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Este trabajo presenta los resultados de una investigación sobre el uso del inglés (la lengua materna de los estudiantes) por los profesores en la clase de segundo semestre de español a nivel de universidad. Los resultados mostraron que las profesoras escogían conscientemente la lengua que utilizaban así como cuándo y cómo la empleaban en clase. Parece que la experiencia de las profesoras como instructoras hacía que el inglés fuera menos usado por las que tenían más práctica como instructoras o un mejor domino de su L2, ya fuera ésta el inglés o el español. Sin embargo, los usos más discutidos y esperados del inglés en clase (logístico y pedagógico) no fueron en ningún caso el más común. La razón principal por la que las profesoras usaban el inglés era por cuestiones de relación de comunicación con sus estudiantes, es decir, el uso social de la lengua. This paper presents the results of a study centered on the use of English (L1 of the students) by teachers in the second-semester college level Spanish class. The results show that instructors consciously choose when and how they use English or Spanish and that the more experienced teachers, as well as those that have a better dominance of their L2, use less English in class. My research adds to that from previous investigations through the analysis of the social, logistical and pedagogical use of the students’ L1. My study shows that educators use English socially in order to establish rapport with their students far more often than for logistical or pedagogical reasons. / text

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Automatic recognition of human emotion in speech aims at recognizing the underlying emotional state of a speaker from the speech signal. The area has received rapidly increasing research interest over the past few years. However, designing powerful spectral features for high-performance speech emotion recognition (SER) remains an open challenge. Most spectral features employed in current SER techniques convey short-term spectral properties only while omitting useful long-term temporal modulation information. In this thesis, modulation spectral features (MSFs) are proposed for SER, with support vector machines used for machine learning. By employing an auditory filterbank and a modulation filterbank for speech analysis, an auditory-inspired long-term spectro-temporal (ST) representation is obtained, which captures both acoustic frequency and temporal modulation frequency components. The MSFs are then extracted from the ST representation, thereby conveying information important for human speech perception but missing from conventional short-term spectral features (STSFs). Experiments show that the proposed features outperform features based on mel-frequency cepstral coefficients and perceptual linear predictive coefficients, two commonly used STSFs. The MSFs further render a substantial improvement in recognition performance when used to augment the extensively used prosodic features, and recognition accuracy above 90% is accomplished for classifying seven emotion categories. Moreover, the proposed features in combination with prosodic features attain estimation performance comparable to human evaluation for recognizing continuous emotions. / Thesis (Master, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-08 13:01:54.941

This survey is a case study with the purpose to find out the teacher´s perceptions about students´ motivation to mathematics. Further this study aims for the teacher´s vision on how they consider students´ motivation in mathematics in secondary school. To collect research data I have used semi structured interviews with four secondary school teachers. The result constructs according to categories that depict the purpose of the study. These categories define students’ motivation like achieving different goals, students’ basic knowledge, abilities and perceptions of mathematics and external factors that affect students’ motivation. Further the result was constructed according to categories that depict the teachers’ consideration to students’ motivation in mathematical teaching. These categories are the teacher´s attitudes, way of teaching and invidualizing work assignments.

I argue against the commonly held intuition that robots and virtual agents will never have emotions by contending robots can have emotions in a sense that is functionally similar to humans, even if the robots' emotions are not exactly equivalent to those of humans. To establish a foundation for assessing the robots' emotional capacities, I first define what emotions are by characterizing the components of emotion consistent across emotion theories. Second, I dissect the affective-cognitive architecture of MIT's Kismet and Leonardo, two robots explicitly designed to express emotions and to interact with humans, in order to explore whether they have emotions. I argue that, although Kismet and Leonardo lack the subjective feelings component of emotion, they are capable of having emotions.

During the last few decades economic changes leading to transformations in the labour market have taken place in the industrialised world (Mauno & Kinnunen, 1999). These changes have had to be implemented as a result of economic recession, new information technology, industrial restructuring and accelerated global competition (Hartley, Jacobson, Klandermans & Van Vuuren, 199 1 ; Hellgren, Sverke & Isakson, 1999). South African organisations, to remain competitive in these harsh conditions, have been forced to improve organisational effectiveness and streamline operations (Human, Buitendach & Heyrnans, 2004). Many have had to engage in downsizing and restructuring in order to reduce labour costs and to improve competitiveness. These efforts usually result in the reduction of a large number of staff (Labuschagne, 2005). In addition to having adverse effects for those people who lose their jobs, it may also lead to increased stress among the survivors (Ashford, 1988; Ketz de Vries & Balazs, 1997). The primary objective of this research was to investigate the relationship between job insecurity, organisational citizenship behaviours and affective organisational commitment. Constructs were measured by means of the Job Insecurity Questionnaire (JIQ), the Organisational Citizenship Behaviours Questionnaire (OCB), the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OC) and a biographical questionnaire. A cross-sectional survey design was conducted among the 80 employees of a privately-owed franchise store of a large retail supermarket. A response of 66 completed questionnaires was received. / Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2006.

The world that is becoming more advanced and complex, induces acute competitiveness and immense challenges for organisations and employees. This, along with the increased demands from current operating economic conditions around the globe oblige organizations to embark on adaptive strategies such as downsizing, restructuring and temporary employment as a mechanism to sustain their continued existence in a hastened transformation era. Although these impetuses affect the content and structure of work directly, they also have indirect inherent effects as they create pressures of uncertainty and feelings ofjob insecurity. It is apparent that job insecurity may negatively affect employees' job satisfaction and affective organisational commitment. It is deemed important to identify the negative impacts of these changes on individual employees and devise change management and coping interventions to empower employees in lowering the stress that they may experience due to transformations within their organisations. Thus, the objectives of this research was to investigate the relationship between job insecurity, job satisfaction, affective organisational commitment and work locus of control and how demographic groups might differ in their experience of job insecurity among employees (N = 286) in a co-operation industry. A cross-sectional survey design was used. The constructs were measured by means of the Job Insecurity Scale (JIS), Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQAffective- subscale), Work Locus of Control Scale (WLCS) and a demographic questionnaire. The research method consists of a brief literature review and an empirical study. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the construct validity of the MSQ, OCQAffective, and WLCS. Alpha coefficients were also computed to assess the internal consistency of the scales. Descriptive statistics, Pearson-product moment correlation coefficients, MANOVA, and ANOVA were used to analyse the data. Multiple regression analyses were used to further examine the potential mediating effect of work locus of control in the job insecurity-outcomes relationships. Simple principal component analyses confirmed appropriate factor structures for the JIS. MSQ and OCQ. Although Spector proposed that the WLCS is a unidimensional scale, various previous studies have obtained evidence supporting a two-factor structure. In a similar vein, simple principle component analysis delivered a two-factor structure. All scales used demonstrated an adequate level of internal consistency. Job insecurity indicated a practically significant positive correlation with intrinsic job satisfaction, although the relationship between job insecurity and extrinsic job satisfaction was not statistically significant. A statically significant positive correlation was found between job insecurity and affective organisational commitment. Work locus of control demonstrated a practically significant correlation with job insecurity. Work locus of control demonstrated a practically significant positive correlation with affective organizational commitment, as well as both job satisfaction dimensions. Regression analyses indicated that work locus of control mediates the relationship between job insecurity and intrinsic job satisfaction. Work locus of control was also found to be a mediator of the relationship between job insecurity and affective organisational commitment. It was established that employees with tertiary qualifications such as degrees and postgraduate degrees experienced lower job insecurity as compared to employees with lower qualifications such as Grade 10 to Grade 12. No further significant differences were established in terms of gender, culture, age and tenure in the experience of job insecurity. Conclusions are made, limitations of the current research are discussed and recommendations for the organisation and future research are outlined. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2007.

Due to constant changes and demands from external forces markets, today's employees are subjected to continuous change in the workplace in order for organisations to stay competitive. Changes include restructuring, downsizing, technological changes and so forth, which result in employees feeling less secure in their jobs compared to employees a few decades ago. This insecurity is a reality in the lives of employees and leads to a whole range of emotions and reactions toward these changes. The primary objectives of this research is to determine the nature of the relationship between job insecurity and affective organisational commitment, and also the nature of the relationship between job insecurity and the general health of employees in a specific petro-chemical organisation (N = 229). The final objective is to determine if work locus of control plays a mediating role in the above mentioned relationships. A cross-sectional survey design was employed. Constructs were measured using the following: the Job Insecurity Questionnaire (JIQ), the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) [where only the affective subscale was interpreted], the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), the Work Locus of Control Scale (WLCS) as well as a biographical questionnaire. Results indicated that a practically significant relationship of medium effect exists between job insecurity (both dimensions) and work locus of control, and also a practically significant negative relationship between job insecurity (cognitive subscale) and affective organizational commitment and between affective organisational commitment with work locus of control. No other practically significant relationships were found, although the relationship between the variables did prove to be statistically significant. Regression analysis confirmed that work locus of control fully mediate the relationship between affective job insecurity and affective organisational commitment and also between affective job insecurity with general health, whilst partial mediation by work locus of control was found between cognitive job insecurity and affective organisational commitment and cognitive job insecurity and general health. Conclusions and recommendations were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2007.

Organisations are faced with the reality of a constantly changing environment surrounding them. This brings about the need for changes and adaptations to the changing world around them (Rothmann, 2003). These changes are implemented in the form of restructuring, downsizing, mergers, evolving governmental policies and organisational change initiatives, which can result in high costs, lower productions and poor employee wellness (Van Tonder,2005). In South Africa, the organisations have to cope with change and adaptations to the global world which brings about the need for innovation, competitiveness, customer satisfaction and service quality to remain ahead in the industry which can bring strain on employees and the organisation as a whole (Malhotra & Mukherjee, 2003). ln education institutions, teachers have certain demands to cope with which include syllabus changes and growth, personnel shortages, higher student numbers, multi-lingual teaching and increased specialization (Jackson & Rothmann, 2006) The primary objective of this research was to investigate the relationship between job insecurity, job satisfaction, affective organisational commitment and sense of coherence. Contructs were measured by means of the Job Insecurity Questionnaire (JIQ), the Revised Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (JSQ), the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ), the Orientation to Life Questionnaire (OLQ) and a biographical questionnaire. A cross-sectional survey design was conducted among the 546 employees of various educational institutions in the Sedibeng District of Gauteng. A response rate of 315 completed questionnaires was received. No statistically significant relationship was found between job insecurity and job satisfaction, job insecurity and affective organisational commitment, and job insecurity and sense of coherence. There was a practically significant relationship found between job satisfaction, affective organisational commitment, and sense of coherence. Sense of coherence was also found to have no moderating effect on job insecurity and job satisfaction, and job insecurity and affective organisational commitment. Recommendations for the organisation and future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010.