Thesis advisor: Vincent Cho / Fierce political and social pressure has intensified the demands for district leaders to narrow achievement disparities but research provides limited guidance for practice. Rorrer, Skrla, and Scheurich (2008) described a theory: district leaders should enact certain essential roles for school reform. Capacity-Building efforts of district leaders are essential to the role of Instructional Leadership. Building capacity comprises the specific actions of district leaders to improve the district’s ability to achieve complex goals. This qualitative case study explored the actions district leaders took and how they prioritized those actions to build capacity to improve student achievement. Data was collected from a single Massachusetts school district using semi-structured interviews and document reviews. This study found that leaders: established concrete learning practices (i.e. job-embedded professional development, instructional coaching model); created a supportive learning environment (i.e. establishing trust and providing time); and reinforced teacher learning (i.e. feedback and support). This study also found that leaders’ actions were driven by data. Recommendations include shifting to a data-informed decision-making process, coordination of leadership team efforts across the district and limiting initiatives to core priorities. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Despite stipulations in local government legislation that Municipalities should build the capacity of the local communities to enable effective public participation and to foster community participation in local government, little is known on how municipalities capacitate their people staying in the rural areas to participate effectively in the IDP process. This research study investigated, explored and analyzed capacity building programmes used by Lepelle-Nkumpi Local Municipality to capacitate its people staying in the rural areas to participate effectively in the IDP process. The study was conducted through qualitative interviews with officials working and people living in two rural wards. An analysis of the interviews yields that Lepelle-Nkumpi municipality does not have a capacity building policy or strategy for promoting effective participation of people in the IDP process. The capacity building programmes used by the municipality are more focused on ward committees, ward councilors and project steering committee members than on traditional leaders, small businesses and other people staying in the rural areas. The municipality has planned training programmes for ward committees, ward councilors and project steering committee members and none for other people. Information sharing is done through ward committees, municipality and council meetings for all categories of citizens. People who practise subsistence farming are capacitated through agricultural research based interventions. Skills development programmes are used to enhance participation of project steering committee members in monitoring the implementation of IDP projects. The capacity building programmes are effective in making people aware of structures they can use to participate in the IDP process and to participate during IDP project implementation and to a minimal extent enhances people’s participation in monitoring the implementation of IDP projects. The Municipality’s capacity building programmes enhances people’s skills to participate effectively during implementation of IDP projects and not in the decision making during analysis, strategies and approval phases of the IDP process.

One of the aims of the Local Content Policy (LCP) is the economic development of Nigeria through the utilisation of local personnel and resources in the activities of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. Many studies have investigated the LCP, but limited work has been undertaken in investigating the transparency practices involved in the implementation of the LCP in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. The study critically evaluates the effectiveness of the LCP and the transparency practices associated with its implementation. A conceptual framework based on accountability was developed and employed in designing the research instrument. This framework was underpinned by the institutional theory, which links accountability discourse to regulatory institutions where organisations within a particular field are subject to pressures to exhibit legitimacy through socially and culturally authorised administrative routines that are intended to render accountability. The study employed a qualitative methodology and the data was collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with respondents from twenty-three indigenous oil and gas companies, regulatory bodies, international oil and gas companies and non-governmental organizations. The research findings demonstrate that the various LCP stakeholders’ views on the definition and purpose of the LCP differ significantly. These diverse opinions affect the way in which the LCP is perceived and implemented in the oil and gas industry. The study has been instrumental in revealing a number of positive effects the LCP has generated since its implementation in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. For example, the LCP compelled IOCs to utilise local resources in their operations, resulting in the domestication of oil and gas activities. However, the findings also reveal that the LCP has been enforced despite the lack of local capacity and capability for its implementation. The findings, therefore, highlight a number of challenges associated with LCP implementation including: the lack of infrastructure; insufficient capital and manpower; absence of trust; and the lack of coordination between the regulatory agencies in the industry. The research findings also reveal that there are different levels of transparency in the implementation of LCP. Determination of the level of transparency in LCP implementation and compliance monitoring is at the discretion of the NCDMB and the oil and gas companies, which unfortunately facilitates corrupt practices. Therefore, this study argues that significant improvements are required in transparency practices in LCP implementation by strengthening the LCP’s monitoring and enforcement process. Further, enforcement should strictly be the responsibility of the NCDMB, with no interference from the Nigerian government. Some further recommendations arising from this research include the need for investment in infrastructure that will facilitate indigenous companies’ participation in the industry. Also, efforts should be made to promote partnership and collaboration between indigenous companies and IOCs, encouraging investment in world-class infrastructure that can compete with international standards. To foster this partnership, the government and IOCs must invest in educational institutions which could boost the knowledge and capacity of Nigerians. The research concludes with the development of two new models: (1) The LCP stakeholder perception model; and, (2) The LCP implementation model. These models, which are the main contributions of knowledge arising from this thesis, will potentially aid the effective implementation of the recommendations arising from this study.

The co-existence of oil and gas development and biodiversity conservation in protected areas is a worldwide challenge because of the risks posed by petroleum development in sensitive ecosystems. This research focuses on the relationship between petroleum development and biodiversity conservation in protected areas of the Ugandan Albertine Graben, to establish how these two sectors with different goals can co-exist without one sector significantly compromising the other. In 2006, Uganda confirmed the existence of commercially viable quantities of oil and gas in the Albertine Graben and, given Uganda's overwhelming energy needs and pressure for economic development, started to develop these resources. However, the area is also identified as a region of great importance for biodiversity conservation and is designated as a Biodiversity Hotspot, Ecoregion and Endemic Bird Area. Petroleum development has started to show impacts on wildlife, tourism, agriculture, fisheries, culture and communities. The research drew on the Driver, Pressure, State, Impact and Response (DPSIR) concept to identify the impacts of petroleum development and the wider issues that impact on biodiversity management and affect the livelihoods of communities living in and around the exploration areas. Data sources included literature, document analysis, field observations, focus groups and interviews. During the study 41 interviews involving 52 people from central and local government, private sector, non-governmental organisations, consultant and member of parliament; one focus group each in eight of the villages in the exploration areas were undertaken. The study examined current strategies to address the emerging issues of petroleum development and identified their limitations. It highlights the roles of stakeholders in developing and influencing responses in the management of the petroleum development, and makes recommendations for addressing the weaknesses currently not covered by the legislation and environmental management practices. A number of recommendations are made to ensure co-existence, including implementation of legal and regulatory frameworks, development of efficient and effective institutions to enforce and monitor the laws and regulations, maintenance of ecological integrity of protected areas and sensitive ecosystems, improving the effectivenes of environmental management tools for decision making, creating an enabling environment for participation of all stakeholders in the process, and promoting good governance. In addition, the co-existence between petroleum development and biodiversity conservation can be realised if more resources are committed by Government, NGOs, private sector for the environment sector, that there is political will to champion biodiversity conservation, a transparent decision making process, and stringent operating practices. Finally, all key stakeholders need to play a role in the petroleum development process and biodiversity conservation.

This research grew out of my concern that the dominant discourse about evaluation in the UK limits how it is defined, recognised and practised. It is a discourse which primarily values performance, accountability, results and value for money. In this research, ‘Evaluation that Empowers’ (EtE) aims to present a different discourse about evaluation that recognises other voices within the evaluation mix. This perspective embraces a broader definition of evaluation where: learning and development are a priority, and where the roles of evaluator and participants are collaborative and mutually recognised. The purpose of this research was to explore, develop, test and refine the EtE theoretical model against the real-life evaluation experience and practice in organisations. The EtE Model develops the notion of ‘evaluation-mindedness’ as the capacity for an organisation to create a deep and sustainable change in how it thinks about and embeds evaluation practices into its day to day actions. The research used a theory building approach over four distinct iterative studies. The literature review provided a guiding framework for future empirical studies; the EtE Model was applied and refined in the context of a single longitudinal case study; and further literature provided a critical review of the EtE Model in relation to current Evaluation Capacity Building literature. Finally, the EtE Model was developed into an evaluative conversation (The EtE Toolkit) and was field tested in two organisations. Findings suggest that organisations benefited from staff and volunteers engaging in critical discussion and self-assessment of their evaluation practices. For one organisation, the EtE conversation highlighted broader organisational issues, another organisation planned to adapt the EtE process to support self-evaluation across its service teams, and for one participant an emerging story of professional development was generated. This research has made an original contribution to the theory and practice of evaluation by developing a model and toolkit for engaging key evaluation stakeholders in a process of critical review of evaluation policy and practice or a meta-evaluation of evaluation. It has explored and developed the concept of evaluation-mindedness which can be applied to organisations, teams and individuals.

This explorative study offers much needed perspective on students' role and development as instructional leaders (Halverson & Clifford, 2013) through answering the following questions: (a) How can students be involved in distributions of instructional leadership in a studio learning environment; (b) What is the value of their contribution; and (c) What patterns of distributed instructional leadership (DIL) facilitate student involvement? I chose an animation studio at a large western university for the setting, on account of its collective-leadership structure involving students. I randomly sampled a pre-recorded data set of participants' studio interactions and participant interviews to use for the study; participants involved students, faculty, and industry mentors involved in studio productions during qualitative data collection of studio interactions.My method of data analysis involved pairing the DIL framework with additional approaches, per analysis focus: An ethnographic approach (Merriam, 2002) for a birds-eye overview of the setting influencing studio interactions, Interaction analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995) for in-depth exploration of studio interactions, and Spradley's (1980) recommendations for qualitative analysis ensuring trustworthiness of codes and themes.The study's findings answered each of the three exploratory questions, revealing that students voluntarily took ownership for their learning, and engaged in an instructional leadership capacity over support for their needs and interests. They were valuable in negotiating mutually beneficial compromises as contributed to member capacity and organizational development in academia and industry. Studio leadership and policies facilitated students' interdependent development as instructional leaders through providing guided autonomy in their supportive and formal roles in the studio. More specifically, the studio's deliberate focus on students' development of leadership virtues shaped students' experience and approach toward interpersonal and technical problem solving as contributed to studio production and overall development.Pairing the DIL framework with additional methods per analysis focus was a useful approach in exploring in exploring the study questions. Future research should replicate the study in different contexts to add perspective to the questions asked. It should also assess the verity of patterns DIL that this study delineates as contributing to individual and organizational capacity, and school development.

China has experienced incredible growth in the number of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) that occupy civil society. These organizations came forth at a time of rapid economic and political change. Instead of being given a supportive legal path for their work, NGOs have had to navigate the supply and demand factors in their specific situation in order to flourish. The demand side factors chiefly consist of matters pertaining to the need an NGO is meeting; and supply side factors pertain to an NGO's ability to create infrastructure to support their organization, including both the space in society to function and the processes necessary to fund their operation. By understanding the supply and demand side factors of the third sector, NGOs are able to achieve effectiveness in a variety of different capacities. In the current regulatory framework, many of these capacities are not entirely legal, but NGOs continue to find ways to make these arrangements work. Intermediary NGOs are a special type of NGO that positions itself to benefit both the donor and the beneficiary and help both overcome some of the challenges presented by the difficult regulatory environment. In doing this, intermediary NGOs fulfill a special role in meeting supply and demand in the third sector and can propose many useful solutions for philanthropy in China today.

Evaluation capacity development (ECD) has been acknowledged as a system of processes to help organizations achieve sustainable evaluation practice. Examining the existing evaluation capacity of an organization before starting an ECD process is necessary and will increase the possibilities of success, determined by the establishment or strengthening of an evaluation system into the organization. In response to this need, this study involved the designing of the Organizational Readiness for Evaluation Capacity Development (ORECD) checklist and its initial validation, using a mixed method research design. The study was conducted in four phases, including: (a) the design of the ORECD checklist based on a review of the literature; (b) a review of the ORECD checklist by five experts to obtain face and content validity evidences, with emphasis on relevance and clarity of the items and how well the items fit the corresponding component; (c) a pretesting about the appropriateness of the wording of the items and format of the ORECD checklist by a sample of doctoral graduate students with formal training in evaluation and professional evaluators; and (d) a field study with 32 nonprofit organizations to determine the utility and benefits of using the ORECD checklist and potential improvements to the instrument. This phase generated information about the psychometric properties as well as consequential validity evidence. Findings indicated that the ORECD checklist has great potential to determine the readiness of an organization to develop evaluation capacity, as demonstrated by the feedback received from various groups of participants, establishing face, content, and consequential validity. Results from the psychometric analysis showed correlations that, for the most part, suggested that the components are measuring aspects of the same construct. In addition, the alpha for most of the components supported the reliability of the ORECD checklist. The two components with alphas close to but below .70 required modifications in order to improve their reliability. Also, it was necessary to modify or reword some of the items. Ongoing efforts should provide information about how the changes made to the ORECD checklist are working and additional validity evidences as the one that can be obtained through factor analysis. This will allow the exploration of the underlying structure of the ORECD checklist and its components. It is expected that the ORECD checklist can be a contribution to the body of literature about ECD helping to address organizational readiness in order to support and sustain the development of evaluation capacity within organizations.

Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.