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No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2006. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 312-320).

Over the last decade considerable interest has been generated into the use of analytical methods in organisations. Along with this, many have reported a significant gap between organisational demand for analytical-trained staff, and the number of potential recruits qualified for such roles. This interest is of high relevance to the operational research discipline, both in terms of raising the profile of the field, as well as in the teaching and training of graduates to fill these roles. However, what is less clear, is the extent to which operational research teaching in universities, or indeed teaching on the various courses labelled as analytics , are offering a curriculum that can prepare graduates for these roles. It is within this space that this research is positioned, specifically seeking to analyse the suitability of current provisions, limited to master s education in UK universities, and to make recommendations on how curricula may be developed. To do so, a mixed methods research design, in the pragmatic tradition, is presented. This includes a variety of research instruments. Firstly, a computational literature review is presented on analytics, assessing (amongst other things) the amount of research into analytics from a range of disciplines. Secondly, a historical analysis is performed of the literature regarding elements that can be seen as the pre-cursor of analytics, such as management information systems, decision support systems and business intelligence. Thirdly, an analysis of job adverts is included, utilising an online topic model and correlations analyses. Fourthly, online materials from UK universities concerning relevant degrees are analysed using a bagged support vector classifier and a bespoke module analysis algorithm. Finally, interviews with both potential employers of graduates, and also academics involved in analytics courses, are presented. The results of these separate analyses are synthesised and contrasted. The outcome of this is an assessment of the current state of the market, some reflections on the role operational research make have, and a framework for the development of analytics curricula. The principal contribution of this work is practical; providing tangible recommendations on curricula design and development, as well as to the operational research community in general in respect to how it may react to the growth of analytics. Additional contributions are made in respect to methodology, with a novel, mixed-method approach employed, and to theory, with insights as to the nature of how trends develop in both the jobs market and in academia. It is hoped that the insights here, may be of value to course designers seeking to react to similar trends in a wide range of disciplines and fields.

<p>A new hospital in United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to adopt health information technology (HIT) and become fully digitalized once operational. The hospital has identified a need to assess basic computer literacy of new employees prior to offering them training on various HIT applications. Lack of research in identifying an accurate assessment method for basic computer literacy among health care professionals led to this explanatory correlational research study, which compared self-assessment scores and a simulated actual computer skills test to find an appropriate tool for assessing computer literacy. The theoretical framework of the study was based on constructivist learning theory and self-efficacy theory. Two sets of data from 182 hospital employees were collected and analyzed. A t test revealed that scores of self-assessment were significantly higher than they were on the actual test, which indicated that hospital employees tend to score higher on self-assessment when compared to actual skills test. A Pearson product moment correlation revealed a statistically weak correlation between the scores, which implied that self-assessment scores were not a reliable indicator of how an individual would perform on the actual test. An actual skill test was found to be the more reliable tool to assess basic computer skills when compared to self-assessment test. The findings of the study also identified areas where employees at the local hospital lacked basic computer skills, which led to the development of the project to fill these gaps by providing training on basic computer skills prior to them getting trained on various HIT applications. The findings of the study will be useful for hospitals in UAE who are in the process of adopting HIT and for health information educators to design appropriate training curricula based on assessment of basic computer literacy.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-101).

This thesis describes the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE), an engineering demonstration of the technique of ionisation cooling. It provides a detailed description of the creation of a Geometry Handling System that has been written as part of the MICE Analysis User Software and its benefits in providing a flexible and accurate method to model the MICE experiment. Finally the results of the bench tests of the Electron Muon Ranger will be presented. MICE is part of an international programme to provide the technology for the Neutrino Factory (NF). The NF requires the technology to; capture the muons from a pion beam; cool them to form a high intensity beam with a small emittance; and accelerate the resulting muons. The decay of the resulting monochromatic muon beam produces a neutrino beam with precisely defjned flavour content and an accurately calculable energy spectrum. The μ beam's intensity and collimation is sufficiently high to allow experiments to be performed with a baseline of several thousand km.

The Science Teachers' Development and Training Centre or STDTC (Pusat Pengembangan dan Penataran Guru Ilmu Pengetahuan Alam or PPPG IPA) is an official in-service science teacher training, which is in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. Between 1978 and 1997, an in-service science-teacher training project, which is known as the PKG IPA Project, was developed by the Directorate of General Secondary Education. The successful PKG IPA project implemented its own in-service science teacher training system within its own training network across Indonesia, without the involvement of the PPPG IPA as the existing official teacher-training agent. The existence of the project was discontinued when the World Bank loan ended. Unfortunately, the expensive infrastructures developed by the PKG IPA project could no longer be utilized because the PKG IPA project was excluded from the official structure of organization of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC) which is now known as Ministry of National education (MNE). In addition, the ignorance of the staff of the PPPG IPA about the PKG IPA project is one indicator why that the PPPG IPA is facing some problems, which affect the implementation of its duties and functions.Based on this indicator, this study was implemented with two objectives, namely, to investigate and analyze current problems facing the PPPG IPA, and to make recommendations for formulating appropriate policies and strategies in order to rationalize the future roles of the PPPG IPA. The study involved seven research questions, which were grouped into three concerns, namely, the quality of the environment, a needs analysis, and analysis of the Directorate's policies. The seven research questions required different instruments to collect the data. Existing instruments, SLEQ (School Level Environment Questionnaire) and SLEI (Science Laboratory Environment Inventory), ++ / were translated into Indonesian. The researcher developed other instruments. The study involved both qualitative and quantitative research methods and types of data, included various sampling strategy classifications, such as purposeful sampling and opportunistic sampling. The data collecting strategy involved surveys, observations, interviews, and mining documents.The study concluded that the PPPG IPA is facing some current problems related to the aspects of working environment, science laboratory environment, human resources, facilities, policies, and in-service training networking. The study recommended that the Ministry of National Education (MNE) formulate appropriate policies and strategies in order to rationalize the roles of the PPPG IPA in order to strengthen the implementation, and improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of the in-service training programs. A new ministerial regulation also is recommended to be released to replace the previous relevant regulations in order to accommodate the above concerns.

Professional development for educators has been defined as the process or processes by which teachers achieve higher levels of professional competence and expand their understanding of self, role, context and career (Duke and Stiggins, 1990). Currently, there is limited research literature that examines the effect a professional development course, which uses David Kolb’s experiential learning model, has on the professional growth and teaching practice of middle school science teachers. The purpose of this interpretive case study is to investigate how three science teachers who participated in the Rivers to Reef professional development course interpreted the learning experience and integrated the experience into their teaching practice. The questions guiding this research are 1. What is the relationship between a professional development course that uses an experiential learning model and science teaching practice? 2. How do the Rivers to Reef participants reflect on and describe the course as a professional growth experience? The creation of the professional development course and the framework for the study were established using David Kolb’s (1975) experiential learning theory and the reflection process model designed by David Boud (1985). The participants in the study are three middle school science teachers from schools representing varied settings and socioeconomic levels in the southeastern United States. Data collected used the three-interview series interview format designed by Dolbere and Schuman (Seidman, 1998). Data was analyzed for the identification of common categories related to impact on science teaching practice and professional growth. The major finding of this study indicates the years of teaching experience of middle school science teachers significantly influences how they approach professional development, what and how they learn from the experience, and the ways in which the experience influences their teaching practices.

To be accepted into social groups, individuals must internalise and reproduce appropriate group conventions, such as rituals. The high fidelity copying of such rigid and socially stipulated behavioural sequences places heavy demands on executive function abilities. Given previous research showing that challenging executive functioning also improves it, it was hypothesised that prolonged engagement in ritualistic behaviours would improve executive functioning in children, in turn improving their ability to delay gratification. A three month circle-time-games intervention with primary school children in two contrasting cultural environments (Slovakia and Vanuatu) was conducted. In both environments we found the intervention improved children's executive function and in turn their ability to delay gratification. Moreover, these effects were amplified when the intervention task was imbued with ritual, rather than instrumental, cues. The findings presented in this thesis have potentially far-reaching implications for child-rearing and educational practices, suggesting ritual participation may be necessary for the cultivation of future mindedness.