In synchronous educational discourse, teaching is predominantly perceived in terms of competences and scientific knowledge. In this thesis, I suggest an alternative understanding of teaching as an ethical, virtue-driven practice. This premise, while it is based on the idea of educating learners as persons, instead of simply teaching them knowledge and skills, postulates the practice of aretaic pedagogy. In drawing upon an Aristotelian view of virtue ethics and MacIntyre’s theory of practice, this study investigates the potential contribution of two courses, Drama Education and Theatre Education and Theatrical Play, to the promotion of the student primary teachers’ conception of teaching as aretaic pedagogy. Both courses are those I teach within the context of a teacher education programme at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. Two qualitative methodological traditions contributed to the design of this study: case study and phenomenography. The research participants were six student primary teachers who attended the courses. Data emanated from both narrative/text-based and audio-visual-based methods, over the course of one academic year. In attempting to satisfy the research paradigm of both methodologies, the schema of analysis that I adopted was constructed on open-coding strategies and categorical aggregation consistent with constant comparative analysis. Findings indicate that the courses’ ensemble-based artistic work is the poetic space, which enables participants to practice both personal and professional virtues. Their personal aretaic development can be defined by virtues originated by dialogue, the beautiful, the will and consciousness. A nexus of these virtues, such as joy, trust and friendship/love are embedded in their pedagogy of drama/theatre education, which fortify their communication, playfulness, vigilance and artistry.

This study investigates the teaching methods for EFL speaking in developed secondary schools for females in Saudi Arabia. The research methodology employed in this study was a qualitative case study, in which the main data collection techniques are classroom observations and interviewing. The study aims to understand and evaluate the teaching methods of EFL speaking by determining the extent in which the teaching methods of EFL speaking address the different aspects of speaking, based on the theoretical conceptualisation presented in the thesis, namely accuracy versus fluency, speaking functions, speaking as a skill versus knowledge of the language, communication routines, negotiation skills, speaking strategies, and conversation features. The study also examines the use of mother tongue in the classroom by the teachers as well as the students and its purpose. The findings of classroom observation reveal that the teachers mostly implement a traditional method of teaching, where instruction is led by the teachers and the roles are rigidly defined. However, the communicative approach is employed to some extent by the teachers, where group work is sometimes used. The classroom interaction is led and dominated by the teachers, where students’ contribution to classroom talk is limited. In addition, the various aspects of EFL speaking were not taught explicitly to the students. Hence, there is not any guarantee that all students will acquire the desired skills of EFL speaking. It is found also that the English language is largely employed by the teachers in the classrooms, where their use of the mother tongue is limited. However, the students use Arabic most of the time. In addition, the study provides an understanding of the teachers’ and students’ opinions about EFL learning, their EFL speaking knowledge, the nature of EFL speaking and its value, and the current EFL speaking teaching methods. The interview data reveals that the teachers and students generally have a positive attitude towards English language learning and show a desire to develop their English language speaking. However, the teachers and students have an undeveloped understanding about the nature of EFL speaking and its related aspects. The teachers believe that the current teaching methods are a good way to teach EFL speaking. However, they believe the speaking skill does not receive enough emphasis in the textbook. The students, on the other hand, are not satisfied with the teaching strategies they experience, and most of them declare that these strategies need to be modified, as they believe that they don’t have enough opportunities to practice the language in the classroom. The thesis provided detailed description of how EFL speaking is taught inside the developed secondary schools for females in Saudi Arabia and proposed recommendations to improve it.

Scientists within the materials engineering community produce a wide variety of data, ranging from large 3D volume densitometry files (voxel) generated by microfocus computer tomography (μCT) to simple text files containing results from tensile tests. Increasingly they need to share this data as part of international collaborations. The design of a suitable database schema and the architecture of a flexible system that can cope with the varying information is a continuing problem in the management of heterogeneous data. We discuss the issues with managing such varying data, and present a model flexible enough to meet users’ diverse requirements. Metadata is held using a database and its design allows users to control their own data structures. Data is held in a file store which, in combination with the metadata, gives huge flexibility and means the model is limited only by the file system. Using examples from materials engineering and medicine we illustrate how the model can be applied. We will also discuss how this data model can be used to support an institutional document repository, showing how data can be published in a remote data repository at the same time as a publication is deposited in a document repository. Finally, we present educational material used to introduce the concepts of research data management. Educating students about the challenges and opportunities of data management is a key part of the solution and helps the researchers of the future to start to think about the relevant issues early on in their careers. We have compiled a set of case studies to show the similarities and differences in data between disciplines, and produced documentation for students containing the case studies and an introduction to the data lifecycle and other data management practices. Managing in-use data and metadata is just as important to users as published data. Appropriate education of users and a data staging repository with a flexible and extensible data model supports this without precluding the ability to publish the data at a later date.

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Enrichment is one of the important educational facilities that are provided for gifted students. However, the research on gifted enrichment programmes still requires further exploration in order to meet the diversity of gifted students. The purpose of this study was to determine the important components of an enrichment programme in science for gifted boys in the 6th grade of primary schools in Saudi Arabia. The current study has critiqued the components that are recommended in the literature pertaining to gifted programmes that include the Renzulli Model, VanTass- Baska Model, and Oasis Enrichment Model. Gifted programmes discussed are then discussed in relation to those that are provided to gifted students in schools and Universities in Saudi Arabia. Mixed methods were used in this descriptive study. Three methods have been used, documentary analysis, questionnaire, and interview. The documentary analyses of selected science textbook in 6th grade used mixed (qualitative and quantitative) approaches. The participants included 220 gifted students in primary schools in 6th grade from Dammam, Riyadh, and Jeddah city in Saudi Arabia, and 10 teachers and 10 supervisors of gifted education in science. Gifted students responded to questionnaires in order to ascertain their opinions about the current science textbook in 6th grade and what they would like to find in the Proposed Enrichment Programme (PEP). Interviews were conducted with teachers and supervisors of gifted education to examine in depth their IV perception about the current 6th grade science textbook and the Proposed Enrichment Programme in order to meet the needs of Saudi gifted students in 6th grade. The data from questionnaires were analysed in two phases. Firstly, the data were analysed and presented item by item for both the current science textbook ( ST questionnaire) and the proposed enrichment programme ( PEP questionnaire). All the items were examined by Chi square test to calculate whether there are any significant differences among each item in both questionnaires. Secondly, comparisons were made among the themes that emerged from the ST and PEP questionnaires. The responses of the interviewees were assigned to one of the content themes (attitudes to science, thinking skills, and contents and activities). Analysis of the words from respondents and counting frequencies of occurrence of ideas, themes, pieces of data, words (Cohen et al., 2007). The questionnaire data showed that the most important theme in the PEP for the gifted students is the “content of knowledge”. This reflects the students‟ views of the inadequacy of knowledge in the ST and their desire to further the development of content knowledge in the PEP. All the data from students and teachers and supervisors indicated that the ST needs to be improved to meet the needs of gifted students in two main areas: the level of thinking skills (e.g. evaluating and creating), and that the topics should be close to students‟ daily life and their environment. The findings of this research study showed agreement across all data collection instruments regarding the weakness of the activities in the 6th grade science textbook. This study considers that in order to enable gifted students to fulfil their potential in science in the regular classroom, it is necessary to provide further content and activities that require high levels of thinking, as provided by the PEP. The findings in this study clearly showed that there is a need for more challenge to stimulate gifted learners to learn which should be included in the PEP

As policing evolves radically to meet the demand of a twenty-first century society, the training methods and educational tactics employed in the development of the next generation of officers must also evolve. This investigation incorporates both literature and empirical analysis of standards, expectations, and opportunities within the United Kingdom Initial Police Learning and Development Programme (IPLDP). Emphasising particular findings from participants at all stages of this programme, the techniques and concepts emphasised by the current training initiative are called into question, challenging decision makers to consider the impact of such system design. Ultimately, this research suggests that although present in the IPLDP, practical application of knowledge and skills is a fundamental necessity for developing effective, successful student officers. Many of the issues and challenges cited by the survey participants are directly linked to programme limitations that are innately incorporated in a process that favours classroom learning and theoretical assessment. It is the practical application of skills within the UK society that will ultimately test the knowledge gained by student officers; and in many cases, supervisors and students alike are finding that the programme is lacking. This analysis suggests adjustments in the programme dynamics, emphasising experience, evidence, and application as primary means of transcending the many limitations of theoretical assessment of work based assessment

This thesis reports research using a qualitative approach and a social constructivist lens to explore the experience of preparing for examinations in higher education from the perspective of fourteen dyslexic students. Particular attention is paid to students' feelings about examinations as well as their revision strategies and the influences on the development of those strategies. The research was conducted in two phases with maximum variation purposive sampling used to recruit as diverse a range of participants as possible for each. Phase one data collection activities involved in-depth interviews and cultural probes; phase two involved participant-led, conversational interviews stimulated by photographs taken by the participants prior to the interview. Data analysis combined elements of inductive thematic analysis and life-history and life-story research approaches. A profile of each participant, in their own words, was crafted as the foundation for further interpretation. Participants described strategies which could be grouped into three broad, overlapping categories: emotional, practical and cognitive. Each individual could be placed along a strategy continuum according to his or her dominant strategy. Their 'sense of control' over their academic lives emerged as a core theme. Findings indicate that as dyslexic students gain a sense of control over their academic lives they move along the revision strategy continuum, from an initial emotional reaction to exams (emotional ‘non’-strategists/anti-strategists) through a stage of dealing with exams in a practical way and experimenting with strategies (practical emergent-strategists) to a final metacognitive stage where they have found a system, method or procedure that works for them (cognitive super-strategists). The individual's journey along the strategy and sense of control trajectory is influenced by life experiences including the diagnosis of dyslexia (and its timing) and comments made by significant others or a critical incident which may act as a turning point.

Maria Montessori famously designed her own materials to support children’s development. Thus far, the literature which focuses on Montessori Sensorial education - and on creativity, problem solving and creative problem solving - has not investigated connections between these matters. This study investigated the effect of using the Montessori Method on children’s skills, especially in creative problem solving. This research examines the integration of Montessori materials into a social context to develop children’s creative problem solving, and analyses these data using the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) framework [Isaksen et al., 2000] and Rogoff’s model [1990] of social interaction. The study provides a new way of using the CPS framework, for data analysis, rather than as a way of training an individual or a group in solving problems creatively. The methodology combines a quasi-experimental design with a sample of qualitative cases. The research was conducted in one pre-school in Saudi Arabia, in the city of Riyadh, and involved twenty-four five-year-old children (12 boys, 12 girls) and four teachers. Six matched pairs of children were observed using Montessori sensorial materials (MSM) for one academic year. All the children were assessed on their problem solving capacities, in order to compare their development, using the British Ability Scale-II. The results from the quantitative analysis reveal significant differences between the experimental and control groups in their capacity to solve problems, using a pre-post-test of the four subscales of the BAS II. The qualitative analysis shows social interaction assists children in the “understanding of the challenge” component of the creative problem solving process while individual differences were identified in relation to the three creative skills. The results revealed the children’s different ways of framing and solving their own problems creatively through exploring different positions of the materials and applying them in creative solutions. The research also found that children’s own individual experiences with, and interests in, the material affected their creative problem solving.

This study looks at a group of Malaysian university students’ perceptions, experiences and behaviours when presented with an informal, participatory Facebook interaction group for English language practice. Three methods of data collection, namely questionnaire, LMT100 Facebook interaction group, and semi-structured interview were employed in stages. The findings show a discrepancy between the participants’ perceptions of using Facebook for English language learning (ELL), and their experiences and behaviours when presented with the interaction group. Only a quarter of the participants used the group actively by initiating interaction threads, and communicating with each other. A huge majority acted passively by making their participation visible just once or repeatedly through the means of likes and short comments. The rest of the members were silent readers who never made their involvement visible over the period of six weeks. The students showed higher participation rate when presented with three topics; entertainment-based, grammar quizzes, and university-related inquiries. This was discussed as students’ selective interests and preferences in learning. The types of online content suitable for English language learning was also addressed. More passive interviewees reported small improvements in their communicative competence from the interaction activity. The active interviewees however only felt a boost in their confidence to use English publicly rather than experience enhanced English language ability. The discrepancy between the students’ perceptions and behaviours are discussed from three levels of sociocultural influences which are personal, institutional, and societal. The students’ prior English language learning experience within an education system that privileges examinations may have influenced their (non)participation in the LMT100 group. The interviewees also indicated the existence of sentiments in racial, political, and religious issues, which may have influenced their learning experience at the university. The findings indicate that the informal, unstructured English language interaction platform on Facebook as having great potentials, although not tremendously successful in this study. Several implications are presented as strategies that may assist the integration of Facebook for English language learning in the future.

This thesis is a contribution to the debates about the impact of ‘postmodernism’ on qualitative research practices. It is a performative discourse on the invention of feminist research methods with/in the postmodern (here, related to the pedagogy of Rape Crisis volunteer counsellor training). It addresses how feminism acting with/in postmodernism may experiment with the invention of a ‘new’ method hyper-textual electronic bricolage, which 1 name from my readings of Gregory Ulmer’s re-readings of Jacques Derrida. The research takes into account the enframing limits of technologies to argue that the theory and practice of electronic data analysis has been modelled to fit with/in existing notions of reading, writing, and the culture of qualitative research practice. It asserts that to invent a feminist research practice with/in the postmodern requires that we use hypertext not to do the work of print but to facilitate an alternative way of knowing materials. The thesis attends to the possibilities of electronic scripting as invention, and to the production of a print text arising from this. This electronically generated method bears the same relation to current CAQDAS (computer aided qualitative data analysis) techniques as the ‘new’ evocative ethnographic writings bear to the traditional ethnographic text. The thesis tells a reflective story of carrying out feminist inspired empirical work with/in the postmodern. It shows how, if feminism acting with/in the postmodern conceptualises research as an enactment of power relations between constituted subjects, the nature of our research conceptions and practices changes. It includes a multi-linear layered ‘collective story’ arising from the electronic hypertext generated from qualitative interview materials. This scripts some of the common themes that are important in forging an understanding of women’s experiences of Rape Crisis counsellor training, yet always retains an awareness of the significant differences between these tales. Finally, the thesis suggests that, if we are to develop feminist research methods with/in the postmodern that take into account the enframing limits of our technologies, we need to attend to the re-mapping of validities as we move from print to electronic ways of doing/knowing research.