D.Phil. / The aim of this research is to determine the state of concept learning and concept teaching in History at Vista University. In order to determine this, the following objectives were formulated: To determine the role of concepts in History. To determine, from a learning-psychological perspective, the importance of concept-learning as a significant part of the process of meaningful learning. To identify factors which influence concept learning. - To determine guidelines for the meaningful learning and teaching of concepts from a didactical perspective. - To illustrate the link between the learning theories and the distinctive nature of History as an academic discipline by means of an example. In order to address the aim and objectives, an extensive and comprehensive literature study was undertaken. The literature study firstly focussed on the various conceptualizations regarding concepts, its value in teaching and learning, its distinctive nature, as well as its general and unique characteristics. The differences between the use of concepts in the Natural Sciences and Social Sciences were highlighted. It was further established that concepts in History have a significant structuring value as well as formative value. For this very reason, the close link between concepts and generalizations in History was elaborated upon. Generalizations in History should however not be equated to laws formulated in the Natural Sciences. Generalizations in History have no control or predictive value, but rather explain historical events by providing detail (local expressions in time, place and circumstance). These local expressions are made up of concepts. Attention was given to the theoretical substructure of concept learning in general by studying the learning theories of Piaget, Bruner, Ausubel, Gagne and Vygotsky. Concept learning was identified as an integral link in the chain/process of meaningful learning.

The problem of this study was the effectiveness of directed study as a method of teaching American history at the college level. This method involved the use of small discussion groups, independent reading, and a limited use of special lectures.

The introductory art history course at the university level is the focus of this study. Recognized inadequacies of the traditionally conceived course prompt the development and implementation of a new course humanistically oriented and characterized by innovative methodologies derived from encounter group processes. The course develops through formative processes of examining three deviating teaching approaches: traditional, transitional-exploratory, and alternative-innovative. The resultant format applies concepts of art history, art education,general education, and humanistic psychology to needs of art and non-art students. Course implementation reveals experiences conducive to both art and personological student self-development. The conclusion is that a new art history course was developed and merits empirical testing.

This study examines the teaching of primary and secondary sources in history at secondary and tertiary level. The various methods used to teach these aspects of the nature of history are compared to the Vista University teaching model. To establish the effectiveness of the vista Block A module for HIS100 students, two test instruments were devised to assess their skills in handling primary and secondary sources. Their skills in identifying relevant points from a passage of historical prose were also tested. A number of statistical techniques were applied to the data from the test instruments. This data was analysed in qualitative and quantitative terms. The results of this analysis suggested that students would probably benefit from a skills-orientated approach to studying history. On the basis of this study, it is recommended that the existing Vista teaching model be revised or amended so that a more effective method of teaching students about the nature of historical sources can be introduced.

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the teaching of history in teachers colleges in the Metropolitan region and other regions in Thailand. Variables examined in this study include the following: salary, teaching experience, degrees held, the number of graduate credit hours in history, the number of graduate credit hours in education, attendance at professional meetings, the number of publications, membership in professional organizations, the number of hours devoted to course preparations, teaching load, and teaching behaviors. The comparison is based on geographical location of the teachers colleges by region. The survey instrument, after intensive review and validation by selected faculty both in Thailand and the United States, was distributed to the 180 history instructors in the teachers colleges in the six major regions of Thailand. The total number of responses was 138, or 76.7 per cent. The statistical procedures used in the analyses of data include frequency and percentage of responses, a chi square test of independence, t test, the Yates* correction for continuity, and Fisher's Exact Probability Test (2-tailed). The data findings from this study indicate that there is a high degree of similarity between the respondents from the Metropolitan region and other regions' history instructors in Thai teachers colleges with respect to the majority of the criteria. Although some significant differences were found, it would be difficult to state that there is a difference between history instructors in the Metropolitan region and other regions groups. Recommendations are made for the history instruction programs in Thailand based on the responses from both groups and the information gathered from a review of the literature.

The debates among historians regarding the "crisis in history" have been directed to various problems. The fragmentation of historical scholarship and writing embodied in the "new history," the alleged overspecialization of historical scholarship, and recent challenges to the objectivity of historical fact and interpretation receive attention. Successive chapters attend to a general background study and description of postmodernism, the association between postmodernistic trends and historical scholarship as seen in poststructuralism and deconstruction, and the implications of postmodernistic criticism for post-secondary history instruction. Deconstruction, or the hermeneutical challenge of poetics, is a criticism of historical epistemological presuppositions and practices. Deconstruction yields insights that are useful to judge historical knowing. However, deconstruction does not present a compelling alternative to accepted standards of historical scholarship and practice

D.Phil. (Curriculum Studies) / The study highlights the conceptual and practical challenges in providing initial teacher education that promotes, amongst other factors, coherence with the prescribed school curriculum. It investigates a History Teaching Methods (HTM) course offered by a university in Kenya to clarify how course related documents, lectures, students’ microteaching lessons, and perceptions about these three aspects obtained from interviews with a teacher-educator and students addressed what the course had to provide as possibilities for the acquisition of professional knowledge and skills that would enable students to teach effectively the secondary school History and Government (H&G) subject. Through a review of literature on curriculum coherence and theories on ethical pedagogic practice and communication combined with primary data collected in Kenya, I explain the nature of the challenges in the HTM course. The challenges, I argue, are primarily a result of overlooking the disciplinary requirements of History. The findings suggest that misconceptions about professional responsibilities of the teacher-educators are largely responsible for the descriptive approach that characterises the pedagogical practices they promoted. The absence of engagement with disciplinary requirements in lectures contributed to the nature of the devices that were used by students to teach. In order to clarify the nature of these pedagogic challenges, I adopted a generic qualitative approach to the research. The direct contact and discussion with a teacher-educator and students enabled me to explore their understanding of the requirements of teaching history at school level. Through observations of lectures I established how the teacher-educators considered these requirements as important to the teacher education they provided. Through observing students’ microteaching lessons I was able to establish their understanding of the nature of historical knowledge and how it ought to be approached when teaching. The study contributes to the general field of teacher education by having devised a conceptual orientation that can be drawn on to establish what is necessary to teach school history effectively, namely, the importance of normative critical thinking and contextual sensitivity. In this study, I indicate the pedagogic processes that need to be considered and constantly in place to teach history by drawing on relevant paradigms and conceptual orientations belonging to the discipline. I found that teacher-educators underplay the importance of these factors and view them as having to be considered by academic entities that are directly involved with history as a discipline. It is due to this oversight that the programme seemed to emphasise descriptive and procedural orientations in initial teacher education. I conclude by suggesting that a course that educates student teachers for, amongst other reasons, teaching H&G at secondary school in Kenya, has to consider firstly, what is essential to history teaching and learning as a discipline and secondly that effective history teaching has to be informed by reasoning that is not only relevant to History as a discipline but also its practicality to the objectives of school history.

The problem of this study was to determine the value of Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and high school percentile rank for predicting a student's achievement in American history at North Texas State University. The study also sought to determine what, if any, difference existed between male and female students, students of different ethnic backgrounds, and students of different semester classification with respect to learning achievement in American history.

"This study undertakes to determine the relation existing between a group of factors and the status of the history major bachelor graduates of the North Texas State Teachers College from 1919 through 1936"--1.

This thesis reports on a critical, ethnographic investigation into the reading practices of a group of 14 foundation year students at Rhodes University in 2002. The university had identified all the student-participants as 'underprepared' for university learning: they were from poor, socio-economic backgrounds, used English as an additional language, and had been educated in township or rural schools. Using the Socio-cultural model of literacy (Heath, 1984; Gee, 1990 & Street, 1993), the study explores the culturally-shaped attitudes and assumptions about reading that the students brought with them into a tertiary learning context from their homes, communities and schools. It reports on their subsequent efforts to become academic readers in the disciplinary context of History. Framing Theory (Reid and MacLachlan, 1994) was employed to analyse the kinds of matches and mismatches that arose between the students' frames about the nature and purpose of reading, and those implicitly accepted as normative by teachers in the History department. It accounts for the students' difficulties in achieving epistemological access in terms of a conflict of frames: both the students and their teachers usually failed to recognise each others' constructions about the nature and purpose of 'reading for a degree'. The study'S critical purpose required that its potential for generating emancipatory consequences needed to be investigated. Thus the study reports on how both sets of participants began to reframe their understanding of academic reading, by describing the ways in which they reflected on the findings in the final stages of the research process. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in