Troubles of one neophyte researcher in getting qualitative research on parthneships in a daycare setting with disadvantaged toddlers

This study is about the troubles encountered by one researcher in getting qualitative research on partnerships between families, in disadvantaged situations and educators in toddler day care settings and how they affect the quality of care as perceived by parents and educators. The study focuses on the conflicts and tensions as perceived by families and educators. A secondary goal of the study is to develop a greater understanding of how day care training programs might incorporate the findings to prepare day care educators to work with families in disadvantaged circumstances. The study is done through a qualitative lens using an ecological framework. The study spans a three month period and is set up in a non-profit, parent-controlled day care center. Detailed 'narratives of experience' are constructed from the participants' reflections on the events. Three main barriers or conflicts have emerged from the study. They are time, fear and a difference in perceptions between the families and the educators. The thesis concludes with advice to researchers who may be contemplating setting up a similar study and some suggestions are proposed for day care training programs. These suggestions include reflections of the researcher and how she implemented changes in her own teaching.

L'appropriation d'un dispositif hybride en formation pour adultes le cas du Campus numérique à l'ESSCA

This thesis focuses on the study of setting up a system of innovative distance learning and its appropriation by the involved actors. The researcher tries to understand or to explain the ownership of an innovative educational context, both from a technology and pedagogy, through the mobilization of the actors of the system, and specifically their dynamic capacities. The aim of this research is to clarify the components of such a mobilization, and develop an explanatory model that values the dynamic capacity of actors, and mainly their absorptive capacities. The research strategy is a process case study research: the appropriation by the actors of the ESSCA (École Supérieure des Faculté des sciences Commerciales d'Angers, France), and by the institution itself, of a training distance learning device. The study is located in a interpretative paradigm. Qualitative data were collected since the beginning of the process, ie since 2001. First, the analysis of the appropriation process reveals a pattern of conditions that will allow the recruitment of actors, and promote ownership. The results highlight the crucial role of a common language for all from a structured approach to translation, the need to promote collaboration operations, and given the fundamental motivation for both individual and institutional. Next, the analysis of the appropriation process highlights a procedural model of the absorptive capacity of the institution and its actors. To estimate the value of new knowledge, the actors will be based on prior knowledge from the external domain or from the institution. Feeding their motivation, they will acquire new knowledge to assimilate and transform in the laboratory and prototype stages. The project stage will see the capacity of actors to use this knowledge to generate new knowledge for transfer to other training programs.

Screening for success in a visual arts program.

Abstract: Little research has been directed towards determining means of predicting success in visual arts programs. Therefore, this study attemps to profile a typical successful student in a visual arts program, namely the Illustration & Design program at Dawson College. To this end, questionnaires, designed by the researcher, served to investigate the students' reasons for choosing the program as well as provide demographic data. In addition, students' personality types were investigated by means of the online Sternberg & Wagner Thinking Styles Inventory (SWTSI) questionnaire. Using the SPSS statistical software, an analysis was done to determine whether students who offer intrinsically motivated reasons for applying to the Illustration & Design program are those who also demonstrate greater academic success. Furthermore, grounding this study in Sternberg's theory of mental self governance, students' college grades were correlated to their personality type to determine if Type I personality types perform better academically than Type II or Type III (Zhang, 2005), The participants consisted of three cohorts (128 students form semester 1, 3 and 5) of the Illustration & Design program, as well as two comparison groups, one from the Fine Arts program (24 students), and another from the Business Administration program, a non-visual arts program at Dawson College (20 students).||Résumé: Les recherches portant sur l'identification de moyens qui permettent de prédire la réussite dans les programmes d'arts plastiques sont très rares. Par conséquent, cette étude tente de dresser le profil de l'élève type qui réussit dans un programme d'arts visuels, à savoir le programme Illustration & Design au Collège Dawson. À cette fin, des questionnaires conçus par le chercheur ont servi à déterminer les raisons pour lesquelles l'élève a choisi ce programme et ont permis de fournir des données démographiques. En outre, les étudiants ont été catégorisés par type de personnalité au moyen du questionnaire Sternberg & Wagner Thinking Styles Inventory (SWTSI). Grâce au logiciel statistique SPSS, une analyse a été effectuée afin de déterminer si les élèves dont la motivation comptait beaucoup dans leur choix du programme Illustration & Design étaient aussi ceux qui affichaient un taux de réussite plus élevé. En outre, en s'appuyant sur la Théorie d'autonomie de gestion mentale de Sternberg, cette étude avait pour but de corréler les résultats scolaires des élèves à leur personnalité afin de déterminer si les étudiants du Type de personnalité I avaient de meilleurs résultats scolaires que ceux de Type II et de Type III (Zhang, 2005). Les participants étaient composés de trois cohortes (128 étudiants des 1er, 3e et 5e semestres) du programme Illustration et Design ainsi que de deux groupes témoins, un groupe de 24 élèves du programme de Techniques de l'Administration, programme en dehors des arts visuels.