The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore the interplay of prospective secondary mathematics teachers’ affect, metacognition, and mathematical cognition in a problem-solving context. From a social constructivist epistemological paradigm and using a constructivist grounded theory approach, the main research question guiding the study was: What is the characterization of the interplay among prospective teachers’ mathematical beliefs, mathematical behavior, and mathematical knowledge in the context of solving mathematics problems? I conducted four interviews with four prospective secondary mathematics teachers enrolled in an undergraduate mathematics course. Participant artifacts, observations, and researcher reflections were regularly recorded and included as part of the data collection. The theory that emerged from the study is grounded in the participants’ mathematics problem-solving experiences and it depicts the interplay among affect, metacognition, and mathematical cognition as meta-affect, persistence and autonomy, and meta-strategic knowledge. For the participants, “Knowing How and Knowing Why” mathematics procedures work and having the ability to justify their reasoning and problem solutions represented mathematics knowledge and understanding that could empower them to become productive problem-solvers and effective secondary mathematics teachers. The results of the study also indicated that the participants interpreted their experiences with difficult, challenging problem-solving situations as opportunities to learn and understand mathematics deeply. Although they experienced fear, frustration, and disappointment in difficult problem-solving and mathematics-learning situations, they viewed such difficulty with the expectation that feelings of satisfaction, joy, pride, and confidence would occur because of their mathematical understanding. In problem-solving situations, affect, metacognition, and mathematics cognition interacted in a way that resulted in mathematics understanding that was productive and empowering for these prospective teachers. The theory resulting from this study has implications for prospective teachers, teacher education, curriculum development, and mathematics education research.

Real-world perception of emotion results from the integration of multiple cues, most notably facial expression and affective prosody. The use of incongruent emotional stimuli presents an opportunity to study the interaction between sensory modalities. Thirty-seven participants were exposed to audio-visual stimuli (Robins & Schultz, 2004) including angry, fearful, happy, and neutral presentations. Eighty stimuli contain matching emotions and 240 contain incongruent emotional cues. Matching emotions elicited a significant number of correct responses for all four emotions. Sign tests indicated that for most incongruent conditions, participants demonstrated a bias towards the visual modality. Despite these findings, specific incongruent conditions did show evidence of blending. Future research should explore an evolutionary model of facial expression as a means for behavioral adaptation and the possibility of an “emotional McGurk effect” in particular combinations of emotions.

Politeness is a part of student-tutor interactions and research in affective computing has shown that this social convention may also be applicable when a computer plays the role of tutor. This study sought to build on previous work that examined the effect of the politeness of computer feedback through the application of social and cognitive theories. Employing a mixed-factor design, a sample of 150 college students completed a multiple cue probability learning task (MCPL) on a computer that provided feedback phrased in one of three different tonal styles (joint-goal, student-goal and baldon- record). Feedback tone was a within-subjects factor. Subjects received feedback as either text or as audio. Audio feedback was a between-subjects factor and was delivered in one of four different modes male/female human voice or a male/female synthesized voice. The study found gender differences in tone preference as well as a possible impact of the Tone x Mode interaction on learning. Specifically, men were more likely than women to prefer the student-goal style feedback prompts. It is hoped that this research can provide additional insight to designers of learning applications when they are designing the feedback mechanisms that these systems should employ.

The long-term goal of this project has been to help strengthen the customer focus at the product development department of Pergo. To achieve this a Kansei Engineering case study was performed, to provide information about the chosen customer group, the contract market. Kansei Engineering is a Japanese methodology for gathering and analysing information about the relation between the customer’s impression of a product and the actual physical properties of that same product. The results show clear differences between the flooring entrepreneurs and the architects in their average ratings. The factor analysis led to four factors that are important when this group of customers evaluates laminate flooring, namely Reliable and practical, Modern design, Classic style and Nice and solid. The regression analysis was done both on the 17 Kansei-words and on the factors. The type of decor and surface were found to have most influence on the customer’s impressions. Among the surfaces matt oiled turned out to be most popular and for most of the Kansei-words, the unexpected combination of wood- like decor and tile-format was rated the most positive.

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being in adolescents with respect to interpretation and memory for stimuli outside and inside autobiographical memory and affective personalities. A total of 70 male and 65 female high-school students with an age mean of 17.00 years (S.D. = .88) participated in the experiment. Well-being was measured as Subjective Well-Being (SWB) and Psychological Well-Being (PWB). Interpretation and memory was measured with recognition of words in a short story and recall of life events. Affective personalities were developed through PANAS. The results show self-acceptance and environmental mastery as the eudaimonic predictors of SWB. Adolescents with high levels of well-being remembered more positive life events and used mixed strategies to discriminate memory for words. Adolescents with high levels of well-being showed a positive priming effect and those with low levels a negative priming effect. Finally, Self-actualizing and self-destructive individuals emerged as the happy and unhappy personalities for both perspectives.

The stress-strain relationship has been the mainstream of the occupational stress research. The stressor-strain relationship is the very definition of occupational stress; stress in the work environment cause individual strain (e.g., anxiety, depression, and burnout). According to recent research, people tend to appraise stress as potentially promoting their personal growth and achievement (i.e., challenge stress) should be distinguished the stress from people tend to appraise stress as potentially constraining their personal development and work-related accomplishment (i.e., hindrance stress). These two types of stress are differentially associated with affective and behavioral responses. Moreover, the scholars argued that the next step for work stress research should move to investigating variables that moderate the stress, strain, and work outcomes relationship. Literature reviews show that numerous researches argued that job control is an important environmental moderator that has received special attention in the occupational stress literature. However, the moderating effects are much more inconsistent. As scholars suggested self-efficacy is a theoretically important attribute of individuals in job strain that is believed to have a stress-buffer effect of job control on psychological well-being. In other words, self-efficacy may have the conjunctive moderating effect with control on the relationship between stress, strain, and outcomes. The present research aims to study the relationship between challenge-hindrance stress, burnout and affective commitment, and the role of environment- and individual-related resources (i.e., job control, self-efficacy as possible conjunctive moderating factors between stress and its effects on burnout and affective commitment). The participants of this study were 435 governmental employees of the Customs Office. The data were collected as a two-wave study with a six-month time lag in order to diminish the effects of common method variance. The results demonstrated as follows: 1. Challenge stress is positively associated with emotional exhaustion, and does not significantly associate with cynicism and affective commitment. Hindrance stress is negatively associated with affective commitment, and does not significantly associate with burnout. 2. Job control has the moderating effect on the relationship between challenge stress, cynicism, and affective commitment. 3. Job control and self-efficacy played as the conjunctive moderators on the relationship between challenge stress and burnout.

The distance learning environment is one that involves a complex array of factors that influence a learner’s perspective of presence, satisfaction, and learning. This study was designed to investigate Lee College freshmen and sophomore students’ perceptions of social presence. The purpose of the study was to (a) determine whether or not differences in perceptions of social presence exist among participants who differ in gender, age, and total level of education and (b) investigate whether or not there was a relationship between the participants’ perceptions of social presence and their online course activities in WEBCT®. This study was conducted using a questionnaire. The data were collected from a convenience sample of 252 freshmen and sophomore level students at Lee College in Baytown, Texas. A response rate of 62% resulted in a final sample of 156. The content validity of the questionnaire was established via expert opinion, and the internal consistency and reliability of the instrument was calculated using Cronbach’s α. Data screening techniques were employed as the first step in the data analysis process. Frequency counts, central tendencies, and standard deviations were used in the descriptive analysis of the data obtained via the questionnaire. Correlations and one-way ANOVAS were employed to answer research question 1 regarding the participants’ perceptions of social presence and their personal characteristics (i.e., gender, age, and their total number of college credits earned). Six conclusions were generated regarding the participants’ perceptions of social presence and their gender, age, and total number of college credits earned. Principal factor analysis with Varimax rotation revealed six constructs for research question 2 regarding the online course activities in WEBCT®. Differences in the participants’ perceptions of social presence in the six constructs for the online course activities in WEBCT® were obtained. A stepwise regression analysis was conducted to obtain additional information regarding the amount of explained variance added by each of the respective predictors. Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess reliability of the data. Twelve conclusions were generated for research question 2 regarding the participants’ perceptions of social presence and the online course activities. Specific human resource development practices were suggested.

The financial tsunami, being the most influential factor on economic changes,have led companies to undergo radical structure reformation, and forcing well-established companies to conduct unpaid leave policy. If worse, policy-makers will even downsize the organizations, and even high-tech companies cannot avoid this fate. The aim of the research is using individual-level study to see how Taiwanese high-tech employees and managers¡¦ attitudes toward organizational change and what impact they would cause on the affective commitments and consequently search for methods which will let organizational changes be perceived as positive events to all members. In addition, the study will clarify the relationship between psychological capital, organization-based self-esteem, attitudes toward organizational change and affective commitment. Furthermore, discussing how demographic variables influence these four main variables would be another contribution from the study. With effective samples of 319 high-tech employees and manager samples have proven that the psychological capital has both direct and indirect relationships with the affective commitments, on the other hand, organization-based self-esteem factor has neither. Moreover, the data indicates that ducation, managerial rank, job content and seniority are statically significant toward the main four variables.

<p>Dagens teknologiska samhälle ställer höga krav på människan, bland annat gällande att processa information. Vid utformning av system tas det numera vanligtvis hänsyn till människa-datorinteraktionen (MDI) för att erhålla en så hög användbarhet som möjligt. Affektiv Informatik, som är ett utvecklat sätt att förhålla sig till MDI, talar för att utveckla system som både kan uppfatta och förmedla emotioner till användaren. Fokus i rapporten är hur ett system kan förmedla emotioner, via dess färgsättning, och därmed påverka användarens emotionella tillstånd. En kvantitativ undersökning har utförts för att ta reda på hur färger kan användas i ett system för att förmedla känslouttryck till användare. Vidare har en jämförelse gjorts mellan undersökningens resultat och tidigare teorier om hur färg påverkar människans emotioner för att ta reda på huruvida de är lämpliga att tillämpa vid gränssnittsdesign. Resultatet pekade på en samständighet med de tidigare teorierna, men med endast en statistisk signifikant skillnad mellan blått och gult gällande behagligheten.</p>

<p>There is an increasing emphasis on developing systematical research approaches for design of products that appeal to people’s emotions and values. This thesis proposes methodological developments for investigating people’s subjective emotional needs and values towards quality and explores interactions of related physical design attributes for product design.</p><p>The overall aim of the licentiate thesis is to gain an understanding on Affective engineering of products through exploring the concept of quality feeling and to develop methodological approaches for this. Quality feeling can be described as a holistic concept considering individuals’ perceptions, expectations, experiences, physical and psychological expressions for a product or service. Affective Engineering methodology aims at translating human psychological processes, such as feelings and emotions, into appropriate product design attributes, such as size, shape, and surface characteristics.</p><p>The thesis presents three methodological approaches when evaluating products for affective engineering and one approach for an interactive product design support system development.</p><p>The first study presented deals with feelings of quality for reach truck operator’s cabin components. Components that would convey to give a higher total quality feeling were identified and improvement opportunities were prioritized. The second study presented is based on developing an interactive affective design and decision support system software for design of the steering wheel from drivers’ individual and shared preferences. In the third study affective values arising from judgments for important feelings of quality is the study basis. The author presents research on identifying interactions of design attributes for affective values in waiting areas of primary health care services.</p><p>Further, a new approach for applying Affective Engineering in design of complex contexts is proposed.The proposed approach aims to handle contexts where feelings and design attributes have complex interactions for products and services that give almost an infinite number of design alternatives that are difficult to handle in traditional Kansei Engineering studies. With this thesis also an interactive product design and decision support system software is developed for steering wheel design and proposed for educational and industrial use. The proposed system works based on linking product design attributes to human feelings by applying Genetic algorithms and provides potential basis for future product development and improvements.</p><p>This thesis has also contributed with affective design recommendations applicable for vehicle cabins and waiting areas in primary health care. Moreover, a number of existing methods in Affective Engineering have been tested and methodological experience is drawn, including advantages, disadvantages and limitations of using these methods.</p>