Emergence of the connectivist leadership paradigm: a grounded theory study in the Asia region

This qualitative, grounded theory study focused on the exploration of leadership arising within the Asia region. While enduring leadership qualities like strength, humility, resolve, and trust have been foundational in leadership practice globally, scholars have demonstrated that leadership does not exist in absolute terms; it is shaped by the values of local culture, which set expectations for leadership behaviors. This study explored the conceptualization of a more collective and connected form of leadership in the context of a region leading the world with highly networked digital social practices. The question the study explored was, if, and to what extent, leaders and teams in the Asia region are shifting their understanding and practices of leadership, from a process led primarily by an individual to a system of shared and digitally connected relationships. The literature review provided the opportunity to go beyond the mere transferability of heroic Western-centric leadership theories and investigated emerging leadership models in Asia, learning theories in the digital age, and the evolution of leadership theory and organization design. Data collection comprised of forty-two interviews: twenty-nine one-on-one in-depth interviews with research participants based in the Asia region and thirteen global leading experts in networked learning, leadership, and Asian studies. The findings were harnessed in support of the development of a grounded theory, which shifts the heroic leadership paradigm in favor of the discovery of a new leadership model called Connectivist Leadership

A tale of rights and wrongs: Stories and storytelling on the issue of asylum seeker boat arrivals to Australia

This thesis examines stories and storytelling about asylum seeker boat arrivals to Australia in 2009-2011. It aims to answer the questions ‘Who gets to be heard?’ and ‘What stories are told?’ on this issue. Research is undertaken in three different sites and focuses on two key incidents.The first site is with members of an activist public (in interviews) advocating for change to Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. The second site is practices and newspaper articles of journalists in the media industry. The final site is in a space in-between, a site where the activists produce media releases to offer the group’s stories for inclusion in media portrayals. The logic that underpins the examination of the stories in the three sites in this study is the marriage of Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT) (Bormann 1982) – to understand the stories and storytelling processes – with theories from public relations, social movements and media studies specific to individual sites. In addition, theories of power and hegemony are deployed to examine the relationships among the stories collected from the different sites. The key finding identifies a national story that dominates in the newspaper articles. However, the thesis also discerns three key alternative stories that emerge from the activists’ individual and public relations storytelling. Framing both the dominant national and the alternative stories are histories of racism, Australian nationalism and facticity. Despite marked differences in the stories in the three sites their underlying drivers are similar. The thesis illustrates the common yet different uses of themes of history, righteousness and connectedness

Knowledge that counts: an examination of the theory practice gap between business and marketing academics and business practitioners examined in respect of their respective epistemic stances

This work examines and presents evidence for the existence of a gap in epistemological views between academic and practice marketers. Few if any academics would seem to challenge the ‘gap’ premise but the importance of any gap and its nature are issues about which little agreement exists. The intractable nature of the academic practitioner gap has a long history of interesting and diverse debate ranging from Dewey’s argument about the true nature of knowing to contributions based on epistemic adolescence, ontological differences and more pragmatic suggestions about different tribes. Others include the rigour versus relevance issue, failures in curriculum or pedagogy and a clash between modernist and postmodernist epistemologies. Polanyi’s description of tacit versus explicit knowledge further extends the debate as do issues of knowledge creation and dissemination in particular through Nonaka. Irrespective of approach actual evidence for a gap was largely based on argument rather than empirical proof. This work address that lack. The intractability of the gap suggests that it is at root, epistemic. To identity the existence of a gap in such terms a domain specific epistemic questionnaire developed by Hofer was used. A factor analytic process extracted a common set of factors for the domain of marketers. Five epistemic factors were identified. Three of these showed significant difference in orientation between practitioners and academics confirming that the theory practice gap is tangible and revealing an indication of its nature Broadly results from factor analysis with interpretation informed by factor item structure and prior theoretical debate suggests that academics and practitioners views on knowledge and how they come to know share similarities and differences. Academics are more likely to see knowledge as stable, based on established academic premise legitimized from academy. Practitioners are more likely to see knowledge as emerging from action, as dynamic and legitimised by results. Other significant findings included the emergence of dialogue as a means of closing the gap, and the emergence of a group of academics with significant practice experience termed here as, hybrids, who are located in the Academy but mostly share their epistemic views with practitioners. Correlation analysis showed that academic propensity to engage in dialogue with practice moved academic factor scores towards practitioners. This shows that dialogue has a clear role in both perpetuating the gap in its absence or reducing it. Fundamentally dialogue plays a clear role in bridging the two epistemologies and in providing for additional epistemic work. Finally a solution to bridging the gap has been proposed. The model called dialogic introspection melds dialogue and introspection to create epistemic doubt, the volition to change and a means of resolution. The model avoids prescription of what form knowledge should take but instead adopts a stance similar to more mature disciplines like medicine in which the status of academic work is enhanced in line with its relevance to practice which itself is embodied in dialogue. This approach recognizes the centrality of epistemology as shaping the conditions necessary for recognizing epistemologies as hierarchies in which the epistemology most capable of additional epistemic work is the most desirable. Such an epistemology would have the capacity to add epistemic work and reinforces Nonaka’s call for epistemology to be recognized as central to knowledge creation

Situated Immersive Gaming Environments for Irish Language Learning

In this thesis, three cycles of design based research are outlined, implementing a situated immersive virtual reality game for Irish language learning. It was undertaken in order to investigate a potential technological solution to improve the limited number of daily Irish adult speakers in Ireland, 3%. It examines the intersection between game based learning, Irish language learning and virtual reality technology and the methodological approach undertaken follows a design based research paradigm. The research focus is on motivation and anxiety through interaction with a virtual reality game. It offers several contributions to current literature including: The utilisation of the Second Language (L2) self-system system of motivation within a design based research methodological approach. The study disseminates the results of three cycles of a design based research experiment. It found an increase in vocabulary retention, reduction in anxiety towards Irish and a significant increase in attitudes towards learning Irish. It also highlights learner’s experience of a immersive situated game to learn Irish. The first case study was conducted with 7 participants from TU Dublin’s game design programme. This was a pilot study which confirmed the questionnaires and game design direction of the thesis moving forward. The results led to a redesign of the game following quantitative and qualitative feedback from participants. The second case study was conducted with 13 participants from TU Dublin’s Irish language classes. There were no statistically significant results found, however, there was a large reduction in the mean for Irish language anxiety and Irish language self confidence in participants after engaging with the virtual reality game. The results led to a redesign of the game following the quantitative and qualitative feedback from participants. In the third case study there were 10 participants from Marino Institute of Education. Statistically significant results were found with a 21% increase in vocabulary retention alongside a decrease in Irish language anxiety and an increase in attitudes towards iilearning Irish. Focus groups of the participants are explored through thematic analysis in order to corroborate the quantitative data. Participants validated the quantitative analysis and illustrated how the design of the VR game aided their motivation and vocabulary retention. The thesis concludes by providing a summary of the research questions and the results obtained and gives game design recommendations for future immersive situated games for Irish language learning

Seeing and Being Seen: A Multimodal Inquiry of Multilingual High School Newcomers and Their Contributions to Educational Communities

This dissertation research followed the experiences of seven high school newcomers who chose to participate in an internship program, assisting elementary school students, some of whom were also emergent bilinguals. This study used ethnographic and visual methodologies to explore young people’s evolving understanding of teaching, learning, and languaging as members of a community of practice within the internship. The internship provided a space for the young people to make sense of schooling in their new country. The narratives that the interns shared highlight how the set of linguistic and cultural-historical repertoires of practice that they entered with shaped how they engaged and contributed to the classroom communities in which they were placed. They rooted their linguistic practices in their critiques of language policies in their countries and in the United States. They challenged binary classroom relationships by leveraging their own experiences and understanding of what it means to be students, and they brokered relationships, expanding the classroom communities

Helping as participation in an open online community : an exploratory study

The study explores the issues of participation, and to an extent, learning in an open online community of independent game developers, GameSalad.com. GameSalad is a firm-hosted online support forum for a desktop application of the same name. It is geared to provide members and users with a platform for sharing of information pertaining to their game development, and a place to seek and provide help. It is a large community with over 114,000 registered members (as of March 2015), with an average of 106,000 monthly active unique users, and a high degree of activity such as the posting of tutorials and tips, sharing game development progress, and announcing the launch of a new game. However, the majority of the interactions on the forum are concerned with seeking and providing help. This study focuses on issues around community, participation, and learning within online networks and is underpinned by a concern for participatory and social experiential perspectives on learning. In order to explore participation, an exploratory mixed-method approach was used. This involved a three-phase data collection procedure. First, observation of interaction in the community was carried out (noting the pattern of threads opened, weekly leader boards, resources, and general practices) coupled with document analysis to identify threads that reflected high participation or were deemed beneficial by interviewees. Second, online survey of 35 items including five demographic items, twenty forced 2-point semantic differential scale items, and ten 5-point Likert scale items was carried out, to measure members’ perceptions of the community and identity (n = 110 responses). Third, semi-structured sequential interviews were carried out with 21 volunteer interviewees online, using the forum’s own private messaging system over a period from August 2014 to March 2015. Although originally conceived as an overarching study of online participation, the study became focused on the more active members of the community, and on the question as to why and how some members of online communities appear to take on helping roles. The findings from both survey and interviews showed a strong sense of community among active members, and that active members saw their identity in the online community as an extension of their off-line self. Although open to all members, participants who volunteered to be interviewed tended to be among the more active members and many had adopted ‘caretaker’ or helper role in the community. The interviews showed that giving help was motivated by a mix of extrinsic and intrinsic elements, in particular, helpers were aware of the need to sustain the community and in many cases felt an obligation to offer help as a return or ‘pay it forward’ for the help they had received in the past. They were motivated by community mindedness, empathy, self-confidence and sense of identity. The giving of help depends on ‘mood’, this mood is generated not only when helpers feel they have the available time and relevant expertise in order to help, but also when those asking for help have asked in an appropriate manner and provided sufficient contextualisation. In part, learning in the community is seen as a social exchange, and members put a value on the discussions they saw useful. However, this study reveals some of the problems experienced by the company behind the community, tensions among some members of the community, as well as issues pertaining to shared knowledge and artefacts. This study improves our understanding of community of practice, the provision of help, the motivation for helping, as well as the dynamics of participation in an open online community. It gives insight into the sustainability of online community by showing the motivation, strategies for, and consequences of helping. It also gives insight into how informal learning is embedded in social interactions and perceived value. The study is not a unique case but it is one of an underreported area, a highly participative community. Methodologically, this study offers mixed method approach with a strong focus on qualitative data and analysis methods, with an innovative way of triangulating data

Sharing Values

As global ethics emerges as an important answer to the common issues facing humankind, we cannot spare a reflection on the process leading to a consensus on global values. If we are to break political, economic, ideological, cultural, religious and gender-based patterns of domination in the debate on global ethics, we must ensure that all parties to the dialogue are able to express their values freely and in their own fashion. This book provides indications on the current reflection on the hermeneutics of intercultural and interreligious dialogue on ethics, with an attempt to formulate in a decentralised manner priorities for the future implementation of this dialogue. These include using our own religious resources to foster dialogue on ethics, searching in the transcendental or the holistic for a solution to moral diversity, dealing with the deep suffering caused by colonisation and neo-imperialism, and addressing the mutual challenges of traditionalism and modernism. Also presented are the "Globethics.net Principles on Sharing Values across Cultures and Religions"

Seeing sense: the effectiveness of inclusive education for visually impaired students in Further Education.

The aim of this study was to explore how visually impaired students’ learning journeys in educational environments vary by individual characteristics and prior experiences, and by the type and nature of the institution they attend. In particular the study aimed to uncover how both barriers to learning and good practice are understood, in relation to the enactment of inclusive education policies. Disability is formulated and enacted in the intersection between the individual, their impairment and psycho-emotional status, and the social context (Thomas 1999). For visually impaired students in further education settings, biographical experiences, impairments, and encounters with education all have an impact on their ability to access learning, to achieve educationally, and to formulate their sense of self and identity. The thesis draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted across three further education colleges, with six visually impaired Welsh students aged 16-25. Data were generated through interviews with student participants, staff members and peers, observation, and documentary analysis. Findings suggested that inclusion is only successful if tutors provide valid learning opportunities for visually impaired students. Access to information and other learning opportunities such as demonstrations, practical tasks, and physical activity may be compromised by inappropriate teaching and support methods. Access is also significantly affected by the nature of the visual impairment, the modes of information retrieval, and students’ attitudes and skills. The emphasis on the practical in further education settings makes this analysis particularly significant. Detailed specialist knowledge of appropriate teaching techniques and organisational considerations exists, but is located in the main in a very small number of specialist colleges across the UK. Analysis also identified two competing ideologies; commitment to the provision of inclusive mainstream learning environments as part of an inclusive society, or commitment to the provision of appropriate teaching in a specialist institution, to facilitate future inclusion in society