This study aimed to explore teachers&rsquo / conceptions of critical thinking and practices for critical thinking development in Turkish, social studies, science and technology and mathematics courses at seventh grade level. The study was conducted with a phenomenological approach in which 70 teachers from 14 elementary schools in Ankara participated. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with teachers. The findings of the study revealed that there were cognitive skills, dispositions and criteria that teachers perceived to relate to critical thinking. The results also shed light on teachers&rsquo / perceptions on the acquisition of critical thinking, the roles that they assumed in the process of enhancing students&rsquo / critical thinking, teaching approaches they held with regard to the enhancement of students&rsquo / critical thinking, and the conditions that they deemed necessary to develop critical thinking in class. Moreover, teachers&rsquo / planning for the integration of critical thinking into their instruction revealed the limitations of the programs in teaching for critical thinking and the alterations that they made to eliminate these limitations and set the stage for students to think critically. In addition, teachers&rsquo / practices for the incorporation of critical thinking into instruction at seventh grade level illuminated instructional strategies that teachers used, in-class activities that they conducted, and assignments that they gave to students for the purpose of fostering their critical thinking. Furthermore, perceptions on teachers&rsquo / assessment of students&rsquo / critical thinking provided insight into the instruments that teachers used in the assessment of students&rsquo / critical thinking, the kind of critical thinking skills and dispositions that they aimed to assess, their perceptions on criteria by which they judged students&rsquo / critical thinking, and reasons behind any reservations about the assessment of students&rsquo / critical thinking. Besides, teachers&rsquo / perceptions on obstacles to and opportunities for the development of students&rsquo / critical thinking helped to identify the factors that inhibited or fostered their ability to focus on critical thinking skills in their classes. Finally, it should be noted that with regard to all the aforementioned issues, discipline-specific categories, as well as the categories across all four disciplines, emerged.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka vilka föreställningar om våld i nära relationer som socialsekreterare på olika enheter inom Socialtjänsten ger uttryck för samt hur deras handlingsutrymme kan tänkas påverkas av dessa föreställningar. Syftet besvarades genom två fokusgruppsintervjuer med socialsekreterare inom Socialtjänsten. I resultatet framkom att män oftast förknippas med våldsutövande och kvinnor med våldsutsatthet.  Mäns våld uppfattas allvarligare än kvinnors våld och våld i samkönade nära relationer vilket kopplades samman med könsstereotypa föreställningar. Hjälpen till våldsutsatta kvinnor uttrycks bestå i att hon ska lämna mannen och motiveras till detta. Det framkom också föreställningar om att våldsutövare inte vill ha hjälp och att motivera våldsutövare inte ansågs lika viktigt som att motivera kvinnliga offer. En viktig slutsats i studien har varit att de föreställningar Socialsekreterare bär på är betydelsefulla i förståelsen om vem som är offer respektive förövare samt att arbetet med våldsutövare bör lyftas och utvecklas för att förbättras. / Conceptions about domestic violence – who are the victim, who are the perpetrator?   The purpose of this study was to investigate the conceptions social worker, in various units, have of domestic violence, and how their capabilities can be affected by these beliefs. The purpose is answered by two focus group interviews with social workers in Social services. The result showed that men most often associated with the use of violence and women's vulnerability to violence. Men's violence is perceived more severe than women's violence and violence in same-sex intimate relationships, which were connected to gender stereotypes. Help for abused women according to the social workers expression is that she should leave the man, and as a social worker justify that action. It also emerged that aggressors do not want help and to motivate aggressors were not considered as important as to justify female victims. An important conclusion of the study was that the conceptions social worker has are important for the understanding of who are the victims and perpetrators, and the work with perpetrators of violence should emphasize and develops to improve.

Over the past decade over 600M in funding has been devoted to bringing about reform in science education, but little is known about who is implementing reform, the extent of reform implementation and how educational contexts differentially impact reform innovations. This dissertation explores the results of the Multi-Initiative Dissemination Project (MID Project), a national curriculum reform program that was designed to propagate reform pedagogy among undergraduate chemistry faculty in faculty development workshops. We analyzed data from surveys, in-class observations and faculty interviews to explore the relationships between the participant faculty demographic features and their pedagogy and teaching philosophy before and following exposure to the workshops. We found interesting demographic characteristics that distinguish the participant faculty from the academic chemistry faculty responding to the ACS 2000 census. Also, our study uncovered relationships between the participants' demographic features and their conceptions of teaching and practices that may mediate the impact of pedagogical interventions such as curriculum reform workshops. This dissertation describes these relationships and their implications for policies supporting reform efforts

The aim of this thesis was to construct undergraduate chemistry students’ conceptions of enthalpy and its change, internal energy and its change, heat and work. Conceptions make it possible to identify students’ problems with the taught content. How students’ exam results are affected by qualitative/conceptual questions was also investigated. Two chemistry teachers in both secondary school and higher education participated in the first study. Thereafter, three empirical studies with undergraduate students were done, including a total number of 64, 22 and 10 participants. Methods and tasks from chemistry education research were used and new tasks were developed during the research process. Answers to questionnaires, hand-ins, exams and interview transcripts were analyzed qualitatively. The constructed conceptions were descriptive categories divided into two types, the underlying and the logical. Nine conceptions were constructed. Students expressed enthalpy change as heat at constant pressure like a mantra, since their responses to specific issues contradicted the explicitly used definition. An artifact was necessary to identify work and expansion work and technical work were primarily described as functions of volume. Enthalpy and enthalpy change were considered as a form of energy or as interchangeable. Students argued that enthalpy change and heat were the same, since the reactions were the same, regardless of constant pressure or constant volume. Enthalpy change was heat when no work was done. One possible explanation was that students argued that ΔU was the energy transferred as heat. Students’ interpretations of the tasks clarified that tasks can be further developed. On three of four exams students succeeded better when the qualitative/conceptual questions were excluded. The sample size affected the t-tests and only one result was significant. Implications for teaching and research are given. / Syftet med avhandlingen var att konstruera kemistudenters föreställningar om entalpi och dess förändring, inre energi och dess förändring samt värme och arbete. Föreställningar gör det möjligt att identifiera problemområden då ämnesinnehållet undervisas. Hur studenternas resultat på tentamen påverkades av att kvalitativa/konceptuella frågor inkluderades, undersöks också. En studie med två kemilärare på både gymnasiet och inom högre utbildning samt tre studier med totalt 64, 22 och 10 kemistudenter, på olika utbildningsnivåer inom högre utbildning, utfördes. Metoder och uppgifter från ämnesdidaktisk forskning användes och nya uppgifter utvecklades under forskningsprocessen. Svar på enkät-, inlämnings- och tentamensuppgifter samt intervjutranskript analyserades kvalitativt. Föreställningarna som konstruerades var beskrivande kategorier som delats in i två grupper, de underliggande och de logiska föreställningarna. Resultatet visade att studenterna uttryckte att entalpiförändringen är värme vid konstant tryck. Det var likt ett mantra eftersom de samtidigt bortsåg från uttrycket i resten av sina svar. För att arbete ska identifieras krävdes en artefakt och när tryckvolymarbete samt tekniskt arbete beskrevs var det primärt som en funktion av volymen. Entalpi och entalpiförändring tillämpades av studenterna som en energiform eller så var innebörden av begreppen densamma. Studenterna beskrev att samma reaktion ger samma entalpiförändring och värme oberoende av konstant tryck och volym. Vidare beskrevs entalpiförändringen som värmet när inget arbete sker. En möjlig förklaring var att studenterna argumenterade att ΔU var energiöverföringen som värme. Studenternas tolkningar av frågorna tydliggör att frågorna fortfarande kan utvecklas. På tre av fyra tentamina lyckades studenterna bättre när de kvalitativa/konceptuella frågorna exkluderades. t-testen utfördes på gränsen till sitt giltighetsområde och endast ett resultat var signifikant. Även om entalpi och dess förändring är viktiga inom teoribildningen visade empirin att studenterna inte kände till syftet med att införa begreppen i teoribildningen. Implikationer för undervisning och forskning ges.

Mon mémoire porte sur la conception et l'analyse de situations de travaux pratiques innovantes guidées par un Environnement Informatique pour l'Apprentissage Humain. Nous voulons en particulier clarifier le rôle des représentations symboliques personnelles dans les apprentissages en T.P. de Sciences de la Vie et de la Terre, quand ils sont produits par les élèves à l'aide d'un EIAH. Il s'agit de proposer un modèle qui étaye l'idée que les productions cognitives qu'ils élaborent durant les différentes étapes que comportent un T.P. aident les élèves à donner du sens aux activités expérimentales.

Cette note de synthèse pour une Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches présente une modélisation épistémologique de l'activité de définition en mathématiques, en explicitant la dialectique entre définition et preuve. Et cela, bien sûr, dans une perspective didactique, en vue de concevoir, analyser et transmettre des situations de construction de définitions. La première partie présente l'objet d'étude et la méthodologie. Une analyse critique des travaux de recherche internationaux en didactique sur l'étude l'activité de définition en mathématiques est présentée en deuxième partie. Sont soulignés en particulier les points de convergence et de tension, ainsi que les manques - épistémologiques et didactiques - sur la question. La troisième partie présente une modélisation épistémologique de référence de l'activité de définition en mathématiques, activité en dialectique avec la preuve, en prenant appui sur des expérimentations (niveaux secondaire et supérieur), et des entretiens avec des mathématiciens. Différents cadres théoriques issus de la didactique des mathématiques et des mathématiques sont sollicités. La quatrième et dernière partie aborde de nouvelles perspectives de recherche à trois niveaux (épistémologique, théorique, et didactique).

Abstract In this master´s thesis I primarily investigate librarians´ and teachers´ conceptions of collaboration between libraries and schools and their conceptions of childrens´reading. Secondary I investigate the contents of laws concerning libraries and schools and also the school curriculums concerning the subject field of the Swedish language. My theoretical point of departure is that of social constructionism. I use two models in my analysis. One is a model of collaboration created by Patricia Montiel-Overall, called TLC (Teacher Librarian Collaboration), which grades collaboration from the lowest level (A) to the highest (D). The other model is created by Staffan Thorsson and is a model for understanding different kinds of reading strategies. I chose to study one public library and one elementary school. At the public library I interviewed the manager, the children´s librarian and the literature pedagogue. At the elementary school I interviewed the headmaster, two teachers who are teaching the Swedish language (one junior-level teacher and one senior-level teacher) and the school librarian. I used a hermeneutical method when I analyzed both my interviews and the laws and curriculums mentioned above. In my analysis I discovered all levels of collaboration, except for the highest one (D). Everyone, except for the school librarian, seemed more or less content with the lower degrees of collaboration. The teachers´ perceptions of the librarians were quite traditional. Even though all of the librarians had previous teaching experience and education they were not seen as pedagogues by the teachers. Especially in the case of the school librarian this became a problem, because it seemed to inhibit a development of the collaboration between them. In the laws and curriculums that I looked into collaboration between schools and libraries were never mentioned. The reading promotion seemed to be based on two strategies: pragmatical and emancipatorical. The pragmatical strategy led to looking at children as “becomings”, the emancipatorical one led to looking at children as “beings”.

Redan i små barns vardag, kan en traditionell genussyn observeras i exempelvis leksaks- och klädaffärernas kategorisering av ”flick- och pojkprodukter”. En kategori-sering som jag anser kan styra in barnen i den konstruerade bilden av hur man är, och därmed ska ”göra”, sitt kön. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka tre förskole-avdelningars barnlitteratur, som barn i åldrarna ett till tre år har tillgång till, ur ett genusperspektiv. Studien syftade även till att ta reda på hur förskollärare från respektive avdelning ser på och uppfattar den barnlitteratur som de använder sig av i sitt arbete med barn.Studien utgick från en i huvudsak kvalitativ metod där tre olika datainsamlingsverktyg användes för att samla in underlag till studien: fotografering av barnlitteratur, en översiktlig litteraturanalys av barnlitteratur samt kvalitativa intervjuer med förskol-lärare.Resultatet visade att de undersökta förskoleavdelningarnas bokutbud har dubbelt så många böcker om manliga karaktärer än om kvinnliga karaktärer. Dessa karaktärer skildras utifrån ett könstraditionellt perspektiv vilket på olika sätt förstärker den manliga dominansen. När det gäller förskollärarnas uppfattningar om barnlitteraturens betydelse och innebörd visade det sig att deras utsagor kännetecknas av ett dubbelt budskap där deras verbala medvetenhet inte praktiseras i deras handlingar, vare sig när det gäller val av barnlitteratur eller användning av barnlitteratur. / Already in the everyday of children, a traditional view of gender can be identified. For example how toys and clothing stores’ categorize products for girls respective boys. A categorization that I consider may direct children into the constructed picture of how one is, and therefore “does”, its gender. This essay aimed to investigate the selection of children’s literature at three pre-schools, that children between the ages of one and three, from a gender perspective. The purpose with this essay was also to find out how pre-school teachers, from each pre-school, comprehend the children’s literature that they use in their line of work.The essay is based mainly on a qualitative study that used three different types of methods to collect data as the study’s foundation: photography of children’s literature, a general literature analysis of children’s literature and qualitative interviews with pre-school teachers.The result showed that the book selections of the investigated pre-schools had double the amount of books about male characters than about female characters. These characters are portrayed from a stereotypical gender perspective that, in different ways, reinforces the male dominance. The result that pertains the pre-school teachers’ comprehensions of the importance and significance of children’s literature in pre-schools showed that their statements are characterized by a double message. A message where their verbal awareness does not show in their actions, not in the way they select children’s literature nor in the way they use children’s literature.

This thesis examines the potential of a learning outcome-led model of curriculum design to influence how students perceive learning in education studies within a modular context of a new university. It identifies and compares the conceptions of learning held by students and lecturers on traditional and outcome-led modules, and it explores and specifies the design factors which shape these conceptions. The issue is located within the interpretivist paradigm for the research seeks understanding which derives from the perceptions, attitudes and beliefs that students and their lecturers hold about learning in a given context. But the methodology employed is not wholly consistent with this paradigm, for a qualitative approach is complemented by the use of factor analysis techniques to facilitate the identification of the design features which influence how students perceive learning. The approach is thus eclectic drawing on quantitative methods to examine what is essentially qualitative data. An innovative model of learning outcome-led design is proposed, implemented and modified as a result of the research. The learner is placed at the centre of the learning experience which is defined as incorporating three domains: the teaching context; the assessment régime; and the directed learning undertaken by students outside of taught sessions. The model incorporates a trichotomy of outcomes which define the subject -specific, the transferable skills and the generic academic outcomes which influence directly both the content and process of learning, and which successful students are expected to achieve on completion of a module. The findings show that five design features influence how students perceive learning: the clarity of expectations; congruence between the content and process of each domain of the learning experience; direction in respect to the learning activities which should be undertaken in each domain to achieve the outcomes; and the content and process of the teaching context. The data suggest that a much higher profile should be given to metacognitive skills in curriculum development in HE because how students perceive both the process and the content of learning profoundly influences their conception of learning and, consistent with the underpinning theory, how they approach learning and therefore ultimately the kind of outcomes they achieve. The research leads to recommendations for the modification of the three models of learning in context; Ramsden (1988), Biggs (1990b) and Prosser (1995), which are presented and analysed in the thesis. The findings suggest that the learning experience should be redefined to specify the three domains - the teaching context, assessment régime and directed learning - and that clarity of expectations, metacognitive skills and congruence between the content and process of learning in each of the domains should be articulated as directly influencing students' conceptions of learning. The models should also seek to indicate that learning outcomes influence how students perceive learning, and that therefore they feature both at the starting point and as the end product of a contextualised learning process. The findings relating to students' conceptions of learning show that the study of outcome-led modules has resulted in a much greater degree of congruence between how lecturers and students perceive learning in a given module and that fewer students studying outcome-led modules hold a quantitative conception of learning. This suggests that the outcome-led model does have the potential to improve teaching and learning and consequently that there is an educational rationale for curriculum development premised on this model.

This study details a phenomenographic and grounded theory investigation aimed at generating new knowledge of an under-researched area, namely that of parental choice of early childhood education and care services. Given the complexity and range of choice of early childhood services, and the diversity of family situations, research eliciting parent conceptions of their choices of early childhood services is both necessary and timely. Findings from this study may be used to inform early childhood professionals by expanding their awareness of the variation that exists in the way that parents conceptualise early childhood services and make choices for young children. This study addresses both the dilemmas of individual parents in conceptualising and choosing services for their children and the implications of their individual decisions in aggregate. Single in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 parents from the local area of Boyne Island, Central Queensland, Australia. The sample of parents comprised mothers only, although mothers and fathers were invited initially to join the study. The parents were drawn from the four local early childhood education and care (ECEC) services that operate in this area. In the first stage of the analysis, a phenomenographic framework was used to develop an outcome space to describe the eight parent conceptions of ECEC services. These categories describe the way parents see ECEC services as: Demographically convenient, Safe, secure and hygienic, Providing a routine, Caring and nurturing, Having trained and qualified staff, Valuing parents and keeping them informed, Preparing for further learning, Providing socialisation. These eight categories of description are understood and distinguished in terms of three dimensions, those being physical, personnel and personal. The physical dimension refers to the location and availability of services catering to the needs of the family. The personnel dimension refers to how ECEC services are judged according to the personnel who work within that environment. The personal dimension refers to how the ECEC service is judged according to how the individual children and their family are catered for and responded to within the environment. In the second stage of analysis, an orthodox grounded theory approach was used to explore how parents understood their choice of ECEC services for their young children. This later analysis found that parent choice is influenced by: Relationship with child; Influence of significant others; Understandings of childhood; Maximising the child's potential. The grounded theory that developed as a result of this stage of analysis was that parents make complex and pragmatic choices within social contexts. An understanding of the relationships between parent conceptions and the influences that they consider when choosing ECEC services was used to develop a model. This model demonstrates the complexities of choice of service juxtaposed with parent conceptions of ECEC services. Tensions for parents and their choice of service arose when their conceptions of ECEC services were compromised. Therefore, central to the model presented is the understanding that the ECEC services were located within a specific societal context and as such, any one, or combination of, the dimensions of conceptions of service, impact upon choice.