Digital Commons Network^™

A Critical Analysis Of Gender Inequality In The Chef Profession In Ireland, Mary M. Farrell Phd

Dissertations

As an original piece of research, this dissertation investigates the factors that contribute to gender inequality in the chef profession in Ireland. The aims of the study sought to establish the extent of gender inequality and the factors that contribute to it in the chef profession in Ireland. The first national gender inequality survey was designed to collect empirical and qualitative data of the chef profession. Joan Acker’s (1990) original theory of gendered organisations and Connell’s (1995) concept of hegemonic masculinity were employed to undertake a systematic gender analysis of the data emanating the survey. This analysis reveals, for the …

Home Economics And Food Literacy: An Investigation Into The Factors Influencing The Effective Delivery Of Food Literacy Curricula In Irish Post Primary Schools As Perceived By Key Stakeholders, Aisling Geraghty

Dissertations

In 2018 the new Junior Cycle specification for home economics was introduced. This year also saw the recommendation by the Irish State to make home economics compulsory for all Junior Cycle students. Home economics is a multifaceted, inter disciplinary subject that seeks to empower students with the skills to cultivate reflective, critical decision-making abilities they require to deal with practical perennial problems. Food literacy exists as a key contextual strand to home economics, and to this new Junior Cycle curriculum in particular. This study seeks to identify influences, both positive and negative, that impact on the effective delivery of food …

Solving The Continual Improvement And Innovation Challenge For The Benefit Of Patients: How An Effective Pharmaceutical Quality System (Pqs) And Risk-Based Approach Could Transform Post-Approval Change (Pac) Management, Emabelle Ramnarine

Dissertations

Patients deserve their medicines on time every time. Regulators safeguard public health by ensuring availability of safe, effective, high-quality medicines. Pharmaceutical companies must continually improve and innovate to deliver such medicines. In spite of these patient-centric objectives, drug shortages have continued to grow as a global public health concern. The drug shortage problem has existed for decades though there has been no shortage of effort, recommendations, papers, and expectations to resolve it. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic even exceptional measures were rapidly implemented to prevent shortages, yet no long-term solutions have been found.

This research hypothesis was that due to …

Study Of Mm-Wave Fixed Beam And Frequency Beam-Scanning Antenna Arrays, Zeeshan Ahmed

Dissertations

Millimeter-wave frequencies are anticipated to be widely adapted for future wireless communication systems to resolve the demand of high data-rate and capacity issues. The millimeter-wave frequency range offers wide spectrum and a shift for most newly developing technologies as the microwave and lower frequency bands are becoming overcrowded and congested. These high frequency bands offer short wavelengths which has enabled the researchers to design and implement compact and adaptable antenna solutions. This research focuses on the implementation, transformation and modification of antenna structures used in lower frequency bands to millimeter-wave applications with high gain and multi-band and wideband performances.

The …

An Exploration Of How Early Years Managers And Staff Are Responding To The Needs Of Children Experiencing Homelessness, Jacinta Corcoran

Dissertations

Homelessness in Ireland has increased rapidly over recent years with children and families making up increasing proportions of the numbers recorded whilst single parent families are representing a disproportionate number of families experiencing homelessness. Consequently many early years services are supporting unprecedented numbers of children who are experiencing homelessness to engage and fully participate in early education programmes. The experience of homelessness can permeate many levels and various aspects of a child’s life particularly when historical risks and adversities are to be factored. Within this context this study guided by an ecological framework explores the range of influences on the …

An Investigation Into The Conceptualisations Of Leadership Among Early Childhood Teachers In Ireland., Edel Fenlon

Dissertations

Leadership in an Irish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) context is a new and emerging ideology at a policy and practice level. This study aimed to gain an understanding of the conceptualisations of leadership held by early childhood teachers who work directly with children in Ireland. This study explored the associations of leadership held by participants, recognition of leadership potential and attributes of effective leadership; through an interpretivist paradigm. Within this paradigm, a qualitative research design was selected to capture the lived experiences of leadership of participants. Six semi-structured interviews we completed with early childhood teachers from rural Ireland. …

Social-Emotional Intelligence (Ei), Graduates And The Workplace – A Study Of A Tailored Approach To Ei Competency Development For Final Year Engineering Students, Ailish Jameson

Dissertations

Previous research has demonstrated that higher social and emotional competence (EI) results in increased life and career success. To date, EI coaching programmes have been delivered in higher education and in the workplace and have demonstrated success in terms of increased EI competence, post intervention. However, to date no attempt has been made in an Irish context to design and deliver a tailored EI coaching programme, based on the stated needs of employers. This study aimed to address this gap in EI research. It was exploratory in nature with a mixed method design being employed. In Phase One, a survey …

How Do Social Care Managers In Disability Services Experience Regulation And Inspection?, Deirdre Connolly

Dissertations

Regulation is one of the ways in which the State seeks to ensure that health and social care services are safe for those that are using them. The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) is the regulatory body in Ireland charged by the State to assure the public that these services are safe. This study set out to understand how social care managers, in the role of person in charge (PIC) of residential services for adults with disabilities, experience HIQA’s regulatory process and to explore how these experiences impact on social care managers, and on service improvement more generally.

“The Zero To Three Years Are So Important” An Exploration Of The Needs Of Young Children In Ecec Settings From A Policy And Practice Perspective., Rosemary Brien

Dissertations

A strong body of evidence demonstrates that young children under the age of three are experiencing a critical period in their development which impacts long term mental and physical health. Responsive, secure and positive relationships between young children and their caregivers is integral to healthy social and emotional development.The principle aim of this study is to explore how the needs of children under the age of three are perceived and addressed in Irish early childhood education and care settings from a practice and policy perspective.A qualitative research approach was adopted utilising semi-structured interviews with managers of full day care settings …

The Contribution Of P. G. Wodehouse To The Field Of Gastronomy Through His Character, The French Chef, Anatole, Elizabeth Wilson

Dissertations

In her paper ‘A Cultural Field in the Making: Gastronomy in 19th-Century France’, Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson argues that the field of gastronomy came into existence in the middle of the nineteenth century in France. This field of gastronomy was constructed from two elements, the significance that gastronomy, defined at the time as a structured set of culinary practices, had attained in France by the nineteenth century, but also, the contribution of writers of culinary discourse who wrote about this gastronomy. These writers came from different disciplines and included the realist fiction writer Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), whose work Ferguson describes …

An Exploration Of Managers’ Perspectives On Their Role In Managing Community Early Years Services : Influences And Insights, Jessica Lee

Dissertations

This exploration into theperspectives of managers of community Early Years services stems from the absence of a requirement of a qualification for supernumerary managers in Early Years services in Ireland and the resulting ambiguity of definedfunctions of such managers and contextually specific requirements. The aim of the study is to gain a deep insight into the perspectives ofthe participants on their roles in leading and managing their services. The objectives are to understand what internal and external factors have shaped their roles, to locate the dichotomies and harmonies between what iscontextuallyrequired of managersand what the true reality of a manager’s …

An Exploration Of Residential Care Managers Understanding Of The Professional Registration Of Social Care Workers And Its Implications For Their Role As Managers, Lorraine O’ Brien

Dissertations

The change that is referred to in this study is the professional registration of social care workers in the social care sector. The projected target date for the commencement of professional registration of social care workers is 2022 (CORU Presentation, 2019). This study explored CORU and residential care managers understanding of the implementation plan and their views of the implications professional registration will have on manager’s roles and responsibilities. Managers who play a key role in this change process need to be supported therefore residential care manager’s voices were at the heart of this study.

Exploring The Factors That Affect Secondary Student’S Mathematics And Portuguese Performance In Portugal, Lulu Cheng

Dissertations

Secondary education provides not only knowledge and skills, but also inculcates values, training of instincts, fostering right attitude and habits to enable adolescents to move into tertiary education or to ensure a workplace for students who decided to terminate their secondary schooling. Without secondary education to guide the development of young people through their adolescence, they will be ill prepared for tertiary education or for workplace, moreover, the possibility of juvenile delinquency and teenage pregnancy becomes higher. These negative effects will increase the pressures and expenditures on society and socio-economic. In 2006, Portugal was reported having the higher school-leaving rate …

A Regression Study Of Salary Determinants In Indian Job Markets For Entry Level Engineering Graduates, Rajveer Singh

Dissertations

The economic liberalisation of Indian markets in early 90s boosted the economic growth of the nation in various sectors over the next two decades. One such sector that has seen a massive growth in this time is Information Technology (IT). The IT industry has played a very crucial role in transforming India from a slow moving economy to one of the largest exporters of IT services. This growth created a huge demand in the labour markets for skilled labour, which in turn made engineering one of the top choices of study after high school over the years. In addition, the …

Cop Culture: The Impact Of Confrontation On The Working Personality Of Frontline Gardai, Paul Williams

Dissertations

The unofficial, internal culture of An Garda Siochana is an area where there has been a deficit of academic research and scrutiny despite it being existential to the public discourse on garda reform, especially in recent years. It has been pointed out that the lack of data on the organisational value system of the Irish police is due in part to the nascent state of criminological research in Ireland and a reluctance on the part of the Garda authorities to co-operate in research studies. The primary objective of this study was to explore one aspect of police culture: the impact …

An Exploration Of The Factors That Support Improved Pro-Social Outcomes For Young People In Detention: Social Care Practitioners' Perspectives., Emer Loughrey

Dissertations

Youth detention facilities like many other services funded by public money need to be able to demonstrate the difference it makes to the lives of the small cohort of young people who are detained. In a world which has become more security and safety conscious, evidencing the difference made to the lives of these ‘troubled youths’ is of particular interest to society today. This study aimed to explore the factors that support improved pro social outcomes for young people detained. As key agents of change having access to a formative time in young people’s lives while in detention, social care …

Using A Knowledge Management Approach To Support Effective Succession Planning In The Civil Service, Mary O’Donohue

Dissertations

The modern workforce is highly mobile. The challenge facing organisations is how to safeguard key expertise and knowledge in the face of staff mobility and turnover. The Irish Civil Service is still recovering from the impacts of significant loss of staff, and their knowledge and expertise, as a result of cutbacks over recent years. This project will establish the potential of using a Knowledge Management approach to support effective succession planning in the Civil Service. The literature review charts the evolution of Knowledge Management from when the phrase was first coined in 1986 through to what is considered to be …

How Do Teachers And Students Perceive The Utility Of Blackboard As A Distance Learning Platform? (Case Study From Taibah University, Saudi Arabia), Suad Alaofi

Dissertations

This research explores the role of Knowledge Management within the education field with a specific focus on the use of Learning Management Systems in the Distance Learning (e-learning) process. The aim of this study is to thoroughly examine how teachers and students perceive the utility of the Blackboard system as a distance learning platform. To achieve this, the study conducted qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaire surveys with the teachers and students of Taibah University, Saudi Arabia. Questions in both data collection tools were geared towards gaining insight about how these two groups of Blackboard users view its usefulness as a …

Evaluating The Usability Of The Laboratory Information System (Lis) In Coombe Hospital And Hail Hospital, Fahad Alanazi

Dissertations

Today, with the rapid evolution of technology, there has also been a rapid development of medical software and systems in hospitals. These systems and software are now being used globally in many hospitals by users of different languages and cultures. Governments and private hospitals pay large sums of money to utilise highly efficient technology. When systems are changed or updated, employees often find it difficult to deal with the characteristics of the new systems. Also, behavioral factors, such as the fear of committing simple errors, might affect system performance and prevent the full utilization of the staff potential. In this …

An Exploration Of The Use Of Gamification In Agile Software Development, Alan Mcclean

Dissertations

Although Project Management has existed for many millennia, software project management is relatively new. As a discipline, software project management is considered difficult. The reasons for this include that software development is non-deterministic; opaque and delivered under ever-increasing time pressure in a volatile environment. Evolving from Incremental and Iterative Development (IID), Agile methodologies have attempted to address these issues by focusing on frequent delivery; working closely with the customer; being responsive to change and preferring working software to extensive documentation. This focus on delivery rather than documentation has sometimes been misrepresented as no documentation, which has led to a shortfall …

Ex-Prisoners’ Perspectives On Prison Drug Treatment In Ireland, John M. Duggan

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore ex-prisoners’ perspectives on prison drug treatment in Ireland. Prison drug treatment has increased across Europe over the last 20 years both in availability and modality. However, the delivery of drug treatment services in a prison setting is not without its challenges. The prison population is a multiply disadvantaged group, which experiences a disproportionate level of health inequality and social exclusion. Substance misuse is prevalent for a high proportion of prisoners. This research is based on seven semi-structured qualitative interviews with ex-prisoners who have had experience of prison drug treatment. The perspectives of …

An Exploratory Study Of The Role An Equine- Assisted Learning Programme Plays In Diverting Young People From Criminal Pathways, Francisca O'Kelly

Dissertations

Interest in the potential of equine-assisted therapy and learning, where horses are incorporated in therapeutic, rehabilitative and educational interventions to ameliorate emotional, behavioural and social issues, has increased in the past half century. More recently, equine-assisted therapy and learning has been utilised in social work and penal contexts, such as in the rehabilitation and support of at-risk youth and young prisoners. However, there is a dearth of empirical research and published evaluative studies examining the effectiveness of these emerging programmes. The purpose of this study is to explore the role that a Dublin-based equine-assisted learning programme plays in diverting young …

Assessment In The Early Years: The Perspectives And Practices Of Early Childhood Educators, Anna May Navarrete

Dissertations

In recent years there has been growing attention on the importance of assessment in early childhood education, especially in relation to supporting children’s learning. The present study aimed to investigate early childhood educators’ perspectives and practices regarding assessment in the early years. In particular, the meanings and values which educators ascribe to assessment were explored. Moreover, the study focused on strategies educators employed, along with the associated support and challenges relating to their assessment practice. Adopting a qualitative design, in-depth interviews were conducted with eight educators from different settings, and thematic analysis was used to identify emergent themes. Subsequently, information …

Investigating The Relationship Between Organizational Innovation Capability And Firm Performance With Irish Smes, Maryam Bukhamsin

Dissertations

The topic of innovation capability and its relationship with performance has been examined by several previous studies. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between innovation capability aspects proposed by the Innovation Value Institute (IVI) and firms’ overall performance. IVI is specialised in developing organizational and innovation capability in order to improve firms’ performance. In addition, this study presents the most important aspects of innovation capability that are directly and positively associated with firms’ overall financial and operational performance. This empirical study was conducted on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ireland; the data was collected from …

It’S In The Mix. An Exploratory Study Into The Experiences Of Children, Parents And Staff In The Provision Of A Mixed Age Group Model In A West Dublin Early Years’ Setting., Helena Goodwin

Dissertations

The main aim of this study is to explore the perceptions and experiences of children, parents and staff participating in a mixed-age model of early year’s provision using a qualitative approach. The researcher will take an approach which will aim to interpret and clarify the participant’s experiences.

Using semi-structured interviews, a focus group and an observation of practice the study will address questions such as what were the perceptions of the children, staff and parents experiencing a mixed age group model. Has the mixed-age model proved to be advantageous and/or challenging to the community of the service? How could the …

From Institution To Integration: The Perspectives And Experiences Of Disability Sector Staff In The Transition To New Directions., Derek Bryan

Dissertations

Day services play a large part in the community life of people with intellectual disabilities. The challenge for the Health Service Executive in its 2012 review of adult day services was to propose a modern service. The review culminated in a new approach called New Directions. This study aimed to explore experiences and perspectives of staff from the disability sector on the proposed new ways of working with people with intellectual disabilities including how they believe New Directions can best work. This objective was achieved by interviewing twelve staff (including some volunteers) and managers from a disability organisation. At the …

Bringing Knowledge To Imbedded Collaboration Tools Within An Irish Financial Services It Department, Anthony Daly

Dissertations

The field of organisational knowledge management attempts to define and identify work practices and the use of technologies which provide an organisation with sustained competitive advantage. This research presents findings from analysis carried out in an Irish financial services organisation. The organisation has no defined knowledge management strategy yet as this research will indicate that this firm can be classified as a Knowledge-Intensive Organisation. Many of the desired attributes of a knowledge management strategy and characteristics for a knowledge management system can be found within the organisations technology and cultural structures. This project, having reviewed the established literature which defines …

Advocates Of The Peace, A Qualitative Study Of Former Politically Motivated Female Prisoners And Conflict Resolution In Northern Ireland, Mary Mccourt

Dissertations

The Good Friday Agreement is extensively recognised and acknowledged as a successful model of conflict resolution. Prior to its implementation and in the aftermath of the agreement, former politically motivated female prisoners have been instrumental in securing support for the agreement and also sustaining the agreement in the grassroots communities in Northern Ireland. This study explores the roles in which former politically motivated female prisoners have undertaken in micro levels of conflict resolution and presents a gendered perspective of conflict resolution. Findings within this study reveal the grassroots activities of participants, which is aligned with preventing violence within interface communities …

Policing And Social Influence: Procedural Justice And Compliance Dynamics In The Work Of Garda Juvenile Liaison Officers, Eoin Morrison

Dissertations

This study investigates the role of social influence, in the context of the professional relations between Garda Juvenile Liaison Officers (JLOs), and the young people they work with. Of specific importance is the concept of procedural justice, and its relation to perceptions of legitimacy and compliance dynamics. The aim of the research was to investigate whether the particular interaction patterns, enabled in the context of the JLOs professional role, could be found to have a positive impact upon young people’s levels of compliance with legal authority, in and of themselves. In order to examine this element of lived experience, five …

Regenerating Out Crime - The Impact Of An Urban Regeneration Programme On Safety And Security In A Dublin Suburb, Jonathan Grant

Dissertations

The regeneration of Turristown was a programme for the economic, social and physical renewal of a suburban town in the north-west of Dublin, which began in 1997 and which remains on-going to this date. The area of Turristown is one which has been blighted by socioeconomic and physical deprivation since its establishment in the late 1960s, and the regeneration programme was therefore formulated to provide much needed housing, social services and economic investment to the area. This study sought to assess the impact of this urban regeneration on security and safety as perceived by the suppliers and consumers of security …