The teaching of computing, like all subjects, requires a range of strategies to take the curriculum content (skills, knowledge, understanding and attitudes) and put it in a form that is more easily digested by learners. Metaphor has a particular rôle in the world of computing in that: it is embedded in the design of computer hardware and software; it is part of human computer interface and it underpins important facilities such as icons, pointer actions and window displays. It is proposed that metaphor plays an important rôle in the pedagogic content knowledge (PCK) of computing teachers. The research adopts a grounded theory approach using text analysis software to record and process a range of documents, statements, interview transcripts and text book analyses. The study is underpinned by consideration of pedagogic content knowledge. The major data source are reflections and reports of experienced and successful computer teachers working at post-16 level (grades 12-13) in 20 south-of-England schools and colleges. It is proposed that metaphor usage can be divided into many distinct forms. The most easily recognised metaphor is the narrative theme where an object, function or system is described in the clothes of another, more familiar object, function or system. The other approaches with a metaphoric nature identified are algorithm, model, rôle play and diagram. In contrast to metaphoric, it has been identified that approaches are also based upon literal teaching. The outcomes of the research reveal a new perspective upon the pedagogic content knowledge with respect to the teaching of computing in post-compulsory education. A model of approaches that identifies the key areas and emphasises the rôle metaphor plays in both the teaching strategies and the subject knowledge of computing, is presented. Different practices are described, compared and presented in a form that will help practising and pre-service teachers identify their own preferred approach or approaches. Future research is proposed to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of particular metaphoric strategies. In particular, the rôle non-literal teaching approaches can make in enabling younger pupils to understand the principles of computing and how non-literal approaches can be used to ensure students are more motivated in their studies will be made.

The process of Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB) identity formation is a complex one. There are many barriers in place which, implicitly or otherwise, seek to control and regulate same-sex attraction. An essential part of LGB identity formation is the process of disclosure to others, which can elicit a variety of reactions, from instant rejection to intense camaraderie. An examination of the ways in which LGB teenagers manage the visibility of their sexual identities, in the face of heterosexual control and regulation, will have profound implications for the work of those professionals who work with these young people. Using a Constructivist Grounded Theory approach (Charmaz 2005, 2006), this study examines the experiences of 14-19 year old LGB teenagers concerning self-discovery, disclosure to others, coping with negative pressures and school responses to LGB visibility. Students, teachers and school managers were asked about the promotion of heterosexual and LGB-friendly assumptions and values in a school context. Thirty-five LGB young people were asked about how these assumptions had affected their lives. Some participants seemed able to manage anti-LGB pressures much better than others and, in order to determine why, participants were asked to identify the social, verbal and non-verbal strategies they have adopted in order to manage their LGB visibility in the face of these pressures. The emergent theory is entitled ‘A Constructivist model of LGB youth identity development’. By focusing on self-presentation and the management of homonegative pressures, this study highlights the need for a greater awareness of the ways in which LGB teenagers cope with social stigmatisation and manage disclosure in order to gauge the likely reactions from others. By developing an awareness of LGB visibility management, it will be possible for those who work with young LGB teenagers to circumvent some of the adverse interpersonal and psychological effects of homonegative stigmatisation.

Like all young people, Thai adolescents may experience mental health problems. The Thai secondary school system provides meditation education as part of the National Education Curriculum and as such may potentially play a pivotal role in promoting adolescent’s mental well-being. The aim of this study was: to explore (a) the provision of meditation for students in Thai secondary schools; and (b) teachers’ and students’ perceptions of meditation education and its role in promoting mental well-being of adolescents. A qualitative multiple case study design was employed. Purposive sampling was undertaken to select four schools (two urban, two rural) in the Khonkaen province. Informants were teachers and students who participated in the school based meditation courses. In total, 21 interviews with teachers and eight focus group interviews with adolescent students were conducted, and analysed using Framework approach. Cross-case analysis was undertaken to elicit differences and similarities between rural and urban schools, younger and older students and teachers and students. The results revealed compulsory meditation education was provided during Buddhism classes in both lower and upper school levels. Meditation was also integrated into other subjects to encourage students to practice meditation skills, increase students’ concentration and manage potentially unruly students. Extracurricular activities, not part of the National Education Curriculum, were also provided with the aim of improving students’ morality but provision varied across cases. In general, teachers and students, across all cases, had consistently similar perceptions on the meditation education provided. Meditation education was perceived to have a positive impact on students’ mental well-being, reduced stress, enhanced self-awareness, improved emotional control, enhanced decision making as well as improved interpersonal relationships. Negative aspects from prolonged practice such as physical discomfort or pain and boredom were identified. Recommendations for future research, including exploring the transferability of findings and teacher training needs, are reported.

Cyberbullying has become increasingly problematic over the past decade with extreme instances of young people committing suicide due to their victimisation. While the prevalence of cyberbullying along with its effects have been researched and identified, the theoretical underpinnings for determining why young people engage in these behaviours has been under researched. A clear understanding behind the motivations into cyberbullying as exclusion is necessary in order to help decrease the behaviours as well as addressing deficiencies in defining what cyberbullying is. This study used a mixed methods design, first using quantitative data via a survey designed to target pupils (n=450) in three Catholic Secondary schools in Glasgow, Scotland. Second, qualitative data was collected through interviews with educational professionals (n=13; nine teachers, four non-teacher educators). The discussion of findings focuses on the perceptions of cyberbullying through the eyes of educators and how they understand and recognise the exclusionary process. To facilitate understanding cyberbullying as exclusion, the results of this study were explored through the lens of the Established and Outsiders framework. The research finds that while teachers are undereducated and uninformed on social media and cyberbullying, young people continue to increase their knowledge and access to these sites for both socialisation and exclusion, which is having a significant effect on their physical and mental well being. While most young people surveyed claim not to have been victims of cyberbullying, the evidence from both the survey and interviews agree that girls were more likely to engage in cyberbullying as both victim and bully. Teachers from the three participating schools experienced challenges in understanding and recognising cyberbullying and the usage of social media by young people. Their abilities to recognise these behaviours were often underpinned by their lack of training in areas of technology in conjunction with their negative attitudes toward social media. This study enriches the wider literature by examining cyberbullying as exclusion through the lens of Elias’s Established and Outsider framework, providing a novel approach to understanding the exclusionary process. The study also provides evidence asserting the need for providing in-service teachers education, training and support in understanding and recognising cyberbullying behaviours.

Research into school-based and real-life technological problem solving has shown it to exist in a range of forms and draw upon a number of constituent processes and knowledge types. While this has given much needed insight into what happens when pupils undertake such problem solving in classrooms, there is little understanding about the relationship between these constituent elements and pupil performance on problem solving tasks. Moreover, such tasks are often still undertaken individually within schools. This thesis builds directly on this by offering a definition for classroom-based technological problem prior to developing a mixed-method approach that allowed the problem solving activity of four high performing groups to be compared with that of four low performing groups. Single gender groups of approximately four pupils worked through a well-defined cantilever problem task in three Scottish technology education classrooms. The group performance was determined by outcome. Findings from the comparative analysis revealed differences in three key areas. Firstly, higher-performing groups naturally employed better process-management strategies including use of planning, role and task allocation with lower levels of tension between group members. Secondly, higher-performing groups made more use of reflection in which reasoning was verbalised, with the potential to promote better shared understanding between group members during the solving process. Thirdly, higher-performing groups exhibited a greater level of tacit-procedural knowledge within their final solutions. Additionally, there was evidence that lower-performing groups were less affected by the competitive task dynamic, and were not always as comprehensive in transferring prior understanding to the problem solving context. These findings were largely consistent between groups and form a basis upon which approaches to pedagogy and assessment can be considered and developed to raise the capability and performance of those pupils who find such problem solving more challenging. Moreover, the findings pertaining to process management and the nature of reflection have wider implications for learning and teaching in related areas of STEM Education.

No description available.

This study focuses on the significance of Intercultural Understanding (IU) in the Key Stage 3 Modem Foreign Languages (MFL) curriculum. It investigates the perspectives of the three key stakeholders: policy makers, teachers and pupils. The research is situated against the backdrop of the 2008 National Curriculum revision which placed a new emphasis on Intercultural Understanding in MFL. At the macro level, it examines the drivers for this curriculum change and the extent to which the new terminology for the cultural dimension (which was previously called "cultural awareness") overlaps with theoretical research on interculturallanguages education. At the micro level, it investigates teachers' conceptualisations of IU and the factors which affect their intercultural practice. It is equally concerned with pupils' perceptions about the significance ofIU, investigating how these may vary as a function of demographic and social influences. The study adopts a predominantly interpretative approach, employing semi-structured interviews with policy makers (n=2) and secondary MFL teachers (n=18). Pupil perceptions were investigated using a questionnaire survey (n=765) which was followed up with group interviews (n=5). The teacher and pupil samples were drawn from a total of fourteen state schools in the North West of England that comprise of mixed comprehensive, girls' comprehensive, boys' comprehensive, girls' grammar and boys' grammar schools. The study finds that the reference to Intercultural Understanding in curriculum policy was primarily influenced by broader political concerns that overlooked interculturallanguages theory and has resulted in ambiguous curriculum guidelines. This research reveals a new insight into the teacher perspective, showing that attitudes and pedagogical approaches to the cultural dimension are highly individualistic and are closely related to interests, personalities and life experiences. Furthermore, the pupil perspective on IU varies not only from school to school, but also from pupil to pupil. Overall, the findings suggest that effective IU curriculum development in MFL must be flexible enough to respond to and cater for this evident diversity.

This study investigates (a) the existence of changes in pupils' perceptions of Key Stage 3 (KS3) History as they move from Year 8 (Y8) to Year 9 (Y9), when they make choices about which subjects they will study for General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) during Key Stage 4 (KS4), and (b) whether any changes might influence their choices. The study adopts a qualitative approach involving 500 pupils and more than 60 teachers in 10 schools over two years. The place and usage of History in contemporary society are explored. The origins of History as a educational issue are reviewed from the late 18th Century to the late 20th Century when there was considerable debate as to what information should be taught, what skills should be developed and which teaching methodologies should be employed. These aspects were at times polarised when 'traditional' teaching seemed to be at odds with the 'new' Schools Council History Project, against a background of an evolving national examination system. With the compulsory inclusion of Citizenship within schools' curricula, the role and methodology of History are subject to further debate. The origins of the current situation, where school History is a non-compulsory subject in the compulsory state-maintained sector, is outlined with reference to issues and debates which led to comprehensive schools delivering History as an element of the National Curriculum as initially presented in the Education Reform Act (ERA) of 1988, which has since been subject to review and amendment. The study deals with the introduction, implementation and development of the ERA (1987 –2000) and focuses on the proposals for the subject of History, responses from teachers, administrators and Government as well as amendments proposed by the Dearing reviews leading towards Curriculum 2000. The background to the current GCSE examination scheme is reviewed along with the requirements for compulsory and non-compulsory subjects, and the rationales employed by individual schools when constructing ‘GCSE option choice schemes’. Factors that may affect pupils’ perceptions of History in their Y8 and Y9 are discussed. The sets of data collected reveal ways in which pupils may be influenced by (i) personal perceptions of interest, enjoyment, demands of work and usefulness in later life and (ii) externally-controlled issues such as socio-economic circumstances, access to Special Educational Needs (SEN) or language support, and the nature of the KS3 History curriculum they experience

The educatiuonal achievements of British Muslims, particularly South Asians, have been studied in past decades, but, unfortunately, the impact of digital technologies on young Muslim children has not recieved sufficient attention. In addition, past studies mostly relied on quantitative methods to gain knowledge on the educational achievements of British Muslims. The thesis is grounded in a qualitative approach within a social constructionist paradigm, to elicit the views of young British Muslim girls on their use of digital technologies for educational achievements. The data presented were obtained by carrying out semi-structured interviews with a sample of young (14-19 year old) British Muslim girls at three single-sex Islamic faith schools, and were analysed using mainly template analysis, and also matrix analysis and cross-case analysis within and cross the case studies. It was found that most of the female Muslim students interviewed for this research study were satisfied and performed competently at case Islamic faith schools. Furthermore, the educational success at school A was attributable to educational norms and values relative to the provision of digital resources and skilled teaching staff. The educational experiences of school B and C were problematic, largely because of access to digital technologies, and provision of digital content and skilled teaching staff. Another factor of students’ underachievement was found to be that parents had limited levels of education and inadequate understanding of the education. Most of the students had a positive attitude towards the technologies. The thesis concludes that the educational achievement of British Muslim girls in schools is closely related to access to digital technologies, digital academic content, skilled academic staff and the technological, infrastructure in schools. The net effect of digital technologies is positive on Muslim girls in the increasingly competitive nature of the education system. The thesis is original and the first study of this kind that offers an insight into the access to digital technologies and educational attainment of young British Muslim girls that is reflected in key concepts through the usage and incorporation of technologies in education. Other aspects of this research include the issues of provision of technologies at home and parents’ educational level, contribution to knowledge, and the need for further broader and longitudinal study.

No description available.