Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Community congruence'

National movements for greater quality in education have increased concerns about student learning and the effectiveness of teaching for the community college. Faculty are responsible for student learning, yet criticized for using ineffective teaching methods despite limited data on community college teaching practices. The purpose of this study was to gain a descriptive understanding of current teaching practices in three community colleges. This single-phase study used a concurrent mixed-method exploratory research design. A purposeful sample of 185 community college faculty across three colleges in the southwestern United States were surveyed about what methods they use, how they perceive their teaching effectiveness, what motivates them to change, and why they teach as they do. This study was grounded in the framework of Bandura's self-efficacy theory to enhance an understanding of the faculty's perspective of improving teaching and learning. Descriptive statistics and inductive analysis of mixed-method data led to key findings indicating that faculty were incorporating diverse and learner-centered strategies and using a variety of assessment methods. Despite feeling that good teaching is not rewarded by their colleges, faculty found participating in professional development and trying new methods beneficial to their teaching. The data indicated that better ways to evaluate teaching effectiveness are needed, along with better ways to evaluate student success at community colleges. This study benefits students, faculty, and community colleges nationally by providing research data to help inform and encourage administrative vision, support, and policies relating to faculty development and learner-centered programs to increase student engagement and success.

This dissertation sought to determine the effects of a buddy system on a student's self-concept, academic achievement, attrition rate, and congruence levels. The buddy system treatment randomly paired two students for the purposes of sharing ideas, working on assignments, getting to know each other, and supporting one another. The study included three randomly selected sections of pre-college level, developmental writing classes from the Brookhaven College of the Dallas County Community College District. Three other classes served as the control group, and one instructor taught all six sections of the course. Three instruments were used as measures of change: the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (TSCS), designed by William H. Fitts, measured self-concept levels; the Personality and Educational Environment Scale (PEES), created by Roger Boshier, measured congruence levels; and a written paragraph measured achievement levels in English. Attrition percentages were based on the number of students enrolled during the second week of class who were not present during the sixteenth week of class. To test for significance, an analysis of covariance procedure was used on the TSCS, PEES, and written paragraph results, and a test for the difference between proportions for independent groups was used on the attrition percentages. The class sections were nested under either the experimental or the control group to identify significant differences between class sections. On the TSCS, a significance of .96 among sections and .48 between groups indicated no significant change had occurred in self-concept levels. For the PEES, a significance of .30 among sections and .75 between groups indicated no change had occurred in congruence levels. Finally, on the paragraph assessment, a significance of .87 among sections and .31 between groups showed no change had occurred in achievement levels. However, the test for significance of the difference between attrition percentages revealed that the buddy system treatment was an effective method of retention.

Cette recherche propose la création d’un premier modèle expliquant les relations entre les communautés virtuelles de consommation, leurs membres et leur écosystème virtuel de marques. À la différence des nombreux travaux sur le marketing tribal, concentrés sur les communautés de marque, l’auteur choisit d’axer son travail sur l’étude des communautés virtuelles non centrées autour d’une marque spécifique, permettant ainsi d’explorer pour la première fois divers cas de relations marque-communauté modulées par différentes variables telles que le niveau de congruence entre les valeurs d’une marque et celles de la communauté, le niveau d’intrusion et le niveau de contribution d’une marque dans la communauté. Outre l’identification de ces variables explicatives de la relation marque-communauté, cette recherche caractérise également l’ensemble des relations possibles entre marques et communautés tout en évaluant leur impact sur la relation individuelle marque-membre. Les résultats de l’étude de deux couples de marques testés dans deux communautés différentes montrent notamment que la recommandation d’une communauté à l’égard d’une marque a un impact positif sur la confiance d’un membre auprès de cette marque et que le dénigrement produit l’effet inverse. En revanche, contrairement à ce qui est observé dans les communautés de marque, le phénomène de co-création entre une marque et une communauté non marquée peut conduire à une érosion de la confiance d’un membre à l’égard de cette marque. La distinction entre communauté de marque et communauté « non marquée » est donc fondamentale dans l’étude de ces nouvelles structures sociétales
This research explains the creation of a first model of relationships between virtual communities, their members and their brands virtual ecosystem. Unlike the many papers on tribal marketing, converging on brand communities, the author chooses to focus his work on the study of virtual communities not centered on a specific brand, allowing for the first time, the exploration of various cases of community-brand relationships modulated by several variables such as the congruence level between the values of the brand and those of the community, the contribution and the intrusion levels of the brand in the community. Besides the identification of these explanatory variables of the community-brand relationship, this research also describes all the possible relationships between brands and communities while assessing their impact on the individual relationship consumer-brand. The results of the study on two couples of brands tested on two different communities especially show that recommendation of a community about a brand has a positive impact on the member trust in this brand and that the denigration has the opposite effect. However, unlike what we observed in brand communities, the co-creation phenomenon between a brand and an “unbranded community” can lead to an erosion of the member trust in this brand. The distinction between brand community and “unbranded community” is therefore essential for the study of these new societal structures

Dans un contexte de mondialisation, la concurrence accrue entre les territoires, dont l’objectif premier est de capter des habitants, des touristes et des entreprises, exacerbe les enjeux liés à leur attractivité. Afin de se différencier les collectivités territoriales et leurs agences de développement adoptent des approches de marketing territorial et commencent à mettre en place des techniques de marquage (dites place branding). Le place branding reprend plusieurs outils issus du domaine de la marque commerciale. Toutefois, le territoire est un « produit particulier » qui regroupe diverses parties prenantes dont les visions et les attentes peuvent diverger. Le succès d’une marque territoire reposera alors en partie sur la gestion de ces parties prenantes. Dès lors, ce travail doctoral entreprend d’adapter au contexte du place branding des concepts de marketing, en considérant les perceptions de trois groupes de parties prenantes, en vue d’améliorer l’efficacité de la marque territoire. Cette problématique de recherche est abordée selon trois questions de recherche: (1) Quelle est la légitimité publicitaire d’une marque territoire, telle que perçue par ses habitants ? Influence-t-elle l’efficacité des actions de place branding ? (2) Dans quelle mesure les gestionnaires de marques territoires ont recours à des stratégies de marketing communautaire afin d’implémenter une communication marketing intégrée (CMI) ? (3) Dans quelle mesure l’image de la marque région constitue-t-elle un vecteur pertinent de la promotion d’une destination, complémentaire à celle de la marque pays, auprès des touristes internationaux ? D’un point de vue théorique, cette recherche doctorale souligne l’importance d’adopter une approche parties prenantes à la compréhension de la marque territoire. Ce faisant, ce travail contribue à développer des preuves empiriques dans le domaine, notamment à l’échelle de la région qui est sous-représentée dans la littérature. Cette thèse met en évidence les similitudes entre la marque territoire et la marque commerciale, et renforce ainsi la validité externe de trois concepts issus du marketing classique. Différentes approches méthodologiques ont été développées et mobilisées. Ces éléments renforcent par ailleurs la validité interne de la présente recherche et contribuent à exclure l’existence d’un biais déclaratif. Les contributions managériales de cette thèse sont liées à ses implications méthodologiques dans la mesure où diverses grilles d’analyse sont proposées aux gestionnaires de marques territoires. Ces outils prennent en compte les spécificités et les enjeux associés aux principales parties prenantes de la marque, et visent à les impliquer dans les initiatives de place branding. Enfin, la mise en place d’une approche de communication marketing intégrée est conseillée. Premièrement, il est proposé que cette approche soit appliquée entre les différents acteurs du territoire. Les résultats montrent ainsi que l’intégration des habitants dans la démarche de place branding est un véritable enjeu qui nécessite une approche distincte de celle préconisée traditionnellement en marketing. Deuxièmement, l’approche de communication marketing intégrée devrait s’appliquer entre les différents niveaux de territoires de façon à tirer parti de l’image du territoire d’ordre supérieur
In the globalized world, Nowhere, Place, is directly competing against Powerful, World, to attract residents, tourists and talent, as well as firms and investments, whether the place is a meta-region, a country, a region, a city or other locations. Whilst places and destinations around the world have been proclaiming their qualities for a long time, mainly to create awareness or maintain preference, those marketing communications campaigns are short-term and don’t contribute to unifying the place. To compete in such cutthroat environments, public authorities and place agencies have started to recognize the value of adopting branding techniques by way of practising place branding. Place branding adapts several tools developed in the field of commercial branding to contribute to place development and establish image-building strategies that render places more attractive to identified markets. As such, this doctoral work endeavours to adapt mainstream marketing concepts to the context of place branding, taking into account the views of three groups of stakeholders to enhance place brand efficiency. I address these research questions in a French region-branding context, according to three sub-questions that summarise the chapters of this thesis. First, what is the advertising legitimacy of a place brand as perceived by the residents? Does it influence place-branding efficiency? Second, to what extent do place brand managers use community marketing strategies to operationalize the integrated marketing communications (IMC) role of the place brand? Third, to what extent does the region brand image constitute a relevant vehicle for promoting a destination integral to the nation brand image, as perceived by international tourists? Results show that the representational and functional dimensions of a destination brand impact differently implicit attractiveness and intentions to visit. International tourists also perceive the region and the nation brand images as congruent overall, which contributes positively to their intentions to visit the region. From a theoretical point of view, this research highlights the importance of adopting a multi-stakeholder approach to understanding place branding. Doing so contributes to the development of empirical evidence in the domain, by studying the understudied region branding form. This dissertation also highlights similarities with commercial branding and reinforces the external validity of three classic marketing concepts. The methodological implications of this work come from the different methodological approaches (i.e. measurement tools and methods), developed to meet the specificities and stakes associated with the main stakeholders of a place brand. In addition, this approach reinforces the internal validity of the present research and contributes to ruling out the existence of a declarative bias. The managerial contributions of this thesis are connected with the methodological implications, inasmuch as it provides place brand managers with diverse analysis grids that will enable them to take into account the specificities and stakes associated with the main stakeholders of the place brand, and also involve stakeholders in the place-branding process. Finally, I demonstrate the need for an IMC approach that is per se—for example, through the use of an overall brand positioning that covers shared elements between stakeholders so that they all relate to the place brand, or through the adoption of a bottom-up rather than top-down approach to place branding. This approach also should be able to extend to other place scales, by leveraging the image of a higher-order place

One of the original goals of phylogeography was to use genetic data to identify historical events that might contribute to breaks among biotic communities. In this study, we examine the phylogeography of a common livebearing fish (Poecilia gillii) from Costa Rica. Our goal was to see if phylogeographic breaks in this species were congruent with previously-defined boundaries among four fish community provinces. We hypothesized that if abiotic factors influence both community boundaries and genetic structuring in P. gillii then we would find four monophyletic clades within our focal species that were geographically separated along community boundary lines. Similarly, we expected to find most of the genetic variation in P. gillii partitioned among these four geographic regions. We generated DNA sequence data (mitochondrial cyt b and nuclear S7 small ribosomal subunit) for 260 individuals from 42 populations distributed across Costa Rica. We analyzed these data using phylogenetic (parsimony and likelihood) and coalescent approaches to estimate phylogenetic relationships among haplotypes, patterns of gene flow, and effective population size. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find four monophyletic groups that mapped cleanly to our geographic community provinces. However, one of our clades was restricted to a single province, suggesting that common earth history events could be responsible for both genetic structuring in P. gillii and fish community composition in this area. However, our results show a complex pattern of gene flow throughout other regions in Costa Rica where genetic structuring is not governed by community province boundaries.

Background: The Theory of Cultural Distress offers a framework for understanding the potential outcomes in patients who do not receive care that incorporates their cultural beliefs (DeWilde & Burton, 2017).This study represents initial steps in researching the theory byexploring the layering of stressors that place the patient at risk for Cultural Distress. Methods: Utilized aCross-sectional descriptive correlational analysis of intersecting identities (Structural Stressors), ethnicity-related stressors (Otherness) and ethnic-identity (Otherness) to develop understanding of the potential effects of these variables on psychological stress. Independent variables included intersecting identities, perceived ethnic discrimination, concern for stereotype confirmation, own group conformity pressure, and group membership. The dependent variable was perceived stress. Participants were also asked to define the word culture. Results: Stereotype confirmation concern, perceived ethnic discrimination, group membership, and own group conformity pressure were significantly associated with perceived stress. Intersectionality was not significantly associated with perceived stress but was significantly associated with perceived ethnic discrimination. Regression analysis revealed stereotype confirmation concern, own group conformity pressure, and group membership as significant predictors of perceived stress. Participant definitions of culture primarily fell under two themes, Collectiveness and Individualness, indicating that the way we live is highly influenced by our shared experiences, and also a product of individual choices. Discussion: Results indicated that structural stressors had no influence on psychological stress but were associated with perceptions of discrimination. The experience of otherness significantly influenced psychological stress. Additional research and tool development is needed to better understand how structural stressors may influence psychological stress.

This study was undertaken to: 1) determine the relationship between community college counselor role congruence and job satisfaction and 2) to consider factors that contribute to or depreciate counselor role congruence and job satisfaction. The subjects consisted of four groups that were compared in terms of their perceptions of community college counseling. One group called leaders consisted of Oregon community college presidents and deans of students. Another group called co- workers was made up of Oregon community college financial aid directors, registrars and/or admissions directors, student activities directors and career placement directors. A third group called trainers consisted of counselor trainers/ educators from Oregon and the Western United States. Oregon community college counselors comprised the fourth group. Questionnaires were sent to 277 individuals and 190 responded for a 69 percent return ratio. Eighty-five percent (85%) of the counselors, 65 percent of the co-workers, 61 percent of the leaders, and 61 percent of the trainers responded. Three instruments were used in this study. The Role Questionnaire was used to measure role congruence and was administered to all subjects. The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire was used to measure job satisfaction and was administered to the counselor group. The Community College Counselor Questionnaire was developed to gather demographic and job duties information and was administered to all groups. Counselor role congruence and job satisfaction were positively correlated at +.54. A one way analysis of variance revealed that there were significant differences among groups. Trainers and co-workers perceived significantly greater counselor role incongruence than did counselors and leaders. Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that experience in the counseling profession, positive perception of leadership decision making, a full-time faculty/staff development specialist on campus, a professional definition as an educator/counselor, and a peer counseling program were all associated with high counselor role congruence. Stepwise regression analysis also revealed that a light counselor teaching load, having at least a masters degree, and perception of few incompatible demands were all associated with high counselor job satisfaction.
Graduation date: 1990

The biotic change along environmental gradients has been the subject of study for well over a century, forming one of the first tools to understand how environment shapes the species and ecosystems that occur. However, gradient studies have historically relied on limited observations on a single transect, limiting their inductive power. Here, I investigate how this limitation can be addressed. I present case studies to illustrate how next-generation transect studies can integrate observations from a wider range of observations of phenotypes, species and communities; together with observations from multiple taxa and gradients. Leaf carbon isotope data from bioclimatic gradients in China, South Australia and Western Australia are integrated to demonstrate a variety of species- and community-level responses to water availability, providing evidence against the previously asserted claim of a simple and universal response. Vegetation data from the same gradient is surveyed with two separate survey methodologies are co-analysed to demonstrate climate is the primary regional determinant of vegetation structure and composition in South Australia, while topographic and edaphic variables are important at a local scale. I find no evidence of ecological disjunctions that may indicate a threshold of vegetation change associated with climate shifts. Comparison of plant and ant species turnover on a spatial gradient suggested that ant communities are ca. 7.5 times more sensitive than plant assemblages to spatial change, providing evidence that future climate change may force community reorganisation and a decoupling of these two taxa, potentially disrupting important interactions and ecosystem function. Well-designed transect studies have the potential to help resolve long-standing questions around the modes of species adaptation to change, as well as improving our understanding of how climate change will shape ecosystems in to the future
Thesis (Ph.D.) (Research by Publication) -- University of Adelaide, School of Biological Sciences, 2018

Background: The past two decades have witnessed transition from in-patient hospital settings to Community and Home Based Care in Zimbabwe. This is because of an increase in the number of people developing chronic health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and cancers, and thus needing longer treatment durations. The increase in chronic conditions has mainly been attributed to the increase in incidence and prevalence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune-deficiency Syndrome in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many Governments, including that of Zimbabwe, endorsed and promoted community and home based care to provide a continuum of care to the chronically ill. Despite the implementation of Community and Home Based Care programmes, no studies known to the researcher have been done to investigate the congruency of service users’ needs and the programme goals. Purpose: The purpose of the study is twofold; firstly to explore whether Community and Home Based Care interventions provide services that effectively meet users’ goals in a dynamic social environment and secondly, to develop guidelines for enhancing care provision as well as congruency of service users’ needs and programme goals. Methods: A mixed-method approach combining qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis was used. Concurrent collection of data with equal status was placed on both qualitative and quantitative data. For qualitative data interviews and focus groups were used with home based care service users, family care givers, and health providers. Structured questionnaires were used for the quantitative data. Framework: Imogene King’s Interacting Systems Framework and Theory of Goal Attainment were adopted to guide the study. These were utilised because of the assumption that mutual agreement on goals for effective care can be achieved through nurse-client interactions and communication Research findings: Community and Home Based Care programme in Zimbabwe does not comprehensively meet the needs of its service users. Service users have diverse needs and goals depending on the specific condition and symptoms they experience. They perceive access to medication for symptom management and pain control, food and financial stability, as priority needs. The study found that nursing services provided in Community and Home Based Care generally align with the physical needs of service users and was deficient in addressing the socio-economic and psycho-social needs of service users. Conclusion: No single sector can achieve the users’ and the programme`s goals of quality health on its own. The goals may only be realised when other stakeholders and relevant sectors contribute to the Community and Home Based Care programme, which requires diverse resources. Guidelines to enhance integration of Community and Home Based Care with social services were developed.
Health Studies
D.Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies)

碩士
元智大學
經營管理碩士班(行銷學程)
107
Based on the Service Dominant Logic, the value co-creation, the congruence theory, author built up a framework to study about the effect of resources investment congruency in value co-creation in firm-hosted online community on customer’s favorable behavioral intention. This research tries to explore whether the congruence between the perception of customer on how much resources that they are investing, and how much resources that firm is investing in to the value co-creation process on firm-hosted online community, will influent customer’s favorable behavioral intention. The study will be conducted at Duy Tan University, in the context of the university-hosted online community (Facebook fan page and group). Data was collected from 408 students who is a member of Duy Tan University online community to run the polynomial regression and surface response to test the congruence and see how the indifferent will affect to the behavioral intention.