Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-132). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Not available / text

Not available / text

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The aim of this study has been to get a better knowledge and understanding of the way teachers are working with reading comprehension in the grades 1 and 2, which was done through description of 5 teachers way of working. The theoretical basis of this study grounds in the sociocultural perspective. I based my study on Vygotsky’s theory which claims that strategies transferred from adults to children through social interaction get internalised and then used independently. I have also made use of several theories that specifically deal with reading comprehension that allowed me to identify this area of teaching as a complex one, consisting of several elements. In order to understand a text on a deeper level a reader has to be able to infer, or read between the lines. In order to be able to develop their comprehension to this level pupils need to be educated in that. Methodologically this is a qualitative study based on interviews with five teachers, three of them work as teachers at the elementary school, and two – as teachers for pupils with special needs. All of the respondents work in three different schools in Stockholm area. The result of this study shows that almost all of the teachers interviewed work with different elements that reading comprehension consists of. Only one teacher works actively to give pupils an idea of reading comprehension on a deeper level.

South Africa’s Apartheid legislation divided ‘races’ and ultimately dictated interactions between people. Post-Apartheid children have been born into a society that focuses on the importance of tolerance, diversity and interaction across ‘race’ lines. The schooling system is one such platform that may encourage interaction among children. This study explores the patterns that emerge in the interaction between children of different ‘races’. Ethnographic observation using schedules of interaction was used to investigate patterns of interaction. To focus the observation, a sample of seven ‘Indian’ children, aged between 9-10 years were observed, paying particular attention to their interactions with children around them in various contexts such as structured/formal lessons, unstructured lessons and free time. The research data was then qualitatively analysed using ethnographic descriptions and content analysis. The study found that patterns of (de) racialised interaction between children are affected by: 1) the degree of structure in the context; 2) Gender; 3) Language. Authority figures can facilitate interaction by organising the space in particular ways, increasing cooperation between children on particular tasks. However, most interaction across ‘races’ occurs in unstructured lessons. The form of boys play tends to be physical and facilitates collective play without respect to ‘race’. Girls play in more dependent on talk and given that the children in the study speak different mother tongues, this leads to separate groups forming during playtime. The results of this study also highlight the importance of a renewed focus on contexts, activities and a revisit to the multilingual schools policy to ensure that opportunities for interaction between ‘race’ lines are increased and all barriers to interaction are reduced. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

The purpose of this study was to describe students' perceptions of their classroom in which HyperCard is used and to compare it to a non-HyperCard environment in which no HyperCard is or has been used. The participants were 67 fifth-grade students from four intact classrooms from the same school in a large, urban, midwestern city.A non-randomized control-group versus treatment group design was used. In this design preassembled groups were selected and given an environmental perception instrument and then compared for similarity on the five dependent measures: cohesiveness, friction, difficulty, satisfaction, and competitiveness.Specifically, the statistical design was a two factor MANOVA examining each of two levels (classroom type and gender), and five dependent measures corresponding to the five scales of the Mv Class Inventory, (MCI). Eleven null hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance.In this study, students' perceptions of the non-HyperCard utilizing classroom learning environments were compared to classroom environments utilizing HyperCard. Four fifth-grade classrooms were examined: two classrooms utilizing HyperCard and two non-HyperCard classrooms.The following results were reported:1. Multivariate tests of significance for Sex by Group effect found no interaction (p. = .274) Multivariate Analysis (MANOVA) of the differences between boys and girls as measured jointly on the subscales of the found no significant differences (with F [5,59] = .91, p = .483).2. Multivariate tests of the differences between groups, as measured jointly on the subscales of the MCI, found significant differences (with F [5,59] = 5.34, p - .000).The researcher concluded that HyperCard classrooms present new and more difficult challenges that are not addressed in similar and familiar ways.Recommendations for further research included longitudinal studies that would ascertain how students' perceptions of their classroom environment change over a period of time. Additional research might examine the effects a more time-intensive HyperCard program has on students' perceptions of their environment. / Department of Elementary Education