Business simulators and lecturer’s perception! The case of University of Algarve

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usage of simulation/serious games in the University of Algarve (Portugal), because these novel learning environments are still on an early stage of adoption. Members of the Faculty of Economics (in a total 60 lecturers and their assistants) participated in this study through a mixed survey (closed and ask for agreement queries). The empirical evidences denote interesting results: (i) a response rate of 43 percent; (ii) these tools increase learning engagement; (iii) the lack of information and not sufficient alignment with the course unit hinders the uptake of these technologies within classrooms; (iv) lecturers have a positive perception and consider them as valuable for students’ better learning. Hence, this survey provides a good platform for future research and approaches how to promote a better exploration of simulation/serious games and their integration into course curriculum. To conclude, this paper will be divided into five sections: (i) research statement; (ii) research design (aims/objectives, research methodology and data collection/analysis); (iii) findings (lecturers’ profile, awareness, experiences and results summary); (iv) limitations and future work (methodological limitations and tools/ analysis upgrade); and, (v) conclusions

Business simulators and lecturers perception! The case of University of Algarve

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usage of simulation/serious games in the University of Algarve (Portugal), because these novel learning environments are still on an early stage of adoption. Members of the Faculty of Economics (in a total 60 lecturers and their assistants) participated in this study through a mixed survey (closed and ask for agreement queries). The empirical evidences denote interesting results: (i) a response rate of 43 percent; (ii) these tools increase learning engagement; (iii) the lack of information and not sufficient alignment with the course unit hinders the uptake of these technologies within classrooms; (iv) lecturers have a positive perception and consider them as valuable for students’ better learning. Hence, this survey provides a good platform for future research and approaches how to promote a better exploration of simulation/serious games and their integration into course curriculum. To conclude, this paper will be divided into five sections: (i) research statement; (ii) research design (aims/objectives, research methodology and data collection/analysis); (iii) findings (lecturers’ profile, awareness, experiences and results summary); (iv) limitations and future work (methodological limitations and tools/analysis upgrade); and, (v) conclusions

Ethical Evaluation of Learning Organizations: A Conceptual Framework

A key assumption for recognizing knowledge society is the existence of learning organizations. As a result, literature has been fruitful in engaging a wide debate concerning its characteristics, dimensions, evolution, evaluation procedures, or ethical behaviour. Likewise, it is interesting to denote that research appears to pay little regard to the impacts of existing ethical and social dilemmas about knowledge creation, retention/use and sharing within organizational contexts. Therefore, the key purpose of this manuscript is to present a conceptual framework that denotes these dilemmas and their impacts in organizational strategy.For that, this contribution resumes an ongoing research project which intends to approach ethical and social dilemmas in learning organizations. Moreover, it suggests that these dilemmas impact on organizational strategy, as well as that existing evaluation models for learning organizations do not promote the ethical evaluation

Case studies in South African public administration master's dissertations in the period 2005 to 2012

Case studies have been frequently used by Public Administration students enrolled for master’s degrees by coursework and mini-dissertation. There are apparently various meanings of and a lack of clarity about the concept “case study” when used in the titles of South African Public Administration master’s dissertations. The purpose of this study was to analyse case studies reported on in South African Public Administration master’s dissertations in order to determine the characteristics of these studies. The study examined case studies in South African Public Administration master’s dissertations completed between 2005 and 2012. It began by reviewing the various components of a case study, then went further to analyse the way in which case studies were applied in the field. The study defined case study as a research process determined by a combination of the following components: a specific strategy for selecting the unit of analysis (the case), a specific research design, research purpose, the methods of data collection and data analysis, and a specific nature of the expected outcomes of the study. The major findings of the study were that most case studies in the analysed dissertations have used interventions (60,9%) as their case. About (43,5%) of the analysed dissertations were evaluative in nature. There is, however, an uneven distribution in terms of the case study design used by a significant proportion of the dissertations (83%) employing the single-case design as opposed to the multiple-case design (17%). The results presented in relation to case selection strategies used show that typical cases were the most investigated. Moreover, a number of the dissertations seemed to be more aligned towards qualitative methods, although mixed methods were mostly used. These dissertations preferred interviews as sources of evidence. Meanwhile, pattern matching appeared to be the dominant technique used to analyse case study evidence in these dissertations. Hypothesis generating was also identified as the outcome in most of the dissertations.Public Administration and ManagementM. Admin. (Public Administration

Sources for Learning. Understanding the Role of Context in Teacher Professional Learning

This thesis investigates how context serves as a source for teacher learning. The complexities of teaching are growing and so is the need for teacher life long learning. Recent studies suggest that professional learning can be understood as the result of an array of experiences, but only if existing ideas and practices are being challenged through these experiences. If indeed professional learning emerges out of challenge, then it is relevant to take a closer look at teachers’ contexts, the kinds of challenges these contexts accommodate, and the ways they are perceived and processed by teachers. Building on the principles of Participatory Action Research, this exploratory study addresses the question of how these processes can be understood: how teacher contexts can work as a source for teacher learning. The participants were teachers who followed a master’s programme. In the first study their reflective work was explored to identify which context factors had served as a source for their professional learning. In the second study, these identified factors were used to co-construct a reflective tool to prompt and capture teachers’ engagement with context factors. The master’s students then had their workplace colleagues engage with the tool and Study 3 explores the data that were generated through this deployment. The results suggest that teachers’ contexts can be divided into three domains: a personal practice domain, a social domain, and a theoretical domain, and that confrontations within these domains can be the result of both planned and unplanned events. Teachers appear to have a preference for unplanned learning that emerges from their own personal experiences. The thesis examines the mechanisms behind this, and it explores how teachers might be stimulated to expand the reference points they tap into. The implications of these findings are discussed at macro, meso and micro level

The experience of Wagogo women who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) in Tanzania

This study has been carried out amidst new developments made at global, regional and local levels regarding the practice of Female Genital Mutilations (FGM). The declarations, conventions and articles agreed and implemented by the UN member states and the regional organs such as the African Union have put in place strategies to eliminate FGM. Moreover, the respective state governments have passed legislation against FGM. Following these developments and initiatives there has been increased social paradigm shift targeting the essence of the FGM practice. The shift has discouraged some parents from sending their girls for circumcision, but also has pushed FGM underground. The open initiation rites where boys and girls were pronounced adults, and which served as a strong social support for the circumcised women have been dismantled.Against this background, this thesis explores the experience of Wagogo women who have undergone FGM and the knowledge, attitudes and practice of former circumcisers in Dodoma Tanzania. The study has employed a constructivist-interpretivist theoretical stance, approaching it through explorative qualitative design involving 25 circumcised women and three former circumcisers. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews within the broader feminist perspective; and were analysed thematically.The findings suggest that, indeed women circumcised under a patriarchy experience both overt and covert pain. Within the social paradigm shift there is weakening of social support; hence, destabilization of engagement coping strategies that used to assist circumcised women to cope with the overt pain. Consequently, more women are suffering from covert pain because of untreated overt pain but also due to failed engagement coping strategies. Subsequently, more circumcised women have resorted to disengagement strategies to alleviate covert pain. While new developments safeguard girls who are yet to be circumcised, none of them consider the predicament of circumcised women. Hence, the study seeks to empower the latter so that their plight and voice can be heard

Exploring Sense-Making in Health Policy: Implementing Health Policy in Nigeria

This study employed the concept of sense-making as an interpretive lens to explore the cognitive dimensions of the actions of policy actors implementing the Nigerian Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) – a major health policy reform launched in 2005.The research follows emergent body of work by cognitive implementation theorists who have demonstrated that the conventional (top-down compliance model) of policy implementation is fundamentally deficient because it pays scant attention to the link between the sense-making of implementing actors and deviations from policy intentions (Spillane et al., 2002; Peck and 6, 2006).Put differently, the sense-making of implementers results in evolution of policy during implementation (Browne and Wildavsky, 1983; Spillane et al, 2002).Using a case study design, the research investigated individual, and collective/distributed sense-making across a spectrum of the actors implementing the NHIS. More specifically, the study investigated the role of formal and informal interactions on actor sense-making , the impact of communities of practice on collective sense-making , and the shaping influences of the political, organisational and bureaucratic context on the sense-making of actors. The conceptual framework for the study assembled theories and concepts covering individual, and collective/distributed sense-making, sense-giving , communities of practice theory, and the role of power and politics in sense-making. A sample of 29 purposively selected policy actors from the ranks of NHIS/Community insurance Scheme officials, HMO executives, medical providers, and three external health policy advisers were interviewed to generate the primary data. Secondary data was obtained from in-depth examinations of various archival and publicly available documents. The research findings confirm the central thesis that sense-making is socially re-constructed, negotiated and organised. Significantly, individual sense-making variations (based on cognition and affect) in the cues that actors extracted from the NHIS policy message resulted in different framings of that message. The limitations of the notion of homogeneity within communities of practice, and the relevance of power as a dynamic in communities of practice, were also revealed. Notably, the findings empirically demonstrate the critical impact of power and politics in sense-making. A significant contribution of the study to the literature is the linkage that it establishes between power distance orientation and sense-making

Estratégia de internacionalização dos vinhos portugueses

Em 2003 a ViniPortugal contrata a Monitor Group, para desenhar uma estratégia que ative o cluster dos vinhos Portugueses, nomeadamente no que concerne às exportações. São apresentados vários documentos, que traçam um diagnóstico sobre a indústria, apontam metas de médio prazo e definem mercados prioritários. Passados 9 anos, as exportações portuguesas encontram‐se num patamar um pouco acima, em termos de valor, ao de 2003. No entanto a performance de outros países, em especial, alguns do denominado “Novo Mundo” é substancialmente diferente. As estratégias são bem diferenciadas, bem como os resultados. A caracterização do sector de produção de Vinhos em Portugal aponta para um grande problema de fragmentação, tanto ao nível da produção, bem como ao nível da promoção. Um sector extremamente pulverizado, com muitas entidades e agentes económicos envolvidos e sob uma apertada legislação, para garantir a origem dos produtos. Existe a sensação em alguns agentes económicos de que houve incapacidade de passar a estratégia desenhada para a prática. Existem simultaneamente ausências de resposta, sobre qual o caminho a percorrer e qual o posicionamento que deve ser desejável para os Vinhos Portugueses. Numa conjuntura atual em que os recursos são escassos e que se espera que as exportações possam contribuir com a dinamização da economia e do emprego em Portugal, estão reunidos mais que argumentos para construir um estudo de caso, que possa apontar uma estratégia de médio‐longo prazo para este sector, com tamanho potencial.In 2003 ViniPortugal hires the Monitor Group, to design a strategy for the Portuguese wine Cluster activation, with special emphasis on exports. According to this request, several documents were presented, whith a diagnosis on the industry, forecasting medium‐term targets and defining priority markets. After nine years, exports are a little bit higher in terms of value, comparing to 2003. However the performance of other countries, in particular, some of the so called "New World" are substantially different. The strategies are well‐differentiated as well are the results. The characterization of the portuguese wine sector indicates a major problem of fragmentation, convering production and promotion. This is a sector highly fragmented, with many authorities and economic agents involved and under a tight legislation to guarantee the origin of products. There is a sense in some economic agents that there was a failure on the implementation of the strategy designed. There is an absence of response, about which way to go and what positioning it should be desirable for Portuguese wines. Nowadays, when the resources are scarce and it is expected that exports would contribute to boosting the economy and employment in Portugal, we have gathered a reasonbly amount of arguments to build a case study, which can indicate and contibute with a medium – long term strategy for this sector, with such potential

Exploring the views of TVET lecturers on the implementation of the NCV curriculum.

Master of Education in Curriculum Studies. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2017.This qualitative study explores the views of TVET college lecturers on the implementation of the National Certificate Vocational (NCV). The research further aims at finding out how do lecturers implement the NCV curriculum and why do they implement it the way they do. The study will discover the different ways in which TVET college lecturers experience and understand the NCV curriculum they implement as well as the ways lecturers view, perceive them in consideration to the skills attached to them. The purpose is to study the various aspects that describe the NCV curriculum. The study analyses the structure for the NCV curriculum, the assessment criteria and the whole implementation aspect in terms of lecturers’ opinions, delivery of the NCV curriculum and the explanation for their approach. The study will view the circumstances surrounding the TVET colleges and the NCV curriculum in particular, considering legislation and policies as well as the nature of the lecturers and the NCV students. Data gathered from three selected TVET colleges in Northern KwaZulu-Natal Province indicated that most NCV lecturers believe that the vision for the NCV curriculum is good but the manner in which it is implemented leaves a lot to be desired. Data indicated that guidelines and policies from the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) dictate the manner in which the NCV curriculum is implemented. Lack of required competencies by the NCV lecturers, inadequate infrastructural provision and development in TVET colleges, lecturers’ support, poor assessment and enrolment criterion among others were indicated as important issues to be addressed. Lastly, the study makes conclusions for effective implementation of the NCV curriculum