This reserach attemptedbto investigate the epistemological beliefs held by Turkish students through gender, grade level, and fields of the study by using Hofer and Pintrich&#039 / s (1997) Frame work. A total of 1557 sixth, eighth, and tenth grade students from &Ccedil / ankaya district of Ankara participated in the study. Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire and Demographical Questionnaire were administered to the students in order to determine their epistemological belSiefs and their background caharcteristics. Four main conclusions can be drawn from the current study / epistemological beliefs are multidimensional, epistemological beliefs vary as a function of gender, grade level, and fields of study. Specifically girls were found to have more sophisticated beliefs in justification of knowledge than boys. Results also supproted the idea that epistemological beliefs develops over time.tenth grade students had more sophisticated beliefs in source of knowledge, certainty of knowledge, and development of knowledge compared to sixth and eighth grade students. Besides, findings of the study revealed differences in epistemological beliefs of students across different major fields of the study. The students attending to the mathematics-science fields were fiund to have more sophisticated beliefs about justification of knowledge than the students attending to literature-social science fields.

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The Relationship Among Thematic Integrated Instruction, Classroom Climate, Grade, Parental Socioeconomic Status and Pupil¡¦s Technological Creativity Yi-shuan Wu Abstract The main objectives of this study were to explore (a) the effects of grade and parental socioeconomic status (SES) on pupil¡¦s technological creativity; and (b) the relationships among thematic integrated instruction, classroom climate, and pupil¡¦s technological creativity. The participants included 635 third and fourth graders from four elementary schools in Taipei and Kaohsiung City. The employed instruments were The Test of Technological Creativity, The Questionnaire of Thematic Integrated instruction, two subscales from The Inventory of School Factors to the Development of Technological Creativity, and Two-factor Index of Socioeconomic Status. The employed analysis methods were Descriptives, MANOVA, Canonical Correlation, and Multiple Stepwise Regression. The main findings in this study were as follows: 1. The fourth graders outperformed the third graders on the test of technological creativity. 2. Parental socioeconomic status had positive influences on their children¡¦s performance of technological creativity. 3. The degree of teachers¡¦ implement of thematic integrated instruction had significant effects on their pupils¡¦ technological creativity. 4. A constructive classroom climate pertaining to the improvement of creativity had significant effects on pupils¡¦ technological creativity. 5. The degree of implementing thematic integrated instruction did not have significant effects on the building of constructive classroom climate pertaining to pupils¡¦ improvement of technological creativity. 6. Grade, parental SES, thematic integrated instruction, and constructive classroom climate could effectively predict pupils¡¦ technological creativity. Finally, the author proposed some suggestions for educational authorities, teachers, and future research.

The main purpose of this study is to understand the possible effects of the problem-posing teaching technique in an elementary school, grade-two class. With problem-posing teaching technique of twenty-four classes within 12 weeks, the experimenter first used the problem-posing texts to ask students to formulate mathematical problems. After reviewing the problems formulated by students, the necessary interviews were done. The statistical analysis is done on pre-tests and post-tests of mathematical-solving ability. Students¡¦ feedbacks about problem posing teaching technique are collected. There were four stages in this experiment: (1) oral presentation of problem-posing, (2) written presentation of problem-posing, (3) written presentation of problem-posing and problem-solving by the same person, (4) wiitten presentation of problem-posing by one and problem-solving by another. The experimenter explored the following themes during these four stages: (1) the process of problem-posing learning, (2) the characteristics and erroneous types of the students¡¦ opus, (3) the differences on the problem-posing abilities when students faced formulas, pictures and written contexts, (4) the behaviors of the high problem-posing ability group and the low problem-posing ability group, (5) the enhance of problem-solving abilities due to problem-posing teaching technique. From this study, the experimenter found that the majority of the students participated in this study interesting in this teaching technique, and students¡¦ gained confidence in posing and solving mathematical problems. Besides, the experimenter also found that: (1) the students¡¦ ability in posing and solving problems progressed gradually in speed and correctness, (2) the characteristics and erroneous types of the students¡¦ opus were diverse, which included relativeness of situations, students¡¦ interests, school lives, and daily lives, correctness of mathematical logic, ambiguity of language, (3) students were better to pose problems from pictures and written contexts than from formulas, but there was no difference between from pictures and from written contexts, (4) the high problem-posing ability group performs better in speed and correctness to solve problem than the low problem-posing ability group, (5) Comparing the controlled and non-controlled groups, problem-posing teaching technique seems to helpe students to enhance their problem-solving ability.

ABSTRACT The educational system now in Taiwan is multi-phased and completely different from the previous elitist educational system. It has been 14 years since educational reform was conducted by the 410 Educational Reform Movement in 1994. This movement believed in modifying the old previous system for the benefit of more students. The research is to better understand the parents¡¦ views towards education, and how much education from craming schools is actually needed. The researcher interviewed the children grade one to grade nine in Pintung City, who go to craming schools regularly. This research was conducted through questionnaires and with available statistics. It was discovered that, according to 393 parents interviewed, students showed differences in the following items ever since the implementation of the Grade 1 through 9 Curriculum: 1. Attitudes towards the new policies: More females have recognized the benefits and more teachers had more flexible time with students. 2. Attitudes towards education: A better economy means more opportunities for some students to have lessons at craming schools. Parents have discovered that it is not easy to help their children with their studies. 3. Education from craming schools many parents value how well their children perform academically. Therefore, before they decide on a certain craming school, they investigate the teaching quality and reputation of different craming schools. 4. Cram schools offer a variety of courses and parents pay extra money for supplementary courses. 5. Medium income families depend more on craming schools. 6. Parents with higher education know better how to make the most of craming schools. 7. Lower income families and those with lower education are in greater need of supplementary classes from craming schools. The Grade 1 through 9 Curriculum educational system aims at integrating students¡¦ learning abilities, developing students¡¦ compassion for the less privileged, and to help students acquire more knowledge about international affairs. These goals are for keeping the students competitive internationally. In addition, our government expects that the new system can be integrated with the future 12-year compulsory educational system in order to provide students from poor communities and families with more access and opportunities for higher education. It is true that the government has provided various accesses to higher education: however, this has resulted in a wider variety of classes being offered by craming schools. Now there are classes on developing learning skills, courses on dealing with tests and exams, how to win intercampus competitions, and a wider variety of classes in core subjects. Craming schools are needed by society however; they now play a role of supervising the quality of our educational system. They also are widening the division of access to a complete education between the poor and the rich Thus cram schools and educational policies should target customer satisfaction and student and teacher approval. Now what is highly expected from the policy makers is to keep cram schools competitive in a good way so that the students can obtain the most benefits.

The purpose of this study is to do teaching multiplication with picture books, and to understand the learning process of two cases, then to investigate the dilemma of teaching and its solutions. To achieve the above purpose, the researcher designed the multiplication teaching activities for urban aboriginal middle grade pupils. The researcher adopts case study research. The subjects of the study were two pupils who participated in the after-school program at an elementary school in Kaohsiung city. For both pupils, mathematics scores are the lowest among all other subject areas, and mathematics scores ranked at lower class 10%. The teaching content involved Amis tribe picture books, integer multiplication, and multiplicative situations (Greer, 1992). There were three teaching procedures: preparation for teaching, picture books teaching activities, and multiplication teaching activities. The research data collected were from interviews,observations, teaching reflective journals, learning sheets, and learning diaries. The researcher induced pupils¡¦ learning experience and error types before teaching multiplication with picture books and also revealed pupils¡¦ attitude towards teaching multiplication with picture books and the learning multiplication of concept and its improvement. The conclusion is, through teaching multiplication with picture books, both pupils were familiar with the multiplication algorithm meaningfully, could used direct representation to solve multiplication problem, and used multiplication concepts to reason. Furthermore, the teaching activities promote subjects¡¦ mathematical learning attitude, ethnic identity, parent-child interactions, and peer tutoring. The results showed that the multiplication teaching with picture books had a positive influence on the subjects¡¦ attitude and multiplication concept. Based on research results and findings, the researcher made suggestions for teaching and future research.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of academic stress in determining grade differences of reading motivation. A total of 496 elementary students in Kaohsiung City were administrated by a questionnaire assessing academic stress, academic and extracurricular reading motivations. Participants were classified into low, middle, or high graders. The final exam was used to manipulate change of academic stress. Students¡¦ academic stress decreased as their grades increased. Academic stress was positively correlated with reading motivation in both academic and extracurricular reading domains. Further, the effect of academic stress on academic reading motivation was in accordance with that on extracurricular reading motivation. Together the findings seem to indicate that academic stress play a crucial role in determining the relationship between grades of elementary students and reading motivation. Specifically, a decreased reading motivation as grades increased stems from the descending tendencies of academic stress. Finally, the primary findings were discussed and educational implications were provided.

<p>This thesis presents a new method for iterative road grade estimation based on sensors that are commonplace in modern heavy duty vehicles. Estimates from multiple passes of the same road segment are merged together to form a road grade map, that is improved each time the vehicle revisits an already traveled route. The estimation algorithm is discussed in detail together with its implementation and experimental evaluation on real vehicles.</p><p> </p><p>An increasing need for goods and passenger transportation drives continuing worldwide growth in road transportation while environmental concerns, traffic safety issues, and cost efficiency are becoming more important. Advancements in microelectronics open the possibility to address these issues through new advanced driver assistance systems. Applications such as predictive cruise control, automated gearbox control, predictive front lighting control and hybrid vehicle state-of-charge control benefit from preview road grade information. Using global navigation satellite systems an exact vehicle position can be obtained. This enables stored maps to be used as a source of preview road grade information. The task of creating such maps is addressed herein by the proposal of a method where the vehicle itself estimates the road grade each time it travels along a road and stores the information for later use.</p><p> </p><p>The presented road grade estimation method uses data from sensors that are standard equipment in heavy duty vehicles equipped with map-based advanced driver assistance systems. Measurements of the vehicle speed and the engine torque are combined with observations of the road altitude from a GPS receiver in a Kalman filter, to form a road grade estimate based on a system model. The noise covariance parameters of the filter are adjusted during gear shifts, braking and poor satellite coverage. The estimated error covariance of the road grade estimate is then used together with its absolute position to update a stored road grade map, which is based on all previous times the vehicle has passed the same location.</p><p> </p><p>Highway driving trials detailed in the thesis demonstrate that the proposed method is capable of accurately estimating the road grade based on few road traversals. The performance of the estimator under conditions such as braking, gear shifting, and loss of satellite coverage is presented. The experimental results indicate that road grade estimates from the proposed method are accurate enough to be used in predictive vehicle control systems to enhance safety, efficiency, and driver comfort of heavy duty vehicles.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-166).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-225). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.