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Higher education institutions have increasingly invested in integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into learning and teaching activities. However, the success of e-learning initiatives is influenced by academic staff’s beliefs and attitudes towards e-learning quality, concerns about new teaching situations, increased workload, insufficient technical and pedagogical skills and availability of institutional support. This mixed methods study aims to investigate the perceptions of academic staff in five public universities in Saudi Arabia (n=518) about the actual and desired institutional support that is provided or should be provided by their institutions to motivate them to adopt Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). Additionally, it aims to compare that actual and desired institutional support. The study also seeks to determine whether there are statistical significant differences in academic staff’s assessment of actual and desired institutional support according to their university, faculty, gender, main purpose of using VLEs and attitude toward participation in e-learning. In terms of actual institutional support, academic staff reported that their universities rarely provide the required institutional support (mean=2.29). They rated all seven sections of institutional support (i.e. supportive institutional practices, technical support, pedagogical support, technical training, pedagogical training, flexibility of training programmes, and institutional incentives) as rarely provided with means ranging between 2.06 and 2.59. In addition, the study revealed statistically significant differences in academic staff’s assessment of actual instuitional support according to their university, faculty, gender, main purpose and attitude toward participation in e-learning. In terms of desired institutional support, academic staff confirmed the importance of institutional support (mean=4.41). The results indicated that the seven sections of support are highly desired with means ranging between 4.28 and 4.60. Also, the results indicated statistically significant differences in academic staff’s assessment of desired institutional support according to their university, faculty, main purpose and attitude toward participation in e-learning. In terms of differences between actual and desired institutional support, paired t-test results revealed statistical significant differences between the actual and desired institutional support. According to academic staff, the widest gap between actual and desired support is in section five, “pedagogical training” (mean=2.06 and mean=4.45). On the other hand, they reported the smallest gap in section four, “technical training” (mean=2.59 and mean=4.42). The main contribution of this study is to provide a model based on the study findings; thus, an “Institutional Support Model” was proposed to assist universities to provide the required support for their academic staff. The model suggests forty-four items of support integrated into seven main areas of support: Institutional Support Practices (ten items), Technical Support (six items), Pedagogical Support (six items), Technical Training (six items), Pedagogical Training (six items), Flexibility of Training Programmes (five items) and Institutional Incentives (five items). In addition, many customised models can be generated from the quantitative results according to academic staff’s characteristics.

Cross-age peer tutoring is a peer learning strategy which has been shown to improve both socio and academic process of learning factors as well improve attainment in various subjects. There is, however, still room for the intervention to be developed: which was the aim of this work. This was done by applying important socio interdependent aspects such as resource, interpersonal and goal interdependence to a cross-age-peer tutoring intervention in mathematics. Prior to developing the method, the researcher engaged with the theoretical literature as well as provides two forms of systematic reviews. The newly informed cross-age peer tutoring method was then tested on three schools, two of which adopted a pre-post-test quasi-experimental design and one took a single group pre-post-test design. All the schools applied an Interdependent Cross-Age Tutoring (ICAT) format for a period of 6 weeks, on the basis of a 30 minute session once a week. Mathematics head-teachers, facilitators, teachers and students were all trained in various aspects of ICAT. To capture and interpret the impact of the intervention, performance instruments were innovated for each school, together with various previously established attitude sub-scales. In order to measure implementation fidelity ICAT lesson materials were collected for most of the topics and each school received general as well as structured pair observations from the researcher. Also, in order to explore how different groups learned under ICAT the lesson materials of the higher performing tutees were compared to those of the lower performing tutees on various aspects. The findings were mixed, with one of the quasi-experimental design schools showing a highest effect size of 0.81 favoring the ICAT group. The impact of ICAT on important and broader processes of learning attitude variables, social as well as academic, are also discussed. Comparisons of lesson materials between higher performing tutees and lower performing tutees revealed that the highest performing tutees showed better implementation of an essential socio-interdependent aspect: setting a shared academic goal.

This is an action-based study, aiming to investigate the design, implementation, and evaluation of a pedagogical innovation intended to encourage the development of metalearning capacity in Taiwanese secondary school students. Even though the customary approaches to learning may boost performance in examinations, the students may have also established ignorance of themselves as learners and of the appropriateness of various learning strategies in different situations. In order to develop students into lifelong and self-directed learners, it is valuable to promote their awareness of their learning processes in different contexts and encourage them to take control over their learning strategy selection and deployment (Biggs, 1985). The innovative program was a year long English as a foreign language (EFL) elective course in a Taiwanese secondary school, developed and field-tested through a two-cycle action research project. The participants were grade 10 students (12 in the first cycle and 15 in the second) who took full part in the program. The first-round study collected data mainly from the students’ reflective journals; the second-round study involved additional data sources, including a semi-structured interview and an open-ended questionnaire. Qualitative content analysis, using the coding schemes modeled after previous literature, was adopted to examine the data. This study suggests the principles to facilitate the development of students’ metalearning capacity, namely engaging students in counter-normative role-taking experience, guiding them towards a deeper level of reflection, and building reciprocal interactions among students and between students and teachers. Resistance to this process of transformation might be related to the contextual culture in which the innovative program was situated, and could possibly be addressed by encouraging a change in teacher role and responsibility as well as in overall school climate.

This study aims to evaluate the questions in mathematics textbooks of the secondary stage, natural science section in Saudi Arabia to discover the extent to which they measure mathematical thinking skills, conform to criteria of good formulation and layout, and reinforce a positive attitude towards mathematics on the students' part, according to school teachers and inspectors. Based on a review of the literature, but moving beyond its outcomes, an analysis of what may be understood by mathematical thinking was developed. This underpinned the data analysis. A questionnaire survey was administered to 1308 mathematics teachers and 158 inspectors from all regions of Saudi Arabia and interviews conducted with 14 teachers and 5 inspectors in order to determine their views on the questions in the selected mathematics textbooks and the extent to which they promote mathematical thinking skills. The questionnaire data were analysed quantitatively and the interview data were analysed qualitatively. In addition, content analysis of the textbooks was carried out. In the opinion of the research participants, the questions in these mathematics textbooks did not promote mathematical thinking in the students, nor did they encourage students to have a positive attitude towards mathematics. The main aim of the textbooks appeared to be the practice of recalled skills, with little scope to apply any ideas in mathematics or to encourage thinking or questioning. This study's weakness lies in the fact that the outcomes relied on an analysis of what people thought. It is difficult to describe mathematical thinking; responses therefore may reflect a range of perspectives on the concept. Moreover, no certain way of measuring mathematical thinking has yet been developed. The study's strengths lie in that it goes beyond previous studies in terms of sample size, hence enhancing its reliability, and develops a taxonomy for mathematical thinking skills that can be developed through mathematics textbook questions. This taxonomy is considered to be an addition to the other taxonomies and measures addressing mathematical thinking skills.

This research project focussed on the aspirations and identities of students in an international school in Belgium. Aspirations are framed and formed by both macro-level factors such as social and international capital and schooling and micro-level factors such as well-being, identity, agency, relationships and motivation: in short, via the interaction and interrelationship of self and social context. The originality of this work is in its emphasis on students' own perceptions of the influences on their aspirations, within the geographical space of Belgium and the social sub-culture of a fluid, semi-transient international social context and a local student population. The study explains, from the students' viewpoint, the factors which affect the aspirations of a privileged group of young people. This research indicates convincingly that socio-economic background and international capital are crucial factors framing and influencing young people’s expectations and aspirations. This study also shows us that home is not bound by space and mobility does not limit the participants’ sense of self-worth. Also, transience does not threaten nor hinder their stable sense of identity as their relationships with family and friends are strong and bounded by trust. In the worlds of these ‘third’ and ‘fourth’ culture young people, identities are not at all ‘fragmented’, as has been previously claimed. Additionally, the participants are very similar due to their privilege, are not naïve about their own advantage and are not 'blinkered' by their position. These findings could be of great interest to those working in an international school context. This study might help schools maximise on the international experiences of students to reflect on their global citizenship and altruism. This project has the possibility to help international school educators, who are active players in this culturally complex field better support young people in their process of identity formation in a global society.

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The present study explored the opportunities for learning and participation that teachers provide their learners by means of their interactional decisions in a particular pedagogical context. A number of features deployed by teachers in their interaction with learners have been analysed by means of a Conversation Analysis (CA) approach and discussed under a Classroom Interactional Competence (CIC) framework (Walsh, 2006), which highlights the ability of teachers to utilise interaction as a tool to mediate learning. It is argued that the language choices that teachers make in the moment-by-moment interaction in the classroom can have an effect on the amount and quality of the interaction between teacher and learners (Jacknick, 2011; Nakamura, 2008; Walsh, 2002; Waring, 2011). The study was also informed by the sociocultural concept of learning as a social affair that is achieved through repeated participation in activities with more knowledgeable individuals (Brouwer & Wagner, 2004; Donato, 2000; Lantolf, 2000; Mondada & Pekarek, 2004). The context selected for the study was an adult EFL classroom setting at a language institute in Santiago, Chile. Six EFL teachers and their students were asked to be audiorecorded in lessons that were part of a 10-week EFL course taught at the institution. The focus of the study was placed on a particular lesson stage identified by Walsh, namely, the 'classroom context' mode (CCM), where fluency is favoured over accuracy. Findings confirmed that a number of interactional strategies identified by Walsh (2006) increased or reduced interactional space, shaped learners' contributions and elicited more talk from learners in the selected context. Also, the study identified four novel interactional features that can potentially be included in a framework that seeks to develop teachers' CIC.

The Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice (CoP) (DfE, 2014) places a duty upon further education (FE) settings to support young people (YP) up to the age of 25, with SEN, in FE. College settings can choose to commission external services such as the Educational Psychology Service (EPS) to support them to fulfil these duties. Relatively little EP work has been carried out in FE. The aim of this research is to explore the challenges for the role of the EP in colleges by gaining the views of frontline and senior college staff from two mainstream college settings, and EPs from one local authority EP service, through the use of focus groups. Focus group discussions were informed by introductory data, deriving from two young people, who attended local mainstream college settings. The data collected from college staff and EPs was analysed using Grounded Theory tools. The findings demonstrate that there are opportunities for EP work in FE, especially in conjunction with staff development, working with individual students or where a college has a potential student problem. However, the research also demonstrated how misunderstandings can arise between colleges and EPs. In the main this is due to the nature of a potential buyer and seller relationship, the sense of their competence being questioned, the lack of knowledge of each other, and differing views about the type of role the EP may have in college. Implications for the role of the EP in FE are discussed.

Educational studies that draw on the work of philosopher, and educationalist, Martin Buber, would seem to enact an understanding of well-being in the classroom that reflects singular interpretation. With such singularity as located in the between of the I-You, the I-It, as functional sphere, is overlooked or given a secondary or disparaged status. I attempt to nuance and complexify such a perspective by re-imagining and extending the terrain for well-being to include the relation between the I-It and I-You. By such means, my conjecture that concern for self and other - now heightened as ethicology - is denied and betrayed fullness of possibilities when construed as lying exclusively within the I-You, becomes open to exploration, with a correlated status of myth to be exposed . Such a speculative thrust achieves material expression in the empirical observance and transformation of a specific teaching practice. Teacher response to second language writing in its tight focus on linguistic error, as practised within a traditional form, overlooks student text as a creation of meaning imbued with communicative intent. Contrariwise to educational studies inspired by the work of Martin Buber, such Ht practice that, in this instance, ignores the I-You, is modified to integrate person centred activity. A quasi-experimental design having pre- and post-intervention phases employs, as living re-enactment of practice, a Freirean inspired cognizable object to gather qualitative and pictorial data. The perceptions of the 22, young adult, student participants are further elicited using associated decoding exercises with those of myself, as the teacher-researcher, transcribed using a talk-aloud procedure and research journals. Exploration and construction renders terms other, not neutralized in a grasped for equality of status, but rather - in a Derridean inspired elan - dissolved in the eruption of new concept, with parity achieved other-wise: the I-You and I-It now grasped as person-role-practice. An eagerness to create a pedagogy of the person finds form, content and repose.