Recent legislative changes have extended the age range of young people with which educational psychologists (EPs) work, to between the ages of 0 and 25, raising the potential for collaborative work between EPs and further education (FE) colleges. One potential area is in supporting young people with literacy difficulties, however, little is known about the viewpoints and practices that exist within FE colleges. This study employs a case study design in exploring the perceptions of literacy difficulties and their assessment among a small group of participants within a learning support department of a FE college, and also within an assessment centre who had a working relationship with the college. Transcripts are analysed using thematic analysis. Processes in the college related to assessment of literacy difficulties are also outlined. General findings included the prevalence of the use of the term dyslexia, and similarities and differences in the way the term was constructed, as well as the impact of literacy difficulties and perceptions of the nature of support that is required. The implications of these findings for EPs, particularly in relation to EP-FE college collaboration are discussed, along with ideas for future research.

There has been a significant shift in initial teacher training (ITT) and teachers’ professional development (PD) to include masters level (M level) study in recent years in England and this research investigates aspirations for the M level teaching profession, providing a rationale for the M level Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), a masters level profession and the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL) and providing the perceptions of key stakeholders. Although these initiatives represented a major shift in the training and development of teachers, only limited consideration has been given to these areas, despite the plethora of research regarding ITT and teachers’ PD. Findings suggest that HEIs superimposed their own rationale for these initiatives, in addition to the imposed rationale. Findings also indicate that universities consider M level ITT and PD to have many benefits, but there was much scepticism regarding the MTL. Furthermore, although trainees and newly qualified teachers (NQTs) were positive about M level study in principle, especially when there was an element of choice, they were sceptical regarding its benefits to practice and considered M level to be more important later in their careers, due to their more immediate concerns to meet statutory professional requirements.

An analysis of decay of educational attainments among adolescents after leaving school.

The addition of the 19-25 age range in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice (2014) presents wide scale change in the post 16 education landscape. Organisational change is a well-established field of psychology and research suggests that the effective management of change is key to effect practice. Within a critical realist paradigm, this research employs a case study design to explore the views of professionals implementing Special Educational Needs and Disability policy reform. Qualitative semi-structured interview data was analysed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke (2006)). Implications for the Educational Psychology Service and central and local government are proposed, which take into account both supportive factors and potential constraints of implementing policy reform.

An educational psychology thesis analysing technical and artistic abilities of pupils selected for technical education. Attempting to bridge the gap between the designer and the psychologist, the author makes a psychometric study of architectural and engineering drawing. Draftsmanship calls for practical intelligence. The draftsman needs, above all, the ability to think in-terms of space. He must be able to think in solid and to transfer an object from three to two dimensions and vice versa. Artistic ability does not play an important part in draftsmanship at the early stage of training.

This study explores the impact on young people of experiencing a period of being 'not in employment, education or training' (NEET). The literature emphasises the risks, disadvantages and negative long-term outcomes associated with becoming and being NEET. There is relatively little research on positive factors that enable young people to cope with and move on from this experience. The study uses concepts from self determination theory (SDT - Deci and Ryan, 1985), a lifespan perspective (Bynner, 2005; Arnett, 2006), and eco-systemic theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 2001) to help to understand the experiences of the young people. Nine young people aged between seventeen and twenty-four who had experienced a period of 'NEET' but who were now in education or employment, were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. Four professionals involved locally with young people in an educational, training or work capacity were also interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to examine the data. Despite in many cases having experienced significant difficulties in their lives, most of the young people expressed optimism and confidence about their future. Key supportive factors in managing the experience of being NEET were the young people's inner resources and help from significant others. The young people identified that they needed more preparation and advice to equip them for adult life, both before and after leaving school. Links are made with the core concepts from SDT of autonomy, competence and relatedness. The implications for schools and support agencies are discussed.

This study re-presents an open-ended process of coming to know through designing, conducting and analysing an action research project with youth and adult education teachers in Khartoum, Sudan. The inquiry responds to the overarching question: What knowledge can I generate about teaching, its development and my researcher practice through collaborative action research with teachers in Sudanese youth and adult education schools? This multifaceted focus encompasses reconnaissance into teaching practices and adult education, the processes of action research and teacher development and reflexive analysis of epistemological positioning and knowledge construction through our collaborative investigation. The action research forms the substantive basis of this thesis, constituting diverse processes of coming to know by the participating teachers and myself. Our interactions as practitioners and researchers interrogated the teachers' contextualised, practical knowledge through academic mechanisms of data collection and analysis. The teachers reflected upon their taken-for-granted understandings of education, their school contexts and their practice, and re-cast them as more complex. Participation in the study resulted in the teachers becoming ‘learners-focused' by developing greater focus on their practice, by being mufetih (observant and analytical), by being close to learners and by increased experimentalism. These dispositions were combined with a shift in the teachers' epistemological positions towards ‘authoritative uncertainty', in which partial, contextualised and contingent knowledge was recognised as legitimate, facilitating re-construction of their knowledge to develop their practice. In this narrative account, the field research is framed by my evolving theoretical understandings which informed the design, analysis and re-presentation of the study. An autobiographical introduction to my experience in Sudan outlines my nascent professional stance towards education development. I then explore my increasingly critical understanding of research on teachers and pedagogy in Africa and discourse on education quality in low-income countries. I discuss the formation of my specific researcher identity through postcolonial theorisation of my ethical stance towards making a difference in the field of practice, namely Sudanese schools. In this thesis, layered re-viewing, which derives from an epistemological stance of the partiality and contingency of knowledge, facilitates re-presentation of moments in which understanding is challenged and re-formed by theorisation and experience. Re-viewing literature and theoretical analyses brings new epistemological, ontological and ethical understandings, as my focus on ‘the practical' in field research has been supplemented in the post-fieldwork period by ‘the practical' in the academy, a contested domain of knowledge production. To conclude this thesis, the position of ‘authoritative uncertainty' is applied in the reflexive deconstruction of the study, as the action research process and outcomes are re-viewed through postcolonial and feminist theories to unpick the situated complexities of cross-cultural practitioner research and its representation. While coming to know is a continuous process, its representation in this thesis reaches an arbitrary conclusion by proposing how coming to know teaching practices, action research processes and reflexive researcher analysis might bring new perspectives to academic and policy initiatives for teacher development.

Higher education has expanded in many countries, including Ghana. This is attributed to the realisation that economies can only be developed and sustained through the development of human and knowledge capital, which is obtainable through higher education participation. Consequently, higher education institutions in Ghana have experienced some diversity and heterogeneity in their composition in terms of participants' ages, socio-economic status, culture and gender, among others. However, it is important to ask how different groups of students fare once entered. A recent ESRC/DFID research project by Morley et al (2010) found that mature students are most at risk of dropping out of higher education. Yet, the experiences of mature students are under researched in Ghana. My study employed the interpretive qualitative research approach to examine life narratives via interviews with eight mature undergraduate women from different socio-economic backgrounds in one public university in Ghana. The study is based on the idea that women who combine domestic work with academic work experience tensions, and therefore must devise strategies to manage their conflicting roles in order to navigate their way through higher education. The women in this study were sampled from the departments of Sociology and Basic Education, where they are known to be clustered. The rationale was to explore their experiences, describe the strategies they adopt to navigate through HE, and to use the findings to make suggestions for institutional development and learning. The findings indicate that the women students' different socio-economic backgrounds, marital status and family lives influence the way they experience higher education and the strategies they adopt for progressing through it. Most of the participants found academic work difficult and made reference to gaps in terms of their knowledge deficit, unfamiliar courses and teaching methods. Again, some women students felt out of place in the higher education arena and therefore had to ‘cut down much of their years' psychologically so that they could mix easily with the younger students. The implications drawn from this study are that there is need for the formulation of an institutional policy on mature women students in higher education, which would also ensure the regular provision of professional development programmes for higher education practitioners. It is expected that when higher education practitioners are regularly trained and sensitised about the heterogeneity in the composition of higher education, and particularly about mature women students' conflicting roles, it will improve their practice, enhance the qualitative experiences of mature women students and consequently, help to retain and increase their participation in higher education.

There has been much consideration given to supporting the post-16 transition needs of young people with learning difficulties and complex needs who have been educated within special school settings, but limited attention paid to those within mainstream schools. This study explores the transition planning and support experiences of four young people with identified additional educational needs, attending a mainstream comprehensive secondary school as they approach their transition into further education or work-based training. It also explores the views of their SENCO, Connexions Personal Advisor and a teacher in order to illuminate professional perspectives. The impact of the framework for transition support outlined in the SEN Code of Practice (DfES, 2001) on the support delivered and the resulting experiences of young people constitute a further area of enquiry. Within an integrating conceptual framework derived from Bronfenbrenner's (1979 & 2001) ecological systems theory and bioecological model, qualitative data derived from semi-structured interviews were analysed and interpreted using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Within Bronfenbrenner's (2001) 'person, process, context and time' model, a range of factors that independently and in combination influenced the transition planning and support experiences, were indentified. The research highlights how these factors interact with one another, and how the complex interactions within and between systems further mediate the young person's experiences. The research also draws attention to a difference between espoused theory and theory in practice (Argyris & Schön, 1974), in regard to transition support and planning provided in the school.

This research adopted a Realistic Evaluation approach (Pawson and Tilley, 1997) to elicit and refine the theoretical understanding of how the Troubled Families programme (TFP) may have facilitated positive outcomes for a proportion of service-users within one focus local authority. A Realist Synthesis approach (Pawson, 2006) was undertaken to identify the context-mechanism-outcome configurations (programme theories) underpinning the TFP. These identified programme theories were presented to key stakeholders (parents and family support workers) to be validated, refined or falsified. The theoretical basis of the TFP was refined to explicate how: ‘a dedicated family support worker’, ‘delivering practical support’, ‘adopting a persistent and assertive approach with families’, ‘understanding families as a whole’ and ‘establishing common purposes and actions’, as theories, facilitate positive outcomes for families, as per the TFP success criteria. The findings of the present research refined understanding of ‘what works, for whom and under what circumstances?’ in relation to the TFP. To this end, findings are discussed with respect to the implications for family support practices. In addition, the implications for the practice of educational psychologists with respect to the methodology adopted as well as the area of intensive family support are also discussed.