Abstract Retail business leaders can improve profitability when they implement employee engagement strategies. The purpose of this single case study was to explore employee engagement strategies retail leaders use to improve profitability. The population included 6 department leaders in a single retail organization in the southeastern United States. The conceptual framework included Kahn's employee engagement theory. Using Yin's 5-step data analysis process, data from semistructured interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed to gain employee engagement strategies that retail leaders use to improve profitability. Four major themes emerged that retail business leaders use to increase profitability: having daily staff interaction, hiring the right people for the job, creating a positive work environment, and having regular one-on-one interaction with every staff member. The implications for positive social change include a more engaged workforce, which could encourage business owners to reinvest profits and offer sustained employment to a workforce, which may contribute to the economic well-being of communities.

This dissertation offers the first set of empirical studies to examine the differential impact of didactic instruction and playful learning practices on geometric shape knowledge. Previous research demonstrated that successful child-centered, guided play pedagogies are often characterized by two components: (a) dialogic inquiry, or exploratory talk with the teacher, and (b) physical engagement with the educational materials. Building on this conclusion, three studies examined how guided play promotes criterial learning of shapes. Experiment 1 examined whether guided play or didactic instruction techniques promote criterial learning of four geometric shapes compared to a control condition. Results suggested that children in both didactic and guided play conditions learn the criterial features; however, this equivalence was most evident for relatively easy, familiar shapes (e.g., circles). A trend suggested that guided play promoted superior criterial understanding when learning more complex, novel shapes (i.e., pentagons). Experiment 2 expands on the previous study by examining how exposure to enriched geometric curricular content (e.g., teaching with typical shape exemplars only vs. typical and atypical exemplars) augments shape learning in guided play. As hypothesized, children taught with a mix of typical and atypical exemplars showed superior criterial learning compared to those in taught with only typical exemplars. Experiment 3 further explores the factors that facilitate shape learning by comparing the effectiveness of guided play, enriched free-play, and didactic instruction on children's criterial learning of two familiar shapes (triangles, rectangles) and two unfamiliar, complex shapes (pentagons, hexagons). As hypothesized, those who learned via guided play outperformed those who learned in didactic instruction who, in turn, outperformed those in enriched free play. In both didactic instruction and guided play, children's shape concepts persisted over one week. The findings from these studies suggest (1) guided play promotes equal or better criterial learning than didactic instruction, (2) curricular content (shape experience) augments criterial learning in guided play and (3) dialogic inquiry may be a key mechanism underlying guided play. The current research not only has implications for enhancing the acquisition of abstract spatial concepts but also for understanding the mechanisms that foster playful learning. / Psychology

The main goal of this thesis is to highlight the importance of employee engagement and deeply investigate employee engagement among selected employees in medium size organization, which operates in Liptovský Mikuláš. Besides finding out the total employee engagement, author examines the level of cognitive, physical, and emotional engagement too. Results are then compared to other studies provided by Gallup and CIPD research centers. Thesis further introduces the link between employee engagement and age, gender and occupation of workers. Additionally, it presents the importance of individual employee engagement drivers for employees. The data collection was done by using questionnaire and structured interviews. After the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the research results, author presents possible recommendations that observed organization can use in the future in order to improve the engagement level.

The following qualitative study sought to answer three questions: (1) What are the high priority design values used by expert exhibit developers to create meaningful exhibits at children's museums? (2) How do exhibit developers prioritize these design values? (3) What are the desirable outcomes that exhibit developers seek to achieve with the guests who interact with the exhibits? These questions were answered through interviews with children's museum exhibit developers, personal observations, and artifact analysis. The data collected was organized into four cases, each representing a different children's museum and corresponding exhibit developer. The cases were then compared against each other using multiple case study analysis as described by Stake (2006). The data revealed that most of the developers designed exhibits which promoted family learning by encouraging meaningful interactions between parents and children. Other high priority design values used by exhibit developers included physical engagement, multiple entry points, simplicity, durability, multisensory engagement, staff and volunteer facilitation, safety, and immersive environments. Successful museum exhibits empowered guests and were always created using multiple design values. This thesis may be downloaded for free at http://etd.byu.edu.