Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Nigeria is one of the most multilingual nations in Africa which consists of over 450 languages (Adegbija, 2004; Danladi, 2013). It has a population of more than 150 million people, with three major languages, namely Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, and a number of minority languages. Despite its linguistic and cultural diversity, English is the main medium of instruction from primary to tertiary education. The negative effects of learning through the medium of English second language (L2) are evidenced in the learners’ poor achievement in the external examination results of the National Examination Council (NECO) and the West African Examination Council (WAEC). There is an assumption that learners’ poor performance in English (L2) is due to little attention given to English writing in schools, and the use of less appropriate or effective teaching approaches (Babalola, 2011). There is a special concern about the poor writing proficiency levels of learners, particularly in the Junior Secondary School (JSS) phase which is an exit to Senior Secondary School level where learners are expected to show strong academic literacy skills. Writing is a process which is central to learners’ learning across the curriculum and it enables learners not only to access knowledge from different sources, but also to display the acquired knowledge in different domains. Learners’ poor writing skills are a great concern given that English (L2) is the main medium of instruction at all levels of education in Nigeria. In light of the above, this study set out to explore the pedagogical strategies and problems encountered by both teachers and learners in English (L2) academic writing in Junior Secondary School (JSS 3) classrooms in the Ekiti State, Nigeria. Guided by Second Language Acquisition theory, the study explored the factors that influence second language learning, in relation to the sociocultural and contextual factors that influence learners’ writing abilities. Through the lens of the Genre Pedagogical Theory and the Social Constructivist theory, it investigated teachers’ pedagogical strategies in English (L2) writing, and analysed learners’ written texts in order to understand the extent to which they reflected the features of specific genres that support learners’ writing skills. Four JSS3 teachers in three schools were purposively selected to participate in the study. The study employed a qualitative research paradigm, underpinned by the interpretive theory. Through the use of an ethnographic design, the day-to-day happenings such as thoughts and engagements of both teachers and students in the English (L2) lessons were observed and recorded by means of an audio-recorder in order to build a comprehensive record of the participants’ practice in the classroom. In addition, both semi-structured and unstructured interviews were conducted with the individual teachers. The students’ written texts and other relevant documents were collected and analysed for the purpose of data triangulation. Ethical considerations such as informed consent, voluntary participation, respect and anonymity of participants were observed throughout the study. In this study, the findings show that the teaching of English (L2) writing is still a challenge to many teachers due to a variety of factors which include linguistic, pedagogical and structural factors. As a result, learners’ academic writing suffers, especially writing to learn at secondary school level. Specifically, the findings of this study indicate that the teachers made use of traditional teaching approaches in the teaching of English (L2) writing as against the approaches recommended in the curriculum. The study also reveals that most of the JSS(3) students’ level of proficiency in English writing is below the expected levels stipulated in the curriculum document, although some of them displayed good basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS), Other contributing factors to the learners’ low academic writing proficiency in English (L2) include teachers’ limited understanding and application of the Genre-Based Approach in teaching writing, inadequate language teaching and learning resources, learners’ limited exposure to English (L2) and limited writing opportunities. The study concludes that while the use of the Genre-Based Approach is not the only strategy to enhance learners’ writing skills, the teaching of writing remains crucial as it is central to language use in different knowledge domains. Students’ writing proficiency is critical for cognitive and socio-economic development as it has implications for students’ access to knowledge and academic literacy which spills over to tertiary education. In a country like Nigeria where the main language of instruction is English, there is a need to prioritise teacher development and to revisit the curriculum to determine how it meets the academic needs of learners in this century.

Under slutet av 2019 påträffades det en virustyp (COVID-19) i Kina som kommer att förändralivet för majoriteten av människor och de organisationer dem arbetar hos. Den globala katastrofen har gjort att många har blivit av med sitt arbete och den ekonomiska trygghetensom skapar ett frodande land. COVID-19 har varit förödande för majoriteten av sektorer i hela världen där verksamheterna har varit tvungna att antingen permittera eller hitta en lösning till distansarbete för sina anställda. Denna omställning har gjort att många organisationer och anställda har fått ändra sina arbetsvanor över natt, där flera för första gången antar distansarbete i stor utsträckning som det nya normala. Verksamheterna som har gjort det möjligt för deras medarbetare att arbeta på distans har även haft problemet med att få allt att fungera som vanligt. Dock har den tekniska framgången inom kommunikationsenheter och system gjort det möjligt för organisationer att kunna bedriva sin verksamhet online med samma precision som innan vilket har gett förutsättningarna för att fler kan arbeta på distans. Nu behövs aktuell forskning om faktorer som gör distansarbete hållbart. Mycket forskning har gjorts kring distansarbete och dess påverkan på arbetstillfredsställelse, där arbetstillfredsställelse setts som en central del i ett fungerande distansarbete. Dock har få studier sett på personlighetens effekt på arbetstillfredsställelse, ännu färre under kontexten aven pandemi. Studien undersöker relationen mellan arbetstillfredsställelse och personlighet vid distansarbete under en pandemi. En kvantitativ metod användes i form av en webbenkätstudie med ett snöbollsurval på (N=91) respondenter. Resultatet tyder på en signifikant positiv korrelation mellan extraversion och arbetstillfredsställelse vid distansarbete under enpandemi. Skillnader urskildes i resultatet från tidigare studier utförda innan pandemin vilket motiverar att tidigare kunskap behöver ses över under kontexten av en pandemi. Äve nobserverades en generellt hög arbetstillfredsställelse bland respondenterna som indikerar på en lyckad övergång från kontorsarbete till distansarbete. Resultaten från studien bidrar till existerande litteratur, ger praktiska implikationer i form av förslag till organisationer för hantering av anställda på distansarbete samt förslag på viktig framtida forskning utifrån resultaten. / In late 2019 a virus type (COVID-19) was found in China which would change the lives of most people and the organizations they work for. The global catastrophe has caused many to lose their jobs and the economic security that creates a thriving country. COVID-19 has been devastating to many sectors around the world where businesses have had to either lay off employees or find a way to operate teleworking. This change has meant that many organizations and employees have had to change their work habits overnight, with many for the first time adopting telework to a large extent as the new normal. The organizations that have made it possible for their employees to work remotely have also had the problem of making everything work as usual. However, the technical success in communication units and systems has made it possible for organizations to conduct their business online with the same precision as before which has made it viable for more people to work remotely. Up-to-date research is now needed on factors that make teleworking sustainable. Much research has been done on telework and its impact on job satisfaction, where job satisfaction is seen as a central part of functioning telework. However, few studies have looked at the effect of personality traits on job satisfaction and even fewer in the context of a pandemic. The study examines the relationship between job satisfaction and personality in teleworking during a pandemic. A quantitative method was used in the form of a web survey with a snowball sample of (N = 91) respondents. The results indicate a significant positive correlation between extraversion and job satisfaction during teleworking in a pandemic. Differences were distinguished in the results from previous studies conducted before the pandemic, which justifies that previous knowledge needs to be reviewed in the context of a pandemic. A generally high level of job satisfaction was also observed among the respondents, which indicates a successful transition from office work to telework. The results from the study contribute to existing literature, yield practical implications in the form of suggestions for organizations on how to handle employees that are teleworking and proposals for important future research based on the results.

The coupling of the Standard Model top quark to the Higgs boson is O(1), which leads to large quantum corrections in the perturbative expansion of the Higgs boson mass. Possible solutions to this so-called naturalness problem include supersymmetric models with gluinos and stop squarks whose masses are at the electroweak scale, O(1 TeV). If supersymmetry is realised in nature at this scale, these particles are expected to be accessible with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. A search for gluino pair production with decays mediated by stop- and sbottom-squark loops in the initial 14.8 ifb of the ATLAS run 2 dataset is presented in terms of a pair of simplified models, which targets extreme regions of phase space using jet substructure techniques. No excess is observed and limits are set which greatly extend the previous exclusion region of this search, up to 1.9 TeV (1.95 TeV) for gluinos decaying through light stop (sbottom) squarks to the lightest neutralinos. A performance study of top tagging algorithms in the 20.3 ifb 2012 dataset is also presented, which includes the first measurements of substructure-based top tagging efficiencies and fake rates published by ATLAS, as well as a detailed comparison of tagger performance in simulation. A benchmarking study which compares commercially available cloud computing platforms for applications in High Energy Physics, and a summary of ATLAS liquid argon calorimeter data quality work focused on monitoring and characterising the sporadic phenomena of Mini Noise-Bursts in the electromagnetic barrel calorimeter are also included. / Graduate / 0798 / matt.leblanc@cern.ch