As a national initiative to support retention of engineering students, engineering programs have undergone a surge of revisions to their coursework in recent years, most notably in relation to first-year programs. These program modifications are generally intended to enhance student success in engineering, including both students' achievement and students' motivation to persist in an engineering degree. This study examines motivational constructs as it compares two versions (standard and revised) of an introductory engineering course taught in a general first year engineering program. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine students' course perceptions, students' Expectancy-Value beliefs, and the relationship between perceptions and beliefs in the two versions of an introductory engineering course. Students' perceptions of the class were measured at the course level using the MUSIC model of Academic Motivation, and students' Expectancy-Value beliefs were measured within the engineering domain level using Expectancy-value theory. The dissertation is divided into three stages: In the first stage I provide a quantitative comparison of students' perceptions of the course, from students enrolled in each of the two versions of the course. In the second stage, I describe comparisons of Expectancy-Value engineering-related beliefs between students in each of the two versions of the introductory course, as well as within students in one of the courses. In the third stage, I develop structural models to test the relationship between students' perceptions of the introductory engineering courses and their Expectancy-Value engineering-related beliefs. This study suggests three main outcomes: First, students' perceptions of success and caring are statistically and significantly different between the two versions of the course. Second, students' Expectancy-Value beliefs are discovered to have declined significantly in the standard version of the course, whereas in the revised version of the course, there are no statistically significant differences. Third, the fit indices of the models suggest a good model data-fit providing strong support for the hypothesis that students' perceptions of introductory engineering courses have effect on students' broader motivational beliefs. These outcomes have practical implications for students, instructors, and researchers in first year engineering education. / PHD / The purpose of this dissertation study is to analyze students’ course perceptions and students’ motivation to persist in engineering. Several engineering programs in U.S have recently revised their coursework within first-year programs. One of the goals of these programs is to support students’ engineering-related motivation. In this study, two groups of students were compared in relation to their academic motivation and perceptions of two versions of an introductory engineering course: standard and revised version. This dissertation work also includes an analysis about how students’ perceptions of the courses were related to their engineering-related motivation. Students’ perceptions of the courses were measured using an inventory based on the MUSIC Model of Academic Motivation and students’ engineering-related motivation was measured through a survey based on the Expectancy-Value Theory. The dissertation study was divided into three stages: In the first stage I provide a quantitative comparison of students’ perceptions of the course from students enrolled in each of the two versions of the course. In the second stage, I describe comparisons of engineering-related students’ motivation between students in each of the two versions of the introductory course, as well as within students in each of the courses. In the third stage, I develop statistical models to test the relationship between students’ perceptions of the introductory engineering courses and their engineering-related motivation. This study suggests three main outcomes: First, I found that students’ perceptions of success and caring components are different between the two versions of the course. I also found that students’ engineering-related motivation declined significantly in the standard version of the course, whereas in the revised version of the course, students’ motivation did not change from the beginning to the end of the semester. Finally, I present evidence for the hypothesis that students’ perceptions of introductory engineering courses have effect on students’ engineering-related motivation. In other words, students’ motivation to persist in engineering might be affected by their perceptions of introductory engineering classes.

The purpose of this study was to identify any changes in attainment, self-esteem, self-motivation and attitudes to physical education between the end of year 6 and the beginning of year 8 (during the transfer from primary to secondary school), and to establish the extent of any differences between gender, age of transfer and school attended. Consideration was also given to the ways in which continuity and promotion was promoted between schools involved in the study. Data was collected on four occasions over a 20-month period. Data pertaining to attainment was collected using observation techniques and teacher assessment, whilst self-esteem and self-motivation was collected using questionnaires. Attitudinal data, information relating to physical education, and continuity and progression data were collected using questionnaires and interviews. Results showed significant increases in attainment, self-esteem and self-motivation between the end of year 6 and the beginning of year 8. Significant differences were evident in relation to gender, age of transfer and secondary school attended. Significant positive relationships were found between attainment and self-esteem, attainment and self-motivation, and self-esteem and self-motivation, allowing a tentative relationship model to be proposed. Changes in attitudes towards physical education were also found. Whilst teachers acknowledged the importance of continuity and progression, links between schools focused on social / pastoral rather than curricular issues. Time, staffing issues and finance were identified as the main constraints to the establishment of links. What emerges is a complicated picture of inter-related factors, with no universal solution. Each teacher must consider this broad range of factors within the context they teach. In order to do this there is perhaps a need to raise awareness amongst teachers of the impact of the transfer between primary and secondary phases of education on pupils across curriculum subjects, and that this should be explicitly considered and planned for.

This study investigated the development of curiosity in young children. A previous study by Kreitler, Zigler, and Kreitler had identified five specific types of curiosity, manipulatory curiosity, perceptual curiosity, conceptual curiosity, curiosity about the complex, and adjustive-reactive curiosity. The basic problem was to describe the development of these five types of curiosity in three-, four-, and five-year-old children. A secondary problem was to determine if children follow a predictable pattern in their development of the five types of curiosity. Five tasks, measuring nineteen variables of curiosity, were administered individually to thirty three-year-olds, thirty four-year-olds, and thirty five-year-olds by a trained rater. Mean scores for each variable and each type of curiosity were calculated for each group.

The purpose of this study is to (1) identify some of the major problems confronting first-year secondary science teachers; (2) list supportive practices supplied by the school-based administration and district-wide programs for first-year secondary science teachers; and (3) describe problems of socialization confronting first-year secondary science teachers. The study analyzes perceptions of eight first-year secondary science teachers under contract at the start of the 1996-1997 school year. The study viewed these teachers as novice by definition and perceptions of specific support activities which assisted them in moving from initially licensed to career tenure status. The literature review examines research on teacher based on self-reporting data. Although several of the cited research studies consider first-year teachers in general, few qualitative studies contain specific information on first-year secondary science teachers, e. g., what is involved in the new environment or what developmental skills are needed to survive the year. The research procedure used in this study is the individual case study method. Data were collected primarily through ethnographic interviews and surveys of eight first-year secondary science teachers and six administrators responsible for evaluation of these teachers.(Two administrators did not respond to the survey.) A thematic conceptual matrix was used to display the problems and issues faced by and support offered to these teachers. The findings clearly reveal the top two problems of first-year secondary science teachers to be discipline and classroom/time management exacerbated by a perceived lack of administrative support and assistance. / Ed. D.

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The practice of making international dedications (of days, weeks or years) proliferated in the second half of the twentieth century with the rise of international institutions like the United Nations. The practice contrasts alternative dealings with time i.e. sacred time or dedication as commemoration. International dedications celebrate a concept of social or environmental importance, with a particular emphasis on awareness raising and inculcating change on a practical level. 1995 was the ‘United Nations International Year for Tolerance’. To the study of tolerance, the ‘Year’ marks the apex of tolerance as an object of modern international concern. This thesis is divided into two halves. The former undertakes a close analysis of the build-up to the UN ‘Year of Tolerance’ (Chapter One), the ‘Year’ itself and the subsequent follow-up (Chapter Two). It likewise provides a more general account of the rise and practice of international dedication making. The second half of this thesis addresses the broader theoretical debate on tolerance, 1945-2010. This thesis understands the UN ‘Year of Tolerance’ as a particular institutionalised expression of a specific theoretical mode of tolerance, taken from the theoretical debate on tolerance, and masked by the veneer of cultural universality. It uses 1995 as an artificial marker to gauge continuity and change in the debate on tolerance and to demarcate between Chapter Three-Chapter Four (pre-1995) and Chapter Five-Chapter Six (post-1995). The conclusion summarises the principal points of continuity and discontinuity and finally contextualises the UN ‘Year of Tolerance’ in the theoretical debate on tolerance i.e. as the institutional embodiment of a particular liberal-‘political’ mode of tolerance and an international attempt at final foreclosure of the controversy around tolerance. In seeking to critically account for the UN ‘Year of Tolerance’, and likewise to provide a general overview of continuity and change in the modern theoretical debate of tolerance, this thesis seeks to redress ‘a gap’ in current academic research.

My thesis analyzes China’s most famous commercial film director, Feng Xiaogang, and his New Year Films against the background of infrastructure reform in the Chinese movie industry. The past three decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the Chinese film industry and phenomenal growth in commercial film production due to the movie industry reform that was launched by the Chinese government in order to commercialize the film industry. Feng Xiaogang is both a beneficiary and a contributor to the commercialization of the movie industry, and his unprecedented success in the movie industry also reflected the cultural changes within the film industry. This thesis first examines the transformation of the film industry due to the movie reform that allowed Feng Xiaogang to cross over from the television industry to the film industry, and the emergence of independent film companies also provided Feng with the opportunity to make commercial films. Next, I particularly analyze Feng’s first New Year film, The Dream Factory, which shows Feng’s approach of combining entertainment and social criticism in the film. Finally, I will analyze the popularity of his New Year films from an ‘auteur’ perspective. / text

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M. Ed. / Many higher education institutions face the loss of subsidy due to the high attrition rate of students. Despite the many advantages of alternate access programmes documented in literature, numerous Engineering Faculty members and members of the management of the University of Johannesburg believed that first time applicants with A and B symbols on their senior certificate were stronger students than those students who had completed an alternate access programme. Furthermore, they felt that the alternate access students took up the places which should have been given to those students with excellent senior certificate results. While many studies have been conducted on alternate access programmes there appears to be no evidence of the academic benefits that students derive from them. This generic qualitative study focused on what students perceive to be the academic benefits of alternate access programmes for their mainstream study. Purposeful sampling was used to select Engineering students from the 2005 and 2006 cohort to participate in focus group interviews and the data gathered during the interviews were analysed and interpreted using an Interpretivist lens. The themes that emerged from the study confirmed that students found the programmes to be beneficial but that they became aware of most of the academic benefits only once they joined the mainstream students in their second year of study. This study revealed the alternate access students were of the opinion that there are a number of academic benefits that they had derived from the alternate access programmes. They were in agreement that these benefits had helped to prepare them for mainstream study and they concluded that the benefits had contributed to their academic success in their mainstream studies. The findings of this study suggest that alternate access programmes have an important role to play in providing students with access, support and success in mainstream studies which in turn leads to the increased throughput of students and higher education institutions retaining subsidy.