This thesis explores a small number of TEFL teachers’ collective responses to an extended change process in their Mexican university context from 1989-2003. The nature of the emergent knowledge arising from this inquiry hinges on the analysis and interpretation by the researcher who is also a complete participant in this educational context of her informants’ perceptions from their retrospection, and a reconstruction of the past, in present time. The methodology I adopted broadly follows interpretative qualitative research principles, including aspects of life history inquiry. The data generation process employed to explore our perceptions of ourselves, as well as our working context, before and during the 1990s, as we ourselves narrate them, comprised of: ‘conversations with a purpose’, critical incident and repertory grid interviews, as well as the concurrent analysis of the data, based on aspects of Grounded Theory. As a result, numerous categories and concepts emerged. These not only helped me to discover the issues that were both instrumental and influential regarding our positive receptivity to change, but also how being involved in a change process changed us, not only as individuals, but also as a culture. Based on these findings that have led to my deeper understanding of the nature of educational change, I conclude this thesis by positing that instead of adopting a mechanistic paradigm for viewing change, it is necessary, and more useful, to view it through the lens of complexity theory. Finally, this thesis ends by examining the implications that this position and the findings have for change policy makers, managers and change leaders, as well as suggestions for future research.

M.Ed. (Educational Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Educational reform is vital to meet the educational, social, and personal needs of an ever-changing student population. Many attempts at educational reform have been made over the past century. A number of reforms were originated and directed by policy at the Federal, State and regional levels, and others were developed at the district or school level. Demands for educational change are ever-present, and the acceptance of or resistance to change continues to be a topic of discussion and focus of research. The purpose of this study was to understand change in the implementation of small learning communities (SLCs) at a single high school by examining six years of grade level SLC meeting minutes to explore how the implementation of SLCs influenced teacher collegiality, student-teacher relationships, and instructional practices related to improving student academic outcomes. The primary research question was: How do teachers at a high school focus their efforts to improve student achievement through SLC reform? Three sub-questions guided exploration of the primary question: 1. In what ways did teachers discuss teacher collegiality in their SLC meetings? 2. In what ways did teachers discuss teacher-student relationships in their SLC meetings? 3. In what ways did teachers discuss instructional strategies and practices to improve student academic performance in their SLC meetings? The literature review for this study included an overview of the historical perspective on educational change and reform. As a school-based practitioner, the researcher experienced educational change more locally than globally, so various forms of local organizational change were examined, including charter schools, school-within-a-school, and SLCs. More specifically, literature was explored in relation to SLCs and their influence on collegiality, relationships, and improved student academic performance. This was a case study examining one depository of documents. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine the SLC meeting minutes, in relation to three categories of review: teacher collegiality, teacher-student relationships, and instructional strategies and practices. How a reform gets implemented through ordinary, everyday practices is not always clear. In the case school it was expected that teachers would meet regularly in their SLCs, talk about their students and their instructional practices, and make decisions about what is best practice to support student academic success. Teachers’ reactions to the District’s announcements of the implementation of other reform initiatives on top of the SLC initiative were often less than supportive. Conversations that gained momentum in SLC meetings might be side-stepped or delayed as teachers worked through the implications of a new District initiative, thus delaying the implementation of the SLC model. Initially, it appeared that the three major themes – teacher collegiality, teacher-student relationships, and instructional practices – would drive the process, dialogue, and decisions of the SLCs. Findings of the study suggest that the process, dialogue, and decisions of the SLCs shaped the three major themes and their interactions, providing greater insight into how all three themes resulted in teacher perspectives, decisions, and actions aimed at influencing student achievement. This study offered valuable insights into one aspect of implementation – the nature of the process, dialogue, and decisions that emerge in conversations in SLC meetings and their influence on teachers’ perspectives, decisions, and actions aimed at influencing student achievement.

This was a qualitative study designed to document the historical process which brought about a performance-centered accountability (or results-based) system in educator preparation in Texas as reflected in the documents of the first 17 institutions approved under the new approval process for educator preparation. The study will also serve as a historical record which used the change process in political systems to analyze the adoption of the Accountability System for Educator Preparation (ASEP). Additionally, the study provided a thorough review of the literature on Michael Fullan's Change Process Model and David Easton's Political Systems Model.

In response to reductionist neoliberal approaches to organizational change that have been prevalent in American education since the 1980s, some educators have begun to employ a whole-systems approach to improving student learning. These approaches, based in complexity sciences, recognize the nonlinear, unpredictable nature of learning and the interconnected relationships among myriad factors that influence the teaching/learning that occurs in schools. In the summer preceding the 2011-2012 school year, a cohort of educators from California Unified School District participated in a 10-day training regarding human systems dynamics (HSD) and complexity thinking. Their goal was to build adaptive capacity throughout the district in the pursuit of improving student learning. Through analysis of the interviews from seven target participants from this training, this study investigates what target participants report regarding their use of HSD methods and models in their work in schools across the 2011-2012 school year. Findings indicate that target participants displayed distinct arcs of use of HSD methods/models. In addition, findings suggest that target participants’ need for support in learning and implementing HSD methods/models, the influence of systemic and individual history, and the role of agency affected their “arcs of use.” This study illuminates the ways in which HSD methods/models support both organizational change efforts and the ways in which teaching/learning occur in the classroom, including the applicability of HSD methods/models in building collaborative cultures and in helping students develop the kinds of thinking required in the use of 21st-century literacies.

M.Ed. (Psychology of Education) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

A  thesis submitted  to  the  Faculty  of Commerce,  Law  and  Management, University  of  the  Witwatersrand,  Johannesburg,   in  partial  fulfilment  of  the  requirements  for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy, May 2016 / Universities  in  21st  century  emerging  knowledge  economies  seek  to  build  a  culture   and  practice  of  research  activeness  and  intensiveness.  How  do  university  research   sub-­‐‑systems  position  universities  to  push  through  conditions  of  adversity  to  realise   research  activeness  and  intensiveness?     Based  on  data  collected  from  an  exploratory  study  of  selected  research  active   universities  in  India  and  four  case  studies  from  a  single  research  active  university  in   South  Africa,  the  research  finds  that  university  research  sub-­‐‑systems,  operating  in   emerging  knowledge  economies,  are  engaged  in  quantum  research  games.  Research   complexity  and  adversity;  uncertainty  with  respect  to  the  outcomes  and  impact  of   research;  and  contestation  with  respect  to  resources,  values  and  value;  renders  the   university  research  game  a  quantum  game,  leading  to  the  research  entanglement  of   scientist-­‐‑researchers.       Epistemologically  located  in  social  constructionism  and  using  grounded  theory   analytical  methodology,  the  theory  of  positioning  universities  for  research  activeness   and  intensiveness  through  research  entanglement  identifies  four  trends  of   entanglement.    Research  actors  who  operate  in  a  habitual  state  of  heightened   entanglement  are  able  to  push  through  adversity.     It  is  theorised  that  the  position  of  leaning  towards  heightened  research  entanglement   creates  an  advantage  for  universities  towards  achieving  greater  research  activeness   and  intensiveness.  Where  the  position  of  leaning  away  from  entanglement  is   dominant,  this  may  create  institutional  stasis  and  an  inability  to  advance  the   institution  towards  greater  research  effort / GR2018

Thesis advisor: Andy Hargreaves / Most policies and initiatives in education travel the same, well-worn path: they are designed high above the ground by elected leaders or by public officials in departments and ministries of education. These ideas soon become projects for district-level leaders and school-level staff to implement. The process of implementation is often a challenge for local educators. When schools are asked to implement several initiatives concurrently, these difficulties can be compounded. This is especially true when schools try concurrently to include students with special needs and to meet the targets of high-stakes accountability programs (McLaughlin & Thurlow, 2003; Ramanathan, 2008). This study examined two multi-level and multi-district projects that were unique in their objective and designs. Each fostered complementary restructuring and reculturing of school districts. These two projects--Essential for Some, Good for All (ESGA) in Ontario and NH Responds (NHR) in New Hampshire--sought to facilitate greater participation and achievement for students with special needs as well as to cultivate greater collaboration between general and special educators. The dissertation is comprised of four mixed-methods case studies across the two jurisdictions, looking at two districts in each country as the units of analysis. Interviews with participants from all three levels--policy and planning, district, and school--were accompanied by effect-size analysis taken from quantitative achievement data to assess achievement gaps before and after each project. Ultimately, the study proposes a workable theory for the field of policy design and implementation that would facilitate simultaneous engagement with multiple, competing policies, in particular balancing the inclusion of students with special educational needs and mechanisms for standards-based accountability. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

A research project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA in Research Psychology in the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, March 2016 / Despite 20 years of democracy, education in South Africa is still plagued by the inequalities carried over from apartheid. Concerns on issues of standardisation in education, which are linked to socio-economic status, make it increasingly difficult to determine what skills learners are leaving the schooling system with (Blignaut, 2009; Du Plessis & Webb, 2012; Lumadi, 2011; Maiyo, 2015; Watts, 2001). There is a need to bridge the gap that currently exists within education, and one way in which this is thought possible, is through the integration of technology in the classroom (Department of Education, 2004). In 2015 the Smart Schools Project was put in place to promote the implementation of technology in South African schools. One of the aims of this project is to standardise education through redressing the inequalities within the country. This study aimed to investigate the perceptions of parents, with regards to the introduction of technology within primary school classrooms in South Africa. In order to achieve the main aim of this study, perceptions of parents were explored from parents whose children were in private and government-funded schools. This study used a combination of two models in order to understand how parents’ usage and acceptance of technology could possibly influence their children’s interaction with technology. This study found that how parents come to use and accept technology is not influenced by socio-economic status. Further, it was noted that acceptance and usage impacted how they viewed technology being introduced in the classroom. / GR2017

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / This research is a contribution to the field of development evaluation. Much of the evaluation practice in development and public policy remains weak in scientific validity, and challenged by issues of attribution and comparability of results across different studies. After an in-depth review of the existing literature and an analysis of the current shortfalls and knowledge gaps in programme evaluation, the research proposes a methodological framework that allows for the empirical measurement and comparison of the impact of diverse types of interventions aimed at addressing a specific outcome of interest. The evaluation framework informs decision-making in social-economic development processes, by combing elements of theory-based counterfactual evaluation, multiple-treatment meta-analysis, mixed methods, and participatory approaches. The evaluation framework is tested in South Africa by utilising the proposed package of methods through two case studies presented in this thesis, to generate evidence for policy-makers, programme managers, and investors operating in the education sector. The first is an evaluation of the impact of the corporate social investments of Anglo American Platinum in Limpopo and North West provinces, that utilised geo-spatial features of mining operations to conduct a quasiexperiment. The second is a comparative analysis of major interventions implemented in South Africa to improve learning outcomes in public schools. The education meta-analysis is the first of its kind to be conducted in South Africa, and has revealed many locally-produced impact studies which had not previously been captured by international reviews on school interventions in developing countries. The empirical work conducted in this research confirms existing theories and reveals new insights into the role of the private sector, the proximity of schools to mines, psycho-social and economic factors, learner age and home language, educational material, quantity and quality of teachers, school management, and accountability systems, in affecting education outcomes. The research highlights some of the programmes and policies which have been most effective in South Africa’s schooling sector, while cautioning about the contextual factors and methodological design features which influence the effect sizes being reported in the evaluations of development interventions. The research concludes by reflecting on the experiences, data and cost analysis challenges, and the lessons learnt from the application of the proposed evaluation approaches in South Africa’s education sector. It discusses the limitations of the framework, and how this can be further refined for future use in other countries, sectors, and development policy contexts. / GR2018