Abstract The phenomenon of supplementary education is a major part of the educational landscape of Taiwan and other countries of East Asia. The scale and characterization of this phenomenon is not clear, despite its major position in the educational system of Taiwan. The aim of this thesis is to describe the scale and character of supplementary education in Taiwan, particularly at the level of Elementary School, and further to investigate what motivates Taiwanese Elementary school age children and their parents to enroll in supplementary education activities. The research further attempts to explore how these findings reflect on possible cultural differences in motivation in education. In order to adequately account for cultural aspects of the motivations and perceptions of parents and students, the research uses a combination of interview and survey methods, involving Taiwanese elementary school teachers, parents of elementary school children, and university students, concerning their experience and observations of the phenomenon of supplementary education in a city located in southern Taiwan. The findings confirm the large scale of supplementary education activity from early in elementary school, with a majority of students reporting participation. Interviews and surveys revealed a wide range of reasons for the uptake of supplementary education, and support the conclusion that the level of participation is appreciably dependent on cultural factors which tend to magnify the competitive aspects of the education system. While teachers described distorting effects of supplementary education, students also offered some positive perceptions of supplementary education, particularly in English language learning. The study also included a survey of achievement goal orientation, with the 2x2 achievement goal construct accounting for less variance than in the original US sample, raising questions concerning cultural differences in motivation. Implications for educators and education policy are discussed, and suggestions for further research are also offered.

The modern era has witnessed considerable change in the educational environment which in turn has contributed to classroom management problems for teachers. The issue of classroom management, which is one of the most common fears for teachers, has received increased attention in Saudi Arabia recently. However, it remains one of the key challenges at all stages of the education system.This research describes the reality of classroom management approaches practiced by primary teachers of upper classes (boys) with a focus on Islamic education teachers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The research provides suggestions for the development of curricula and teaching methods. The questionnaire was the main instrument used supported by observing 31 teachers in order to validate the questionnaire results and have a deeper understand of the research problem. The participants included 547 teachers and 87 educational supervisors. The data were analysed using the SPSS programme. Frequencies, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics (t-test and ANOVA), Factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation and GLM with two way interaction were used for the analysis. Results indicate that teachers and educational supervisors realise the importance of the role of classroom management approaches on the quality of teaching performance. Although teachers are attempting to be effective across a range of different circumstances there are challenges that hinder the practice of effective classroom management. For example, school buildings, both rented and state-owned, are a major problem that requires to be resolved by the government, as most buildings do not support teaching practice. This is exacerbated by the large size of classes, with up to 40 pupils being taught by one teacher. After drawing the conclusions, suggestions and recommendations are offered for improving the quality of classroom management approaches in Saudi primary schools. From the qualitative data, for example there are a number of suggestions related to classrooms and buildings, to curricula, to teaching aids and technical equipment, to training courses on classroom management, to teachers’ motivations in classroom management, to educational supervisors’ methods, and to the culture of teacher-pupil-parents relationships. Finally, future research should be conducted on aspects such as the role of the educational supervisor in developing classroom management approaches and the effect of school buildings on classroom management approaches. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the classroom environment on teaching and curriculum performance in the various stages of the education system can be carried out.

Many of the great religions attach importance to spiritual narrative – from Christian parables to Zen koans – and believe they have an important function in conveying a sense of the transcendent and other morally and educationally valuable messages. There is considerable ambiguity, however, surrounding their use and function and indeed their definition. This thesis seeks initially to elucidate how different disciplines view spiritual narrative, and then exposes a “classic” spiritual narrative (the story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden) to the scrutiny of different age groups from different schools. The analysis of their responses suggests that there is no straightforward “fit” with any one theory. However, in educational theory, it appears that “warm factors” (from Paul Pintrich) and the “will to meaning” (from Vygotsky) re-balance purely maturational and “coldly” cognitive views of response. Likewise from the theological tradition, prior religious literacy (from Andrew Wright) or literacy in a secular/materialistic mind-set, appear to be factors in pupils’ response to spiritual narrative, re-balancing views (from Rebecca Nye and David Hay) which focus on universal, perhaps innate, spiritual orientation.

Children’s drawings are graphic visual records of learning experiences (e.g. a zoo outing) often displayed on the walls of Singapore preschools to celebrate children’s learning and teachers’ teaching. At best, drawings are pictures to report to parents (e.g. child’s colouring skills or impressions of learning). Drawings are under utilized as representations of learning and thinking to inform teachers’ practices in lesson planning. First of all, a questionnaire survey with 325 teachers was collated to understand factors that influence teaching decisions. While face-to-face interviews with 61 children (5 - 6 years) had provided factors that influence their learning from children’s perspectives. The study aimed to explore with the goal of developing a strategy to teach teachers to read children’s drawings for information to support learning. As a result, the Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (TEO): cognitive processes (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) with a focus on learning and cognition was the framework for the “children’s drawing evaluation checklist” designed to deduce information of content-knowledge and cognitive processes. About 140 teacher-respondents evaluated 50 pre-and post-lesson drawings on wild animals and the water cycle by 25 children (5 – 6 years old) from two preschools. The findings showed children’s cognitive processes were directed at Bloom’s “Remember,” “Understand,” “Apply,” and “Analyze,” capturing alongside rich information of children’s spontaneous knowledge. The checklist was later revised and integrated with Biggs and Collis (1982) the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy to reflect the amount of information represented. The revised checklist was tested with 18 mainstream teachers to evaluate wild animals and the water cycle drawings. To test for generalizability, the checklist was tested with 22 special needs teachers to evaluate 17 high functioning special needs children’s (5- 6 years old) drawings. Consequently, implications of the use of information in children’s drawings in this study are discussed.

The purpose of this research has been to develop an understanding of teachers’ responses to a dramatic change in their working lives. While there is a significant body of research on the emotional impact of change in organisational life and a growing number of incidental findings related to large scale educational reform few studies have been specifically designed to investigate the emotional lives of teachers during a time of significant change. This narrative inquiry explores how twelve teachers perceived and interpreted their experience of an externally mandated reform namely, the closure of their schools to create an all age Academy. The central objectives have been to gain an insight into how they experienced this reform and to understand their perceptions of the outcomes. Narrative inquiry was explicitly chosen to explore their individual responses to provide a counter discourse to the performative and rationalist culture within which these teachers worked and which prompted this specific reform. The twelve stories in this research corroborate many of the findings of other researchers and reflect an emotional diversity in their responses. The stories show that teachers who successfully managed their experience of change developed a level of emotional detachment from the wider context in which they were working and that this was either helped or hindered by a range of internal variables.

Groupwork and group summative assessment (GSA) are important learning, teaching and assessment methods used by many educational institutions, not just universities. The differences between the marks that HEI students were awarded for their own independent individual summative assessment (IISA) work and their GSA marks were explored. The study topic presented itself while the author was contemplating studying for a first degree, when it became apparent that group working and group summative assessment was included in summative assessment methods used in the chosen programme. Three data sources were from UK undergraduates and graduates, and one was from Australian PG students. Module marks data were collected from over 4000 HE students. They were divided into eighteen faculty/year data sets from four HEI sources. A systematic difference was found between the distributions of GSA and IISA marks, supporting Lejk et al. (1999). Lower IISA ability students scored higher in GSA modules than in IISA modules. Higher IISA ability students scored lower in GSA modules. In addition, the mean GSA mark was higher than the mean IISA mark. The standard deviation of the GSA marks was lower than the SD of the IISA marks. Both of these findings support Downie (2001). The relationship was found to vary between the data sets, modules, assessment items and especially between faculties. The results and conclusions from this study will empower stakeholders, enabling them to be better informed in their choice of first-degree study programmes. They will also allow the use and impact of GSA to be more transparent and better understood, leading to further research and improvement in practice.

This study is aimed to investigate Taiwanese senior high school teachers’ motivation toward teaching tasks across different subjects. The focus is to examine whether there are differences in teacher motivation toward five teaching tasks: class preparation, teaching, evaluation of students, classroom management, and administrative tasks, across five subjects: Chinese, English, social studies, maths, and science. A total of 283 practising teachers in 11 senior high schools located in northern Taiwan completed a questionnaire adapted from the Work Tasks Motivation Scale for Teachers (Fernet et al., 2008). The collected quantitative data was analysed by computing descriptive statistics and inferential statistics which included two-way ANOVA. Thirty teachers were involved in the qualitative data collection using semi-structured interviews. The phenomenographic method was used to analyse the interview data, to uncover the qualitatively different ways in which teachers experience and conceptualise teaching and learning. The findings from the quantitative analyses showed that, in general, teachers had a relatively high level of autonomous motivation and a moderately high level of controlled motivation toward the five teaching tasks. There were significant differences in (1) intrinsic motivation toward class management, (2) identified regulation toward class preparation, and (3) introjected regulation toward class preparation and teaching across the five subjects. No significant differences in external regulation and amotivation toward the five teaching tasks across five subjects were found. In contrast, there were significant differences in the five types of motivation (intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation, and amotivation) toward the five different teaching tasks across the five subject areas. The findings from both the quantitative and qualitative analyses were integrated in order to answer research question 2: Are there differences in the five types of motivation toward teaching across five subjects? The results showed that: 1) teachers of Chinese, social studies, and English might have a tendency to have a higher level of introjected regulation toward teaching; 2) teachers of maths and science tended to have a lower level of introjected regulation toward teaching; 3) science teachers might have an inclination to have intrinsic motivation toward teaching; and 4) English teachers were apt to have external regulation toward teaching. It is recommended that government policy makers, educational reformers, school principals, administrators, and teachers should consider the potential influence of Chinese culture, the social and working context, subject areas, and teaching tasks on teachers’ levels and types of motivation. It is also recommended that they consider the nuances of teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning across subjects when implementing educational reforms. Finally, the influence of Confucian culture on teachers’ work motivation and conceptions of teaching and learning calls for more exploration, as this study only provides preliminary evidence on the existing work motivation and conceptions of teaching and learning held by teachers in Taiwan.

According to DÖrneyei’s (1998 ) process model of second-language motivation (also known as L2 motivation), motivation is a key characteristic of students’ likelihood of future persistence and performance. In this study, the initial motivation of three groups of students who were offered a highly valuable and free voluntary course was examined. The three groups were Group A: students who did not register for the course; Group B: students who took the course but dropped out; and, Group C: students who completed the course. If motivation is a key characteristic, then there should be different initial motivations for each of these three groups. It was expected that the motivation of students in Group A would be significantly different to that of students in Group B, and especially to students in Group C. There were five measures of motivation: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, integrative motivation, cultural interest and anxiety. The results revealed that students who completed the course (Group C) had significantly higher intrinsic, extrinsic and integrative motivation and lower anxiety relative to students who did not register for the course (Group A). However, there were no differences in motivation between Group A and Group B suggesting that students who start a course and drop out are (motivationally) no different from those who do not take the course at all. The thesis also examines motivation over time. Dorneyei’s process model suggests that L2 motivation changes throughout the learning process. However, few studies have examined whether such a temporal shift occurs. In this study, the motivation of the three groups was assessed at beginning of the semester and then 18 weeks later. The results only partially supported Dorneyei’s claim. Changes in motivation were observed for two of the five measures employed. All three groups had higher intrinsic motivation and lower anxiety. The key finding of this study is the difference in motivation at Time one (before the course) for the three different groups. Students who decided to take a voluntary course and stayed on that course (Group C) were clearly more motivated than those who decided to take the course but then dropped out (Group B), and more motivated than those who did not take the course at all (Group A). However, regardless of their decisions to take a course and stay on it, leave it or not take the course at all, students’ motivation over time tended to stay relatively stable. Where motivation did change over time, it was encouraging to note that intrinsic motivation improved and anxiety reduced regardless of the decision taken. The implications of the findings are that learners’ decisions to attend courses are importantly determined by their initial motivations. It seems that initial motivations are potentially diagnostic of future decisions to engage with an important course. Given that changes in motivation did not differ by group, it seems important that educators develop initial motivation. Based on the findings of this study, suggestions are made for directions teachers might develop motivation in a way that minimises the number of students who either drop out or decide not to take the course.

This interpretive case study examines Chinese undergraduates’ self-determined and extrinsic motivations to participate in various university activities and academic courses. The study legitimates the application of Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; 2002) as a useful framework for studying the Chinese university context in showing that implied basic psychological needs for competence and relatedness can mediate such motivation in different ways, based on whether the university environment facilitates their satisfaction or not. Only when undergraduates are self-determined and interpret the university environment as autonomy-supportive do their implied basic psychological needs for competence and relatedness facilitate their self-determined and extrinsic motivation. In such circumstances, students’ participation in university activities and courses can help them achieve their expressed integrated goals, with associated experiences of positive affect. When undergraduates are self-determined but do not interpret the university environment as autonomy-supportive, their implied basic psychological needs for competence and relatedness cannot facilitate their self-determined and extrinsic motivation to participate in activities and courses that would enable them to accomplish their integrated goals. The study outlines the university environmental factors that students interpret as autonomy- or non-autonomy-supportive, in addition to their expectations of factors that should be autonomy-supportive. Given the impact of these factors on the satisfaction of students’ implied basic psychological needs, self-determined and extrinsic motivation, and accomplishment of their integrated goals, the factors that students consider autonomy-supportive are areas where universities could, and should, enhance their provision.

This is a qualitative case study that aims at researching on six foreign students’ experiential process in inter-national socialization and identity development in their participation in a Singapore international school’s sport programme. Based on the multi-dimensional model, the study aims to provide understanding of the factors and experiences involved in the socialization process of these students as they participate in both formal and informal sporting activities. The study seeks to gain a theoretical understanding of the phenomena involved through using various social-psychological perspectives and theories to explain research findings. The study also serves to provide an understanding of the value of sport participation in a person’s schooling life as well as the problems young people generally encounter whilst socializing in an international setting. The findings of the study reveal the importance of having sporting activities as a means for inter-national socialization among the young students, where sport participation can provide a sense of shared reality which builds and develops positive relationships. The study also reveals the importance of having an amicable and people-oriented ethos in a school, which helps promote socialization in general. In relation to theoretical understanding from both the ‘developmental’ and ‘humanistic-social constructionist’ perspectives, the study reveals that multiple theories have to be utilized to provide better comprehension of the phenomena involved.