Social work education is increasingly changing, and instructors are experimenting with new methods to deliver social work curricula to reach a larger population of social work students. Students previously excluded from university education based on their geographic location, financial limitations, family or work demands now have an opportunity to access social work programs in Canada using distance education, and distance education has become an emerging field of research. The current study identified instructor and student characteristics and university supports that were assessed as critical in creating an effective learning environment for delivering an entire undergraduate program of social work via distance education. The exploratory-descriptive study utilized a mixed-methods design to examine the perceptions of social work distance educators from four universities that offer a complete BSW degree accredited by the Canadian Association for Social Work Education (CASWE-ACFTS) through distance education: the University of Calgary, the University of Manitoba, the University of Victoria and Dalhousie University. Thirty-four social work distance educators completed a survey questionnaire, and 24 of these participated in qualitative interviews to identify the critical characteristics and university supports. Study findings suggest that effective performance of five distinct roles by both instructors and students are essential to creating an effective learning environment in social work distance education. The required university supports to maintain those roles are also identified. Based on these results a conceptual model for achieving effectiveness in social work distance education is identified. The study suggests what is needed to establish an effective learning environment in social work distance education and confirms the benefits of distance education in social work undergraduate programs. Suggestions for future research are included along with recommendations for building an effective distance learning environment in social work education. / May 2016

This study investigated the role of demographic factors, English proficiency level, personal and affective factors in predicting language preparatory school students&rsquo / academic success. Participants of the study were 415 Department of Basic English students (158 pre-intermediate level, 158 intermediate level and 99 upper-intermediate level students) from a state university in Turkey. As data collection instrument, demographic information form, College Learning Effectiveness Inventory and Affective Characteristics Questionnaire were used. Multiple regression analysis was utilized to find the significant predictors. The results indicated that 53 % of the total variance was explained with the model. Among the predictor variables, English proficiency level, classroom communication, stress and time press and English self concept were found to be significant predictors of language achievement. The findings showed that students who had high proficiency level, better communication skills within the class, high English self concept and felt more stressful through the studies achieved higher scores in English Proficiency Exam.

MEd / Department of Curriculum Studies and Educational Management

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA in Communication Science, at the University of Zululand, 2002. / In this thesis I present my recommendations regarding the role of communication during effective learning in the foundation phase classrooms. I focus on three issues that are important to effective learning, namely (1) the cognitive basis of learning, (2) the cognitive basis of communication and (3) the facultative role of communication during effective learning. In the empirical phase of my research I report the results of an attitude survey conducted among educators in the foundation phase of the greater Durban region regarding their understanding of the range of communication strategies that are required of them in order to successfully implement Outcomes-Based Education (OBE). I present an analysis of OBE and Curriculum 2005, and how it continually faced refinement to become suitable for the South African educational system. An array of communication forms is discussed and I show how they can influence the teaching and learning environment to benefit both educators and learners. I show that both educators and learners can develop and equip themselves with the appropriate communication skills to facilitate effective learning. I also present various constructsvist points of view that educators can identify with for effective learning when implementing OBE in foundation phase classrooms. / The University of Zululand

Metacognitive awareness plays an important role in students’ learning as well as in teaching and tutoring. The goal of this thesis research is to investigate the relationship between academic tutors’ metacognitive awareness, their student athlete tutees metacognitive awareness and academic performance (by cumulative GPA). Metacognitive awareness in tutors may have a significant influence on tutoring methods and students’ success. The population of tutors and students in the study is represented by 40 pairs of academic tutors and athlete students at one southern U.S. university. Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) was utilized and adapted for this study. Simple regression analysis results revealed that metacognitive awareness in students can predict their academic performance. Yet, tutors’ metacognitive awareness did not predict students’ metacognitive awareness and their cumulative GPA scores. Additional research with larger samples and via alternative methods as well as implications about potential of tutors’ metacognitive strategies for learners are discussed.

World-wide, there has been a large increase in tertiary student numbers, not entirely matched by funding increases. Consequently, instructors are faced with large, diverse classes, and find themselves struggling to provide adequate assessment and prompt feedback, two quantities critical in an effective learning environment. Personal computers and the Internet can help solve this problem. The aim of this study was to develop, implement and validate a Web-based software package that, through providing practice and assessment opportunities, improved student learning and reduced marking and related mundane aspects of instructor workload. At the start of the study, such a package already existed in prototype form: OASIS (Online Assessment System with Integrated Study). As the study progressed, this software package was first fully rewritten and then repeatedly modified. OASIS delivers individualised tasks, marks student responses, supplies prompt feedback, and logs student activity. Staff can deliver sets of practice questions and assessments to students: assessments may involve different questions for different students, not just numerically different versions of the same questions. Given my role as teacher, the traditional research ideal of observing without affecting the research environment was both impossible and unconscionable. In particular, since preliminary evidence suggested that OASIS did enhance student learning, I could not adopt a ‘two groups’ approach to the research, with one group using OASIS while the other did not. Instead, an action research methodology was seen as most appropriate for my double role of teacher and researcher. / This methodology enabled me, in the light of my findings, to continuously modify the learning environment and enhance student learning. The action research proceeded through a spiral of one-semester cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting. To maximize rigour, the research ran through eight cycles over four years and involved considerable triangulation. OASIS itself collected much quantitative data. Further data were collected via interview, survey, email and informal discussion from three groups: current students, postgraduates and academics. My colleagues provided alternative perceptions and interpretations, as did Physics Department academics who were using OASIS, and an external academic who interviewed academics and investigated the implementation of OASIS. Perhaps surprisingly, academics had generally adopted OASIS to promote student learning rather than to decrease their own workloads. In some cases workloads were reduced; however, where OASIS assessments augmented rather than replaced existing traditional assessments, workloads actually went up slightly. All instructors who used OASIS reported enhanced student learning and wished to continue using it. Student surveys, interviews, focus-group discussions and informal feedback showed that students found the software easy to use and considered that it helped them improve their skills and understanding. OASIS questions were preferred over textbook questions. Students commonly requested OASIS to be available in more of their areas of study. In general students wanted hints or model answers though some argued against their provision. / The majority of students were enthusiastic about the use of OASIS for practice, and activity logs revealed that they did use OASIS extensively. These logs also revealed the motivating power of assessments: typically half the online practice activity took place in the last 36 hours prior to assessments. Interviews provided further interesting insights into the ways different students approached their studies and assessments. However, students did voice concerns about the validity of OASIS assignments, noting their peers could rely on the efforts of others to score highly in these. A number of steps were carried out in an attempt to defuse these concerns, including: disabling OASIS practice during assignments, basing assignments on previously unseen questions, and providing different assignment questions to different students. While this study has achieved the goal of developing, implementing and validating OASIS, many future opportunities exist. OASIS may be used in schools as well as universities. Non-numerical questions, where answers may be somewhere between right and wrong, are possible. OASIS can also be used to deliver concept inventories to students to support research into concept acquisition and retention.

This diploma thesis deals with learning styles and their effectiveness amongst pupils with specific learning disabilities. The theoretical part describes the problems of specific learning disorders, the current legislation and the possibilities of care for pupils with specific learning disabilities in school counseling facility, learning styles, learning habits amongst pupils with specific learning disorders and basic diagnostics of learning styles. The practical part is focused on the research and includes quantitative research which focuses on revealing the predominant style of learning at the second level of elementary school amongst pupils with learning disabilities and its comparison with the regular population of pupils. The thesis also answers a range of questions, such as, what helps learners who have learning disabilities to make the most out of their work, what disturbs the learners during learning, and compares these findings with pupils without any learning disabilities. The results of the survey revealed that pupils with specific learning disabilities involved in the research are predominant in the auditory style of learning. There were no differences found between predominant learning styles in pupils with learning disabilities and pupils without these disorders.

Pupils from a low SES differ in their development within the same school context. It is argued that the mechanisms through which education and the school environment as a whole can contribute to the successful development of children from a low SES should be identified and mapped. Therefore a focus on the mechanisms that lead to children with a low SES succeeding, in addition to discussing the reasons for these children not succeeding is proposed. The present research is drawn upon bio-ecological and symbolic interactionist theories of human development in an effort to understand resilience as involving person-context transactions. Specifically, the resilience of adolescents in the school context is studied as a joint function of personal characteristics and social contextual affordances that either promote or thwart the development of person-level, resilient-enhancing characteristics. The study employed inductive as well as deductive methods for knowledge development. Firstly, the concept of “resilience” was defined and operationalized in a Resilience Questionnaire (VVL). This questionnaire was validated on 399 middle-adolescents from five Educational Opportunity Schools in the Netherlands. Secondly, the inductive “Grounded Theory” method was followed with 21 middle-adolescents from three of the five Educational Opportunity Schools. In answer to the main question “How does the school environment contribute to the resilience of middle-adolescent students?”, the school environment can contribute to resilience through facilitating safety and good education. Resilient and Not-Resilient middle-adolescents differ in their dependence on the school environment for their access to these resilience-enhancing circumstances and factors. In relation to the first sub question, “What are resilient middle-adolescents’ perceptions of the contribution of the school environment to their resilience?”, the school environment contributes to the resilience of resilient middle-adolescents by challenging them (e.g with high expectations) and by offering opportunities to create constructive relationships with adults and fellow students in the school environment (e.g through informal conversations and through keeping order in the classroom). In answer to the second and third sub questions, “What are the perceptions of not-resilient middle-adolescents of the contribution of the school environment to their state of resilience?” and “How can the comparison between these two perceptions be explained?”, Not-Resilient middle-adolescents identify and utilise the services and potentially protective factors in the school enviroment less of their own accord than Resilient middle-adolescents do. The school environment can contribute to the resilience of Not-Resilient middle-adolescents by facilitating an overview, insight and positive future expectations in a very direct, controlling manner: An overview over risks for one’s own development and the presence of potential resources to assist one’s own development; insight into his or her own abilities to deal with possible risks; and positive future expectations on the improvement of a situation after a problem or risk has occurred. In summary, the daily situations in the school environment offer enough tools to contribute to the resilience of resilient and not-resilient middle-adolescents. These should, however, be recognised by both the middle-adolescent and the adults in the school environment as opportunities for development, which should subsequently be grasped in order to learn to deal with these challenges constructively. / Thesis (PhD (Learning Supoort, Guidance and Counselling))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Educational Psychology / PhD / unrestricted

The Virginia Tech Summer Academy (VTSA) Program, developed by through a collaborative partnership between faculty, administrators and staff concerned by attrition among-first year students, was introduced in summer 2012 as a campus initiative to assist first-year college students transition and acclimate to the academic and social systems of the campus environment. VTSA is a six-week intensive residential summer-bridge program that provides academic preparation, highly-individualized advising, learning communities, and the personal attention of faculty and peer mentorship through both academic engagement and structured activities. Although based on a substantive body of research concerning student retention, little is known about the empirical and influential value of this program. A two-phase, sequential explanatory mixed-methods (QUAN"" QUAL) study was developed to assess the value of student academic engagement in a first-year experience program.  Specifically, this research investigated the outcomes of participation on cognitive, behavioral, and affective factors of motivation, taking into account demographic and academic performance variables. In the initial quantitative phase, data from 89 students were analyzed to assess engagement and academic motivation. Data from the Scale of Educationally Purposeful Activities (SEPA) were used to determine levels of student engagement among VTSA students, while the Motivation Subscale of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) was used to investigate the change in student academic motivation before and after participation in VTSA. In the subsequent qualitative phase, 16 students participated in focus groups designed to explore student perceptions of engagement in the VTSA program and their connections to academic motivation. Both qualitative and quantitative data were assessed to provide an in-depth evaluation used to interpret and explain significant factors of student engagement that provide for internal and external academic motivation in college. / Ph. D.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T14:32:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Andre Gomes Genesini.pdf: 1562547 bytes, checksum: 1f1618663db45d3d7534b0422d2333ed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-05-26 / This is a time of great opportunities and great threats. Technology each time produces more wonders to the senses, things that make life better and more enjoyable. On the other hand, this is the first time in History that man is able to destroy the natural balance of the planet in an irreversible way. The arrival of information technology at the industry in the 1980s demanded a new profile of education for the workers. The damage to the environment can only be avoided through the development of a new kind of sustainable development. This, in turn, requires a new type of professional education. The recent rise of the knowledge economy has placed higher education as a strategical tool to achieve sustainable development. The university must find ways to keep up to the challenge. The key question in this research is how the university can get closer to the world of work and how the learning that occurs in higher education can be more close to the practical needs of the workplace. The objective of this research is to give contributions to the reflection about curriculum through concepts and historical data. This objective is achieved through qualitative analysis, in the form of case study of one of the answers that higher education has given to these challenges: the last generation of Work based Learning curriculums‟. To achieve this goal first was made a bibliographical research of the challenges that higher education faces and, specially, of Work based Learning. This research was the basis to the planning and implementation of a Work based Learning project to be used as case study in the research. The analysis of the data, in the light of the bibliographical research, suggests that Work based Learning generates a learning that is more closely related to the needs of the workplace and that Work based Learning equips more efficiently the students to succeed in the workplace / Esta é uma Era de enormes desafios e oportunidades. A tecnologia cada vez mais produz novidades que encantam os sentidos e facilitam a vida. As redes digitais aproximam pessoas, organizações e pesquisadores. Ao mesmo tempo, é a primeira vez na História que o homem tem o poder de provocar danos ao equilíbrio natural do planeta de maneira irreversível. O advento da tecnologia de informação no processo produtivo passou a exigir um novo perfil de mão-de-obra, multifacetada e bem qualificada. O desastre ambiental iminente só pode ser evitado com a mudança do modelo de desenvolvimento humano, o qual, por sua vez, exige um novo perfil de educação profissional. O surgimento da economia do conhecimento posicionou o ensino superior como uma ferramenta estratégica e essencial para uma nação atingir um desenvolvimento sustentável. A universidade não pode ficar alheia a este quadro. Esta pesquisa se insere no contexto do ensino superior tentando responder a esses desafios. A pergunta chave desta dissertação é como a universidade pode se aproximar mais do mundo do trabalho e, concomitantemente, como o aprendizado do ensino superior pode se aproximar mais da prática necessária ao trabalho. O objetivo desta pesquisa é dar subsídios, através de conceitos e dados históricos, para a reflexão sobre inovação em currículo. Esse objetivo é atingido através da análise qualitativa, através de estudo de caso, de uma das respostas do ensino superior a estes desafios: a última geração de currículos do tipo Work based Learning ou Aprendendo através do trabalho , Para tanto foi feita uma pesquisa bibliográfica sobre os desafios do ensino superior e, em especial, sobre o Work based Learning. A partir desta base foi planejado e implementado o projeto que deu origem ao estudo de caso. A investigação da dissertação ao Work based Learning se deu através três focos de pesquisa: as implicações em termos de inovação curricular, de aprendizagem significativa e de aprendizagem no ambiente de trabalho. A análise dos dados do estudo de caso à luz do referencial teórico pesquisado sugere que o aprendizado gerado pelo Work based Learning é mais próximo das necessidades da prática do trabalho e também mais eficaz para preparar o aluno para se desenvolver no ambiente de trabalho contemporâneo