L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier les appréhensions du couple coûts/valeur par les différentes parties prenantes du marché des télécommunications (opérateurs, consommateurs et régulateur). Pour atteindre cet objectif, nous avons, dans une première partie, précédé à étudier le contexte concurrentiel du marché des télécommunications et les relations conjointes entre les parties prenantes clefs et périphériques du secteur des télécommunications. La théorie des parties prenantes a été mobilisée pour appréhender la complexité de l’activité de la téléphonie mobile et pour identifier les parties prenantes qui bénéficient de la valeur (création et répartition de valeur). L’appréhension du couple coûts/valeur par les parties prenantes se fonde sur la gestion des coûts (notamment la gestion des coûts de réseau) et la gestion de la relation clients et les mesures de la rentabilité clients. Ces deux axes représentent le fondement théorique de notre thèse. Dans une seconde partie, nous avons procédé à mesurer comment chaque partie prenante principale appréhende le couple coûts/valeur. Pour les opérateurs, nous avons constaté que cette appréhension se fonde sur l’économie des réseaux (baisse des coûts) et la maximisation de l’ARPU (maximisation de la valeur clients). Pour les consommateurs, cette appréhension est fondée sur la notion de bon rapport qualité/prix. Autrement dit, payer moins cher pour une meilleure qualité en termes d’offres et de services. Pour le régulateur, l’appréhension est conditionnée par la régulation des prix d’interconnexion entre les opérateurs et par celle de la qualité du réseau. L’appréhension de chaque partie prenante se heurte à des dissonances cognitives liées à la divergence de perception entre les opérateurs et les consommateurs. Le rôle médiateur du régulateur joue un rôle primordial pour réduire ces dissonances cognitives. / The objective of this thesis is to study the apprehension of cost / value by the various stakeholders in the telecommunications market (operators, consumers and regulator). In order to achieve this objective, we have, in the first part, preceded to study the competitive context of the telecommunications market and the joint relations between key and peripheral stakeholders in the telecommunications sector. Stakeholder theory has been mobilized to understand the complexity of mobile telephony activity and to identify stakeholders who benefit from value (creation and value distribution). The understanding of the cost / value by stakeholders is based on cost management (including network cost management) and customer relationship management and customer profitability measurement. These two axes represent the theoretical foundation of our thesis. In the second part, we measured how each main stakeholder apprehends the cost / value. For operators, we have found that this apprehension is based on network economics (lower costs) and the maximization of ARPU (maximizing customer value). For consumers, this apprehension is based on the notion of good value for money. In other words, paying less for better quality in terms of offers and services. For the regulator, apprehension is conditioned by the regulation of the interconnection prices between the operators and by that of the quality of the network. The apprehension of each stakeholder is confronted with cognitive dissonances related to the divergence of perception between operators and consumers. The mediating role of the regulator plays a crucial role in reducing these cognitive dissonances.

Communication Apprehension (CA) pertains to levels of fear or anxiety people experience in relation to real or anticipated communication with other people. Decades of research on CA has focused on college students. This research explored levels of oral CA in an organizational environment. The purpose of this research was threefold. First, this study examined the communication apprehension profiles of native-language (English) and second-language (non-English) employees in a midsized South Florida service organization to understand if the levels of communication anxiety differ between the two groups as well as if demographic variables played a part in managing levels of communication anxiety. Second, this study examined the difference of perception credibility in supervisors between same-language and opposite-language employees to examine and analyze the relationship between the two groups and their supervisors in order to identify if communication problems exist that could affect an amicable working relationship or constructive feedback. Third, this study compared organizational personality types of upward mobile and indifferent to levels of communication apprehension in native-language (English) and second-language (non-English) employees in a sample of culturally diverse office personnel in two separate corporate locations in a midsized management organization located in South Florida. The findings were found not to be statistically significant; however, it was learned that CA levels do exist and that anxiety levels vary between respondents. Further investigation into the effects of CA on workplace production remains a challenge. Additional studies using randomly selected populations from similarly diverse organizations more representative of the diversity of the region rather than a convenience sample is recommended.

Reduced eye fixation and deficits in emotion identification accuracy have been commonly reported in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (AS), but are not ubiquitous. There is growing evidence that emotion processing deficits may be better accounted for by comorbid alexithymia (i.e., difficulty understanding and describing one's emotional state), rather than AS symptoms per se. Another possible explanation is anxiety, which is often comorbid with AS; emotion processing difficulties, including attentional biases, have also been observed in anxiety disorders, suggesting that anxiety symptoms may also influence emotion processing within AS. The purpose of the current study was to test the role of dimensional symptoms of autism, anxious apprehension (AA), and alexithymia in mediating eye fixation across two different facial processing tasks with three adult samples: adults diagnosed with autism (AS; n = 30), adults with clinically-elevated anxiety without autism (HI-ANX; n = 29), and neurotypical adults without high anxiety (NT; n = 46). Experiment 1 involved participants completing an emotion identification task involving short video clips. Experiment 2 was a luminescence change detection task with an emotional-expression photo paired with a neutral-expression photo. Joy, anger, and fear video and photo stimuli were used. Dimensional, mixed-effects models showed that symptoms of autism, but not alexithymia, predicted lower eye fixation across two separate face processing tasks. There were no group differences or significant dimensional effects for accuracy. Anxious apprehension was negatively related to response time in Experiment 1 and positively related to eye fixation in Experiment 2. An attentional avoidance of negative emotions was observed in the NT and HI-ANX group, but not the AS group. The bias was most pronounced at lower levels of AS symptoms and higher levels of AA symptoms. The results provide some evidence for a possible anxiety-related subtype in AS, with participants endorsing high autism symptoms, but low anxious apprehension, demonstrating more classic emotion processing deficits of reduced eye fixation.

Sammanfattning Engelskundervisningen i dagens grundskolor ska vara kommunikativ, det vill säga att kommunikation och interaktion ligger till grund för elevernas språkutveckling. En sådan undervisning kan vara extra utmanande för elever med ängslan inför att tala. Talängslan hämmar elevens språkutveckling och kan påverka den kunskapsmässiga bedömningen och betyget negativt. Därför är det viktigt att lärare är medvetna om talängslan, dess orsaker och hur de kan arbeta för att gynna dessa elever. Denna studie handlar om vad lärare i årskurs 4-6 anser är utmaningen med talängsliga elever. Den handlar vidare om hur deltagarnan uttrycker att de undervisar i den muntliga delen av engelska. Syfte Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilka utmaningar fyra lärare uppfattar finns med talängslan hos elever i åk 4-6, samt lärarnas roll i att ta sig an dessa utmaningar. Metod I denna studie använder jag mig av kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer, eftersom jag vill åt den enskilde lärarens uppfattningar/tolkningar av fenomenet talängslan i det engelskspråkiga klassrummet. Eftersom jag vill bygga en förståelse för hur andra människor uppfattar och tolkar, i detta fall lärarna i min studie, så är hermeneutiken en tolkningsmetod som ligger till grund för mitt arbete. Jag har använt mig av intervjuer med fyra lärare på fyra olika grundskolor i min studie. Respondenterna i intervjuerna är aktiva engelsklärare i åk 4-6. Resultat Av resultatet framgår att de deltagande lärarna i denna studie är medvetna om att talängslan finns bland eleverna. Deras uppfattning är att de på olika sätt kan se hur detta framträder hos dem. Talängslan syns via elevernas kroppsspråk, men också genom att de undviker situationer där de behöver tala engelska. Lärarna resonerar även kring de möjliga orsakerna som kan ligga bakom elevernas talängslan. Det kan bland annat handla om att eleverna inte förstår vad läraren säger, eller så kan de vara rädda för att säga fel inför lärare och klasskamrater. Vidare resonerar lärarna i min studie hur de bemöter talängsliga elever. I resultatet framgår det att en trygg kommunikativ miljö är en viktig aspekt; klassrumsmiljön ska vara sådan att alla elever vågar tala engelska. Detta innebär bland annat nolltolerans mot hån eller skratt i klassrummet när någon elev talar. Det framkommer även praktiska sätt de arbetar på med den muntliga delen. Resultatet visar att det ofta förekommer att lärarna växlar mellan svenska och engelska på lektionerna för att göra sig förstådda. Detta beror på vilken årskurs eller elevgrupp det handlar om.

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Modern businesses place a premium on employees' oral communication skills.  Business schools are meant to develop future employees and leaders with the requisite skills for success.  Industry representatives, however, consistently express dissatisfaction with business graduates' oral communication skills.  There appears to remain a gap between business students' oral skills and marketplace demands. Research demonstrates that among many possible factors, oral communication apprehension (OCA) appears a significant contributor to ineffective oral communication. OCA may also significantly impede oral skills development by impacting the core aspects of spiral curriculum, an educational theory aimed at the processes of higher education.  The PRCA-24, the most utilized OCA measurement tool, assesses individuals' trait-like OCA levels across common oral communication settings (e.g., public speaking, interpersonal, group, and meeting) as well as their context (e.g., state) OCA levels within each setting.  This study examines whether OCA is significantly sensitive to situational variables and therefore operates as a state.  If so, acquiring business students' situational OCA may benefit educators as complimentary data to PRCA-24 assessments. This study also examines business and non-business undergraduates' self-reported OCA levels across general public speaking, interpersonal, and group/meeting oral communication settings as well as those in respective high (and low) stakes situations meant to reflect the stress-inducing scenarios they will likely experience on the job after graduation.  Results indicate OCA is significantly sensitive to situational variables (e.g., stakes).  Results are discussed in the framework of providing more relevant measurements of business students' OCA levels to help educators fill the oral skills gap. / Master of Arts

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This dissertation proposed and operationalized a theoretically meaningful and practically useful conceptualization of change for three well known communication constructs, namely willingness to communicate (WTC), self-perceived communication competence (SPCC), and communication apprehension (CA). Specifically, this research found that students' WTC and SPCC scores increased linearly during the semester and their CA scores decreased linearly. In addition, results from this dissertation indicated that for all three constructs considerable differences among students existed with respect to both initial levels and subsequent change in levels. These results are important and can advance the theoretical communication research centered around these constructs. In particular, knowledge that the hypothesis of linear change in the constructs received support from empirical data and that variations in students' trajectories of change were recorded, can prompt communication scholars to search for novel theoretical frameworks that can explicate these change processes. Moreover, the findings of this research are also salient for classroom instruction. Specifically, teachers of introductory communication classes can use the results of this study as broad benchmarks that can inform realistic expectations with respect to students' improvement in WTC, SPCC, and/or CA. In addition, this dissertation presented the benefits derived from properly conceptualizing and studying change by means of latent growth modeling, a powerful and versatile data analytic technique. Specifically, employing this methodology offered the opportunity to get detailed information about how changes in one construct are related to changes in the other two constructs and to gain a more in-depth knowledge of the intricate ways in which interlinkages among the constructs change across time. The benefits of this dynamic way to study WTC, SPCC, and CA are readily apparent as it facilitates teachers access to information that can be used to tailoring their activity for a more targeted, efficient, and beneficial instruction.

This study investigated the intercultural communication competence and intercultural communication apprehension of Chinese international students. Participants in the study consisted of Chinese international students over 18 years old studying at two 4-year public universities in the southeastern United States. The study participants completed 2 online survey questionnaires: the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS), which measured the degree of intercultural communication competence, and the Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension (PRICA), which measured the degree of intercultural communication apprehension. The findings of the study indicated a significant relationship between Chinese international students' intercultural communication competence and their intercultural apprehension. Findings also noted that gender, age, number of U.S. friends, and level of education were not factors predicting the participants' degree of intercultural communication competence and intercultural communication apprehension. However, frequency of speaking English outside of the classroom was an important factor indicating differences in the degree of the study participants' intercultural communication competence and intercultural communication apprehension. In addition, the study revealed that the length of time in the United States affected participants' intercultural communication competence but not their intercultural communication apprehension.

Writing apprehension is a writing difficulty that can impair the writing experiences of students. While researchers have proposed many interventions that teachers can implement to assist their students who struggle with writing apprehension, there has not been an instrument that is designed to measure teacher self-efficacy to help these same students. This study created such an instrument, entitled the Self-efficacy to Teach Apprehensive Writers Scale (STAWS), using Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy’s (2001) Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale and Daly and Miller’s (1975) Writing Apprehension Test as model instruments. The new instrument was designed to measure writing instructor self-efficacy to teach their students who struggle with writing apprehension. Results from an exploratory factor analysis indicate that the STAWS represents a two-factor construct, measuring teacher self-efficacy to (a) engage apprehensive writers (α = .80), and (b) identify and meet the needs of apprehensive writers (α = .79). This two-factor solution explains approximately 58% of the variation in responses from instructors of first-year writing. While the instrument still needs to be validated, preliminary analysis indicates that instructors of first-year writing may experience moderately high self-efficacy to teach their apprehensive writers. First-year writing instructors appear to feel slightly more confident in their ability to identify and meet the needs of apprehensive writers than they are to engage these writers. Future research should focus on validating the instrument and using it to explore different types and demographic groups of teachers, including different levels of experience with sources of self-efficacy.