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This doctoral dissertation focuses on teacher education in the context of experienced tertiary English language teachers in mainland China. It investigates the changes in teachers’ beliefs and attitudes, and in their classroom practice, that result from an external inservice education and training (INSET) course. It follows up subsequent change in teachers’ classroom practice, and in their beliefs and attitudes, in their teaching contexts one year after the INSET course. This dissertation presents a review of the literature in the field of second language teacher education, shifts in research paradigms in the field, and the characterisation of inservice teacher professional development. The nature of teachers’ beliefs and attitudes, and of teachers’ classroom practice, are synthesised from the literature, and are related to research on stages of innovations. Models of change (from beliefs and attitudes to classroom practice, as well as alternative pathways) are discussed, and a conceptualisation of the processes of teacher change in the context of innovations for experienced inservice teachers is proposed. The research presents a case study of one group of teachers attending an INSET course, and uses qualitative data collection, analysis and interpretation. Findings are discussed which provide insight and guidance for INSET provision in the context of experienced teachers, and which add to the research in the field of teacher education in the context of China. The findings suggest that in the complexity of INSET among individual teachers any one model of the process of teacher change may not be applicable, but rather that multiple possible models of change exist for each teacher—in beliefs and attitudes, and in classroom practice—and for each innovation. It is likely that each individual teacher experiences different change models for different innovations during the same INSET course. The significance and implications of the findings are discussed in relation to INSET provision, teacher change, and theories of teacher education and development, as well as the limits of the study, and future research areas suggested
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The purpose of the study was to explore the smoking behaviour of the smokers living in Macao. I was part of the 1st group of doctors to have chosen to initiate smoking cessation in Macau. In addition to my diverse academic background of study in laws- a dissertation about the effect of tobacco control program in Macao (submitted in 2011), a master in Public Administration, and five years of working experiences as an Inspector Assistant of tobacco, I had the conviction that I have to write to share my experience and knowledge about smoking cessation to contribute to the field of counselling and psychotherapy as there is little research data concerning smoking prevalence and demographics in Macao. This study consists of two parts – PART I presents the quantitative data collected by a questionnaire-survey over 1378 smokers and PART II qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 10 adult smokers to explore their experiences of smoking and smoking cessation in Macao. Quantitative data analysis was conducted with the SPSS, while qualitative analysis with coding and theme identification by following the grounded theory procedures. The study found that about 85% smoker surveyed consumed more than half a pack of cigarette per day and about 31% reported various symptoms like irritability, fatigue, loss of appetite and difficulties in concentration. The qualitative study has identified major positive factors related to initiation and maintenance of smoking cessation, namely health concerns, financial concerns and family support. Major negative factors related to relapse of smoking are peer influences, smoking of family members, and impacts of stressful life events. Based on findings of the study, it is argued that preventive anti-smoking education should be implemented among young people. Promotion of health education and preventive anti-smoking strategist and policy in Macao are discussed. The data collected indicate the fact that individuals who have pathologies of the cardiovascular system as a motivating factor for contemplating or taking actions for smoking cessation. Moreover, financial problems, gender (male predominantly), married with family support, higher educational level, without psychological diseases, better economic status, lower nicotine dependent are predictors to success in quit smoking. It also raises the possible need to deepen some evaluation parameters hither to be only superficially addressed. Therefore, and by limitations inherent to the study, this hypothesis needs further investigation. I argue that non-pharmacological treatment methods alone have proven to be effective in the smoking cessation process. However, it is argued that this combined with pharmacological therapy, in particular in specialized consultations, would be more effective and capable in increasing success rates in smoking cessation
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This dissertation consists of three essays, covering the topics of foreign trade, offshoring and international rivalry. In particular, Chapter 1 analyzes the strategic capacity allocation of an international oligopoly. Because a line of products shares specific inputs that are fixed in the short run, a multiproduct oligopolist faces a capacity constraint in the production. Not being able to produce the desirable quantities to meet demand, an oligopolist strategically allocates its capacity among different products against its rival. If the market were monopolistic, a firm would mainly concern the effective profitability of a product when allocating its capacity and when responding to a capacity expansion. Identical duopolists that compete in a Cournot fashion should have identical capacity allocation. However, in a sequential game, while the Stackelberg leader allocates all its scarce capacity towards the more profitable product, the follower should still allocate some capacity towards the unprofitable product. This matches the observation that Boeing, the incumbent in the large commercial aircrafts (LCA) industry, specializes in smaller planes, while Airbus allocates resources more evenly towards both superjumbo planes and smaller planes. Chapter 2 provides an explanation to the observation that international oligopolists, which are similar in many ways (subject to the same state of technology, have equal market shares, etc.), may engage in significantly different degrees of offshoring. Different from previous studies, which considered fragmentation to be affected by global exogenous factors only, this essay sees fragmentation as an endogenous variable. A firm can invest on R&D of its own fragmentation technology to enable certain degrees of fragmentation, so that offshoring of those fragmented subparts can be achieved. An important implication of endogenous fragmentation is that the government now has a policy alternative to export subsidy. Very often, when export subsidy is prohibited under an FTA, a government has incentive to subsidize fragmentation of a firm, which can stimulate both export and offshoring. Chapter 3 investigates Macao's and Singapore's questionable goal to diversify among two tourism services—gambling and convention. Macao has a cost advantage in gambling while Singapore has a cost advantage in convention. When a city operates as a regional monopoly, the simple multiproduct model shows that it is optimal for a city to diversify in response to an expansion in the markets of the tourism services. If the two cities operate as a Cournot duopoly instead, there will be a higher degree of product differentiation between the cities. Yet, both cities diversify more when there is a market expansion. On the other hand, Osaka is a potential entrant. The three-city model shows that if Osaka's relative cost of producing convention is even lower than Singapore’s, both Macao and Singapore will produce greater proportions of gambling compared to the two-city case. In general, Macao and Singapore respond to Osaka’s rivalry by strategizing their product mixes to avoid head-on competition with Osaka.
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