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Performance feedback about whether responses are correct or incorrect provides valuable information to help guide learning. Although feedback itself has no extrinsic value, it can produce subjective feelings similar to “rewards” and “punishments.” Therefore, feedback can play both an informative and a motivational role. Over the past decade, researchers have identified a neural circuit that processes reward value and promotes reinforcement learning, involving target regions of dopaminergic input (e.g., striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Importantly, this circuit is engaged by performance feedback even in the absence of reward. Recent research suggests that feedback-related brain activity can be modulated by motivational context, such as whether feedback reflects goal achievement, whether learners are oriented toward the informative versus evaluative aspect of feedback, and whether individual learners are motivated to perform well relative to their peers. This body of research suggests that the brain responds flexibly to feedback, based on the learner’s goals.

This chapter aims to develop a broad understanding of the relationship between tourism and development in Colombia for the period 1996–2012 through two complementary analyses. After a review of secondary sources, high-impact public policies related to tourism are analyzed, as well as the gains and gaps to be overcome. The main findings points out that Colombia is at a juncture where tourism is starting to bloom. Whatever is planned and how it is done in terms of public policy will determine the future model for its development. As such, tourism can become a strategic instrument for decentralization processes, regional and local dynamics, and strengthening the rule of law.

Citizens are substantial stakeholders in every e-government system, thus their willingness to use and ability to access the system are critical. Unequal access and information and communication technology usage, which is known as digital divide, however has been identified as one of the major obstacles to the implementation of e-government system. As digital divide inhibits citizen’s acceptance to e-government, it should be overcome despite the lack of deep theoretical understanding on this issue. This research aimed to investigate the digital divide and its direct impact on e-government system success of local governments in Indonesia as well as indirect impact through the mediation role of trust. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of digital divide, this study introduced a new type of digital divide, the innovativeness divide.

The research problems were approached by applying two-stage sequential mixed method research approach comprising of both qualitative and quantitative studies. In the first phase, an initial research model was proposed based on a literature review. Semi-structured interview with 12 users of e-government systems was then conducted to explore and enhance this initial research model. Data collected in this phase were analyzed with a two-stage content analysis approach and the initial model was then amended based on the findings. As a result, a comprehensive research model with 16 hypotheses was proposed for examination in the second phase.

In the second phase, quantitative method was applied. A questionnaire was developed based on findings in the first phase. A pilot study was conducted to refine the questionnaire, which was then distributed in a national survey resulting in 237 useable responses. Data collected in this phase were analyzed using Partial Least Square based Structural Equation Modeling.

The results of quantitative analysis confirmed 13 hypotheses. All direct influences of the variables of digital divide on e-government system success were supported. The mediating effects of trust in e-government in the relationship between capability divide and e-government system success as well as in the relationship between innovativeness divide and e-government system success were supported, but was rejected in the relationship between access divide and e-government system success. Furthermore, the results supported the moderating effects of demographic variables of age, residential place, and education.

This research has both theoretical and practical contributions. The study contributes to the developments of literature on digital divide and e-government by providing a more comprehensive framework, and also to the implementation of e-government by local governments and the improvement of e-government Readiness Index of Indonesia.

The chapter seeks to reflect on the dynamics of the reconstruction of family farming and peasant agriculture in agrarian reform settlements (“assentamentos”) in Brazil, exploring the limits and potential of government food purchases from family farming, particularly the Food Acquisition Program (Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos – PAA), in the creation of alternative paths of rural development. The work analyzes the different strategies through which farmers and their organizations mobilize public policy instruments and market connections, expanding their room for maneuver and agency capacity. Research was conducted in the Baixo Sul Territory of the state of Bahia, focusing the heterogeneous web of social organizations involved in the implementation of the Food Acquisition Program in this setting.

In this chapter, we present the results of a study designed to investigate: (a) the family relations of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), (b) the sources of stress parents in families of children with this disorder experience and (c) the possible modulating role that ADHD subtype and comorbid oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) have on parenting stress level. One hundred and sixty seven families, divided into two groups, an ADHD group (N=114) and a control group (N=53), participated in the study. Parents of both groups completed a Semi-Structured Interview that gathered information on socio-demographics, family structure and the presence of oppositional behaviour symptoms, as well as the Parenting Stress Index Questionnaire (Abidin, 1990) to evaluate parent stress. The results showed that the relations of children with ADHD with their parents and siblings were significantly more tense than those of children without this disorder with their families. Parenting stress was higher in parents with ADHD children than in parents of non-ADHD children in most scales relating to parent personal variables, with even more sharp differences in measures of parenting stress that are triggered by the child's behaviour. Finally, our results evidenced how the ADHD subtype and ODD comorbidity influence the level of stress in parents. The results of the study suggest that interventions focused only on the behaviour of ADHD children are not likely to improve the developmental course of the disorder in the long run.