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The active participation of alumni is necessary for the long-term health of institutions of higher education. Alumni contribute financially to higher education institutions by sharing their time and talents. Recently, a small private University in Macao initiated an alumni mentoring pilot program to engage alumni. However, it is unclear what the experiences of the alumni have been in the alumni mentoring program and how the alumni make sense of the benefits they receive from giving back to the university via this program. Therefore, using the lens of social exchange theory, this interpretative phenomenological analysis study seeks to answer the following central research question by engaging in interviews with alumni who participated in the alumni mentoring program in the Fall of 2020: 'what were the lived experiences of alumni mentors of students at an institution of higher education in Macao and how do they make sense of their experience as it relates to strengthening links and relationships between alumni and the university?' The findings of the study show: 1) Positive college experience and current alumni involvement in the institution were the motives that drive and re-drive the alumni to engage in mentoring. The impact is more significant for alumni distant from the alma mater. 2) Positive academic climate, social support (care) from professors and staff, active participation in extra-curricular activities, opportunities given, and a sense of community are significant attributes of an alumnus's positive college experience. 3) Benefits gained in alumni mentoring motivate alumni to volunteer more. 4) Well-planning program design, positive mentee behavior, time management, time invested in the mentors, trust, and relationship building are some best practices for mentoring. Effective mentoring recognizes the significance of the individual and the different make-up of the mentor and the mentee, which has serious ramifications for developing an effective program. 5) Positive college experience and current alumni involvement in institutions cultivate the recognition and belonging of alumni mentors that motivate alumni to volunteer to be mentors. 6) Knowing institutional needs, and belief in volunteer roles, are strong determinants for alumni to volunteer to be mentors. 7) Alumni mentoring experience can strengthen relationships between alumni and the higher education institution. Implications for theory, practice, and institutions were given. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation explores the identity enactments (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005) of 14 multilingual university writing center tutors and multilingual student writers who use English and Putonghua to negotiate their interactions. The study is situated within sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978) and uses ethnographic methods such as observation, interviews, and conversation analysis to more fully describe the participants' writing center tutorial interactions. The research site is in Macao, a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. Macao's postcolonial past and neocolonial present help shape the discourses that are present at the research site. The study adds to the growing body of descriptive knowledge on how identity and interaction influence multilingual language users in various contexts using an identity approach (Norton & McKinney, 2011). A total of eight writing center tutorial sessions were recorded and analyzed, followed by 16 playback interviews with individual participants. Results illustrate how the participants' social worlds and other macro contexts impact the micro context of a writing center tutorial session. Results also showcase the participants' full range of negotiation strategies as they engage with each other in goal-oriented institutional talk (Heritage & Clayman, 2010). Through the tutorial sessions and playback interviews, the study documents the complex nature of intertextuality (Bakhtin, 1981). Lastly, results demonstrate the range of tutorial strategies used to meet the needs of the multilingual student writers who had varying levels of English language proficiency. The analysis conducted in this study sheds more light on how identities emerge through interaction and how interlocutors position themselves and each other through discourse. Suggestions for how this descriptive knowledge can be applied practically in multilingual writing centers, in multilingual language learning classrooms, and in composition classrooms are offered. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This thesis is a study of neutrality and collaboration during the Second World War in East Asia. It analyses the relations between China and Portugal during the conflict and the immediate post-war period, with a particular focus on the enclave of Macau, the only foreign-administered territory in China not to be occupied by Japan. It argues that the practice of Portuguese neutrality in East Asia was marked by great ambivalence and used by different actors for their own, often conflicting, ends. In social history terms, Macau was part of the war, with comparable experiences to other cities in China, including a massive refugee influx, as well as everyday experiences of hunger, popular mobilisation for relief, and urban crime. Wartime Macau was marked by multiple layers of collaboration involving Chinese, Portuguese, British, Japanese, and others. This thesis also argues that wartime issues left unsolved had an impact on Sino-Portuguese relations after the war. Its dealings with a small European imperial power reveal China's attempts and difficulties to exercise its regained sovereignty and new international status.

With the movement of nurse education into the higher education sector, the role of student nurses has moved from that of apprentices to learners with full student status on placement. Although supernumerary status is key to current nursing training, not much attention has been paid to its influence on student participation in the community of practice of the workplace. This thesis has set out to address this research gap. A qualitative dominant mixed methods study closely examined student participation on placement by comparing and contrasting students’, mentors’ and clinical instructors’ clinical learning and mentoring experiences and their perceptions of supernumerary status was carried out. Data were collected in a nursing college in Macau. In the qualitative part, a sample of seven third year and six fourth year student nurses were recruited to participate in a focus group interview corresponding to their year of study. In addition, five mentors and five clinical instructors were interviewed individually. Views from participants were compared and contrasted. For the quantitative part, all second to fourth year students were invited to respond to a questionnaire after placement. One hundred and fifty-one questionnaires were returned. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data. This study revealed that there is a lack of clarity about supernumerary status among student nurses. However, students’, mentors’, clinical instructors’ and nurses’ perceptions of clinical learning and supernumerary status exert an impact on student participation on placement. Although students were temporary peripheral participants of the workplace, they had to be engaged in the clinical environment and authentic practice in order to create connections with the workplace and develop nurse identities. It was found that students who were facilitated by mentors, who were drawn from ward staff, had more opportunities to participate in qualified nurses’ work and work with the nursing team on placement than those supported by university-based clinical facilitators.

Background: Respiratory disease has been one of the top three causes of deaths in Macau in the past decade. As one of the chronic respiratory diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is incurable, but is preventable and treatable. COPD patients suffer from recurrent and progressive respiratory symptoms, and this impacts the health and well-being of patients. Self-management education programmes (SMEP) provide teaching and learning guidance for understanding COPD, emotional support and behaviour change needed to carry out disease-specific care in chronic patients. Evidence has demonstrated that SMEP can mediate a change in health-related behaviours, improve symptom control and the quality of life of COPD patients, with an associated reduction in health care utilization. However, SMEP has never been conducted in Macau, and experiences of providing any form of chronic care for COPD patients in this place is lacking. Aims: This study aimed to explore the effects of a specifically designed self-management education programme on Stage II to IV COPD patients in Macau. Design: The study was conducted as an exploratory randomized controlled trial in a mixed methods approach. Both illness perception and self-efficacy beliefs were adopted to formulate the theoretical framework. In the quantitative strand, the assessment of primary outcomes included illness perception, self-efficacy and inhaler technique. The secondary outcomes included pulmonary function, healthcare utilization and health-related quality of life. In the qualitative strand, focus groups were conducted to explore the subjective perception and experiences of self-management of COPD patients. Fifty one eligible COPD patients were recruited and allocated to experimental (26 patients) and control group (25 patients) by block randomization. A SMEP for COPD patients was developed and validated according to Medical Research Council (MRC) framework. Results: Quantitative results indicated that the primary outcomes (illness perception, self-efficacy and inhaler technique) improved in the experimental group after the SMEP. In relating to the secondary outcomes, days of hospitalization were reduced and symptom dimension of disease-specific health related quality of life (St. George Respiratory Questionnaire) improved. Qualitative findings identified the emergence of a core theme ‘Essentiality’ and five sub-themes ‘Helplessness’, ‘Mutual involvement’, ‘Support’, ‘Control’ and ‘Beneficial’, indicating perception and experiences of participants for self-management. These findings indicate a potential relationship of illness perception and self-efficacy in guiding COPD patients to adapt to health-related behaviour. Discussion and Conclusion: This study has obtained evidence for supporting the proposed theoretical framework and expected experimental effect through employing the MRC guidelines. The study also confirms the estimates of recruitment for a definitive RCT, demonstrated readiness and positive impact in Macau COPD patients to receive self-management intervention, and SMEP as an acceptable and preferable mode of chronic care for COPD for the healthcare system of Macau.

The present study sought to understand the social and clinical characteristics of a group of pathological gamblers in Macau known as Paichai (扒仔). This study recruited participants from the casinos in Macau. Fifteen participants, all active gamblers and ranging in age from 24 to 53 years, were recruited and were repeatedly observed and interviewed. After initial screening, there were four non-Paichais, which were taken as a comparative sample. Further, the participants were assessed by the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) of the Canada Problem Gambling Index (CPGI) (Ferris & Wynne, 2001). There were a number of significant findings in this investigation. Firstly, the Paichais could be classified as antisocial-impulsive gamblers according to Blaszczynski and Nower’s (2002) pathways model of problem and pathological gambling. The development of pathological gambling among the participants was found to follow a linear model with a strong stage-based trajectory. In the first stage, the participants often recalled an early involvement of gambling during childhood. The majority of them reported coming from a family environment which encouraged gambling. They had a history of conduct disorder prior to the acquisition of their gambling habits. With increased involvement in gambling, these gamblers entered stage two where the participants often reported more frequent involvement of casino gambling. With the increase of time in the casino, the Paichais entered stage three of their development process. In this stage, the gamblers demonstrated significant detachment from the outside world as they spent most of their waking hours in the casinos. The current study attempted to understand the development of pathological gambling amongst these individuals from the particular social and cultural perspectives of Macau.