| 1. |
- Nilsson, Kerstin, 1951-
(author)
-
Förändringsstrategier i grundskolan : ett ledarperspektiv
- 1998
-
Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Change Strategies in Primary School - a leader perspective This thesis focuses on change strategies in the Swedish primary school. The schoolleaders have a new situation and role as change agents since the school was brought under local government control with among others the reguirement to be responsible for the local process of development in school. Further studies have the main focus on schoolleaders´ work situation and role, however not on how schoolleaders handle change processes. There are many studies from other organizations that show how important it is that the staff take part in local change processes. In the decentralized school it is of great interest to have an elucidation of different change strategies and how the schoolleaders´ way to act have effects on the participation of the staff. Empirical data have been collected in case studies. This thesis is a separate part of a more comprehensive research project in Swedish schools, called "The School in change". That project focuses on environmental work in the work organization and includes twelve schools. Theese schools were chosen depending on their geografical situation and from the point that both the leader and the staff had a clear wish for active work with their working environment, by starting local development projects. Of these schools, I chose three that I wanted to study in another point of view. The research purposes were to describe and understand how schoolleaders, in this case principals, at the primary school work with change strategies. To reach my aim, I chose to study the change strategies of the principals from an actor´s point of view. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at three times and to complete the picture from the answers, I used the observation method. Some data from a staff investigation in the main project "The School in change" has been used in this study, with a view to making the results clear and better understanding them. The main results from this study are that I am able to identify two different change strategies, related to the schoolleaders´ way of working with local development in the school organization. One of the schoolleaders has a stationary strategy and two schoolleaders have mobile strategies. They are different in the way that the stationary schoolleader and one of the mobile leaders show a clear own change strategy of their own, while one schoolleader has an imitated strategy. The results also show that the leader with her own and stationary strategy, has a growing part of participating staff in ordinary work organization as in local development work. Another result is that in the schools with the mobile leaders the participation decreases. It makes no difference if the leader has her own or an imitated strategy for change and development of the school. Different kinds of theory have been used to interpret the results. Two aspects have been found important to be able to understand how the leaders of the school act with change strategies. These aspects are the work with the local development and the role and situation of leadership in school.
|
|
| 2. |
- Stadler, Svante, 1979-
(author)
-
Probabilistic Modelling of Hearing : Speech Recognition and Optimal Audiometry
- 2009
-
Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Hearing loss afflicts as many as 10\% of our population.Fortunately, technologies designed to alleviate the effects ofhearing loss are improving rapidly, including cochlear implantsand the increasing computing power of digital hearing aids. Thisthesis focuses on theoretically sound methods for improvinghearing aid technology. The main contributions are documented inthree research articles, which treat two separate topics:modelling of human speech recognition (Papers A and B) andoptimization of diagnostic methods for hearing loss (Paper C).Papers A and B present a hidden Markov model-based framework forsimulating speech recognition in noisy conditions using auditorymodels and signal detection theory. In Paper A, a model of normaland impaired hearing is employed, in which a subject's pure-tonehearing thresholds are used to adapt the model to the individual.In Paper B, the framework is modified to simulate hearing with acochlear implant (CI). Two models of hearing with CI arepresented: a simple, functional model and a biologically inspiredmodel. The models are adapted to the individual CI user bysimulating a spectral discrimination test. The framework canestimate speech recognition ability for a given hearing impairmentor cochlear implant user. This estimate could potentially be usedto optimize hearing aid settings.Paper C presents a novel method for sequentially choosing thesound level and frequency for pure-tone audiometry. A Gaussianmixture model (GMM) is used to represent the probabilitydistribution of hearing thresholds at 8 frequencies. The GMM isfitted to over 100,000 hearing thresholds from a clinicaldatabase. After each response, the GMM is updated using Bayesianinference. The sound level and frequency are chosen so as tomaximize a predefined objective function, such as the entropy ofthe probability distribution. It is found through simulation thatan average of 48 tone presentations are needed to achieve the sameaccuracy as the standard method, which requires an average of 135presentations.
|
|
| 3. |
- Zambrell, Katarina, 1958-
(author)
-
Identitet i arbete(t) : Chefers reflektioner om arbetets dimensioner
- 2016
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to identify, describe and develop the understanding of what aspects at work are important for individuals' identity construction. In this understanding-oriented study the empirical data consists of three different groups: middle managers, cultural workers and “Airis-managers”. I have interpreted and analysed the 75 respondents’ stories, and in their experiences found similar patterns. My conclusion is that there are different dimensions at work that may affect the identity construction. My research question: What is it about work that is experienced as important for individuals’ identity construction? can be answered with the five different identity-related dimensions that I have identified: the enabling dimension, the legitimating dimension, the strengthening dimension, the touching dimension and the constraining dimension. All these dimensions, except the constraining dimension, contribute positively to identity construction. The constraining dimension can be compensated if the other positively confirming dimensions dominate. The identity construction for each individual appears different depending on what dimensions he/she experiences. That is why work’s impacts on the individual's identity construction vary. In order to illustrate the developed typology of identity-related dimensions, I created a model that aims to facilitate understanding of what aspects at work that may be important for the personal identity. When raising awareness of these dimensions, efforts to strengthen the most important dimensions can be made. Through their leadership and ways of organizing work, managers may influence their employees’ opportunities to construct and strengthen their identity.Much of the identity research discusses the more conscious identity work. In my third study my empirical data consists of managers’ who have brought artists into their organizations, i.e. conducted an artistic intervention called Airis. My interpretation is that implementing an artistic intervention can be considered as a way to challenge and develop the managers’ identity and be a part of their identity work.This thesis deals with “identity at work” (to reconnect to the title). People seldom discuss “identity construction” but that does not mean that identity issues are unimportant. On the contrary, people often talk about their jobs and their work experiences. What this "talk" really means is what this thesis highlights: Identity is constructed and confirmed at work, especially when others are told about the work-related experiences.
|
|
