Thesis (MTech (Design))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / This research is based on how an understanding of place can facilitate designing Product Service Systems (PSS) in an urban environment structured by complex social divisions. Predominantly grounded in Participatory Design (PD), the study investigates how certain methodologies within the field are appropriate, and to what level that they are effective when used in a majority-world context. PD has produced successful projects when used in minority-world contexts, however, if the basis of the field – that of co-designers and the synthesised work effort from all stakeholders – is brought into an environment that has extreme social divisions, there is a definitive abstraction of design-orientated social engagement. The project research began in Malmö, Sweden, with the first of three case studies. In this context, PSS and PD were used as a paradigm to engage businesses and people in a specific area in a project referred to as Linjen (‘The Line’). The main purpose of the project was to stimulate the public’s interest in the area and to investigate the potential for connecting local businesses in an effort to propagate constructive communication. This section serves as a baseline framework for minority-world PD projects. The second study of the project was conducted in Cape Town, South Africa, and from the resultant implications a revised approach emerged. This reappraised angle proved far more interesting and relevant: it now aimed to take the PD methodologies of a minority-world project and explore what challenges were encountered when PD approaches were implemented across a socially complex environment. The third and final case study involved prototyping a waste collection trolley as a participatory aid for engaging stakeholders as codesigners. The case studies are presented here to describe the dichotomy of PD practice between contexts or place. A recurring theme of this research area is that of ‘perceived’ distance and roles between co-designers, and specifically that of the researcher and the stakeholders. This thesis concludes by presenting a lens – an amalgamation of experiences, prototypes and research outcomes – through which designers could work when involved in PD projects. The conclusion includes the following research tools: planning casual encounters, valuebased interactions, design ownership and human proxy. These tools present useful and insightful ways in which designers can minimise the perceived distance between themselves and their co-designers, ultimately developing a reflective and mindful design practitioner and engaged participants.

At the center of all coach education initiatives and programming is the coach. Although the study of traditional coach education programs has yielded rather discouraging findings, coach education can be significant in its contribution to coach development when coaches are addressed as learners and their unique learning needs and orientations are recognized and prioritized. Indeed, the conversation has shifted to the application of learner-centered (LC) approaches. The purpose of this doctoral dissertation was twofold: to explore the contribution of using the LC theory, including a well-established learner-centered teaching (LCT) framework, to support coach education; and to examine the LC initiatives of a coach education program. An immersion in the LC literature was followed by the collection of multiple sources of data: program documents (n = 5), coach survey data, in-depth participant interviews (coach development administrators, n = 14; learning facilitators, n = 6; coaches, n = 10), and audio-visual material. Program documents (449 pages) were analyzed using a summative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) based on Blumberg’s (2009) LCT framework, and the interview transcripts (521 single-spaced pages) were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun, Clarke, & Weate, 2016). The findings are presented in three articles and an additional findings section. The first article presents a theoretical overview of the LC literature linked to current perspectives and issues in coach education, including validated framework for facilitating LC change and assessment. The second article looks at the evolution and current LC status of Canada’s golf coach education program, a distinguished program within the Canadian sport system. The third article, using composite vignettes, presents the coaches’ and learning facilitators’ perception of their experiences participating in the LC designed program. In the additional findings, the CDAs’ biographies and perceptions of their experiences participating and contributing to the design of the program are presented along with the challenges they faced. The main points from the findings in this dissertation are as follows: (a) given the strong conceptual links and evidence-based foundation, LCT offers a coherent and sensible framework to guide the study and design of coach education; (b) there were lessons to be learned when looking at the history and evolution of the coach education program; (c) the creation and implementation of LC program benefitted from leaders who understood and subscribed to a constructivist view of learning; (d) the LCT approaches were dependent on the role and effectiveness of the learning facilitators; (e) coaches’ and facilitators’ perceptions of LCT approaches and engagement in the program varied according to their cognitive structures, specifically their learning orientation; and (f) more broadly, the program’s impact and effectiveness was influenced by the dynamic and complex interplay between the program design, delivery, and coach engagement. The findings contribute to the emerging body of literature on the use of constructivist learning principles to support coach education; they provide scholars and practitioners with a robust framework to guide the study, design, delivery, and assessment of LC coach education; and they share the exemplary efforts, experiences, and challenges of a sport federation who successfully adopted a high degree of LCT within its coach education program. Finally, based on the findings and the coach education and LC literatures, a fourth article is presented in the discussion that offers a collection of practical recommendations for CDAs to support LC coach education.

The transition towards family-centered practice in early childhood intervention has shifted the focus from looking at the child in isolation towards understanding the child in context. The primary context for the child’s development is the family setting which is inextricably linked to the family’s culture, beliefs and values. The cultural context is transmitted through activity settings which make up the everyday experiences and events that involve the child’s interactions with various people and the environment. Activity settings are a part of daily life and include activities like eating dinner, bath time, listening to stories and getting ready for school. Furthermore, activity settings represent how families can and do structure their time, based on tradition, the orientations provided by culture and the socio-economic system within which they live. Intervention goals that fit easily into these settings are more likely to be adopted and practised, as they are less likely to disrupt the daily functioning and coherence of the family. While there is a clear emphasis in the literature on developing intervention approaches that are applicable to families from diverse cultural contexts, little is known about the beliefs and practices of low-income urban families in South Africa. Children in Africa have frequently been judged against Euro-American norms and standards, where the aim has been to change instead of understand the context in which children live. This study therefore aims to identify everyday activities that provide children with varied opportunities for learning and development within the natural environment of the family context. A descriptive design using structured interviews was utilised to obtain information about the activity settings that children aged 3-5 years engaged in. Face-to-face interviews with 90 caregivers were conducted, utilising a self-constructed interview schedule consisting of a written list of closed and open-ended questions. This approach was chosen as it holds no bias against respondents who have varied literacy levels. The interview schedule was developed through a process of consultation with parents/caregivers from the Soweto community, using focus group discussions. The results provide information on the types of activities that children participate in, the frequency of participation, the partners involved, as well as the purpose of the activities. Caregiver perceptions on the importance of activities were also obtained through closed and open-ended questions. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / Unrestricted

The economic evaluation (EE) component of health technology assessments (HTA) often defines value in terms of health related quality of life, with many HTA agencies requiring the use of EQ-5D based Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). These approaches do not capture value derived from patient experience factors and the process of care. This thesis widens the valuation space beyond this limited perspective, taking account of such factors, using monetary values generated from a discrete choice experiment (DCE), incorporating these into a discrete event simulation (DES) and conducting a cost-benefit analysis (CBA). The case study is monitoring individuals with ocular hypertension. Five strategies were compared using a DES: 'Treat All' at ocular hypertension diagnosis with minimal followup; Biennial monitoring (either in primary or secondary care) with treatment according to predicted glaucoma risk; and monitoring and treatment according to the UK National glaucoma guidance (either conservative or intensive). DCE based Willingness to pay (WTP) estimates for relevant health outcomes (e.g. risk of developing or progressing glaucoma and treatment side effects), patient experience factors (e.g. communication and understanding with the health care professional) and process of care (e.g. monitoring setting) were obtained. Conditional logit, mixed logit preference space and mixed logit WTP-space (rarely used within health economics) econometric specifications were used. These WTP valuations were aggregated in the DES, as fixed mean values or allowing variation between simulated individuals. While the standard cost-utility analysis (CUA) using EQ-5D implied 'Treat All' was most likely cost-effective, CBA with broadened valuation space identified, consistently across different econometric specifications, 'Biennial hospital' as the best choice. This thesis proposes an approach to broaden the valuation space that can be promptly used for EE-HTA. Researchers should be attentive of the valuation space considered in their EE and choose wisely the EE approach to be used (e.g. CUA and/or CBA).

Blogs serve multiple purposes, resulting in several types of blogs that vary greatly in terms of quality and content. It is important to evaluate the quality of blogs, which requires appropriate evaluation criteria. Unfortunately, there are minimal studies on framework and the specific criteria and indicators for evaluating the quality of blogs. Moreover, quality is related to user perception, and should therefore be evaluated by the receivers. This dissertation examines the criteria and indicators that blog users consider important for evaluating the quality of blogs, and develops a user-centered framework for evaluating quality by conducting user surveys and post-survey email interviews. The personal characteristics that affect the users’ choices of criteria to evaluate the quality of blogs are examined as well. The study’s findings include 1) the criteria that users consider important when evaluating the quality of blogs are content quality, usability, authority, and blog credibility; 2) the indicators that blog users consider most important for evaluating the quality of blogs are understandability, accuracy, believability, currency, ease of use, and navigation; and 3) gender, education level, age, profession, purpose of use, and specific interests affect the user’s choices of criteria for evaluating the quality of blogs. Future research may involve exploring and applying the framework developed in this study to build automatic quality blog identification system for the purpose of assisting web users and information specialists to identify quality blogs.

Through the ages dissatisfaction with his environment has provoked man to envision the ideal or "utopian" setting which would be more to his liking. The discontent of today's youth with the world it has inherited echoes the complaints of past generations and yet is of particular significance and relevance to the twelfth grade student soon to enter the college community where protests are becoming increasingly more articulate and effective. Established institutions and behavior codes are challenged with impunity although critics charge that such dissent is irresponsible and unsupported by positive, alternative proposals for improvement.

With the complexity increase of enterprise solutions, the need to monitor and maintain them increases with it. SAP Concur offers various services and applications across different environments and data centers. For all these applications and the services underneath, there are different Application Performance Management (APM) tools in place for monitoring them. However, from an incident management point of view, in case of a problem it is time consuming and non-efficient to go through different tools in order to identify the issue. This thesis proposes a solution for a custom and centralized APM which gathers metrics and raw data from multiple sources and visualizes them in real-time in a unified health dashboard called Pulse. In order to fit this solution to the needs of service managers and product owners, Pulse will go through different phases of usability tests and after each phase, new requirements will be implemented and tested again until there is a final design that fits the needs of target users.

To meet the growing demand for community-based adult services (CBAS) adult day health care (ADHC) programs, it is important these programs make the necessary modifications in their systems of care to embrace a person-centered care (PCC) model. This study was designed to create an assessment to determine a community-based CBAS/ADHC program's readiness to meet the new federal standards as determined by the program's current operational evidence and by center participants', their families' as well as staff's perspectives. This was measured by self-report of access to the community, choice of setting, individual rights, autonomy and independence, choice of services and supports, center accessibility as well as their needs and preferences in the practice. Results will assist similar CBAS/ADHCs in identifying the necessary modifications within their own program to continue as a certified licensed entity and remain a viable agency.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Education in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education in the Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2014. / This research was designed to ascertain teachers‟ perceptions on learner-centered teaching in the discipline of mathematics in basic education. The first aim of the study was to determine the extent to which teachers background training contributes to perception of learner-centred approach in the teaching of mathematics. The second aim sought to determine the extent to which teachers professional experience contributes to perception of learner centered approach in the teaching of mathematics. The third aim of the study was to determine the extent to which teachers background training contributes to learner-centred practices in the teaching of mathematics. Lastly, the fourth aim was to determine the extent to which teachers professional experience contributes to practices of learner-centred approach in the teaching of mathematics. To achieve the aims, a questionnaire and observation schedule were designed to collect the data. The questionnaire was primarily subjected to validation by the researcher through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). This instrument was first administrated to three hundred and nine primary school teachers of the provinces of Inhambane, Gaza and Maputo. After the piloting was performed the final version of the questionnaire was then applied to four hundred eight six primary school teachers and from this sample three hundred seventy three completed and returned the questionnaires. The returned questionnaire were then correctly analyzed. Three of four aims were connected to four hypothesis. To evaluate whether teacher background training and type of training have significant effects on teacher perceptions of learner-centred teaching approach an ordinal regression analysis was performed. To test whether would there be a relationship between teachers‟ professional experience and their approach to teaching mathematics and whether will there be a relationship between teachers‟ background training and their approach to teaching mathematics, a Chi-square 11 test of independence was used. To evaluate whether teachers use learner-centred teaching an observation schedule was also used. The results show that teachers teaching experiences as well as type of training did not have significant effect on their perceptions of learner-centred teaching. The results of this study have also shown that teachers‟ professional experience as well as the type of training teachers have received in teaching methods have no significant effects on the type of approach (teacher or learner-centred approach). Teachers of basic education prefer to use both approaches when they teach mathematics. Results from observation schedule show that teachers do not use learner-centred approach. Instead, they use teacher-centred teaching. Lastly, the results were discussed taking in account the literature reviewed within the framework of educational psychology applied to mathematics teaching. Finally suggestions were made on how to understand more deeply the question of teachers‟ perceptions of learner-centred teaching. The most important suggestion is that research should be done regarding teachers mathematics self-efficacy, how teachers perceive their own knowledge of learner-centred approach and how do they practice it. / Scientific Council of UDEBA-LAB

Accountable care units (ACU-?¢) provide a new model for integrated patient care. The ACU-?¢ promotes patient centeredness in nursing units as team members work collaboratively with physicians to improve patient outcomes and reduce unwarranted variations. A health system in the southeastern United States incorporated the ACU-?¢ as part of their care model. These units were held accountable for their clinical, service, and cost outcomes but lacked a validation process to demonstrate the effective utilization of their data. The purpose of this DNP project was to create a patient centered care (PCC) certification process, guided by the Donabedian model, that would provide hospital units the opportunity to access their process and quality improvement outcome data and to improve patient care. For this project, 12- key individuals were interviewed to gain their perspectives and input on the development and implementation of the PCC certification process. Results from the interviews were compiled and reviewed for common themes, which included Magnet-?¢ recognition, patient experience, current unit goals, and hospital strategic plan. Using the results of the interviews, a PCC certification procedure was created to outline the steps required to achieve certification; and, an application was developed to provide a standard format for quality and process improvement projects and associated outcomes reporting. The certification procedure will be implemented in the health system in the next fiscal year. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the program and future refinement will be controlled by the Nursing Shared Governance. The project may promote positive social change as the staff nurses on the individual units use the unit metrics to improve patient outcomes and reduce variations in care.