The purpose of this exploratory and descriptive study was to determine the association (if any) between the self-concept awareness and emotion- focused coping of children with ADHD. Theories informing this study were Barkley’s conceptualisation of ADHD, Bandura’s social cognitive theory as a means of understanding self-concept awareness and Gonzales and Seller’s theory of emotion- focused coping. The study was conducted by means of an intervention research design. I purposively selected two children with ADHD and their respective parents, educators and therapists to participate in the study. Ebersöhn’s intrapersonal regulation intervention was implemented with the child participants at different intervals. Both child participant’s self-concept awareness and emotion- focused coping strategies were assessed pre- and post intervention, through the use of formal interviews and observations. The data was analysed and interpreted through thematic analysis. The following themes emerged; self-concept awareness, adaptive emotion-focused- coping strategies and maladaptive emotion- focused coping strategies. Findings of the study confirmed that prior to the intervention, the two child participants were predisposed towards emotion- focused coping, especially maladaptive emotion- focused coping strategies. Post- intervention findings suggested that increased self-concept awareness resulted in the use of two adaptive emotion- focused coping strategies (namely relaxation methods and re-appraisal) with maladaptive emotion- focused coping (namely direct- active physical aggression and direct-passive aggression) remaining. Thus, an association exists between self-concept awareness and emotion- focused coping in children with ADHD. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Title: Reading in the Digital Age - Tablet in the Reader 's Personal Information Environment Author: Mgr. Tomáš Bouda Abstract: In this dissertation thesis we observed the phenomenon of reading in the context of personal information environment in digital age. An analysis of the evolution of reading and its implication on reading habits has been done. Secondly, we introduced phenomenology approach to study reading phenomena. The goal of the qualitative research was to describe an experience of intensive tablet users while reading scientific literature in digital format. Interpretative phenomenological analyses and Positive and negative affect scale (PANAS) were used as research methods with six participants. Conceptual structure representing the phenomenon has been developed as an outcome. It contains a) broader context of personal information environment, b) reading, annotating and underlining of digital text and c) reading experience with a focus on somatosensory perception. Comparison with two similar research studies has been done. As a practical outcome, several weaknesses in a design of tablets and reading applications were identified.

A rising problem for social enterprises within South Africa is that consumers tend to display mixed interests towards their marketing campaigns. The technological revolution has allowed consumers to become more adept and ethically sensitised at identifying deceptive marketing ploys. In light of the growing competition among many SSEs in attaining donations, managers of these organisations have realised the value in managing their organisations as brands. However, SSEs should remain aware of distinguishing their marketing from corporate brands. Past literature revealed that organisations which behave socially responsibly elicit more positive attitudes from consumers. Thus, SSEs adopting socially responsible marketing could allow them to be perceived as devoted towards their social missions, which could attract more volunteering and monetary donations. The study investigated the impact of branding on support intentions towards supported social enterprises: the case of The Big Issue South Africa. A descriptive research design was adopted. This included an online survey method that was used to acquire quantitative data from 200 participants in Cape Town, which was required to interpret conclusive findings to this investigation. The findings of the study were that consumer-brand relational authenticity (CBRA), brand trust, and customer-brand identification (CBI)] had a direct positive influence on support intentions. Attitude toward helping others (ATHO) was determined as a negative moderator between the relationship of CBI and support intentions. Alternatively, altruistic values were determined to not possess any moderating influence on the relationship between brand trust and support intentions. The findings therefore fill theoretical gaps on CBRA, brand trust and altruistic values that remained unexplored in the past. The study produced a conceptual framework explaining the branding factors that have the most significant impact in driving support intentions. This framework can be beneficial to managers of SSEs with regard to leveraging support from a local and international standpoint. However, marketers in the corporate field who are designated to attracting corporate social investment (CSI) can also draw on insights from the study in order to attract support for these CSI initiatives. The study is thus beneficial to corporate organisations as well.

<p dir="ltr">The study investigated the epistemological gaps of Nigerian auto-repair technicians in Mowe, Ogun State Nigeria. The way their knowledge levels correlate with factors such as age, experience, education, and professional development pathways were analyzed. The study explored the conditions for bridging auto-repair epistemology. The study used a questionnaire based on the National Institute Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) 2021 study guide test questions. Fifty-four auto repair technicians were selected using purposive sampling. Correlational research design was used to explore the relationship between the knowledge of participants and age, education, experience, and professional development pathway. Logistic regression was used to analyze the data collected to determine the odds of how many ASE questions a participant answered correctly. The final logistic regression model excluded experience and professional pathways due to multicollinearity concerns. The results revealed negative correlations between age, elementary/high school education, and epistemology, while positive correlations were with higher education and epistemology. The discussion delved into nuances, challenging common beliefs, and proposed a composite apprenticeship model to bridge auto-repair epistemological gaps. Recommendations include revisiting the Nigerian education system and promoting a bidirectional, delocalized apprenticeship approach.</p>

<p dir="ltr">The concept of homeschooling in the United States, though more mainstream today, remains an alternative way of educating our children. Researchers seeking to examine this method of education often focus on the outcomes for the children who receive their education through this mode of education. Seldom does the attention fall to the educator, the homeschool parent. The mother typically takes the active role in educating the children and she receives little attention as a person (Lois, 2016). This study examines the ways in which these mother/teachers navigate the academic and non-academic parts of their lives and what impact that has on their own and their family’s well-being. Because the number of families who choose this mode of education continues to rise, examining factors that affect their well-being is crucial (Ray, 2022). Nine online discussions with 26 homeschooling mothers set up as focus groups revealed strong connections to self-efficacy and agency. Group sizes ranged from two to four participants making some of the groups dyadic interviews rather than focus groups (Morgan, 1996). Agency and self-efficacy contributed to the sense of well-being for the mother and by extension to her family (Bandura 1977, 2006). The findings from this study suggest other homeschool mothers and past experiences played a role in their self-efficacy that contributed to their well-being leading to their self-efficacy expectation. Though previous literature suggests that homeschooling mothers connect strongly to the concept of <i>good mother</i>, the mothers in this study rejected many of the principles Hays (1996) suggests a <i>good mother</i> exhibits. The use of metaphors as a qualitative tool aided in the discovery of ways these mothers navigate their lives and how their management impacted their families. As an engaged qualitative inductive study, suggestions to existing homeschool groups and organizations that hope to support homeschooling families gave a connection back to communities outside of academia.</p>

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Our connections to the digital world are invoked by brands, but the intersection of branding and interaction design is still an under-investigated area. Particularly, current websites are designed not only to support essential user tasks, but also to communicate an institution's intended brand values and traits. What we do not yet know, however, is which design factors affect which aspect of a brand. To demystify this issue, three sub-projects were conducted. The first project developed a systematic approach for evaluating the branding effectiveness of content-intensive websites (BREW). BREW gauges users' brand perceptions on four well-known branding constructs: brand as product, brand as organization, user image, and brand as person. It also provides rich guidelines for eBranding researchers in regard to planning and executing a user study and making improvement recommendations based on the study results. The second project offered a standardized perceived usability questionnaire entitled DEEP (design-oriented evaluation of perceived web usability). DEEP captures the perceived website usability on five design-oriented dimensions: content, information architecture, navigation, layout consistency, and visual guidance. While existing questionnaires assess more holistic concepts, such as ease-of-use and learnability, DEEP can more transparently reveal where the problem actually lies. Moreover, DEEP suggests that the two most critical and reliable usability dimensions are interface consistency and visual guidance. Capitalizing on the BREW approach and the findings from DEEP, a controlled experiment (N=261) was conducted by manipulating interface consistency and visual guidance of an anonymized university website to see how these variables may affect the university's image. Unexpectedly, consistency did not significantly predict brand image, while the effect of visual guidance on brand perception showed a remarkable gender difference. When visual guidance was significantly worsened, females became much less satisfied with the university in terms of brand as product (e.g., teaching and research quality) and user image (e.g., students' characteristics). In contrast, males' perceptions of the university's brand image stayed the same in most circumstances. The reason for this gender difference was revealed through a further path analysis and a follow-up interview, which inspired new research directions to unpack even more the nexus between branding and interaction design.