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This thesis reports on a qualitative study of student interactions in one grade seven mathematics classroom as the students worked through a series of tasks exploring multiple uses of variables. Student tasks were planned out by me, as the teacher and the researcher, and they were executed in my classroom, where I had worked to create a constructivist classroom environment. This study posed two research questions: (1) In what ways do student interactions during group activities promote the development of individual and collective understanding of the concept of variable? and (2) In what ways do student interactions during whole-class discussions promote the development of individual and collective understanding of the concept of variable? I used research methods in which I was a participant. Data was collected in the form of audio taped discussions for the participants (working in three groups of four). Audio files of class discussions were accumulated and stored for later review. Written student work and reflections were collected for all class members at the time of the study. From these data sources, the relevant data set emerged. Analysis came in the form of thick description of eight episodes of importance in which the multiple data sources came together to highlight how student interactions in the form of negotiations may have promoted a shift in understanding of variable. The data showed the complex nature of student interactions along with the potential benefits to student learning. The data showing these benefits were outlined as three patterns of negotiations. These were: negotiations with other students, negotiations with self, and negotiations with the teacher. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2008-04-07 19:10:42.808

This work is based on a study of the personal, family and social meanings associated with the pregnancy of adolescent (teenage) girls. / The most immediate goal was to acquire theoretic and methodological tools allowing to progress in the study of the meanings of pregnancy from the point of view of adolescent girls and in the analysis of the underlying semantic network. In particular, the research specifically explores and compares the meanings and the social representations of teenage pregnancy in low-income sectors, in the family and among peers. It also examines how these meanings and representations circulate in a non pregnant teenage group from the same social sector. / Family meanings associated with pregnancy have been studied through the pregnant and non pregnant teenage perceptions. / Social meanings have been studied from the interpretation that the social group of reference--peers group--gives to pregnancy, according to the perception of the interviewed girls. / The sample is comprised of 17 teenagers: 7 pregnant teenagers, 6 non pregnant teenagers and 4 teenage mothers in low income, french speaking sectors. / The methodology is qualitative and based on exploratory instruments. Interviews are semistructured. / The variables describing the meanings and social support figure prominently in the present study. / Research was carried out in two east-end areas of the city of Montreal.

Firstborns' behaviours were examined at different weeks of the mother's pregnancy. Their behaviours were compared to those of preschoolers whose mothers were not expecting. Eighty preschoolers participated: 20 from each trimester of the mother's pregnancy and 20 in a comparison group. At 16 and 20 weeks, first trimester firstborns had fewer difficulties with separation, insecurity, and dependency than at 12 weeks. At 24 and 28 weeks, second trimester firstborns were less dependent than at 20 weeks, and at 28 weeks less insecure than at 20 weeks. At 38 weeks, third trimester firstborns exhibited fewer separation and dependency behaviours than at 28 weeks. First and third trimester firstborns differed from the comparison group, but not in the expected direction. At 16 and 20 weeks, firstborns showed fewer separation problems than the comparison group. At 16 weeks, firstborn boys were less insecure than their counterparts, and at 38 weeks, firstborn boys had fewer separation problems and were less angry than comparison boys. It would appear a mother's second pregnancy does not appear to be particularly distressing for firstborns.

Personal laws regulate the family, which is the sphere in which Indian women experience the sharpest discrimination. Despite constitutional guarantees of equality and freedom from discrimination, Muslim personal law perpetuates the subordination of women within the family. The political manipulation of Muslim personal law reform by the State and by fundamentalist leaders has resulted in the marginalization of Muslim women's interests. This thesis focuses on the issue of Muslim women's equality within the family. It explores how arguments relating to 'religion', 'culture' and 'group identity' have been used to subordinate Muslim women. Their rights have been recast as oppositional to Muslim collective interests. In this context, there is a critical need to interrogate hegemonic categories that bind Muslim women to an essentialist notion of identity and deny the possibility of internal challenges to Muslim tradition. This thesis seeks to problematize and contest the exclusion of Muslim women's voices from the very discourse that attempts to define their rights and articulate their interests. It aims to reconceptualize and reformulate the frameworks within which inequality and discrimination are sought to be addressed.

A qualitative study design was used to describe the quality of life as perceived by spouses of persons who have had a laryngectomy within the preceding two years to treat cancer. A convenience sample of 17 spouses of individuals with laryngectomies participated in this study. / Data were collected through guided interviews. Data were analyzed according to Giorgi's (1985) phenomenological method of analysis. Spouses described their quality of life by referring to marital relationship, communication and life style. Spouses identified nine factors that affect their quality of life. These are stress, coping, social support, caring, knowledge, body image, uncertainty, emotional status, and physical function. / Findings from this study give the nurses an empirically derived perspective on the quality of life of spouses of individuals who have had a laryngectomy to treat cancer.

Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) are widely implemented in organizations today. Yet very little information exists about why individuals are attracted to organizations that offer FWAs. The purpose of the current study was to tease apart the influence of the dimensions of FWAs: flextime and flexplace (both structural and perceived), as well as the combination of the two on organizational attraction and anticipated organizational support. Individual difference variables that have the potential to impact individuals’ attraction to organizations that offer FWAs were also examined as moderating variables. The mediating effect of anticipated organizational support was also examined. Upper level undergraduate students (N = 190) participated in a 3x3 within-subjects experiment in which they rated nine hypothetical organizations that varied in flextime and flexplace. Results from multilevel analysis indicated that significant variance in organizational attraction as well as anticipated organizational support is attributable to the type of work arrangement offered (both flexibility in time and place), with flextime having a stronger effect than flexplace. Contrary to expectation, effects were independent; there was not a significant interaction between flextime and flexplace. The relationship between (both structural and perceived) flexplace and organizational attraction was stronger for individuals who prefer to integrate their work and nonwork roles. Additionally, the relationship between (both structural and perceived) flextime and organizational attraction was stronger for individuals who reported a stronger need for medical treatment. Finally, the relationship between perceived flextime and organizational attraction as well as the relationship between perceived flexplace and organizational attraction were stronger for those who reported more role demands. Contrary to expectation, sociability did not moderate the flexplace-organizational attraction/anticipated organizational support relationships. Limitations and future directions for research on FWAs are discussed.

Purpose: To investigate the effects of vocabulary, working memory, age, semantic context, and signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) on speech recognition in adverse conditions (multitalker babble) in normal-hearing listeners aged 18-35. First, a general hypothesis was tested that listeners with larger receptive vocabularies would be more accurate at recognising speech in noise than listeners with more limited receptive vocabularies, even when target stimuli are words with high lexical frequency. A second more specific hypothesis was that the vocabulary would be predictive of speech recognition accuracy when the signal was moderately degraded, but not mildly or severely degraded. Method: 80 sentences with a high (HP) or low (LP) degree of semantic predictability (40 HP and 40 LP) were recorded from a male speaker of NZ English. These sentences were used as experimental target stimuli, and presented in multitalker babble at four SNRs: -8, -4, 0 and 4 dB SNR. Thirty-five participants (11 males and 24 females, aged 18 to 35), with puretone hearing thresholds of 15 dB HL or better, completed the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) vocabulary subtest, the WAIS working memory subtests, and the experimental listening task in which they were required to repeat back the target sentences. Results: There was considerable variability between listeners in speech recognition performance, in terms of percent words accurately recognised overall (M = 45.8%; SD = 7.4) and for both HP (M = 54.4%; SD = 9.8) and LP (M = 35%; SD = 8.9) conditions. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that receptive (PPVT) and productive (WAIS) vocabulary knowledge, but not working memory, contributed 8 significant variance to listeners’ speech recognition scores overall and in both the HP and LP conditions. Further regression analyses at individual SNR levels showed that receptive vocabulary contributed significant variance to listening recognition scores in all predictability and SNR conditions except the most favourable (HP stimuli at 4 dB SNR) and least favourable (LP stimuli at -8 dB SNR) listening conditions. Working memory and age were not significantly related to overall listening score, HP listening score, or LP listening score, but age did contribute significant variance in the - 4dB SNR LP condition. Conclusion: The results provide further evidence that greater vocabulary knowledge is associated with improved speech recognition in adverse conditions. This effect was salient in mid-range adverse listening conditions, but was not apparent in highly favourable and extremely poor listening conditions. The results were interpreted to suggest that in moderately adverse listening conditions listeners with larger lexicons may be better able to exploit redundancies and/or intelligible ‘glimpses’ in the speech signal.

<p> This production thesis utilizes an artistic-creative methodology through the workings of both heuristic and hermeneutical approaches to explore the function of story&mdash;how we are told stories and how we retell them&mdash;throughout an individual&rsquo;s life. Furthermore, this thesis examines their role and effect on the mental-emotional realm. Through the craft of creating her own personal fairy tale by way of active imagination, the author offers an example of working with archetypal images (common to the author as well as the collective) to come into contact with unconscious drives and shadow impulses, confront their intentions, and ultimately come to resolution over their tensions, resulting in psychological transformation. This thesis offers a look into the importance of play, the imaginal realm, and the endless nature of meaning making and their relationship to healing.</p>