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This thesis is concerned with the development of political orientations among adolescents attending secondary schools throughout Scotland. More especially we have investigated the influence that formal education in the curriculum, through Modern Studies, will bring to this process. A framework for political learning is established, the basis of which stems from the cognitive development attained by the adolescent, although full allowance is made for the intervention of other interindividual differences and social forces. We examine the growth which occurs in the acquisition of political orientations as well as their subsequent re-evaluation during adolescence. The objective is to see whether these movements occur in a predictable manner in one directiong but with a period of particularly intensive and rapid learning in middle adolescence as the child changes the basis of his thinking towards a more abstract level of conceptualisation. Not all political orientations are affected by the respondent's changing cognitive capacity and these others are closely studied for any variation in their pattern of growth. As the latter are thought to be more strongly influenced by social forces there is less likelihood that they will be characterised by qualitative development. Our general conclusion is that political learning proceeds apace with age to an extent for which we had not been prepared by previous research. The changes which occur are generally consistent and even. The notion of qualitative development in political learning is rejected; in practice the whole spectrum of political orientations is found to grow in a monotonic fashion. The movement in political orientations does not display any distinctive variation between those which may be linked directly to cognitive development and the remainder. Even in the young person's evaluation of the political world there is a predictable trend towards higher levels of attachment to the political norms associated with a democracy. When we employ sophisticated multivariate techniques to examine the relative influence in political learning of inter-individual and intra-individual differences we discover that, while the impact which these forces bring can be considerable, they do not negate the basic relationship between age and political development. Political growth can be advanced with an appropriate background of advantages but there is little evidence that these additional predictors transform this into a qualitative movement. The influence which Modern Studies brings to political learning is found to be small, insofar as it does little to promote the development of learning in directions in which it was not already moving. Where formal political education attempts to avert a normal pattern of growth it meets with negligible success. Modern Studies cannot therefore be regarded as anything other than a marginal agent in political socialisation. For this reason political education in the school must take more note of the political learning which takes place outside of the classroom.

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The overall aim of this thesis is to develop and critically reflect upon learning principles that are fit for purpose in engaging learners within situations of actual and anticipated humanitarian crisis. The study begins with an examination of the broad backcloth to the study, the interlinked causes of humanitarian emergencies - globalization, climate change and underlying worldviews. It is based on the assumption that interconnected social and environmental problems, as currently manifested, will be further exacerbated by the consequences of incremental and especially runaway climate change, or 'creeping emergencies'. The study draws upon expertise and insights from two contemporary educational discourses: emergency education and sustainability-related education. It was conducted in two phases. Phase one aimed at examining the current range of renditions and understandings within the two fields and by eliciting perceptions of the interface between the two fields. It was conducted through literature reviews and interactions with ten experts, five from each field. A process of dialogue and reflection allowed for the emergence of holistic and sustainable learning principles that could be applied within emergency contexts. Using a qualitative case study methodology in phase two, the applicability of and practitioner receptivity to the learning principles emerging from phase one were investigated through engagement with the ongoing initiative of the NGO Plan International, Children and Young People at the Centre for Disaster Risk Reduction, and its organically emerging follow-up multi-agency initiative, Children in a Changing Climate. By and large, participating educational practitioners expressed their sense of the relevance of the principles to a considerable degree. In order to examine contextual variables in applying the six principles, further critical appraisal of the principles was undertaken through documentary case studies of Plan International's Yogyakarta Earthquake Response and Recovery Program in Indonesia and its Rapid Education Pilot Project in Sierra Leone. The examination reveals that the principles and their constituent elements were of varying importance and practicality depending on context. The exigencies of each situation posed limitations on what could be done practically in the field during the immediate crisis period with the application of some principles and elements, while nonetheless important for building future resilience, better held over until the mid-or long-term. This study suggests the need for more empirical research into holistic renditions of emergencye ducationi mplementationt,h eoreticald evelopmentw ith a view to embedding insights from the field of emergency education into seemingly 'non-emergency' contexts, and advancing educational thinking and practice in anticipation of runaway climate change.

In 2000, the Curriculum Development Council (CDC) of Hong Kong launched curriculum reform for all school subjects to equip students with generic skills perceived essential for the 21st Century. As part of this, the new Primary General Studies (PGS) programme implemented in 2004, adopted an inquiry-based learning approach. The literature shows that inquiry-based learning not only has origins linked to science inquiry and Dewey’s theory of inquiry, but also intersects with theories of constructivism. Similar to constructivism inquiry-based learning also incurs the controversies for its theoretical foundation. Moreover, the precedents of enacting inquiry-based learning in classrooms have alerted teachers to its practice-based challenges. Furthermore, teachers’ beliefs have been recognized as a major factor influencing teachers’ actions especially in the implementation of a new teaching method. Therefore, three years after its launch, a study was proposed to investigate the impacts of teachers’ beliefs on the implementation of inquiry-based learning in the new PGS curriculum. The research was in the form of qualitative case studies of two schools. Eight teachers were involved, while four of them were studied in more detail. The results show that different teachers held diverse beliefs about inquiry-based learning. Such variation in teachers’ beliefs was found to impact on teachers’ implementation of inquiry-based learning. Finally, recommendations about the importance of teachers’ reflection, arrangement of resources, preparation for teachers and students and in-services training, are made to teachers, school administration, and local authority. In this study, the “hypothetical components of belief” suggested by Sigel (1985) were adopted as the major theoretical framework and within such a framework contextual factors of individual school were found to have played crucial roles both in influencing teachers’ beliefs and teachers’ actions.

To prepare the young generation for the challenges of a competitive and rapidly changing world, the education systems of Singapore and in many countries in East Asia are focusing on developing children's thinking and learning skills. This research study examines the effects of a cognitive programme, the Bright Start Cognitive Curriculum for young children, on kindergarten children's cognitive functions and their learning effectiveness. The study adopted an experimental, pretest posttest design with an experimental group of 43 children and a control group of 37 children. The Bright Start Cognitive Curriculum was systematically implemented over a period of six months with the children from the experimental group. The children from the control group had their regular integrated thematic curriculum. The study used a combination of methods to collect data, involving measurements of children's pre and post tests performances on cognitive tasks, analyses of video recordings of teaching observations and teachers‟ feedback of children‟s performances in class. The findings of the research study suggest that children from the experimental group showed greater improvement in all the cognitive tasks from pre to post testing than the children in the control group. The children‟s response to mediation scores in the experimental group were positively correlated with their post test scores. The experimental teachers scored higher in all three essential components of Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) than the control teachers; with marked difference between the two groups in the criteria of transcendence. However, the control teachers scored better in affective involvement, which is not one of the essential qualifying components of MLE.

This is a comparative case study of an innovative approach to teaching computer programming to novices. The focus of this study is to evaluate the integrated curriculum which blends face-to-face interaction with computing practice and online learning to first-year polytechnic students in an engineering informatics diploma course. To examine the efficacy of the blended learning approach, the integrated curriculum is compared to its predecessor which has applied the traditional structured curriculum. This thesis gains relevance from its study of different dimensions of the curriculum comprising the curriculum aims and objectives, the teaching-learning activities and the different forms of assessment. The research design is mainly qualitative employing analytic induction methods to arrive at its inferences and findings. Content analysis and observation have been performed to evaluate the curriculum of each of the cases. A quantitative analysis is performed on students' performance in the computer programming module to add validity to the qualitative findings. Data were collected for students taking the Principles of Computing module in the first semester of the first year in 2005 and 2006 respectively; a total of 232 students came from the 2005 cohort and 247 students came from the 2006 cohort. The dependent variables are the module score and its sub-components, the project score and the individual test score. The independent variable significant to this study is the student's entry level GCE 'O' levels aggregate; gender is not a significant variable unlike in other studies involving mathematics or science. The findings highlight the differences that exist between a traditional structured learning environment to the blended learning environment and how students perform under the different learning environments. A major contribution of this study is the constructive alignment framework incorporating the integrated curriculum characteristics to support the blended learning approach. By reviewing the curriculum, the teaching methods, the assessment procedures and the learning environment with regard to the integrated curriculum characteristics, this study has made significant discoveries on the strengths and limitations of the blended learning approach. The results of this study show how the roles of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment are inter-related and have to be integrated into the curriculum to foster better learning for students. Finally, the findings reveal the importance of the influence of the tutor in the blended learning delivery and the students' preference for tutor interaction. Through these findings, the study is able to recommend future improvements to the Principles of Computing module.