Background: Working from home (WFH) has become a new tendency thanks to the improvement of technological communications that enable new flexible ways of working. Before 2020 and the Covid19 pandemic, some companies had already started implementing this approach. However, the pandemic drove a widespread implementation of remote work, leading to the appearance of new problems previously not considered by most companies and individuals. Among these problems is the effect of WFH on the employee’s career perspective as well as the lower visibility in the workplace which could have an impact in future promotions. Objectives: The main research phenomenon to be studied is the impact of WFH on career prospects for engineers and in particular the paradox between visibility at work and the career progress of the employees. Methodology: The contribution of this thesis is a fourfold. First, it analyses the effect of visibility when WFH on engineers’ career perspectives. Second, it proposes a framework that relates WFH, visibility and career. Thirdly, it contributes to the existing literature on WFH, visibility and career. Lastly, it uses the innovative method of questerview, involving twelve engineers working on R&D department of an aeronautical company, to finally develop a thematic analysis and generate a new framework to be discussed with the first, according to the grounded theory method. Results: The results showed that WFH has an impact on career progression with a decrease invisibility, affecting it through personal relationships. WFH also affects other factors (such as networking and soft-skills) and these have a connection with visibility that, all together, will have a high impact in the career promotion rate. Other findings include the necessity to work on visibility by prioritizing the meetings with the right people in order to become more allegeable for promotion. Visibility affects the trust between manager and employee, due to the fact that the latter becomes much more dependable on deliverables when comparing to working in the office. WFH doesn’t affect visibility for career promotion if credibility with managers has been achieved, this being connected with job quality. Conclusions: WFH and visibility have both a high impact on the engineer’s career progression. The first reduces direct contact with peers and superiors, which in turn decreases visibility. Visibility has been found to be an essential tool for promotion. Its effect on career promotion works as the enabler to promotion, making superiors notice your work and keeping the employee in their minds to consider when a promotion is proposed. Visibility has not solely an impact on career promotion, but it has a connection between networking and soft-skills, and these three factors are directly related to one another when considering the influence on career promotion. Recommendations for future research: The relationships between factors in the literature review framework need to be studied further, in line with the cross connections found in the new framework. Also, during the elaboration of the thematic maps, it was also found that WFH has an impact on daily work (affecting autonomy, networking, and productivity) and additional research would enrich the final framework. Lastly, it was found during the questerview analysis that other factors not considered in the present study are also relevant for career promotion such as age, education level and experience. Future research could focus on studying the impact these factors have on career promotion.

Evolution is the central organizing theory of biology. Without evolutionary theory, biology becomes a somewhat tangential assemblage of facts about living organisms, which is precisely how it is viewed by many students. Many teachers teach evolution in a limited capacity or avoid it entirely due to fear of opposition, lack of confidence in their own understanding, or lack of acceptance of the theory themselves. When evolution is not taught, or is not accepted, it cannot be utilized to make sense of the field, and is quickly forgotten by students. While some studies have shown a correlation between instruction about evolution and acceptance of evolution, many have not. Understanding which instructional factors, both pedagogical and conceptual, contribute to increases in evolution acceptance are paramount if we are going to make biology education more cohesive and applicable beyond the context of the course itself. To better understand what these factors may be, I utilized curriculum that I developed previously to teach introductory biology to non-biology majors that incorporated evolution as the organizing structure and appeared to produce considerable increases in acceptance of evolution based on the lack of hostility and pushback from the students in the course. I verified that the curriculum as taught produced increases in acceptance of evolution using the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument as a measure of acceptance, and by asking students on the final exam what their position had been before instruction and if it had changed as a result of the course. Both measures revealed a considerable increase in evolution acceptance. Using a full factorial experimental design, tested three major pedagogical approaches that have all been hypothesized to contribute to increasing evolution acceptance: Constructivist-inspired vs Behaviorist-inspired, active vs less active instruction, and reflexive journaling vs not journaling. While all possible combinations of treatments showed statistically significant increases in evolution acceptance, there was no statistically significant difference between any of the treatments or combinations of treatments. Also, using Thematic Analysis, we coded and analyzed the responses that students provided as to the concepts from class that played a role in their having changed or not changed their positions on evolution as reported on the final exams, and in their reflexive journals which provided a valuable window into the concepts that we might emphasize or choose to remove or deemphasize in the future to maximize the probability that student acceptance of evolution will increase following instruction.

More than half a billion people use Online Social Network Sites (OSNS) today. They disclose personally identifiable information such as names, date of birth, email address, phone numbers, and home address on their profiles. Some OSNS users also disclose their political and religious views and personal interests. The huge commercial potential of OSNS users’ information and the integration of OSNS with third party advertisers and/or aggregators pose threats to users’ privacy. This thesis reports a study which contributes to our understanding of the form and nature of online privacy by critically analysing the privacy concerns related with the failed launch of Facebook’s advertising tool Beacon. Beacon is an interesting case study because it highlighted the privacy concerns of OSNS users. Qualitative data was gathered from 29 weblogs (blogs) representing user opinions (492 comments) published between 6th November 2007(when Beacon was launched) and 28th February 2008 (when commentary had dwindled). A thematic analysis of the blogs contributed in the development of a taxonomy of privacy concerns of OSNS users specifically related with the third party information use. Noticeably, the concerns such as commercialism, terms of service (TOS), lack of user control, lack of user awareness and data protection influence user perceptions of online privacy. The limitations and key implications for designers and service providers of OSNS are also discussed.

Microservice architecture is an emerging approach to application development. While the decentralized nature of microservices comes with advantages it also introduces new challenges to monitoring as the graph of interactions between services can be complex. We explore how a dashboard for microservice monitoring can support first-line operators with limited experience in software development and microservice architecture. We apply a participatory design approach and create a prototype in an iterative fashion together with developers, operators and stakeholders. The final prototype is evaluated through a think-aloud protocol and a system usability scale survey. A thematic analysis of the think-aloud renders three prevalent design lessons: (1) automation and context-switches; (2) consistency across views and states; and (3) language differences between developers and operators. / Mikrotjänstarkitektur används alltmer inom applikationsutveckling. Även om dess decentraliserade natur kommer med vissa fördelar, introducerar den också nya utmaningar inom övervakning, då den samtidigt kan medföra komplexa beroenden mellan tjänster. Vi utforskar hur en dashboard för mikrotjänstövervakning kan stödja first-line operatörer med begränsad erfarenhet av mjukvaruutveckling och mikrotjänstarkitektur. Vi närmar oss problemet med hjälp av participatory design och skapar en prototyp på ett iterativt sätt tillsammans med utvecklare, operatörer och intressenter. Den slutliga prototypen utvärderas genom ett think-aloud-protokoll och en System Usability Scale-enkät. En tematisk analys av think-aloud sessionerna resulterade i tre teman: (1) automatisering och kontextväxling; (2) att vara konsekvent mellan vyer och tillstånd; och (3) språkskillnader mellan utvecklare och operatörer.

In this qualitative study, eight school policies against degrading treatment and bullying, which were applied in eight municipalities in six different counties in Sweden, were analyzed to study what interventions the schools used to prevent degrading treatment and bullying and what course of actions the schools took in case such behavior was shown. These policies were analyzed with thematic analysis, which involved finding codes in the qualitative data and developing them into themes within the data. As a result, the study showed that 130 interventions were used in these schools. These interventions were developed into 59 themes, which were categorized according to the frame factor theory, which included four frames: judicial, administrative, physical, and social frames. They were also categorized into five levels, at which they were applied: school-level, classroom-level, individual-level, school-level interventions that were applied by students, and security-level. The first three levels were taken from Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP), and the following two levels were constructed during the study. The results showed that the four frames and the interventions in them intervened more with each other than it was originally discussed in the frame factor theory, as well as with the different levels at which they were used. The results also suggested the necessity of a remodeling of the theory in the light of conclusions based on the data and changes in school as an institution caused by changes in society. Keywords: Middle school policies, thematic analysis, frame factor theory, degrading treatment, bullying.

The thesis examines how the logic of misogyny and post-feminism has perpetuated the negotiations of femininity in digital environments. Employing thematic analysis, the study explores online depictions of the phenomenon Not Like the Other Girls in order to explain its relation to internalized misogyny. The data has been formed as a case study of Instagram #Notliketheothergirls and Reddit - r/notliketheothergirls. The result of the analysis unveiled the expression of traditional notions of femininity and post-feminist ideas and be found, resulting in a paradoxical idea of femininity. Moreover, the method has developed three central themes repeated within the data around the phenomenon of Not Like the Other Girls. Their significance spurs on the opposition between the patriarchal and post-feminist ideal of woman and discovers a new term - internal dichotomies. The constant comparison throughout the paper requires analysis of the role of ‘the other’. As findings claim, it is an essential part of finding one’s position and developing a sense of belonging. The overall findings conclude that internalized misogyny can be explained as the driving power of phenomena such NLOGs. However, further research should focus on the age aspect of women protagonists of internalized misogyny, engaging in the negotiations of femininity.

The aim of this study is to examine disinformation about the covid-19 vaccine in posts from Swedish Facebook groups. At the end of 2019, the coronavirus started to spread around the world and became a global pandemic. On social media, especially Facebook, disinformation started to spread around about the virus. The study was based on 58 posts from 4 different Facebook groups where a qualitative thematic analysis was conducted to see which themes that were common in the disinformation. This method was paired with framing theory to see how the senders were framing their message and the disinformation. The research questions of this study are which themes can be identified in the disinformation about the covid-19 vaccine in the Swedish Facebook groups? And how are the covid-19 vaccines framed in these themes? This study resulted in 4 themes with 9 subcategories. The first theme is conspiracy theories with the subcategory mRNA. The second theme is scientific resistance with the subcategories questioning the content of the vaccines, critical of the manufacturing and approval of the vaccines, effectiveness, critical of pharmaceutical companies and alternative cure. The third theme is criticism of senders, and the fourth theme is warnings with the subcategories exhortation, swine flu and side effects. In the theme conspiracy theories, the posts are framing vaccine as something dangerous, untrustworthy and that it is a fraud. The posts can also be connected to already existing theories about the virus. In the second theme, scientific resistance, are the posts framing resistance against scientific proven fact about the vaccines. The posts also frame that there are other solutions for covid-19 than the vaccine. In the third theme, criticism against senders, the common frames were that the senders of information about the vaccine and vaccination were smeared, for example the Swedish government and the public health authority. These senders were framed as traitors and that the Swedish population would become their slaves. In the last theme warnings, the posts framed warnings and tried to influence people to not take the vaccine because of several reasons like side effects. The posts also framed that these reasons could lead to death or other health issues for the rest of their lives.

Research shows that preschool teachers lack knowledge about how the goals for an inclusive education of children with special needs are to be achieved in practice. The aim of this study is to show how preschool teachers work with the inclusion of children with special needs, despite the lack of specific guidelines regarding how the preschool should work with inclusion. To answer the study's purpose and questions, a qualitative thematic analysis method has been used. We have analyzed the collected material from six interviews with preschool teachers from different preschools and municipalities in Sweden. The result shows that the preschool teachers support and include children with special needs by using different tools such as visual aids (for example, signs with pictures and text), as well as learning tablets. The interview shows that all preschool teachers agree that the concept of inclusion means adapting activities to create opportunities for all children to be able to participate. It also emerged that all preschool teachers agree that children with special needs generally require more support than children without special needs.

Attitudes are based on motivations and are formed in anticipation that the person will handle similar information at a later date. Attitudes are, therefore, necessary collections of pre-determined behavioral intents toward certain information (Solomon et al., 2016). Attitudes and their underlying functions form using a hierarchical structure where certain elements hold the primacy of effect over the remainder. These elements affect, behavior, and cognition as presented by Solomon and colleagues (Solomon et al., 2016). This study aims to explore how investors form attitudes towards the adoption of unfamiliar attitude objects, specifically when confronted with communications regarding Bitcoin adoption. The reason for this study is threefold; firstly, congruent academia has only conducted temperature checks on already established attitudes towards Bitcoin from diverse crowds in a spread of non-western cultures (Gagarina et al., 2019; Anser et al., 2020). Secondly, the aforementioned studies incorporated loosely defined sample groups. Understanding technology adoption, following the theories of Rogers (1995), requires that inaugural research is done on those who are most likely to adopt the technology. Lastly, congruent research has yet to tackle attitude formation on Bitcoin as an asset. Established research all commit to researching already established attitudes on a less niched sample (Gagarina et al., 2019; Yoo et al., 2020). The conclusion of said studies found thematic, contextual antecedents to why certain participants had certain attitudes. However, these studies do not explore the underlying hierarchy or function of said attitudes. To fill such a gap, a study following a deductive, exploratory nature was developed. Through thematic coding of qualitative interviews, this study contributes to the existing literature in two aspects: first, active Swedish investors rely on affective reasoning when faced with this particular unfamiliar attitude object. Second, such affective reasoning is most likely a result of participants defaulting to the grouping of information within the knowledge function, as no cognitive baseline (in the form of understanding price developments in Bitcoin) could be established. The general attitude formation followed an affective dominant, low-involvement hierarchy created through the knowledge function.

Syftet med studien är att få en större förståelse för elever i matematiksvårigheter genom att beskriva fyra speciallärares erfarenheter av undervisning med elever i matematiksvårigheter. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ ansats där fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med verksamma speciallärare. I resultatet redogörs speciallärarnas uppfattning av matematiksvårigheter, hur undervisningen kan se ut och hur samarbetet fungerar mellan speciallärare och klasslärare.    Slutsatser som kan dras är att matematiksvårigheter inte endast beror på en enda faktor utan att flera olika perspektiv måste tas i beaktande för att kunna möta elever i matematiksvårigheter. De faktorer som nämns i störst utsträckning är olämplig undervisning, koncentrationssvårigheter, minnessvårigheter, läs-och skrivsvårigheter och matematikängslan. Elever stöttas genom konkret material och genom anpassad undervisning. Elever gynnas av en tillgänglig lärmiljö och att det finns en medveten plan om hur den särskilda undervisningen ska ske. Det är även viktigt att hitta brister i elevernas matematikkunskaper redan i förskoleklass för att förebygga att matematiksvårigheter uppkommer. Resultatet visade även att speciallärare och klasslärare har ett nära samarbete och hjälps åt när det gäller att analysera och kartlägga eleverna. / The aim of the study is to contribute to a greater understanding of pupils’ difficulties in learning mathematics by describing four special teacher’s experiences of teaching students with difficulties. The study is based on a qualitative approach where four semi-structured interviews are implemented with active special teachers. The result describes how the special teachers' perception of mathematical difficulties, how the teaching can be planned and what the collaboration looks like between the special teacher and the class teacher. Conclusions is that mathematical difficulties do not only depend on one single factor and it is necessary to take into consideration to look at several different perspectives in order to be able to meet pupils with difficulties in learning mathematics. The factors that are mentioned to the greatest extent are inappropriate teaching, concentration difficulties, problem with working memory, reading- and writing difficulties and mathematical anxiety. Pupils are supported through concrete materials and adapted teaching. Pupils benefit from an accessible learning environment and that there is a conscious plan for how the special teaching should take place. It is also important to find gaps in mathematics already from preschool to prevent mathematical difficulties. The result also showed that special teachers and class teachers work closely together and help each other when it comes to analyzing pupils.