published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Master / Master of Education

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur nivågruppering kan påverka elevers lärande i skolans tidigare år. Syftet har uppfyllts genom att svar sökts på två frågeställningar; den första rörande vilka för- respektive nackdelar avseende elevers lärande i matematik framträder vid nivågruppering. Den andra frågeställningen som denna studie svarar på är vilka faktorer för elevers lärande som spelar in vid nivågruppering i matematikundervisning. Detta har skett via en systematisk litteraturstudie där vetenskaplig forskning inhämtats för granskning och analys. Studiens resultat avslöjar att nivågruppering i matematik sällan gynnar elevers lärande generellt och oftast drabbar de lågpresterande elevernas lärande negativt. Resultatet indikerar också att dessa negativa effekter är en följd av skolornas bristande organisering av, och lärarnas inställning till, nivågruppering. / <p>Matematik</p>

Based in a sociocultural perspective the study aims at illustrating how teachers in mathematics perceive their possibilities of supporting students in mathematical difficulties and how their schools support the teaching practices to those pupils. The methodological approach is phenomenographic and data was collected in half structured interviews with ten professionals teaching mathematics to Swedish 13-16-year-old students from 10 different schools. The results show that, due to the heterogeneity in students’ achievements, teachers perceive the time a limiting factor to individualising and meeting the needs of every student. The findings also indicate that the designs of the schools’ supportive structures are governed by traditions and an individualistic perspective. Thus, ability grouping and supportive measures outside the classroom of ordinary teaching are common. However, the picture is dual. The interviewed teachers express a wish for inclusive teaching and teacher collaboration, promoting a common responsibility for a complex teaching situation. Yet, organisational obstacles and the schools’ scarce resources inhibit inclusion. Further, findings suggest that both the extent and forms of support provided to the mathematics teachers differ, ranging from almost non-existent to well-developed forms of collaborations in mathematics teams, co-teaching and supervision of special educators or head teachers in mathematics. Further training was the support teachers consistently found most important and demanded the most.

Studiens syfte var att få en inblick i bakomliggande faktorer till hur skolor i Sverige organiserar sin matematikundervisning. Vad och vem som påverkar vilken organisationsform som väljs, vilka föroch nackdelar rektor och speciallärare med specialisering mot matematikutveckling ser med den valda organisationen samt vilken roll speciallärare med specialisering mot matematikutveckling har i vald organisationsform. En enkät mailades till ansvariga på 1027 högstadieskolor med årskurs 7 - 9, kommunala skolor och friskolor i hela Sverige. Enkäten, som 214 respondenter svarade på, försåg oss med både kvantitativ och kvalitativ empiri vilken gav oss bakgrundsinformation till skolornas val av organisationsform i matematikundervisningen. Genom enkäten fick vi även kontaktuppgifter till 82 rektorer och på 32 av dessa skolor fanns även en speciallärare med inriktning mot matematikutveckling. De 8 rektorer som kontaktades gav oss en djupare inblick i studiens frågeställningar, även 5 speciallärare med specialisering mot matematikutveckling bidrog med kvalitativ empiri till studien. Studien visar att av de 214 skolor som svarat på enkäten har cirka 50 % helklassundervisning, knappt 20 % tvålärarskap, knappt 20 % parallellagd undervisning och drygt 10 % annan organisationsform av matematikundervisningen. Ett tydligt mönster som syntes var att oavsett vilken organisationsform skolorna angett satsar de extra resurser på att det ska finnas fler vuxna i matematikklassrummet, det kan vara ämneslärare, resursperson, speciallärare eller specialpedagog. Det förekommer även att elever delvis arbetar med matematik i liten grupp med ämneslärare eller speciallärare. Några skolor anger att de ger eleverna mer tid för matematik, det kan vara genom utökad timplan, matematik på elevens val eller matematiktillfälle utanför ordinarie skoldag. Alla insatserna har som mål att eleverna skall bli behöriga att söka till gymnasiet. / The purpose of the study was to get an insight in the factors behind how schools in Sweden are organising the teaching of mathematics. What and whom has made the overall decisions, and the advantages and disadvantages with the selected organisation in the perspective of the principal and the special needs coordinator and what part the special needs coordinator is playing in the selected organisation in teaching mathematics. A survey was emailed to the principal of 1027 secondary schools, both compulsory mainstream schools and independent schools in the whole of Sweden. Our survey gave us both quantitative and qualitative empirics regarding the reasons behind the selected form of organisation within mathematics and contact details to 82 of the participating principals and at 32 of these schools there was also a special needs coordinator focusing on mathematics development. The 8 principals who were contacted and the 5 special needs coordinators in mathematics provided deeper understanding to the questions of the study and increased the qualitative empirics .The study shows that out of the 214 replies from different schools approx 50% are teaching mathematics in a complete class of students with one responsible teacher, 20% are using two teacher system, 20% are timetabling classes in parallel and 10% in another or combined form of organisation. A clear pattern that we identified was that the schools regardless of the form of organisation all spent resources on adding extra staff during mathematics lessons, for example another subject teacher, teacher assistant or special needs coordinator. Some schools teach their students in smaller groups, others have extended the number of hours or made mathematics a pupils choice to increase the number of hours in mathematics. The overall aim for the efforts is to make all the students qualified for studies at sixth form.

The present study is concerned with selected factors that may strongly influence classroom teachers to refer young children for possible placement in special classes when the children are functioning near the borderline for placement on the basis of intelligence test scores. Particular attention was given to the contribution of student attributes (i.e., sex, ethnic background, socioeconomic status, and classroom behavior) and teacher attributes (i.e., age, sex, ethnic background and teaching experience) to the referral patterns of teachers. Also considered were the size of school enrollment, school locale, and interactions among student, teacher, and school variables. It was concluded that the teachers in the population studied responded to the case histories on the basis of certain selective biases. However, the relationship of these biases to referral decisions was less obvious and considerably more complex than has been suggested previously in the professional literature. At the same time, the presence of any bias in the referral process seemingly warrants careful consideration and points to the -need for greater emphasis in pre-service and in-service training programs upon the objective evaluation of students as an integral part of educational planning.

Researchers have examined the relationship between ability grouping and academic self-concept in math, science, and English, and have found varying results. However, previous studies have not examined the relationship between ability grouping and academic self-concept for the subject of Talmud. Middle school presents a unique opportunity to examine this relationship because middle school is when both ability grouping for Talmud and the study of Talmud begin. The purpose of this correlational study was to assess the relationship between ability grouping and the academic self-concept for Talmud in middle school students. The predictive relationship among individual academic achievement, school average achievement, and academic self-concept for Talmud was also examined. Two-hundred ninety-three 6th and 7th graders from single-gender, traditional Jewish Orthodox boy schools in a suburb of New York City completed a self-report questionnaire measuring academic self-concept for Talmud. The collected data were analyzed using analysis of variance and multiple regression analyses. According to the results of the study, students placed in the lower-ability grouping had a statistically significant lower academic self-concept for Talmud than did those in the middle- and higher-ability grouping. In addition, individual academic achievement was a predictive factor of academic self-concept for Talmud whereas school average achievement was not found to be a predictive factor in this particular study. By understanding the impact of ability grouping, school administrators can develop policies for class placement and can provide additional care to balance the effects of ability grouping for those middle school student negatively affected by placement.

<p>The purpose of this degree thesis is to investigate what the English teachers in an upper sec-ondary school, think about teaching students in ability grouped classrooms. The questions that I have set out to investigate include what the teachers think about ability grouping in English, the school’s current organisation of ability groups, the pros and cons of ability grouping in English, differentiation in teaching and if students get more individualized teaching with abil-ity groups, how the teachers cooperate and what would be the optimal teaching situation in an English learning classroom.</p><p>I did a lot of theoretical research on the subject and studied old essays on similar subjects. I also did some classroom observations to use as background information for my interviews. I interviewed five teachers of different sex, age, and teaching experience. The teachers clearly had different views on the pros and cons of ability grouping and how to deal with the stu-dents’ different levels of English. They all agreed on the advantages it creates for the teachers, the main advantages being the small groups and the students being on almost the same level. They also agreed on the difficulty of individualised teaching, even with ability groups. Most of them also agreed that the main problem with ability grouping is how to deal with the weak-est or most basic level. It’s important that they have good pedagogical teachers who want to teach them and know how to. It also leads to problems amongst the teachers, in deciding who should or wants to teach which group and how to teach on a certain level. The teachers all had different ideas on how to improve the organisation of English teaching, from small mixed groups or only two ability levels, to a rotation of teachers between the groups and the different areas of English. In conclusion, upper secondary students are used to different groups, since they have chosen not only schools, but programs and individual courses. If the goal is small groups in English, maybe ability grouping is a possible solution. But above all, it has to be a possibility for the students, not the teachers.</p>

The purpose of this degree thesis is to investigate what the English teachers in an upper sec-ondary school, think about teaching students in ability grouped classrooms. The questions that I have set out to investigate include what the teachers think about ability grouping in English, the school’s current organisation of ability groups, the pros and cons of ability grouping in English, differentiation in teaching and if students get more individualized teaching with abil-ity groups, how the teachers cooperate and what would be the optimal teaching situation in an English learning classroom. I did a lot of theoretical research on the subject and studied old essays on similar subjects. I also did some classroom observations to use as background information for my interviews. I interviewed five teachers of different sex, age, and teaching experience. The teachers clearly had different views on the pros and cons of ability grouping and how to deal with the stu-dents’ different levels of English. They all agreed on the advantages it creates for the teachers, the main advantages being the small groups and the students being on almost the same level. They also agreed on the difficulty of individualised teaching, even with ability groups. Most of them also agreed that the main problem with ability grouping is how to deal with the weak-est or most basic level. It’s important that they have good pedagogical teachers who want to teach them and know how to. It also leads to problems amongst the teachers, in deciding who should or wants to teach which group and how to teach on a certain level. The teachers all had different ideas on how to improve the organisation of English teaching, from small mixed groups or only two ability levels, to a rotation of teachers between the groups and the different areas of English. In conclusion, upper secondary students are used to different groups, since they have chosen not only schools, but programs and individual courses. If the goal is small groups in English, maybe ability grouping is a possible solution. But above all, it has to be a possibility for the students, not the teachers.

The central research question is the extent to which gifted programming affects student academic outcomes of gifted as compared to not-gifted students and how this differs by race/ethnicity and/or poverty status. Since the identification of elementary school students as gifted is not random, propensity score matching is used to remove this bias in the estimates of the effects. A matched sample of North Carolina middle school students based on individual level data of both gifted and not-gifted students of varied racial/ethnic groups and income levels is used for this analysis. This enables a comparison of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade student achievement to determine the extent to which participating in gifted programming differentiates effects by race/ethnicity and poverty status. I show the additional test score gain, if any, from being in gifted programming compared to students not participating in gifted programs. Variations in gifted program effects across race/ethnicity and income are assessed. This research adds empirical evidence to the more qualitatively focused gifted debate by analyzing differences in student outcomes between gifted and not-gifted students in North Carolina. Since black and lower income students are less likely to participate in gifted programs, they disproportionately encounter less experienced teachers, lower expectations, and fewer resources. The extent to which these additional learning supports translate to differences in student outcomes are analyzed.