Children with Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism typically experience difficulty with social interaction and social communication, hence the development of social competence is important to promote social inclusion. A quasi-experimental baseline design was employed to measure changes in social competence following participation in Lego therapy. Fourteen children with Asperger syndrome participated in an eight week Lego therapy intervention in nine schools. Social competence was measured through observations of social interaction on the school playground and adaptive socialisation and communication. Statistically significant increases were observed in adaptive socialisation and play following participation in Lego Therapy. No significant differences were found in communication, median duration of interactions or frequency of self-initiated social interactions. Measures of social competence were completed again following a period without intervention, to establish whether increases in social competence were sustained. Aspects of social competence decreased following a period without intervention, however, decreases were not significant. Programme fidelity was measured by adherence to fundamental aspects of the intervention and a measure of inter-rater reliability. Adherence ranged between 63-100% for aspects of the intervention, and between 82-97% for schools delivering the intervention. Implications for practice were highlighted, and included the need to encourage generalisation of skills from Lego therapy into the wider school environment, and a need for on-going support for school staff when the intervention is delivered in schools. Alternative ways of promoting social competence within an inclusive school environment were discussed.

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / William H. Hsu / A recommender system is a computational mechanism for information filtering, where users provide recommendations (in the form of ratings or selecting items) as inputs, which the system then aggregates and directs to appropriate recipients. With the advent of web based media and publicity methods, the age where standardized methods of publicity, sales, production and marketing strategies do not. As such, in many markets the users are given a wide range of products and information to choose which product they like, to find a way out of this recommender systems are used in a way similar to the live social scenario, that is a user tries to get reviews from friends before opting for a product in a similar way recommender system tries to be a friend who recommends the options. Most of the recommender systems currently developed solely accuracy driven, i.e., reducing the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) between the predictions of the recommender system and actual ratings of the user. This leads to various problems for recommender systems such as lack of diversity and freshness. Lack of diversity arises when the recommender system is overly focused on accuracy by recommending a set of items, in which all of the items are too similar to each other, because they are predicted to be liked by the user. Lack of freshness also arises with overly focusing on accuracy but as a limitation on the set of items recommended making it overly predictable. This thesis work is directed at addressing the issues of diversity, by developing an approach, where a threshold of accuracy (in terms of Mean Absolute Error in prediction) is maintained while trying to diversify the set of item recommendations. Here for the problem of diversity a combination of Attribute-based diversification and user preference based diversification is done. This approach is then evaluated using non-classical methods along with evaluating the base recommender algorithm to prove that diversification is indeed is possible with a mixture of collaborative and content based approach.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Marjorie R. Hancock / Collaborative Retrospective Miscue Analysis (CRMA) is a process where students participate in a small group discussion about their reading miscues, retellings, and thinking about reading. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the self-efficacy beliefs students hold about their reading skills and abilities while engaged in CRMA. The six sixth- grade students audio taped their reading of text and followed by conducting an unassisted retelling. Next, the researcher transcribed the tapes providing students with a transcription during CRMA sessions. Students held discussions with their peers and the researcher about their reading miscues and retellings revealing their thinking about their miscues and examining why they occurred. Data from the videotaped CRMA sessions, Burke Reading Interviews, Self-Efficacy in Reading Scales, CRMA journals, and teacher e-mail interviews were extensively analyzed. Findings revealed changes in each of the participants’ self-efficacy in reading from the beginning to the end of the study. Analysis of the CRMA transcripts showed students held conversations from six areas: 1) initial discussions focusing on numbers of miscues or reading flawlessly; 2) discussion about reading strategies; 3) discussion about making sense of text; 4) discussion about miscues that affected meaning and those that did not; 5) discussion centered on the elements of retelling, and; 6) discussion finding strengths in peers’ skills. In addition, the transcripts revealed students discussed vocabulary from the text to build meaning during reading. Qualitative methods were employed to analyze multiple sources of data allowing students’ reading skills to be studied and examined in detail and the self-efficacy in reading that surfaced during the process. Thick, rich portraits of each student were developed looking through the following lenses: 1) prior literacy assessment; 2) Burke Reading Interviews; 3) miscue analysis; 4) retellings; 5) observational viewing; 6) the teacher’s lens; and, 7) developing self- efficacy in reading. Finally, a holistic group portrait was unveiled. Students deserve to be engaged in social learning, especially during reading when they can discuss their experiences with text with peers. CRMA provides a respectful avenue for students to talk about their miscues, retellings, and reading behaviors and nurture and extend self-efficacy in the process.

Collaboration is a vital skill in today’s knowledge economy. Regrettably, many learners lack the regulatory skills required for complex collaborative tasks. In particular, groups struggle to construct shared task perceptions of collaborative tasks on which to launch engagement. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to examine how computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) tools can be leveraged to support shared task perceptions for regulating collaboration. Because investigating this process brings forth a wide array of methodological challenges, a second purpose of this dissertation was to explore how CSCL tools can be used as a methodological solution for capturing this process. Towards this end, research unfolded across one conceptual paper and two empirical studies: (a) Miller & Hadwin (2015a) extended work conceptualizing self-, co-, and shared-regulation in successful collaboration and drew on this theoretical framework to propose ways in which CSCL tools can be designed to support and research regulation of collaboration; (b) Miller, Malmberg, Hadwin, & Järvelä (2015) investigated the processes that contributed to and constrained groups’ construction of shared task perceptions in a CSCL environment in order to inform further refinement of supports; (c) Miller & Hadwin (2015b) examined the effects of tools providing different levels of individual and group support on construction of shared task perceptions and task performance. Together, findings revealed the potential of blending pedagogical tools to support shared task perceptions with research tools for examining and understanding regulation. In particular, findings evidenced shared task perceptions to be a complex and challenging social phenomenon and shed light on ways in which CSCL tools may prompt and promote this process. In addition, data generated by learners as they interacted with CSCL supports created valuable opportunities to capture shared task perceptions as they unfolded in the context of meaningful collaborative tasks across the individual and group level. / Graduate / 0525 / fgage@uvic.ca

Since the late twentieth century, open source software projects (e.g., the GNU/Linux operating system, the Apache web server, Perl and many others) have achieved phenomenal success. This success can be attributed to a new paradigm of productivity in which individuals voluntarily collaborate to produce knowledge, goods and services. Benkler claims this productivity paradigm is a “new, third mode of production” particularly suited for “the digitally networked environment” (2002). In addition to its application to open source software projects, the peer production model, in different forms, has been used in areas such as science/citizen science (Silvertown, 2009), library science (Weinberger, 2007), politics (Castells, 2007; Jenkins, 2006), education (Daniel, 2012), journalism (Gillmor, 2004), and culture (Jenkins, 2006; Lessig, 2004). As peer production has flourished, merely describing successful cases has become less useful. Instead, scholars must identify the dynamics, structures, and conditions that contribute to or impede that success. In this dissertation, I focus on three management challenges at three distinct levels that impede the success of peer production. At the individual level, one significant question is how to best organize individual contributors with differing goals, experience, and commitment to achieve a collective outcome. At the practice level, peer production communities, like corporations, must often transfer best practices from one unit to another to improve performance. This transfer process poses the challenge of how to adapt and modify an original practice to make it effective in the new context. At the community level, peer production communities must learn to survive and succeed in a large ecosystem of related communities. This dissertation combines theoretical approaches in organization science with in-depth empirical analysis on a range of peer production communities to examine the mechanisms that help the communities overcome these three management challenges and succeed in peer production. The contributions of my dissertation are twofold. For scholars and researchers, my dissertation advances the theoretical understanding of the underlying mechanisms of successful peer production systems. For practitioners, my dissertation offers practical advice to build more effective peer production projects and platforms.

Résumé : Confrontées à un environnement toujours plus turbulent et compétitif et à la nécessité de s'adapter avec souplesse et agilité, les entreprises ont de plus en plus recours aux technologies et aux applications informatiques collaboratives afin de créer et de mobiliser des équipes de projet. L'objectif sous-jacent est de les rendre aussi efficaces et efficientes que possible, indépendamment du lieu et du temps de travail. Dans ce contexte, les équipiers doivent s'approprier les technologies qui sont mises à leur disposition afin de se soutenir mutuellement et d'assurer la gestion des ressources dont ils disposent, de façon à produire leurs livrables efficacement et suivant le rendement attendu. L'objectif de cette thèse de doctorat est d'analyser si l'appropriation d'une technologie virtuelle de travail contribue effectivement à soutenir le fonctionnement interne et l'efficacité d'équipes de travail à durée déterminée, ainsi qu'à analyser le rôle médiateur du fonctionnement interne entre l'appropriation d'une part, et l'efficacité d'autre part. L'appropriation renvoie ici à la mesure dans laquelle les équipiers s'entendent a) sur les modalités d'utilisation (accord sur l'usage) de la technologie collaborative de travail qu'il partage et l'environnement virtuel qu'elle constitue, b) sur l'usage qu'ils en font, c) sur le sentiment de possession (appropriation psychologique) qu'ils peuvent exprimer à son égard. La présente recherche a été réalisée grâce à l'administration d'un questionnaire d'enquête auprès d'un échantillon de 304 personnes regroupées en 34 équipes de travail à durée déterminée. Les résultats obtenus permettent de constater que deux variables, soit l'appropriation psychologique et l'accord sur l'usage, sont liées positivement aux deux dimensions du fonctionnement interne de l'équipe, à savoir au soutien interpersonnel et à la gestion du travail d'équipe. L'accord sur l'usage est de surcroît lié aux trois critères d'efficacité, soit à la qualité de l'expérience groupale, à la pérennité et au rendement. L'appropriation psychologique n'est toutefois pas liée au troisième critère, soit au rendement. L'usage est lié uniquement au soutien interpersonnel et à la qualité de l'expérience groupale, et ce, de manière négative. Par ailleurs, les tests de médiation réalisés permettent de constater que le fonctionnement interne de l'équipe semble effectivement jouer un rôle médiateur entre, d'une part, l'appropriation psychologique et l'accord sur l'usage et, d'autre part, les trois critères d'efficacité. Cette thèse de doctorat contribue de plusieurs manières au développement de la connaissance. Elle permet d'abord de constater qu'il est possible de s'approprier psychologiquement un environnement virtuel de travail, et que cette appropriation est en lien avec le fonctionnement interne et l'efficacité des équipes de travail. De plus, elle permet aussi de constater que cette variable se distingue bien d'un autre construit, soit de l'accord sur l'usage. Il s'agit à ces égards d'une première qui a permis l'élaboration d'un instrument de mesure doté de propriétés psychométriques intéressantes. Elle contribue aussi à la généralisation possible d'une conception multidimensionnelle du fonctionnement interne et de l'efficacité des équipes de travail à durée déterminée. Le constat d'un rôle médiateur du fonctionnement interne entre deux formes d'appropriation et certains des critères d'efficacité constitue aussi une observation intéressante et inédite dans le contexte de l'usage d'une technologie collaborative au sein des équipes à durée déterminée. Ce cadre de mesure semble donc pouvoir s'appliquer aussi aux équipes de projet.||Abstract : Faced with an ever changing and compétitive environment, and with the necessity of adapting with agility and rapidly, companies rely more and more on technology and Groupware to create and mobilize project teams. The underlying objective is to make them as efficient and effective as possible, regardless of the time and place that members add their collaborations. In order to collaborate in such a context and to produce their work efficiently and according to the desired outcome, team members must first appropriate the technologies that are made available to them, whose purposes are mutual support and proper management of resources. The goal of this research is to analyze if the appropriation of a virtual office contributes effectively to support the team and the efficiency of project teamwork, as well as to analyze the mediating rôle of the internai functioning between appropriation and efficiency. In this case, appropriation refers to the measure of the team members' consent a) on the consensus on appropriation of the Groupware that they will be using and the virtual environment that it constitutes, b) on actual Groupware use, c) and on psychological appropriation towards the Groupware. This research was carried out by handing out a survey to a sample of 304 people grouped into thirty-four teams working on projects with fixed terms. The results of this study indicate that the two variables, psychological appropriation and consensus on appropriation, are positively correlated to the two dimensions of the internai functioning; interpersonal support and management of work. Moreover, the consensus on appropriatio is also linked to the three criteria for efficiency: the quality of the group work experience, the durability and the output. However, there is no indication of a corrélation between the psychological appropriation and the third factor of efficiency, output. The results do indicate that actual Groupware use is negatively connected to interpersonal support and to the quality of the group work experience. Indeed, the test for the mediating rôle of the internai functioning of the group indicate that there is, in fact, a relationship between the psychological appropriation and the consensus on appropriation, and the three factors of efficiency. This doctoral thesis contributes in many ways to the development of knowledge on this topic. Firstly, there is a clear démonstration that psychological appropriation is, in fact, possible for a virtual work environment, and that this appropriation has a link with the internai functioning and efficiency of a project team. Moreover, the research also helps to demonstrate that the psychological appropriation is distinct from other variables such as consensus on approproation. Indeed, this unique factor allowed for the création of an interesting new measuring device with psychometric attributes. The research also contributes to a certain généralization of the multidimensional conception of the internai functioning and efficiency of group work. Finally, the récognition of the mediating rôle of the internai functioning between two types of appropriation and some of the efficiency criteria is both interesting and un-heard of in the context of the use of Groupware by work group with fixed terms. So, it would seem that the measurement framework could also be applied to project teams.

Cette recherche s'intéresse à l'apprentissage de l'enseignement au cours de la phase d'insertion professionnelle. Inscrite dans une perspective compréhensive, l'étude montre comment, au cours de leur toute première année d'enseignement, trois enseignantes débutantes restructurent leur expérience pour faire face aux situations indéterminées de leur pratique quotidienne. L'originalité de la thèse réside dans le regard différencié qu'elle pose sur l'apprentissage professionnel, un regard inscrit dans un paradigme d'incertitude (St-Arnaud, 2001) qui recentre la loupe de l'investigation sur l'acteur social conçu comme un agent compétent de son expérience (Giddens, 1987). Les concepts d'expérience (Dewey, 1993) et de réflexion-dans-l'action (Schön, 1983) sont précisés pour le champ de l'enseignement et permettent d'aborder la question du sens qui se restructure pour constituer le savoir professionnel à travers les situations expérientielles. L'accès au processus étudié s'appuie à un dispositif d'accompagnement mentoral organisé par le milieu scolaire et servant le double registre de la recherche et de la formation, dans l'esprit de l'approche collaborative de recherche (Desgagné, 2001). Partant des échanges avec les personnes mentors, le discours des débutantes a été enregistré, retranscrit et reconstruit en situations mettant en scène le schéma conceptuel intégrateur résultant d'une démarche d'analyse par théorisation ancrée (Glaser et Strauss, 1967). L'étude met en lumière trois grandes dynamiques de restructuration révélant l'ordonnancement qui se règle de l'intérieur même des situations vécues, en vertu d'une intelligence pratique selon laquelle les débutantes cherchent constamment à fonder le sens, à négocier le sens et à orienter le sens de leur expérience pour mieux"situer" leur conduite en équilibre avec les contraintes du contexte. Ces dynamiques éclairent les perspectives actuelles sur la formation à l'enseignement, tant initiale que continue; leur interprétation invite à tirer profit des situations"authentiques" d'expérience professionnelle.

There has long been a concern about the research-practice gap within Library and Information Science (LIS). Several authors have highlighted the disconnection between the world of professional practice, interested in service and information system development, and the world of the academy, focused on the development of theory and the progress of the discipline. A virtual organization, such as a collaboratory, might support collaboration between LIS professionals and academics in research, potentially transforming the way research between these two groups is undertaken. The purpose of this study was to examine how sociotechnical aspects of work organization influence the initiation, development, and conclusion of collaboration between LIS academics and professionals in distributed research projects. The study examined the development of three collaborative projects from the start to completion in two countries, Italy and another European country. The data analysis aimed at deriving implications for the further development of theory on remote scientific collaboration, and for the design of a sustainable collaboratory to support small-scale, distributed research projects between LIS academics and professionals. The research design, data collection, and data analysis were informed by Actor- Network-Theory (ANT), in particular by Callon’s model of translation of interests. Qualitative interviews and analysis of literary inscriptions formed the key sources of data for the three case studies. The analysis of how and why collaborations between LIS academics and professionals initiated and developed revealed that the initial motivation to pursue collaboration has to do with the lack of economic and organizational resources on either or both sides, and with a genuine interest in a topic by both academics and professionals. The case studies in this study were decentralized and bottom-up projects in which LIS academics and professionals pursued collaboration because they had a genuine interest in a given topic and not because they were mandated by their employers, or they hoped to be acknowledged and promoted by them on the basis of their participation in the project. Market conditions and/or institutional pressures did not exert much influence on the start and development of these collaborations, although one project was influenced by political considerations and funding conditions in healthcare. The patterns emerged from the findings of the three cases underpin the development of a sociotechnical framework aimed at providing a better understanding of remote collaboration between academics and professionals not only in LIS but also in other fields affected by the research-practice gap. / <p>Akademisk avhandling som med tillstånd av samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten vid Göteborgs universitet för vinnande av doktorsexamen framläggs till offentlig granskning kl. 13.15 torsdagen den 29 april 2010, i hörsal C203, Högskolan i Borås, Allégatan 1, Borås.</p>

Der vorliegende Beitrag wertet die aktuellen Erfahrungen eines internationalen Projektes zur Qualifizierung Studierender mit Hilfe kollaborativer Internet-Nutzung aus. Bevor wir auf die konkrete Struktur des Projektes (Kapitel 2) und seine Evaluation (Kapitel 3) eingehen, werden zunächst die besonderen Rahmenbedingungen, das Vorhaben und die dahinter stehende Motivation erläutert.

This study focuses on the experiences of beginning teachers in the British Army’s training and education branch. The research sought to identity what influenced participants’ construing about teaching and learning, teacher identity, role, and trajectory during initial teacher education. By utilising Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) and Communities of Practice as analytical frameworks, the impact of influences on the construing of the research participants was identified. The research was underpinned by a constructivist and interpretive epistemology and utilised a collaborative, narrative-based case study approach. Interviews, Repertory Grids and Trajectory Targets were used to provide insight into the construing and experiences of the participants during their teacher education. The research was conducted by a former Army officer and data were collected from and analysed with five participants during their teacher education programme. Research data suggested that these beginning teachers were highly influenced by their previous experience as a student and this experience left strong personal biographies and images of teaching that appeared to be maintained throughout their early explorations of professional practice. The beginning teachers in this study appeared to rely heavily on these stable images and constructs during their early practice when classroom 'survival' was paramount and at this point attached little value to the pedagogical content of their teacher education programme. Data further suggested that it is only once these beginning teachers built a level of confidence, began to 'routinise' aspects of their practice, and had the opportunity to validate their initial images of teaching that they become more receptive to other influences such as their teacher education or their community of practice. This confirmed the findings of a number of other studies and, by utilising the theories that underpin PCP, a rationale for this situation was advanced. The implications of the research findings suggest that care must be taken to ensure that teacher education courses are designed to allow the opportunity for beginning teachers to critically analyse and validate their initial beliefs and constructs through the experience of practice before embarking on significant theoretical and practical pedagogical content. It is argued that this initial period of professional practice provides the opportunity for beginning teachers to develop the cognitive and emotive dissonance or 'anxiety' that appears to be required before they are willing to step away from the relative stability and safety of their personal biographies. Based on these research findings a '4-dimensional' pedagogical model (Do, Discover, Diversify, Deepen) is developed to underpin the design of practice-based teacher education programmes.