published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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A Research Report submitted to the Wits School of Education, Faculty of Humanities, University of Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Education by combination of coursework and research. Johannesburg, March 2016 / Despite all events unfolding in space, mainstream research often overlooks the influence of space in teaching and learning. There is some research, however, showing how space makes various educational experiences available. This research adds to a growing body of spatial research in education. The research reconceptualised space in a grade 6 English classroom in order to explore ways of working with space. The research sought to understand (1) spatial relations in the classroom, (2) the redesign of space and (3) the experiences of living in a reconceptualised space. In this case study thirty one grade 6 learners and a teacher collaboratively redesigned their classroom space. Observations were recorded over a six week period. Four Community of Enquiries and interviews were conducted with participants. Using Lefebvre’s (1991) spatial theory and Foucault’s (1977) work on knowledge, power and discourse the data was analysed systematically paying special attention to learners perceptions and behaviours prior to and following the reconstitution. The findings show how relations between participants are governed by time and manifest in the spatial layout of the classroom. Prior to the reconstitution the normalisation of theft and strong gendered boundaries created antagonistic relations amongst participants. Learners also expressed a strong desire to belong in the classroom and the broader schooling community. Having reconstituted the space, space also reconstituted the participants. In the redesigned space learners’ agency and voice was amplified and the space became more conducive to learning. The benefits of the reconceptualisation were learners entering into stronger communal relations with peers and increased participation from learners and broader take up on the school of the grade 6 class’ ideas. The challenges of the reconceptualisation were the alienation of other grade 6 learners and teachers finding learners’ voice and increased agency more challenging to manage. Systematic work with space presents a range of insights into the social relations in classrooms that are often otherwise invisible. / MT2017

This study comprises three parts. First, to validate the Oral Individualized Classroom Environment Questionnaire (OICEQ) which is used to assess students perceptions of the learning environment in secondary chemistry classes in the U.S.A. The OICEQ is a modified version of the actual and preferred versions of the Individualized Classroom Environment Questionnaire (ICEQ) (Fraser, 1990). Second, to investigate associations between three types of science educational assessments; predictors of performance, perceptions of the classroom environment, and chemistry academic performance. Third, to address the following two questions:1. Are chaos and constructivism allies of adversaries to assessments (predictors, perceptions, and performance)?2. Is action research a valid process of evaluating a constructivist chemistry classroom (examining associations between chaos and constructivism)?A sample of 473 students from 21 chemistry classes took the Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT), the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Individualized Classroom Environment Questionnaire (OICEQ), pretests, post-tests, and final examinations. The statistical analyses confirmed the reliability and validity of the OICEQ and ICEQ when used with senior chemistry students. Investigation of associations between predictors, perceptions, and performances revealed 29 significant associations with OICEQ and 21 significant associations with the ICEQ. Findings from the study indicated that: (1) chaos is an adversary to social assessment and personal constructivism is an ally to personal assessment; (2) action research is a valid process for evaluating a constructivist chemistry classroom it is a unifying concept for constructivism, chaos, and assessment; (3) through an action research-constructivist process and a cyberchaos research perspective, the impact of a constructivist teaching paradigm and chaos ++ / distort the assessment of data in a chemistry classroom.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-219). Also available via the World Wide Web.

This essay is about classroom environment, what kind of impact it has on pupils’ learning, how to create a good classroom environment and how the style of leadership relates to the classroom environment. This is a qualitative study conducted by four informants. This essay is based on Lev Vygotiskijs perspective of the "sociocultural perspective", which is based on the theory that humans act upon their knowledge and experience, depending on the opportunities that the environment provides. The purpose of this study is to examine how three teachers, who teach younger ages, organize the environment in their classrooms. The goal of this study is to find out what the interviewed teachers perceive as good classroom environment. Also how the environment affects pupils’ learning and what the teachers keep in mind when they furnish their classrooms. Furthermore, to find out how the teachers reason about the relationship between the classroom environment and management style. The results show that the teachers’ experiences and the teachers’ views on the classroom environment did not vary much but I experienced the answers in a similar way. The result also show that all teachers’ are using the term definiteness and that the term should have a central role in teaching but the term humility also should be seen in the teaching.

This study was undertaken to determine if there is a correlation between teachers' and administrators' perceptions of educational setting and student reading achievement as measured by standardized achievement tests. A questionnaire, based on the Likert scale, was used to collect the data. Respondents indicated their degree of agreement or disagreement on a four-point scale with 30 statements designed to measure acceptance of the concept of open setting as opposed to a more traditional setting. A mean of each school's responses was calculated in order to facilitate comparison between school setting and student reading achievement. The school means were then arranged from the lowest number, or most traditional setting, to the higher number, or most open setting. The mean of these means was calculated to determine the dividing line between traditional and open settings. Those schools above the mean are considered to have a more open setting, those below the mean are considered to have a more traditional setting. Each school submitted its standardized achievement test scores for total reading for the past five years, 1975-1979. An extrapolation of the Anchor Test Study was used to convert the various reading test scores. This extrapolation involved the calculation of the average differences between grades four, five, and six for each of the tests covered by the Anchor Test Study. (The Anchor Test Study allows only for comparisons through the sixth grade.) This average difference was used in this study to reflect the average differences between grades six, seven, and eight on the reading tests submitted by the study schools. Next, a comparison was made between the converted reading test scores and the schools' setting. This comparison revealed no correlation between setting and reading achievement. A second analysis involved the calculation of a correlation coefficient between the schools' instrument mean and average percentile rank (converted to Z scores) on the reading achievement test used by the school. These percentiles were derived from the actual test given by the school and did not involve the Anchor Test Study extrapolation. A moderate positive correlation was found (r .2937) between open school setting and higher student reading achievement. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that educators help determine the factors that influence cognitive development. A review of the literature discussed both negative and positive effects of open setting relative to cognitive and affective learning. As this study has shown, there is at least a moderate positive correlation between a more open educational setting and better student reading achievement. Therefore, it is recommended that the affective aspects of the educational setting be enhanced.

My thesis is about educating through play. I have been playing, experimenting, thinking, and living my thesis for eight teaching years. At times insight has come with certainty and passion; more often, insight has not come, or it has been diluted or made problematic. I have read educational philosophy, and history, and psychology; I have experimented with evaluative models; I have tried product and process approaches. No matter how fancy the language that I use, no matter how simple and direct the models I create, no matter how intricate and accountable my evaluative strategies are, teaching and learning work best when the heart is at the centre of the enterprise. Becoming educated is learning how to love: to wonder, to question, to quest. Educating is about loving, about finding ways to bring people confidence, and hope, and openness. Play bridges the opposition between order/chaos. It helps me locate the generative, constructive forces in our schools. As a reader of this thesis, I invite you to become a play director. The stories told here do not live on the pages. They do not even really live in the spaces between text and active reader. The only way for these stories to live is if they're played to life through performance. I invite you to read these stories about writing, and community, and culture in the classroom as a producer would read a playscript. To that end, this thesis is presented in the form of a performance kit which contains theory on acting and directing, specific production strategies, the scripts themselves, and background information on the generation of these scripts. I believe that this extended metaphor—teacher as director, students as players, community as audience—can serve as a useful aid to bring play back to the multi-vocal theoretical literature of our discipline and to the stories enacted daily in our classrooms.

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