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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Features of Dialogic Instruction in Upper Elementary Classrooms and their Relationships to Student Reading Comprehension

Michener, Catherine January 2014 (has links)
Thesis advisor: C. Patrick Proctor / There is widespread agreement that language skill underpins reading comprehension (e.g. Cutting & Scarborough, 2006; Dickinson, McCabe, Anastasopoulos, Peisner-Feinberg, & Poe, 2003; Snow, 1991), and empirical work over the last 20 years has shown positive effects of dialogic instruction on student literacy outcomes. This suggests the importance of the engagement with others in the learning process as a scaffold for academic literacy skills (Wells, 1999). Research in this area has shown a number of important features of dialogic instruction to be positively correlated with literacy skills, but it is still not well understood how teachers guide and support students in developing language abilities for reading comprehension. Drawing on dialogic theories of language and the simple view of reading model (Hoover & Gough, 1990), and using a convergent mixed method analysis, the study explores how features of dialogic instruction relate to students' reading comprehension outcomes, and identifies themes within the patterns and variations of these features during instruction. Multilevel modeling (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) and case study analysis (Merriam, 1998; Stake, 2006; Yin, 2009) are used to identify significant talk moves for reading comprehension and to qualify the content and function of these moves in their instructional contexts. Quantitative analyses showed five significant talk moves predicted reading comprehension achievement, including the rate of uptake questions, teacher explanations, and low-quality evaluations. High rates of student explanations and high-quality questions were predictive of lower reading outcomes. Case study analyses show a preponderance of teacher talk, a lack of quantity and quality to student talk, and an efferent stance (Rosenblatt, 1994) toward reading. These findings indicate a lack of dialogic practices across the grades and classrooms. However, there were opportunities for dialogic practices that support students' linguistic comprehension. Overall, this analysis showed mixed results for the importance of dialogic instructional moves, and indicates the importance of teacher talk to facilitate linguistic comprehension, as well as the promise of talk moves that incorporate student attention and participation around texts. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.
2

What does money smell like? : A mixed method study regarding scents affect on consumer purchase of high-involvement products

Hansson, Oskar, Åkesson, Elin January 2014 (has links)
Title: What does money smell like? – A mixed method study ofscents affect on consumer purchase of high-involvementproducts Keywords: Scent, congruency, consumer purchase behavior, consumerbehavior, high-involvement products, sensory marketing,marketing, causality, focus group, observation, mixedmethod, experiment, embedded design Background: To offer an experience means to activate the consumers’senses, and sensory cues in store atmospherics tend to catchcostumers’ interest and affect their retail experience(Sprangenberg 2006). These cues can be affected and calledsensory marketing, which by involving and stimulating all orparts of the senses, creates a more rich experience for the consumer (Hultén 2012). A more specific sense; the sense ofsmell, is connected to risk taking, variety seeking andstronger curiosity (Orth & Bourrain 2008) and also nostalgia(Lindstrom 2005). This depends on that these parts of thehumans’ brain is closely located to each other, and byunderstanding which scents that effects consumers and how,marketers can create favorable outcomes such as increased sales (Herrmann et al. 2013). Purpose: Explain how scent affects consumers’ in-store purchasebehavior of high-involvement products Methodology: A mixed method embedded design was preformed involvinga focus group, structured observation and secondary data Results: There were no statistical significance on consumers’purchase behavior when exposed to scent, and H1 wastherefore rejected Main implications: Suggestions for further research would be to try out otherscents that were not studied in this thesis, e.g. green apple. Also to have more variables in the secondary data, whentesting for the statistical significance
3

Organizational Practices Leading to a Positive Safety Culture: A Delphi Approach

Cwalina, Andrew Matthew 01 January 2013 (has links)
A positive safety culture has been shown to contribute to a firm's ability to avoid or reduce the occurrence of occupational accidents and injuries. In American workplaces alone 3,582 people died and 5.1 million people were disabled in 2009 and the cost to corporate America was $169 billion and an additional productivity loss of 95 million work days. The economic cost to each American household is about $1,200. Firms that establish and maintain a positive safety culture are able to achieve a competitive advantage in the market. While much research exists showing the relationship between safety culture and accident reduction, less guidance is found on how companies might achieve such improvement through cultural change. Attempts have been made to determine the factor structure of safety culture, that is, the identification of the antecedents of a positive safety culture. However, to date no general consensus has emerged among researchers about the exact elements of the factor structure. Research methodologies have been blamed for biasing the research results and thereby causing the lack of consensus. This dissertation uses a different methodology, the Delphi method combined with Hofstede's well-known onion model of organizational culture, to determine those organizational practices that lead to a positive safety culture. Delphi is a mixed methodology that begins with an exploratory approach followed by the more traditional quantitative method. The exploratory front-end was deemed appropriate given that prior traditional survey instruments most likely introduced researcher bias through a myopic view of safety culture. Delphi also differs by utilizing purposeful sampling versus random sampling which provides a high level of expertise to inform the research. After four rounds of inquiry with a panel of experts, a consensus was reached on 18 organizational practices that lead to a positive safety culture. This research adds to the understanding of safety culture, provides useful information for both practitioners and academic researchers, and offers launch points for extensions of the research.
4

Factors That Differentiate Persistence Beyond The First Session At A For-Profit University

Fernandez, Jesus 30 March 2011 (has links)
An increasing number of students are selecting for-profit universities to pursue their education (Snyder, Tan & Hoffman, 2006). Despite this trend, little empirical research attention has focused on these institutions, and the literature that exists has been classified as rudimentary in nature (Tierney & Hentschke, 2007). The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that differentiated students who persisted beyond the first session at a for-profit university. A mixed methods research design consisting of three strands was utilized. Utilizing the College Student Inventory, student’s self-reported perceptions of what their college experience would be like was collected during strand 1. The second strand of the study utilized a survey design focusing on the beliefs that guided participants’ decisions to attend college. Discriminant analysis was utilized to determine what factors differentiated students who persisted from those who did not. A purposeful sample and semi-structured interview guide was used during the third strand. Data from this strand were analyzed thematically. Students’ self-reported dropout proneness, predicted academic difficulty, attitudes toward educators, sense of financial security, verbal confidence, gender and number of hours worked while enrolled in school differentiated students who persisted in their studies from those who dropped out. Several themes emerged from the interview data collected. Participants noted that financial concerns, how they would balance the demands of college with the demands of their lives, and a lack of knowledge about how colleges operate were barriers to persistence faced by students. College staff and faculty support were reported to be the most significant supports reported by those interviewed. Implications for future research studies and practice are included in this study.
5

Describing Healthcare Service Delivery in a Ryan White Funded HIV Clinic: A Bayesian Mixed Method Case Study

Beane, Stephanie 13 May 2016 (has links)
This dissertation describes health care delivery in a Ryan White Program (RWP) HIV clinic, with a focus on medical home care, using the Bayesian Case Study Method (BCSM). The RWP funds medical care for uninsured HIV patients and Pappas and colleagues (2014) suggested enhanced HIV care build upon medical home models of care rooted in the RWP. However, little research describes how RWP clinics operate as medical homes. This study developed the BCSM to describe medical home care at a RWP clinic. The BCSM combines a case study framework with Bayesian statistics for a novel approach to mixed method, descriptive studies. Roberts (2002) and Voils (2009) used mixed-method Bayesian approaches and this dissertation contributes to this work. For this study, clinic staff and patients participated in interviews and surveys. I used Bayes’ Theorem to combine interview data, by use of subjective priors, with survey data to produce Bayesian posterior means that indicate the extent to which medical home care was provided. Subjective priors facilitate the inclusion of valuable stakeholder belief in posteriors. Using the BCSM, posterior means succinctly describe qualitative and quantitative data, in a way other methods of mixing data do not, which is useful for decision makers. Posterior means indicated that coordinated, comprehensive, and ongoing care was provided at the clinic; however, accessible care means were lower reflecting an area in need of improvement. Interview data collected for subjective priors captured detailed service delivery descriptions. For example, interview data described how medical and support services were coordinated and highlighted the role of social determinants of health (SDH). Namely, coordinated and comprehensive services that addressed SDH, such as access to housing, food, and transportation, were necessary for patients to focus on their HIV and utilize healthcare. This case study addressed a gap in the literature regarding descriptions of how RWP clinics provide medical home care. For domains with high posterior means, the associated interview data can be used to plan HIV care in non-RWP settings. Future research should describe other RWP HIV medical homes so this information can be used to plan enhanced HIV care across the healthcare system.
6

An algorithm of a fully conservative volume corrected characteristics-mixed method for transport problems

Wang, Wenhao 02 June 2010 (has links)
A basic phenomenon modeled computationally is tracer transport in a flow field, such as in porous medium simulation. We analyze the stability and convergence of a fully conservative characteristic method, the Volume Corrected Characteristics-Mixed Method [4] (VCCMM) applied to advection of a dilute tracer in an incompressible flow. Numerical tests for the optimal convergence rate match the results of our theoretical proof. We avoid the CFL constraint on the time step size and obtain a higher order convergence rate compared with Godunov's method. We describe the implementation of the VCCMM, where we feature and define a polyline class for the volume computation of trace-back regions. Some numerical examples show that large time steps can be used in practice, no overshoot or undershoot arises in the solution, and less numerical diffusion is produced compared with Godunov's method. An application to a nuclear waste disposal problem is also presented, where we simulate the processes of advection, reaction, and diffusion of radioactive elements in a simplified far field model. Finally, an extension of the VCCMM is developed for compressible flows, and a stability and convergence analysis is presented. / text
7

Trångboddhet : Mellan bostadsstandard och boendemoral

Ekstam, Helen January 2016 (has links)
Residential crowding is frequently associated with impoverished segments of the population, often living in distressed neighbourhoods, and with detrimental consequences for crowded households. The aim of this thesis is to apply a sociological and historical perspective on residential crowding by analyzing Swedish governmental texts and quantitative survey data. Politically defined welfare standards, as well as the subjective experience of crowding are analyzed and interpreted through sociological welfare and governmentality theory. The arguments justifying the official governmental standards on residential crowding – first formulated in the mid-1930s – are explored in a discourse analysis. The analysis shows that there is a strong link between what is regarded to be appropriate dwelling space and what is regarded to be morally good housing conditions. In the 1930s and 1940s experts’ decided on what was adequate dwelling space, however in the mid- 1980s experts’ ability to decide on dwelling space was highly questioned. Instead it became an individual responsibility to decide on how to reside. Hence, what constitutes morally good and morally bad dwelling conditions is debated and dispersed on many actors. Two parallel discourses on crowding, a ”gentrified” and a “distressed” are further explored by analyzing the data from a survey study. Subjective as well as objective elements are analyzed by relating socio-economic profiles of the crowded residents in a distressed and a gentrified neighbourhood. Despite income differences within the crowded population, depending on what neighbourhood you live in, the crowded residents in all neighbourhoods experience less freedom regarding their dwelling situation than do non-crowded residents. The least amount of freedom is experienced by those who are crowded both according to the Swedish housing standard and according to a subjective measure of crowding.
8

Sit-stand desks as a strategy to reduce sitting and increase standing and physical activity in office-based employees : a pilot RCT and process evaluation of a multicomponent workplace intervention intervention

Hall, Jennifer January 2017 (has links)
Current UK public health policy and research identifies potential health risks of physical inactivity and high levels of sitting. This is a particularly pertinent issue for office workers, who spend, on average, over two-thirds of the work day sitting. This thesis reports on the design and evaluation of a multicomponent sit-stand desk intervention, delivered within two not-for-profit office-based organisations in London, England. A mixed method study design was employed. A pilot randomised controlled trial examined the efficacy of the intervention on reducing sitting and increasing standing and physical activity, using wearable monitors to measure outcome variables at baseline, and at four additional timepoints up to 12-months following the onset of the intervention. A process evaluation, including in-depth qualitative interviews and participant observation, investigated the processes that influenced the feasibility, acceptability and efficacy of the intervention. Mixed-model ANOVA indicated that the intervention reduced workplace sitting, on average, by 38 minutes, however there was no significant influence on workplace physical activity, or any of the outcome variables across the whole day. The process evaluation revealed that discourses surrounding employee health and organisational effectiveness, and employees' health-focused occupational identities increased the acceptability of sit-stand desk provision, whereas monetary concerns, a centralised organisational structure and incompatibility of the sit-stand desks with the workplace environment negatively influenced implementation feasibility. The sit-stand desk design, expectations and outcomes related to health and productivity, and the organisational culture and interpersonal relationships positively and negatively influenced sit-stand desk experience to differing degrees between participants. Mixed method analyses of outcome and process data illustrated the potential for integrating findings to enhance understanding of 'what works' within behavioural intervention research. Sit-stand desks are not a one-size-fits-all solution to reducing sitting and increasing physical activity, however, they should be available to office-based employees as part of a wider workplace health strategy.
9

Student perceptions about learning anatomy

Notebaert, Andrew John 01 July 2009 (has links)
This research study was conducted to examine student perceptions about learning anatomy and to explore how these perceptions shape the learning experience. This study utilized a mixed-methods design in order to better understand how students approach learning anatomy. Two sets of data were collected at two time periods; one at the beginning and one at the end of the academic semester. Data consisted of results from a survey instrument that contained open-ended questions and a questionnaire and individual student interviews. The questionnaire scored students on a surface approach to learning (relying on rote memorization and knowing factual information) scale and a deep approach to learning (understanding concepts and deeper meaning behind the material) scale. Students were asked to volunteer from four different anatomy classes; two entry-level undergraduate courses from two different departments, an upper-level undergraduate course, and a graduate level course. Results indicate that students perceive that they will learn anatomy through memorization regardless of the level of class being taken. This is generally supported by the learning environment and thus students leave the classroom believing that anatomy is about memorizing structures and remembering anatomical terminology. When comparing this class experience to other academic classes, many students believed that anatomy was more reliant on memorization techniques for learning although many indicated that memorization is their primary learning method for most courses. Results from the questionnaire indicate that most students had decreases in both their deep approach and surface approach scores with the exception of students that had no previous anatomy experience. These students had an average increase in surface approach and so relied more on memorization and repetition for learning. The implication of these results is that the learning environment may actually amplify students' perceptions of the anatomy course at all levels and experiences of enrolled students. Instructors wanting to foster deeper approaches to learning may need to apply instructional techniques that both support deeper approaches to learning and strive to change students' perceptions away from believing that anatomy is strictly memorization and thus utilizing surface approaches to learning.
10

Mixed framework for Darcy-Stokes mixtures

Taicher, Abraham Levy 09 February 2015 (has links)
We consider the system of equations arising from mantle dynamics introduced by McKenzie (J. Petrology, 1985). In this multi-phase model, the fluid melt velocity obeys Darcy's law while the deformable "solid" matrix is governed by a highly viscous Stokes equation. The system is then coupled through mass conservation and compaction relations. Together these equations form a coupled Darcy-Stokes system on a continuous single-domain mixture of fluid and matrix. The porosity φ, representing the relative volume of fluid melt to the bulk volume, is assumed to be much smaller than one. When coupled with solute transport and thermal evolution in a time-dependent problem, the model transitions dynamically from a non-porous single phase solid to a two-phase porous medium. Such mixture models have an advantage for numerical approximation since the free boundary between the one and two-phase regions need not be determined explicitly. The equations of mantle dynamics apply to a wide range of applications in deep earth physics such as mid-ocean ridges, subduction zones, and hot-spot volcanism, as well as to glacier dynamics and other two-phase flows in porous media. Mid-ocean ridges form when viscous corner flow of the solid mantle focuses fluid toward a central ridge. Melt is believed to migrate upward until it reaches the lithospheric "tent" where it then moves toward the ridge in a high porosity band. Simulation of this physical phenomenon required confidence in numerical methods to handle highly heterogeneous porosity as well as the single-phase to two-phase transition. In this work we present a standard mixed finite element method for the equations of mantle dynamics and investigate its limitations for vanishing porosity. While stable and optimally convergent for porosity bounded away from zero, the stability estimates we obtain suggest, and numerical results show, the method becomes unstable as porosity approaches zero. Moreover, the fluid pressure is no longer a physical variable when the fluid phase disappears and thus is not a good variable for numerical methods. Inspired by the stability estimates of the standard method, we develop a novel stable mixed method with uniqueness and existence of solutions by studying a linear degenerate elliptic sub-problem akin to the Darcy part of the full model: [mathematical equation], where a and b satisfy a(0)=b(0)=0 and are otherwise positive, and the porosity φ ≥ 0 may be zero on a set of positive measure. Using scaled variables and mild assumptions on the regularity of φ, we develop a practical mass-conservative method based on lowest order Raviart-Thomas finite elements. Finally, we adapt the numerical method for the sub-problem to the full system of equations. We show optimal convergence for sufficiently smooth solutions for a compacting column and mid-ocean ridge-like corner flow examples, and investigate accuracy and stability for less regular problems / text

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