Submitted by William Paiva (williampaiva17@hotmail.com) on 2015-05-05T18:39:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Suzi Samá Pinto.pdf: 1382572 bytes, checksum: 26740169e54591b7b79c85d3577daf6a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vitor de Carvalho (vitor_carvalho_im@hotmail.com) on 2015-05-08T15:41:49Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Suzi Samá Pinto.pdf: 1382572 bytes, checksum: 26740169e54591b7b79c85d3577daf6a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-08T15:41:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Suzi Samá Pinto.pdf: 1382572 bytes, checksum: 26740169e54591b7b79c85d3577daf6a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / As transformações que a sociedade vem passando ao longo do tempo atreladas aos avanços tecnológicos provocaram mudanças no comportamento e na cultura que impulsionaram novas relações entre os indivíduos e o meio em que vivem. Consequentemente, os espaços e tempos educativos, profissionais e sociais estão sendo transformados e apontam à necessidade de formar indivíduos capazes de aprender ao longo da vida, o que leva ao repensar das metodologias educacionais. Nesse cenário, insere-se a Educação a Distância (EaD) imbricada nas tecnologias digitais, apresentando-se como uma forma de propiciar a construção de espaços de aprendizagem que possam atender às novas demandas educacionais. O entrelaçar das inquietações, da autora desta tese, da prática docente na modalidade presencial com o experienciar da modalidade a distância impulsionam o estudo que fundamenta este trabalho, bem como a construção de seu objetivo: compreender o operar da modalidade a distância a partir da percepção dos estudantes de graduação, por meio da elaboração/análise/reestruturação de um instrumento que se constitui pela abordagem multimétodos. A intenção é identificar as possibilidades e as dificuldades encontradas no decorrer dos cursos e apontar as potencialidades ainda não exploradas, de forma a oferecer subsídios para buscar o constante aperfeiçoamento dessa modalidade de ensino. As reflexões tecidas ao longo desta tese são apoiadas na Teoria da Biologia do Conhecer, proposta por Maturana e Varela, a qual sustenta o olhar lançado sobre a modalidade a distância e a interpretação do corpus de análise, bem como auxilia na compreensão sobre fazer ciência. Para alcançar o objetivo desta pesquisa, foi construído um instrumento com questões abertas e fechadas, o qual foi respondido pelos estudantes de graduação e analisado a partir da abordagem multimétodos numa opção metodológica permeada pela objetividade entre parênteses. A escolha dessa abordagem foi incitada pelo desejo de buscar o diálogo entre a análise qualitativa e quantitativa, através de seu entrelaçamento, explorando, assim, as diferentes perspectivas de cada uma, a fim de compreender e aprofundar os vários aspectos do fenômeno a explicar. Pela análise, pode-se observar: que a necessidade de superar o individualismo no trabalho docente e aprender a lidar com as diferenças individuais dos estudantes é um processo que se efetivará no fazer e refletir sobre o fazer dessa modalidade; a apropriação da diversidade das formas de ensinar e aprender mediadas pela tecnologia ainda é um vivenciar e que se está construindo no conviver nessa modalidade; as distâncias físicas estão sendo suplantadas pelos diálogos virtuais e que a emoção expressa pela escrita tem consequências no processo de aprender e na superação do sentimento de isolamento por parte dos estudantes. Realizar esta pesquisa com base na Teoria da Biologia do Conhecer permitiu compreender que, para estudar esse operar nas instituições, é necessário estar imerso no fazer da educação a distância a fim de construir instrumentos e realizar análises que permitam a sua distinção, ou seja, é necessário ser um observador implicado para gerar um explicar argumentativo e consciente de sua corresponsabilidade. / The transformation that the society has gone through along with technological advances has led to behavioral and cultural changes which have triggered new relationships among individuals and the environment they live in. As a result, educative, professional and social spaces and time have been transformed and have pointed out the need to develop individuals who are able to learn throughout their lives. Such fact makes us rethink educational methodologies. Online Education (OE) fits into this scenario; it is embedded in digital technologies and arises as a way to enable the construction of learning spaces which can meet new educational requirements. My uneasiness regarding my presencial teaching practice intertwined with an experience with online teaching triggered not only the study this dissertation was based on but also the construction of its objective: to understand how online education works, in college students’ perception, with the help of a tool which was made/analyzed/restructured in the light of the multimethod approach. It aimed at identifying the possibilities and difficulties that were found in the college courses and highlighting potentialities that had not been explored yet, so that constant improvement of this way of teaching could be achieved. My reflections along this study were based on the Theory of the Biology of Knowledge, Maturana and Varela’s proposal which supports online education and the interpretation of the corpus of analysis, besides helping us understand how to make science. In order to reach the objective of this research, a tool with open and closed questions was answered by college students; it was then analyzed in the light of the multimethod approach in a methodological choice permeated by objectivity in parentheses. This choice resulted from the desire to promote a dialogue between the qualitative and the quantitative analyses, a weaving process which explored their different perspectives and led to the comprehension of the diverse aspects of the phenomenon under investigation. The analysis showed that: the need to overcome individualism in the teaching practice and learn how to cope with students’ individual differences is a process that happens when people work and reflect upon this way of teaching; getting used to the diversity of teaching and learning practices mediated by the technology results in an experience that is constructed while people experience and share this way of teaching; physical distances are diminished by virtual dialogues and emotion expressed in writing affects learning processes and helps students overcome loneliness. Carrying out this research based on the Theory of the Biology of Knowledge enabled me to understand that, in order to study this process in institutions, it is necessary to be involved in online education so that tools can be constructed and analyses can focus on its differences, i. e., the observer must dive into it to generate argumentative and conscious explanations regarding his/her co-responsibility.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:38:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ChristianaCP_TESE.pdf: 2108734 bytes, checksum: 102e886b7f28f0cd367708f6a4bf60ec (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-09-23 / Funda??o de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado da Bahia / This study aimed at exploring and describing children s perceptions in threatened natural settings, specifically, the Rain Forest in Brazil. Several studies point to the significance of perceptions for people s pro-environmental attitudes and actions. We try to understand the person-environment interaction from an ecological perspective, and we present theoretical references for the understanding of how crucial nature is for psychological development and well-being. The children s drawings, individual interviews, discussion groups, photographies and informal and indirect sources, as teachers, brought material for the analysis. Participated in our study, carried on through a multi-method strategy, 209 children from six to eleven years old, living in the neighborhood of the Biological Reserve of Una, State of Bahia, created to protect Rain Forest fragments. The Rain Forest landscape is well portrayed in children s drawings, the vegetal elements prevailing over artificial and human elements. The figured plants and trees, however, are pointed with no precision as to their species. Most of the defined species are eatable. The children seem to be aware of the environment degradation, and of the importance of its conservation, but they describe episodes of hunting and feeding wild threatened animals. Our results indicate a utilitarian trend in the perception of living beings, in terms of their immediate usefulness for people. The multimethod approach seems to be appropriate to the complexity of the theme; the methodological strategies were well accepted by the children, offering them opportunities to express themselves. We observed how children, in different life phases, organize natural elements and processes in their drawings, and how these images relate to the local landscape. We discuss the results in the light of theoretical references of personenvironment studies and from previous investigations about children s perceptions of natural environment / Este estudo visou explorar e descrever as percep??es infantis de ambientes naturais protegidos, especificamente da Mata Atl?ntica no Brasil. Muitos estudos apontam a import?ncia das percep??es nas a??es pr?-ambientais ou pr?-ecol?gicas. Buscamos compreender a intera??o pessoa-ambiente a partir de perspectiva ecol?gica, e apresentamos tamb?m referenciais te?ricos para a compreens?o de como a natureza ? crucial para o bem-estar e o desenvolvimento psicol?gico. Os desenhos das crian?as, acrescidos de entrevista, grupo de discuss?o, fotografias, al?m de fontes informais e indiretas, como as professoras, forneceram material para tal an?lise. Participaram desta investiga??o explorat?ria, conduzida mediante estrat?gia multim?todos, 209 crian?as entre seis e onze anos de idade, vivendo no entorno da Reserva Biol?gica de Una, Estado da Bahia, criada para proteger fragmentos de Mata Atl?ntica. A Mata Atl?ntica foi bem representada nos desenhos, os elementos vegetais predominando sobre os artificiais e humanos. Por?m, as plantas figuradas s?o assinaladas sem a precis?o de esp?cie. As esp?cies definidas, em sua maioria, s?o comest?veis. As crian?as parecem conscientes da degrada??o do ambiente e da import?ncia de sua conserva??o, mas tamb?m descrevem intera??es de ca?a e alimenta??o de esp?cies protegidas. Os resultados indicam tend?ncia utilitarista na percep??o dos seres vivos, quanto ? sua utilidade para as pessoas. A abordagem multim?todo foi adequada ? complexidade do fen?meno; as estrat?gias adotadas foram bem aceitas pelas crian?as e lhes ofereceram oportunidades para expressar-se. Observamos como as crian?as, em diferentes fases da vida, organizam os elementos e processos naturais em seus desenhos, e como estas imagens se relacionam ? paisagem local. Discutimos os resultados ? luz de referenciais te?ricos dos estudos pessoa-ambiente, e investiga??es precedentes acerca da percep??o infantil de ambientes naturais

This dissertation studies the impact of the mode of data collection on the quality of answers to survey questions, defined as the product of reliability and validity. Using data from the Netherlands about different topics (media, social and political trust, satisfaction, political orientation, left-right self-placement, attitudes toward immigration), it shows that the quality is similar in a computed assisted face-to-face survey using show cards (the European Social Survey, ESS) and a web survey based on a probability sample (the LISS panel). This is true both at the level of single items and composite scores. It suggests that standardised relationships across variables can be compared across these two modes. On the contrary, telephone interviews lead to some differences in quality. For complex concepts, measurement equivalence also holds, meaning that means and unstandardised relationships can be compared across the faceto- face and web surveys mentioned previously. / Esta tesis estudia el impacto que el método de recolección de datos en encuestas tiene sobre la calidad de las respuestas, definida como el producto de la fiabilidad y la validez. Utilizando datos de Holanda sobre temas diversos (utilización de los medios de comunicación, confianza social y política, satisfacción, orientaciones políticas, autoubicación en la escala izquierda-derecha, actitudes hacia la inmigración), se muestra que la calidad es similar en una encuesta cara-a-cara asistida con ordenador y utilizando tarjetas (la Encuesta Social Europea) y una encuesta online basada en una muestra probabilística (el panel LISS). Esto se cumple tanto para los indicadores simples, como para indicadores complejos. Los resultados sugieren que las relaciones estandardizadas entre variables son comparables entre los dos métodos de recolección. Al contrario, las entrevistas telefónicas producen diferencias de calidad. Para conceptos complejos, la equivalencia de las mediciones también está garantizada: las medias y las relaciones no estandarizadas son comparables en las entrevistas cara-a-cara y online.

This research explores the role of blockchain technology in advanced information sharing systems with the applications of energy systems and healthcare. Essay 1 proposes a blockchain application to improve resilience in smart grids by addressing cyber security and peer-to-peer trading potentials. The results show that blockchain-based smart contracts are positively related to smart grid resilience. The findings also show that blockchain-based smart contracts significantly contribute to zero trust cybersecurity, which results in a better capability to mitigate cyber-attacks. Essay 2 proposes a blockchain application to improve electronic health record (EHR) systems by increasing patient's empowerment. Confirmatory factor analysis is used for the validity and reliability tests of the model. The results show that blockchain-based information systems can empower patients by providing the perception of control over their health records. The usage of blockchain technology motivates patients to share information with healthcare provider systems and has the advantage of reducing healthcare costs and improving diagnosis management. Essay 3 contributes to the existing literature by using a multimethod approach to propose three new mediators for blockchain-based healthcare information systems: digital health care, healthcare improvement, and peer-to-peer trade capability. Based on the findings from the text analysis, we propose a research model drawing upon stimulus-organism-response theory. Through three experimental studies, we test the research model to explain the patient's willingness to share their health records with others, including researchers. A post hoc analysis is conducted to segment patients and predict their behavior using four machine learning algorithms. The finding was that merely having peer-to-peer trade capability by ignoring healthcare improvement does not necessarily incentivize patients to share their medical reports.