränkten Bedingungen. Außerdem treten wir für eine neue Sicht auf soziales Lernen ein und damit einhergehend für einen Modellierungsansatz, der Lernformen in realistischerer Weise berücksichtigt. Die Untersuchung des evolutionären Ursprungs sozialen Lernens sollte den gleichen Stellenwert haben wie jene des evolutionären Ursprungs kooperativen Verhaltens. Dass dies sinnvoll wäre, belegen wir, indem wir zeigen, welchen Einfluss soziales Lernen sogar auf moderne Gesellschaften und Volkswirtschaften hat und wie es beispielsweise hilft, Finanzkrisen besser zu verstehen. / Humans differ most from other animals in that their lives are shaped by many cultural practices. Having cultural traits allowed human populations to grow considerably in a short time and to conquer almost all terrestrial habitats on Earth. Cultural traits are not inborn but are instead transmitted between humans through social learning -- no individual could build a fully functional kayak without learning from others. Concluding that cultural evolution is thus a separate process from genetic evolution would, however, be rash. The latter has endowed humans with the possibility to learn from others in the first place, and prepared learning to make it especially adaptive. To find out what makes humans unique, cultural and genetic evolution, therefore, have to be studied in concert. Although nobody doubts that evolution gave rise to social learning and that the resulting cultural practices serve an adaptive purpose, theoretical works have shown that simple forms of social learning do not improve human adaptedness. This finding contradicts the observations and thus implies that our understanding of social learning is incomplete. Several authors have proposed solutions to this paradox but, as our model results will show, the solutions are unsatisfying. Instead, we find the paradox to be more resilient than is believed and propose forms of social learning that could solve it, albeit only under very narrow circumstances. Furthermore, we argue for a new perspective on social learning and, consequently, for a different framework that allows for more realistic learning models. We suggest that the study of the evolutionary origin of social learning should be given equal weight as the study of the evolutionary origin of cooperation, and illustrate this by elaborating on the impact of social learning on modern societies and market behaviors in general, and on financial crises specifically.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-27T14:21:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Timoteo Madaleno Vieira.pdf: 453387 bytes, checksum: debb5a05ecddc8ce2ee362bb795024ab (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-02-28 / Aggressiveness is typical characteristic of animal behavior. For humans, aggressiveness is influenced both by biological and by sociocultural factors, and can result in serious problems for both aggressors and victims of aggression. Knowledge about the evolutionary and ontogenetic factors that influence human aggressiveness is therefore extremely relevant not only to the theoretical considerations, but also to possible measures to prevent it. In this dissertation, we present an empirical investigation about the relationship among social variables (punishment, aggressive models presented on television and by parents, toy gun playing) and the aggressive and ludic behavior of pre-school children. Our subjects were 15 boys between four and six years of age that were enrolled in a childcare unit in the city of Goiânia, Brazil. Demographic data and information on the frequency with which subjects were exposed to aggressive models at home were obtained through structured interviews. Behavioral data were collected during 12 periods with 60 minutes of naturalistic observation. In each period, subjects remained in a 60m2 room with no toys, and with minimum interference by adults (free activity). The percentage of time spent by each subject in ludic activities (rough and tumble and mild play) was calculated from the percentage of instantaneous scans at 3 minutes intervals (20 records each session). Data on aggressive behavior (real and simulated) were gathered thru behavioral samplings (all occurrences). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA- GLM procedure in SPSS v. 13.0) indicated a significant relationship between play behavior and the presence of aggressive models at home, particularly the presence of toy guns (F=9,93; gl=1; p=0,01) and aggressive interaction by parents (F=8,56 ; gl=1; p=0,02): boys that reported these models at home participated more in rough and tumble play than other subjects. Children exposed to abusive physical punishment (U=6,0; p=0,03), and adult fighting at home (U=7,5; p=0,02) and to violent TV programs (U=8,0; p=0,02) were emitted more real aggression. Boys that reported toy guns at home were not registered in aggressive behavior more often than those who did not, but displayed a higher proportion of pretend aggression (U= 8,0; p=0,02). The more aggressive models at home, the higher the incidence of aggressive behavior during observation periods (Rho=0,603; p=0,02). No two-way interactions between factors (aggressive models) were found in the multivariate analysis. Despite these significant results, the proportions of rough and tumble play and of real aggression gradually decreased through the 12 periods of observation. The great majority of our 15 subjects engaged less in rough and tumble play and displayed less real aggression during the last 6 periods of observation than during the first ones (within subjects: t=4,26; gl=14; p=0,001). Overall, our results indicate a cumulative effect of aggressive models in ludic and aggressive behavior, although this effect may change with the increasing familiarity of subjects with the lack of interference by adults. / A agressividade é uma característica comportamental típica dos animais. No caso do ser humano, este tipo de comportamento é influenciado tanto por fatores biológicos como sócio-culturais, e pode acarretar em sérios problemas tanto para sujeitos agressores como para vítimas de agressão. Conhecer os fatores evolutivos e ontogenéticos que influenciam a agressividade humana é portanto extremamente relevante não só para a compreensão teórica deste comportamento, como também para possíveis medidas de prevenção. Neste trabalho, apresentamos uma investigação empírica sobre a relação entre variáveis sociais (punição física, modelos de agressividade apresentados pela televisão e pelos pais, utilização de armas de brinquedo) e o comportamento agressivo e lúdico de crianças pré-escolares. Os sujeitos consistiram de 15 meninos entre quatro e seis anos de idade que freqüentavam regularmente uma creche na cidade de Goiânia. Dados demográficos e sobre a freqüência de modelos de agressividade em casa foram obtidos através de entrevistas estruturadas com os sujeitos. Dados comportamentais foram obtidos durante 12 sessões de 60 minutos de observação naturalística. Em cada sessão, os sujeitos permaneciam em uma sala de aproximadamente 60m2, sem brinquedos, e com a mínima interferência de adultos (atividade livre). A porcentagem de tempo gasta por cada sujeito em atividades lúdicas (brincadeira turbulenta e não turbulenta) foi calculada a partir de 20 registros de varredura instantânea ( scan ) a cada sessão. Dados sobre comportamento agressivo (agressão real e agressão simulada) foram obtidos através de registros de todas as ocorrências. Uma análise multivariada de variância (MANOVA- procedimento GLM do SPSS v. 13.0) indicou uma relação significativa entre o comportamento lúdico e a presença de modelos agressivos em casa, em especial a presença de armas de brinquedo (F=9,93; gl=1; p=0,01) e de brigas em casa (F=8,56 ; gl=1; p=0,02): crianças que relataram estes modelos em casa brincaram mais de forma turbulenta do que os que não relataram estes modelos. Crianças expostas à punição física (U=6,0; p=0,03), a brigas em casa (U=7,5; p=0,02) e a programas televisivos violentos (U=8,0; p=0,02) apresentaram maior número de registros de agressão real. As que relataram armas de brinquedo em casa não obtiveram registros mais freqüentes de agressividade, embora tenham apresentado uma proporção de agressões simuladas maior do que as que não relataram tais brinquedos (U= 8,0; p=0,02). Quanto mais modelos, maior a incidência destes comportamentos ao longo das sessões de observação (Rho=0,603; p=0,02). Nenhuma interação significativa entre fatores (modelos de agressividade) foi encontrada na análise multivariada. Apesar destes resultados significativos, a proporção de brincadeiras turbulentas e de agressões reais caiu substancialmente ao longo das 12 sessões. A grande maioria dos 15 sujeitos brincou menos de forma turbulenta e agrediu menos seus colegas nas últimas seis sessões, e mais nas primeiras seis sessões (teste t pareado: t=4,26; gl=14; p=0,001). Em conjunto, nossos resultados indicam um efeito cumulativo dos modelos de agressividade no comportamento lúdico e agressivo, embora este efeito possa sofrer modificações com a crescente familiaridade com a atividade livre.