Master of Science / Department of Geology / Iris M. Totten / There have been numerous studies done during the past hundred years on ability grouping. The majority of research has focused on the elementary and secondary levels, with very little done at the post-secondary level of education. Research shows at the K-12 levels high achieving students have a greater level of learning when placed in groups together. Mid- level students also show higher achievement in homogeneous groupings. Both high and mid-level students benefit from heterogeneous grouping, but with smaller gains. Lower ability students placed in homogenous groups have shown significant gains, but still perform better when grouped heterogeneously compared with classes that are not grouped by ability. All students show increases in learning when placed in small groups of any kind. Mid-level and low achieving students have higher levels of learning when they are taught by someone determined to close the gap, who takes the students' abilities into consideration, and focuses on increasing those abilities. Unfortunately, this often does not happen, and when students are grouped by ability, the higher achieving students do well, and the rest fall further behind. This graduate research looks at the impact of skill grouping at the university level. Rather than separating students into different classes by ability, students were placed in purposeful groups within the class. Overall both homogeneous and heterogeneous groupings performed better than the control self-selected sections. One homogeneous quartile showed significant improvement in performance compared to the heterogeneously grouped students, but another homogeneous quartile showed a significant decline in scores. Gains in one subset of student should not come as a detriment to another subset of students, so homogeneous grouping is not recommended. Of the three grouping methods, only heterogeneous grouping showed significant increases in scores without harm to other students, and for this reason, this study recommends using a heterogeneous method of grouping students in future GEOL 103 classes.

The syllabus for upper secondary school states that interaction and communication are important for students’ oral production skills development. Also, the contemporary view on learning is that people learn a language by using it. This study examines how students and a teacher experience the ways in which classmates influence each other’s willingness to speak English in the classroom, if they believe it affects their oral production skills development, and moreover whether they think that some sort of ability grouping could support oral production skills development. The study was carried out among a total of eight students and one teacher at an upper secondary school located in Southern Sweden, using a qualitative methodology based on personal interviews. Four English 6 students belong to the natural science program, and four English 7 Cambridge Advanced English students belong to various academic programs. The teacher teaches both courses. The results showed that classmates is the factor in the classroom which affects students’ willingness to speak English the most in their different language proficiency, personality, attitude, focus, willingness to communicate in English, and relationship with each other. The students experience that these differences between them often affect their WTC negatively and thereby their oral production skills development. They want to interact with other students who are at their level or slightly above them, who want to speak English, who share the communication space, and who take the lessons seriously. Therefore, the students and teacher have a positive attitude toward some form of ability grouping in all English courses.

The purpose of this dissertation was to study how teachers and school leaders perceived a specific set of classroom math innovations, and how those innovations impacted instruction in relation to the Georgia Vision Project (GVP) standards and recommendations. This was a qualitative study conducted in two GVP districts. The participants in the study were five elementary teachers, two school administrators, and two district leaders. The participants were interviewed to gain an understanding of their perceptions of recent math innovations. The innovations included (a) math instruction using manipulatives (such as counting objects and puzzles) that utilize the Concrete Representational Abstract (CRA) model, which engages students to conceive from the concrete to the abstract; (b) differentiation through flexible student grouping; (c) information about how different subgroups of students learn mathematics; and (d) math professional learning. Previous research had focused on these innovations separately. However, no research study had grouped these innovations together to see how teachers perceived them within the context of a math classroom, and how teachers implemented them in their classrooms in order to increase student achievement. This qualitative case study included schoolteacher and educational leader interviews, observations, and artifacts. The two districts in the study were high performing in the area of mathematics. The results indicated that schoolteachers and educational leaders could not directly relate the math innovations to student success and, moreover, to the GVP standards and recommendations. During the study all GVP standards were analyzed at varying levels. The study primarily focused on the teaching and learning standard, which was a significant initiative for both districts. Both districts had varying levels of implementation concerning the innovations in the study: (a) use of manipulatives, (b) differentiation in classrooms, and (c) professional learning. All participants referenced the innovations as a part of their instruction, but could not directly relate the innovations beneficial to the success of the students.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Master / Master of Education

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur nivågruppering kan påverka elevers lärande i skolans tidigare år. Syftet har uppfyllts genom att svar sökts på två frågeställningar; den första rörande vilka för- respektive nackdelar avseende elevers lärande i matematik framträder vid nivågruppering. Den andra frågeställningen som denna studie svarar på är vilka faktorer för elevers lärande som spelar in vid nivågruppering i matematikundervisning. Detta har skett via en systematisk litteraturstudie där vetenskaplig forskning inhämtats för granskning och analys. Studiens resultat avslöjar att nivågruppering i matematik sällan gynnar elevers lärande generellt och oftast drabbar de lågpresterande elevernas lärande negativt. Resultatet indikerar också att dessa negativa effekter är en följd av skolornas bristande organisering av, och lärarnas inställning till, nivågruppering. / <p>Matematik</p>

Based in a sociocultural perspective the study aims at illustrating how teachers in mathematics perceive their possibilities of supporting students in mathematical difficulties and how their schools support the teaching practices to those pupils. The methodological approach is phenomenographic and data was collected in half structured interviews with ten professionals teaching mathematics to Swedish 13-16-year-old students from 10 different schools. The results show that, due to the heterogeneity in students’ achievements, teachers perceive the time a limiting factor to individualising and meeting the needs of every student. The findings also indicate that the designs of the schools’ supportive structures are governed by traditions and an individualistic perspective. Thus, ability grouping and supportive measures outside the classroom of ordinary teaching are common. However, the picture is dual. The interviewed teachers express a wish for inclusive teaching and teacher collaboration, promoting a common responsibility for a complex teaching situation. Yet, organisational obstacles and the schools’ scarce resources inhibit inclusion. Further, findings suggest that both the extent and forms of support provided to the mathematics teachers differ, ranging from almost non-existent to well-developed forms of collaborations in mathematics teams, co-teaching and supervision of special educators or head teachers in mathematics. Further training was the support teachers consistently found most important and demanded the most.

Studiens syfte var att få en inblick i bakomliggande faktorer till hur skolor i Sverige organiserar sin matematikundervisning. Vad och vem som påverkar vilken organisationsform som väljs, vilka föroch nackdelar rektor och speciallärare med specialisering mot matematikutveckling ser med den valda organisationen samt vilken roll speciallärare med specialisering mot matematikutveckling har i vald organisationsform. En enkät mailades till ansvariga på 1027 högstadieskolor med årskurs 7 - 9, kommunala skolor och friskolor i hela Sverige. Enkäten, som 214 respondenter svarade på, försåg oss med både kvantitativ och kvalitativ empiri vilken gav oss bakgrundsinformation till skolornas val av organisationsform i matematikundervisningen. Genom enkäten fick vi även kontaktuppgifter till 82 rektorer och på 32 av dessa skolor fanns även en speciallärare med inriktning mot matematikutveckling. De 8 rektorer som kontaktades gav oss en djupare inblick i studiens frågeställningar, även 5 speciallärare med specialisering mot matematikutveckling bidrog med kvalitativ empiri till studien. Studien visar att av de 214 skolor som svarat på enkäten har cirka 50 % helklassundervisning, knappt 20 % tvålärarskap, knappt 20 % parallellagd undervisning och drygt 10 % annan organisationsform av matematikundervisningen. Ett tydligt mönster som syntes var att oavsett vilken organisationsform skolorna angett satsar de extra resurser på att det ska finnas fler vuxna i matematikklassrummet, det kan vara ämneslärare, resursperson, speciallärare eller specialpedagog. Det förekommer även att elever delvis arbetar med matematik i liten grupp med ämneslärare eller speciallärare. Några skolor anger att de ger eleverna mer tid för matematik, det kan vara genom utökad timplan, matematik på elevens val eller matematiktillfälle utanför ordinarie skoldag. Alla insatserna har som mål att eleverna skall bli behöriga att söka till gymnasiet. / The purpose of the study was to get an insight in the factors behind how schools in Sweden are organising the teaching of mathematics. What and whom has made the overall decisions, and the advantages and disadvantages with the selected organisation in the perspective of the principal and the special needs coordinator and what part the special needs coordinator is playing in the selected organisation in teaching mathematics. A survey was emailed to the principal of 1027 secondary schools, both compulsory mainstream schools and independent schools in the whole of Sweden. Our survey gave us both quantitative and qualitative empirics regarding the reasons behind the selected form of organisation within mathematics and contact details to 82 of the participating principals and at 32 of these schools there was also a special needs coordinator focusing on mathematics development. The 8 principals who were contacted and the 5 special needs coordinators in mathematics provided deeper understanding to the questions of the study and increased the qualitative empirics .The study shows that out of the 214 replies from different schools approx 50% are teaching mathematics in a complete class of students with one responsible teacher, 20% are using two teacher system, 20% are timetabling classes in parallel and 10% in another or combined form of organisation. A clear pattern that we identified was that the schools regardless of the form of organisation all spent resources on adding extra staff during mathematics lessons, for example another subject teacher, teacher assistant or special needs coordinator. Some schools teach their students in smaller groups, others have extended the number of hours or made mathematics a pupils choice to increase the number of hours in mathematics. The overall aim for the efforts is to make all the students qualified for studies at sixth form.

L’accent en français est considéré comme un accent post-lexical marquant le niveau du groupe de mots plutôt que le niveau du mot lui-même. L’Accent Final (AF) primaire, cooccurrent à la frontière prosodique, s’effacerait perceptivement en frontière prosodique majeure. L’Accent Initial (AI), dit secondaire et optionnel, serait un accent rythmique apparaissant sur les longs constituants. Dans ce contexte, seuls deux niveaux de constituance sont communément admis en français : le Syntagme Intonatif (IP) et le Syntagme Accentuel (AP). L’existence d’un Syntagme Intermédiaire (ip) est en revanche controversée. Enfin, la prise en compte du Mot Prosodique (PW) (i.e. mot lexical) comme unité de planification, ou de réalisation des règles accentuelles, en structure de surface ne semble pas envisagé. L’objectif de cette étude est d’explorer l’organisation du phrasé prosodique en français. Dans ce cadre, nous proposons une étude perceptive, via un corpus de parole contrôlée manipulant des structures syntaxiques ambiguës, où 80 participants ont effectué 3 tâches de perception : proéminence, frontière et groupement. Les événements prosodiques perçus ont ensuite été mis en relation avec leurs réalités acoustiques. Les résultats montrent que les auditeurs sont capables de percevoir des niveaux de granularité de frontières plus fins que ce que les descriptions traditionnelles du français prédisent. Par ailleurs, les mots lexicaux sont systématiquement réalisés par un marquage bipolaire (AI+AF) de même force métrique. AI joue également un rôle plus structurel que rythmique, en marquant la structure prosodique de manière plus privilégiée qu’AF. Enfin, AF ne s’efface pas perceptivement en frontière prosodique majeure, et garde au contraire une trace métrique au niveau du mot lexical, qui ne varie pas strictement en fonction du niveau de constituance. / In French, accentuation is said to be post-lexical, marking the phrase rather than the word. That is, the primary final accent (FA) is considered to be perceptively weakened when co-occurring with a major prosodic boundary, while the Initial Accent (IA), regarded as a secondary and optional accent, is thought to hold merely a rhythmic function in balancing longer constituents. Consequently, only two levels of prosodic constituency are accounted for in French: the Intonational Phrase (IP), and the Accentual Phrase (AP). The existence of a third level, the Intermediate Phrase (ip), while advanced by some authors, remains controversial. Moreover, the Prosodic Word (PW) (i.e. lexical word) as a phonological unit, or as the domain of accentual rules, is disregarded altogether. The aim of our study is to investigate the organization of prosodic phrasing in French. We propose a perception study on a corpus in which syntactically ambiguous structures were manipulated, and asked 80 participants to perform 3 distinct perception tasks: a prominence, boundary and grouping task. The perceived prosodic events were then related to their acoustic realization. Taken together, our results indicate that listeners are able to distinguish finer-grained grouping levels than those predicted in traditional French descriptions. Moreover, lexical words are systematically realized by an accentual bipolarization (IA+FA), with each accent carrying the same metrical weight. The function of IA is shown to be more one of structuration than rhythmic balancing, with IA even marking structure more readily than FA. Finally, our results indicate that FA is not perceptively weakened when co-occurring with major prosodic boundaries, but instead remains a metrical mark at the level of the lexical word, in a manner independent from the level of constituency.

[pt] Dados sísmicos, utilizados principalmente na indústria de petróleo, costumam apresentar dimensões de dezenas de gigabytes e em alguns casos, centenas. Este trabalho apresenta propostas de manipulação destes dados que ajudem a contornar problemas enfrentados por aplicativos de processamento e interpretação sísmica ao trabalhar com arquivos deste porte. As propostas se baseiam em reorganização e compressão. O conhecimento do formato de utilização dos dados permite reestruturar seu armazenamento diminuindo o tempo gasto com a transferência entre o disco e a memória em até 90%. A compressão é utilizada para diminuir o espaço necessário para armazenamento. Para dados desta natureza os melhores resultados, em taxa de redução, são das técnicas de compressão com perda, entre elas as compressões por agrupamento. Neste trabalho apresentamos um algoritmo que minimiza o erro médio do agrupamento uma vez que o número de grupos tenha sido determinado. Em qualquer método desta categoria o grau de erro e a taxa de compressão obtidos dependem do número de grupos. Os dados sísmicos possuem uma coerência espacial que pode ser aproveitada para melhorar a compressão dos mesmos. Combinando-se agrupamento e o aproveitamento da coerência espacial conseguimos comprimir os dados com taxas variando de 7% a 25% dependendo do erro associado. Um novo formato é proposto utilizando a reorganização e a compressão em conjunto. / [en] Seismic data, used mainly in the petroleum industry, commonly present sizes of tens of gigabyte, and, in some cases, hundreds. This work presents propositions for manipulating these data in order to help overcoming the problems that application for seismic processing and interpretation face while dealing with file of such magnitude. The propositions are based on reorganization and compression. The knowledge of the format in which the data will be used allows us to restructure storage reducing disc- memory transference time up to 90%. Compression is used to save storage space. For data of such nature, best results in terms of compression rates come from techniques associated to information loss, being clustering one of them. In this work we present an algorithm for minimizing the cost of clustering a set of data for a pre-determined number of clusters. Seismic data have space coherence that can be used to improve their compression. Combining clustering with the use of space coherence we were able to compress sets of data with rates from 7% to 25% depending on the error associated. A new file format is proposed using reorganization and compression together.