Introduktion: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD, är en vanlig neuropsykiatrisk diagnos hos vuxna i Sverige med en prevalens på 2,5%. Karakteristiska problem är hyperaktivitet, impulsivitet och ouppmärksamhet. Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD, är en form av ADHD som innebär problem med uppmärksamhet och koncentration. Kunskapen om förekomst av motorikstörningar hos vuxna personer med ADHD och ADD är ännu begränsad. Syfte: Undersöka och beskriva motorisk förmåga hos en grupp vuxna med ADHD och ADD samt jämföra eventuella skillnader mellan dessa grupper. Metod: Denna studie är en del av ett större projekt vid Neurorehab Sävar, Västerbotten. Motorisk förmåga bedömdes för 109 personer enligt The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency second edition, som i vuxen ålder fått diagnosen ADHD eller ADD. Testet är uppdelat i fyra motoriska områden; Fine Manual Control, Manual Coordination, Body Coordination, Strength and Agility, och en summering av alla områden: Total Motor Composite. Datamaterialet analyserades med oparade t-test och Mann-Whitney U-test och jämfördes deskriptivt mot normativa data. Resultat: Gruppen med ADD hade signifikant bättre poäng i Fine Manual Control än gruppen med ADHD: 60 (9) respektive 53 (10.75), p=0.027. Enligt beskrivande kategorier för Total Motor Composite hade 36,5% ur gruppen ADHD en individpoäng som var under till väl under genomsnittet jämfört med normativa data och 61.5% lika med genomsnittet. Gruppen ADD var 41.1% under till väl under genomsnittet och 59% lika med genomsnittet. Konklusion: Gruppen med ADD förefaller ha bättre finmotorik än gruppen med ADHD. Resultaten indikerar att motoriken är nedsatt hos vuxna personer med ADHD/ADD för över 30%. Ytterligare forskning om motorikstörning, vuxna och diagnosen behövs.

An increasing number of parents are opting-out their children from high-stakes. Accountability systems in education have used students' test scores to measure student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school district performance. Students who are opted-out of high-stakes tests are not being evaluated by the state tests, making their level of achievement or proficiency unknown by the state government. The purpose of this basic interpretive qualitative study was to gain an understanding of the various reasons, factors, experiences, and personal events that led parents to opt-out their children from at least one 3rd through 8th grade high-stakes test. Data were collected using a researcher-designed semi-structured interview protocol developed using ecological approaches to systems theories and critical pedagogy theories. The study was set in New York and 10 participants were interviewed, all from different rural or small suburban school districts throughout the state. Five themes and 12 subthemes emerged from first and second cycle coding. Key findings indicated that parents decided to opt-out their children from high-stakes tests because they felt high-stakes were inappropriate and unfair. Further, parents were dissatisfied with current high-stakes testing practices. Previous 3rd through 8th grade testing procedures that allowed teachers to make and grade the state tests were seen as acceptable. Parents indicated no issue with testing. However, from a social change perspective they felt the current system of high stakes testing was used improperly to rate students, teachers, programs, and school districts, and that testing should be used to drive instruction and help struggling students. This study is beneficial for school personnel and policy makers because it provides different ways to assess student achievement.

Closing the achievement gap is a key concern for educational leaders. Research has indicated that principals’ actions directly and indirectly influence student learning. The purpose of this case study was to explore cultural leadership in an urban Mississippi high school from an African American’s racialized perspective. The cultural competency/proficiency theory provided the conceptual framework for this study. Successful leadership practices of this African American principal were examined through the principal and through the perceptions of teachers and the assistant administrator. A researcher-developed questionnaire was content validated and given to a purposeful sample of 17 individuals: the principal, assistant principal, and the 15 full time teachers at the study site. Nine individuals––the school’s principal, assistant principal, and 7 teachers––returned the questionnaire. Using Stake’s framework for data analysis, data were organized, coded, and categorized to develop themes regarding the principal’s cultural leadership practices. Results showed that the principal used 6 practices to help a diverse student body succeed: double-dosing of subject-area test courses, pull-out tutorials, after-school tutorials, differentiated instruction, scaffolded learning, and coteaching. Based on the study findings, a professional development program was created to provide cultural leadership training for all district leaders. The findings can positively affect social change by improving principals’ cultural awareness and equipping educators with proven practices to meet the needs of a diverse student body, thus increasing students’ opportunities for academic success.

With the number of Asian immigrants continually increasing in New Zealand society, Asian immigrant businesses have been appearing more rapidly in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland. The primary purpose of this study is to enquire into why a certain Asian immigrant group become business people after migrating to Auckland, New Zealand. In addition, it investigates the level of their business activity and the level of happiness with their new life in New Zealand. This study examines the growing phenomenon of Asian immigrants, and the entrepreneurship rate of ethnic groups through existing statistics. The study focuses on Korean immigrants. Twenty self-employed Koreans who are running a business in Auckland participated in the study. They were invited to talk about why they became self-employed business people and related matters about their business activity. The study found that Korean immigrants chose self-employment as a means of getting a job. They gave up seeking mainstream employment opportunities due to the language barrier and their inability to cope with a new society and new system. Other fundamental factors in their decision to become entrepreneurs were that firstly, they were willing to invest a considerable amount of their own money and secondly, they preferred to participate in the workforce rather than to depend on the New Zealand welfare system. Based on the information acquired through the research, the study reported that the recently increased numbers of Asian businesses are partly attributable to New Zealand business immigration policy which introduced a new business category – Long Term Business Visa (LTBV). The findings from this research pointed to commitment that immigrant businesses contribute to the New Zealand economy and New Zealand society as taxpayers and potential employers.

Limited English proficiency (LEP) amongst non-English-speaking background (NESB) employees is a major concern for the Government, employers and unions in Australia. Due to their low levels of English proficiency, NESB employees are often unable to carry out effectively the required workplace tasks. In the current climate of rapid change in workplaces, as a result of Award Restructuring, NESB employees may also lack the communication skills necessary to undertake skill-based training and, therefore, be further disadvantaged. In light of these concerns, this study investigated the English learning needs of a group of NESB non-academic staff at the University of Canberra (UC). It established that there was a gap between their present levels of English proficiency and the levels required in their current positions. As a result, these employees are unable to engage effectively in all communication tasks required in the workplace. Following a detailed analysis of the current literature on the provision of workplace English training it is recommended that an English in the Workplace (EWP) program be provided at the UC for NESB non-academic employees. Specific recommendations are made regarding the design and implementation of the learning program.

<p>English spelling is without a doubt a complicated matter, and learners around the world have trouble getting the letters right. My aim in this paper is to investigate what words are particularly difficult to spell for Swedish students in the ninth grade, what they think about spelling and English as a subject in general, and how important they consider correct spelling to be. In order to find this out, I distributed a questionnaire in two classes at secondary school. According to my study, a large number of the students find it important to spell correctly, and they also believe that their teacher would agree. A high percentage of the participants are positive towards studying English. Their most common way of getting in contact with English on a regular basis is via TV and movies. 97% of the students wrote that TV was their biggest source of contact with English. The results show no differences in spelling skills between the sexes and neither did the origin of the parents have any effect. The respondents find both Swedish and English spelling easy, but a number of frequently misspelled words have been identified.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

This study intends to find out the possible effects of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategy instruction at awareness-raising level on reading proficiency and strategy use. In the study both qualitative and quantitative data were utilized. The relevant data were obtained by means of think-aloud protocols, semi-structured interviews, the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning &ndash / SILL- (Oxford, 1990), learning diaries and the reading scores of students on a proficiency exam (COPE). A total of 24 students studying at Bilkent University School of English Language were involved in the study. The scores of the students who received the strategy instruction on the reading paper of COPE, and the scores of the students who were not subject to any strategy instruction were used to run a t-test so as to reveal whether there was a significant difference between these two sets of scores. The data that came from the think-aloud protocols, semi-structured interviews and learning diaries were analyzed so as to trace the type of strategies employed by the students and the frequency with which they were employed. The results did not indicate a statistically significant difference. It was also discovered that all students involved in the study had a tendency to use more cognitive strategies than metacognitive ones. The cognitive strategies were more varied with the group of students who received the strategy instruction.

The purpose of this doctoral thesis research study was first to investigate the needs for a faculty development program in Middle East Technical University (METU). Later, in the second phase, models that explained the linear structural relationships among factors that might be influential on faculty&amp / #146 / s perceived competencies about the skills necessary for the instructional practices, personal, professional and organizational developments were proposed and compared. In this study, a questionnaire considering different aspects of faculty developments were sent to all of the academicians in METU. After collecting data from faculty members and research assistants, they were analyzed both descriptively and using principal component factor analysis. Based on the results of factor analysis, linear structural relations models fitting the data were generated through LISREL-SIMPLIS computer program runs. The descriptive results indicated that there was a feeling for need to improve the faculty&#039 / s self-proficiency in different instructional issues. On the other hand, both descriptive results and LISREL modeling results indicated that faculty members and research assistants show different characteristics based on their needs and factors affecting their self-proficiencies. These aspects will lead us to prepare different faculty development programs based on their needs and priorities. The result for both faculty members and research assistants showed that in a faculty, instructional self-proficiency cannot be considered as a single absolute parameter. Rather, it should be considered as several interrelated parameters connected to different aspects of faculty&#039 / s proficiencies.

This thesis investigates the second language acquisition of the English article system by Turkish learners in order to find out the role of certain semantic universals of the Universal Grammar during the acquisition process. More specifically, the purpose is to see whether or not L1 Turkish learners of English fluctuate between two semantic notions namely / specificity and definiteness, and the effect of this fluctuation on acquisition. 120 students from three groups of learners at different proficiency levels (40 elementary, 40 intermediate and 40 upper &ndash / intermediate students) were tested. Data collection instrument, a forced-choice elicitation task is used. The task consists of 40 short and contextualized dialogues. The target sentence in each dialogue is missing an article and learners were asked to fill the gap with an appropriate article / a/an, the or &Oslash / on the bases of their understanding of the proceeding context. Dialogues in the task belong to four different contexts / i.e. definite/specific, definite/non-specific, indefinite/specific and indefinite/non-specific. Each context has 10 dialogues with four different contexts that are randomized. Data were analyzed using SPSS 17 packet program (descriptive analysis and one-way ANOVA). The results showed that intermediate level learners exhibited fluctuation between definiteness and specificity to a great extent in (+definite/-specific) and (-definite/+specific) contexts. Elementary level learners were more accurate in these contexts exhibiting article omission errors in definite contexts. Overall, despite certain unexpected results, upper intermediate level students were quite successful in article assignment in defined contexts. This revealed that there is a positive correlation between article system acquisition and proficiency.