<p>This dissertation explores the issue of under-representation of women in STEM fields in high school and the early years of college. One of the major contributors to the persisting gender earnings gap is male-domination in the STEM workforce. Women are under-represented in STEM occupations since they are less likely than men to take advanced STEM courses in high school and to choose STEM majors in college. While the gender STEM gap does not exist at early ages according to most studies, it has been shown that girls start to lag behind boys in Math tests after middle school.</p> <p><br></p> <p>In Chapter 1, I investigate the STEM gender gap in the context of teacher-student gender matching. Using a fixed-effects regression model, and Chilean administrative education data on SIMCE and PSU exams and college application, I explore whether high school girls perform better in Language and Math when they have female teachers, and whether a female Math teacher impacts girls’ preference towards STEM programs when enrolling in college. I find that female teachers improve girls’ overall performance in high school Math exams for all school types, and college entrance exam Math scores for public school girls. However, they negatively affect girls’ probability of choosing STEM majors when enrolling in college. They negatively affect boys’ high school and college entrance exam Language performance and private school boys’ college entrance exam Math performance, but positively affect boys’ college STEM preference. The presence of female Math teachers in high school has negative effects on both boys’ and girls’ college entrance exam Science scores. There is significant heterogeneity in these effects between public, voucher and private schools. The negative preference effect is significant only for</p> <p>high-performing girls.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Chapter 2 uses restricted NCES data (HSLS:2009 and ELS:2002) and difference-in-difference methodology to explore whether the $4.35 billion federal Race to the Top (RTT) program of 2009 had impacts on overall educational and enrollment outcomes, and gender gaps in these outcomes for high school students in the US. Besides the major objective of making students better prepared for college and future careers, a significant aspect of the RTT program was its emphasis on reducing barriers to women’s entry and success in STEM fields in higher education and the STEM workforce. I find that the program was not successful in fulfilling the major objectives of improving students’ educational outcomes, reducing achievement gaps or improving women’s representation and performance in STEM fields. It prompted students to take fewer and easier courses in high school and increased gender gaps in 12th grade GPA and SAT Math score. While there was a modest reduction in the gender gap in first year college GPA, there were neither any improvements in boys’ or girls’ college STEM credits and grades, nor</p> <p>any reduction in gender gaps in these outcomes.</p> <p><br></p> <p>In Chapter 3, I use the same restricted NCES data as in Chapter 2, data on state policy obtained from Howell and Magazinnik (2017) and difference-in-difference methodology to explore whether states’ adoption of “college and career ready” common K-12 standards affected the overall educational and enrollment outcomes of high school students in the US and gender gaps in these outcomes. I use the 2009 Race to the Top (RTT) program as a source of exogenous variation, since one of the major policies promoted by the program was the adoption of higher K-12 standards across the US. I find that the tougher standards led to students taking relatively more non-STEM oriented, and thus arguably “easier” courses and increased gender gaps in STEM coursetaking.</p> <p>Notably, they drove low performing girls out of college education, which resulted in a more competitive college-going female population. This in turn, led girls to outperform boys once enrolled in college, specially in STEM courses. Thus, common standards-adoption whose goal was to improve college and career readiness failed in this endeavor, but made the pool of college-going women more competitive and inadvertently levelled the playing field</p> <p>for college-bound women.</p>

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Listening comprehension has been the forgotten skill in second language acquisition. However, in recent years, more and more studies have focused on listening comprehension and now acknowledge its importance in language acquisition. Empirical studies have explored how listeners use the two main listening processes (top-down processing and bottom-up processing). In this study, 31 low-proficiency level Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners from Brigham Young University took the Chinese Computer Adaptive Language Test (CCALT) and listened to four listening passages, measured by idea unit analysis and local and global question types. The data from these measurements suggest that low-proficiency level CFL participants in this study used both top-down and bottom-up processing while they listened to short listening passages. The results suggest listening comprehension at various proficiency levels needs to be studied further in Chinese and with different types of listening passages.

Listening has proved to be a difficult skill to teach in the language classroom. Research has shown that pre-listening activities, or those activities done with students prior to listening, can have an effect on listening comprehension outcomes. This research addressed the effectiveness of two types of pre-listening activities: top-down and bottom-up. Volunteers from intermediate level courses taught at Brigham Young University were divided into two treatment groups and a control group. The treatment groups followed a mixed models design by each going through a top-down and bottom-up pre-listening activity, followed by listening to a passage in Mandarin Chinese and taking a multiple-choice test. The bottom-up activity chosen for this research was a vocabulary preview activity, with an advance organizer being chosen for the top-down activity. Results showed both treatment groups significantly outperformed the control group for both the top-down and bottom-up activities (p=0.0123 and p=0.0181 respectively). No significant difference existed in scores between top-down and bottom-up activities (p=0.9456). It was determined that both the vocabulary activity and the advance organizer helped to increase the listening comprehension of intermediate level students of Mandarin Chinese.

It has been widely acknowledged that environmental damage and changes in the global climate can be attributed to human activities. In their attempt to deal with these issues, current top down approaches to mitigate climate change not only have limited efficacy, but also fail at changing people’s behaviour. In this thesis, we argue that bottom up initiatives can be more successful at engaging people in pro-environmental behaviour change and action than the current top down strategies. The potential of bottom up actions to encourage such change and action is first assessed in literature. A more specific perspective of bottom up initiatives is looked at in which pro-environmental behaviour is encouraged and observed through the lens of urbanism. A practical event on sustainability, co-organized by the authors of this paper at KTH Campus, is then taken as a case study to test and verify if bottom up actions can bring about change in behaviours and generate public engagement in public spaces. The results show that bottom up actions have great potential to reach the community and engage people into sustainable practices. As it was positive and solution-oriented, but also accessible, participative and fun, the event easily attracted people’s attention and interest. The stimulating environment then facilitates the process of sharing and learning information and consequently, it also increases the chances of influencing behaviour change and action.

Human capital assessment is an integral part of the in-depth evaluation conducted by Venture Capitalists (VCs) before an investment decision. Furthermore, an effective collaboration between external investors and the founding team can be vital for the success of a startup venture. This thesis aims to improve this assessment and collaboration by providing an empirical account of historically successful Swedish tech startups and their founding teams (FT). We employ semi-structured interviews with 13 entrepreneurs who in total have founded over 50 ventures in order to deduce patterns to the characteristics, compositions and views of successful founding management teams. We compile and discuss their views concerning aspects such as organizational culture, team performance and their relationships with external financiers. The focus of this thesis was in part guided by our commissioner, Almi Invest. Based on our interviews and literature review, we present several findings which may be of interest to both investors and entrepreneurs. Some of our key findings are that successful Swedish tech startups are generally composed of diverse teams where the founders share some previous association and complement each other with regards to both competencies and personalities. They view culture and vision as important aspects, with values acting as the uniting factor that drives cohesion and performance. We also find that their views are largely influenced by previous experiences. Finally, we highlight some perceived inefficiencies in the collaboration between investors and entrepreneurs, mainly with regards to post-investment activities and the process of raising capital. Our findings suggest a lack of transparency between entrepreneurs and financiers regarding the investor activity levels, where entrepreneurs generally feel that VCs fall short on their promises. We suggest some areas of improvement where VCs might tune their practices to better suit the needs of their portfolio companies and improve overall performance.

It is recognised that gender equality and diversity are essential for building successful organisations. To tackle the global challenges characterised by economies today, one must ensure equal opportunities for all, both men and women. Organisations have acknowledged the benefits of a more gender equal workforce and are starting to take action. But what are the results of such actions? We have found that a lot of research is focused on the sources of gender inequality in organisations but little on the efficacy of different actions to counter those inequalities. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how active gender equality work can impact an organisation. A case study of an organisation in the IT consultancy industry in Sweden is carried out where active gender equality work has been initiated through the internal project “the Gender Equality Project”. Empirical data gathered from interviews with employees from all levels of the organisation has been the main source of data collection and has worked as a base for the analysis and discussion. The research question that have guided our work is: How can active gender equality work impact the structure and culture within an organisation in a male-dominated industry? This thesis is based on a subjective approach, assuming that reality can be seen as a social construction and that humans create their own reality. This implies that the social world is viewed as a process which is created and recreated everyday through the usage of language, routines and actions. Further, this thesis argues that organisations should be seen as gendered and that assumptions about gender underlie the construction of organisations, resulting in a marginalisation of women which contributes to the maintenance of gender segregation in organisations. The findings show that active work with gender equality has resulted in structural and cultural impacts in several areas, such as more gender aware recruitment processes and external communication strategies as well as a culture which encourages employees to call out biases and defend gender equality initiatives. The findings also reveal an organisational structure which partly counteract the effects of gender equality work and a deficient communication of the purpose of the project which, currently, prevents it from becoming institutionalised. Much emphasis is put on the many middle managers in the organisation to bring the project forward and continue working with it, without clear expectations and guidance from the top management which has resulted in a halt and an inaction from the middle managers. / Jämställdhet och mångfald anses som essentiellt för att bygga framgångsrika organisationer. För att kunna tackla de globala utmaningarna som världen står inför, måste lika möjligheter för både kvinnor och män kunna säkerställas. Fler och fler organisationer bekräftar fördelarna med en mer jämställd arbetskraft och börjar arbeta mot förändring. Men vad är resultatet av sådant arbete? Vi har funnit att tidigare forskning tenderar att fokusera på orsakerna till ojämställdhet i organisationer, istället för den verkan olika initiativ och arbete för att främja jämställdhet har. Uppsatsens syfte är att utvärdera hur aktivt jämställdhetsarbete kan påverka en organisation. En fallstudie har genomförts på en svensk organisation verksam inom IT-konsultbranschen, där aktivt jämställdhetsarbete har initierats genom ett internt projekt kallat “Jämställdhetsprojektet”. Den främsta källan till empirisk data härrör från intervjuer med anställda på alla nivåer i organisationen och denna data har lagt grunden för analys och diskussion. Den forskningsfråga som guidat oss i vårt arbete är följande: Hur kan aktivt jämställdhetsarbete påverka strukturen och kulturen i en organisation i en mansdominerad bransch? Uppsatsen tar en subjektiv ansats, och utgår från att verkligheten ses som en social konstruktion och att människor skapar sin egen verklighet. Detta medför att den sociala världen ses som en process som skapas och återskapas varje dag genom språkbruk, rutiner och handlingar. Vidare argumenteras det för att organisationer ska ses som könade och att antaganden om kön ligger till grund för konstruktionen av organisationer. Detta medför en marginalisering av kvinnor vilket bidrar till ett upprätthållande av könssegregeringen i organisationer. Resultaten visar att aktivt jämställdhetsarbete resulterar i strukturella och kulturella effekter. Effekterna kan ses genom en mer genusmedveten rekryteringsprocess och strategier för extern kommunikation men även en kultur där anställda uppmuntras till att uppmärksamma och motarbeta fördomar och försvara initiativ för jämställdhet. Resultaten belyser även en organisationsstruktur som till viss del motverkar effekterna av aktivt jämställdhetsarbete och en bristande kommunikation av projektets syfte, vilket i dagsläget hindrar en institutionalisering. Stor vikt läggs på organisationens mellanchefer att driva projektet framåt och fortsätta dess arbete. Det saknas dock klara förväntningar och vägledning från koncernledningen, vilket har resulterat i en stagnering och passivitet från organisationens mellanchefer.

This mixed-methods study was conducted to explore the professional opinions of educational leaders regarding selected components in the Race to the Top (RTTT) grant concerning teacher evaluation and compensation and the potential impact on student achievement. A target university was selected that had students who were professionals in the field of education in either instructional or administrative jobs and were pursuing their doctorates in both Education and Educational Leadership. A researcher created survey and follow-up interview were utilized to gather both quantitative and qualitative data for analysis. Quantitative findings revealed that statistically significant differences in the opinions of educational leaders about the potential impact of the RTTT grant teacher evaluation and compensation components on student achievement existed between two types of professional classification (instructional or administrative). No statistically significant relationship was found between self-reported knowledge of the RTTT and opinions of the fairness of the RTTT teacher evaluation and compensation components. Also, no statistically significant difference was found in the professional opinions about the potential impact of the RTTT grant teacher evaluation and compensation components on student achievement when self-reported school poverty percentage was considered. From qualitative findings, themes emerged surrounding the uncertainty and lack of understanding about the RTTT grant’s implementation. Though this study provided baseline data on the opinions of educational leaders on the RTTT teacher evaluation and compensation components, there is still much to be learned about the RTTT grant.

The initiation, bloom, and bust of harmful Cyanobacteria and algae blooms (HAB) in lakes are controlled by top-down and bottom-up ecological controls. Excess phosphorous and nitrogen inputs from anthropogenic sources are primary to blame, but eukaryotic grazers may also promote or curb Cyanobacteria dominance. We tracked shifts in bacterial composition, lake chemistry, and eukaryotic grazing community weekly or bi-weekly through spring and summer and modeled the causes of specific Cyanobacterial species blooms and busts across three lakes in Utah, USA, with differing lake trophic states. Regardless of trophic status, all three lakes experienced blooms of varying composition and duration. Aphanizomenon strain MDT14a was the most dominant species in every bloom on Utah Lake, comprising up to 44.16% of the bacterial community. Utah Lake experienced a total of 18 blooms across all sites ranging in duration from one to six weeks. Phormidiaceae sp. (8.5  6.1%) and Microcystis sp. (9.7  4.7%) were the most abundant species in the Deer Creek bloom. Deer creek experienced one bloom at the beginning of fall. Nodularia sp. (9.7  2.1) dominated Great Salt Lake bloom. The Great Salt Lake experienced four separate blooms during the summer months that lasted one to three weeks. Phosphorous concentrations on Utah Lake varied across site and season. Nitrate concentrations on Deer Creek increased over season with a ten-fold increase in concentration. We characterized Cyanobacteria blooms as either bloom communities (growing populations of Cyanobacteria) or as bust communities (declining populations of Cyanobacteria). Using these designations, we modeled the growth and decline of the Cyanobacteria populations across season with top-down and bottom up-controls. Based on generalized least-squared modeling, eukaryotic grazing does not affect relative Cyanobacteria abundances as much as nutrient limitations. Aphanizomenom strain MDT14a was positively correlated with temperature (P < 0.028) and the concentration of K (P = 0.007) and negatively correlated with increases in conductivity (P = 0.0088). Microcystis was positively correlated with increasing levels of SRP (P < 0.001) and negatively correlated with higher Ca concentrations (P = 0.008) and PP (P = 0.008). Busts of Microcystis were related to decreases in nitrate (P = 0.06) and lower total lake depths (P = 0.03). Phormidiaceae sp. relative abundance was negatively correlated with higher levels of TDN (P = 0.01-0.001) and Mg (P = 0.01) and positively correlated with higher S concentrations (P = 0.007). Our findings suggest that micronutrients and more bioavailable forms of P may potentially allow Cyanobacteria to break dormancy and proliferate HAB communities.

The accurate and rapid detection of clinically relevant analytes at the point-of-care (POC) is a crucial element for the increase in our quality of life. There are multiple detection techniques for sensing a target analyte in biological samples. However, electrochemical sensors excel because of their versatility, accuracy and sensitivity. Among the many challenges in the fabrication of electrochemistry-based POC sensors, the miniaturization of the working electrodes is one of the most difficult to overcome. Decreasing the size of the sensors will result in less electroactive surface area (ESA) and, therefore, lower sensitivity. Thus, the design of miniaturized electrodes with high ESA is desired in this research field. The methodology developed in our laboratory to accomplish this goal is based on the fabrication of microstructured gold electrodes (MSEs) by depositing, via sputtering, a gold thin-film onto a pre-stressed polystyrene substrate masked with adhesive vinyl stencils and thermally shrinking the substrate at high temperatures (135-160 °C). In my thesis work, I developed cost-effective sensitive electrochemical platforms using only bench-top approaches. First, the ESA and, thus, the sensitivity of the MSEs were enhanced by using a simple and rapid nano-roughening approach. The ESA of MSEs was increased 4x by applying high voltage pulsing in sulfuric acid. The resulting electrodes possessed high anti-fouling capabilities and excellent response toward the enzyme-free detection of glucose with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.62 mM in the presence of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and ascorbic acid. Furthermore, the fabrication cost of the MSEs electrodes was decreased by 5x by replacing the sputtering deposition step with a cost-effective solution-based electroless deposition technique. In this case, the PS substrates were coated with a polydopamine adhesion layer and noble metal films (copper, silver and gold) were subsequently plated. Not only the cost of the gold electrode was substantially reduced but, due to the intrinsic roughness of the surface, the MSEs electrodes obtained via electroless deposition showed a higher ESA than those made via sputtering. Furthermore, the developed electroless method was extended for the fabrication of paper-based sensing devices. The sensing versatility of these surfaces was demonstrated by electrochemically detecting mercury with a 0.27 ppb LOD and by sensing thiophenol via surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The MSEs electrodes fabricated via electroless deposition were subjected to the nano-roughening technique to generate affordable and high ESA electrodes. These platforms were used to design enzyme-based biosensors to accurately detect glucose and urea in complex samples. Glucose was detected in four different types of wine, with matrix interference measured below 10%, and in human serum, with a measured concentration that was not statistically different from that obtained from commercially available biosensors. Urea was detected in human urine and plasma with matrix interferences measured to be below 8% in both cases. We envision that the fabrication techniques developed in this thesis will rapidly grow in the scientific community for the prompt and accurate design of POC electrochemical devices. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)