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The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of academic advising at a tertiary institution in Jamaica and how it has influenced teacher-efficacy and instructional attentiveness among student teachers. The participants included twelve student teachers and four lecturers who have been intimately involved in academic advising. The student teachers selected have been engaged in academic advising for two to four years while the lecturers have been advising for ten to sixteen years. This qualitative study explored how academic advising is related to teacher efficacy and instructional attentiveness among a set of second to fourth year student teachers at a teacher training college in Jamaica. All participants were actively receiving and giving academic advising in a government-owned teacher training institution. The primary source of data was unstructured interviews with student teachers and lecturers. Data were acquired over a two-month period by means of unstructured interviews and field notes. These tools afforded the opportunity to extend the conversations and generate meaning from the responses thereby providing rich descriptive notes of the phenomenon. Data were prepared using triangulation matrices, data coding and the Constant Comparison Approach to generate categories showing patterns and relationships of meaning. The findings on the perspectives of the study participants indicate academic advising has significantly influenced teacher-efficacy among the student teachers as their level of confidence increased, appreciation of teamwork blossomed, instructional competency broadened and misbehaviors controlled. Additionally, their valuing of self and acceptance of other personalities grew immensely which positively affected their relationship with various tiers of staff in the learning environment. The interview data garnered from student teachers indicate that instructional attentiveness improved through the use of multiple teaching methods which included authentic assessment, field experience and student-centered learning. Other factors that boosted instructional attentiveness were good relationships with advisors who were understanding of their differences and commended simple efforts. As a result of the academic advising received, there are several implications for practice and policy which need to be addressed in order to help student teachers to identify their strengths and weaknesses, remain on task, avoid drop out and maintain equilibrium between academic and social experiences as they navigate their way through college. / Educational Leadership

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This doctoral dissertation investigates the impact of incidental aesthetics on consumer perceptions. The author refers to incidental aesthetics in two dimensions. One is in the aesthetic properties of product context that is not directly related to its functional performance. And second is in the aesthetic attributes found in unexpected sources defined as ordinary objects, places, and people. Drawing on theories from aesthetics, psychology, and consumer behavior, this dissertation examines in two manuscripts how and why incidental aesthetics influence consumer evaluations. The first paper, 'Welded Together: How Responses to Incidental, Nondiagnostic Sensory Context (Mis)Guide Simultaneous Product Evaluations,' studies how evaluations of incidental aesthetics from a sensory experience with nondiagnostic product contextual cues are merged with the evaluations of the target product. The second paper, 'Consumer Attentiveness to Beauty in the Ordinary,' examines an understudied dimension of beauty. The construct of attentiveness to beauty in the ordinary is defined as the degree to which individuals mindfully identify and formulate an aesthetic judgment of common visual elements and integrate this mindset into their daily experiences. The authors develop a four-item Attentiveness to Beauty in the Ordinary Scale to measure the construct. Using a mixed-methods approach, combining a series of laboratory experiments and field studies from a diverse sample of consumers (Npaper1 = 49,435; Npaper2 = 2,051), the authors show in the first paper that unappealing (appealing) incidental sensory experiences lead to lower (higher) product evaluations, including perceived quality and purchase intention. The effect emerges when the incidental evaluation pertains to a dimension closely related to the product dimension being evaluated. In the second paper, the findings provide evidence of validity and reliability of the Attentiveness to Beauty in the Ordinary Scale, situate the scale in a network of related constructs such as appreciation of beauty, engagement with beauty, dispositional awe, voluntary simplicity, materialism, mindfulness, and subjective happiness, and demonstrate the predictive value of the scale for consumer perceptions and behavior. Specifically, people high (vs. low) in ordinary beauty attentiveness are less discriminating in aesthetic evaluations of ordinary elements, find higher product quality in naturally-aesthetic packaging, are less persuaded by endorsers' attractiveness, and are more likely to buy imperfect produce. This dissertation contributes to the literature on aesthetics and sensory marketing by revealing that aesthetic experiences that are not intentionally designed or not expected but naturally occur in consumption environments have a significant impact on consumer evaluations. The results have practical implications for marketers and designers, who can leverage the power of incidental aesthetics in marketing strategies to enhance product perceptions. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation explores, across two papers, how natural aesthetic qualities found in things, people, places, or in product contexts, referred to as incidental aesthetics, can influence our perceptions and evaluations of products. In the first paper, the authors find a novel effect in which consumers "merge" aesthetic evaluations of incidental product context that do not affect the functionality of the product (e.g., bad/good music on headphones) with product evaluations they make at the same time (e.g., bad/good quality headphones). This effect occurs because people spontaneously mix the evaluation of the context (e.g., music sound) with the evaluation of a closely related product attribute (e.g., sound quality). In the second paper, the authors define attentiveness to beauty in the ordinary as a disposition that some people have of being more open to finding beauty when it is not expected (i.e., incidental aesthetics) and therefore seeing beauty more frequently in everyday situations than other people. The authors create a scale to measure this individual disposition and find that 1) people with high (vs. low) attentiveness to ordinary beauty see less of a difference in the beauty of elements high and low in aesthetics, 2) find higher product quality in naturally-aesthetic packaging, 3) are less persuaded by the attractiveness of an endorser in an advertisement, and 4) are more likely to buy aesthetically imperfect produce. Adding to existing research, the findings of both papers provide new insights into the impact of incidental aesthetics in consumption settings. Surprisingly, even when aesthetic experiences are not intentionally designed or expected to be found, they can still play a significant role in shaping consumer behavior. These findings have practical implications for marketers, who should consider the incidental aesthetics of their products and contexts to create a more positive experience for consumers, leading to higher product perceptions. Overall, this research suggests that the power of aesthetics in influencing behavior extends beyond what consumers consciously perceive or expect to find.

A need for a South African leadership-unit performance structural model, created from the performance index and second-order factor structure of the Leadership Behaviour Inventory was established. This study focuses on the creation of such a second-order factor structure. Theron and Spangenberg (2005) identified three plausible models and highlighted two for further analysis. Theoretical scrutiny supported the two proposed models. The two-factor model was created from the multifactor leadership questionnaire's transformational and transactional second-order factors (Avolio, Bass & Jung, 1999) and the three-factor model comprised the general leadership, management behaviour and supervisory leadership second-order factors of House (1995). Factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted on the proposed models. Results indicated average-fitting models. The five-factor model proposed by Theron and Spangenberg (2005) comparatively has an improved fit and is viewed as the most plausible model for the creation of the leadership-unit performance structural model. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

A need for a South African leadership-unit performance structural model, created from the performance index and second-order factor structure of the Leadership Behaviour Inventory was established. This study focuses on the creation of such a second-order factor structure. Theron and Spangenberg (2005) identified three plausible models and highlighted two for further analysis. Theoretical scrutiny supported the two proposed models. The two-factor model was created from the multifactor leadership questionnaire's transformational and transactional second-order factors (Avolio, Bass & Jung, 1999) and the three-factor model comprised the general leadership, management behaviour and supervisory leadership second-order factors of House (1995). Factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted on the proposed models. Results indicated average-fitting models. The five-factor model proposed by Theron and Spangenberg (2005) comparatively has an improved fit and is viewed as the most plausible model for the creation of the leadership-unit performance structural model. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

The many technological processes that products go through can make consumers less related to the systems behind them and their origins. The same thing happens to food. This project highlights the implications of a food system within the global scale of today’s mainstream economy and explores the possibilities for a product that originates from a more sustainable food system. Apart from re-designing a processed everyday food product, the aim of this study is to increase awareness of the pressure that the world’s fish stocks are suffering due to overfishing – an issue that is being aggravated by our current food system. For this reason fish fingers (aka fish sticks), which is a well known food product in Sweden, have been chosen as the primary focus in order to make a complex issue more tangible. By re-evaluating what a fish is, analysing current food systems and food products, making sensory explorations and collaborating with chefs, Havsbitar 1.0 and 2.0 (”Sea Bites” 1.0 and 2.0) have been developed. It is a series of fish fingers that has been designed for a desirable future scenario, where a resilient food system has been implemented. The aesthetics of Havsbitar intends to connect it to its ingredients and to the ecosystem it comes from, while maintaining the key characteristics of the fish finger as we know it today. The acceptance of the concept as a food product is an important variable to this project. The concept is placed in the field of Transition Design. Nevertheless, the design of Havsbitar 1.0 is a proposal that is intended to create possibilities for dialogue about an ideal industrialized commercial product. On the other hand, Havsbitar 2.0 follows a more discursive, critical angle towards the fact that fish fingers do not resemble fish, its main ingredient. Havsbitar 2.0 could then be placed in the field of Critical Food Design and Discursive Design.

Die vorliegende Dissertation beschäftigte sich theoretisch und empirisch mit moralischer Sensitivität, der Fähigkeit zu erkennen, ob Handlungen das Wohlergehen anderer Lebewesen beeinflussen. Im Theorieteil wurden dazu die einschlägigen theoretischen Ansätze gesichtet und in einer neuen integrativen Definition verdichtet. Aus der theoretischen Aufarbeitung der Konzepte und bisherigen empirischen Befunde folgte, dass verschiedene Persönlichkeitsmerkmale existieren, die maßgeblich determinieren, ob und wie stark ein Individuum moralisch sensitiv ist. Zu diesen Determinanten moralischer Sensitivität gehören folgende Persönlichkeitsmerkmale: Empathie, moralische Achtsamkeit, moralische Identität und Ungerechtigkeitssensibilität. Im empirischen Teil der Arbeit wurden die Zusammenhänge dieser Persönlichkeitsmerkmale mit moralischem Entscheiden und Handeln untersucht, sowie verschiedene studienspezifische Hypothesen und Fragestellungen beleuchtet. Einzelne Aspekte der empirischen Arbeit wurden schließlich in einer interkulturellen Studie auf ihre kulturübergreifende Generalisierbarkeit geprüft. Die Dissertationsschrift schließt mit einer umfassenden Diskussion der empirischen Ergebnisse und gibt praktische Handlungsempfehlungen. Unternehmen und andere Organisationen können die in der vorliegenden Dissertation gewonnenen Erkenntnisse nutzen, um ihr Human Ressource Management hinsichtlich der Auswahl und Förderung ethisch-kompetenter Fach- und Führungskräfte zu optimieren. / The present dissertation theoretically and empirically investigated the concept of moral sensitivity – the ability to recognize whether actions influence the well-being of other living beings. In the theoretical part, the relevant theoretical approaches were reviewed and condensed in a new integrative definition. The review of the theoretical accounts of moral sensitivity and the empirical findings revealed that various personality traits exist that decisively determine whether and how strongly an individual is morally sensitive. These determinants of moral sensitivity include the following personality traits: empathy, moral attentiveness, moral identity, and justice sensitivity. In the empirical part of the work, the relationships of these personality traits with moral decision-making and action and various study-specific hypotheses were examined. The cross-cultural generalizability of some empirical findings of the dissertation was finally examined in an intercultural study. The dissertation concludes with a comprehensive discussion of the empirical results and gives practical recommendations for organizations. Companies and other organizations can use the knowledge gained in this dissertation to optimize their human resource management in terms of selection and promotion of ethical competent employees.

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This project explores vagueness in space and how it can help us train and sharpen our senses as designers and architects to adapt to the realities of scarcity and how to make less-extractive processes of creating space. Using ephemeral but recurring phenomena such as air flow, reflections, refractions of light and moist in architecture as inspiration, I seek to make everyday-spaces, such as underneath a wash basin, a radiator or behind a door, interesting again. With methods inspired by the land art movement to find new ways of seeing interior spaces, I use attentiveness and the idea to not destroy or disturb to observe already existing spaces. The project seeks to tell a story of neglected beauty in forgotten spaces and translating them into (im)material architectural spatial installations.  I hope this project can bring an understanding that protecting and appreciating what we already have is probably more sustainable than constantly changing and readjusting spaces to fit our wants and what we think we need. To train our senses and get new ideas of beauty and function in already existing interior spaces, brings what is out of focus into the light. This might be a way to partly slow down the industry of interiors and redirect how we work as architects and designers to understand that everything doesn’t need to change, but if we seek change, we can do it by immaterial phenomena, such as light through the interstices, that will occur as long as there is life.