The notion of the 'public intellectual' has been a recurring discussion topic within sociology and the humanities for decades. Yet it has been largely neglected within media and cultural studies. Accordingly, few scholars have discussed in much depth how public intellectuals operate within the media and what functions this media role may facilitate. Intellectuals in the Australian Press is an exploration into this generally overlooked area of scholarship. It aims to provide three levels of insight into the topic. Firstly, the study looks closely at the appearance and the function of public intellectuals in the Australian press. It outlines how public intellectuals contribute to the newspapers and how newspapers contribute to Australian public intellectual life. Secondly, the thesis outlines and examines in detail three types of public intellectual in Australia. Specifically, it examines the journalist, the academic and the think tank researcher as types of intellectual who write regularly for Australia's newspapers. Thirdly, Intellectuals in the Australian Press delivers detailed intellectual biographies of three of Australia's most prominent press intellectuals, each of whom exemplifies one of these three categories. These commentators are The Australian's Paul Kelly, The Age's Robert Manne, and the Sydney Morning Herald's Gerard Henderson.

In this thesis, an IT company asked for a tool for improving some aspects of daily work for employees working with customer support. A web-site was constructed for this purpose, and development was steered by applying usability evaluation methods in an iterative manner. These methods were combined with the approach of following the guidelines of user-centered design. The aim was to see if an increase of user-satisfaction towards the user-interface could be measured between iterations.Another significant question that was central to the study was the comparison between the industry-leading Nielsen’s heuristics and Gerhardt-Powals principles. Only one previous study was found making this comparison which made it interesting to see if the same result would be reached in this study.

Il est aujourd’hui reconnu que la réussite des étudiants à l’université repose sur leurs capacités à autoréguler leur apprentissage, c’est-à-dire à 1) fixer des objectifs adaptés à la tâche, 2) déployer des stratégies d’apprentissage efficaces et 3) vérifier régulièrement si ces objectifs ont été atteints. Or, lorsqu’ils apprennent des documents complexes, ceux-ci ont tendance à traiter passivement l’information et à surestimer la qualité de leur apprentissage. Cette thèse vise à déterminer si le fait d’insérer des tests d’entraînement au sein d’un document multimédia amène les étudiants à traiter plus activement les informations. Pour ce faire, nous avons réalisé quatre expériences au cours desquelles des étudiants recevaient ou non des tests d’entraînement pendant qu’ils apprenaient un cours de neurosciences. Afin d’évaluer les effets des tests sur l’activité cognitive et métacognitive des participants, nous avons combiné un questionnaire d’estimation de l’apprentissage à un protocole de verbalisation. Nos résultats montrent que les participants qui bénéficient de tests estiment plus précisément la qualité de leur apprentissage et obtiennent de meilleures performances que les participants non testés. Par ailleurs, ces meilleures performances s’expliquent par un déploiement de stratégies d’apprentissage plus adaptées à l’exigence de la tâche. Enfin, ces effets bénéfiques disparaissent lorsque l’exigence des tests d’entraînement diffère de celles de l’évaluation finale. L’ensemble de nos résultats permet de mieux comprendre les mécanismes sous-tendant l’effet des tests sur l’apprentissage ainsi que d’identifier les conditions qui favorisent leur efficacité. / It is generally accepted that students need to effectively self-regulate their learning to succeed in university, that is to 1) establish appropriate goals, 2) use effective learning strategies and 3) frequently monitor if their goals have been met. Unfortunately, when students learn complex document, they tend to process the information in a passive way and be overconfident regarding the quality of their learning. The purpose of this thesis is to study if inserting regular practice tests in a multimedia document can promote a more active learning. To pursue this thesis’ aim, four experiments were conducted whereby students were exposed to a neuroscience course and were provided with or not, different types of practice tests. We used a judgment of learning questionnaire and a think aloud protocol to assess the impact of practices tests on cognitive and metacognitive processes. Results showed that, compared with control groups, participants in the practice testing groups were significantly less overconfident in their ability to recall recently learned information and performed better on a post-test questionnaire. Furthermore, enhanced learning performance was explained by the use of more efficient learning strategies. However, when test requirement mismatched those of the final test, practice tests brought none of these beneficial effects and was therefore unhelpful for students learning. Overall, the studies’ results gave us a better insight into the psychological mechanism underlying the testing effect on learning and identify the conditions that favor it.

In today’s world of rapid technological development one cannot deny the importance of collaborative writing systems. Besides many advantages of a collaborative writing system the major one is to allow its end users to work in collaboration with each other without having to physically meet. In the past various researches has been carried out for the usability evaluation of collaborative writing systems using the think aloud protocol method however there is no study conducted on the comparison of different usability evaluation methods in the context of collaborative writing systems. In this thesis work the authors have tried to find the limitations and capabilities of think aloud protocol and co-discovery learning methods in the context of a collaborative writing system called ZOHO, as well as the usability evaluation of ZOHO using think aloud protocol and co-discovery learning methods. The authors found various usability errors in ZOHO. Apart from this the authors also observed the two usability evaluation methods when they were used for usability evaluation of ZOHO. The authors found that both the methods have its’ own benefits and drawbacks. While the co-discovery learning method was fast enough, it was expensive in terms of human resource. On the other hand think aloud protocol method was slow to perform but there was less human resource used. Both the usability methods found almost the same usability errors. / In this thesis work the primary objective was to figure out the limitations and capabilities of think aloud protocol and co-discovery learning methods in the context of ZOHO; a collaborative writing system. Apart from this the secondary objective of this thesis was to conduct the usability evaluation of ZOHO and to find out what makes ZOHO ineffective, inefficient and unsatisfactory. The authors carried out usability tests on ZOHO using the think aloud protocol and co-discovery learning methods. After the tests results’ analysis the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction level of ZOHO was figured in section 7.2.1, 7.2.2 and 7.2.3 while the usability problems that make ZOHO ineffective, inefficient and unsatisfactory are discussed in section 7.2.4 of this thesis. Apart from the usability of ZOHO, the authors were also able to identify strong and weak points of the think aloud protocol and co-discovery learning methods when used for the usability evaluation of a collaborative writing system. They found that think aloud protocol testing is better if the evaluator is cost cautious or if he is looking for a detailed usability problems but does not cares about the time taken by the test. However if the evaluator cares about the test time and he cares less about the cost in terms of participants required for the test then he should use the co-discovery method for testing a collaborative writing system.

Successful triage is the basis for sound emergency department (ED) care, whereas unsuccessful triage could result in adverse outcomes. ED triage is a rather unexplored area in the Swedish health care system. This thesis contributes to our understanding of this complex nursing task. The main focus of this study has been on the organisation, performance, and decision making in Swedish ED triage. Specific aims were to describe the Swedish ED triage context, describe and compare registered nurses’ (RNs) allocation of acuity ratings, use of thinking strategies and the way they structure the ED triage process. In this descriptive, comparative, and correlative research project quantitative and qualitative data were collected using telephone interviews, patient scenarios and think aloud method. Both convenience and purposeful sampling were used when identifying the participating 69 nurse managers and 423 RNs from various types of hospital-based EDs throughout the country. The results showed national variation, both in the way triage was organised and in the way it was conducted. From an organisational perspective, the variation emerged in several areas: the use of various triageurs, designated triage nurses, and triage scales. Variation was also noted in the accuracy and concordance of allocated acuity ratings. Statistical methods provided limited explanations for these variations, suggesting that RNs’ clinical experience might have some affect on the RNs’ triage accuracy. The project identified several thinking strategies used by the RNs, indicating that the RNs, amongst other things, searched for additional information, generated hypotheses about the fictitious patients and provided explanations for the interventions chosen. The RNs formed relationships between their interventions and the fictitious patients’ symptoms. The RNs structured the triage process in several ways, beginning the process by searching for information, generating hypotheses, or allocating acuity ratings. Comparison of RNs’ use of thinking strategies and the structure of the triage process based on triage accuracy revealed only slight differences. The findings in this dissertation indicate that the way a patient is triaged, and by whom, depends upon the particular organisation of the ED. Moreover, the large variation in RNs triage accuracy and the inter-rater agreement and concordance of the allocated acuity ratings suggest that the acuity rating allocated to a patient may vary considerably, depending on who does the allocation. That neither clinical experience nor the RNs’ decision-making processes alone can explain the variations in the RNs triage accuracy indicates that accuracy might be influenced by individual and contextual factors. Future studies investigating triage accuracy are recommended to be carried out in natural settings. In conclusion, Swedish ED triage is permeated by diversity, both in its organisation and in its performance. The reasons for these variations are not well understood.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / In this thesis I explore the complexity of FL (Foreign Language) reading through qualitatively and quantitatively analysing the forms, ways, and mechanisms applied by adult readers at tertiary university education level to construct meaning in an ESP/EAP (English for Specific and Academic Purposes) multilingual educational context at the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), in Mozambique

abstract: Since the 1980s, interest in the cognitive and affective influences on teaching has initiated studies on teacher beliefs and practices. Studies of teacher beliefs in academic areas such as reading, math, social studies, and science are prolific. However, studies about the teacher beliefs and practices of music teachers are scarce. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explore the teacher beliefs of middle school orchestra teachers and to examine how their self-reported and observed teaching practices reflect these beliefs. Based on the work of foreign language education researcher Simon Borg (2003) a conceptual framework was developed that shows the various sources of teacher beliefs and practices, including formative preservice musical experiences, inservice contextual factors, and inservice professional development. Employing a qualitative multiple case study method, six purposely-selected middle school orchestra teachers, representing a variety of experience levels and program characteristics, shared their teacher beliefs and practices. Data generation included observations, interviews, stimulated recall (think aloud teacher commentary of videotaped teaching episodes), and written reflection surveys. During analysis, six core teacher beliefs about middle school string students and how they learn were identified. These beliefs guided the teachers’ observed practices. Findings from this study illustrated that preservice formative musical experiences influenced the middle school orchestra teachers’ beliefs about the value and importance of music teaching as a career. Data from the participants revealed a wide variety of instructional practices emanating from largely similar core pedagogical beliefs. Analysis suggested that experienced teachers held more developed teacher beliefs, and they selected instructional practices carefully, where inexperienced teachers were still formulating their own beliefs and experimenting with instructional practices. Data from the study point out that contextual constraints sometimes prevent teachers from enacting their closely held beliefs. This incongruence influenced three of the six participants to change teaching positions or retire early from the education profession. The study of music teacher beliefs and practices may be of interest to preservice and inservice music teachers and music teacher educators. Future studies may explore the relationship between teacher beliefs and practices and student achievement, and contribute to string music education research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music Education 2019

Private sector knowledge producers, more commonly known as think tanks or research institutes, are used as authoritative sources in Western media either as interview guests or their research quoted by journalists.  Most studies have focused on their ability to influence government policy, but very little has focused on their role in the public sphere, particularly their visibility in media.  This study will explore how often think representatives appear as authoritative sources or experts in broadcast media during the 2015, 2017 and 2019 UK General Elections.  This will be done through a quantitative content analysis and thematic analysis investigating whether such representatives are accorded preferential access and ascribed primary authority to define narratives.  Additionally, a theoretical model has been designed to detect whether a marketplace of ideas can be detected or whether television news is a site of Habermassian rational-critical public sphere.  Inspired by the work of Anstead and Chadwick, and taking this vital work further, this study investigates whether authority signalling, and primary definition is still a relevant theory by analysing broadcast news coverage across three general elections.

The concept of augmented reality has existed since the 60’s. In this thesis it has been investigated if navigation using a mobile device would benefit, from a usability perspective, if the navigational data were presented using augmented reality instead of a standardized map. The usability principles from which the applications were evaluated are learnability, user satisfaction, efficiency and effectivity. An AR prototype was developed and tested against a standard map, in the form of Google Maps, both used on a smart phone. The experiments were performed using think aloud during the tests and questionnaires before and after to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The experiment was performed using possible users of AR as test subjects. The results were very similar for both applications but in favor of Google Maps. The author reflects on the results and the method and provides different situations where one might be better than the other.

Denna uppsats sammanställer forskningsresultat kring användandet av textsamtal i undervisningen och jämförs vidare med kunskapskraven för läsförståelse i grundskolans årskurs F-3. Undervisningen i läsförståelse ska syfta till att eleverna upplever läsning som meningsfullt och ska anpassas efter varje individs förmåga och behov. Som lärare är det viktigt att bidra till en kunskapsutveckling för eleverna och vara ett stöd i deras läsutveckling. Genom textsamtal där eleven görs aktiv i samtal och får möjligheter att dela sina tankar och idéer kan ett gemensamt kunskapsbyggande ske. Syftet med litteraturstudien är att belysa hur textsamtal används och vilken betydelse de har för elevers läsförståelse. Därefter jämförs hur strategierna kan tillämpas i förhållande till kursplanen för svenska i årskurs F-3.  Det material som undersökts består av vetenskapliga artiklar och doktorsavhandlingar som analyserades och sammanfattades. Artiklarna har sin utgångspunkt i läsförståelse, läsförståelsestrategier och samtal om text. Resultatet visar hur läsförståelsestrategier kan användas i undervisningen för att bidra till en ökad förståelse för texters budskap och struktur. Läraren har visat sig ha en viktig roll i modellering av strategierna för att eleverna ska tillägna sig dessa kunskaper och därmed kunna delta i textsamtal. Andra faktorer som påverkar elevers läsförståelse visade sig vara ordförråd, grammatik, genrepedagogik och byggandet av föreställningsvärldar. Elever med svårigheter i läsförståelse kunde stödjas genom högläsning och i diskussioner med andra. Analysen utgick från den sociokulturella teorin, enligt vilken ett samspel mellan lärare och elever är den grundläggande utgångspunkten. I diskussionen presenteras slutsatsen att lärare har en betydande roll i modellerandet av läsförståelsestrategier och att dialogen utvecklas när eleven själv får vara ledande i textsamtalen.