Learning from failure in conservation: Individual, team, and organizational dynamics

Conservation aims to ensure the persistence of biodiversity despite myriad and mounting threats at the intersection of biological processes and socio-economic activity, and many efforts have struggled to achieve success. Failure is inevitable in the complex contexts in which conservation initiatives take place and yet is largely underexamined. Reasons for this shortcoming are multidimensional, encompassing behavioral and cognitive limitations at the individual, group, and organizational levels. Conservation is recognized as primarily about people and the choices they make, but there is a gap in what we know about how conservation professionals themselves as people operating within teams and organizations learn from and manage failure. My research investigates the current state of failure management in conservation, building upon existing literature in organizational learning and drawing insights from other disciplines to identify ways for conservation to more effectively learn from failure. To do this, I first conduct a literature review to investigate factors contributing to a lack of learning from failure and success in conservation. I find that failure reports are rare and largely unstandardized, and human factors such as stakeholder relationships were the most commonly cited cause of project failure. I then carry out a strategic review of organizational learning literature to provide an inter-disciplinary synthesis of thinking and practice of failure management. Armed with these broad insights, I delve into individual intentions to engage in learning from failure behaviors, finding that social norms, psychological safety, organizational support, and leader behavior play important roles in facilitating learning from failure. To place these individual motivations into a broader context, I then investigate barriers and enabling conditions for learning from failure through a multimethod qualitative study. Finally, I synthesize my findings and provide an operational model and actionable steps going forward. Providing the first empirical examination of failure in conservation, this thesis highlights both shortfalls in failure management in conservation and, more importantly, opportunities to create a learning transformation going forward.Open Acces

Sickness in Correspondence: gentry letter writing and the subject of health in eighteenth-century Yorkshire, County Durham, and Northumberland

This study uses eighteenth-century gentry correspondence from Yorkshire, County Durham, and Northumberland to investigate how letter writers discussed sickness and managed medical treatments in the home. Letter writers went beyond expressions of concern and reassurances of good health in correspondence by providing details about the experience of falling ill, diagnosing conditions, choosing treatments, and caring for their sick relatives. The extent of household medical work in the eighteenth century is an understudied topic compared to earlier centuries. This thesis redresses the lacuna in research by analyzing caregiving, medical knowledge, and medical expertise to reconsider the structure of household medicine and the extent to which the household functioned autonomously during illness. The chapters can be envisioned as a series of thematic concentric circles. Beginning with the bodies of letter writers and their families (Chapter Two), each chapter expands its focus to wider elements of household health and covers caregiving practices (Chapter Three) and medical knowledge (Chapter Four). Chapter Five justifies how the household could be a site of medical expertise which simultaneously paid for medical care by introducing a sociological model which allows for the coexistence of experts with differing but complimentary expertises. Interactions with paid practitioner are the subject of Chapter Six. This thesis also explores continuity and change in medical and gendered behaviour over the eighteenth-century. Arguments about domestic healing as a female activity are mediated by the clear interest and involvement of their male relatives, and the emphasis on coexistence and cooperation between genders. Mediating between the survival of medical practice, the change in medical theories, and the gradual decreasing interest in discussing caregiving practices through correspondence allows this thesis to position the eighteenth-century household between earlier histories of household medicine and the spread of hospital medicine in the nineteenth century

Factors Affecting Construction of Science Discourse in the Context of an Extracurricular Science and Technology Project

Doing and learning science are social activities that require certain language, activities, and values. Both constitute what Gee (2005) calls Discourses. The language of learning science varies with the learning context (Lemke, 2001,1990). Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1990) and Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000) endorse inquiry science learning. In the United States, most science learning is teacher-centered; inquiry science learning is rare (NRC, 2000). This study focused on 12 high school students from two suburban high schools, their three faculty mentors, and two engineering mentors during an extracurricular robotics activity with FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). FRC employed student-centered inquiry focus to teach science principles integrating technology. Research questions were (a) How do science teachers and their students enact Discourses as they teach and learn science? and (b) How does the pedagogical approach of a learning activity facilitate the Discourses that are enacted by students and teachers as they learn and teach science? Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study examined participants’ language during robotic activities to determine how language used in learning science shaped the learning and vice versa. Data sources included video-recordings of participant language and semi-structured interviews with study participants. Transcribed recordings were coded initially using Gee’s (2005) linguistic Building Tasks as a priori codes. CDA was applied to code transcripts, to construct Discourses enacted by the participants, and to determine how context facilitated their enactment. Findings indicated that, for the students, FRC facilitated elements of Science Discourse. Wild About Robotics (W.A.R.) team became, through FRC, part of a community similar to scientists’ community that promoted knowledge and sound practices, disseminated information, supported research and development and encouraged interaction of its members. The public school science classroom in the U.S. is inimical to inquiry learning because of practices and policies associated with the epistemological stance that spawned the standards and/or testing movement and No Child Left Behind (Baez & Boyles, 2009). The findings of this study provided concrete ideas to accommodate the recommendations by NRC (1996) and NSES (2000) for creating contexts that might lead to inquiry science learning for meaningful student engagement

Human reasoning and cognitive science

In the late summer of 1998, the authors, a cognitive scientist and a logician, started talking about the relevance of modern mathematical logic to the study of human reasoning, and we have been talking ever since. This book is an interim report of that conversation. It argues that results such as those on the Wason selection task, purportedly showing the irrelevance of formal logic to actual human reasoning, have been widely misinterpreted, mainly because the picture of logic current in psychology and cognitive science is completely mistaken. We aim to give the reader a more accurate picture of mathematical logic and, in doing so, hope to show that logic, properly conceived, is still a very helpful tool in cognitive science. The main thrust of the book is therefore constructive. We give a number of examples in which logical theorizing helps in understanding and modeling observed behavior in reasoning tasks, deviations of that behavior in a psychiatric disorder (autism), and even the roots of that behavior in the evolution of the brain

Ecological Politics and Practices in Introduced Species Management

The surveillance and control of introduced species has become an increasingly important, yet often controversial, form of environmental management. I investigate why and how introduced species management is initiated; whether, why and how it is contested; and what relations and outcomes emerge ‘in practice’. I examine how introduced species management is being done in the United Kingdom through detailed social scientific analyses of the processes, practices, and disputes involved in a series of management case studies. First, I demonstrate how some established approaches to the design and delivery of management initiatives can render them conflict-prone, ineffective and potentially unjust. Then, examining a disputesurrounding a state-initiated eradication of monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus), I show why and how ‘parakeet protectors’ opposed the initiative. I identify the significance of divergent evaluations of the risks posed by introduced wildlife; personal and community attachments between people and parakeets; and campaigners’ dissatisfaction with central government’s approach to the issue. By following the story of an unauthorised (re)introduction of Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) to England, I show how adiverse collective has, at least temporarily, been united and empowered by a shared understanding of beavers as ‘belonging’ in the UK. I consider how nonhuman citizenship is socio-politically negotiated, and how the beavers have become enrolled in a ‘wild experiment’. Finally, through a multi- sited study of grey squirrel (Sciuruscarolinensis) control initiatives, I find important variations in management practitioners’ approaches to killing squirrels, and identify several ‘modes of killing’ that comprise different primary motivations, moral principles, ultimate aims, and practical methods. I identify multiple ways in which people respond and relate to introduced wildlife, and demonstrate how this multiplicity produces both socio-political tensions and accords. Furthermore, throughout this thesis I make a series of propositions for re-configuring the management of introduced species in ways that explicitly incorporate inclusive, constructive, and context-appropriate socio-political deliberations into its design and implementation.University of Exete

At school with looked after children : a study of the views of children in public care

This thesis is concerned with the education of children in care. Its analytic focus is on ways in which children in public care are and have been constructed by knowledge and policies that are embedded in the discourses that surround them. A literature review of empirical research conducted in the UK concludes that the dominant research strands and epistemologic studies in this area have failed to allow foregrounding and exploration of children's own accounts of their experiences at school as children in care. Other literature concerning policy and historical contexts is considered within subsequent analytic chapters where a Foucauldian approach is adopted. The empirical work reported is of the content of interviews conducted in schools with 27 children and young people who were in foster care. A Foucauldian perspective allows consideration of the fashion whereby practices of surveillance and "the gaze" construct children by adults. The children's accounts are foregrounded in the data chapters where, firstly, their experiences of adults are explicated in terms of the three mechanisms of surveillance that Foucault identified. Adults' writings about the children, particularly within Records of Needs that had been opened to delineate the special educational needs of some of the children, are described and the fashions whereby these too construct the children, often negatively, are exposed. A sometimes overpowering sense of public intrusion into the children's private lives permeated their accounts but the final data chapter considers the ways they utilised their own agency sometimes as a struggle to resist the markers of difference experienced. Here again their own stories are given prominence. The implications of these accounts lead to suggestions about how changes to adults' practices in their dealings with children in care could be introduced in a range of settings including schools, the meetings held about children and educational psychologists' activities where, fundamentally, a need for adults to display more genuine respect to children and young people is required

Leading Change Together: Reducing Organizational Structural Conflict through a Dialogic OD Approach using Liberating Structures

As leaders must increasingly find ways to include and engage others in a power-with approach to competently meet today’s complex challenges, the problem occurs when they find themselves stuck within pre-existing systems structured for exclusion and power-over others. These conventional structures are a source of systemic conflict. This participatory action research/cooperative inquiry case study focuses on the topic of leading organizational change collaboratively in the space between formal hierarchical structures and informal human dynamics using a qualitative methodology. The purpose of this study is to understand how a newly developed Liberating Structures Problem Solving (LSPS) model of facilitation helps participants of a contract manufacturing firm navigate this space through a collaborative dialogic organization development (OD) approach to change within a hierarchical organization structure. The theoretical underpinning of this research is a dialogic OD approach to change using Lipmanowicz and McCandless’s liberating structures group processes grounded in complexity science and social constructionism. The methodological approach is cooperative inquiry, a form of radically participative action research. Triangulation of data was employed using video-recordings, observations, reflections and interviews. The study involved 21 participants from different functions and levels within the organization. Findings demonstrate the importance of including diverse participants in dialogic events; improved communication and relationships; reduced tooling costs; and a modified organizational macrostructure to be more inclusive. Implications of this study suggest the LSPS model was instrumental in helping this organization shift from conventional leadership structures towards a shared leadership approach that helped ignite transformational change

Exploring the Concussion Experience Within Sport: An Authoethnographic Study

Concussions are a highly individualized experience, with different profiles of expression encapsulating a diverse range of symptom sequalae. However, the lived through experience of those who have sustained a concussion oftentimes takes a backseat to the more standardized quantitative medical approach to healing. The purpose of this thesis is to engage and address gaps in literature and document the necessity and benefit of qualitative research to understand the nuances of the concussion experience by utilizing an autoethnographic approach and a Critical Disability Studies (CDS) method of writing termed “Disability Life Writing.” Additionally, this thesis attempts to remove a barrier to concussion information by presenting concussion knowledge in accessible terminology and language, aiming to make concussion awareness available to those without knowledge of medical terminology or discourse. Regarding concussions in sport, this thesis aims to illuminate hidden values and ideologies within a sporting culture that ultimately work to socialize an athlete to play through pain and hide/not disclose injuries such as a concussion to peers, coaches, or other members of the sporting culture. The author analyzed all the aims listed above through a CDS lens using core CDS concepts such as stigma, stereotyping, normalcy, and invisible disabilities as analytic touchstones

Creative Caprice: Intrinsic Interest; States of Consciousness; Emotion & Practice-led Phenomenological Inquiry

This research project is a practice-led investigation of how strong emotion influences my creative actions. Through the development and articulation of a methodology for facilitating creative activity, the project considers how these emotions determine which intrinsic interests compel me to create works of art and design. Fundamental to the development of the methodology was the formulation of a comprehensive walking method designed to engage the body, awaken the mind and, through the designation of markers, establish consistently accessible mental/physical spaces wherein creative thinking can be fostered. Given the current interest in the role that walking can play in facilitating creative thought, (Oppezzo and Schwartz, 2014) I argue that my establishing of route markers into such processes, and incorporating individualized meditative techniques represents a significant contribution to this debate. Through my experimentation with walking as research method, I exposed the profound influence past traumatic childhood experiences have had on my creative choice-making, which is also closely linked to a personal identity that derives from the culture I was raised in and my faith traditions. An awareness of the dynamic between cultural shaping of personal identity and the impact of past trauma is key to the potential transfer of the methodology to others. My developing understanding of my practice drew on commentary on artists, including Richard Long, Paul Klee and Joseph Beuys. My research draws on a range of theories of creativity as diverse of those of Margaret A. Boden and David Bohm; writings on walking, such as the work of Rebecca Solnit; ideas on making by Timothy Ingold, and philosophical writings by Jean Paul Sartre and Soren Kierkegaard, among others. My findings are presented as a series of iterations in different media, which invite the reader to consider successively closer approximations to the experience of my research-based discoveries. Enhanced by the application of my methodology, my art-making was invigorated both personally and in my role as a college professor. In summary, this thesis distills the comprehensive nature of my investigation and reveals how intrinsic interest, creative states of consciousness, emotion and practice-led phenomenology intersect

Challenging the French immersion orthodoxy : student stories and counterstories

Through this study I have provided an understanding of what French immersion was like for children who left the program. I have considered an important aspect of the French immersion program that has been neglected in the research literature. My main research question was: What were the experiences of French immersion students who withdrew from their program during the elementary years? Subsequent questions included: How did they deal with repeated failure? How did they cope with the frustration? How did these failures and frustrations change after they left the French immersion program? How do they make sense of their experiences?In this study, I listened to students’ voices to gain insights that lead to an understanding of how they make sense of what school was like for them during their years in French immersion. Using narrative inquiry, I focused on the lived, storied experiences of students who have not succeeded in a French immersion program. By listening to the students’ storied conversations, I have developed a deeper understanding of failed immersion experiences than that which is currently provided in the literature.The six students in this study were aware of their lack of progress in the French immersion program and were unable to become active participants in the classroom community. The inability to become engaged further marginalized them as learners and led to the development of school stories about them. These school stories soon became designated identities with which the children had to cope. By honoring the experiences of the students and including their voices, I have outlined information to aid educators to make decisions for more appropriate programming choices. This information demonstrates the need for timely intervention for some students to improve their school experience. Parents, teachers, and policy makers can then make decisions with the added knowledge provided by the students’ stories