Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / This study focuses on the learning experiences of adult learners entering higher education for the first time. Based in the Department of Adult Education and Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Cape Town, it analyses the experiences of successful adult learners on the first year (1995) of a formal Certificate Programme in Adult Education, Training and Development. The study concludes that the ways in which contexts and learning relate is complex. We need to understand that it is at the intersection of the individual and the social that meaning is made and negotiated in learning. This understanding, it is argued, is crucial to better understand the relationship between access, learning and success - within but also across contexts. The implications of this are raised tentatively by looking at alternative approaches to curriculum development and teaching-learning processes.

There are many important factors that influence and even determine the work of middle and senior managers in the public and private sectors, NGOs, and international organizations such as the UN. Yet, despite this overall agreement, the study of ¿managerial effectiveness¿ has remained relatively neglected and unexplored particularly within the developing world. The present research explores the dimensions of the managerial effectiveness of middle and senior managers who work in the Education Programme of the UN Agency in Lebanon. These managers are dedicated to refugees and their children at primary and high schools, and vocational centers. In doing so this study has adopted the framework, ¿parameters of managerial effectiveness¿, developed by Analoui (1999) to explore and identify the factors and causal influences which form the basis for the effectiveness of these managers to develop policies and strategies for their increased effectiveness. The literature in the areas of development of management, management training and development, and recent works on managerial effectiveness confirm the importance of the parameters and interrelationship between them and the unique contextual factors, namely the personal, organizational and external factors. The Education Programme of the UNRWA in Lebanon provides a suitable case, and the middle and senior managers constitute the units of analysis. The entire cadre of senior and middle management (N= 132) were included in this first time study. The methodology adopted for collecting and generating relevant and adequate data was a combination of survey questionnaire, interviews and the use of secondary data available. The adoption of ¿triangulation¿ as a strategy yielded adequate and relevant data which was analyzed using statistical methods. The quantitative analysis was supported by qualitative data based on senior and middle managers¿ own perception of their effectiveness. The results, by and large, support Anloui¿s (1999; 2007) theory and led to the first time discovery of the eight parameters of the managerial effectiveness in UNRWA, Lebanon. The results revealed a myriad of factors and influences concerning the middle and senior managers¿ perception, managerial skills and competencies, organizations criteria for effectiveness, opportunities, demands and constraints involved, as well as the inter-organizational relationship and the dominant managerial philosophy of effectiveness. The study contributes to the literature on managerial effectiveness by contextualizing the model adopted thus contributing to this neglected field of managerial studies. It also provides the basis for the formulation of policies and strategies to improved and increase managerial effectiveness in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine, and the developing world as the whole where UN is actively operating to support refugees. Like any empirical investigation the study suffers from limitations which need to be considered in the future research in this field.

Cooperation between Vlastivědné museum in Nymburk and region's schools in the area of education Diploma work is divided into two parts. Theoretic part of work talkes about development cooperation museum and schools in the area of education children and teenagers in Czech republic from 2. halves 20. century to the presents. Next chapter is relates to Vlastivědné museum in Nymburk, for him are created educate programs in practical part of these diploma work . The chapter is presents history of Vlastivědné museum in Nymburk, inclusive familiarization with actual activities, his continual expositions and with offer of educate activities for schools and next interested persons. First part of work close current data theory of education and next museum activities, which affected conception created programmes in second parts diploma work. Practical part presents two educate programs created for Vlastivědné museum in Nymburk, inclusive take into account needs and aims of all of the three subject, for that are programs totalled - schools, museum and participants programmes. On the ground of roundness work and requierement special knowledge contentual pages programmes list second part diploma work also with history town - Nymburk, inclusive his most considerable memories respective to subject educational...

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Thesis (M. Tech. - Food Service Management, Dept. of Hospitality, Tourism and PR management)--Vaal University of Technology / Malnutrition amongst pre-school children age two-to-five-years is a growing world-wide concern. This is mainly due to poverty, diseases and inadequate dietary intake. Malnourished children are also a problem in South Africa. Pre-schools play an important role in the prevention of malnutrition because most young children consume about two thirds of their food and therefore their daily nutritional intake at the pre-schools. There are various factors that affect a child's nutrition in pre-schools, such as food choices, meal plans, the environment and the nutritional knowledge of the caregivers. Pre-schools can only fulfill this responsibility through the proper nutritional knowledge and training. The nutritional education and knowledge of food service assistants/caregivers are very important, because they compile the meal plans and menus for pre-schools. The objectives of this study were to evaluate a Nutrition Education Programme (NEP) to address the lack of nutritional knowledge of service assistants/caregivers who plan the menus in pre-schools in terms of existing menu content and food choices required for children between two to five years of age and by using the existing menus and food choices applied to make recommendations for nutritional skills training. Also in terms of basic nutrition, health and safety, to recommend more appropriate alternatives acceptable to children between two to five years of age. Lastly to integrate recommendations for nutritional skill training with regard to the alternative meal plan, eating habits and food choices for the menu through a NEP that would be implemented and evaluated. The study design was a combination of an exploratory and quantitative-descriptive research design in the form of a survey. A pilot study was used mainly to test the nutrition knowledge questionnaires for content validity. The study population of this research project was randomly selected pre-schools chosen from the Eatonside informal settlement. Procedures for data gathering and the different methods used for data analysis were divided into four phases. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the percentage of pre-schools who answered the questions correctly for selected nutrition knowledge, portion sizes questions and menu planning, as well as food safety and health. Paired t-tests were carried out to measure the statistically significant difference (pS0.05) before and after the implementation of the NEP. The results of the t-test indicate that only nine of the questions in the post-test questionnaire showed a confidence interval of the difference. There is statistical significance in these questions through either increase or decrease. It can be concluded that the Nutrition Education Programme (NEP) was successful, but that more training is needed due to the limitations experienced. The menu analysis tested the respondent's menus in terms of the average daily nutrient intake level given to the pre-school children. The data of the pre- and post-test menus were then compared to EAR in order to determine any change in the menus nutritional values after the NEP was completed. The results showed that there were differences in the post-test results that both decreased and increased.

The aim of the study is to investigate what happens when the experiences and conceptions of physical education (PE) student teachers encounter the value structures of a PE teacher education programme. The starting point for the study are the criticisms that the PE teacher education programme has inadequate links to science, that it finds it difficult to challenge traditional gender patterns, and that the students' experiences of their own sporting activities are more important than the education programme for what knowledge is considered valuable. The study has a cultural sociological and gender theoretical perspective. The analysis has been done with the help of Pierre Bourdieu's concepts as the tools of analysis. The empirical evidence has been collected with the help of several different methods. Quantitative data has been collected with the help of questionnaires which a total of 450 student teachers returned; qualitative data has been collected using: essays written by PE student teachers during their physical education specialisation and in-depth interviews with teacher educators. The results show that today's education is still characterised by many of the traditions, norms and values which historically have been its distinguishing features. The “rules of the game” are generally taken for granted and this is based on a shared conception in the value of the education. In the eyes of the students, the trademark of a good PE teacher is to be good at many different sports, have in-depth knowledge of human biology, and have the “right” personality. They are less interested in pedagogical issues and they would have preferred the whole course to have served them with ready-made solutions and answers. Even if gender and social issues have been part of the education, the gender habitus has changed very little during the programme. The way they see the subject is largely the same as it was before the course, but what appeared to them to be a ”pure” sports subject before the course started has afterwards become more a way of “attaining health through sport”. The study indicates that the dominating values within the PE teacher education seem to be in harmony with the students' habitus which make it difficult to challenge the ”order of things” and  that changes will take time.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the problem solving strategies, problem solving episodes, and metacognition of five Turkish students just graduated from elementary school and explore the interplay of these factors on their problem solving success in mathematics. The research data had been collected by clinical interviews and a self monitoring questionnaire followed by the interviews. Ten mathematical problems that participant students had worked on were selected among the released mathematical literacy items used in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003. The problem solving strategies used by participants were coded according to the descriptions given by Posamentier &amp / Krulik (1999). The cognitive-metacognitive problem solving framework developed by Artzt and Armour-Thomas (1992) has been used to observe the problem solving episodes of the participants. The coding system developed by Pappas et al. (2003) has been utilized to examine the major components of metacognition (mistake recognition, adaptability, awareness and expression of thought) of the participants. The self-monitoring questionnaire responses were analyzed to crosscheck the results obtained from the clinical interviews. The problem solving behaviors of the participants observed in the study confirmed their academic success levels. The study confirmed that the problem solving success is too complex to be clarified by a unique property or a behavior of the problem solver. The problem solving requires overcoming various obstacles to reach a successful result. Hence, not only the students should have the required mathematical knowledge and a good repertoire of different problem solving strategies, but also they should know when and how to use those strategies, and also they could monitor and regulate their problem solving processes using their metacognitive skills. So mathematics teachers should provide problems that require different problem solving strategies and encourage the students to explore new strategies, to take risks in trying and to discuss failures and successes with peers and teacher.

Diploma work is aimed at didactis of healtheducation at primary school. The first theoretic part is intent on analyse of bibliography. The attention is pay to subject matter of healtheducation. The characteristics of younger pupillage and characteristics of educational methods are components too. The second part is intent on comparasion of girls and boys and their acquirement of subject matter of healtheducation and comparasion of girls and boys and playing display games. Comparison was performed on questionnaire. Obtained data were percentage evaluationed. The elaboration of didactis of healtheducation at primary school is important part of second part.

This study was aimed at understanding how networking can enable or constrain professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in southern Africa in the context of the Course Development Network (CDN), a project of the Southern Africa Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme (SADC REEP). The study involved 12 institutions (each institution was represented in the CDN by a staff member) in eight SADC member states. It was contextualized through a review of social, political, environmental and educational developments in southern Africa, with specific reference to regionalization processes, as the SADC REEF is constituted under this post-colonial political framework. Relational philosophy informed the research process and methodology. The philosophy underpinned three distinct, yet related theoretical perspectives namely: critical realism, which provided the ontological perspectives of the study; Actor Network Theory; and Community of Practice, which provided the epistemological perspectives. Data was generated during a 33-month period in southern Africa and 12 months in the United Kingdom (and on a one week visit to Italy). During a 12 month Split Site Commonwealth Scholarship award, tenable at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, I studied the Environment and School Initiative (ENSI) and the Sustainability Education for European Primary Schools (SEEPS), to examine whether the same mechanisms that made them successful would apply to the CDN in the context of southern Africa. While these two case studies provided useful insight into the relationship between networking, professional development and institutionalization of environmental education programmes, they were not the main focus of the research. Data analysis was mainly through inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference. Inductive data analysis was done by means of Nvivo – a computer software package used for qualitative data analysis. The software aided in revealing features and relationships in the data in more depth as it allowed flexibility in working with data. Abduction is the interpretation of a phenomenon by means of a conceptual framework. In this study, I used Actor Network Theory (ANT) (Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Callon, 1986) and Community of Practice (COP) (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Fullan, 2003) as analytical conceptual frameworks to probe networking and professional development respectively. Data on institutionalisation of environmental education courses was analysed by means of retroductive mode of inference, which is a thought operation that enables the understanding of social reality beyond what is empirically observable or experienced. This study reveals that there were a number of necessary (internal) and contingent (external) factors that enabled or constrained networking, professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in the context of the CDN. The key factors included existing cultural capital, donor political economy, power relations, poverty related factors and social transformation trends. The study found that relational approaches and the use of three relational theoretical lenses provided a broader lens which enabled this study to identify different dynamics, greater ontological depth and understanding of the relational dynamics and relations at play in the CDN beyond the participants' experience and observable events. The study also contends that networking can provide a support structure for social transformation and change in environmental education.

Essa tese tem como objetivo verificar se um programa de formação continuada de curta duração, para professores, melhora o desempenho dos alunos do 3º ano do Ensino Fundamental, em relações numéricas, quanto à composição aditiva, ao raciocínio aditivo e ao raciocínio multiplicativo, e se esse desempenho é significativo a ponto de se manter por seis meses. A fundamentação teórica revisou o processo de desenvolvimento das habilidades e dos conceitos matemáticos iniciais, e a discussão a respeito dos saberes docentes. O método compreendeu um estudo teórico e correlacional de caráter quali-quantitativo. Foi realizada, também, análise documental da Avaliação em Larga Escala e da legislação relacionada. A parte de campo envolveu dois grupos experimentais A e B, e um grupo controle, constituídos por alunos do 3º ano do Ensino Fundamental, e um programa de formação continuada para os professores regentes dos grupos experimentais. A amostra correspondeu a 248 alunos e 16 professores. No grupo experimental A, foram 93 alunos e seis professores, que participaram da formação por convocação obrigatória. Já no grupo experimental B, o estudo envolveu 121 alunos, com oito professores que buscavam aperfeiçoamento profissional. No grupo controle, foram envolvidos 34 alunos, sendo que os dois professores não participaram da formação. Partimos da coleta de informações sobre o nível conceitual dos alunos e, em função de tal nível, foi planejado o programa de formação continuada. Um bloco com dez questões foi aplicado aos alunos, em três momentos distintos: como pré-teste, antes da formação; como pós-teste 1, logo após o término da formação; e como pós-teste 2, seis meses depois. Para os professores dos grupos experimentais, foram aplicados dois questionários e uma ficha de autoavaliação. No programa de formação continuada, foram realizadas duas palestras e oito oficinas. Os resultados da ANOVA indicam diferença significativa do desempenho dos alunos. O grupo experimental B registrou maior impacto no desempenho dos alunos e maior percentual de utilização das estratégias econômicas, com uso de cálculos numéricos, na resolução das situações-problema. Os alunos do grupo controle utilizaram estratégias iniciais/simples em todos os blocos aplicados. A aprendizagem manteve-se, por seis meses, em ambos os grupos. Nas considerações finais, analisamos a formação continuada como uma oportunidade para os professores construírem saberes sobre os conceitos matemáticos iniciais, mas a eficácia depende diretamente da concepção dos professores sobre a formação continuada, do seu comprometimento com a aprendizagem e do trabalho a partir do nível conceitual dos alunos. / The primary aim of this thesis is to analyse whether a short-term continued education programme designed to qualify teachers helps to improve third graders’ performance regarding number relations: additive composition and reasoning, and multiplicative reasoning and if any such improvement is maintained after six months. The theoretical review includes the development of the early mathematical skills and concepts, the strategies used to solve problems, the concept of early evidence-based teaching, the project “Ensinar é Construir” (Teaching is Building – NUNES et al., 2009), the Brazilian legislation concerning the guidelines for continued education and teacher qualification. Based on the concept of evidence-based teaching, information regarding the conceptual level of learners was gathered and, from this starting point, the continued education programme was planned. The method contemplated a correlational study of a quantitative scope for both the experimental groups (A and B) and the control group, which were comprised of third graders, and a continued education programme for the teachers of the experimental groups. Pre- and post-tests were applied to the students. The participating teachers were interviewed and completed a selfassessment form. The test applied to the students comprised ten questions, one per page, as follows: two additive composition questions; six additive reasoning problems, two simple problems regarding the relationship between the parts and the whole, two inverted problems regarding the relationship part-whole, and two problems of comparison; and two multiplicative reasoning questions. The results in the pre-test, applied in the first quarter of 2011, were used as a guideline for the organization of the continued education programme. The same test was reapplied as a post-test 1 after the continued education programme, and as post-test 2 six months later. The 14 teachers who participated in the continued education programme were divided into two groups A and B. Group A was made up of teachers obliged to participate and group B by teachers seeking professional development. The sample consisted of 248 students allocated into three groups according to the status of the teacher, obliged or voluntary participation: 93 students in experimental group A and 121 in experimental group B. The control group consisted of 34 students whose teachers did not participate in the continued education programme. Most of the students improved the process of learning the early Mathematical concepts. During the meetings of the continued education programme, theoretical and practical activities were undertaken. ANOVA showed there was a significant improvement in the results achieved by the students in experimental group B who also showed the highest percentage of economic strategy use in the post-test. The control group used uneconomic strategies, such as counting, to solve both pre- and post-test problems. Learning remained the same in both the control and experimental groups for six months. The study concludes that the continued education programme had a statistically significant influence on the performance and in the progress of the strategies used in problemsolving situations with additive composition, additive and multiplicative reasoning in the experimental group B, whose teachers participated of the continued education programme in search of professional development.