This research project attempts to investigate what happens to a learner's performance at school when he / she comes from a poor family background. It addressed the critical questions. The data was collected from learners of KwaMgaga High School, at Umlazi, an African township 30 km south of Durban. This is a case study research and both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in order to collect data although qualitative research methodology dominated the study. Issues of poverty and academic performance were investigated in the countries outside South Africa as well. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The research findings emanating from the data proves that, indeed poverty impacts negatively on academic performance. Secondly learners from impoverished backgrounds experience many problems that affect their performance at school. If a child lives in poverty, he \ she is likely to perform poorly at school. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2006.

This phenomenological study explores the beliefs and practices of New Zealand early childhood teachers in supporting English acquisition for Asian immigrant English language learners (ELLs). The focus of the study is on the analysis of early childhood teachers’ beliefs about how they can support English acquisition among Asian immigrant ELLs and how these beliefs influence the teachers’ practices in early childhood education (ECE) settings. The theoretical framework of this research draws on a range of sociocultural perspectives, including (i) the sociocultural positions initially defined by Lev Vygostky (1978), (ii) the notion of guided participation articulated by Barbara Rogoff (2003), (iii) theories of second language acquisition discussed by Lantolf and Thorne (2000), and by Krashen (1982, 1985), and (iv) acculturation as addressed by Berry (2001). The main participants of this study were seven early childhood teachers and six Asian immigrant ELLs from two ECE centres. Four Asian parents participated in interviews to ascertain the parents’ perspectives about their children’s learning of English and their maintenance of home language. Research methods for the teachers included observations and semi-structured pre- and post-observation interviews. For each centre, observations were carried out over a six week period which enabled a series of snapshots of how the teachers supported the ELLs as they acquired English. The findings were analysed using thematic analysis, and presented three themes: English dominance, social cultural adaptation, and guided participation. These themes impacted the learning experiences of the Asian immigrant ELLs and other children attending the ECE as well as the teaching approaches of the early childhood teachers. The findings revealed that there were dissonances between the teachers’ beliefs and their practices, as well as variation between individual teachers’ beliefs and practices. Because of a significant increase in the number of ELLs in New Zealand ECE centres, it is important for early childhood teachers to understand the emphasis upon sociocultural theories in the ECE curriculum, so that they can effectively apply these theories to their practices. This study will provide a basis from which to consider how early childhood teachers in New Zealand can draw upon sociocultural perspectives to better support ELLs as they acquire English, while valuing and supporting their linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

In the Storyline approach a fictive world is created in the classroom. Learners become characters in a story, which develops as they work in small groups on open key questions, devised by the teacher on the basis of curriculum content and in which practical and theoretical tasks are integrated. Though established in first language contexts, Storyline is less known in second language education, although it would seem to offer conditions considered to promote language development in young learners: the story framework provides an engaging and meaningful context in which learners use their language skills holistically, in tasks which simulate the way they might use English in the real world, and in which they can use their creative talents. This multi-strategy case study investigated the language development of a class of Swedish 11-13 year olds who took part in Storyline, Our Sustainable Street, lasting five weeks. In the topic the learners were families living in a new street in a fictive English town. The aim was to consolidate their existing structural and lexical knowledge, develop their language skills and introduce the lexis of sustainability. Findings show that the learners became engaged when they worked with the Storyline, and that this impacted positively on their language development, especially regarding the learning of new words, losing the fear of speaking English before their peers, and in the voluntary production of longer and more structurally and lexically complex written texts. Features which contributed most to learner engagement were found to be group work, art work and the variety of task types, with the boys also motivated by not working with a textbook and girls by opportunities to use their imagination. The results suggest that inclusion of the Storyline approach in a teaching repertoire can facilitate language development in young learners.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Historical Involvement and Mastery of a skill on Self-Esteem. Much of the literature on the relationship between self-esteem and physical conditioning has mixed findings. In this study it was hypothesized that Historical Involvement and Mastery of physical conditioning skills and industrial arts skills would significantly influence self-esteem scores.Physical Conditioning and Industrial Arts skills groups were utlized as Ss. Eighty-five male and female undergraduates from physical conditioning skills classes and ninety-three male and female undergraduates from industrial arts skills classes participated. Both groups participated in their respective skills for one hour a day, four days a week, for ten consecutive weeks. They completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale prior to and immediately following the classes. They also completed an Historical Involvement questionnaire for their respective skill.In the primary analysis, a 2 (Skill--Physical Conditioning, Industrial Arts) x 3 (History--Mastery/History, Mastery/Non-History, Non-Mastery)-Analysis of Variance was performed. Mastery was distinguished by the grade B or above. Five planned comparisons using t tests were performed to test the research hypotheses. The levels of Historical Involvement and Mastery did not significantly affect self-esteem scores in either skills group. As was hypothesized, there were no significant differences in self-esteem scores either in the Non-History/mastery condition. Physical conditioning classes overall did produce higher scores than industrial arts classes, regardless of History or Mastery. However, when a ninety-five percent confidence interval was constructed, the difference between these two groups could have been as little as 0.2 units or as much as 1.5 units. Therefore, while statistically significant, this finding should be interpreted cautiously.A secondary analysis was performed in the Physical Conditioning group only, measuring percentage of skill improvement. The Ss were grouped into High and Low percentages of improvement and showed no significant differences on self-esteem scores.It is suggested that individuals' attitudes toward a particular skill and the value it has in their lives and/or their perceptions of their improvement might be the factors that relate to changes in self-esteem with mastery of that skill.

The message that is being preached on the streets on a daily basis is that HIV/AIDS has no cure and that it is a fatal disease. The AIDS pandemic is a serious problem, everybody's concern and nobody's fault. If not attended to accordingly and not controlled properly, the epidemic poses a serious threat to the whole nation, therefore every individual is faced with an enormous challenge, especially young people, since today's youths are tomorrow's future. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is continuing to rob both parents and their children of an opportunity of reaching their last mile of development which is old age. HIV/AIDS is not regarded to be the same as any other disease. The situation is getting out of hand as the HIV/AIDS victims are facing a double jeopardy of fighting for their lives, while at the same time, suffering from negative societal attitudes. They are being discriminated against, rejected, ill-treated and not treated with love and respect Therefore every individual is faced with the huge task of fighting this monster and creating a caring society. A supportive and enabling environment needs to be created so that HIV/AIDS victims can be treated similarly to any other patients. The aim of the study was to explore learners' knowledge of HIV/AIDS and determine their attitudes regarding people living with HIV/AIDS. From the research findings, it was found that learners are knowledgeable about the general facts on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but that their knowledge concerning certain aspects is limited to some extent, therefore it is deemed necessary to equip and empower them with more and relevant information. With regard to learners' attitudes, it was found that learners have fair and positive attitudes towards people living with AIDS. It is recommended that these positive attitudes and fair knowledge of learners must be sustained. The most effective way to attain this is though education, and schools are the appropriate places to teach young people about HIV prevention. Here they can receive information and skills. It is further recommended that more HIV/AIDS programmes be developed to increase awareness and knowledge with the intention of educating people to recognize and avoid high-risk behaviour. / Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

The title of this research is: “The nature of safety and security in public secondary schools”. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to determine the nature of safety and security in public secondary schools of Matlosana Area Office’s (AO) area of responsibility, with a view to developing a more comprehensive set of recommendations on how to improve the safety and security policy – to the benefit of educators, learners and visitors to school premises. The study was carried out in the North West Province’s department of Education. An empirical research was conducted to gather data from the respondents regarding the safety and security of educators, learners and visitors in public secondary schools of the Matlosana Area Office’s area of responsibility. The target groups were the AO Manager, the Safety Co-ordinator, the Safety Officer, the School Management Teams, educators, learners, School Governing Bodies and Adopt-a-Cop members. The investigation also analysed the extent to which public secondary schools are complying with the statutory and regulatory frameworks governing safety and security. The study employed a quantitative approach, using a structured questionnaire. In this study, the research is concluded with a presentation of the findings. Amongst others, it was found that some learners carry dangerous objects on school premises, because the Adopt-a-Cop programme is not effectively implemented. Conclusions were drawn on the basis of the findings; and finally, recommendations for further research were suggested. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

This research adopts a sociocultural framework (Vygotsky, 1978) to investigate how multilingual children express their mathematical reasoning during collaborative problem solving. The topic is important because North America is becoming increasingly multicultural, and according to mathematics teachers this has complicated the challenges of teaching and learning mathematics. Many educators assume that children should be competent in the language of instruction before they engage with mathematical content (Civil, 2008; Gorgorió & Planas, 2001). A review of recent research in this area challenges the idea that multilingual students need to have mastered the official language of instruction prior to learning mathematics (Barwell, 2005; Civil, 2008; Moschkovich, 2007). These researchers demonstrate that the knowledge of the language of instruction is only one aspect of becoming competent in mathematics. My research was designed to build on the findings of the current research on multilingual children’s reasoning in order to more fully understand how multilingual children express their mathematical understanding and reasoning. For this study, two multilingual families, each with 3 children between the ages of 8 and 12, participated in a mathematical problem-solving activity. Findings show the children’s mathematical reasoning was evidence-based drawing on mathematical knowledge and world knowledge.

The title of this research is: “The nature of safety and security in public secondary schools”. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to determine the nature of safety and security in public secondary schools of Matlosana Area Office’s (AO) area of responsibility, with a view to developing a more comprehensive set of recommendations on how to improve the safety and security policy – to the benefit of educators, learners and visitors to school premises. The study was carried out in the North West Province’s department of Education. An empirical research was conducted to gather data from the respondents regarding the safety and security of educators, learners and visitors in public secondary schools of the Matlosana Area Office’s area of responsibility. The target groups were the AO Manager, the Safety Co-ordinator, the Safety Officer, the School Management Teams, educators, learners, School Governing Bodies and Adopt-a-Cop members. The investigation also analysed the extent to which public secondary schools are complying with the statutory and regulatory frameworks governing safety and security. The study employed a quantitative approach, using a structured questionnaire. In this study, the research is concluded with a presentation of the findings. Amongst others, it was found that some learners carry dangerous objects on school premises, because the Adopt-a-Cop programme is not effectively implemented. Conclusions were drawn on the basis of the findings; and finally, recommendations for further research were suggested. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

The research reported in this thesis comprised a cross-age inquiry of learners' mental models for chemical bonding. Learners were chosen purposefully from three academic levels-senior secondary school (Year-13, age range 17-18 years old), undergraduate (age range 19-21 years), and postgraduate (comprising MSc and PhD; age range 22- 27 years). The principal research goal was to establish learners' preferred mental models for the concept of chemical bonding. Other research goals were to establish if and how learners made use of analogy to understand chemical bonding and to establish the prevalence of learners' alternative conceptions for chemical bonding. The research inquiry was conducted from within a constructivist paradigm; specifically the researcher ascribed to a social and contextual constructivist belief system.Based on a review of the science education literature a decision was made to classify mental models into four classes according to the typology of Norman (1983), namely, the target system, a conceptual model, the users' or learners' mental model and the scientists' conceptualisation. A conceptual theme for the inquiry was developed based on this typology resulting in the identification of target systems-metallic, ionic and covalent bonding. Subsequently, target models for each of the three target systems were identified, namely, the sea of electrons model and the band theory for metallic bonding; the electrostatic model, and the theoretical electrostatic model for ionic bonding; and the octet rule, the valence bond approach, the molecular orbital theory and the ligand field theory for covalent bonding. A conceptual model, consisting of a summary of the salient points of the target models, was developed by the researcher. Once validated by four of the instructors involved in the inquiry, this formed the scientists' conceptualisation for the target ++ / models.Learners' mental models were elicited by the use of a three phase semi-structured interview protocol for each of the three target systems based on the translation interface developed by Johnson and Gott (1996). The protocol consisted of showing participants samples of common substances and asking them to describe the bonding in these materials. In addition, participants were shown Interviews About Events (IAE), focus cards which depicted events involving chemical bonding or contained depicted models of bonding for the three target systems. Transcriptions of audio-tapes combined with diagrams produced by the participants formed the data corpus for the inquiry. Learners' mental models were compiled into inventories for each of the target systems. Examination of inventories enabled identification of commonality of views which were validated by four instructors-two instructors from the teaching institutions involved in the inquiry, and two instructors independent of the inquiry.The research reported in this thesis revealed that learners across all three academic levels preferred simple or realist mental models for chemical bonding, such as the sea of electrons model and the octet rule. Learners frequently used concepts from other more sophisticated models to aid their explanations when their preferred mental models were found to be inadequate. Senior level learners were more critical of mental models, particularly depicted models provided on IAE focus cards. Furthermore, senior level learners were able to describe their mental models in greater detail than their younger counterparts. However, the inquiry found considerable commonality across all three levels of learner, suggesting mental models are relatively stable.Learners' use of analogy was classified according to Dagher's (1995a) typology, namely, simple, narrative, peripheral and compound. Learners' use of ++ / analogy for the understanding of chemical bonding was found to be idiosyncratic. When they struggled to explain aspects of their mental models for chemical bonding, learners made extensive use of simple analogy, that typically involved the mapping of a single attribute between the target and source domains. There did not appear to be any correlation between academic ability or academic level and use of analogy. However, learners made greater use of compound analogy for the target systems of metallic and ionic bonding, mostly as a result of the use of analogical models during instruction.This inquiry revealed prevalent alternative conceptions for chemical bonding across all three academic levels of learner. This is a somewhat surprising result considering that the mental models preferred by learners were typically simple, realist models they had encountered during instruction. Learners' alternative conceptions often concerned simple conceptions such as ionic size, the presence of charged species in non- polar molecular compounds, and misunderstandings about the strength of bonding in metals and ionic substances. The inquiry also revealed widespread confusion about intermolecular and intramolecular bonding, and the nature of lattices structures for ionic and metallic substances.The inquiry resulted in a number of recommendations. It is proposed that it may be more beneficial to teach less content at the introductory level, that is, delivering a curriculum that is more appropriate for non-specialist chemistry majors. Hence, one recommendation is for instructors to examine the intended curriculum carefully and be more critical regarding the value of inclusion of some course content. A second recommendation is that sophisticated models of chemical bonding are better taught only at advanced stages of the degree program, and that teaching from a contructivist view of ++ / learning may be beneficial. The third recommendation relates to the fact that learners spontaneously generated analogies to aid their explanations and conceptual understanding, consequently, learners may benefit from greater use of analogy during instruction.

Thesis (Ed.D)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Is it possible for at-risk students attending a rural community college to succeed in attaining their stated academic goals if exposed to a retention program customized to suit the needs of students attending their type of institution? What role does a student's motivation to succeed play in his or her decision to pursue achievement behavior in college? Are academically at-risk learners aware of behaviors that limit their success in the classroom? If so, what affective and cognitive variables determine individual success and to what extent can these variables be screened for on entrance? To address the above questions, the LASSI and Trice Locus of Control inventory were administered to 45 students enrolled in the Opportunity For Success program, a retention effort for at-risk 17-21 years old students at Quinebaug Valley Community College in Connecticut. Using SPSS, a multiple regression analysis was performed by entering the 10 variables of the LASS I and the GP A for the subjects. Also, two 90- minute, in-depth interviews were conducted of 26 of the 45 students. Faculty and advisors of these students were asked to rate their performance. The findings support the literature on student success and college student attrition. At-risk learners are aware of behaviors that limit their success. Successful at-risk students possess a variety of strategies to cope with academic challenge while low achieving students often do not. Instead, the low achieving students develop theories to explain their failure to succeed. Similarly, this research illustrates that failure, like success, is a habit learned over time and context dependent; the high school experiences of underachieving subjects demonstrate that they are often unmotivated to succeed in the classroom because they lack the interest to invest in academic endeavors. Low achieving students in this study continued this pattern in college, while those who became high and moderately achieving adopted multiple strategies to ensure success. Participants were motivated to perform in classes they considered "fun" and relevant to their future goals. The findings also show that educators should assist at-risk students to overcome their fear of failure by increasing their ability to self-regulate learning, set goals, and evolve healthy self concept. This study concludes that the desire to persist, information processing, and attitude towards learning play a major role in the learner's decision to pursue achievement behavior. / 2031-01-01