Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, IL, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-56).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leave 94-98). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-56).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2003. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-98). Full text available via Internet as a .pdf file. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader software; http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-12052003-123946/unrestricted/Druggishetd.pdf.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2002. / Title from electronic submission form. Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, IL, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-56).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2000. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-138).

The meaning theory of teaching arithmetic requires that those who do the teaching understand the mathematical bases of arithmetic. This study was concerned with determining the extent to which one teacher-training institution was successful in raising the level of understanding of arithmetic on the part of its students during its usual year's programme. The 280 testees were students of the Vancouver Normal School. The data were obtained through the administration of Glennon's Test of Basic Mathematical Understandings at the beginning and at the end of the school year. The analysis of the data led to the following conclusions: 1. The teacher-training programme was effective in bringing about small but significant gains in the students' achievement of the basic mathematical understandings contained in Glennon's Test. The testees knew an average of 61.5 per cent of the understandings at the beginning of the study and an average of 66 per cent of them at the end of the study. 2. The understandings related to the decimal system of notation and to the integers and processes were well known to the students on both tests whereas those understandings related to decimals and processes, fractions and processes, and the rationale of computation were considerably less well known on both tests. 3. Significant gains were made in the areas of the decimal system of notation, integers and processes, fractions and processes, and the rationale of computation. The gains were fairly equal for the four areas of arithmetic. The section on decimals and processes showed no significant gains. The order of difficulty for the five areas of arithmetic included in Glennon's Test remained essentially the same for the test and retest. 4. Superior gains in achievement of the basic mathematical understandings were made by the students who were in the lowest quarter of the cases in the initial test as compared with those attained by the students who were in the highest quarter of the cases in the initial test. 5. The test items tended to be 3.5-choice rather than 5-choice items for this group of testees. As determined by the number of actual choices per item the level of understanding for this group was higher at the end of the year than it was at the beginning of the year. 6. 83 per cent of the rejection of the misleads which took place was made in favour of the correct answers to the items whereas 17 per cent of the rejection was made in favour of the incorrect alternatives. The latter finding indicates that the change (perhaps gain) which takes place in relation to certain items is incompletely assessed by the usual statistical procedures. 7. The mean of the gross changes involved in the shift of responses to and from the correct answers in the test-retest situation averaged six times the mean of the differences between the net changes in the responses. It is evident that minor changes are considered in present methods of estimating reliability, whereas the major changes are obscured and so ignored. In spite of the apparent inconsistency of the responses of the group to the test items in this study, reliability was .94, indicating that further research is necessary in the area of test reliability. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

Exploring school advisors' practices: Dwelling in/between the tectonic spaces is a story about three teachers assisting their student teachers in becoming teachers, and my safari through their landscapes; what i describe as dwelling in/between the tectonic spaces. Those spaces between school advising and student teaching, desire and fear, comfortable and uncomfortable, predictable and unpredictable, all speak to the fact that school advising is a complex phenomena. The exploration began with two research questions that guided the study: what is the school advisor's understanding of her practice? What is the school advisor's understanding of how one becomes a teacher? i worked with three school advisors from two large urban secondary schools during the 13 week secondary student teaching practicum in the 1994/95 school year. Diane and Jill came from Maskini Secondary School. They worked with one student teacher, Betty. Jessica came from Lord Cook Secondary School, and worked with two student teachers, Chety and Tiany. Several data generating procedures were integrated and a co-researching relationship fostered between the school advisors and me. The data generating procedures were conversations, participant observations, video and audio-taping. Student teacher assessment forms written by the school advisors were part of the data; and i kept a journal throughout the study. As i became immersed in the study, listened to several conferences between school advisors and student teachers, and held various conversations-on-actions with the school advisors, i realized i was dealing with a very complex phenomenon. Interpreting the data from the point of view of the two research questions that i began with, and trying to understand the school advisors' practices and their understanding of how one becomes a teacher from that view, would have meant camouflaging the dynamics and conflictual nature of such practices. Asking a what is question demanded that i objectify the school advisors. That would have meant sealing myself off from the atmosphere that i inhabited in those classrooms, the sounds of pedagogy that i heard, and the smiles that radiated the rooms. That would have meant not acknowledging what it was like for me inhabiting places full of love and hope. It would have also meant blocking off the painful moments that were evident at times. The moments and situations speak of what and how school advising was like and could be like. The data transformed the research questions. The complexity of school advising needed to be spoken of according to what it was like and could be like. Thus, what school advising was like and can be like or what the 1994/95 practicum was like for the school advisors is told in narratives and metaphors generated from the various conversations. The narratives, the situations, and the metaphors speak about what we have to grasp as a whole. They help us understand each advising of a student teacher by a school advisor on a certain day, in the tone of a previous incident, reminder, and suggestion. The narrative fragments and the synopsis make sense in the whole. Like parables they constitute what Paul Ricouer calls "networks of intersignifications." i have used geographical terms such as safari, tectonic, landscape, terrain, and paths, to communicate what the practicum was like for us as co-researchers. This study assists us in understanding what school advising could be like by offering accounts of what it was like for the co-researchers, Jill, Jessica, Diane, and myself. These accounts describe school advising and student teaching as processes of reorientation by disorientation which can be tectonic. For student teachers, the practicum is a reorientation to what was familiar when they were secondary students. For school advisors, the practicum is familiar because it is a yearly occurrence. However, this study found that student teaching and school advising can be very disorienting processes to the parties involved. The tectonicness highlight the need to nurture relationships in teacher education programs which include pedagogical relationships in the classrooms, triadic relationships during the practicum, student teacher-student teacher relationships, and, school advisor-student teacher relationships. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate