Building capacity in climate change policy analysis and negotiation: methods and technologies

Capacity building is often cited as the reason “we cannot just pour money into developing countries” and why so many development projects fail because their design does not address local conditions. It is therefore a key technical and political concept in international development. Some of the poorest countries in the world are also some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Their vulnerability is in part due to a lack of capacity to plan and anticipate the effects of climate change on crops, water resources, urban electricity demand etc. What capacities do these countries lack to deal with climate change? How will they cope? What steps can they take to reduce their vulnerability? This innovative and high-profile research project was part of a larger project (called C3D) and conducted with non-governmental organisations in Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The research involved several participatory workshops and a questionnaire to all three research centres

Knowledge and discourse matters

This work draws on the discipline of Discursive Psychology for a theory of language, shown to be all but absent in the organizational knowledge management literature, and a methodology for the study of discourse. Organizational knowledge sharing is selected as the topic of primary research for its accessibility to analysis, and because it is considered to be an underpinning action to new knowledge creation. The research approaches discourse as action-orientated and locally situated, as constructed and constructive, with function and consequence for speakers. Indicative research questions are concerned with the discursively accomplished phenomena of trust, risk, identity and context, how these are accomplished in rhetorical interaction and with what effect on organizationally situated knowledge sharing. Recordings of organizations’ everyday knowledge sharing meetings, as well as an online discussion forum, are analysed focusing on these four themes. Findings show them to be accomplished as speakers’ live concerns in knowledge sharing talk. It is claimed that trust, risk and identity, as contexts displayed and oriented to by speakers themselves, are tacitly and collaboratively accomplished actions, shown to be co-relational and influential to knowledge sharing scope and directions. A further claim is that the analysis of discourse for what contexts in general speakers invoke displays speakers’ orienting to trust, risk and identity. Limitations of the present study are discussed, along with speculated implications for knowledge management and future directions for research. This work aims to contribute to the field of knowledge management in three ways. First, in extending the directions that some scholars and practitioners are already indicating through focusing the interest of study on organizational discourse. Secondly, the study seeks to understand how tacit knowing, as a phenomenon invoked by speakers themselves, is accomplished and how it influences the scope and directions of knowledge sharing actions, and with what effect. Finally, it is claimed that the research provides some support for those theorists in the knowledge management field who promote the knowing how-knowing that formulation, and those who are critical of conventional knowledge management’s heavy reliance on technology to deliver its objectives

Effects of computer-supported collaboration script and incomplete concept maps on web design skills in an online design-based learning environment

Web design skills are an important component of media literacy. The aim of our study was to promote university students’ web design skills through online design-based learning (DBL). Combined in a 2x2-factorial design, two types of scaffolding were implemented in an online DBL environment to support the students through their effort to design, build, modify, and publish web sites on processes and outcomes measures, namely collaboration scripts and incomplete concept maps. The results showed that both treatments had positive effects on collaborative (content-related discourse quality, collaboration skills, and quality of published web sites) and individual (domain-specific knowledge and skills related to the design and building of websites) learning outcomes. There was synergism between the two scaffolds in that the combination of the collaboration script and incomplete concept maps produced the most positive results. To be effective, online DBL thus needs to be enhanced by appropriate scaffolds, and both collaboration scripts and incomplete concept maps are effective examples

Attitudes of Students and Practitioners Regarding Ethical Acceptability of Accounting Transactions

This study reports the findings of a study assessing the acceptability differences in decisions made by Certified Public Accounting practitioners (CPA) and students studying to become CPAs. The study responds to researchers’ call for additional research on topics related to accounting decision ethics. Modified managerial and accounting recognition scenarios were used to collect the acceptability of ethical judgments. The analysis employs factor analysis to affirm whether the scenarios are mana­gerial or accounting recognition decisions. The analyses further divides the managerial decisions into either revenue or expense related. The accounting recognition decisions are further divided into those involving an accounting manipulation or inventory related. Students’ acceptability of the accounting transactions was far harsher than the practitioners. However, both students and practitioners considered the accounting scenarios to be unethical. Both students and practitioners judged the managerial revenue scenarios to be ethical but the managerial expense scenarios to be moderately unethical. In addition to the ethical acceptability of accounting transaction, student and practitioner demographic data including age, work experience and academic credentials are investigated to explain the differences

The Knowledge Building Approach to Science Education: A Problem-Solving Perspective

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. September 2019. Major: Education, Curriculum and Instruction. Advisor: Gillian Roehrig. 1 computer file (PDF); xii, 191 pages.Science education is reasonably constructed around a vision of authentic scientific practices. Yet, this vision of science is clearly a construct as seen when viewing its changes throughout the last 120 years, as well as viewing it through different theoretical perspectives. While there are diverse descriptions of science and its enactment, going back to Dewey and Peirce, the mission of science is commonly considered to be about the advancement of theory through inquiry where problems serve a central function. Beyond the challenge of constructing an understanding of scientific inquiry as theory development where the diversity in perspectives of scientists is seen as essential, there is the challenge of devising pedagogy and approaches that effectively promote this vision. There are a rich mix of approaches working at solving different parts of this complex problem. One such approach is called, "knowledge building" (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2006). This approach seeks to scaffold classroom communities such that they develop and grow into a complex community where progressive science-theory improvement emerges. It is considered that these sorts of communities where innovation is the norm have relevance beyond the fields of science and STEM: innovation and knowledge creation is becoming the essential practice of the knowledge age. The knowledge building approach is designed to support the growth of classroom communities that embody the essential nature of progressive scientific inquiry. To effectively support this kind of classroom community development, the unique assets and needs presented by the ever-increasing diversity of thinking and knowing that are emergents of the students' cultures, developmental levels, neurological diversities and iv networks of communities. Overall, this research sought to support and augment classrooms as they strive to grow into classroom communities of scientific inquiry. The research occurred in two stages. It first used philosophical methods to generate a simple, high-level model of problem-solving made possible by Popper's World-3 conception. This conception is a keystone in some epistemologies developed to support approaches aimed at helping students grow in knowledge-innovation practices. The visual problem-solving model that was developed seeks to provide students and teachers with a very simple yet flexible model allowing them to describe, analyze and reflect on the state of their community's knowledge improvement and through this understanding adaptively and effectively respond. The second stage of research utilized hybrid philosophical-empirical methods to develop a framework that describes science in terms of its mission to progressively improve theory through the iterative solving of and subsequent unfolding of new knowledge-problems. These research methods involved an iterative process where promising theories are tested on their ability to describe students' actual online knowledge-building discourse in a satisfying way. In this iterative process, empirical classroom data informed and yet also constrain the theory generation which was informed by diverse theoretical perspectives. These theoretical perspectives included for example, ideas of scientific practices, theories of design such as design thinking and understandings of classroom diversity as represented in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) which were intentionally founded upon theories of v culturally responsive pedagogy. The developed framework seeks to scaffold teachers as they design and enact lessons aimed at growing communities of diverse scientists. Taken together, the products of this research seek to provide conceptual structures to aid the students and teachers in classroom communities as they seek to grow into complex communities of scientists

Collaborative learning utilizing a domain-based shared data repository to enhance learning outcomes

A number of learning paradigms have postulated that knowledge formation is a dynamic process where learners actively construct a representation of concepts integrating information from multiple sources. Current teaching strategies utilize a compartmentalized approach where individual courses contain a small subset of the knowledge required for a discipline. The intent of this research is to provide a framework to integrate the components of a discipline into a cohesive whole and accelerate the integration of concepts enhancing the learning process. The components utilized to accomplish these goals include two new knowledge integration models; a Knowledge Weighting Model (KWM) and the Aggregate-Integrate-Master (AIM) model. Semantic Web design principles utilizing a Resource Description Framework (RDF) schema and Web Ontology Language (OWL) will be used to define concepts and relationships for this knowledge domain that can then be extended for other domains. Lastly, a Design Research paradigm will be utilized to analyze the IT artifact, the Constructivist Unifying Baccalaureate Epistemology (CUBE) knowledge repository that was designed to validate this research. The prototype testing population utilized sixty students spanning five classes, in the fall 2007, following IRB approved protocols. Data was gathered using a Constructivist Multimedia Learning Survey (CMLES), focus groups and semi-structured interviews. This preliminary data supported the hypotheses that students using the Integrated Knowledge Repository will first; have a more positive perception of the learning process than those who use conventional single course teaching paradigms and second; students utilizing the IKR will develop a more complex understanding of the interconnected nature of the materials linking a discipline than those who take conventional single topic courses. Learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The goal is to develop a knowledge structure that is capable of facilitating the integration of conceptual development in a field of study

Where science meets its use - Exploring the emergence of the practical relevance of scientific knowledge in the regional context

siirretty Doriast

Using College Student Learning Experiences and Outcomes to Guide Teaching Modifications in a General Education Choreography Course: An Action Research Study

The purpose of this action research study was to gain an understanding of the learning experiences and outcomes of 12 undergraduates enrolled in Creative Dance, a general education choreography course, in Fall 2019 and the teaching strategies and practices that guided their learning. Research questions that guided this study were: what does student work reveal about their learning and the teaching strategies that guide their learning? and what curricula and teaching changes will more effectively facilitate student learning processes and stronger outcomes? Qualitative data included standard instructional materials created for and utilized in the course and students’ choreographic and written work. The teacher-researcher coded, analyzed, and interpreted the data within three subareas of student learning: cognitive domain of learning, development of physical skills in relationship with choreography and performance, and affective responses to learning experiences. Plans for modifications of teaching materials, strategies, and practices for Fall 2020 to improve facilitation of emerging adult learning of choreography were outcomes of this research. Interpretation of findings revealed the need for teaching modifications to support (a) the interrelationships between thinking, moving, and feeling; (b) learning as a cyclical process; and (c) learning as a social process more strongly using both Kolb’s (2015) Learning Cycle and Arnett’s (2000) Theory of Emerging Adulthood as a theoretical foundation. This study contributes to dance education and the wider field of higher education by serving as an example of critically reflective teaching and course design that used student experiences to guide teaching modifications

Managing knowledge for capability engineering

The enterprises that deliver capability are trying to evolve into through-life businesses by shifting away from the traditional pattern of designing and manufacturing successive generations of products, towards a new paradigm centred on support, sustainability and the incremental enhancements of existing capabilities from technology insertions and changes to process. The provision of seamless through-life customer solutions depends heavily on management of information and knowledge between, and within the different parts of the supply chain enterprise. This research characterised and described Capability Engineering (CE) as applied in the defence enterprise and identified to BAE Systems important considerations for managing knowledge within that context. The terms Capability Engineering and Through Life Capability Management (TLCM), used synonymously in this thesis, denote a complex evolving domain that requires new approaches to better understand the different viewpoints, models and practices. The findings and novelty of this research is demonstrated through the following achievements: Defined the problem space that Requirements Engineers can use in through-life management projects. Made a contribution to the development of models for Systems Architects to enable them to incorporate ‘soft’ systems within their consideration. Independently developed a TLCM activity model against which BAE Systems validated the BAE Systems TLCM activity model, which is now used by UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). Developed, and published within INCOSE1, the INCOSE Capability Engineering ontology. Through the novel analysis of a directly applicable case study, highlighted to Functional Delivery Managers the significance of avoiding the decoupling of information and knowledge in the context of TLCM. Through experimentation and knowledge gained within this research, identified inadequacies in the TechniCall (rapid access to experts) service which led to the generation of requirements for an improved service which is now being implemented by BAE Systems. The results showed that managing knowledge is distinct when compared to information management. Over-reliance on information management in the absence of tacit knowledge can lead to a loss in the value of the information, which can result in unintended consequences. Capability is realised through a combination of component systems and Capability Engineering is equivalent to a holistic perspective of Systems Engineering. A sector-independent Capability Engineering ontology is developed to enable semantic interoperability between different domains i.e. defence, rail and information technology. This helped to better understand the dependencies of contributing component systems within defence, and supported collaboration across different domains. Although the evaluation of the ontology through expert review has been accomplished; the ontology, KM analysis framework and soft systems transitioning approach developed still need to undergo independent verification and validation. This requires application to other case studies to check and exploit their suitability. This Engineering Doctorate research has been disseminated through a number of peer reviewed publications

Wise Choices? The Economics Discourse of a High School Economics and Personal Finance Course

Today’s high school students will face a host of economic problems such as the demise of the social safety net, mounting college student debt, and costly health care plans, as stated in the rationale for financial literacy provided by the Council for Economic Education’s National Standards for Financial Literacy. These problems are compounded by growing income and wealth inequality and the widespread influence of neoliberal ideology. Although one of the major goals of economics education is to teach students to make reasoned economic choices in their public and private lives and provide the skills to solve personal and social economic problems, little empirical research has been conducted on how these goals are addressed. Secondary economics education research has primarily focused on measuring students’ grasp of neoclassical economics while a separate body of literature provides theoretical critiques of that approach. This study responds to the gap presented by these separate camps by capturing the economics discourse of a high school economics and personal finance course in relation to the role of economic decision-making in a democracy, and the space to hold values discussions. Using case study methodology that included analysis of student and teacher interviews, classroom observations, the standards and official curriculum, lesson plans, and student-produced documents, the study provides deep, context-dependent knowledge about how the official curriculum is manifest in the classroom. Findings reveal that the role of economic decision-making and values discussions were given very little space. The discourse was heavily focused on the acceptance of the science and mastery of technical knowledge about personal finance for the dual purposes of preparing students to succeed on the W!SE Financial Literacy Certification Test and preparing students to navigate and succeed in a fixed economic reality firmly committed to neoclassical economics. The role of economic decision-making was diminished by the foregrounding of financial literacy over economics, which served as a mechanism of power to send the silent message that economic circumstances (such as wealth inequality) change through individual choices and that economic and social phenomena can be understood and addressed through the application of technical approaches