Zugl.: Freiburg, Univ., Diss., 2003 / Hergestellt on demand

In today's highly competitive and cluttered marketing environment it becomes increasingly harder for brands to differentiate themselves form others. This is especially pronounced in the retail space. Shopper marketing is a discipline that focuses on shoppers and their needs to create a unique shopping experience and thereby increase in-store communication effectiveness. Keeping in mind the challenges of marketing to children, LEGO aims to communicate to its shoppers as well as consumers through the platform of in-store its core values of creative play, fun and learning. The thesis discusses the effectiveness of LEGO shopper marketing, specifically the engagement elements it uses in various channels. The aim is to test and evaluate the impact of these materials on the target audience and sales as well as define the hierarchy of LEGO in-store communication materials. In the theoretical part shopper marketing concepts, shopper beaviour and marketing in the toy industry are discussed.

Youth participation and communication for social change have been at the heart of debates in academic and development circles over the last thirty years. In response to criticisms that young people were merely seen as “beneficiaries” by local and international organizations, the latter have tried to readapt the way they frame, engage and strategize with the former in order to align with a new discourse in international development driven by the motto “nothing about us without us”. In 2011, UNICEF launched U-Report, a social platform available through SMS and social media, to understand the concerns of young people, amplify their voices and foster dialogue between youth and decision-makers. In Côte d’Ivoire, the initiative has been particularly successful. Since its launch in 2018, more than three million youth used the platform. Using the example of Côte d’Ivoire, considered a UNICEF “success story”, this study will analyse U-Report as a Communication for Development (C4D) tool that seeks to empower young people as agents of change in their communities. The research focuses on a specific modality of engagement available to young people through U-Report, that is, the possibility to mobilize and launch U-Actions: youth-led community actions for social change. Through surveys, interviews conducted with U- Reporters and UNICEF staff, and a case study analysis, this study will use the ecological system theory to uncover the multiple layers and influences that shape an individual’s decision to take action and question how youth engagement and participation online translate into social change offline. Findings from this research will underline that social media, the creation of personal and professional opportunities and a renewed sense of accountability are all factors influencing youth civic engagement through U-Actions. But while U-Report has been effective in developing a hybrid engagement model for young people by combining online and offline processes of participation, there are limitations as to the inclusive and representative aspect of the platform and its sustainability over time. The study will argue that these limitations present a unique opportunity for UNICEF to strengthen its C4D model and the way it engages with young people as agents of change.

All Computer Science majors are required to take introductory programming (CS1) as a fundamental course which has a high dropout rate. Researchers report that CS1 students lack motivation and need constant resource support. Motivated by these factors, we developed a cyberlearning environment embedded with learning engagement strategies such as Collaborative Learning, Social Interaction and Gamification. The purpose of research is to investigate the impact the cyberlearning environment had on student acquisition of programming concepts. I conducted a series of studies to empirically validate these learning engagement strategies in the context of student learning outcomes. The results of my dissertation have shown that Gamification and Social Interaction when combined or used individually had more positive impact on student learning when compared to that of other learning engagement strategies. / This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grants DUE-1225742 and DUE-1525112. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

The purpose of this study was to describe the perceived leadership style of the University of Missouri Extension Service county staff and their level of engagement and study the relationship between variables. Administrators with University of Missouri Extension Service can utilize this information to better serve Extension Staff and ultimately people throughout the state of Missouri. The Vannsimpco Leadership Survey was used to measure the perceived leadership style of county level staff. The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) was used to measure work engagement on three constructs: vigor, absorption, and dedication engagement. Demographic characterizes of county level staff was also collected. An online survey utilizing Qualtrics achieved a 44% response rate (N = 448). University of Missouri Extension county-level staff were female working in the Youth and Family discipline. These individuals were between 51 and 60 years of age and had worked for University of Missouri Extension for less than five years. Participants reported democratic leadership as the most perceived leadership style while laissez-faire leadership was the least perceived style. Autocratic and autocratic-transformational leadership was significantly impacted by length of service with the Extension service. Participants aged between 41-50 years old showed increased democratic-transformational leadership perceptions. Additionally, an increase in length of service resulted in a decrease in transformational leadership. Research found that county level staff maintained strong levels of engagement while performing their duties. Also, research found there were no significant relationships between perceived leadership styles and levels of work engagement. The implications from this study include potential in-service trainings to provide county Engagement Specialists with approaches to improve leadership traits and employee engagement. The themes gained from this research may offer definitions of leadership and employee engagement which could be utilized in future research.

No description available.

American universities have been internationalizing for decades, and their leaders often contend they must engage globally to stay relevant and prepare students adequately for a rapidly changing work environment. Faculty members, as keepers of the curricula and pivotal university actors, are critical to global engagement efforts on their campuses. However, many university leaders have yet to engage individual professors in ways that have resulted in securing their sustainable support for comprehensive internationalization (CI). A similar weakness of CI related research to date has been its failure to include a broad group of voices when investigating faculty engagement in internationalization. Following Childress’ framework (2010), this study explored the meaning-making, motivations, and perceptions attached to CI through individual interviews with a sample from all ranks of U.S. civil and environmental engineering faculty members from three Land Grant universities. Interviewees highlighted a variety of barriers and motivations linked to internationalization including, historical constructs, personal and professional values, and perceptions of potential outcomes of CI engagement. The analysis highlights and explores these factors and their connections to the international outlook ranking for interviewees’ institutions. / Ph.D. / American universities have been addressing global concerns and challenges for decades. Their faculties have for just as long sought palliatives and solutions to those issues. One element of that work is efforts to prepare students to work in an internationally connected world. University professors who design classes for students and conduct research are critical to all of these initiatives. However, university leaders have not been able to find ways to involve a sufficient and sustainable group of professors to make globally focused research and teaching efforts a central priority. Past studies investigating faculty involvement in internationalization have not yet researched a full range of professorial perceptions of such efforts. This study sought to understand what a sample of civil and environmental engineering faculty members at three American Land Grant universities perceived concerning internationalization initiatives at their institutions. I chose this group for study because their views have not been examined systematically and because there are more students studying engineering and in this one field within engineering than ever before. Those I interviewed included faculty members of all ranks and they also exhibited a wide range of levels of engagement in globally focused research and teaching. Interviewee responses highlighted a diverse array of motivations for international engagement and as many disincentives for faculty to do so. Professors’ work histories, values, and personal and professional perspectives all mediate their involvement in globally relevant issues. This analysis identified a list of concerns that university leaders can address to encourage their faculties to pursue internationalization. It also examined the connection between university reputations and faculty engagement with international concerns.

Research indicates that college students who engage in proven educational practices associated with high levels of learning and achievement gain more from their educational experiences and have higher rates of degree completion than those who do not. Studies also indicate that community college students who transfer to senior colleges are less likely to engage in these proven educational practices than non-transfer students attending senior colleges. Participants in this research study were administered a survey developed by the National Survey on Student Engagement (NSSE) to compare levels of engagement in five benchmark categories. All-USA Community College Academic Team national winners attending senior colleges were compared with a general population of community college transfers students attending senior colleges and All-USA Community College Academic Team national winners attending senior colleges were compared with non-transfer students attending senior colleges. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Independent samples t-tests were run to determine if significant differences existed in the levels of engagement between the groups. The findings of this study showed that the 2006 All-USA Community College Academic Team national winner‘s levels of engagement in each of the five benchmarks categories were higher and significantly different when compared to the other two groups. Further, the personal characteristics of the 2006 All-USA Community College Academic Team national winners were analyzed to determine if there were significant differences which led to higher levels of engagement while attending senior colleges. The findings revealed that only one personal characteristic, gender, contributed to a significant difference in the level of engagement for a benchmark. Female respondents‘ level of engagement in the academic challenge benchmark was higher and significantly different compared to male respondents.

No description available.

Since college and university students typically vary in their utilization of student services and resources, the variance in undergraduate business student engagement levels in professional development activity was explored by this quantitative study. Professional development is defined as career-related preparation of students for entry into the professional business environment and is accomplished through coaching, workshops, mentoring, student professional organization involvement, and internships that complement the content knowledge taught in the classroom. The results of a mandatory student satisfaction survey were analyzed to identify drivers/correlates of engagement, specifically relative to participation in professional development activity at a mid-Atlantic, urban research institution with an undergraduate business school population of approximately 5,700 students. The goal was to assess the demographic, organizational and motivational drivers (using a distal to proximal flow of relevance) that serve as potential initiators of variance in engagement levels related to professional development activity. This study attempted to provide insight as to the types of students who are engaged or disengaged by examining a combination of student background characteristics, pre-college credentials, college credentials, and organizational/motivational factors. The existing literature has concentrated on identification of "good practices" leading to engagement, as well as the impact of educationally purposeful activities on the higher education experience, but has not clearly identified the precise drivers of student engagement. Academic research on undergraduate student engagement in professional development activity is even more challenging to locate and is practically non-existent. The study population consisted of 864 graduating seniors who completed the mandatory senior student satisfaction survey. Student demographic data from the University's information system as well as self-reported survey responses comprised the independent variables. This information was used to create thirty drivers of engagement categorized into five variable sets. The dependent variables, identified as behavioral indicators of engagement in student professional development activity, were derived from self-reported responses in the senior survey. A factor analysis was used to create a Total DV score relative to student engagement in professional development activity. Descriptive statistics provided a picture of each group of students. ANOVA and correlational analyses were used to determine the predictive factors (by variable sets) for professional development activity engagement (PDAE). Twenty-five of the thirty independent variables produced significant correlations (.000) spanning the five variable sets thereby indicating that multiple factors are ultimately involved in this complex model of student engagement in professional development activity. / Educational Administration