Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a competition routine intervention on youth swimmers’ competition anxiety, confidence and performance. Participants of this study were youth swimmers (n = 4; female) between the ages of 12-16. Through the use of a multiple-baseline, single-subject design, participants received a competition routine intervention involving imagery, positive self-talk and a relaxation deep-breathing technique. Mixed methods were used, with participants completing the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory for Children questionnaire prior to their swim race and a reflective questionnaire following their swim race. Participants also took part in a follow-up interview upon completing the study. Participants showed no considerable decrease in cognitive and somatic anxiety, or increase in self-confidence or performance following the intervention. However, reflective questionnaire and interview results showed that participants perceived a positive improvement in all of these areas and found the intervention beneficial.

The problem investigated in this study is the following: “What is the nature and function of the theme of God’s speech in the book of Hebrews and within the whole of the revelation in Scripture?”. This problem can only be solved if the unfolding nature of God’s speech from the Old to the New Testament is taken into account (cf. Heb 1:1-2), the theme is researched grammatical-historically, and then placed revelational-historically within the whole of Scripture. The introductory questions of the book of Hebrews are investigated for the potential light that answers to these questions can shed on the appearance, function and interpretation of references to God’s speech in the book. Subsequently, the structure of Hebrews is investigated and analysed to determine the position which the theme of God’s speech assumes within the sermon. This goal is achieved through a literature study on suggestions for Hebrews’ structure, followed up by an independent thought structure analysis of Hebrews according to the method of Coetzee (1988a:19-37). From the position of the theme of God’s speech within the structure of the sermon the nature and content of the author of Hebrews’ references to the theme of God’s speech as introductory formulae, and as part of Old Testament quotations themselves, are determined. This is done by examining the 38 introductory formulae in Hebrews in detail on the basis of a literature and independent study. Subsequently, eleven pericopes in Hebrews where keywords of the theme of God’s speech come together as part of the argumentation of the sermon are researched grammatical-historically using a combined method of Coetzee (1997), Tolar (2002), Jordaan (2004a) and Fee (2009). Ultimately it is determined how the theme of God’s speech unfolds in the book of Hebrews regarding manner, nature and content by giving an overview of the collected material by means of analysis, interpretation and synthesis. From this overview it is determined how the author of Hebrews’ theme of God’s speech fits into the whole of God’s revelation in Scripture. This is achieved by doing a cursory revelational-historical study using a combined method of Coetzee (1995) and Jordaan (2003) on six topics that form the overview of the theme of God’s speech in Hebrews. Finally, a general conclusion is reached by answering the problem of this study by way of enumeration: The revelational-historical importance of the theme of God’s speech in Hebrews is that the author shares the presupposition of other biblical authors that the Old Testament is divinely inspired and therefore absolutely authoritative, but then with the explicit emphasis that God is presently still speaking directly and urgently with man through it. The unfolding of God’s revelation also has a specific accentuation in Hebrews by means of the author’s emphasis that God revealed Himself superior and finally in his Son. The author of Hebrews’ emphasis on the greater responsibility of the hearers to listen faithfully and obediently because of God’s superior revelation in his Son, is also unique. For these reasons alone Hebrews has an indispensable role within the Canon. / PhD (New Testament), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Reading practices in high school English language arts should lead students to write richer, more developed responses to literature. Teacher-led, reflective, and performance-based instructional modes were combined with either talk or writing to produce six activities for enhancing response. A repeated measures design varied the order of the six learning activities for three classes (n=44) in a Midwest suburban high school. Later written responses were scored for interpretation, response, and appreciation. Pearson correlations revealed the task and criteria were reliable. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) found that for interpretation and response, talking led to higher achievement. Conversely, writing was nearly superior to talk for appreciation. Practice and feedback may be more significant than instructional condition for raising the quality of response.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a competition routine intervention on youth swimmers’ competition anxiety, confidence and performance. Participants of this study were youth swimmers (n = 4; female) between the ages of 12-16. Through the use of a multiple-baseline, single-subject design, participants received a competition routine intervention involving imagery, positive self-talk and a relaxation deep-breathing technique. Mixed methods were used, with participants completing the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory for Children questionnaire prior to their swim race and a reflective questionnaire following their swim race. Participants also took part in a follow-up interview upon completing the study. Participants showed no considerable decrease in cognitive and somatic anxiety, or increase in self-confidence or performance following the intervention. However, reflective questionnaire and interview results showed that participants perceived a positive improvement in all of these areas and found the intervention beneficial.

Parliamentary talk, despite its central place in politics, has not been the focus of many qualitative studies. The present study investigates how parliamentary talk emerges in a dialogue between different arguments in the parliament. At the same time, this is a study of politics, of how human interaction gives birth to laws that regulate life in two contemporary democracies, Slovakia and Poland. It provides a close-reading of two political debates: on the state language in Slovakia and on gender parity in Poland. This study draws on hermeneutic and semiotic thinkers such as Gadamer, Bakhtin and Lotman to elaborate a dialogical understanding of language that can provide the basis for a method of textual analysis. The dialogical understanding of language emphasises that text and talk must be studied in the context of an interaction. The unit of analysis is a pair of utterances, a question and an answer. Until an utterance has been interpreted, it carries only the potential of meaning; its meaning is materialised by the responses it receives. The study further argues that conversation analysis and its tools can usefully be applied to the study of political debate. The method provides for the analysis of the dynamics between micro-scale interaction in the parliament and the macro-scale dynamics of culture. These dynamics assume two different forms that Lotman termed as “translation” and “explosion”. The study shows that parliamentary debate is characterised by a constantly evolving topic of discussion, namely that the meaning of the bill at the start of the debate and at the end of the debate are really two different bills. This is not because the content of the bill has undergone changes, but because in the course of the debate, the bill has generated new cultural connections. Casting a vote in support of the bill does not approve just the bill itself but a whole set of interconnected political, social and cultural values—what Lotman approached as the semiosphere. This study suggests Lotman’s cultural semiotics can provide for “imperfect hermeneutics” that is sensitive to the dynamic and contested nature of tradition in politics whilst acknowledging the inevitability of culture in mediating political talk.

This thesis takes Discursive Psychology as its main theoretical influence. Drawing on the resources of Discursive Psychology and utilising analytic tools provided by Conversation Analysis, these principles are applied to the study of addiction, and specifically alcohol problems. The data explored are telephone calls to an alcohol helpline. Four analytic chapters are presented. The first focuses on the concept of loss of control over drinking, identifying features of how this concept is constructed in talk and suggests possible functions of control talk for both callers and Advice Workers. The second analytic chapter examines how Advice Workers respond to callers' professed impaired control over their drinking and I demonstrate that embedded in discursive sequences of problem formulation and advice giving are issues of agency, accountability and responsibility. The thesis moves on to explore the role of knowledge in calls to an alcohol helpline and the analysis reveals that both the expert status of the Advice Worker and the speciality of the topic are co-constructed between the speakers on the helpline. The final analytic chapter features just one telephone call and demonstrates the application of such an analysis for alcohol service providers. The thesis ends with a discussion of the main overall findings and the implications of the research for clinical practice. I close by arguing that initial agency contact is a very important site of study and recommend that this should be explored utilising naturally-occurring talk.

Reading practices in high school English language arts should lead students to write richer, more developed responses to literature. Teacher-led, reflective, and performance-based instructional modes were combined with either talk or writing to produce six activities for enhancing response. A repeated measures design varied the order of the six learning activities for three classes (n=44) in a Midwest suburban high school. Later written responses were scored for interpretation, response, and appreciation. Pearson correlations revealed the task and criteria were reliable. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) found that for interpretation and response, talking led to higher achievement. Conversely, writing was nearly superior to talk for appreciation. Practice and feedback may be more significant than instructional condition for raising the quality of response.

The notion of "partnership" dominates contemporary school improvement and educational reform agendas. Most discourse about partnerships between schools and universities historically relates to the apparent divide between practice and theory, between practitioner and academy. This study departs from these traditional perspectives to move beyond the divide between teachers and academics. Designing strategies for re-visioning this historical divide within the education community, between teachers and academics, engages the profession at all levels. Instead of simply re-visioning this divide, however, we can envision a professional place where the divide does not exist. Addressing this divide requires teachers and academics, when they do come together for the purpose of collaborative work of any kind, to actively seek to understand each other's work. This study examines one school and university partnership that was modelled on the principles of a Professional Development School. It investigates the meeting talk between groups of teachers and academics as they plan and report on a collaborative project aimed at improving Mathematics teaching practices in the school. Whereas most research investigating school and university partnerships addresses the outcomes of such partnerships, or attempts to describe and advocate for ideal partnerships, this study considers the actual interactional work of the participants as they engage in the everyday and ongoing activities of partnership. It shows how partnerships are constructed through talk and activity. Instead of considering the partnership as a predetermined and pre-existing phenomenon, this study adopts the view that the work of partnership is an ongoing accomplishment through the activity of the participants. In this way, this study shows the local social order of a partnership as it was built, maintained and transformed through the interactional work of the participants. Both the institutional setting and the participants' enactment of partnership work contribute to the establishment of the social and moral order of the partnership. The principal question addressed in the study asks how participants accomplish the partnership work through their social interactions with one another. It considers the interactional resources that the partners (teachers, interns and academics) use to construct their talk and interactions with one another in the project; and how the partners construct themselves and the other members as members of the partnership, as academics/researchers and as teachers. This study drew on ethnomethodological resources to develop understandings about how the participants accomplish the partnership work through their talk-in-interaction. The specific focus is the talk of partnership that occurred in meetings between members of the school and of the university. These meetings were audio-recorded, transcribed, and finely analysed using the techniques and procedures of conversation analysis and membership category analysis. These methodological resources revealed the social and moral orders at work. Analysis of the meeting talk shows the specific activities and relationships developed by the principal of the school in the accomplishment of the partnership; the ways in which the various participants develop and use their claims to expertise (or lack of it) in doing partnership work; and how participants use the institutional resource of meeting talk to accomplish the partnership work. The study is of significance to educators, teachers and academics. It provides new and rich understandings about how school and university partnerships are accomplished through the participants' meetings. It shows the resources that the participants use to construct and accomplish their different kinds of expertise, to enact the leadership activities required, and to co-construct the various features of partnership. The study offers analytic tools for uncovering the interactional resource of the participants. The ethnomethodological resources, particularly conversation analysis and membership category analysis, can be used to analyse in close detail the social interactions of participants in the institutional talk of meetings. In showing how the social and moral orders of partnerships are revealed and by offering understandings of the pragmatics of school and university partnership, the social structure of school and university partnerships is explicated. The study offers one example of what a school and university partnership can be like. Epistemologically, it explores and exposes the kinds of knowledge produced from this kind of accounting for school and university partnerships. It shows how the work of partnership can be accomplished by participants, rather than attempt to claim how it should be done.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-106).