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As people continue to immigrate to Canada, it is becoming more important to consider the many social challenges that migrant youth face upon their arrival. The purpose of this MSW thesis was to evaluate the subjective experience of adolescents in a welcoming class who participated in a video art pilot project. Twelve adolescents were interviewed using a semi-structured qualitative format after the end of the project. They reported enjoying the group work process, discovering each other's talents and learning new skills such as how to use a video camera. All of these responses echo the goals of the Positive Youth Development model. It is hoped this study will contribute to the social work literature regarding programs for migrant youth.

This study aims to explore the influence of video games on youth identity in 21st century in two aspects, personal identity and social identity. First, through playing video games, young players can create new personal identities and merge their own identity with their avatars’ identity. Second, video games help young players transform from culture receivers to culture producers. Based upon the open coding from the data, two themes are analyzed, which are the awareness of influence on identity and the impact of consoles and other media/devices on the influence of video games. / Graduate / 0515 / 0710 / lxycaesar@gmail.com

In this study, we investigate various lighting applications in a virtual environment, where we compare between light based in naturalism (natural light) and pictorialism (artistic light). The purpose of this study is to gain further knowledge in lighting, which is increasingly important for game graphics. Theory are examined to gather information and recommendations on how to use various light settings that convey different emotions. We then use this information to illuminate the environment that we have built. The environment is presented in Unreal 4 for respondents who are allowed to move around freely in the environment. Then we carry out qualitative, semi-structured interviews at the respondents to find out what they thought of the light. The result showed that natural light did not give the same narrative effect as unnatural light.

It is suggested that commercial video games and gambling activities make use of similar types of intermittent reinforcement schedules. This research seeks to examine the nature of this relationship amongst children and adolescents. One hundred and four children from grades 4, 6, and 8 participated. A questionnaire exploring issues related to video game playing and gambling behavior was completed and a computerized blackjack game was individually administered. High frequency video game players are compared to low frequency video game players with respect to their gambling performance on the blackjack gambling task as well as on information gathered from the questionnaire. Findings suggest that high frequency video game players nor only gamble more than low frequency video game players but report that gambling makes them feel more important. Furthermore, they appear to be taking greater risks on the blackjack gambling task. Males exhibited greater risk-taking tendencies on the blackjack task than did females.

Today’s video game players sit in front of their screens immersing themselves within the fictional environment of the video game. They connect their physical self to the game-controller and their cerebral self to the game-world. The video game medium becomes a cybernetic and psychological appendage, a prosthesis that allows game players to share their consciousness across actual and virtual realities. Such an appendage has the ability to expand the personal spatial environment of the game players as they navigate the spaces of an increasingly complex, digitally constructed extension of the imagination. The thesis begins with an autobiographical summary of personal experiences in the suburbs and the resultant escape from suburbia that video games provide. The thesis then presents a series of experiential diaries generated from gameplay. This is followed by a conceptual analysis that uses six meditations to discuss the spaces and experiences presented in the diaries. The purpose of the conceptual analysis is to investigate how the narrative and spatial experiences of single player role playing video games expand our perceptions of architecture and space beyond the real-world. The spaces of these games represent a new way of thinking about, experiencing and creating architecture.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two types of videotape instructions on the resequencing performance of female tennis players at the novice, low, medium, and elite skill levels. Resequencing performance on the tennis serve and forehand drive was examined. Three different treatment conditions were administered: a control group was required to simply resequence the twelve still photographs of the tennis serve, another group were presented a videotape replay of the tennis serve played at regular speed, then three times in slow motion and then a final showing at regular speed, and a third group viewed a videotape replay augmented by skill cues. A posttest was administered. Similar procedures were carried out for the forehand drive. The results indicated that the resequencing performance was related to expertise in tennis. The slow motion and slow motion replay with augmented information treatments improved the resequencing performance of all the players on the tennis serve but not on the forehand drive.

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A controlled laboratory experiment was undertaken to simulate varying swash zone characteristics and sensor-target geometry found in digital images collected by ARGUS coastal imaging systems. Using a hyperspectral sensor, reflectance data were integrated over the respective red, blue and green wavelengths corresponding to a standard ARGUS video imaging sensor. The dominant swash zone parameters affecting shoreline detection were found to be the presence or absence of surface foam, site-specific sediment characteristics (especially colour), and water depth. Winter versus summer solar elevation and the sensor zenith were also found to affect the cross-shore location of the detected waterline. With this new information, site- and time-specific corrections can be applied to coastal digital imagery, to improve the confidence of shoreline detection.