The objective of this research study was to obtain a better understanding of the factors that affect lecturer and student participation in distributed collaborative learning assignments (DCLAs). A substantial number of courses worldwide have included DCLAs in their curricula in an attempt to teach students virtual communication and teaming skills, and to allow distributed students to learn course content collaboratively in a virtual environment. The execution and management of these assignments have proven to be more challenging that expected. Several attempts reported on in the literature had to be abandoned when cost exceeded the rewards for both lecturers and students. In a fouryear cyclical action research project carried out at the PETech (Port Elizabeth Technikon, currently part of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa), ICT students at several of the PETech campuses were required to complete a DCLA in virtual teams. This project also had to be terminated when it was realised that virtual team learning was minimal and the time investment unacceptably high. For the research study reported on in this thesis the data collected during the four “preresearch” cycles and the experiences reported in the literature were analysed. The lessons learnt were applied to a new additional DCLA cycle which formed part of an ICT course, although this execution still showed room for improvement. A second additional cycle was then executed which had a high participation rate and was overwhelmingly labelled by the participating students as a valuable and enjoyable learning experience. Analysis of the factors affecting participation in DCLAs shows that they are numerous and tightly interlinked, and that each factor is able to take on a wide range of values. This complicates descriptive reporting as each of the DCLAs was unique with unique outcomes and would have to be reported as such in order to iii ABSTRACT iv gain an understanding of the factors. Hence, a level of abstraction was needed, which was accomplished by applying the traditional Glaserian grounded theory method to the data collected during the four “preresearch” and the two additional cycles, and from the literature on the topic. The outcome is a perceived costs and rewards (PCR) theory for participation in DCLAs. As participation is crucial for the learning experience of each student as well as his/her team members in an action learning environment, deciding on participation by continually calculating the costs versus rewards became the focal point of the theory. To the best of the author’s knowledge this research study makes a theoretical contribution to the existing body of ICT educational knowledge in the form of a perceived costs and rewards theory for DCLA participation and a practical contribution in that it provides a theory that can be used to explain, understand, interpret and predict participation in DCLAs. This research study provides guidance for future research in both of these areas.

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The present study investigates whether individuals who are trained in groups will benefit from a more enhanced facilitation of the information than those trained in a more traditional, individualistic, classroom setting. Participants who learn in a cooperative, group setting are expected to exhibit better performance on a subsequent knowledge test than participants who learn individually.

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Today’s world of work, especially in highly specialized knowledge-based industries such as scientific communications, is increasingly complex. Leaders are challenged to drive growth through innovation. Cross-functional teams are challenged to bring innovative ideas to life. Despite a growing body of literature on team learning, current research does not extend to this highly specialized setting, especially around how innovation is implemented by cross-functional teams. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to discover how one cross-functional innovation team within a scientific communications agency learns, performs, and contributes to team and organizational outcomes, specifically what learning conditions are present and what behaviors are adopted. The research revealed how team members characterized their experience of cross-functional innovation teaming; what the team members perceived to be the optimal organizational and team learning conditions; what kinds of behaviors team members adopted to optimize their learning and performance; and what types of learning outcomes the team achieved. For cross-functional teams implementing innovative projects, conclusions were that: (1) successful implementation is facilitated by the organization’s approach to innovation, specifically their strategy and their support for cross-functional teams; (2) optimal learning conditions for the team are a shared aspirational vision, a climate of psychological safety, and innovation-responsive operating principles; (3) psychological safety and innovation-responsive operating principles facilitate innovation team behaviors of experimenting, crossing boundaries, and collaboration; (4) cross-functional innovation team leadership is emergent and may come from multiple sources based on the expertise of the team members and what leadership functions are most needed when; and (5) team outcomes include implementation of a new product, discovery of new ways of working, and team member satisfaction. Knowing this helps to determine what team learning models and research are most relevant to innovation teams in this practice setting and what additional practices or supports might be helpful to guide these kinds of cross-functional innovation teams and their organizations to greater success.

An experiment was designed and conducted to determine how knowledge diversity and assigned task roles for members in an online virtual collaborative group affects task performance and individual learning, and to explore the role of explanations as a mediating variable in these effects. The effects of knowledge diversity and assigned roles were examined in a collaborative network design-problem solving task, along with two control conditions to compare with individual work with and without self-explanations. Results show that explanations in dyadic discourse improve individual learning, and that groups with knowledge diversity tend to use more explanations than groups with assigned task roles. The results suggest that knowledge diversity and explanations are both important factors in determining how much individual learning occurs and how well it transfers from collaborative activities to similar, novel tasks.

Innovation is essential for growth, yet can be difficult to achieve due to the associated cost and risk. As such, organizations earnestly seek to adopt practices that positively impact innovation outcomes and improve innovation team effectiveness. Existing research has shown that team learning is an important enabler of innovation and that Agile software development practices have distinct advantages over traditional methods. However, little is understood about the learning dynamics of Agile teams, particularly in an innovation context where teams are focused on creating new product and technology solutions. This qualitative multiple case study explored the perceptions of software development teams at two leading organizations in the HealthTech and InsureTech industries, in order to gain a deeper understanding of and expand what is known about how Agile teams learn and how they leverage learning to innovate. Participating teams were engaged in innovation work and used Agile methods to co-create solutions with customers. The study used multiple data collection methods, incorporated cross-team/cross-case analyses, and featured an integrated theoretical framework based on three team learning models: Dechant, Marsick & Kasl (1993), Edmondson (1999), and Decuyper, Dochy & Van den Bossche (2010). Research results revealed that Agile teams learn informally, incidentally, and synergistically through eight dynamic, learning-rich, practice-driven experiences and that specific team learning behaviors and team innovative work behaviors that foster innovation are quite prevalent on Agile teams. Results also demonstrated that Agile values, principles, and practices shape and support team learning by creating a team-centered learning culture which facilitates collective thinking and action. This study sets forth a new understanding of Agile practice-driven experiences as learning-centered work and demonstrates how large-scale Agile transformation helped to facilitate the reskilling and upskilling of experienced adult learners. It also emphasizes the importance of strategically leveraging Agile team learning at both the team and organizational levels and provides specific recommendations for research and practice. Empirical insights from this study can prove valuable for leaders and organizations employing Agile methods, as well as researchers and educators engaged in the advancement of innovation practice, workplace learning and technology workforce education.

This dissertation explores collaborative approaches to policy and planning across multiple policy areas and stakeholders, and contributes to research in international education development as well as collaborative governance and management on the structures and processes through which persons work collectively-crossing institutional, sectoral and disciplinary divides-to achieve shared goals. Given the growth in policy attention and experimentation among countries to develop and implement approaches and mechanisms to facilitate collaboration across policy boundaries and sectoral silos, the specific goals of the study were to: (a) analyze how collaborative approaches emerge at the national level; (b) identify what factors support the implementation of collaborative approaches; and (c) assess how collaborative approaches affect systemic outcomes. The dissertation uses qualitative research methods of document analysis and interviews, and develops analytical frameworks to address the emergence, implementation and assessment of collaborative approaches policy and planning at the national level. Through its comparative case study of Early Childhood Development (ECD) in two Commonwealth Caribbean countries, Guyana and Jamaica, the dissertation contributes to governance and systems scholarship in ECD. In unpacking the stages through which the establishment of collaborative approaches unfold, the dissertation finds that political factors in the countries’ political contexts held the greatest explanatory value for differences in establishment, and specific drivers motivated progression within and between stages, for example, advocacy, and events that prompt collaborative action, recognition of interdependence, a prior history of collaboration, political will and leadership. The dissertation also provides a framework of the factors (i.e., contextual, structural, technical, and relational) that can influence the implementation of collaborative approaches and applies this framework to the case studies. Findings indicate that each set of factors was important in explaining how stakeholders were able to work collaboratively, but technical and relational factors were the most highly valued and least addressed in the case studies. Finally, the dissertation develops a framework that links key features of collaborative approaches to the systemic outcomes of equity, quality, and sustainability by offering analytical pathways to trace how collaboration can change the way a system functions-in the areas of system resilience, system integrity and system performance. The dissertation combines conceptual and empirical insights to analyze how the functioning of the collaborative entity and process in the case countries influenced their abilities to support equity, quality and sustainability at the systems level.

This essay looks at the language based disorder dyslexia and how it affects students’ ability to learn a foreign language. It will look closer at the strategies and tools foreign language teachers use to tackle the problems a dyslexic student may have when learning a new language. This research draws upon the interviews of foreign language teachers as well as the existing research on dyslexia and language acquisition. The main research questions of this essay are: How do foreign language teachers describe the disorder dyslexia both from a theoretical perspective as well as from a practical perspective? What difficulties do foreign language teachers have when teaching dyslexicstudent? What strategies do foreign language teachers use when teaching a student with dyslexia? By using the qualitative research approach, interviews, it was found that while foreign language teachers are aware of dyslexia they need to be given more education about language based disorders so that they are more equipped to help their students. This research will highlight the importance of giving foreign language teachers the needed tools and strategies to better support dyslexic students as they learn a new language.

The aim of this essay was to investigate how teachers in the preschool class work with literacy. How do they justify the methods used to develop children's literacy abilities? I also wanted to know to what extent teachers enable multimodal approaches within written language practices. My study considers the impact teachers' professional identity has on working methods in the preschool class. I hope this essay will help teachers reflect on their learning approach.I gathered information by interviewing three preschool teachers and one compulsory school teacher for the early years working in three different preschool classes in three different schools. The four interviews were transcribed and put together in an overview. I applied a socio-cultural perspective to the material and approached the problem by looking into differences within preschool-/school traditions from the 1800's to present day education. All teachers practised the phonics based method the Bornholm model to some extent. Rhymes were often used as well as computer writing. The motivation to rhyming was that the children seemed to enjoy it, while typing on the computer was justified by all children's equal right to learn despite fine motor skills development.The analyses showed that preschool teachers are more likely to enable play and include joyful learning situations in their teaching. Compulsory school teachers come from another tradition, and often see the year in the preschool class as a preparation for school. All interviewed teachers have a theoretical knowledge about multimodal discourses, but struggle to apply these theories in practice.