Universities face increasing numbers of students leading to increasingly large lectures, and decreasing interaction and collaboration, which are important factors for learning success and satisfaction. The use of IT can help overcoming this challenge by increasing the interaction in large-scale lectures without massively increasing the workload of lecturers. In this research-in-progress paper, ...

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study conducted by midwife researchers into women's experience of new motherhood. Data were collected using focus groups involving 55 first-time mothers and analysed using grounded theory method. The analysis produced six categories: 'realizing', 'unready', 'drained', 'aloneness', 'loss' and 'working it out'. The core category, 'becoming a mother...

Success in college is not simply a matter of students demonstrating academic ability. In addition, students must master the ‘‘college student’’ role in order to understand instructors’ expectations and apply their academic skills effectively to those expectations. This article uses data from focus groups to examine the fit between university faculty members’ expectations and students’ understan...

In this technical report we summarise the spatio-temporal features and present the core operators of Focus specification framework. We present the general idea of these operators, using a Steam Boiler System example to illustrate how the specification framework can be applied. Focuswas inspired by Focus [11], a framework for formal specification and development of interactive systems. In contra...

Background Detailed descriptions of implementation strategies are lacking, and there is a corresponding dearth of information regarding methods employed in implementation strategy development. This paper describes methods and findings related to the alpha testing of eLearning modules developed as part of the Housing First Technical Assistance and Training (HFTAT) program's development. Alpha te...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically examine how social augmented parameters impact on the effective adoption of Information and communication technology (ICT) by small scale agribusinesses operating in Southeast Nigeria. The relevance of incorporating social imperatives in scholarship focused on technology adoption is due to its role in sustaining the process of adoption and diff...

In face-to-face conversation, participants often give the floor, or the voice, to nonpresent participants – virtual participants. These are made present in the conversation by actual speakers quoting them, voicing them or referring to their opinions. In this paper, we examine instances of such virtual talk. Data are drawn from focus group discussions and public meetings about genetically modifi...

PURPOSE To depict the phenomenon of nursing in the Native American culture. DESIGN At the 1997 annual Native American Nursing Summit held on the Flathead Reservation in Montana, 203 Native American nurses, nursing students, and others who provide health care to Native American people attended and participated in focus groups that provided the data for this qualitative study. The participants ...

Military fathers endure repeated separations from their children. In this qualitative study we describe military fathers' range of involvement with their children, paying special attention to the implications of deployment separation and reintegration. We discuss father involvement using three overlapping major domains of functioning: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. Additionally, we consi...

Visual secret sharing by using generalized random grids is a novel approach for generating nonexpansible shares by artfully utilizing various random variables. Stacking the shares together, secret image can be revealed. This paper proposes a 2 out of 3 visual multiple secret sharing method using generalized random grids. Three secret images (A, B, C) are used for generating three non-expansible...