DTheses (Athabasca University)
Not a member yet
487 research outputs found
Sort by
The Impact of Factors to Choose an Online Higher Education Institution
Get PDFThe prospect of choosing an online institution to attend can be a daunting task for students and institutions alike. In this quantitative study, 120 first year, online students from two universities in Canada were sampled to determine the most important factors linked to choice, as well as the information sources most commonly used. Core results of the study indicated that flexibility, convenience, and the program are the most important factors students look for when choosing an online institution, and that the university website is the main information outlet utilized for research. Results also indicated that finding sufficient information is often difficult, and that institutions should put more resources into marketing and advertising. These results may prove beneficial to institutions looking to tailor their marketing initiatives, and in due course, will hopefully benefit students by simplifying the research process, and ensuring that institutions focus on the factors they find most important.201
How Sexual Minorities may use the Internet to Foster Resiliency
Get PDFSexual minorities’ strengths, skills, and resources are often overlooked within the dominant social discourse. While this community may experience individual and systemic barriers, they also possess many positive attributes to overcome adverse situations. This study followed the lived experiences of seven gay, White, cis-gender men between the ages 18-29 to learn how they demonstrated resiliency on the Internet. I used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a research method to analyze the lived experiences. Participants disclosed the importance of finding their community online. Participants spoke to the importance of having their experience validated by their peers. I also explored with the participants what makes the Internet an appropriate medium to foster resiliency. While many positive themes were disclosed, some negative attributes of using the Internet were also examined. This study provides evidence for the mental health profession on the importance of being culturally-informed and to validate people’s lived experiences.2018-0
Multiplicity of “I’s” in intersectionality: Women's exclusion from STEM management in the Canadian space industry
Get PDFThis study focused on the question of how there are so few science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-professional women managers in the Canadian space industry. To address this question, I examined discourses and power-relations surrounding these STEM-professional women’s identities. I drew on, and reworked, the concept of anchor points, specifically asking: what is the range of anchor points associated with, and available to, STEM-professional women within the Canadian space industry? What is the relationship between select anchor points and structural (e.g., organizational rules, formative contexts), discursive (interrelated dominant ideas and practices), and socio-psychological (e.g., critical sensemaking) processes? How do these anchor points influence the exclusion of STEM-professional women from management/executive positions within this industry?
I applied the critical sensemaking (CSM) framework to mundane, everyday discourses, in order to reconstruct the STEM-professional woman’s range of anchor points. This framework provided an avenue to surface the relationship between this range of anchor points, and the meta-rules, rules, and formative contexts of this industry. The CSM framework also assisted me in revealing the relationship of this range of anchor points with the STEM-professional woman’s dominant ideas and practices, and her critical sensemaking processes. Analysis of the STEM-professional women’s discourses, along with those of her male colleagues, brought to light not only the STEM-professional woman’s intersecting identities but also, importantly, the productive and oppressive power-relations at work in this industry. In this way, I was able to showcase the ‘how’ of exclusion of STEM-professional women from management/executive positions.
With this empirical study, I am contributing to our understanding of how to reconstruct the multiplicities of ‘I’s’ that is the complex individual. I am also contributing to intersectionality scholarship by deconstructing the binary treatment of the ‘men-versus-women’ hidden assumptions within the relationality concept. In addition, I provide methodological clarity with respect to the CSM framework, building on previous authors’ definitions, and uses of this heuristic. This research initiative is also an important step to addressing social change within the Canadian space industry. I offer a plausible interpretation of the exclusionary day-to-day reality for STEM-professional women, and then build specific sites for micro-political resistance, targeting early career, mid, and late career initiatives, in order to effect social change in this industry.2018-Jun
CONSIDERING SHIFTS IN PARENTING AFTER THE 8-WEEK CIRCLE OF SECURITY© PARENTING PROGRAM
Get PDFEvidence of the effectiveness of relationship-based parenting programs such as the 20-week Circle of Security© intervention is emerging in the scientific literature. Research regarding the 8- week Circle of Security© Parenting program is still in its infancy. The aims of this current thesis work were to 1) identify themes that emerged from parent’s descriptions of shifts or no shifts in parenting after completion of the 8-week Circle of Security© Parenting program, and 2) to conduct interviews through the video teleconferencing software, Zoom Video Communications Inc., to document participant experiences and make recommendations on best practices. For the first research aim, seven themes and eight sub-themes emerged from 13 transcribed interviews. For the second aim, parents who participated in the Zoom Video Communications Inc. interviews described the video teleconferencing interviews as: (1) convenient, (2) personal, (3) option to choose the device to participate in the interview, and (4) time-saving.2018-0
Performance Information Use in the Canadian Higher Education Sector
Get PDFThe problem with many performance management (PM) systems is that organizational members do not always use performance information, the result of performance measurement, in a rational manner to improve the decision-making process. In other words, scholars have found that the adoption, design and implementation of PM systems, all of which can consume significant resources, will not automatically result in the use of performance data to inform organizational decision-making. A number of PM academics assert that research in the area of performance information (PI) use is key in order to understand why PM systems sometimes fail. As a result, there is a growing body of empirical studies that focus on identifying variables that foster or constrain PI use. This mixed methods study, set in the Canadian higher education sector, continues in the same vein. Faced with difficult financial constraints and growing demands for accountability universities around the globe are increasingly introducing PM systems and using the data derived from these systems to make a variety of institutional decisions.
Specifically, this study investigates the use of performance information (PI) to inform the decision-making process, stakeholder characteristics that may influence PI use and the strategies used to create a data driven culture.
The findings show that Canadian university leaders have an above-average level of PI use. As well, the qualitative data indicate that a desire to demonstrate accountability and respond to accountability demands are the main factors driving PI use. However, the regression results are surprising. That is, even though faculty stakeholders are perceived to be very salient, there is no significant relationship between perceived faculty salience and PI use by university leaders. The only significant stakeholder relationship is between perceived staff salience and PI use. The findings also reveal a significant relationship between organizational size and PI use. As well, the predominant stakeholder management strategies regarding PM and PI use are involvement, collaboration, and monitoring, and peer influence is used to encourage non-supportive members to become supportive of PM and PI use.2018-0
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES FOR OER: A CASE STUDY OF BRAZILIAN FUNDAMENTAL EDUCATION PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS
Get PDFK-12 public education in Brazil suffers from low investment in teacher training, which results in a lack of support for fostering pedagogical change through the use of digital technology resources for pedagogical use. The use of Open Educational Resources (OER) in the K-12 public education sector enables teachers to access to a wide variety of free sources and new ideas for planning and enhancing their lessons, and it affords them the possibility to improve their own knowledge and skills in information and communication technologies (ICTs). There has been little empirical research on teachers’ use of OER in K-12 public education in Brazil. This case study addresses that gap, exploring a set of evidence-based OER guidelines in the context of teacher professional development (TPD) for Brazilian fundamental education public school teachers through the development and delivery of a face-to-face OER professional development program (ODP). The study was conducted at one Brazilian fundamental education public school; quantitative data assessed the intentions of the participants of the study to adopt and use OER; qualitative data identified barriers and learning needs and assessed learning outcomes upon completion of the ODP. The findings of this study suggest that ongoing facilitator support and practical, step-by-step, hands-on TPD in OER can enhance teachers’ engagement and confidence with OER and that school administrations’ awareness and engagement is imperative to ensure their success. The study proposes a set of evidence-based OER guidelines for stakeholders who wish to promote the adoption and use of OER in the Brazilian public fundamental education system.2018-Jun
A Predictive Workload Balancing Algorithm in Cloud Services
Get PDFIn today’s business world, many companies and government agencies depend
on the infrastructures of cloud services to host and process their information. Load
processing of many cloud services is distributed in a static manner which can overload
the largest available systems. This paper is an exploratory study on the predictive
approach for dynamic resource distribution of cloud services.
Today, many cloud service providers are exploring the benefit of dynamic
workload-balancing for their resource management. Rather than issuing fixed
resources to each customer, a dynamic hosting alternative offers a way to allocate
resources dynamically and more efficiently to save computational power.
Efficient cloud resource management can be achieved by simulating cloud
services based on the predictions of incoming workloads, which can be more efficient
than static allocation methods (Wolke, Bichler, and Setzer, 2015). Previous
researchers in this area have focused on dynamic load balancing algorithms that are
based on a current workload demanded by a client. These approaches require high
computational power and additional time to meet the demands of dynamic cloud
services. This paper introduces a rule-based workload-balancing algorithm based on
the predictions of an end-to-end system called Cicada. A simulation of cloud services
can be achieved by a cloud service simulator called CloudSim and it will be used to
achieve an algorithm with lower computational demand and a faster workload
balancing. The final result will demonstrate the effectiveness of a predictive workload
balancing approach that can achieve faster workload balancing with a lower
computational power usage.2018-Augus
Design Thinking Applied: The Process of Creating a Technology-Mediated Debriefing Module
Get PDFThis qualitative case study explored the effectiveness of using design thinking to create a technology-mediated debriefing module (mock up/story board) for practical nursing students. Participants (faculty, students, instructional designers and technologists) were guided by a facilitator through the 5 phases of design thinking. An analysis of focus group data, researcher notes and participant interviews revealed six themes: co-construction of knowledge, consensus building, student voice, sharing of unique subject matter expertise, the design thinking process guides and the Community of Inquiry. The collaborative, problem solving nature of the design team resulted in the creation of a professional community of learning. Within this community of learning all three presences of the Community of Inquiry model were evident (social, cognitive and teaching) creating an optimal learning environment for innovative inquiry, problem solving and design. The design thinking process provided a structured methodology which enabled sharing, learning and co-construction of new knowledge.2018-0
Zebras Showing their Stripes: A Critical Sensemaking Study of the Discursive Construction and Gendering of CSR Leaders
No full textThis thesis presents a feminist poststructuralist study of gender equity in the context of female corporate social responsibility (CSR) leaders in Canada. I draw on the poststructuralist theoretical and methodological approaches of critical discourse analysis and critical sensemaking to uncover how language and power dynamics create inequity through forms of texts. By problematizing seemingly neutral discourses, I locate the hidden discourses and discursive practices that are constructed through women’s perceptions of social interactions at the leadership level that may serve as discriminatory barriers toward women. Hence, I contribute to a small but growing body of feminist critical literature that calls for a need to change the current paradigms of CSR leadership.
This two-part study deconstructs texts in the Canadian newspaper press and then, based on interviews with female CSR leaders, examines the hidden discourses and enactment of power and influence, to distinguish specific processes that can lead to institutional change. The discourses presented in the newspaper articles in the last 40 years have consistently reproduced powerful organizational rules that set limitations on the behaviour and sensemaking of individuals. My analysis of the interviews reveals how individuals respond to well-established “rules of the game” with which they must contend. Despite operating within a gendered system wherein men’s power continues to be pervasive and persistent, the female CSR leaders interviewed all, either subtly or overtly, challenge discriminatory practices in their workplaces. Through engaging in micro-processes of resistance, they show strong sense of identity that translates into a strong sense of obligation to contribute to society in a meaningful way.
I offer a story that is empirically sensitive and reveals impressions and interpretations that, I hope, encourage the reader to pause and consider taken-for-granted biases, truths, and meanings that have silenced some voices and privileged others.2018/0
Parental perceptions of behaviour change: A circle of security® parenting™ perspective
Get PDFThe purpose of this study was to describe perception changes experienced by parents through participation in Circle of Security® Parenting™ (COS-P); specifically changes to their perceptions of their child’s behaviour and to their perceptions of their own responses to their child’s behaviour. Qualitative description was used to investigate changes in parent’s perceptions of their own and their child’s behaviour following participation in COS-P. Five themes and eleven sub-themes emerged from 27 pre and post COS-P interviews. The findings reveal that after participation in COS-P parents perceived their responses to their child’s behaviour as more empathetic, understanding, and flexible. Parental perception of their child’s behaviour after participation in COS-P changed in that parents clearly voiced that their child’s behaviour had changed, was communicative in nature, and that the understanding that behaviour was communication changed both how the parent responded to the child and the behaviour from the child.2019-0