Die vorliegende Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit der Fragestellung, ob das Drahtziehverfahren bereits im Altertum zur Anwendung kam und nicht, wie in der bisherigen Forschung angenommen, erst im Frühmittelalter einsetzte. Um diese Fragestellung zu klären, wurden Drähte unterschiedlicher Produktgattungen untersucht und experimentalarchäologisch mit der Expertise des Goldschmieds und Restaurators Frank Willer nachgeahmt. Während einige Drähte aus einem Blech gezogen sind, konnte für den Draht des Kettenpanzers aus der Tiefenau bei Bern anhand einer metallographischen Analyse das Ziehen aus einem massiven Rohling nachgewiesen werden. Auch die Untersuchung der für das Drahtziehen benötigten Werkzeuge unterstützt die Annahme, dass das Drahtziehverfahren früher als bisher vermutet bekannt gewesen war. Durch eine materialwissenschaftliche Analyse der Zieheisen und -bronzen konnte nachgewiesen werden, dass diese Werkzeuge den Anforderungen für das Ziehen von Drähten entsprechen. Ein weiteres Argument für das Drahtziehen im Altertum besteht aus der chronologischen und geographischen Korrelation zwischen dem Einsetzen von Kettenpanzern und dem Aufkommen von Zieheisen innerhalb des Latènekreises. Für die Produktion von Kettenpanzern wurde Draht in großen Mengen benötigt, weswegen die Nutzung des im Vergleich ökonomischeren Drahtziehverfahrens naheliegend ist. Somit lässt sich das Ziehen von Drähten zwar schon vereinzelt für die Bronzezeit nachweisen, doch eine weite Verbreitung dieser Innovation geschieht erst ab der Früh- oder Mittellatènezeit mit der Nutzung von Kettenpanzern. Solch eine verzögerte Diffusion einer Innovation stellt keine Ausnahme innerhalb der Technikgeschichte dar und ist dadurch zu erklären, dass eine Innovation, die nicht fortgeführt wurde, an einem geographisch und zeitlich unterschiedlichem Punkt der Geschichte erneut auftreten kann, da es sich um eine konvergente Entwicklung handelt, bei der dieselben Rahmenbedingungen und Anforderungen vorliegen. / The doctoral thesis examines the question of whether the wire drawing process was already used in antiquity and not, as assumed in previous research, first began in the early Middle Ages. In order to elucidate this question, the wires of different products were examined and imitated experimentally with the expertise of the goldsmith and conservator Frank Willer. While some wires were drawn from a sheet metal, by metallographic analysis the wire of the mail armour from Tiefenau near Bern was drawn from a solid blank. The investigation of the tools required for wire drawing also supports the assumption that the wire drawing process was known earlier than previously assumed. A materials science analysis of the drawplates showed that these these Bronze and Iron Age tools met the requirements for wire drawing. Another argument for wire drawing in antiquity is the chronological and geographical correlation between the introduction of mail armour and the frequent use of drawplates within the Latène circle. The production of mail armour required considerable quantities of wire, so the use of the more economical wire drawing process compared to hammering or torsion techniques is obvious. Although the drawing of wire can be proven for the Bronze Age in certain cases, this innovation was not widely spread and established until the Early or Middle Latène Period onwards with the use of mail armour and the accompanying higher demand for wires. Such a delayed diffusion of an innovation is not an exception within the history of technology and can be explained by the fact that an innovation that was not continued can reappear at a geographically and temporally different point in history, since it is a convergent development in which the same underlying conditions and requirements are present.

Diese Forschungsarbeit untersucht die kosmologischen Vorstellungen, die die Architektur des antiken Griechenlands und Roms beeinflussten und geprägten, beginnend mit Vorstellungen, die sich am Ende der archaischen Periode entwickelten, und die bis ins 1. Jahrhundert v. Chr. reichten, als der römische Architekt Marcus Vitruvius Pollio sein Werk "De Architectura" veröffentlichte. Als einziger erhaltener schriftlicher Korpus aus der Antike über den Beruf des Architekten bildet Vitruvius' Werk den Ausgangspunkt der Argumentation in dieser Forschungsarbeit, die schließlich zu dem Verständnis führt, dass "De Architectura" viel mehr als eine theoretische und didaktische Quelle der Architektur ist, sondern ein komplexes Werk mit direktem Bezug zur Naturphilosophie im Allgemeinen und zu kosmologischen Vorstellungen im Besonderen. Dieses Verständnis ermöglicht eine sorgfältige Analyse, wie Menschen in der Antike das Universum strukturierten und wie ihr Umgang mit der Natur die Entscheidungen des Architekten während seiner Baumaßnahmen beeinflusste. Die wichtigsten Schlussfolgerungen dieser Forschung zeigen, dass die Art und Weise, wie die natürliche Welt wahrgenommen wurde, einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf die griechische und römische Architektur hatte. Beobachtungen der Natur führten zur Untersuchung der universalen Ordnung und Regelmäßigkeiten und leiteten Architekten durch alle Phasen des Bauens. Praktisch hatten Architekten nur ein Ziel: Für die Menschen gesunde und praktische Baubedingungen zu gewährleisten, was durch die Arbeit im Einklang mit der Natur und ihrer inneren Ordnung erreicht wurde. / This research explores the cosmological perceptions that influenced and shaped the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, starting with perceptions that developed at the end of the archaic period, and continued all the way to the 1st century BCE when the Roman architect, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, published his work “De Architectura”. As the only written surviving corpus we have from Antiquity on the profession of architecture, Vitruvius’s work is the starting point of the arguments in this research, which eventually lead to the understanding that “De Architectura” is much more than a theoretical and didactic source of architecture, but a complex work with a direct link to the philosophy of nature in general, and cosmological perceptions in specific. This understanding, enables to handle a meticulous analysis of how the ancients perceived the universe’s structure, and how their approach to nature takes place in the decision-making of the architect during his building work. The main conclusions of this research show that the manner in which the natural world was perceived was a primary source of influence on Greek and Roman architecture. Observations of nature led to the investigation of the universal order and regularities and guided architects throughout all the stages of the building work. Practically, architects had one objective only: to ensure sound building conditions for people, both in terms of health and in terms of convenience, and such a goal will be fulfilled by working in line with nature and its inner order.

This thesis explores formative assessment and feedback in China. The study examined how Chinese students at a university in China experienced different feedback types from their Chinese instructors, and what their attitudes towards those were. A mixed-methods approach, using a self-administered, electronically distributed questionnaire and a semi-structured, one-on-one, face-to-face interview, was employed to this end. A total of 232 students – mostly undergraduates – took part, each of whom completed the questionnaire and 30 of whom were interviewed. A large number of students conveyed an awareness of the formative potential of feedback as well as an expectation towards it playing this role, primarily in terms of learning improvement and being psychologically supportive. Marks and grades were shown to play a dominating and not always unsupportive role. The majority of participants reported overall positive effects of the feedback they were given on aspects of their learning and psychology. However, many felt the feedback they received to be qualitatively as well as quantitatively insufficient. The study aimed to shed light on a research area and geographical context where accounts in English from a Western perspective are limited. The overarching conclusion of the study’s findings is that there appears to be significant convergence between scholars’ and Chinese students’ expectations of effective feedback. A key recommendation for future research is to conduct further studies into students’ perceptions of feedback in non-Western contexts.

This doctorate thesis reports on a qualitative research project to investigate the English learning experiences of seven People’s Republic of China (PRC) students during nearly five years of studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The research questions for this longitudinal, multiple-case study are: 1. What are some key learner characteristics of PRC students and what transitions, if any, do they make in their English learning journey as a result of studying in NUS? 2. What pedagogical implications can I draw from the findings? For the purpose of triangulation, four instruments were used to collect data in two stages. In the students’ first year in NUS, the instruments were learner diaries and face-to-face interviews while those used in the students’ final year, were email interviews and an autobiography. This research design facilitated the broad to narrow approach adopted for the study, and made possible the collection of increasingly more in-depth data. The analysis of the initial data, through coding, categorising and summarising, was carried out alongside the collection of the later data, similar to the grounded theory approach. However, this study also started with some a priori categories culled from literature and a decade’s teaching and research experience associated with PRC students. The findings indicate that the traditional Chinese culture of learning as well as the NUS L2 context had an influence on the seven participants’ key learner characteristics. These students underwent a variety of transitions in their beliefs, strategies, motivation, affective dimension, and identity, agency and investment. However, certain aspects of their key learner characteristics also remained stable. Based on these findings, pedagogical implications were drawn and limitations stated to teachers of PRC learners to better equip themselves and their students to successfully navigate the latter’s transition from EFL to ESL/EIL contexts.

The thesis comprises a qualitative study exploring the freedoms and constraints to pupils participating in decisions relating to their education. The context of the study is within rural Uganda and includes an analysis of political, cultural and structural frameworks which may inhibit or enhance pupils from making decisions.

The study concerns the effectiveness of management in private and public schools in Lebanon. An interest was why parents choose to pay for education when free public schools are available. In order to explain this, a case study model was chosen in order to compare private and public schools in Lebanon. Using a qualitative approach, the study comprised four schools, two private and two public, in the same region of Lebanon. Structured interviews were conducted, together with documentary analysis and some observation work. The investigation tackled the following aspects: the structure of the schools, decision-making, financial resources, relations at schools (administration-teachers, teachers-students), the culture, parents and their relation to the school, and private-public ideology. It was found that there were some major differences between the private and public schools which did not just relate to their student intake or resources. This related to the external control of the school and the internal authority patterns and relationships. Teacher security was linked to their job performance and sense of belonging to the school. In the private schools, greater freedom in decision-making by both the principal and staff meant a more efficient operation; greater accountability to parents meant a more conducive and less punitive culture for learning. A model of the ‘school order’ was proposed to provide a conceptual framework to understand these features. This comprised the elements of: authority, autonomy accountability, democracy and discipline. These aspects were the direct or indirect reasons for the parents’ choice of the schools for their children. The study makes recommendations for greater autonomy for public schools, but not for privatization as such. It also recommends greater democracy for all schools.

The main purpose of this research was to explore the reasons why some schools are successful in pedagogical innovations in ICT integration, while others are less so. This research centres on two rural schools in Taiwan with different levels of sustainability of ICT implementation. In this research, ‘School A’ was identified as successfully sustaining pedagogical innovations in ICT integration; ‘School B’ was identified as not yet successfully sustaining pedagogical innovations in this regard. Questionnaires, interviews and documentary reviews were the research sources. The results confirmed a clear difference between School A and School B in their leadership approaches in the processes of implementing ICT. Leadership in School A was collaborative and proactive. Leadership in School B was limited to ICT experts and formal leaders. Moreover, compared with ICT resources and training, perceived compatibility of the ICT-integrated pedagogy and informal learning had a greater impact on teachers’ persistence of ICT integration. Finally, compared with parents’ support and cross-school learning, the governmental support was found to be more influential to ICT implementation in school settings. Currently, there is still limited research examining ICT implementation in Taiwanese rural schools. This study could serve as a reference for further research in this regard.

This thesis uses experimental methods to study two topics on the effectiveness of school inputs on educational outcomes in rural China. For the first topic, I use unique administrative data from Wugang County Education Bureau (a rural county in Hunan), and a regression discontinuity methodology. I find that selective/elite schools, despite their resource advantages, only have limited effects on raising student educational outcomes. However, magnet classes are effective for the top student group. These findings imply that magnet classes provide benefits at the expense of other students, and in general that concentrating resources in a few elite schools is not an effective way to raise educational outcomes. For the second topic, this time using unique data from Shaoyang County Education Bureau (also a rural county in Hunan), I designed two RCTs to examine the effectiveness of a low cost communication intervention. The intervention used a 12-point assessment form measuring a pupil’s academic work and class behaviour. One RCT communicated these assessment results only to the students (Teacher-Student-Communication, TSC), and the other additionally to the pupil's parents (Teacher-Student-Parent-Communication, TSPC). Test score improvements before and after the 8-month intervention period (with 13 assessments) were the measure of educational effectiveness. I find that the TSPC intervention for maths for left-behind children is particularly important. In addition, TSC helped younger pupils (3d grade) more than old (5"' grade), whether left behind or not, showing the importance of early intervention.

This thesis analyses the mediation of globalisation on higher education in Vietnam (VHE) in policy (the Agenda of reforming VHE 2006-2020–the Agenda), the universities (public institutional changes), and individual practitioners (reform imaginaries). Using the critical interpretive paradigm, it draws on Appadurai’s (2001) vernacular globalisation, Ball’s (1993) textual and discursive sides of policy, Gale’s (2003) the “who” in realising policy, Rizvi and Lingard’s (2010) globalising education policy, and Weaver-Hightower’s (2010) policy ecology. It was designed in two parts: the analysis of the Agenda and the comparative case studies of three public universities. Data include policy documents, 22 semi-structured interviews with three groups of university leaders and retired senior policy-makers, and fieldwork notes. This thesis argues for the indirect but significant influence of globalisation on the Agenda’s reform aspirations, public institutional changes, and individual perspectives. It demonstrates changes and transformations of VHE from an inward to an outward system; from the State-controlled system to the State-supervised system; from the State-owned system to the multiple-owned system; and lastly from national to global and back. Despite the Agenda’s great expectations, it is unknown to leaders of three public universities. Thus, its reform solutions remain policy aspirations whilst institutional changes are ongoing without their direct link to the Agenda. These public universities are at the threshold of transformation marked by their beginning of being autonomous institutions. If the Agenda focuses on the VHE’s future scenarios, reform imaginaries generate insight into the present unsettled practices. This study contributes to the discussion of globalisation and higher education in Vietnam where what is global about reforming VHE is present but less powerful than what is national about it. The country’s historical consequences, cultural traditions, and ideological commitments alter the nature and method of global influences that are manifested in policy and institutional changes.

Retaining motivated teachers is a major concern across countries. Ghana, like other Sub- Sahara African countries, has been trying to address challenges, such as the lack of teachers, particularly in rural areas, and the low levels of motivation among them. On the other hand, teachers in developing countries are not necessarily trained and, even if they are, they may not be competent, effective and efficient (Lockheed and Verspoor 1991). Mere enthusiasm and good intentions may not be enough to improve the quality of education. Nevertheless, motivation is necessary, since without it, teachers – especially those facing difficult circumstances – cannot persevere; and, no matter how skilled, without drive, teachers are unable to perform in the long term. As a consequence, without well-motivated teachers, children are less likely to attain the desired level of education. Moreover, if parents/guardians do not believe that education equips their children with the necessary skills and knowledge for a better life, access to and completion of basic education will not increase and government efforts to achieve EFA and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may be in vain. Teacher motivation is not a new area of research. Extensive quantitative and qualitative research has been carried out, especially in the UK and the US, but not in Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, in the case of Ghana, most of the research is based on surveys and oneshot interviews and tends to describe why teachers have low job satisfaction and motivation. As working and living conditions for most teachers are challenging, studies into 'motivation' have tended to be superficial. More specifically, little research has been carried out into investigating why some teachers are able to stay motivated in conditions that others do not consider to be conducive to effective practice − or how they are able to manage. In addition, what research has been done has been concentrated in the southern part of the country, which is considered to be better off compared to the northern part according to many gauges. This study has aimed to investigate how basic school teachers‟ perception of teaching as a career is shaped by social and professional environment in rural Ghana. It has also intended to explore local realities with respect to the policy and its implementation for basic education. One-year field research from 2007 to 2008 was conducted by using a mixedmethods approach in two 'deprived'1 districts − one from the north and the other from the south − which are geographically, socio-culturally, and economically different. The methods of data collection involved survey, ethnographic research, interviews, and teacher focus group discussions. This research echoes previous research findings that physical disadvantages − such as the lack of conducive infrastructure, the shortage of teaching and learning materials, and poor salaries − are factors that contribute to a lower commitment to the profession. However, this research also suggests that two other key stakeholders at micro-level − in addition to the teachers themselves − play a role in teacher motivation. These are: colleague teachers, including head teachers; and the communities in which teachers live and work. Support at this level – both material such as the provision of accommodation and food and nonmaterial like morale support – can not only enhance teachers‟ well-being and self-esteem but also help them to see their current positions as a part of their goals. On the other hand, at macro-level, local authorities − the main implementers of policies and strategies formulated at central level and of teacher management − are particularly influential, as it affects teachers‟ long-term vision. They tend to discourage teachers in their operation, mainly due to its organisational culture that teachers perceive neither fair nor rational. With the same reason, strategies put in place to motivate teachers do not always produce the expected outcomes. Moreover, teachers are more likely to be subordinates to the authority even in school management and to feel powerless in the system. Too much emphasis on teacher motivation at school level may overlook the important role of the District Education Offices (DEOs), since teachers‟ lives are much more related to how the DEO manages them than is the case with similar hierarchical relationships in the West.