VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Modelling using ordinal data: the use of dual scaling in structural equation modelling
Keywords: Scaling (Social sciences)

This study demonstrates that Dual Scaling (DS) is a valuable tool for optimally scaling ordinal variables in the calculation of correlation matrices for analysis in structural equation modelling (SEM). More specifically, this thesis shows that there are specific circumstances where correlation estimates based on DS would be a more appropriate choice for use in SEM than the Pearson product moment (PMC), canonical (CC), or polychoric (PC) correlation techniques. With respect to ordinal variables, the study demonstrates that the SEM application of CC is unacceptable, that the PMC generates attenuated parameter estimates, and that the application of the PC to inappropriate data can lead to non-positive definite matrices of correlation estimates. Research from this thesis allows us to conclude that the PC produced the most accurate estimates of the underlying correlations, over a range of correlation, levels of categorization, and skew when compared to DS and PMC. However, it was also found that PC implementation in Lisrel can produce matrices of correlation estimates that are non-positive definite (NPD) even at large sample sizes and when the underlying variables are multivariate normally distributed. In comparison with DS, the PMC estimates from ordinal variables are, on average, more greatly attenuated by skew, non-normalities, and categorization. Thus, research from this thesis leads us to conclude that the PC should be used when the correlation matrix estimates are positive definite, and the data are multivariate normally distributed---otherwise the correlation estimates from DS should be used. Finally, research from this thesis demonstrates that a significant level of concordance exists among the techniques in areas such as: the pattern and occurrences of outlier estimations, parameter estimate magnitudes and patterns, chi-square estimates, as well as within repetition and within parameter correlation analysis. This leads us to surmise that although each technique differs in the way it captures the relationship among the variables, each is educing a similar underlying construct. In conclusion, the results from this thesis demonstrate that DS is a viable technique for the estimation of correlations among ordinal variables and can be used when the PC fails or is inappropriate for a given set of variables.
Assessing the stability of factor structures over time
Keywords: Teachers, Certification
Teachers, Ontario
Factor analysis
Teachers, Attitudes
Teachers, Ontario
Questionnaires, Methodology
Employment tests, Ontario

The accurate interpretation of the results obtained from an instrument used to assess change is dependent on whether an invariant relationship exists for each construct being measured. This study examined the dimensionality and long-term stability of a group of items used in three administrations of a questionnaire investigating pre-service teachers' attitudes and beliefs about an initial teacher certification test. Factor analysis was used to analyse these data. Results of the exploratory factor analyses (EFA) reveal that the dimensionalities of these data for each administration were relatively different, with only two factors appearing repeatedly across administrations. In comparison, the results of the confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) suggest that none of the models derived from the EFA analyses provided an adequate fit to the data. The tests for invariance indicate that only five of the twenty-one items under investigation were invariant across administrations. Suggestions for ways to improve the questionnaire are included.
Principal witness: Herbert Whittaker and Canadian drama, 1949-1975
Keywords: Canadian drama, History and criticism

In his career as a reviewer and columnist for The Globe and Mail in Toronto from 1949 to 1975, Herbert Whittaker became arguably the most important critical figure in the history of Canadian theatre. This thesis attempts to define Whittaker as a principal witness of his time by examining his work and considering the sensitivity and knowledge that he brought to his reviews of Canadian and international plays. During these years at The Globe and Mail, Whittaker reviewed most of the plays and productions in Canadian theatre history that helped to produce an identifiably Canadian theatre. Critics have generally agreed that at the beginning of this period Canadian theatre was amateurish and derivative, but by the early 1970s had become much more professional and distinctively Canadian, attracting larger audiences. The theatre of this later period made a lasting contribution to the arts in Canada and extended beyond the Canadian border in its influence. As a child, Whittaker attended plays in Montreal and London, England. He developed his ability as a theatre designer through art classes, and as a designer and director through extensive work in little theatre in Montreal and later in Toronto. Whittaker's background, along with a genuine passion for art and interest in dramatists, directors and actors, enhanced his critical skills and made him much more than a journalist working his ‘beat’. He continually adapted his point of view to the changing times in Canadian theatre. In the 1950s in Canada, the Massey Report became the cornerstone of arts policies and procedures and many of its recommendations were followed. The Stratford Festival, the National Theatre School, a strong body of professional repertory theatres throughout the regions of Canada, and many alternative theatre companies changed the face of Canadian theatre. Also, in the period under examination in this thesis, Canadians wrote and produced plays that allowed Canadians to see and study themselves in new and sometimes challenging ways. Whittaker monitored these developments and more in his long career and did so with thoroughness, insight and dedication.
Cuban cinema, politics and film audience reception in North America
Keywords: Motion pictures, Political aspects
Motion pictures, Cuba
Politics in motion pictures
Motion pictures in propaganda

This dissertation envisions a critical engagement and political rapport between Cuban films and North American viewers. With the aim of furthering the project of developing a new kind of politics in which knowing and learning are revealed as questions of power, a series of discussions and reflections are organized using two key concepts: interdisciplinarity and transculturation. I explore the notion of a pedagogical viewing practice in which moviegoers enter into the social processes of meaning production of which film production is a part. My focus is limited to sites that may be most amenable to change: to film festivals which accommodate alternative or, at the very least, a wider range of programming, to university classrooms where visual texts are increasingly becoming incorporated into practices of teaching and learning, and to film criticism as review. I speculate that the North American exhibition of Cuban film and related audience discussions could provide a viable means past the long-standing theoretical and political impasse, a cold-war polemic, which has characterized the text-based rhetoric and largely academic enterprise of Cubanology. Film is a distinctive means of cultural production in that it consists of a number of related productive sectors. Because the current historical moment confers a high status to visual media, film's related sectors, especially audience reception and review analyses, constitute spaces for learning about and from alternative approaches to culture and to popular education through filmic discourse. By comparing dominant EuroAmerican film theories and revolutionary Cuban film theory and practice, my aim is to tease out the differences, the challenges, the contradictions, and limitations to understandings of film audience reception and education. In so doing, I also want to feature the advances made in Cuban film practice and criticism as a way of informing North Americans about alternative cultural processes and products, and of signalling the possibilities for film audiences to constitute or, belong to a potentially productive culture in their own right.
Clients' perceptions of therapist self-disclosure as a therapeutic technique
Keywords: Self-disclosure
Psychotherapy patients, Attitudes
Psychotherapists
Psychotherapy

Incidents that were lacking in skill could have potentially serious negative consequences. However, when the alliance was already strong, even less skilled incidents could be integrated into the clients' therapy experience. Eighteen people in two Canadian cities, ranging in age from 24 to 57 years, participated in this qualitative study. The interview data yielded 157 instances of disclosure and non-disclosure, which were coded and analyzed according to helpfulness or unhelpfulness. Disclosures were further analyzed in terms of two other variables, revelation/involvement and explicitness/emplicitness. All incidents were then analyzed according to themes. Participants were more likely to perceive their therapists' disclosures as helpful, and non-disclosures as unhelpful. The greatest effects involved the alliance; there were other positive effects as anticipated from the literature. Unhelpful non-disclosures ruptured the alliance and set clients up to manage the relationship by avoiding certain topics. Skills and skills deficits were associated with both disclosures and non-disclosures.
Learning gender, attaining capital, and demystifying the north: Brazilian women's experiences with the unofficial curriculum of the International Training in Environmental Leadership (ITEL)
Keywords: Women, Attitudes
Women, Brazil
Women, Social conditions
Women, Brazil
Feminism, Brazil
Environmental protection, Study and teaching
Environmental protection, Canada

This study analyses ways in which 22 Brazilian middle-class women experienced three objectives of the unofficial, implicit curriculum of the International Training in Environmental Leadership (ITEL), a non-formal environmental education program with components in Brazil and Canada, and run by the Nucleo Internacional de Educacao e Gestao Ambiental (NIEGA) (International Centre for Environmental Education and Management), a Brazilian NGO. The three unofficial objectives are those of participants' learning of gender and feminist issues, participants' experiences attaining cultural capital, and participants' experiences demystifying the North and reconceptualizing Brazil. While the study shows that the unofficial cultural capital and demystification objectives were realized for the majority of participants, the study suggests that the unofficial gender objective would be served better by being made explicit in ITEL. This study also engages in methodological debates in the realm of critical cross-cultural research, and reveals strategies for white, Northern researchers conducting research in cross-cultural contexts.
Errorless social skills training for children with antisocial behaviour
Keywords: Problem children
Behavior disorders in children, Treatment
Social skills, Study and teaching
Child psychopathology

This research project evaluated the use of a graduated, non-coercive, and success-focused approach to social skills training, Errorless Social Skills Training (ESST), with children exhibiting school-based antisocial behaviour. A multiple baseline across groups design was used to evaluate treatment effects. Following a baseline period during which children were observed in an unstructured play situation, ESST was implemented with 8 children, in two groups f 4, during supported play sessions. The current study included 2 representative children, one from each group, who demonstrated severe problem behaviour during baseline. Results indicated improvement in socially appropriate behaviour and reductions of antisocial behaviour during and following treatment. These effects were maintained over a 1-month follow-up period. ESST may provide a non-coercive and success-focused alternative to traditional forms of social skills training to reduce aberrant behaviour while promoting child cooperation and adequate social interactions.
Munazza's story: understanding science teaching and conceptions of the nature of science in Pakistan through a life history study
Keywords: Science, Study and teaching
Science, Pakistan
Science, Study and teaching
Science teachers, Pakistan
Cognitive learning
Experiential learning
Experiential world inventory

In this study I have described and tried to comprehend how a female science teacher understands her practice. Additionally, I have developed some understanding of her understanding of the nature of science. While teaching science, a teacher projects messages about the nature of science that can be captured by observations and interviews. Furthermore, the manner is which a teacher conceptualizes science for teaching, at least in part, depends on personal life experiences. Hence, I have used the life history method to understand Munazza's practice. Munazza is a young female science teacher working in a private, co-educational school for children from middle income families in Karachi, Pakistan. Her stories are central to the study, and I have represented them using a number of narrative devices. I have woven in my own stories too, to illustrate my perspective as a researcher. The data includes 13 life history interviews and many informal conversations with Munazza, observations of science teaching in classes seven and eight, and interviews with other science teachers and administrative staff of the school. Munazza's personal biography and experiences of school and undergraduate courses has influenced the way she teaches. It has also influenced the way she does not teach. She was not inspired by her science teachers, so she has tried not to teach the way she was taught science. Contextual factors, her conception of preparation for teaching as preparation for subject content and the tension that she faces in balancing care and control in her classroom are some factors that influence her teaching. Munazza believes that science is a stable, superior and value-free way of knowing. In trying to understand the natural world, observations come first, which give reliable information about the world leading inductively to a “theory”. Hence, she relies a great deal on demonstrations in the class where students “see” for themselves and abstract the scientific concept from the activity. I believe this inquiry is significant because it has led to a better understanding of a science teacher's practice and her conceptions of the nature of science in a school in Pakistan. Moreover, the study has utilized research methods that advocates a more equitable researcher-researched relationship.
General visual and visual-orthographic skills in learning to read Chinese characters
Keywords: Chinese characters
Visual perception
Visual perception in children, China
Visual perception in children, Canada
Chinese language, Study and teaching (Primary)
Chinese language, China
Chinese language, Study and teaching (Primary)
Chinese language, Canada
Reading (Primary), China
Reading (Primary), Canada

Chinese orthography consists of visually complex characters, which leads to the belief that visual processing is important. This study examined the extent to which general visual and visual-orthographic skills predicted children's. Chinese character reading in China and Canada. Participants were 122 children in China and 93 children in Canada from kindergarten to Grade 2. General visual skills were measured with three subtests of the Test of Visual-Perceptual Skills (TVPS)-Revised (Gardner, 1996). Visual-orthographic skills were measured by three visual-orthographic (VO) experimental tasks. Children were also tested on character reading, rapid digit naming, phonological awareness and phonological strategy use. The study showed children in China outperformed their Canadian counterparts in visual-orthographic processing, but not in general visual processing. Compared with general visual skills, visual-orthographic skills were a better predictor of Chinese character reading. Further, the importance of visual skills in predicting character reading decreased from kindergarten to Grade 2.
Making the invisible/visible: creating a discourse on black queer youth
Keywords: Gay youth, Ontario
Homophobia, Ontario
Identity (Psychology) in youth, Ontario
Youth, Black, Ontario
Racism, Ontario

This thesis investigates the formation of black Canadian queer youth identity by drawing on narratives of five self-identified black queer youth, who are members of the Black Queer Youth initiative (BQY) a social and recreational group, funded and housed by the queer youth organization Supporting Our Youth (SOY). I examine what black queer youth identity means to BQY members and how they strategize and negotiate their multiple identities within the context of coming out and sites of socialization such as: families, faiths, schools and the internet. I also explore how the social space of BQY provides a context for identity development of it members. I suggest the complex and shifting positions which black queer youth occupy provides us with a way of thinking about how they make sense of their identities.
Comparison of optimization algorithms applied to aerodynamic design
Keywords: Aerodynamics, Mathematical models
Fluid dynamics, Mathematics
Mathematical optimization

This thesis investigates the performance and robustness of three gradient-based optimization algorithms. The algorithms are the BFGS quasi-Newton algorithm, which uses the quadratic penalty approach for constraints, the KSOPT algorithm, which uses the Kreisselmeier-Steinhauser function to combine the objective function and constraints, and the SNOPT algorithm, which implements a sequential quadratic programming method for solving constrained optimization problems. These approaches are applied to the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes aerodynamic shape optimization problem. Accurate gradients are computed using the discrete adjoint method. The performance of the optimizers is demonstrated for several design examples, including inverse design, maximization of lift-to-drag ratio, maximization of endurance factor, lift-constrained drag-minimization, and multi-point optimization. The SNOPT optimizer is more robust and efficient than the BFGS and KSOPT optimizers for the majority of test cases presented.
Assimilation of Mn-Al metal powder compacts in liquid Mg
Keywords: Materials science

The assimilation fundamentals of Mn-Al metal powder compacts in liquid pure Mg have been studied by immersing cylindrical Mn-Al powder compacts into pure Mg baths. Various factors, such as the Mg bath temperature, the Mn-Al compact size, and Mn composition in the Mn-Al compact, on the exothermic behaviour during the Mn-Al powder compact assimilation and Mn recovery, were evaluated. It was found that a series of strongly exothermic Mn-Al intermetallic reactions occurred in the compact during the immersion test. The reaction products include a full series of Mn-Al phases which exist in the binary Mn-Al phase diagram, i.e., αMn, βMn, Al8Mn5, Al11Mn 4, Al4Mn, Al6Mn and Al. The compositions of these phases are in a non-stoichiometric range compared to the equilibrium counterparts. The assimilation mechanism of the Mn-Al compact into liquid Mg is the melting of reaction products with lower melting points by the reaction heat. An assimilation mode of Mn-Al powder compacts in liquid Mg has been proposed. It is divided into three stages: incubation stage, intermetallic reaction stage, and homogenization stage. Under the experimental conditions in use, the Mn-Al powder compact in 750°C Mg bath, with 19.05 mm diameter and 50wt%Mn50wt%Al composition, exhibits the best Mn recovery. In the computational part of this thesis, the impact of specimen on the Mg bath was investigated using the FLOW-3D simulator. In addition, the effective thermal conductivities of Mn-Al compacts with various compositions have been estimated by an inverse heat transfer procedure, which was developed by utilizing and tailoring a SIMPLER code. The estimated effective thermal conductivities are in the range of 5.5 to 10.5 W m-1°C-1. The dependence of the effective thermal conductivity on temperature is minimal in the examined temperature range from about 250 to 600°C. The effective thermal conductivity decreases with an increase in the compact's Mn composition and porosity. Moreover, the heat generations in various Mn-Al compacts during the 750°C Mg bath immersion test have been estimated. The estimated heat generations are comparable to those from the thermodynamic calculations.
Divine law, asceticism, and gender in Aphrahat's Demonstrations, with a complete annotated translation of the text and comprehensive Syriac glossary
Keywords: Law (Theology), History of doctrines

Asceticism, anti-Jewish polemic, and an extensive use of Old Testament are three prominent feature of the Demonstrations of Aphrahat that can be brought together by an examination of the author's concept of divine Law. While many scholars have studied these areas in isolation, the centrality of Law-observance for Aphrahat has been largely overlooked. This emphasis on the Law affirms the basic continuity between the moral commandments of the Old Testament and the New, while adding a new dimension in the ascetic commands of Christ. In contrast to his clear rejection of O.T. ritual law, Aphrahat's high view of the Decalogue and other O.T. moral laws form an important part of his Christian spirituality. Christ's call to a higher ascetic way of life does not conflict with a fundamental commitment to the moral code already known to the Jewish patriarchs. Though his role clearly goes beyond this, Christ for Aphrahat functions as a new and final teacher of the Law who points to love as the fulfillment of the Law. This emphasis on love, however, is a way of appreciating the fullness of the Law rather than a way of minimizing its importance. In its ethical aspect, Aphrahat's concept of divine Law highlights continuity rather than discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity. This study also provides a gender perspective on Law which reveals that the author, despite some harsh descriptions of women, is perhaps more egalitarian than it first seems. This can be affirmed while recognizing the male bias of the text. To facilitate the present study, and as a contribution to the field in its own right, a full and original translation of the text is provided, along with a comprehensive Syriac glossary which includes virtually all of the terms in the text of the Demonstrations.
The university, quo vadis? Dynamics of globalisation and its impact on the university
Keywords: Globalization, Social aspects
Universities and colleges
Educational change
Education, Higher, Economic aspects
Business and education

The thesis focuses on the phenomenon of globalisation and the changes it has triggered in the academy. I shall analyse the traditional Humboldtian and Newmanesque models, as well as the modern and postmodern university types. The socio-economic context is relevant to the understanding of the university's past, present, and future. The neoliberal state has challenged the welfare state and this has influenced the academic architecture in aspects regarding management and administration, financing, the professoriate, the students and curriculum, and research. As the producer of advanced scientific research and disseminator of knowledge, the university has been the central element in the triple helix paradigm. In a knowledge society, based on data and information acquisition and management, the entrepreneurial model, besides other future higher education providers, such as the virtual and corporate types, will probably coexist with the traditional university.