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Recently, task-based research motivated by a Vygotskian theoretical perspective has led to studies that demonstrate how the task-as-workplan is interpreted and reshaped by learners in actual performance (Coughlan and Duff, 1994). The ability of learners to set their own ‘tasks’ suggests that researchers need to investigate how individual students react to the tasks they have been asked to perform (Ellis, 2003). To date, there have been very few systematic studies on learner and teacher perceptions in this particular field. Four studies conducted by Kumaravadivelu (1989, 1991), Slimani (1989, 1992), Block (1994, 1996), and Barkhuizhen (1998) have shed light on the learner and teacher perception of classroom events. This study has continued the investigation into how individual students react to the tasks they have been asked to perform. In particular, it has focussed on four potential mismatches between teacher intention and learners’ interpretation of task, previously identified in a study by Kumaravadivelu (2003): instructional, pedagogic, procedural and strategic. The study aimed to look at teacher and learners’ perceptions and therefore a qualitative approach was used to gather information. The study was triangulated on two levels, using a variety of data (data triangulation) and different methods (questionnaires and interviews) to collect the data (methodological triangulation). Sixteen students studying for a Certificate in English at the School of Languages and Social Sciences at Auckland University of Technology were asked to perform a task and then complete a questionnaire which was designed to elicit information regarding the four potential mismatches, between teacher intention and learner interpretation, referred to above. Four pairs of students participated in each of the two tasks. Four students, one from each pair was then interviewed in order to elicit more in-depth information regarding the four mismatches referred to above. The teacher was also interviewed after the task had been completed. The student answers from the questionnaires were compared with the data gathered from the student and teacher interviews. The findings seem to show that two mismatches between teacher intention and learners’ interpretation were evident, namely instructional and pedagogic. There was no clear evidence of a strategic or procedural mismatch. Despite the small sample size, the study seems to show that mismatches are identifiable. Given the importance of perceptual mismatches and the fact that they are part of the practice of everyday teaching, it is important that we try to identify as many mismatches as possible in future research. It is reasonable to assume that the narrower the gap between teacher intention and learner interpretation, the greater the chances of achieving learning and teaching objectives (Kumaravadivelu, 2003).

Recently, task-based research motivated by a Vygotskian theoretical perspective has led to studies that demonstrate how the task-as-workplan is interpreted and reshaped by learners in actual performance (Coughlan and Duff, 1994). The ability of learners to set their own ‘tasks’ suggests that researchers need to investigate how individual students react to the tasks they have been asked to perform (Ellis, 2003). To date, there have been very few systematic studies on learner and teacher perceptions in this particular field. Four studies conducted by Kumaravadivelu (1989, 1991), Slimani (1989, 1992), Block (1994, 1996), and Barkhuizhen (1998) have shed light on the learner and teacher perception of classroom events. This study has continued the investigation into how individual students react to the tasks they have been asked to perform. In particular, it has focussed on four potential mismatches between teacher intention and learners’ interpretation of task, previously identified in a study by Kumaravadivelu (2003): instructional, pedagogic, procedural and strategic. The study aimed to look at teacher and learners’ perceptions and therefore a qualitative approach was used to gather information. The study was triangulated on two levels, using a variety of data (data triangulation) and different methods (questionnaires and interviews) to collect the data (methodological triangulation). Sixteen students studying for a Certificate in English at the School of Languages and Social Sciences at Auckland University of Technology were asked to perform a task and then complete a questionnaire which was designed to elicit information regarding the four potential mismatches, between teacher intention and learner interpretation, referred to above. Four pairs of students participated in each of the two tasks. Four students, one from each pair was then interviewed in order to elicit more in-depth information regarding the four mismatches referred to above. The teacher was also interviewed after the task had been completed. The student answers from the questionnaires were compared with the data gathered from the student and teacher interviews. The findings seem to show that two mismatches between teacher intention and learners’ interpretation were evident, namely instructional and pedagogic. There was no clear evidence of a strategic or procedural mismatch. Despite the small sample size, the study seems to show that mismatches are identifiable. Given the importance of perceptual mismatches and the fact that they are part of the practice of everyday teaching, it is important that we try to identify as many mismatches as possible in future research. It is reasonable to assume that the narrower the gap between teacher intention and learner interpretation, the greater the chances of achieving learning and teaching objectives (Kumaravadivelu, 2003).

No description available.

To create a much-needed program for training novice and volunteer English teachers, Dr. Lynn Henrichsen put together a team of interested TESOL graduate students who developed materials and resources for this purpose. Under his supervision and mentorship, each student helped with the development of units for a website and book titled, Basic Training and Resources for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (BTRTESOL). Recognizing the target audience as novice teachers with little or no training in teaching English as a second language, each graduate student approached the development of each unit for this BTRTESOL program with this in mind. These untrained teachers are filling the gap that exists in areas of the world that are in need of well trained, certified TESOL teachers but lack resources because of poverty and the large quantity of students wanting to learn English. Owing to the great demand for English skills and the lack of trained teachers, there is a great need for the resources that this program and project provide. My part in this program included the design and development of two units, "Teaching Styles and Cultural Differences" and "Understanding Students' Learning Styles." These two units seek to help novice teachers understand teaching styles, learning styles, the role of culture, and the cultural mismatches that may exist between a teacher's style of teaching and a student's style of learning. These training units help novice teachers learn how to identify, teach, and expand students' learning styles in order to help them improve students' learning. Additionally, the units include information directing users to other resources for more information on these topics.

There has been a debate regarding the extent of graduate unemployment in South Africa and how it has affected the youth. The main focus of this study was therefore to identify the determinants of employment status among graduates, particularly the length of unemployment endured by young graduates in South Africa. The focus on graduates was necessary, given the understanding that once one has a university degree, the opportunities to get a job are assumed to be high. It was also on the premise of the substantial resources that are invested in higher education with the hope of a higher return. The objectives of the study were categorised into theoretical and empirical. The theoretical objectives were: to define unemployment and graduate unemployment, review literature on various types of unemployment, conduct a review on the problem of youth unemployment from a global, regional and South African perspective, review the trend of graduate unemployment in South Africa, and evaluate the factors that affect graduate unemployment. The empirical objectives were: to determine the average time it takes a graduate to find employment measured in months, assess if the employed graduates are employed in their fields of study, determine if degree choice plays a significant role in the employment prospects of graduates and to establish the personal and social economic factors that determine the employment status of graduates in South Africa. In achieving these objectives, a quantitative research method was adopted. The study used 233 questionnaires collected via an online survey that was circulated to the alumni database of the university in question. The study employed descriptive, cross tabulation and a regression analysis to achieve the set empirical objectives. The study had a well-balanced gender distribution with females making up 58% of the sample and males 42%. The average time it took graduates in the sample to find employment after graduation was seven months. Further analysis revealed that out of the graduates that were employed, more than 70% were employed in their fields of study with about 27% in jobs that they did not study for. Additional analysis to determine the state of the graduate’s current job showed that many of them were in jobs below their desired field, suggesting a problem of under-employment. The results from the regression analysis indicated that age, race, field of study, major module and job searching skills were significant predictors of unemployment length. Religion, gender, and marital status were not significant in this regard. The study indicated that 11.2% of the surveyed graduates were unemployed and the majority were between the age of 21 and 24, implying that young graduates are more likely to be unemployed than their older counterparts. Many of those who were unemployed had qualifications in Humanities with majors in the arts subjects. The average job waiting period was also found to be the highest for graduates with these arts majors. An analysis was also done on the perceptions about graduate unemployment. The results showed that surveyed graduates perceived the lack of job market information, lack of job experience and not having political connections as some of the factors that influence graduate unemployment. In contrast, age, race, self-confidence and higher education institution attended were perceived as factors not having any influence on unemployment among graduates. The study therefore concluded that the most important factors affecting graduate unemployment are qualifications and majors held by graduates, which seem not to be aligned with labour market requirements. This provides an opportunity for higher education institutions to collaborate with the government and private sector to bridge the gap that exists in academia and the world of work. Further analysis can be done on a broader scale by increasing the sample size and doing the same study at several universities in Gauteng.

There has been a debate regarding the extent of graduate unemployment in South Africa and how it has affected the youth. The main focus of this study was therefore to identify the determinants of employment status among graduates, particularly the length of unemployment endured by young graduates in South Africa. The focus on graduates was necessary, given the understanding that once one has a university degree, the opportunities to get a job are assumed to be high. It was also on the premise of the substantial resources that are invested in higher education with the hope of a higher return. The objectives of the study were categorised into theoretical and empirical. The theoretical objectives were: to define unemployment and graduate unemployment, review literature on various types of unemployment, conduct a review on the problem of youth unemployment from a global, regional and South African perspective, review the trend of graduate unemployment in South Africa, and evaluate the factors that affect graduate unemployment. The empirical objectives were: to determine the average time it takes a graduate to find employment measured in months, assess if the employed graduates are employed in their fields of study, determine if degree choice plays a significant role in the employment prospects of graduates and to establish the personal and social economic factors that determine the employment status of graduates in South Africa. In achieving these objectives, a quantitative research method was adopted. The study used 233 questionnaires collected via an online survey that was circulated to the alumni database of the university in question. The study employed descriptive, cross tabulation and a regression analysis to achieve the set empirical objectives. The study had a well-balanced gender distribution with females making up 58% of the sample and males 42%. The average time it took graduates in the sample to find employment after graduation was seven months. Further analysis revealed that out of the graduates that were employed, more than 70% were employed in their fields of study with about 27% in jobs that they did not study for. Additional analysis to determine the state of the graduate’s current job showed that many of them were in jobs below their desired field, suggesting a problem of under-employment. The results from the regression analysis indicated that age, race, field of study, major module and job searching skills were significant predictors of unemployment length. Religion, gender, and marital status were not significant in this regard. The study indicated that 11.2% of the surveyed graduates were unemployed and the majority were between the age of 21 and 24, implying that young graduates are more likely to be unemployed than their older counterparts. Many of those who were unemployed had qualifications in Humanities with majors in the arts subjects. The average job waiting period was also found to be the highest for graduates with these arts majors. An analysis was also done on the perceptions about graduate unemployment. The results showed that surveyed graduates perceived the lack of job market information, lack of job experience and not having political connections as some of the factors that influence graduate unemployment. In contrast, age, race, self-confidence and higher education institution attended were perceived as factors not having any influence on unemployment among graduates. The study therefore concluded that the most important factors affecting graduate unemployment are qualifications and majors held by graduates, which seem not to be aligned with labour market requirements. This provides an opportunity for higher education institutions to collaborate with the government and private sector to bridge the gap that exists in academia and the world of work. Further analysis can be done on a broader scale by increasing the sample size and doing the same study at several universities in Gauteng.

<p>This Bachelor Thesis investigates the inherent conflict of preservation and livelihood, and what can be done to avoid this problem. The purpose of the study is to investigate if there is an enhanced risk of overexploitation in areas in proximity to forest reserves. This assumption is based on the fact that people living in close contact with nature are directly dependent on ecosystem-services for maintaining their livelihood. Hence, preservation of an area could result in degradation, if unprotected areas will have to sustain more people with, for example, firewood and pastoral land. Based on a field study in Babati District, Northern Tanzania, I have seen signs that imply that preservation of Ufiome, the forest covering Mt Kwaraa, has had effects on areas in proximity to the gazetted forest. The method used to conduct this study was semi-structured interviews with local farmers living in closeness to Ufiome NR, but also with district officials. Finally, I think that the solution to many of the problems that come with preservation are possible to handle by the use of Participatory Forest Management (PFM); Joint Forest Management (JFM) and Community Based Forest Management (CBFM). The key to coming to terms with conservational problems lies on scale-related solutions that focuses on implementing management of natural resources on a local level, claiming that fine-scale ecological issues are best dealt with on fine-scale social levels.</p>

Climate change has varying effects across the world. In North America, arid and semi-arid regions are subject to creeping warming together with more extreme climate variations, decreasing precipitation, and decreasing river flows that risk livelihoods of human populations living in these areas, and push their capacity to adapt beyond known boundaries. Environmental impacts act together with effects of socio-economic globalization and challenges imposed by institutional and policy events. These multiple forms of globally-driven changes interact with local communities and produce winners and losers depending on their levels of vulnerability and adaptive capacity, as well as on the specific stressors and shocks affecting the livelihood resources on which they depend. Rural communities often are hot spots of global change impacts because many livelihoods depend on the community’s natural resource base, and in several cases, they are also subject to market fluctuations and crashes due to their participation in international chains of food and producer goods. They will face a larger burden of the global change impacts due to this multi-tiered exposure. The socio-economic and institutional changes affecting rural communities have also produced de-agrarianization of livelihoods. Diversified livelihoods based on extractive industries and manufacturing or urban-based jobs coexist with traditional small-scale ranching and farming. In terms of water and land access and use, the modifications in user sectors and necessities, combined with increased demand by social and ecological components of the watershed systems, creates more complexity of environmental governance regimes and institutions. The purpose of this research is to identify and understand how rural communities of arid Northwest Mexico—with reference to the San Miguel Watershed (SMW) in central Sonora State—experience and respond to globally driven environmental, socio-economic, and institutional changes. The SMW is in a rapidly changing arid transboundary region, and exhibits a variety of institutional arrangements for land and water management, which makes it a case suitable for the study of adaptation in the face of global change. The study employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies in three municipalities representing the upper, middle, and lower SWM. Rural households and producers, governmental agents, and local leaders were the participants of direct data collection, while documentary analysis and a broader literature review on rural adaptation in Mexico and the arid Southwest United States complemented primary data. The main contributions of the research are: 1) identifying multiple types of rural livelihoods and their importance in understanding adaptation to global change; 2) emphasizing institutional events and factors acting as both stressors and regulators in these adaptation processes, 3) describing how interactions between institutions can produce diverse governance outcomes in terms of access and management of resources for livelihoods' adaptation; and 4) providing empirical evidence for improving adaptation policies in rural arid Northwest Mexico, and other rural arid communities of the world. The study also includes a series of findings and lessons regarding advances in understanding human adaptation in rural communities, contributions to the theory and methods of adaptation science, and policy guidelines based on the findings.

Les convertisseurs analogique-numérique à entrelacement temporel (TIADC) semblent être une solution prometteuse dans le monde de la conversion analogique-numérique. Leur fréquence d’échantillonnage peut théoriquement être augmentée en augmentant le nombre de convertisseurs en parallèle. En réalité, des désappariements entre les convertisseurs peuvent fortement dégrader les performances, particulièrement à haute fréquence d’échantillonnage ou à haute résolution. Ces défauts d’appariement peuvent être réduits en utilisant des techniques de calibration en arrière-plan. La première partie de cette thèse est consacrée à l’étude des sources et effets des différents types de désappariements dans un TIADC. Des indicateurs de performance tels que le SNDR ou la SFDR sont exprimés en fonction du niveau des désappariements. Dans la deuxième partie, des nouvelles techniques de calibration sont proposées. Ces techniques permettent de réduire les effets des désappariements d’offset, de gain, d’instant d’échantillonnage et de bande passante. Les désappariements sont estimés en se basant sur des propriétés statistiques du signal et la reconstruction des échantillons de sortie se fait en utilisant des filtres numériques. La troisième partie démontre les performance d’un TIADC fonctionnant a une fréquence d’échantillonnage de 1.6 GE/s et comprenant les calibration d’offset, de gain et d’instant d’échantillonnage proposées. Les raies fréquentielles dues aux désappariements sont réduites à un niveau de -70dBc jusqu’à une fréquence d’entrée de 750 MHz. Ce circuit démontre une meilleure correction de désappariements que des circuits similaires récemment publiés, et ce avec une augmentation de puissance consommée et de surface relativement faible. / Time-interleaved analog-to-digital converters (TIADC) seem to be the holy grail of analog-to-digital conversion. Theoretically, their sampling speed can be increased, very simply, by duplicating the sub-converters. The real world is different because mismatches between the converters strongly reduce the TIADC performance, especially when trying to push forward the sampling speed, or the resolution of the converter. Using background digital mismatch calibration can alleviate this limitation. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to studying the sources and effects of mismatches in a TIADC. Performance metrics such as the SNDR and the SFDR are derived as a function of the mismatch levels. In the second part, new background digital mismatch calibration techniques are presented. They are able to reduce the offset, gain, skew and bandwidth mismatch errors. The mismatches are estimated by using the statistical properties of the input signal and digital filters are used to reconstruct the correct output samples. In the third part, a 1.6 GS/s TIADC circuit, implementing offset, gain and skew mismatch calibration, demonstrates a reduction of the mismatch spurs down to a level of -70 dBFS, up to an input frequency of 750 MHz. The circuit achieves the lowest level of mismatches among TIADCs in the same frequency range, with a reasonable power and area, in spite of the overhead caused by the calibration.