The aim of this study was to produce a grounded theory to describe the experiences of international students living in the UK and studying in a British university, and to understand and explain their behavioural responses to those experiences. Eighteen postgraduate international students were interviewed at a university in the south-west of England and the data was analysed using classic grounded theory methodology. The theory proposes that international students’ two biggest concerns are in regard to their English language skills and their detachment from home students. Students felt that their language skills were inadequate and they perceived themselves to be disadvantaged because of having to operate in a second language. They felt ignored when they attempted to reach out to home students and as a result they turned to co-nationals and recreated their home environment. International students were surprised at the size of the challenge they faced when they took up their studies and had to work hard to bridge the gap that existed between their academic and sociocultural skills and those needed in the UK. International students provided emotional, practical and academic support to each other but the academic support they offered to each other was not always good quality. International students engaged in a process of identity change during their stay in the UK which reflected the multiple and changing nature of their identities and during which they gained the skills they needed to be academically successful.

The aim of this study was to generate a substantive grounded theory to explain a variety of young people's experiences of football within and external to FA Charter Standard Clubs and Schools. A modified grounded theory methodology (Strauss and Corbin, 1998; Charmaz, 2000) was selected following an ethical commitment to 'listen to young people's voices'. This methodology was underpinned by critical realist ontological assumptions (Sayer, 2000) and reformulated according to Popperian epistemology (Popper, 1972; 1981). Ten mini-ethnographies were conducted in football clubs and schools in England over a period of 12 months. Data were generated through focussed group interviews with young people (aged 8-18), and participant observation captured in field notes. Over three increasingly deductive iterations (or 'vintages') of data collection and analysis, a substantive theory of socialisation processes in youth football was created. This abstract theory hypothesised that young people's experiences may be conceptualised as partially individualised responses to external influences, expressed as desires and concerns that may act reciprocally on the social context. More specific hypotheses (or models) were formulated and 'mapped over' the abstract theory. The relationship between stress, enjoyment and learning in youth football is explored in the first of these models, focussing specifically on the role of significant adults. Coach behaviour and its impact on the youth football environment is the subject of the second model, which describes an 'ideal type' football programme. Female experiences are the subject of the third section of the discussion which focuses on 'first contact' with football (particularly male domination in mixed football) and subsequent socialisation experiences. Here it is conjectured that the development of friendships and identity specific to football may increase the propensity to participate. The final model conceptualises socialisation processes for young players from black and minority ethnic communities. The problems of 'culture barriers' and institutional racism are explored before considering the role youth football might play in the wider 'integration debate'. Finally, some recommendations for policy change and for future research are offered. Here it is suggested that policy changes are monitored and evaluated with critical sociological studies focussing on young people's experiences of coaching and parenting and hegemonic power relations in female and multicultural football respectively.

As high levels of forced migration continue to challenge Europe, countries like Sweden are attempting to incorporate asylum-seekers into its education system. Over the past 50 years Sweden’s education system has undergone a unique shift from a centralized to a decentralized parental-choice model of schools. An approach called plural education promotes equity through shared experience and support for equity creating initiatives. Proponents of choice argued that plural education was maintained across the decentralizing shift in policy. Yet some evidence has begun to show that these values are not being upheld. Marginalized groups, such as asylum-seekers, appear to face a number of barriers to accessing the entirety of choices. In this qualitative study employing a grounded theory methodology, seven asylum-seeking parents were asked for their experiences entering their children into the Swedish compulsory school system. Semi-structured interviews explored the barriers, information and strategies each parent had for enrolment and school choice. Analysis found that parents had insufficient information for school choice, few strategies to find new information and faced a number of barriers. The implication of these findings are that these asylum-seekers did not have the support or knowledge to successfully participate in school choice and that education in Sweden may have weakened in its ability to promote equity for these respondents. / Samtidigt som stora flyktingströmmar fortsätter att utgöra en utmaning för Europa, försöker länder som Sverige att integrera asylsökande i dess utbildningssystem. Under de senaste 50 åren har Sveriges utbildningssystem genomgått ett unikt skifte från ett centraliserat till ett decentraliserat skolsystem baserat på det fria skolvalet. Ett tillvägagångssätt kallat "plural" utbildning har som syfte att främja rättvisa genom gemensamt lärande och erfarenhetsutbyte mellan elever. Förespråkare av det fria skolvalet hävdar att "plural" utbildning har kunnat upprätthållas efter systemskiftet till en decentraliserad skola. Det finns emellertid studier som visar på motsatsen. Marginaliserade grupper, som till exempel asylsökande, tycks stöta på flera hinder när de ska nyttja det fria skolvalet.I denna kvalitativa studie som bygger på en grundad teorimetodik intervjuades sju asylsökande föräldrar om sina erfarenheter rörande deras barns tillgång till den svenska grundskolan. Genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer undersöktes hinder och information samt strategier som föräldrarna hade beträffande inskrivning och skolval. Analysen visade att föräldrarna hade otillräcklig information gällande skolval och få strategier för att hitta ny information samt att de möttes av diverse hinder. Studien visar att dessa asylsökande familjer inte hade tillräckligt med stöd eller kunskap för att framgångsrikt delta i skolvalet och att den svenska undervisningen därmed har misslyckats med att ge dessa familjers barn en rättvis utbildning.

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As leaders of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), strategic leaders are responsible for strategising, the approach to which is influenced by their cultural paradigm. The effects of this strategising are manifested in the day-to-day activities of these leaders. This study aims to build an understanding of the shared cultural assumptions of strategic leaders in agri-based processing SMEs and how these assumptions affect the strategising activities that are adopted when addressing critical incidents related to the internal integration and external adaptation of the SME. Using Strauss and Corbin‟s (1990) grounded theory method, this study develops a theory titled Conveniencing the Family in Business, which is induced from critical incidents. A sample of critical incidents was gathered from 44 qualitative interviews conducted with strategic leaders of various agri-based processing SMEs operating in Malawi. This study found that strategic leaders display persistent and stable pragmatic business survival mind sets, but dynamic cultural assumptions about relationships with organisation members. The cultural influence of these assumptions is manifested in two distinctive and alternative processes making up the theory of conveniencing the family in business. These are the humanising and commodifying of relationships with organisation members, and they are evident in hostile and friendly business environments, respectively. Humanising of relationships with all members of the organisation builds and capitalises on inclusive, organisation-wide social capital that secures the future of the business. On the other hand, commodifying of relationships with non-family organisation members weakens collective support, which becomes mainly dependent on family and friendship ties. Thus, commodifying of relationships serves to perpetuate the close integration of business activity and family requirements to ultimately convenience the family in business, and represents the desired modus operandi of strategic leaders. As strategic leaders of SMEs have not yet conceptualised this, providing them with the conceptual theory developed here may be helpful towards a consistent re-orientation of the internal organisational support in a way that does not exclude but rather harnesses the wider solidarity of organisation members. The process explained by this theory is iterative, dynamic and distinguishes patterns of relationships amongst organisation members, which either enhances or compromises their collective support for the leaders and the enterprise. This by implication affects the performance of the enterprise. The results of this study are discussed from the perspective of social exchange and social capital theory, thereby contributing to the understanding of the strategising activities of strategic leaders, as well as the processes of building or destroying social capital in this type of enterprise.

Electronic learning (e-learning) has recently introduced by the Saudi government to expand educational opportunities at higher education level, especially for women. However, due to the status of women in Saudi society, understanding the ability of women to take advantage of such technology rather than just making it available to them is required and should not be ignored. In this regard, this study aims to illuminate the ability of Saudi women to convert the opportunity offered by e-learning into a valuable educational achievement, by identifying the factors that affect their ability and the dimensions that characterise their capability requirements. To achieve this, the study adopts the capability approach as a guiding theoretical framework to provide a strong foundation and address the developmental theoretical insights as well as to demonstrate the ability of Saudi women to access and use e-learning freely in order to achieve their higher educational goals. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data from twenty-four women living in the Najran and Northern Border regions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia using a proxy interview approach. Alkire’s and Robeyns’ techniques, with the support of the Straussian grounded theory procedures, were used to analyse the data collected. The study finds that the ability of Saudi women to convert the opportunity offered by e-learning into a valuable educational achievement is limited and affected by four factors: tribal society culture, cultural use of the internet, family willingness and government stimulation factors. It also identifies thirty-four dimensions that empower or prevent Saudi women’s freedom to access and use e-learning efficiently as a means to attain a valuable educational outcome. The value of the capability approach to inform an analysis on Saudi women's access to e-learning as well as the usefulness of applying the grounded theory to support the capability approach in the process of selecting the valuable dimensions for Saudi women to access e-learning, were also found. The study concludes that e-learning could probably be a bridge to enable women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to access higher education. However, the issue is not just about technical availability, it is also about the capability of women to benefit from such a technology. Therefore, it is not enough to provide Saudi women with an opportunity to complete their higher education via e-learning without giving them the power to access and use it freely, whenever they are able to and want to do so. The study contributes by helping to open the window in front of women so they can make their voices heard and draw the attention of the government on the dimensions that characterise their capability requirements to access and use e-learning freely, as well as to give a better understanding about their situation within Saudi society and its role in affecting their ability. It also introduces a distinctive analytical framework to combine practical and theoretical strands in order to develop practical capability approach dimensions.

Introduction: Professional development is an important aspect of working practices for academic librarians. In the past decades the academic library has been subjected to an enormous range of technological and cultural advancements that have constantly required its staff to develop their professional knowledge and understanding. One of the most recent revolutions has been the advent of social media. This advent of a new technology can provide challenges and opportunities but to fully understand these we need to analyse the relationship between social media and various context in more depth. Method: This inductive grounded theory study was iteratively conducted in three different academic libraries in England. At each location an analysis of the social media in use both organisationally and individually was made, and a purposefully selected number of actors was interviewed to gain a deeper understanding of their ideas about social media, CPD and the potential to learn from social media. Findings: The findings demonstrate that the managerial view of CPD is not necessarily compatible with the perception, or needs, of practitioners in relation to their professional development. To increase understanding of this domain, the study analysed the underlying factors related to both social media use and perception, and participation in and perception of professional development. This has led to the discovery of a theory that can be summarised as Continuous Professional Adaptation is learning that occurs as a consequence of professional awareness and preparedness through the use of informal networks. Outcome: The grounded theory presented in this document demonstrates a need to expand the dialogue on professional development in academic libraries, in both an academic and practical context, based on the advent of social media. Formal development in the shape of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is still regarded as the most relevant method of developing human resources due to the prevalence of a managerial approach to professional development. Conclusion: Increasingly academics and practitioners require more than the formal approach to professional development which can be classed as increasingly being irrelevant due to practical limitations of delivery time and mode and speed of changes occurring. This research contributes to that dialogue, providing a unique approach by incorporating social media with professional development.

This thesis presents research to build and evaluate embedding of a textual form of state machines into high-level programming languages. The work entailed adding state machine syntax and code generation to the Umple model-oriented programming technology. The added concepts include states, transitions, actions, and composite states as found in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). This approach allows software developers to take advantage of the modeling abstractions in their textual environments, without sacrificing the value added of visual modeling. Our efforts in developing state machines in Umple followed a test-driven approach to ensure high quality and usability of the technology. We have also developed a syntax-directed editor for Umple, similar to those available to other high-level programming languages. We conducted a grounded theory study of Umple users and used the findings iteratively to guide our experimental development. Finally, we conducted a controlled experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach. By enhancing the code to be almost as expressive as the model, we further support model-code duality; the notion that both model and code are two faces for the same coin. Systems can be and should be equally-well specified textually and diagrammatically. Such duality will benefit both modelers and coders alike. Our work suggests that code enhanced with state machine modeling abstractions is semantically equivalent to visual state machine models. The flow of the thesis is as follows; the research hypothesis and questions are presented in “Chapter 1: Introduction”. The background is explored in “Chapter 2: Background”. “Chapter 3: Syntax and semantics of simple state machines” and “Chapter 4: Syntax and semantics of composite state machines” investigate simple and composite state machines in Umple, respectively. “Chapter 5: Implementation of composite state machines” presents the approach we adopt for the implementation of composite state machines that avoids explosion of the amount of generated code. From this point on, the thesis presents empirical work. A grounded theory study is presented in “Chapter 6: A Grounded theory study of Umple”, followed by a controlled experiment in “Chapter 7: Experimentation”. These two chapters constitute our validation and evaluation of Umple research. Related and future work is presented in “Chapter 8: Related work”.

Gaps. Building an effective team and optimizing team functioning in sport is an important, albeit complex and challenging endeavour involving several processes (Bloom, Stevens, & Wickwire, 2003; Collins & Durand-Bush, 2010; Yukelson, 1997). Unfortunately, our knowledge of what constitutes optimal team processes, and how these are developed and maintained within specific sports, remains limited. Although several frameworks targeting a few or several group processes have been put forth in the literature, limitations regarding their theoretical foundation, comprehensiveness, and application have been identified. Collins and Durand-Bush (2015a) made a call for grounded theory research in order to provide an in-depth understanding of team processes required for optimal functioning in specific sports. Given that none of the existing frameworks in the literature have been developed using a grounded theory approach, and none have been tailored to meet the needs of particular sports, this type of inductive research is warranted. Aims. This dissertation had two general aims. The first aim was to critically review theoretical/conceptual frameworks in the literature directly or indirectly addressing team processes in sport and derive implications for professional practice (Article 1). The second aim was to use a grounded theory research approach to investigate (a) factors that contribute to the development and maintenance of optimal team functioning within high performance curling (Article 2), (b) strategies used by high performance coaches and athletes to optimize team functioning (Article 3), and (c) specific roles that curling coaches play in this process (Article 4). Methods. To address the first aim, a critical review of frameworks targeting team processes that were used to guide research and/or practice in sport was performed by first identifying frameworks by searching electronic databases, then doing a content analysis to identify specific team processes that were explicitly reported or could be implicitly inferred based on the literature, conducting a second level of analysis to extract broader team processes, followed by a third level of analysis to identify general themes, and finally comparing specific team processes, broader team processes, and general themes. To address the second aim, a constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006) was used to collect data from 19 high performance curling teams (N = 78 athletes and N = 10 coaches). Of these, seven were men’s teams, 12 were women’s teams, and the 10 coaches were men. Overall, data collection and analysis involved eight steps: (a) conducting interviews (face-to-face focus group interviews with teams of athletes and individual telephone interviews with coaches), (b) transcribing the data (c) reflecting and writing memos, (d) coding the data, (e) performing multiple coder checks, (f) verifying and re-coding the data, (g) developing the grounded theory model, and (h) verifying the model. Results. As indicated in Article 1, seven frameworks used to guide research and/or practice in sport were identified. Three frameworks were borrowed from general psychology while the other four stemmed from the sport psychology literature. On average, the frameworks targeted five general themes (e.g., roles/norms, personal characteristics), six broader team processes (e.g., establish roles, identify team characteristics,) and the outcome of cohesion. The general theme pertaining to roles/norms was the most prevalent one as it was addressed in six out of the seven frameworks. One of the least prevalent general themes related to goals; it was only discussed in two of the seven frameworks. Results show that all of the frameworks were developed using a deductive approach. Article 2 shows that developing and maintaining optimal team functioning in high performance curling is a dynamic process involving numerous factors that influence each other. The Optimal Team Functioning (OTF) model was inductively created to outline key attributes (N=4) and processes (N=17) deemed necessary by high performance curling coaches and athletes for optimal functioning within different contexts. The model comprises eight components under which attributes and processes are grouped: (a) Individual Attributes, (b) Team Attributes, (c) Foundational Process of Communication, (d) Structural Team Processes, (e) Individual Regulation Processes, (f) Team Regulation Processes, (g) Context, and (h) Desired Outcomes. The OTF model is unique because it is comprehensive, sport-specific, inductively derived, and applicable with a strong focus on actions. As seen in Article 3, coaches and athletes reported using many strategies to develop and sustain optimal team functioning. A total of 155 strategies were linked to the eight aforementioned components of the OTF model, which can be targeted when working with teams. Both individual (e.g., journal, apologize for mistakes, do self-assessments) and team strategies (e.g., establish a decision-making process, establish a support team, discuss leadership behaviours) were identified, some of which served multiple purposes (e.g., create a player contract). Unique to the present study was the importance of individual regulation strategies, suggesting that team building interventions should focus on both the team itself and individual members. Communication was involved in most of the strategies, thus methods aimed at enhancing communication within teams should be prioritized. Finally, Article 4 demonstrates that coaches played five major roles in optimizing team functioning: technical/tactical specialist, mediator, facilitator, manager, and motivator. Both coaches and athletes saw value in each of these roles, however, they did not necessarily perceive the importance and characteristics of these roles the same way. Perceptions were dependent on athletes’ needs as well as both coaches and athletes’ personal characteristics and competencies. In order for coaches to effectively help teams optimize functioning and achieve desired outcomes, specific training should be provided as both coaches and athletes reported that skills and attributes to successfully perform roles were sometimes lacking.

The purpose of the study is to investigate what preschool teachers associate with the subject of biology. The purpose is also to investigate how preschool teachers work with the subject of biology. The method semi structured interviews were done with six teachers in two different preschools in Sweden. The method was inspired by grounded theory. The interviews were recorded on a smartphone using a recording-app and then it was written down on a document. The results of this study are that teachers do work with biology in the preschool but they think they might do it unconsciously. The results show how the teachers are working with animals, plants, the human body and natural cycle. They read, sing and paint animals. The teachers really listen to the children’s questions and plan the work by their questions and thoughts. This study is relevant for preschool-teachers because the examples are from preschoolteachers on how you can work with biology. The results also show that the teachers associate biology with animals, plants, the human body and natural cycle but also that they think about the difficulty with the subject. / Syftet med studien är att undersöka vad förskollärare förknippar med ämnet biologi och vad de anser om att arbeta med ämnet biologi i förskolan. I studien användes individuella semistrukturerade intervjuer. Sex stycken förskollärare från två olika förskolor i Sverige intervjuades. Metoden var inspirerad av den så kallade grounded theory. Intervjuer genomfördes i två olika omgångar. Syftet med intervjuerna i första omgången var att ställa öppna frågor kring biologi för att sedan i andra omgången ställa specifika frågor för att få mer utvecklade svar. Intervjuerna spelades in på en smarttelefon med hjälp av en inspelnings-app för att sedan dokumenteras skriftligt. Resultatet visar att pedagogerna förknippar biologi med djur, växter, kretslopp och människokroppen och att de arbetar med biologi främst genom att till exempel läsa, sjunga och måla djur tillsammans med barnen. Resultatet visar på svårigheterna med ämnet men också på att pedagogerna tror sig arbeta med biologi omedvetet. Denna studie är relevant för förskollärare då exempel på hur man kan arbeta med biologi kommer från förskollärare.