Education planning is considered a vital factor in the success of any education system. For educational organisations such as the Ministry of Education (MoE) in Kuwait, strategic planning is very crucial for the achievement of the educational goals that reflect the aspirations of Kuwait’s community, such as preparing graduates to help develop their countries. However, there is a need to build a strategic education plan that integrates the goals and objectives from the educational field, as well as from society. The main purpose of this research is to explore the current strategic education plan in Kuwait in terms of the issues that may arise from the policies that control the strategic education plan’s formulation and implementation. This research adopted a mixed methods approach for data collection, which was conducted in three phases. The first phase depended on exploratory interviews to investigate the nature of the current policy that controls the education system in Kuwait. In addition, the exploratory study aimed to identify issues (if any) result from policies that control strategic education plan’s formulation and implementation. The second phase employed a questionnaire that explored research participants’ perceptions regarding the issues that were identified by the exploratory study. The third phase depended on in-depth interviews to investigate the characteristics of the centralisation policy in the education system. This phase aimed to further investigate the interviewees’ perceptions regarding the issues that had been identified in the first phase. The third phase also sought to investigate how the MoE’s policies might underlie these issues, and they may act strengths or weaknesses in the strategic education plan. The research sample of the three phases consisted of leaders from the three managerial tiers of the Kuwaiti education system (MoE officials, district leaders, and school leaders). The MoE leaders are those who chair different departments within the ministry. The district leaders are those who chair different departments within six education districts in Kuwait. The school leaders consist of head teachers, deputy heads, and department heads. The first phase involved 12 interviewees, the second phase involved 188 participants, and the third phase involved 22 interviewees. The research findings identified the current policy that controls the education system in Kuwait. The findings indicated that the centralisation in education system is extreme, and that the MoE is the ultimate decision maker. The MoE adopts the tenets of centralisation in order to control resource allocation, curriculum planning, in-service programmes for teachers and staff, pupils’ assessments, and educational planning. My research identified seven issues associated with strategic education planning in Kuwait, which are all affected by the centralisation policy, as follows: 1. Efficiency and effectiveness of the strategic plan 2. Comprehensiveness of the strategic plan 3. Implementability 4. Collaborativeness and participativeness 5. Communicative capacity 6. Bureaucratisation 7. Work environment These seven issues are seen as the problems that have resulted from the centralised nature of the strategic plan that affected the education system’s outcome. For each issue, the research results identified a number of reasons as to why these issues can be viewed as weaknesses of the centralised strategic plan. Thus, the research found that the centralisation policy, which is embedded in both the formulation and the implementation of the strategic plan, is an obstacle to the strategic plan’s effectiveness. Additionally, the research identified a relationship between the weaknesses of the strategic plan itself, and the MoE officials’ practices as the ultimate decision makers. Finally, the research concluded that the implementers of the strategic plan tend to participate in decision-making; however, they should exercise a certain degree of autonomy within their workplace in order to identify the best ways through which to achieve the goals of the strategic plan.

International students have an undeniable effect on the higher education (HE) landscape worldwide, from economics and political strategies to HE efforts to focus on and improve ‘the student experience’. However, most previous research about students’ motivations for having an international experience and experiences of student engagement has focused on factors identified from the staff perspective rather than that of the students. As ‘student engagement’ is a widely used term in HE policy and practice, it is important to increase understanding: of the concept itself; how motivations influence student engagement; and how different types of student engagement may affect students’ perceptions of their experiences. Therefore, this research explores the nature of the relationships between identified motivations, types of student engagement, and perceptions of international students at a university in the United Kingdom (UK) in order to increase understanding of the students’ experiences from the students’ perspective. Using a phenomenological approach with a mixed methods design, data was collected from students during the 2012/13 academic year which included 249 questionnaires and 10 semi-structured interviews. Students reported various motivations which impacted their decision to come to the UK for part of their HE experience and also had an effect on how they engaged in their international experiences. Additionally, responses from students indicate that students tend to focus on the non-academic aspects of their experiences (i.e. social interactions, friendships, travel, clubs and societies, etc.) when reflecting on their international experiences with other students as opposed to academic aspects (i.e. studying, coursework, etc.). Finally, the findings suggest, when compared with academic engagement behaviours, international students’ perceptions of their experience were more influenced by behaviours for non-academic engagement; specifically, data indicates that non-academic engagement behaviours can decrease students’ concerns whilst abroad and also have a positive influence on students’ overall perceptions about their international experience.

This thesis presents an exploration of the action research (AR) component of an in-service course as presented to a group of Chilean English language teachers. It aims to investigate how AR was conceptualised, the rationale for its inclusion and how it was ultimately operationalised. Additionally it aims to shed light on what effects AR may have on teachers’ professional development (PD) and how contextual factors may hinder its impact. For this purpose, data was collected from three course designers, nine teachers taking part in the course, and the teacher educator responsible for offering the AR component. This study followed a qualitative research design and a critical paradigmatic orientation. Data was collected over a ten month period using an initial questionnaire to collect factual data and semi-structured interviews and focus groups to obtain more in-depth data. Additionally, document analysis was carried out on the course syllabus and teachers’ written AR reports. The findings showed the conceptualisation of AR underpinning the course involved notions of emancipatory AR, whereas teachers viewed AR as problem-solving. Additionally, the training format exposed a transmission approach to teacher education and provided little support to teachers to carry out AR in the way envisioned by course designers. As a consequence, teachers’ skills in and knowledge of AR remained limited and it did not promote their professional development in any way. While findings support studies which claim the main difficulties associated with AR are time and research support, they also highlight other contextual constraints and the thesis argues the need for major socio-cultural adjustments if AR is to promote PD in Chile. The study demonstrates that the manner in which AR is conceptualised is inconsistent with contextual realities within the education system as a whole thus it cannot meaningfully contribute to or support teachers’ professional development.

Interpreting is an ancient activity but interpreter training is, with only decades of history, a fairly new discipline. To respond to the growing population of interpreting learners, and the rising demand for trained interpreters, this study investigates interpreters as learners, exploring the development of interpreters from trainees to practitioners. Research on learning reveals that learning is a knowledge construction process, and that the conventional cognitive approach towards learning has been challenged by the more updated social approach to learning, with differing knowledge claims on teaching and learning styles, as well as the knowledge they produce respectively. This study assumes the existence of ‘working knowledge’, incorporating both theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge. To narrow the general understanding on learning down to a specialised area, or so-called professional learning, the knowledge construction process thus equates to the development of expertise in a given field. In the context of learning interpreting, this study investigates how interpreters build their expertise in interpreting. Using Charles Goodwin’s concept of ‘professional vision’ (1994) is a way for interpreters as insiders to communicate their professional working knowledge to outsiders of the interpreting field. Previous work on interpreter education provides a significant account of interpreter training curriculum and rationale, but limited work has been done on the learning experiences of interpreters at different stages. In search of a paradigm which has the potential to understand learning interpreting developmentally, Lave and Wenger’s Communities of Practice (1999) was adopted as the theoretical framework of this study. It was anticipated that the Communities of Practice could provide a more encompassing view of learning. With the Communities of Practice as the theoretical framework, this study investigates how interpreters learn by looking into their mutual engagement, why they want to learn to be interpreters by exploring their joint enterprise, and what shared repertoires are developed in their venture of becoming an interpreter. The data of this study came from four groups of interpreters who had undergone identical interpreter training but were at different stages—student interpreters, graduate-to-be interpreters, novice interpreters and experienced interpreters—were recruited for open-ended interview. Based on an ethnographically-informed research design, narrative presented in the interview setting is the key tool in this study, offering a platform for the researcher to ‘discover and describe’ (Spradley, 1979) the learning experiences of interpreters. The narrative data from interviewing interpreters reveal the characteristics of interpreting learners before training, learning during training, learning at work and explores learning as participation. The findings demonstrate that many interpreting learners are not only language graduates with a practical attitude towards the promising career prospects of interpreting, but have also had related interpreting experiences prior to training, which motivated them to undertake training. Next, the narrative data examined indicate that learning during training can be divided into three primary activities: learning in class with tutors, group practice with peers, and self-study. After training, learning at work takes place within three domains: interpreting practice, the interpreting profession, and working with people. Practically, trainee interpreters increase their background knowledge and develop interpreting skills during training, while practising interpreters apply their interpreting skills at work and develop coping strategies for the demands of their work. The final sets of data examined in this study investigate learning as participation for practising interpreters using the concept of the Communities of Practice, and reveal the existence of a dichotomy between two sub-markets in interpreting, namely the private freelance market and the staff positions in international organisations, especially in terms of the interpreting market as perceived by practising interpreters. The data demonstrates the level of competition in the private market which leads freelance interpreters to undercut and undermine each other, and that the support system seems non-exist in the private market since freelancers do not expect to help each other at all. In contrast, for those staff interpreters working for international organisations, they have a more straightforward career trajectory to follow. Lastly, the development gap between trainees and practitioners is addressed by articulating the professional vision offered by practising interpreters, which include methods for learning interpreting and an effective approach to job-seeking, something novice interpreters are eager to know. From a theoretical perspective, the idea of the Communities of Practice was found to be problematic for two main reasons: Firstly, looking from the view of mobility, there are multiple Communities of Practice in existence in the context of becoming an interpreter: Community of Trainees (CoT), Community of Freelancers (CoF) and Community of Staff Interpreters (CoS), with their own particular features and development trajectories. Secondly, by investigating the idea of identity, the three major characteristics (joint enterprise, mutual engagement and shared repertoire) of the Communities of Practice are missing or only partially evident in CoF and CoS, with only CoT completely following the characteristics outlined by Wenger (1998) and Lave and Wenger (1999). Finally, this study addresses the educational implications for interpreter training. This study fills the knowledge gap between interpreter training, learning interpreting and interpreting practice, contributing to a contextualised understanding of how one becomes an interpreter from a learner’s perspective and outlining how interpreters at different stages of development approach their professional learning.

This study is the first attempt to develop, implement and evaluate a computer plus talk teaching sequence with the purpose of enhancing 15-16 years old students‘ understanding of chemical rate of reaction concept in Uganda. A total of 247 students aged 15-16 years from two High Schools participated in the study. The experimental class (C&TA) consisted of 108 students, 51 males and 57 females while the comparison class (NTA) consisted of 139, 73 males and 66 females. Based on recommendations in the literature that chemical rate of reaction is a difficult topic to teach and learn, I developed a research-based teaching sequence on chemical rate of reaction using a computer and talk approach, implemented this teaching sequence in Uganda and evaluated this teaching sequence by making comparisons with ‗normal‘ teaching. Research-based teaching is a novel approach to pedagogy in Uganda, so I had to train the experimental teacher for two weeks. The trainings were very important in ensuring that the teacher acquired working knowledge about C&TA prior to the actual implementation in the classroom. The study investigated whether the students who followed the C&TA had better understanding of the difficult areas (also called learning demands): (1) rate of reaction, (2) proper orientation of reacting particles, (3) the relationships between activation energy and chemical rate of reaction, (4) the effect of temperature and (5) the effect of concentration of reactants on chemical rate of reaction. I undertook a quasi-experimental study to assess the C&TA‘s impact. I analysed classroom interactions to inform discussion of what influenced its effectiveness, and inform decisions about whether the C&TA sequence was implemented consistently with its design. The statistical analyses of the post-test scores show that the experimental class (C&TA) students demonstrated better understanding across all the five difficult areas compared to the comparison class (NTA) students. The findings indicate that female students benefited (a little) more from the intervention than male students. The results show that the C&TA intervention had an effect of the same magnitude across the ability range. Further findings show that C&TA support teaching large classes and that it is possible for a teacher in Uganda to teach in a more interactive/ dialogic way with relatively little training on the communicative approaches. Evidence shows that aspects of the C&TA teaching sequence that were effective in supporting students‘ learning of chemical rate of reaction were: computer simulations and modelling, teaching goals, worksheets, social constructivist perspective on teaching and learning along with the communicative approaches. Further findings show varied benefits and challenges from using C&TA. The teacher and students perceived C&TA as a good method of teaching and learning. Indicating that the use of a computer and talk approach (C&TA) is a feasible alternative teaching approach to didactic teaching in science classrooms in Uganda. It also suggests that C&TA could be adopted for teaching and learning other subjects.

This thesis explores growth in practical knowledge and teachers' self-efficacy during an in-service language teacher education programme; a three-year BA (TESOL). Teachers' self-efficacy beliefs are teachers' beliefs in their capabilities of supporting learning in various task and context-specific cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social ways. The study focuses on five non-native speaker teachers of English in a hitherto little researched geographical context, using qualitative case study methodology to trace their development longitudinally. Longitudinal studies into the practical knowledge growth of language teachers are notable by their absence, as are qualitative studies into language teachers' self-efficacy beliefs. Accordingly, constructs and processes central to this thesis have been under-researched, leading to a gap in the literature that . this study addresses. In this thesis, case studies of the development of teachers' self-efficacy and practical knowledge in ELT are presented. Findings suggest that in-service language teacher education programmes that encourage reflection and deep learning can foster considerable growth in practical knowledge and teachers' self-efficacy. Various dimensions of this practical knowledge growth are explored and light is shed on teachers' cognitions in previously little researched curricular areas of language teaching. Assertions are made about the nature of growth in language teachers' selfefficacy, and a conceptual model is offered that seeks to explain this process. Insights gained from the study suggest that qualitative methods, including observations and interviews used together, can uncover links between language teachers' practical knowledge and self-efficacy beliefs, and can be used to chart growth that occurs in both longitudinally. This work thus makes a methodological contribution as well as enriching understanding of the constructs themselves. It also makes recommendations for the design of in-service language teacher education programmes with a view to helping them support growth in practical knowledge and teachers' self-efficacy.

This thesis examines the changes in Mongolian higher education in the context of the market and to assess their influence on institutions of higher education, in particular on curricular provision at undergraduate level. There is a sufficient number of theoretical as well as empirical research studies and publications on market-oriented or marketised higher education systems, but the literature reveals that there has been little research specifically addressing the effect of the market on undergraduate curricular provision. In the context of post-communist countries, there is also scant research that addressed the issues that arose in undergraduate provision during the transition period. Employing a multiple case study as a methodological approach, this thesis engages with Clark’s (1983:142) concept of ‘the triangle of coordination’ with, the three elements of coordination - state, market and academe -, and Jongbloed’s (2003) model of ‘the eight conditions for a market’ for higher education institutions. It shows what the nature of changes in Mongolian HE is since the first new democratic Education Law that set the foundation of market practices in higher education, how they came about and what the causes were, in order to understand the influence of this context on the provision. Through the thematic analysis of interviews and document review, the study shows how the higher education reform policy has been interpreted and implemented at the institutional level, and how this context has influenced undergraduate curricular provision. The study finds that, for Mongolian universities, academic programmes were the core factor in the increase of financial resources, consumer attraction and an institution’s reputation. There were two distinctive phenomena in terms of curricular responsiveness. One was the emergence of a wide range of new courses and new fields. The other was conceptual changes in delivering knowledge. The findings of causes for opening new fields were important as these illustrated the strength of the influence over undergraduate provision by either state or market.

This thesis presents the findings of a study, which investigated the beliefs, and practices of teachers of English with regard to the Continuous Assessment (henceforth CA) reform in the assessment system in the Sultanate of Oman. The study also examined how teachers’ beliefs and other contextual factors influence the way teachers interpret and implement the CA reform. The ultimate aim of the study was to develop an understanding of the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their actual CA practice, which as a result extends our understandings of the implementation of CA and the challenges that influence the process of implementation. The study adopted a triangulation design in which both quantitative and qualitative methods complemented each other. It started by exploring the beliefs and practices of 237 teachers of English in a questionnaire. It then explored those beliefs and practices of CA in the follow-up interviews with six working teachers of English, and through observations of specific classroom assessment practices. Finally, it probed the cognitive bases of their practices through post-observation interviews. The analysis of the data pointed to a large gap between teachers’ stated beliefs about CA and their actual assessment practices. Although in the questionnaire they generally expressed strong positive beliefs about the value of CA as an assessment approach and re-affirmed those beliefs in the follow-up interviews, they mostly showed a limited uptake of CA implementation in real practice. The study highlighted complex relationships amongst the CA reform, teachers' practices, teachers’ beliefs, and certain contextual factors. The study revealed that these contextual factors are interrelated and collectively widen the mismatch between teachers’ stated beliefs about CA and their actual practice and to the limited uptake of CA implementation. This study illustrates the value of studying the relationship between teachers’ stated beliefs and their actual practices in order to develop an understanding of the implementation of assessment reforms, what teachers do while implementing them and how their beliefs and other contextual factors influence the way they interpret and implement such major educational reforms.

This study examines the nature of the role of teaching and learning deputy heads (T&LDHs) and the range of characteristics among excellent and typical T&LDHs in Chinese secondary schools. A qualitative dominant mixed methods approach was employed to generate research findings. Drawing on different theoretical perspectives and a substantial database of documentary analysis of 18 T&LDHs’ job responsibilities, critical incident interviews with 24 T&LDHs, and questionnaires among eight T&LDHs, eight headteachers and 424 teachers in eight schools, the study reveals three leadership configurations in Chinese secondary schools: ‘standard’, ‘integrated’ and ‘umbrella’. It shows that the position of T&LDHs is imperative for learning-centred leadership in schools, and their job responsibilities include six dimensions and 16 job functions. The T&LDHs in the ‘typical’ group possessed nine characteristics, while 12 characteristics were prevalent among those in the ‘excellent’ group, involving behaviour, attitudes, knowledge, skills and competencies. This study also suggests that different T&LDHs possess different characteristics. The T&LDHs in the excellent group possessed more skills and competencies than those in the typical group, and these skills and competencies are reflected much more consistently and intensively in the excellent performers’ professional practice; however, not all T&LDHs in the excellent group performed better than those in the typical group in all situations. Effective leadership is found to result from skilfully wielding a range of skills and competencies in a combined way, and lack of one or more necessary skills and competencies in a particular situation is found to result in leadership ineffectiveness. The research findings have relevance to T&LDHs’ recruitment and selection, their appraisal and accreditation of their performance, and their training and professional development.

Workplace based assessment (WPBA) was introduced into clinical radiology training in 2010. The purpose of the study was to investigate its implementation by addressing research questions concerning the assessments’ day-to-day realisation, the participants’ influence upon their enactment, and the utility of the process. The prior history of the introduction of WPBA into postgraduate medical training and the Royal College of Radiologists’ guidance regarding the assessments’ usage served as reference points for the study findings. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 20 radiologists (12 trainers, 8 trainees) in order to discover their opinions of the implementation and usage of WPBA in radiology. The interview data were subjected to thematic analysis in order to identify issues of importance to interviewees, address the research questions and suggest any means of improving the assessments. The analysis showed that most interviewees thought that WPBA had a formative purpose, as per central guidance, although some assessors felt it could be used summatively in certain circumstances. The day to day realisation of the assessments was subject to some variation, and although this might be seen as inevitable due to differing circumstances, there was evidence of both trainees and trainers manipulating the process to suit their own purposes. There was also evidence of some trainers frankly adapting the assessments’ usage depending upon trainees’ seniority or time in an attachment. Interviewees described various weaknesses of the process, including the peremptory nature of some assessments, failure to identify underperforming trainees and poor assessor preparedness when WPBA was introduced. Reference to published literature from other postgraduate medical specialties showed that many of these problems were generic in nature, rather than confined to radiology. Suggested means by which WPBA could be improved included joint trainee and trainer leadership of the process, better training of assessors and refinement of the assessments themselves.