This thesis examines pupils' attitudes to science as they move from primary to secondary school, and seeks to identify any factors that might influence these attitudes. A review of the literature on attitudes to science research finds that existing studies with similar aims have tended to use cross-sectional samples, many of which were small or unrepresentative, and furthermore that there has often been inadequate control of potentially influential variables. The present work employs a longitudinal study of over 3000 children, between 10 and 12 years old, from schools in Essex. Data has been collected by means of questionnaires, supplemented by a free response section, and by interviews. Information was also collected from over 300 primary and secondary teachers by means of questionnaires, supplemented by a free response section, and interviews. Information was collected, by interviews and from statistical data in the public domain, about all participating schools. The integrated data from the children, their teachers and their schools has been analysed in three different ways: the quantitative data was subjected to a variety of statistical techniques to compare the two sets of data from primary and secondary school as two cross-sections, and to investigate changes for individual pupils taking a longitudinal approach. The qualitative data was subjected to textual analysis and it was also integrated with the quantitative data. These analyses yield conclusions, which inform pedagogy, school management, teacher training, and social justice.

Many contributors to the interdisciplinary field of conflict resolution have emphasised the impact of socio-psychological and psycho-cultural influences in maintaining and perpetuating ethnic conflicts. The review of the literature concerning Cyprus reveals that such factors have been active in the 37 years of ethnic separation between the Greek-Cypriot and the Turkish-Cypriot communities. Although strategies are available to bridge communities and offer prospects for a reconciliation and peace centre on facilitating interaction, contact and dialogue between communities at all levels, it is surprising how little has taken place between the two academic communities on the island. This is in contrast to the picture found in similar conflict cases, such as the ones in Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine. Despite some notable efforts and collaborations currently in place, the numbers involved constitute a very small fraction of the two academic bodies. The research has aimed at establishing the role of higher education in divided societies, not only by examining theoretically and philosophically its importance as a part of a reconciliation process but also by depicting the opinion of academics from both parts of Cyprus. The research has shown that although they are optimistic about future links, they nevertheless identified major implications stemming out of the issues of ‘recognition’, nationalism, social pressure, the impact of media and the characteristics of the academic cultures in each respective community. These explain the contrast between much good-will and little real action. The analysis of findings includes a discussion of possible strategies to establish an open dialogue between the two academic communities and to facilitate collaborations.

This thesis addresses the issue of how to help staff in Universities learn to give feedback with the main focus on helping teaching assistants (TAs) learn to give feedback while marking programming assignments. The result is an innovative approach which has been implemented in a novel computer support system called McFeSPA. The design of McFeSPA is based on an extensive review of the research literature on feedback. McFeSPA has been developed based on relevant work in educational psychology and Artificial Intelligence in EDucation (AIED) e.g. scaffolding the learner, ideas about andragogy, feedback patterns, research into the nature and quality of feedback and cognitive apprenticeship. McFeSPA draws on work on feedback patterns that have been proposed within the Pedagogical Patterns Project (PPP) to provide guidance on structuring the feedback report given to the student by the TA. The design also draws on the notion of andragogy to support the TA. McFeSPA is the first Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) that supports adults learning to help students by giving quality feedback. The approach taken is more than a synthesis of these key ideas: the scaffolding framework has been implemented both for the domain of programming and the feedback domain itself; the programming domain has been structured for training TAs to give better feedback and as a framework for the analysis of students’ performance. The construction of feedback was validated by a small group of TAs. The TAs employed McFeSPA in a realistic situation that was supported by McFeSPA which uses scaffolding to support the TA and then fade. The approach to helping TAs become better feedback givers, which is instantiated in McFeSPA, has been validated through an experimental study with a small group of TAs using a triangulation approach. We found that our participants learned differently by using McFeSPA. The evaluation indicates that 1) providing content scaffolding (i.e. detailed feedback about the content using contingent hints) in McFeSPA can help almost all TAs increase their knowledge/understanding of the issues of learning to give feedback; 2) providing metacognitive scaffolding (i.e. each level of detailed feedback in contingent hint, this can also be general pop-up messages in using the system apart from feedback that encourage the participants to give good feedback) in McFeSPA helped all TAs reflect on/rethink their skills in giving feedback; and 3) when the TAs obtained knowledge about giving quality feedback, providing adaptable fading of TAs using McFeSPA allowed the TAs to learn alone without any support.

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This is a study of student attrition amongst full-time, first year undergraduates at the University of Glasgow during the 1999-2000 academic session. The thesis contains an initial assessment of the importance of research in this area (Chapter 1), followed by a review of the literature, focusing in particular on the theories and explanations of student attrition that have been advanced by other authors (Chapter 2), and on appropriate research methodologies and data collection techniques (Chapter 3). The investigation then progresses through a succession of different empirical and data-analytic phases. Because of his function within the organisation, the author had uniquely good access to the student records system maintained centrally by the University. This made it practical to sift through this information in such a way as to determine first the simple concomitances of retention (Chapter 4), and then to use it in a more sophisticated manner to develop logistic regression models of retention (Chapters 5 and 8). The challenge was then to decide which new, additional data should be gathered in order to improve upon these quantitative models. The solutions were found partly by recourse to some focus group work with students and staff (Chapter 6). This resulted in two questionnaires being developed to discover students’ attitudes believed to be relevant to retention (Chapter 6). The first survey instrument was administered to all first-year students as part of the matriculation process. The other was completed on-line in the course of the session as an adjunct to the IT Induction Programme for all first-year students. Chapter 10 contains the first outcomes of the attempt to improve the logistic regression models described in Chapter 5 by the introduction of attitudinal constructs, first on their own, and then in combination with the original background and prior academic characteristics in order to model summer retention. The amount of data available in this study is considerable and, consequently, some large-sample structural equation techniques were then used to develop some new, more comprehensive models of retention (Chapter 11). These are more informative, demonstrating how trade-offs can occur between different variables in an overall model of retention, and identifying particular areas where practical policy interventions are likely to be successful in ameliorating student attrition. It is demonstrated that summer retention is affected in roughly equal measure by academic and non-academic factors. On the academic side, it is shown that extra effort and additional academic help and feedback can benefit those students having relatively low entry point scores, for example. Social integration, at least in moderation, is beneficial, and it is positively influenced by living in university accommodation. However, various extraneous problems harm retention through the mediating variables of social integration and commitment. The models have a temporal dimension, and it is argued that students’ attitudes whilst on course owe their origins to those detected at the time of matriculation and, ultimately, back to levels of family support.

A Spiritual Assessment Tool (SAT) for use with a child by a healthcare chaplain, requires a clear conceptual construct in order to convey a child’s spiritual profile to other professionals. The design of the tool, allied to the manner in which a chaplain engages with a patient, allows a child to easily share information which can be interpreted in terms of this construct. This thesis creates a new and accessible conceptual framework to describe the spirituality of children in a paediatric setting. It achieves this through the design and development of a portfolio of sorting cards and storyboards, referred to as a Spiritual Assessment Tool (SAT). The SAT encourages children to share information about their healthcare journey which is then interpreted in terms of the new framework. In addition, it identifies the competences required by a healthcare professional to obtain and interpret this information. In doing so, it necessarily discusses the wider implications of the theological insights which arise. The research involved the filming of interviews conducted with children aged between 6 and 13 years old in an acute paediatric healthcare setting. During these interviews sorting cards depicting different aspects of the children’s lives were used in conjunction with storyboards, in order to discover how the children described their lives while in hospital. The design of the SAT developed through two distinct stages before reaching a final model that achieved the goals of this thesis In order to describe and share the information expressed with other healthcare staff, a framework was developed to enable interpretation of how a child constructs meaning. This framework required a terminology that could clearly communicate the complexities of how children understand the meaning of their lives in the context of the hospital setting. By engaging with child development theory and the data gathered from the interviews, the term “connectedness” was adopted to better encapsulate the conceptual construct of what had, in the past, been described as “childhood spirituality”. The term draws four dimensions from the field of child development which help professionals to profile a child’s perspective of their lives while in hospital:; the momentum of connectedness; the awareness of connectedness; the resilience of connectedness; and the evaluative nature of connectedness. These dimensions take account of the contextual disruption experienced by the children and the way in which their level of development contributes to the perspective of their lives while in hospital. The theological implications the concept of ‘connectedness’ and the methodology of its application underline the dynamics of the competences involved. These can be applied in integrated theological reflective practice. The “Zone of Proximal Connectedness” (ZPC) is used to describe the space of an encounter between a healthcare professional and a paediatric patient when four features are present; hospitality, liminality, the significant other, and the co-construction of meaning. The ZPC forms the foundation for gathering information that serves as the basis for better spiritual care. The research findings provide insight into the dynamics required for a healthcare chaplain to relate to a child and to engage in integrated theological reflective practice which relates to the ZPC. The nature of the encounter outlined in this thesis, requires the quality of ‘mutuality’ to be present between assessor and child. The nature of the encounter outlined in this thesis between an assessor and a child requires the quality of ‘mutuality’. The presence of the quality of mutuality in this context, reveals that inThe implications of mutuality reveal that in the Christian Faith our concept of God’s nature involves a greater sense of mutuality. The wider implications of this reflection for the Christian faith and our understanding of God, Jesus and the Church are identified as an area for future theological exploration.

Travel, according to the anthropologist James Clifford (1998). is a fundamental characteristic of human behaviour. Grand tours and temporary residencies in European cities are no longer the preserve of the elite but today have become a global commonplace and one of the discourses of postmodernity. Broadened access to travel has not, however, altered the notion of being well-travelled which has continued to accrue both economic, symbolic and cultural capital. Study or work abroad has become a commonplace and at the 'same time it has undergone a degree of change, becoming a simple accessory or another commodity to add to one's curriculum vitae. In recent years interculturalists, and modem linguists in particular such as Byram (2001), Cormeraie (2002) and Kramsch (1998), have turned their attention to studies of the experience of the Year Abroad for students of foreign languages. Much of the focus in these studies has been on the accumulation of intercultural competence and on linguistic and cultural fluency drawing conceptual frames from the discipli'ne of education. The problem with this research is that it has become bound into the concerns of education and has not looked beyond the structures of pedagogy to wider cultural issues and manifestations of travel and dwelling abroad. This thesis examines the experiences of graduates working and living abroad, with an emphasis on the relationship which exists between their working contexts and cultural difference. This research makes two main contributions to the field. One' is to approach the graduates as cultural voices throughout their narratives of residency and working life abroad which can be perceived as the writing of their own identities. The other is the application of psychoanalytical theory to the graduates' readings of cultural difference and intercultural. encounter as performed throughout their narratives.

This study explores the applicability of different conceptual models to two different policy sectors in Scotland; education and health, with specific reference to SHARE a specially designed school sex education programme. The study also draws on the policy network literature to understand the way in which the interaction between organisations and actors affects the value attached to research evidence. This thesis addresses three main research questions: How has school sex education policy been developed? How is research evidence used in school sex education policy development since devolution? What factors facilitate or impede the use of research evidence? To explore these issues I carried out 21 in-depth semi-structured interviews with policy makers and researchers, all of whom had insight into various aspects of sex education policy development in health and education. Using semiotics, I also analysed four policy documents. Results The development of sex education policy in the health and education sectors appears to have different underlying objectives. In the health sector it is designed to achieve immediate action, which requires speedy decision-making, while in the education sector it is designed to build consensus, achieved through cautious and careful decision-making. In health leadership of policy development for sex education can be identified at the instigation of policies with a high turnover of actors in subsequent stages; leadership within education is controlled and maintained throughout all stages of sex education policy development. As a result, common epistemic perspectives are more easily identified amongst those developing sex education within education, than within health. These perspectives affect the way research evidence has been used in the development of sex education policy. Although research evidence has been used in different ways, the intention behind its use is nearly always political. Fast decision-making militates against the use of research evidence in the health sector, while prioritising consensus overshadows the need to be evidence-based in education. The use of research in sex education policy-making is inhibited or facilitated by external contextual factors (political and organisational priorities) and internal contextual factors (modes of decision-making, the beliefs and interests of individuals, and interaction between individuals). In addition, the dynamics of power between policy-makers and researchers need to be carefully negotiated and can also be influenced by contextual factors.

There is a lack of research on the middle class in general, and especially on those who attend independent schools. This is noticeably profound in the field of educational decision-making at the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Whilst recent studies have attempted to address such issues, the focus has tended to fall on a very limited number of students attending highly selective schools, which are often based in London: and are heavily reliant on parental accounts of their offspring's decision-making. In this study, I seek to address these identified gaps, in presenting a study of student decision-making within a non-academically-selective independent school for girls, given the pseudonym 'Midham School', which is located in a town in the Midlands of England. The study draws on observational data from Careers lessons and institutional school events such as Open Days, and students' own responses given in a questionnaire and in semi-structured small-group interviews, as well as interviews with key staff members, collected over the course of one academic year. Resulting from these, a picture will be built up of the dominant discourses relating to educational decision-making within the school and home. Theoretically, the study addresses aspects of both structure and agency. Although there is a focus on the way in which individual young women draw on differing discourses in order to inform their agentic decision-making, these decisions are seen to be framed by structural factors such as social class, gender and academic ability. These factors are shown to have a defining effect on how the young women constructed themselves (and were constructed) as gendered and classed individuals through the decisions that they (and their families) made regarding their education, training and future careers.

This is an ethnographic study of a small sample of Catholic secondary schools in England evaluating their role within the Catholic faith tradition and their contribution to community cohesion. The research is firmly based within an ethnographic framework; it explores the perception of Catholic schools by members, in particular the young people, of the Catholic school community. The ethnographic data was collected through semi-structured focus group interviews and observations. The understanding of religion is developed from the work of Hervieu-Léger on religion as a chain of memory. The concept of social capital in the form of bonding and bridging, and both religious and spiritual capital provides a framework to understand the factors within Catholic schools, which are perceived to create a Catholic community and those which are perceived to develop or hinder cohesion in plural society. The students’ understandings of their Catholic identity were diverse and fragmentary, with precarious links to the Catholic Church as an institution. However, there was a valuing of aspects of the Catholic faith tradition which were used to construct their own understanding of Catholicism, leading to a conclusion that the Catholic school is a source of spiritual capital for its members. The participants perceived their schools to have a Catholic nature, a strong ‘sense of community’. The Catholic schools were good generators of bonding capital, although this was focused on the school rather than the wider Catholic community. Perceptions of the boundaries of the school focused on everyday encounters with outsiders such as ‘the school next door’ rather than members of other faith communities. This research has implications: for the faith school debate and issues concerning social cohesion; for the Catholic school’s role in the transmission of the faith tradition and for an understanding of young people’s Catholic identity.