This study views the Field Band Foundation’s activities through the lens of artistic citizenship. The aim of this study is to create an expanded theoretical framework for music education as/for artistic citizenship by analysing the related literature and data gathered from the Field Band Foundation in the Gauteng area. In Another Perspective: Music Education as/for Artistic Citizenship Elliott (2012a) gives practitioners three goals to realize if they wish to empower participants to achieve artistic citizenship. These three goals may be summarized as: 1) putting music to work in the community 2) infusing music with an ethic of care and 3) making music as ethical action for social justice. These three goals served as the initial compass during the conception and analysis stages of this study. This study was designed as an instrumental case study. The eclectic data set is made up of literature, interviews, documents, visual and audio-visual data gathered from March 2013 to July 2014. Atlas.ti7 was used to analyse the data. A preliminary theoretical framework was created from the literature. In this framework each of the three themes, expressed through Elliott’s goals, are expanded to include various categories. This framework was used as a priori codes to better understand artistic citizenship as lived in the Field Band Foundation. During the analysis of the data gathered from the Field Band Foundation the categories identified in the literature was expanded to include sub-categories. After analysing the data, gathered in the Field Band Foundation, an expanded theoretical framework for artistic citizenship was created. From the view point of artistic citizenship a community music education project, such as the Field Band Foundation, is shown to empower participants to achieve personal and communal transformation. / MMus (Musicology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This study views the Field Band Foundation’s activities through the lens of artistic citizenship. The aim of this study is to create an expanded theoretical framework for music education as/for artistic citizenship by analysing the related literature and data gathered from the Field Band Foundation in the Gauteng area. In Another Perspective: Music Education as/for Artistic Citizenship Elliott (2012a) gives practitioners three goals to realize if they wish to empower participants to achieve artistic citizenship. These three goals may be summarized as: 1) putting music to work in the community 2) infusing music with an ethic of care and 3) making music as ethical action for social justice. These three goals served as the initial compass during the conception and analysis stages of this study. This study was designed as an instrumental case study. The eclectic data set is made up of literature, interviews, documents, visual and audio-visual data gathered from March 2013 to July 2014. Atlas.ti7 was used to analyse the data. A preliminary theoretical framework was created from the literature. In this framework each of the three themes, expressed through Elliott’s goals, are expanded to include various categories. This framework was used as a priori codes to better understand artistic citizenship as lived in the Field Band Foundation. During the analysis of the data gathered from the Field Band Foundation the categories identified in the literature was expanded to include sub-categories. After analysing the data, gathered in the Field Band Foundation, an expanded theoretical framework for artistic citizenship was created. From the view point of artistic citizenship a community music education project, such as the Field Band Foundation, is shown to empower participants to achieve personal and communal transformation. / MMus (Musicology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if a select group of adolescents exhibited behaviors and practices regarding digital music discovery, production, and sharing that influenced their classroom music instruction. The qualitative study focused on ways in which a group of adolescents informally engaged with digital music in relationship to learning music in their classroom. A constructivist–interpretivist viewpoint framed the theoretical perspective that a person’s knowledge constructions take place within the context of social interaction. In the early 21st century, young people interacting via digital social networking can experience and share music in ways previous generations could not imagine. Peer learning and exchange occur when adolescents share musical ideas and digital artifacts. In addition, autonomous learning takes place while interacting with a digital device. I used Mayer’s (2002) cognitive theory of multimedia learning to support an understanding of the learning effects associated with content-rich digital experiences. Linking social-constructivist and multimedia educational theories provided the conceptual framework needed to extrapolate meaning from adolescents’ preferences, influences, and feelings regarding digital musicking. In an instrumental case study, I followed four high school participants and their music teacher over the course of 6 months. The data consisted of participants’ detailed reflections and perspectives regarding digital music media discovery, production, and sharing. Detailed accounts collected from interviews and observations illustrated the behaviors of the participants, building a thick description. Although the research focused on adolescents, viewpoints of others emerged throughout the study, including those of peers, colleagues, and family members. Consequently, the investigation also considered what music teachers understood about their students’ out of school digital music discovery, production, and sharing. Findings show the convergence and divergence of digital music engagement in a high school music setting. Themes of experiencing music for personal identity, creativity, and popular culture intermix in classroom and informal learning environments. I present outcomes indicating direct implications for music curriculum development and suggest paths to connect in school and out of school music learning via digital music experiences. This study might help contemporary music teachers take advantage of students’ out of school digital music media practices to strengthen in school music programs.

Since Web-based interventions have a significantly high rate of attrition ranging from 99.5% to 77.5%, the researcher employed an instrumental case study approach to understand compliance in a Web-portal. The specific issue for this study was attrition rates and how SCT constructs affected eating competence. Qualitative data provided ground zero insight to a complex issue that was further understood. To better understand the phenomenon, participants that registered for the 30-day study and the software developer were interviewed. All interviews (n=6) were transcribed and data from the transcriptions were transformed from dialogues, into categories, then themes, and finally into concepts. Five guidelines to keep attrition rates low was the outcome of the data analysis. Having a nation interested in the Internet and at the same time faced with an obesity epidemic seemed to be a good fit for researching a method to promote eating competence with interactive technology. Eating competence intertwines four components: (1) attitudes about eating and the enjoyment of food (2) accepting new food to add variety to your diet (3) being able to eat the right amount of food and (4) being able to manage food through proper planning, storing, preparing, and offering. With the above information extracted from the literature, it was determined, a serious enough problem existed to justify spending time, money and other resources to develop and implement an intervention. The theoretical framework supporting the development of the web portal is the social cognitive theory (SCT). In health promotion, the purpose of the SCT is to help people stay healthy through good self-management of health habits. This dissertation focused on four constructs: self-efficacy, behavioral capabilities, observational learning, and reinforcement to better understand how eating competence skills were enhanced and attrition rates lowered.

In the last 20 years, the number of incidents involving police use of force (UOF) has nearly doubled in Canada (Marcoux & Nicholson, 2018). There have been at least 460 documented fatal police encounters across Canada between the years 2000 and 2017 and at least 1,860 police UOF investigations specifically in Ontario (Dunn, 2018; Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2018). According to a 2019 annual report by Ottawa Police Service (OPS, 2019), a municipal police service in Ontario, between the years 2018 and 2019, OPS reported a 21% decrease (from 767 to 607) of applications of force among officers and a 15% increase (from 529 to 609) of UOF reports. Although the latter data is relevant to Ottawa, to better understand and potentially minimize negative police-civilian encounters, both specifically and on a larger scale, this Canadian-focused study centers on policing as well as the context at OPS and explores the extent to which professional education (PE) influences professional practice (PP). It does so by reviewing OPS’s UOF training and gathering perspectives from patrol officers and UOF educators. Using a qualitative instrumental case study (QICS) research design, the study analyzes the UOF training materials that OPS used to certify and recertify officers between the years 2010 and 2021. It also incorporates semi-structured interviews with officers and educators to gather insights on how participants define UOF, their perspectives on their pre-service and in-service training, as well as how they relate their PE to their police-civilian encounters, particularly when they used or did not use force. A document analysis of the data revealed that OPS’s UOF training uses both traditional as well as progressive and collaborative approaches to educate and relate to officers. Such approaches also aim to promote appropriate communication and de-escalation skills. At the same time, the learning objectives found in the lesson plans lack the detail needed to signify that officers have achieved the intended goal of the training. Among the important themes that emerged from the interviews were 1) the differences in priorities, between the officers and educators, concerning UOF training, 2) the value that officers place on their instructors’ experiences, 3) the challenges that educators face while adhering to provincial expectations, and 4) the integral role that training and life experiences play during police-civilian encounters. The relevance of social media was another significant theme that emerged within the study, particularly considering the participants’ views on the current social climate of policing (i.e., how the public perceives the police as well as the contentious debate about defunding the police). With limited research on police perspectives and issues specific to policing in Canada, the present study, by virtue of access to OPS’s training materials, patrol officers and UOF instructors, seeks to initiate rich and meaningful discussions about PE and PP. It also aims to encourage reflection among educators, policy-makers and society so as to address and deepen our understanding of issues related to education.

Collaborative models of teacher education have grown from the belief that through such models we can improve the quality and availability of truly inclusive opportunities for children with diverse abilities and their families. Little is known however as to the extent collaborative models are capable of influencing inclusive service delivery or in terms of their efficacy to impact the relative inclusive practice of their graduates as compared to other models of teacher education. As an important first step toward examining the relative worth and efficacy of collaborative models of early childhood teacher education, this case study applied a conceptual framework derived from activity systems theory (Engeström, 1987; 1999) and the recommended research framework for investigation into collaborative models (Pugach & Blanton, 2009) to consider one such teacher education program as a system. Doing so offers the literature a description of one program's parameters of practice and efforts to produce effective, inclusive teachers and leaders through a collaborative approach; something that was previously lacking in the literature base. Working to understand how this teacher education program operates as a system helped characterize the parameters of practice specific to collaborative program dimensions. Elements of harmony and tension as well as cultural tools specific to the program's attempts to meet its object and ultimate outcome per activity theory were also identified. Finally, case study analysis of this particular program through the conceptual framework provided insight related to current and future efforts of collaborative early childhood teacher education and broader teacher education reform

Although aggression as social phenomenon is widely researched, this research study aimed to illuminate the importance of early identification of excessively aggressive children specifically. The aim was to explore and gain an in-depth understanding of excessive aggressive behaviour during the preschool years. A qualitative research methodology was employed consisting of a parent interview, observations of the research participant and numerous play sessions consisting of various activities including free drawings; ‘Draw-a-Person ‘, a family drawing; the ‘Children’s Apperception Test’, and free play activities. The study explored various factors possibly leading to the onset and continuation of excessive aggressive behaviour. It seems clear that no single factor is responsible for the display of excessive aggression, but rather, multiple factors contribute to the problem of aggression as a whole. Play therapy is suggested as an effective method in the assessment and counselling of excessive aggressive behaviour in preschool children / Psychology / M.Sc. (Psychology)

This applied dissertation is an instrumental case study based on diffusion of innovations theory designed to gather student opinions regarding videoconference (VC) technology use in facilitating courses to undergraduate degree-seeking nursing students. The author of diffusion of innovations theory, Rogers (2003), recommended that more qualitative studies be conducted in education. Rogers and Jain (1968) recommended these studies should be conducted from the aspect of “receivers of innovation diffusion” (p.1) to provide feedback instrumental to implementation of technological innovations in academe. Further, Rogers stated that multiple data points should be used during the process of trialing an innovation. Therefore, a current VC course was selected from the nursing curriculum of a public state college hosting one of the largest nursing programs in the southeastern United States in which to conduct the study. A total of 32 students participated divided equally between two sites: Main campus and Regional campus. Further divided, 22 personal interviews were conducted and two focus groups; one for each campus consisting 5 students each. Additionally, included in the data corpus were 40 hours of classroom observation plus, college provided end of course (EOC) summary statements. These data were triangulated to determine whether students would accept VC technology unchanged, accept with modifications, or reject VC technology based on first time exposure to the innovation during the 16-week semester. Student innovation decisions were: 6 students accepted unchanged, 14 students accepted with modifications, and 12 students rejected the innovation. Students who rejected the innovation were exclusively from the regional campus, which was the receiving site the majority of the semester. First and second-cycle analyses yielded 67 codes resulting in 5 categories, which further developed into 3 emerging themes: (a) Interaction with instructors, materials, and distant students are key elements affecting adoption decisions of students regarding VC technology; (b) Student adoption decisions are influenced by faculty members in their use of VC technology; and (c) Student opinions indicate that reinvention is necessary for VC technology to be fully adopted into the present nursing program. The five categories: Interaction, equipment, teaching methodology, instructor technology training, and student orientation provided ample detail from which to inform practice regarding recommendations for reinvention (modification) of VC technology during the implementation stage of Rogers’ five stages of the innovation-decision model. These modifications could assist the college in gaining parity between the two nursing sites, which reported an 18.53 percentage point difference in first time pass rates on the NCLEX-RN exam reported by the Florida Department of Health (Florida Health, 2015).

This study examines the ways visual culture influences a child's drawings. The child is my 9-year-old daughter Nada, who was born in Saudi Arabia and is a fourth-grade student temporarily living in the United States. The study uses qualitative methods of data collection and exploratory case study research design as a methodology. The data were analyzed in light of Althusser's theory of ideology, specifically the notion of interpellation, along with visual culture theories. In addition, gender performativity theory, specifically the work of Judith Butler, was used to consider gender issues when these concerns emerged from the study. Nada has been exposed to two diverse cultures, those of Saudi Arabia and the United States. Both cultures may impact Nada's interpretations of her visual surroundings in various ways. Therefore, recognizing and examining how she interacts with US visual culture might help to uncover how such interactions constitute the basis of her perceptions, identities, and critical thinking. Drawing is not only a means of self-expression but also an important function of communication, identity formation, and represents possible ways of being in the world that are related to culture, community, and society as a whole. The study begins with the premise that there is a gap in understanding between the importance of visual culture and its insufficient application in Saudi Arabian art education. The implications of this study may be informative for Saudi Arabian educators, individuals, or groups interested in visual culture education and children's drawings; potentially, the Saudi Arabian educational system may also use this study to enhance its appreciation of the impact of visual culture on the creation of art and knowledge.