In Sweden we have the highest rate of nontraditional students among Europe. Coincidently, we also have the highest rates of drop outs among OECD. In this particular field, drop out from higher education, there is a need fore more qualitative studies that can support the "statistics". Studies about experiences of drop outs are significant for society, university and individual. The aim of this study is to describe and understand how nontraditional student experiences drop out from higher education.

Background: In Sweden 750 children and adolescents? are diagnosed with diabetes mellitus type 1 every year. Adolescence is often a time of searching for identity and liberation from parents. Through this period adolescents are supposed to find their place in society. For the affected adolescents a new world of challenges suddenly opens.

The purpose of this article has been to elucidate social secretaries? and teachers? experiences of collaboration around children in need of society?s intervention. We wanted to examine what the difficulties could be, according to their experience, and how they handled them. Additionally our aim was to analyze whether their method of dealing with the obstacles were likely to succeed, viewed from the perspective of system theory. In order to achieve our purpose we used a qualitative method and interviewed four social secretaries and four teachers.

Because of the mass tourism industry that exploits sensitive locations all over our planet a new kind of tourism came into focus in the 1980?s. This new form of tourism was named ecotourism, and as the name reveals ecotourism deals with low-impact travel. Today, all sorts of places can be gazed upon in a flick of a switch; all you need is a television set. It is well known that destination marketing successfully uses visual media as a tool to sell trips to potential tourists.

The scope of this investigation is to decide how and to what extent the energy consumption of apassive house is affected by the users? knowledge and habits. To achieve this a literary study hasbeen made and as a complement the planning of a passive house was completed.The result of a primary study of the rules and regulations that effect passive houses in Swedenshows that the user?s influence on passive houses is a completely unregulated area. Even thoughthere is no regulation, a need for some general knowledge of the passive house concept has beenexpressed.To further investigate how the users? knowledge and habits affect the energy consumption and ifthere is a difference between different households? energy consumption , three main factors havebeen identified.

SJ is a government-owned passenger train operator in Sweden. SJ currently uses asystem called Ford for control and monitoring of maintenance. Technical andorganizational factors have given Ford the character of a monolithic system withoutflexibility and conditions to meet SJ's increased requirements.The main purpose of this master's thesis is to investigate how data quality can bedefined at SJ and to examine the data quality in Ford. This will give SJ an indication ofwhat their quality efforts should focus on in the future.The technical data quality parameters found are: accuracy, timeliness, completenessand consistency. The user centred data quality parameters are: accessibility,understandability and reliability.

The gaming market is growing and the number of people, men and women, who play computer games, is also increasing every day. In addition, computer games are also interactive media which leads to the fact that product placement in computer games attracts and is used more frequently by marketers. It is therefore important for marketers and game developers to understand how product placement in computer games affects players' attention and attitude towards the brand or product that is product placed. We therefore examine how product placement in computer games affects players' recall of and attitude towards the brand. The aim is to help companies and game developers to see the effect of product placement in computer games on players and thus product place more efficiently.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of being a homosexual immigrant in the Swedish society. Our questions were how the interviewed homosexual immigrants experience being treated by the people in their surroundings and how they are influenced by their attitudes. We also wanted to know what kind of thoughts they have about affiliation considering origin and sexuality, and what positive and negative aspects they experience from the combination of being both homosexual and immigrants.To get the answers to these questions we used a qualitative method and interviewed seven homosexual immigrants between the ages of 25 and 40 years. We then compared our material with earlier studies of the living situation of homosexual immigrants in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. We also linked our findings to Goffman's stigma theory and to heteronormativity.The main result was that the combination of homosexuality and immigrantness can result in various difficulties.

The main aim of this master thesis was to see the process of an interactive online reference service from idea to final product. The reference service we have studied is developed and used by the Library of the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm, Sweden and goes by the name phibi. Our goal was to review the whole realization process from the reasons why a service like this was created, how the service was introduced and implemented inside the organisation and finally what the result and consequences were for both the library staff and for the users of the service. Phibi is designed to be a tool that fosters communication between the library staff and the remote users where the users get the opportunity to be helped with their questions by the library staff although they are not physically present in the library. To understand the process we conducted a case study with 11 interviews of the library staff, the superior and the initiator to phibi.

The aim of this study was to describe how persons with Whiplash associated disorder experience how the pain affects them in their daily life. The design of the study was descriptive with qualitative, individual interviews, questionnaire with background facts of the examination group, and diary notes from persons with pain of WAD. Method for selection was convenience. Through contact with the association of whiplash group in a county in middle of Sweden, the majority of the examination group for the study was found. Five persons where given information about the study, one of them choose not to take part of the study, and one of the persons did not complete the study.

This study examined parenting in relation to ADHD. The key point of the study was to let parents who experience an ADHD diagnosis share their view on parenting. The research required a comprehensive literature search, partly to examine earlier research in the particular field but also to gather information on parenting. One focus group interview and three semi structured interviews were used to gather relevant information. Informants were recruited from a project for individuals with neuropsychiatric disabilities.

Swedish childcare has undergone radical changes in the last 15 to 20 years. It has evolved from kindergarten to pre-school, in other words, gone from simple childcare to an active learning environment with the child as the center. Official documents, such as the pre-school curriculum and other guide documents, define the role and work ethics of the pre-school teacher. In my thesis I argue that it is essential to have an ongoing and continuous discussion at pre-schools on the practical applications of these frameworks and ambitious goals.What do you do when you simply cannot give every child the individual time they should have according to rules and regulations? How do you stay an active and present pedagogue in today?s pre-school with large classes and heavy workloads? How do you establish a common professional work ethics within a pre-school so that all children are treated equally? In my scientific essay, I examine these issues based on a real-life situation: Ellen in the hallway.A pedagogue must continuously make balanced decisions based on rules and regulations, on life- and work experience which, in many cases, contradict each other.

Introduction: Pain is a subjective experience. People subjected to pain often experience a reducedquality of life. Chronic pain is pain that has been going on for at least threemonths.Problem area: People with chronic pain are subjected to unnecessary suffering and disability. Therefore it is crucial that the nursing staff takes their situation seriously.Purpose: The purpose of the study was to describe the patient's? experiences and apprehensionof living with chronic non-malignant pain, and how this affected their everydaylife.Method: Systematic analysis of 23 depicting articles.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how children experience librarians, their knowledge, assignments and appearance. The children?s thoughts about libraries and librarians in general are also studied. Empirical data has been collected by interviewing children aged 8-12 years old. The method used is qualitative interviews performed individually, in pairs and groups.

In order to get a better understanding of the interaction between employees and their technical work tools one needs to know what factors influence the interaction. The purpose of this study was to examine if there is a correlation between the personality traits Extraversion (E) and Neuroticism (N), tested with Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI), and experience of the new Intranet among employees at The Swedish National Transport Administration (SNTA), and also to gather information of employees? opinions about the new Intranet. A survey, containing questions about the Intranet and a personality test (EPI), was posted on SNTA?s Intranet for eight workdays (N = 88, females = 53, males = 35).