Over the last few decades, a growing body of research has linked extracurricular activity participation with positive outcomes among high school students. Extracurricular activities often provide a rich environmental context for positive youth development, given that they provide opportunities for identity formation, the creation of interpersonal connections, and the development of social, emotional, academic, and/or career-related skills. However, there are no studies to date examining the relationship between extracurricular activity involvement and student outcomes among students enrolled in rigorous high school curricula (e.g., Advanced Placement [AP] and International Baccalaureate [IB]). The purpose of the current study was to extend the current understanding of the relationship between extracurricular activity involvement and academic and mental health outcomes for youth enrolled in AP and IB programs by investigating the levels of extracurricular activity participation among AP/IB students, and examining whether participation predicted student success in terms of academic and mental health outcomes. Given the increased academic demands faced by this group of students, this study aimed to also investigate the overscheduling hypothesis to see whether there was a curvilinear relationship between extracurricular activity involvement and student success (i.e., a point of diminishing return). In addition, this study examined whether the program type (i.e., AP or IB) moderated the relationship between extracurricular activity participation and student outcomes. Using data obtained from a larger research project led by Dr. Shannon Suldo and Dr. Elizabeth Shaunessy-Dedrick (Institute of Education Science: R305A100911), results indicated that on average, AP and IB students (N= 2,379) reported being involved in 3-4 different extracurricular activity types and spent approximately 5-9 hours per week involved in extracurricular activities. Findings also revealed that compared to AP students, IB students participated in a greater number of types of activities (3.38 vs. 3.89) and more hours of activities per week (3.03 vs. 3.18, where “3” corresponds to 5-9 hours per week). Although a significant difference in the overall levels of involvement in extracurricular activities was observed between AP and IB students, these differences did not translate into differences in associations between extracurricular involvement and student outcomes. Finally, this study found significant linear associations between the breadth of extracurricular activity participation and higher levels of life satisfaction, lower levels of psychopathology, higher GPAs, and higher AP/IB exam scores. Significant linear relationships between the intensity of extracurricular activity participation and lower levels of psychopathology and higher GPAs were also observed. Regarding the overscheduling hypothesis, results from the current study found curvilinear relationships between breadth of participation and AP/IB exam scores and GPA, with optimal levels of breadth of 4.1 and 5.2 types of extracurricular activities, respectively. Moreover, curvilinear relationships were also observed between intensity of participation and students’ psychopathology and GPA, with optimal intensity scores of 3.2 and 3.3 (i.e., between the “5-9” and “10-19” hours per week response option categories), indicating that participation in 20 or more hours of activities per week was associated with diminishing outcomes. Implications of findings for school psychologists and educational stakeholders, as well as future directions for research are discussed.

This capstone project was part of a group project completed by three principals in elementary schools in Hillsborough County, Florida. The project began because of our passion to understand effective teachers. Our collective goal was to have more engaged teachers which would create more engaged students resulting in greater student and teacher success. Our overall group project purpose was to discover the behavior and characteristics an engaged teacher demonstrates and how these behaviors affect the learning environment and the students that are in that environment. The project was guided by the question, how does a culture of engaged teachers develop and support student engagement, choice, and voice? My area of focus was, how do children and adults benefit from an engaged learning environment? Selected literature was reviewed that concentrated on the impact of teacher engagement on student learning; student, teacher and parent voice, student and teacher mutuality, and building capacity for engaged learning environments. Results of two district-administered survey instruments were used as data sources: the School Climate and Perception Survey (SCIP) and the Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL). A secondary analysis of the 2014-2015 survey results was conducted for this project, using our three schools as the unit of analysis. Key findings in my area of focus included the importance of relationship and student voice in student engagement; the importance of teacher autonomy, self- and collective efficacy in teacher engagement; and barriers to engagement in the learning environment.

While developing creativity is an important goal of many educational endeavors, creating music, from a music education perspective, is a powerful pedagogical tool. Beyond comparing the relative creativity of individuals' musical creative products (e.g., melodies, songs, lyrics, beats, etc.), research in musical creativity must consider how engaging in the creative process can be an effective teaching tool, what I have termed creativity-based music learning. If music teachers are to develop students' abilities “to experience music as meaningful, informed by sensitive discernments and broad understandings, in each particular musical role engagement in which one becomes involved” (Reimer, 2003, p.214), then we must gain a better understanding of how different aspects of the person and context interact during the creative process. Based on the available literature, Webster (1987a, 2002) conceived the Model of Creative Thinking in Music as a conceptual model for understanding the importance of various components that are at work in the musical creative process. Since, generally speaking, learning results from thinking of some sort, Webster's model represents a reasonable starting point from which to examine how musical creative thinking leads to musical learning. There is much research in music education and the general creativity literature that has investigated how these various component parts (e.g., music aptitude, personality, motivation, previous experience, context) relate to creativity, but there has yet to be any substantive attempt to understand how all of these various elements simultaneously interrelate during a given musical creative process. More importantly, there is limited research on how creativity-based music learning contributes to important learning outcomes such as students' perceptions of learning from the process, students' self-evaluations of creative products (e.g., songs they have written), the development of conceptual understandings, and the development of musical creative self-efficacy. The initial primary purpose of this study was to develop and identify a statistical model that best represents the nature of the various interrelationships of components of the musical creative process, as identified in Webster's (2002) model, and as they relate to learning outcomes. Understanding how all of these components relate and ultimately impact various learning outcomes has important implications for how we educate our music students. Data were collected from students taking a Massive Open Online Course entitled “What is Music?: Finding Your Song,” which was designed, developed, and taught by the researcher, and offered in January 2014 through the Canvas Network. In the course, the question “what is music?” was approached from several perspectives, including Music as Human Activity, Music as Emotion, Music as Physics, and Music as Form. While learning about each perspective, students were encouraged to engage with and complete various musical creative projects (e.g., creating a representative playlist, writing lyrics, writing a melody, writing a song). Such an educational context in which creativity is used as a pedagogical tool provided an opportunity for studying the educational outcomes of such an approach. Embedded within the course were measures of several predictors of learning (based on Webster's model), including past experience in music, personality, music aptitude, contextual support, musical creative self-efficacy, motivation, and situational engagement. Initial analysis plans included the use of structural equation modeling to (1) compare and contrast the statistical fit of competing models; and (2) examine how each of these constructs not only relate to each other, but also how they each contribute (uniquely and in combination) to various learning outcomes, including perceptions of learning, self-evaluations of creative products, and musical creative self-efficacy. However, a sufficient number of students did not engage in and complete the creative projects, nor did a sufficient number of students complete all of the research items, in order to examine the full structural model. When it became apparent that sufficient data would not be available, the study was re-envisioned to examine questions about why students chose to participate or not participate in the creative music-making projects. Data were collected from 281 students, and although missing data was quite extreme for variables measured late in the course (e.g., motivation), large amounts of data were available regarding students' past experience in music, their expectations regarding participation as MOOC learners, and demographic information (e.g., age, gender, education, language, geographic region). The available data were used in an exploratory manner to derive a model for predicting creative project participation in the course. The sole important predictor of project participation was whether students identified themselves as an "active participant" at the beginning of the course, although this variable explained only a small amount of variability in project participation. Follow-up analyses for group differences in Active Participant (individuals who identified themselves as "active participants" versus all other Types of Learners) found that “active participants” had significantly higher levels of Musical Creative Self-Efficacy, greater perceptions of the learning context as challenge-supportive, and higher scores on the Openness personality factor. Notably, students' Past Experience in Music appeared to be unrelated to both whether they intended to participate in the creative music-making projects and whether they actually participated in the projects. In addition to the primary MOOC study, the development and initial validation procedures and results for two new research instruments utilized in the MOOC study, the Past Experience in Music Inventory (PEMI) and the Musical Creative Self-Efficacy Scale (MCSES), are described in detail. The latent class measurement model utilized for measuring Past Experience in Music is a unique and potentially valuable approach for measuring this important variable in music research of all kinds. Finally, an exploratory analysis of all zero-order rank-order intercorrelations of all non-nominal variables indicated some initial support for the General Specified Model of Creativity-Based Learning. It was not possible to take the next step with the model: to prune it, alter it, or reject it altogether, but when viewed as a very large-scale pilot study, this study did provide enough evidence to warrant investing the considerable amount of resources necessary to take that next step. Implications for creativity-based music learning and the significance of MOOCs and MOOC research are discussed. In particular, music MOOCs represent an opportunity to fill in some much needed space for lifelong learning. However, if we are to promote lifelong musical engagement, then the pedagogy within a MOOC should also promote engagement. As such, questions and further research regarding such engagement, especially within a creativity-based learning framework, are central to better understanding how to promote and facilitate lifelong musical engagement and musical learning.

Government involvement in New Zealand sport spans over 70 years from provisions of the Physical Welfare Act in 1937 to current provisions of the Sport and Recreation Act 2002. Thousands of volunteers in non-profit organisations continue to underpin New Zealand's sport system. It is axiomatic that sport defines part of what it means to be a New Zealander. Governments frequently use the rhetoric of community cohesion, national pride, life skills and public health benefits to justify its involvement. This thesis examines the impact of government intervention on the sport sector, its funding paradigms and the extent of sector engagement in a policy for sport. Through an examination of available government and sport sector records, and the author's own experience as a participant in events, the thesis recounts a sequence of five milestones for the New Zealand sport system and views them through a public management system lens. The passing of the Physical Welfare and Recreation Act in 1937, the establishment of a Ministry and Council for Recreation and Sport in 1973, the ministerial Sports Development Inquiry in 1984, the Prime Minister's Review of High Performance Sport in 1995 and the Sport, Fitness and Leisure Ministerial Taskforce. Government funding of sport now stands at around $100 million annually from small beginnings of $3,295 in 1945/1946, despite the absence of a comprehensive national policy for sport. By examining the chronology through a wider state sector lens, the thesis opens a window to the practical effect of public policy processes on matters of importance to the New Zealand sport sector and its voluntary sector foundations. This thesis also provides a rationale for revitalising the engagement between government and the New Zealand sport sector to meet the expectations of a modern state sector to meaningfully engage citizens and the non-government sector in the formation of policy and planning its implementation.

With the rise in industrial capitalism during the 20th Century, artists increasingly focused on the threat of a disappearing natural world. In the high technology era of the late 20th Century, artists whose practice is termed 'ecological' based their work around new understandings of the relationship between nature and culture, fundamentally underpinned by a shift toward evolutionary, systems-theoretical perspectives from those of conquest and exploitation. Now, at the dawn of the 21st Century, the information era has brought into intersection the discourses of information technologies, quantum physics, and biological science, awakening artists to the challenge of engaging with ecology as the primary subject of their practice. The doctoral project that is the subject of this exegesis focuses critical attention on our scientific and aesthetic understandings of water - a crucial symbolic element of global import in survival. It explores the representation of water in and through art practice that is informed by political ecological awareness and new (digital) technologies. My practice exploits the potential of recent digital technologies to create experiences that aim to encourage a more ecologically sustainable human engagement with nature through this focus on water. This exegesis describes and locates the creative work within an ongoing discourse in contemporary culture that actively seeks to re-establish and redefine the relationship between culture and nature.

Adolescence is a period of enormous adjustment for both teenagers and families. As children transition from childhood to adulthood, they go through many physical, emotional and behavioural changes. Not surprisingly, many parents describe adolescence as the most difficult and anxiety-provoking period of their children’s life. Parents’ concerns are well justified, considering the high prevalence of emotional and behavioural problems during adolescence. Although health professionals and researchers share parents’ view of adolescence as a challenging period of life, the scope of research on adolescents is scarce compared to research on children and adults. However, this is now changing. Research on adolescent development and adolescent psychopathology has increased dramatically during the last two decades. Reducing risk factors in adolescents’ development has been receiving more and more attention both from researchers and policy makers. Family risk factors such as inadequate parental monitoring and family conflict are among potentially modifiable risk factors that can be targeted in order to reduce the rate of emotional and behavioural problems in adolescents. Behavioural family intervention is considered to be one of the promising intervention systems in this area because of the extensive empirical support it has received in research with families of preadolescence children. The research presented in this thesis focuses on parenting programs for parents of teenagers. The first study evaluates the efficacy of a behavioural family intervention (Triple P – Positive Parenting Program) targeting parents of teenagers. The second study explores factors which affect parents’ decisions to participate in parenting programs. The first study outlines a randomised control trial (RCT), assessing the efficacy of a parenting intervention in reducing behavioural problems in adolescents. The study provides support for an intensive individual version of Teen Triple P – a behavioural family intervention designed specifically for parents of high risk adolescents. The intervention aims to improve adolescent behaviour by reducing parents’ use of ineffective parenting. Participants were 46 families with a teenager aged 11 to 16. The outcomes of the intervention included a reduction in teen disruptive behaviours (d > .85) and parent-adolescent conflict (d = .1.21), as well as decreased parental use of harsh and coercive parenting strategies (d = 1.15) and a decrease in parents’ conflict over child rearing issues (d = .64). These positive changes were maintained at the three-month follow up. In spite of the growing recognition of parents’ need for information, guidance and support during the crucial and challenging years of adolescence, little is known about the factors which affect parents’ engagement in programs designed to help them in their parenting roles. The second study aimed to provide a conceptual framework for understanding parents’ decisions to accept or decline participation in a parenting program by employing the Health Belief Model (HBM). The model suggested that parents are more likely to participate in a program when they (a) perceive their adolescents to be susceptible to development of problem behaviours, (b) perceive the problem behaviours to have serious consequences, (c) believe the parenting program to be beneficial in reducing the risk of development of problem behaviours in their adolescent, (d) perceive the personal, social and financial cost of attending the program to be low, and (e) are confident in their ability to successfully learn and apply what they learn in these programs. The model explained 31% of the variance in parents’ inclination to participate in parenting programs. The study also showed that parents differ in their preferences of delivery format for parenting programs. These two studies contribute to the literature in a number of ways. Firstly, they demonstrate that parent training is an effective intervention in the treatment of adolescent problem behaviours. Secondly, they highlight the importance of addressing parents’ beliefs and attitudes about the benefits of parenting programs as well as reducing participation barriers to encourage greater parental engagement in prevention and intervention programs. Finally, the research emphasises that in order to increase participation rate, parenting programs should be made available in a range of delivery formats. The implications of the current research and future directions are presented and discussed.

Cette recherche étudie le concept d'engagement à la marque qui est l'attitude du consommateur indiquant sa volonté de poursuivre une relation avec une marque. La première étape de cette recherche valide empiriquement le modèle explicatif identifié lors de la revue de la littérature : ce modèle décrit comment les attitudes du consommateur se combinent pour former son engagement, ainsi que les modifications du comportement qui en résultent. Cette validation empirique confirme le rôle essentiel des antécédents de l'engagement : la satisfaction et l'attachement. Si l'engagement a pour effet principal le rachat de la marque, deux autres conséquences sont également identifiées : le consommateur engagé est moins sensible au prix et moins attiré par la recherche de variété. Ce modèle explicatif est ensuite utilisé pour comparer l'engagement envers une marque de distributeur (marque d'enseigne) à l'engagement envers des marques nationales. La structure générale du modèle est confirmée pour les deux types de marque, mais les analyses soulignent des différences importantes : le lien entre l'engagement et le rachat apparaît beaucoup plus faible pour la marque d'enseigne, ce qui laisse supposer que ce rachat s'explique essentiellement par l'inertie des consommateurs ; les analyses montrent que la nature de l'engagement diffère largement pour les deux marques : alors que les contributions respectives de la satisfaction et de l'attachement s'équilibrent pour former l'engagement aux marques nationales, l'engagement envers la marque d'enseigne est avant tout affectif, dicté par l'attachement et la proximité ressentis par le consommateur.

<p>Empirical evidence suggests work engagement to be of crucial importance for business critical aspects such as work performance and employee retention. When building a strategy for enhancing engagement in the workplace, identifying its predictors becomes important. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify predictors related to work engagement. The study was conducted in a management consultancy company, through analyzing their employee survey. Results indicated satisfaction with leadership to be of vital importance for work engagement. Other work-related attitudes identified that seemed to be reliable predictors of work engagement were employee development, communication and innovation. In addition, the demographic variables of age and status pointed towards a correlation with work engagement, however the gender variable did not show significance.</p>

<p>Empati uppstår av flera anledningar och individen kan försöka reglera graden. Engagemang är ett positivt uppfyllande arbetsrelaterat tillstånd medan utbrändhet är en förlängd respons på interpersonella och kroniska emotionella stressorer i arbetet. Polismannens arbetsdag kantas av interpersonella stressorer som kan leda till utbrändhet, där engagemang och empati kan ha betydelse. Studiens syfte var att undersöka om hög empati tillsammans med högt engagemang kan relateras till utvecklande av utbrändhet hos poliser. Studien var kvantitativ med tillgänglighetsurval; 55 poliser deltog från en polismyndighet i Mellansverige. Resultatet visade att poliserna var empatiska och engagerade men inte påtagligt utbrända. Därav slutsatsen att empati och engagemang inte har en interaktiv effekt på förekomst av utbrändhet snarare att dessa faktorer kanske fungerar skyddande mot utbrändhet.</p>

<p>Förstudiens syfte var att kartlägga användarbehov kring ROE inom svenska Marinen och ta fram stöd och hjälpmedel för att underlätta ROE-arbetet. I kartläggningen medverkade personal från olika staber, förband och skolor inom Försvarsmakten. Flertalet deltog sedan också i det iterativa utvecklingsarbetet. </p><p>Tre användargrupper urskiljdes; Stabs- och fartygspersonal samt personal under utbildning. Några av de svårigheter som identifierades; Tolkningsskiljaktigheter mellan stabs- och fartygspersonal. ROE-arbetet ger ett administrativt merjobb för stabs- och fartygspersonal. Det finns inte tid eller resurser att öva ROE på ett realistiskt sätt med lämplig upptrappning av hotnivå. Det bedrivs ingen specifik ROE-utbildning vid Försvarsmaktens skolor eller centra. </p><p>Utvecklingsarbetet bedrevs parallellt med kartläggningen och involverade stabs- och fartygspersonal. Efter ett antal utvärderingar med användare kunde tre koncept för stöd och hjälpmedel ges. För att öka förståelsen och visualisera koncepten har tre demonstratorer skapats. Koncepten har fått arbetsnamnen;</p><p>- ADMIN - Administrativt stöd för ROE-hantering.</p><p>- FARTYG - Utbildningshjälpmedel för fartygsledning och eventuellt skolor.</p><p>- STAB - Stöd för framtagning av ROE-profil.</p><p>Författarna rekommenderar FOI att fortsätta utreda ROE-arbetet inom Försvarmakten och även internationellt samt vidareutveckla de tre föreslagna koncepten. För att skapa en gemensam grund för sin personal bör Försvarsmakten hålla seminarium och utbildning inom ROE och tydligare definiera ansvarsförhållanden och begrepp.</p>