Thesis (doctoral)--La Salle University, 2005. / ProQuest dissertations and theses ; AAT 3227737. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 28-31)

There are many Aboriginal (First Nation, Métis and Inuit) students attending Canadian universities who remain resilient despite the multiple challenges that arise during their first year of studies. This thesis focused on six undergraduate Aboriginal students attending the University of Saskatchewan who learned about resilience as it was demonstrated in Aboriginal novels, plays, poetry and short stories, taught in their university courses. Aboriginal literature with a fictional or non-fictional autobiographical voice demonstrated characters and people who prevailed over hardships without giving up. A combination of Indigenous methodology and grounded theory methods were used in this qualitative study, to analyze how Aboriginal students were learning from Aboriginal literature about their own resilience. Resilience in this study is defined by the Nehiyaw (Cree) concept of Miyo-Pimatisiwin (The Good Life), which refers to relying on traditional Aboriginal concepts, values and perspectives in striving for a good life and being attentive to wholistic growth and balance of the four areas of self: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual (Hart, 2002, p. 13). This study found that Aboriginal students’ resilience is influenced by Aboriginal literature taught in undergraduate courses in three valuable ways: coping with personal and academic challenges, engagement in university learning with a sub-theme of approaches of professors validating Aboriginal literature and experiences, and personal growth and transformation. The University of Saskatchewan has recently announced initiatives aimed at increasing Aboriginal student retention and success, and this study lends support to the development of measures to increase the University of Saskatchewan’s aspirations in this regard.

This exploratory study begins to fill in a large gap in the understanding of how parents with MI access parenting services and how they perceive this process. Constructivist grounded theory by K. Charmaz (2006) was the guiding methodology. The findings point to the strong influence of the service context on the process and outcome of parental engagement with services. Parents identified a fragmented, restrictive and reactive context of parenting services that failed to support them and their families. They described a stigmatizing and disempowering service response. The parents’ process of service engagement paralleled a process of marginalization they experienced in society. Government and community services were distinguished by degrees of restriction and approaches to practice. Community services were most commonly viewed as supporting parents and working as allies. The findings underscore the importance of engaging parents with MI as partners in research and development of service policy and practice. / Graduate

Despite the many advances of medical technology to help treat infertility, approximately half of women seeking fertility treatment will never give birth to a child. Women coping with treatment failure face many challenges, including deciding when to abandon treatment and how to let go of their dreams of having a baby to focus on other pursuits. In order to better understand how women cope with these challenges, in depth interviews and a focus group were carried out with 12 women for whom fertility treatment had not been successful. Data was gathered and analysed using Grounded Theory, and a model of the process of adjustment from pursuing treatment to coming to terms with involuntary childlessness was co-constructed from the data. The model conceptualizes women's journey as moving through three main phases; 'living in limbo' in which women are still undergoing treatment, 'leaving treatment' in which women decide to terminate treatment and abandon the search for a resolution to their infertility, and finally 'learning to live with involuntary childlessness' in which women start the 'work' of grappling with the questions that childlessness seems to raise about the meaning of their lives, their identity and self image, and their sense of social belonging. The model goes on to highlight the factors which seem to aid women in resolving these challenges. The findings of this study suggest that the emotional challenges of coping with unsuccessful fertility treatment extend well beyond the end of treatment, highlighting the need for good access to therapeutic support for women coping with involuntary childlessness longer term. Results also point to certain sources and types of support which may be particularly helpful, including peer support from other childless women, and therapeutic interventions which help women develop more positive perspectives on childlessness and to identify alternative sources of fulfillment. The results of this study also point to the need for social action which works to challenge the misconceptions and stigma surrounding infertility and childlessness which add a further challenge to the lives of women who are involuntarily childless.

The focus of this thesis is to investigate resilience at an organisational level. The research aims to identify and establish the features of resilience within the response of an organisation to disruptive and crisis events. Natural disasters, pandemic disease, terrorist attacks, economic recession, equipment failure and human error can all pose both a potentially unpredictable and severe threat to the continuity of an organisation's operations. As a result, disruptive events highlight the need to develop robust and resilient organisational and infrastructural systems capable of adapting and overcoming complex disruptive events.

Integration of work-placements into undergraduate degrees is now established on awards linked to professional registration in healthcare. Pre-registration training forms the basis for development of capability and entry onto a professional register. This enquiry explores how key stakeholders on a programme leading to registration as a Biomedical Scientist (BMS) position themselves in their role and the subsequent impact of this upon the development of the capable BMS. It draws upon current knowledge of work-based pedagogy and utilises a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach to explore the perceptions and experiences of individuals and groups to develop an interpretative portrayal and deeper understanding of the implementation of pre-registration training in one region of England. Data gathering and analysis was divided into two stages. The first employed analysis of professional documents to provide an insight into current discourses around BMS training. This provided initial developing categories and directed the creation of a questionnaire. Questionnaire responses confirmed the relevance of the developing categories and a summary of responses provided an ‘ice-breaker’ to guide stage two of data gathering. This stage employed focus groups and interviews to enable a greater understanding of how individuals make sense of their experiences. Initial, focused and theoretical coding allowed synthesis and conceptualisation of the data gathered and presented direction for the enquiry. The findings expose the challenges of integrating professional registration training into an academic programme of study. Three theoretical categories were identified: Role conflict, Expectations and Ownership. Conceptualising the interactions and intersections of these categories enabled the recognition of ‘Doing the portfolio’ as a way of describing and conceptualising the stakeholders positioning within the current programme. The registration portfolio has become an objective reductionist measure of learning, reflecting the positivist typology of practice in this profession. This provides a theoretical explanation as to how the programme is delivered and why there is a need to rethink conceptualisation of the role of the programme in supporting pre-registration training and the development of the capable BMS. To ensure that BMS students are supported to develop not only technical skills but also professional capability there is a need for a paradigm shift from a positivist episteme to one that embraces both the positivist and socio-cultural paradigms, viewing them as complementary and parallel. The novel research approach used in this enquiry has generated rich insights into how stakeholders interact with the pressures of internal and external influences and the impact this has upon behaviours and strategies adopted. The theoretical understanding proposed, which recognises the tensions emerging from a positivist typology of practice, has a range of implications for practice and for the development of practitioner capability through pre-registration training and beyond.

Applications for funding for arts interventions in prisons need to show the intervention will be working towards reducing reoffending. Previous studies mainly focus on the rehabilitative results of the arts intervention in repairing deficiencies in offenders’ social skills. These deficiencies prevent offenders from making constructive social interactions and are proved sometimes to be characteristic of criminality. However, the aim of this investigation was to use a grounded theory methodology to deconstruct the link between arts and rehabilitation by engaging in a research study in a young offender’s institute (YOI). The findings from the pilot study revealed that the link between rehabilitation and the Arts emerged as its potential to enable the appropriation of new roles. Taking these findings into my literature review, I developed a core framework around rehabilitation, an intervention typology, the Arts and role theory. I took this framework into my main investigation in a YOI in South West England amongst young people involved in music and art courses. From later stages in my research design emerged the significance for young people of the use of autobiographical techniques, showing the potential for participants to gain emotional and cathartic release before moving to a consideration of their future. Further depth of understanding of this pedagogical strategy was gained through interviews conducted with those involved in another course using autobiographical techniques: the Write to Freedom course. The outcomes revealed the place of role in developing and affirming identity and the pedagogical influences which were necessary to enable rehabilitation. The findings add to understanding about pedagogical structures, which can help a young person to envision a new role in a future that embraces desistance. These findings have implications in other contexts where participants inhabit roles which prevent learning development. These techniques can change perception enabling participants to appropriate renovated roles which offer new direction.

Boards of directors have been described as an integral part of corporate governance research, being at "the apex of the internal control system" (Jensen, 1993, p.862). Early corporate governance research has examined whether, and to what extent, board characteristics impact on performance. However, the results of studies that focused on board structure/composition and performance produced mixed outcomes. Consequently, we saw the emergence of research on board processes and their impact on board task performance. Research on board processes is still ongoing, and scholars have been interested in, among other processes, how knowledge and skills by board members are being used (Gabrielsson and Huse, 2004; Kor and Sundaramurthy, 2009). At the same time, there is a gap within educational research on how knowledge is being created within teams that are episodic in nature, such as boards (Forbes and Milliken, 1999). As such, the concept of learning has to date been under-researched in a board context. In this thesis, board processes are studied by exploring the processes involved in the acquisition and sharing of knowledge and skills in boards. Further, as a response to calls for the adoption of alternative research approaches to the study of boards (Pettigrew, 1992; Johnson et al., 1996), this research is conducted using a qualitative method based on a grounded theory approach. The study is conducted based on evidence from semi-structured interviews with UK board members. The findings show that the creation of knowledge in boards depends on two dialectical processes of learning (acquisition of knowledge and skills from the external environment and sharing of knowledge and skills in the internal environment). The qualitative findings show that 1) directors possess certain levels of knowledge related to specific boards task – which is also known as directors’ knowledge base; 2) the gap between the level of knowledge and skills needed to perform specific board tasks and the directors knowledge base is regarded as a gap in directors’ knowledge; 3) that there are two processes of filling the gap(s) in directors’ knowledge – the process of acquiring knowledge and skills (from the external environment), and the process of sharing knowledge and skills within the board; 4) that there are factors which are impacting on the processes of acquiring and sharing knowledge in boards; and 5) the processes of learning in boards are circular and board members must continually update their knowledge to enhance their capabilities. The thesis contributes to knowledge by revealing new insights into how board members acquire knowledge and skills (processes of learning) and factors that are impacting on learning in boards, underpinning former conceptual models. Qualitative analysis itemised different types of processes for both acquiring and sharing knowledge and skills in boards. Additionally, the qualitative analysis revealed various forms of learning styles that are being employed by board members either to acquire or share knowledge and skills. Finally, this thesis contributes to qualitative research in boards and its findings have implications for board practice, especially boards’ tasks performance and processes of learning.

abstract: The construction of the contemporary Taiwanese child and childhood has been under-researched. It is often understood solely in contrast to a Western context as a mysterious or even exotic existence. However, this understanding differs from what I discovered in my literary reviews, which reveal many similarities - not differences - with respect to the philosophical views of the child and childhood between the so-called "East" and "West." To gain a better understanding of the Taiwanese child and childhood, I chose the annual Taipei Children's Arts Festival (TCAF) as my main research subject and adopted grounded theory and dramatic analysis as my research methods to explore the following question: What are the representations of the Taiwanese child and childhood as reflected by the cultural artifacts of TCAF between 2000 and 2011? TCAF is the largest children's arts festival in Taiwan and theatre for young audiences (TYA) has been its main component. I therefore selected four award winning TCAF plays and their production videos as my main data. Additional data consists of forewords from the programs, which were written by mayors of Taipei City, commissioners of Taipei's Department of Cultural Affairs, and festival organizers. To provide context, I give a brief history of Taiwanese children's theatre before beginning the main analysis. My findings indicate a complex construction of the Taiwanese child and childhood. The central category states that Taiwanese children are constructed as adults' futures. This explains adults' desires to preserve children's positive qualities, and reflects adults' emphasis on learning and teaching, children's agency, and their happiness. Determining one central category/hypothesis proved to be difficult, due to the variety and complexity of my data. Missing categories include concepts of the unconscious child and children's relationships to religion, family, friendships, and gender issues. The distinctions between children and adults are both distinct and ambiguous. Although differences of the East/West binary exist, social constructions of the child and childhood become increasingly similar as the world becomes more fluid. My research highlights a variety of such elements. Future research is still needed, however, in order to broaden and deepen the understanding of the Taiwanese child and childhood. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Theatre 2012

Submitted by Roger Guedes (roger.guedes@fjp.mg.gov.br) on 2018-02-27T17:41:10Z No. of bitstreams: 1 CÂMARA, Mauro Araújo_Gestão do conhecimento tácito.pdf: 3206684 bytes, checksum: 1ff9993126fae431d7003490cf5a6b9a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Roger Guedes (roger.guedes@fjp.mg.gov.br) on 2018-02-27T17:41:34Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 CÂMARA, Mauro Araújo_Gestão do conhecimento tácito.pdf: 3206684 bytes, checksum: 1ff9993126fae431d7003490cf5a6b9a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-02-27T17:41:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CÂMARA, Mauro Araújo_Gestão do conhecimento tácito.pdf: 3206684 bytes, checksum: 1ff9993126fae431d7003490cf5a6b9a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017 / Fundação João Pinheiro / Esta tese teve como objetivo investigar a importância da expertise no contexto de uma organização pública de pesquisa e ensino. Dada a carência de aprofundamento dos estudos sobre conhecimento tácito quando se trata de gestão do conhecimento no campo da Ciência da Informação, propôs-se um estudo para preencher tal lacuna. A literatura da área ilumina as iniciativas que tornam o conhecimento estruturado, explicitado, transformado em algum objeto ou dispositivo, configurando-se uma gestão do conhecimento reificado. A gestão do conhecimento pode ir além, principalmente quando se pretende preservar a expertise desenvolvida em alguma forma de vida pelos trabalhadores. Utilizando-se dos fundamentos da gestão do conhecimento tácito e dos elementos que emergem no seu entorno como percepção, julgamento e imersão, esta pesquisa procurou identificar a existência de habilidades tácitas em uma tarefa estruturada. Para isto, o estudo foi desenvolvido em uma organização pública de pesquisa e ensino de Minas Gerais. A parte empírica se deu por meio da análise de 96 questionários respondidos pelos servidores da área finalística e 08 entrevistas em profundidade com os servidores do grupo de contas regionais, bem como pela análise da tarefa de calcular o PIB trimestral do estado de Minas Gerais, procurando responder ao questionamento: por que esta tarefa não pode ser realizada somente por meio de computadores? Considerando ser esta uma pesquisa qualitativa, de caráter exploratório, ela se utilizou dos fundamentos da metodologia da Grounded Theory e do objeto teórico do Curso da Ação. A técnica adotada foi a análise da atividade dos servidores em ação, que consiste no acompanhamento, observação e entrevistas recursivas de autoconfrontação. Por meio desta técnica foi possível identificar habilidades tácitas que interferem na realização da tarefa. Com os resultados alcançados, concluiu-se que, além de não ser possível realizar a tarefa de forma totalmente automatizada, é possível trazer à consciência dos executores as habilidades tácitas que possuem para que possam ser preservadas na organização por meio da aprendizagem focalizada. Concluiu-se também, que é viável a implementação da gestão do conhecimento tácito em organização pública de pesquisa e ensino com vistas ao desenvolvimento de tais habilidades pelos servidores menos experientes, abrindo um vasto campo a ser explorado pela Ciência da Informação. / This thesis aimed at investigating the importance of expertise in the context of a research and education public organization. Due to the lack of deepened studies on tacit knowledge when it comes to Knowledge Management in the field of Information Science, a study was proposed to fill this gap. The literature of the area illuminates the initiatives that make knowledge structured, explicit, transformed into some object or device, turning itself into or becoming a reified knowledge management. Knowledge Management can go further, especially when it is intended to preserve the expertise developed in some form of life by workers. Using the fundamentals of the tacit knowledge management and the elements that emerge in its surroundings as perception, judgment and immersion, this research sought to identify the existence of tacit abilities in a structured task. The study was developed in a public organization of research and education of Minas Gerais. The empirical part was done through the analysis of 96 questionnaires answered by servants and 08 in-depth interviews with regional accounts group servers as well as the analysis of the task of calculating the quarterly GDP of the state of Minas Gerais, trying to answer the question: why cannot this task be done by just using computers? Considering that this is a qualitative exploratory research, the Grounded Theory methodology and the theoretical object of the Course of Action were used. The technique adopted was the analysis of the activity of the employees‟ proceedings in action, which consists of monitoring, observing and conducting recursive self-confrontation interviews. By this technique it was possible to identify tacit abilities that interfere in the accomplishment of the task. With the results achieved, it was concluded that, besides not being possible to perform the task totally in an automated way, it is feasible to bring the tacit abilities the executors possess to their consciousness so that these can be preserved in the organization through focused learning. It was also concluded that it is feasible to implement the tacit knowledge management in a public organization of research and education so as to develop such skills by less experienced servers, opening a vast field to be explored by Information Science. / Governo e Política