This study investigates pedagogical challenges posed by interdisciplinary courses using a mixed methods case study. Current engineering education literature describes many multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary efforts—curriculum, programs, courses, and projects—but lacks concrete pedagogical strategies appropriate to such efforts. In interdisciplinary courses, students represent a range of majors and often different academic levels. Consequently, they bring different disciplinary prior knowledge as well as different levels of understanding. This lack of common prior knowledge due to horizontal (disciplinary) and vertical (levels) integration creates unique challenges for faculty associated with both course content and instruction method. To address these challenges, this study adopted a mixed methods approach to collect quantitative and qualitative data in an interdisciplinary Green Engineering Life Cycle Analysis course. Data included surveys, observations, and interviews. The surveys addressed students' motivation for enrollment, prior knowledge of Green Engineering, perception of the course, reflections on course content, satisfaction, and content gains. Observations of classroom and team meeting behaviors, along with interviews of students and faculty provide complementary qualitative data. Quantitative analysis of the content knowledge data demonstrates significant gains for eight of ten concepts. Qualitative analysis shows that students also gained awareness of different perspectives from other disciplines. Qualitative analysis also identified key challenges for faculty in interdisciplinary settings: 1) structural issues related with organizing students from different disciplines with conflicting schedules and 2) disciplinary egocentrism of students through their education and training from in-major courses. The data also suggests teaching practices that have the potential to create new interdisciplinary pedagogies. / Master of Science

<p>Konsumtion kan vara allt från ditt köp av tuggummi, ett par nya skor, en gammal päls från 70-talet, en resa till Indien, till en kebabrulle nere på hörnet. Samtidigt innebär detta att du betalar för smaker, utseende, åsikter, upplevelser, känslor och kulturer. Detta är att leva i ett konsumtionssamhälle. Det du konsumerar speglar vem du är och hur du vill att andra ska uppfatta dig – alltså din identitet. Konsumtion och identitet är det vår antologi handlar om.Den här antologin består av fyra olika delar som alla belyser några olika typer av konsumtion. Det första bidraget belyser hur några unga kvinnor har klädkonsumtion som ett sätt att umgås. Den andra delen handlar om hur en grupp killar och tjejer uppfattar reklam och trender vad gäller mode och kläder. I del tre kan du läsa om hur några unga kvinnor tänker kring sitt val att handla kläder i second-handaffärer. Till sist kan du läsa om några människor som handlar i butiker som säljer utländska varor och hur dessa människor på detta sätt väljer att konsumera det som de upplever som annorlunda. Gemensamt för delarna är att fokus ligger på identitetsskapande genom konsumtion i dagens postmoderna samhälle.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 347-368).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1996. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 217-229).

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The complexity of human health and its determinants has been developing gradually and the means to attend to them has gone beyond the scope of a specific health discipline. Advocacy is underway by health stakeholders such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), higher learning institutions and individual scholars to incorporate interprofessional practice initiatives in health as a means of ensuring that health practitioners share ideas communicate and collaborate in order to put forward a comprehensive management plan for patients. These initiatives seek to ensure that a problem that could hardly be solved uniprofessionally is shed light on. The University of the Western Cape (UWC) is among the universities in the world that have incorporated an Interdisciplinary Core Courses Curriculum to be undertaken by all undergraduate students enrolled in the Faculty of Community and Health Sciences (FCHS) hence aiming at producing graduates who are collaboration conscious in their practice. This effort adds into the UWC’s endeavor of producing socially responsible graduates. This study analysed the UWC curriculum in order to ascertain its cognitive rigor for delivery of the interprofessional competencies. It further sought to identify whether the effort that the FCHS is putting through the Interdisciplinary Core Courses in having an impact on the perceptions of final year students during their field work placements in various health care institutions. The study also sought to find out whether the health care institutions practice policies are interprofessional practice friendly. Finally, the views and perceptions towards interprofessional collaboration (IPC) of institutional manager’s for institutions where UWC places more than one discipline of students for practice were explored.

<p>ADHD is a diagnosis which has had great increase among children in recent years. Research on and attention to this disorder have mostly been directed towards efforts related to the disorder in general and medication in particular. Little attention has been paid to the parents and their experiences in the course of determining the disorder from which these children are suffering.</p><p>Thus the aim of this study is to learn about the parents’ experiences from the point when they first noticed something “particular” in their child, and up to the point when a diagnosis was finally made. Nine parents have been interviewed, five women and four men. A phenomenological study has been undertaken, based on the narrative interview method, Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM), as explained by Wengraf (2001). The parents were asked one question, known as ”single question aimed at inducing narratives”. During their analysis, the authors have relied on Giorgis’ phenomenological analysis model (1985), with some modifications. The authors developed two more steps in the analysis model that leads to the discussion.</p><p>The application of these two methods yielded a number of findings. Twenty-six themes have been grouped into five main themes. These themes and main themes have been further organised in two flow- and interaction models, in order to clarify the parents’ experience of chaos. The parents describe a turning point when everything falls into place for the family. The discussion of the findings is based on Antonovsky’s theory of sense of coherence (SOC) (1991).</p>

The current cultural climate is stimulating an increasing interest in, and need for, collaboration throughout many fields of practice. Collaborative methods of art production are evident across a range of contemporary visual art practices and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration are becoming more available for artists, particularly those working beyond the gallery context. However, there is currently a lack of literature critically addressing collaborative processes in relation to visual arts practice. This research investigates strategies for interdisciplinary collaboration, which require different approaches than traditional, individual models of art practice. A visual artist (the researcher) adopts a practice-led, naturalistic methodology to investigate qualities and characteristics of the collaborative process and to develop and evaluate strategies for engaging successful interdisciplinary collaborations with practitioners from a variety of fields. A contextual review undertakes a broad review of literature and examples of practice addressing collaboration from the visual arts and other fields (including organisational and management theory). Key issues and approaches to collaboration are addressed in relation to instances of collaboration evident in the visual arts (collaboration between artists, collaboration in contemporary Public Art practices and interdisciplinary collaboration), and two main approaches to collaboration are identified: as a tacit method of practice and as an explicit methodology of practice. Three strands of inquiry are undertaken: collaboration in practice, collaboration in education, and case examples of collaboration. The researcher develops and evaluates strategies for engaging interdisciplinary collaboration with different collaborators in five exploratory research projects. Two projects are developed in an educational context to evaluate undergraduate Fine Art students’ experiences of collaboration. Three interviews with different visual art practitioners are undertaken to address their experiences of collaboration in professional arts contexts. A qualitative definition of collaboration, and a description of the main characteristics and key qualities of a collaborative process are obtained through a systematic, cross-comparative analysis of the research data (detailed project reports, pre-interview questionnaire forms and interview transcripts). These outcomes inform the development of a critical framework, which presents interpretative and evaluative criteria for identifying, describing and evaluating four distinct models of collaboration. The critical framework is primarily intended for use by visual artists as a tool for developing and evaluating their individual experiences of collaborative practice. The research contributes a new critical understanding of the ‘more complex’ model of interdisciplinary collaboration and addresses the implications of approaching interdisciplinary collaboration as a viable methodology of practice for visual artists, in relation to both professional and educational visual art contexts.

Type 2 diabetes affects 10% of the United States population, and patients with diabetes have an increased risk for diseases such as atherosclerosis and hypertension. Since all these diseases are associated with insulin resistance, finding therapies to improve insulin sensitivity could be beneficial for many patients. Studies have shown CYP450 metabolites called epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) positively regulate insulin action. The purpose of this study is to provide further evidence to support endogenous EETs regulation of insulin action in vivo and to determine how EETs regulate insulin action. To study this in mice, endogenous production of EETs was disrupted by deleting a major EET-producing epoxygenase, Cyp2c44.Glucose tolerance tests (GTTs) were performed with global and liver-specific deletions [Cyp2c44(-/-) and hepCyp2c44(-/-)] to assess glucose homeostasis. Cyp2c44(-/-) mice had impaired glucose tolerance, while hepCyp2c44(-/- ) mice had no alteration. This suggests that EETs increase insulin action but shows disruption of liver-produced EETs, where Cyp2c44 is highly expressed, is not sufficient to alter glucose homeostasis. Therefore, production of EETs within other tissues (e.g., skeletal muscle, vascular endothelium, or adipocytes) must be contributing to decreased glucose tolerance in Cyp2c44(-/-) mice. Insulin signaling in skeletal muscle has previously been shown to be impaired in Cyp2c44(-/-) mice. Therefore, we investigated the effect of endogenous EETs on a critical protein in the insulin signaling cascade, AKT, and a downstream effector, FoxO1. In the present studies, insulin-stimulated AKT and FoxO1 phosphorylation were unaltered in Cyp2c44(-/-) mice. Therefore the effect of EETs on insulin signaling in skeletal muscle could either occur at a different downstream AKT effector or within other insulin-stimulated pathways, like the MAP kinase pathway. Complementary studies will help determine the roles of gender, age, dietary modifications and other experimental conditions on these differences in insulin sensitivity.

The purpose of this study was to describe the interdisciplinary teamwork pedagogy of the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) training programs, specifically the content focus, instructional methods, and assessment practices. LEND programs are a national network providing long-term, graduate interdisciplinary training through federal funds from the Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal Child Health Bureau. This study used a mixed method approach to describe the interdisciplinary teamwork pedagogy of LEND training programs. The study occurred in three stages: 1) a survey of LEND training directors, 2) a survey of LEND interdisciplinary teamwork instructors, and 3) document review of the national LEND website and LEND program websites. Data were analyzed using statistical and qualitative methods and interpreted through the use of professional competencies, the How People Learn framework, and research literature. This study provides for an understanding of interdisciplinary teamwork within one national program in order to inform efforts for training, practice, and research.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.