The purpose to this survey is to map out the affordances available in the outdoor environment of one preschool. This has been executed through three episodes of observing children at that preschool during their outdoor play. All visible affordances has been written down and later on summarized in different themes where the most interesting meeting places in the outdoor environment at the pre-school have been described. The result of the study shows what the children at this preschool do in their outdoor environment. It also shows the importance of the arrangement of material and environment in order to be able to support childrens play. An awareness of what the environment offers the children in their play is important. It makes it possible to design an outdoor environment that encourages different kinds of playing and exploring which may support children’s development and creation of their own identity.

The present study extends previous research on motoric activity and imagery production to the text processing of Native American learning-disabled students and third-grade regular-education students. Two experiments were developed to test predictions derived from Glenberg's (1997) "indexical hypothesis". Experiment 1 was performed with learning-disabled Native American students listening to narrative passages under one of three randomly assigned listening strategies: free-study, visual, and manipulate. Experiment 2 was performed with regular-education Native American third graders reading similar passages under one of three randomly assigned reading strategies: reread, observed manipulation, and manipulation. With the learning-disabled students, statistically significant improvements in memory for story events, locations, objects, and actions were observed on cued- and free-recall outcomes when toys representing story characters and settings were present during encoding. Facilitative strategy transfer was not apparent when the toys were removed. With the third-grade students, similar benefits were found when the toys were present. In addition, students who had access to the toys during a training period performed significantly better on cued- and free-recall measures relative to reread students when the toys were no longer present.

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Denna studie har i syfte att språkvetenskapligt undersöka hur reklamgenren förädras i ett komprimerat format, formatet googleannonser. För att få fram de språkliga dragen analyseras 30 st googleannonser ur ett genreperspektiv med innehålls-, strukturell och interpersonell analys som metod. Resultatet visar på ett flertal gemensamma drag med traditionell reklamgenre men uppvisar också skillnader. En strukturell skillnad är att googleannonsens rubrikdel tenderar att vara hybrid, de innehåller ofta både information om tjänster och produkter tillsammans med företagsnamn. Andra språkliga drag från materialet är bortprioriteringen av innehållsliga och interpersonella drag annars vanligt återkommande i traditionell reklamgenre. De gemensamma dragen för googleannonserna skulle kunna ingå i en ny modifierad subgenre till traditionell reklam, där nya konventioner för utformingen utvecklats.  The purpose of this study is to explore how the advertising genre adapts to a compressed format, from a linguistic perspective. The format being Google ads. 30 Google ads are analyzed with a content, structural and interpersonal method to distinguish linguistic features. The result shows multiple linguistic features related to traditional advertising genre. The study also finds diffrences. One divergent structural feature is the Google ads headline, who tends to have a hybrid function that includes both information about the product and information about the company. The material differ in comparison to traditional advertinsing genre in content and structure features, where some parts have been prioritized due to the limiting format. The new features for the Google advertising genre could be a part of a new modified subgenre, where new conventions has developed.

Strategy tools have mainly been conceptualised through a functional perspective, which views tools as passive instruments that aid managerial decision-making. Studies within strategy-as-practice provide an alternative view to this, by arguing that in practice, strategy tools are devices that enable actors to achieve a variety of purposes that transcend the instrumental purposes that dominate mainstream strategy studies. In this thesis, I argue that both views still portray tools as being used instrumentally. In both cases actors are seen to use tools as a conduit through which they may achieve either analytical purposes or more socially related purposes. The common factor across both views is the focus on the intentionality of the managers in using the tools to achieve a certain purpose. Rather than focus on what strategy tools are used for, this thesis explores the other side of the coin by focusing on what strategy tools do. I do so by exploring how the materiality of strategy tools may impact on the strategizing practices of managers during the strategy development process. The aim of the study is to explore the possible performative roles that strategy tools may play during the strategy process and the implications of these roles for the work of strategizing. In this study, tools are viewed as non-human actors – that is, they are not simply conduits that are utilised instrumentally for achieving a variety of purposes in organisations, rather they actively influence the actions and interactions of managers and therefore contribute to the formation of strategy. This inquiry is based on a longitudinal study (2012 – 2015) of the process of strategy making within a large UK financial institution. Focusing on what the members of the Strategy department do during the development and use of a strategy tool referred to as the Horizon scan and tracing the developmental trajectory of the tool throughout the process. The thesis draws on theoretical insights situated at the intersection of economic sociology, the sociology of financial markets and the sociology of technology, more specifically: the notions of performativity and affordances. The methodological approach is qualitative and is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews, direct observations of meetings and workshops and documentary data. The analysis reveals that the strategy tool performed four main interconnected roles which include: enlist participants, reorient temporally, consolidate and persuade. Through performing these roles, the tool shaped the strategizing practices of the strategists in a patterned way, such that the actions and interactions of the strategists reflected the underlying theory within the tool. The findings also reveals that the four roles performed by the tool were underpinned by two main affordances – modular and temporal affordances. Based on the findings, the thesis introduces the concept of an Activation device which refers to strategy tools that instigate or trigger certain actions that result in a co-evolution of the strategy theory within the tool and strategizing practices, where the ‘doing’ of strategy comes to resemble the theory within the tool. The study concludes by presenting a theoretical model of how strategy tools as activation devices shape how strategy is practiced. It therefore contributes to the recent materiality turn in strategy and the nascent literature on performativity in strategy, by reconceptualising the roles of strategy tools and demonstrating empirically, how strategy tools influence strategizing practices through the performative effects they generate.

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This research was designed to examine the role of the physical properties of the mathematical tools, in children’s learning in the context of adding two fractions. My two research questions were: (1) How does the feedback from the mathematical tools play a mediating role between the physical actions of the child with respect to the mathematical affordances of the tools and the child’s thinking about and learning and knowing of solving addition of fractions problems? And (2) What role is played by mathematical tools in the emergence of a Zone of Proximal Development during the child’s solving of addition of fractions problems? To address these questions, I interviewed 13 grade 7 students in Ottawa, Ontario, in groups of two and in three rounds of 30-minute interviews per group. The results showed that the physical properties of the tools play a role in how children perceived the mathematical affordances of the tool, attached mathematical meaning to the tools, created mathematical artefacts and solved the addition of fractions problems. Moreover, the findings show that in children’s interactions with mathematical tools, at times, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) emerged, with the guidance provided by the tools. I conclude that children’s interaction with the tools provided them the possibility of learning newer forms of reflections, expressions and actions in relation to adding two fractions. This learning was a result of a complex and intertwined relationship between the immediate physical properties and affordances of the tool, the traces of the thoughts of the designer of the tools, as well as the children’s previous knowing of fractions. With this study, I extend the Vygotskian notion of the more knowledgeable other within the ZPD to include not only agents (children and adults) but also tools.

Un sentiment de solitude survient chez un individu lorsque ses relations interpersonnelles sont insatisfaisantes, que ce soit sur le plan quantitatif ou qualitatif. Considérant que la communication interpersonnelle, qui permet la création et le maintien des relations interpersonnelles, a grandement cours par l’entremise de technologies de communication via Internet, bon nombre de recherches se sont penchées sur les liens potentiels entre les usages de ces technologies et le sentiment de solitude. Les résultats de ces travaux sont toutefois très disparates. Ainsi, la présente recherche explore cette problématique en se concentrant spécifiquement sur un dispositif de communication en particulier : le site de réseaux sociaux Facebook. Les usages de celui-ci sont conceptualisés selon un ensemble cohérent d’approches et de notions théoriques, soit les usages et gratifications, les affordances des technologies ainsi que certaines notions empruntées à la sociologie des usages (contextes de pratiques, entrelacement des usages). En ce qui concerne le sentiment de solitude, l’approche multidimensionnelle des besoins sociaux est mobilisée. Au niveau méthodologique, une méthode mixte utilisant le sondage par questionnaire comme outil de collecte de données a été préconisée. Les résultats démontrent un entrelacement des usages des différentes fonctionnalités de Facebook, ainsi que des corrélations entre certaines utilisations spécifiques de Facebook et le sentiment de solitude, tant sociale qu’émotionnelle. Ces résultats viennent s’ajouter à ceux d’autres publications récentes, qui démontrent qu’il y a effectivement des relations complexes entre les usages de Facebook et le sentiment de solitude.

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No description available.