The changing role of literacy in primary education, with its emphasis on the acknowledgement of the learner’s values, beliefs, culture, background and language is the focus of this study. The research was concerned with understanding the literacy practices of Foundation Phase Grade 3 teachers who are able to intentionally promote and mediate literacy acquisition among their learners. A qualitative design was used to describe the approaches of effective literacy teachers. The research study discovered that while the teachers made use of a number of teaching methods that underpinned a de-contextualised and constructivist approach, a socio-cultural approach to literacy was lacking. The results call for a broadening of the definition of literacy; one that acknowledges the socio-cultural background of the learners in developing a literacy disposition that prepares learners for a changing world. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)

This study investigates media literacy curricula in upper-income and lower-income public schools. Twelve principals participated in a telephone survey by answering fifteen questions about their schools and districts.

This dissertation is a report on a study to investigate the design and development of a digital information literacy program (DILP) for an academic library. The study is concerned with the exploration of the generic profile of the South African student at higher education institutions. The criteria for a digital information literacy program were also established. Based on the criteria and the profile of the students, the digital information literacy program was designed and developed. The research objectives were to * determine a generic profile of the South African student (as a member of Generation Y). * determine the criteria for an information literacy programme (ILP). * determine the criteria that a digital information literacy program should comply with (based on the criteria for a ILP). * design a digital information literacy program by documenting the elements and principles of design, navigation features, site architecture, etcetera. * develop a digital information literacy program by documenting the specific learning objectives and content and creating the Web based program. The study comprises a qualitative research approach and is concerned with the qualities and the characteristics of a phenomenon for better understanding and explanation. A critical analysis of reported research and literature forms the foundation of the study. The design and development of a digital information literacy program were based on the guidelines for Web based instruction in academic libraries. The results of the research enabled the researcher to design and develop the digital information literacy program, by integrating the following: * Characteristics of Generation Y * The criteria for a digital information literacy program * Factors important for designing in a Web environment, namely interactivity, site architecture, navigation features, principles of design, elements of design, incorporating media and learner levels * Authoring, technical aspects and the evaluating and testing of the prototype. The digital information literacy program is designed to provide academic libraries at higher education institutions with a product - a Web published CD - that they can use as is, or adapt according to their specific needs or circumstances, in order to support their students' digital information literacy skills. / Information Science / M.Tech.Information Technology

Thesis (MEd )--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This research was undertaken due to the increase of Afrikaans L1 learners in an English medium class and the problems these learners face. This study reports on An Observation Survey of Early Learning Achievement (Clay, 2002) in order to assess the emergent literacy of grade two learners in terms of specific literacy skills in English. This survey aimed to assist the educator in determining the progress and processing behaviours made by Afrikaans L1 learners in terms of literacy content in an English medium class. The Observation Survey was conducted thrice over a three month period. It was aimed at determining what processing skills and strategies the learners use and if traditional teaching combined with Outcomes Based Education (OBE) enabled learners to acquire strategies for learning. Simultaneously it was determined if code switching, code mixing and mother tongue (Afrikaans) use facilitated learning. The data indicated the language problems, preference and proficiency of the learners. This research necessitated the use of both quantitative and qualitative data. Using a case study design, a qualitative tool with quantitative elements was used to collect data. Further data was collected at parent meetings with the learners in the study as well as from written correspondence from parents. This data gave insight to the learner’s ethnographic background and the language proficiency of the parents. The findings of this study indicate the need for ongoing support and in-service training for educators in the ever changing curriculum. In conclusion it was determined that various factors contribute to the literacy development of learners. In order for them to stay abreast with the curriculum further research and support is imperative for educators.

This study examined the effects of a computer-mediated intervention on "at-risk" preschool students' receptive vocabulary development, computer-literacy skills, and enthusiasm for leaning. Twenty-two preschool-aged children attending an urban primary public school and participating in government subsidized school lunch program participated in the study. A pretest/posttest control-group design and case-study participant observations were used for data collection. Students were assigned to one of two treatment groups. Eleven preschool students with pretest School Readiness Composite (SRC) standard scores of 80, or below, on the Bracken Basic Concept Scale-Revised (BBCS-R), were assigned to the intervention group. Eleven pre-school students matched by age level and teacher comprised the comparison group. The intervention group received computer-mediated instruction while the comparison group received classroom teacher instruction. The first research question examined the effect of the intervention on students' receptive vocabulary analyzing groups' pretest and posttest BBCS-R School Readiness Composite mean scores. Combined analysis of a Two-Factor Repeated Measures and a Posttest only ANCOVA revealed that computer-mediated instruction was as effective as classroom teacher instruction in helping "at-risk" students acquire readiness receptive vocabulary. The second research question examined the effect of the intervention on "at-risk" student's computer-literacy skills analyzing participants pretest and posttest mean scores on the Computer Input Observation Rubric (CIOR), a rubric developed by the researcher. Analysis of One-Factor ANOVA and of Two-Factor Repeated Measures indicated that computer intervention significantly increased students' computer literacy skills. The third research question examined the impact of computer-mediated intervention on preschool students' enthusiasm for learning and followed descriptive case study methodology. Students' level of task involvement and positive-self statements confirmed enthusiasm for learning with technology.

Over the past 20 years, the United States has seen a rapid increase in school age students entering PK-12 schools for whom English is not their primary home language. These students are known as English learners (ELs). In Oregon, 77% of ELs speak Spanish and constitute the largest minority group, 21% of the total K-12 student enrollment in 2011-2012. With such potential for bilingualism in schools, bilingual teachers should be prepared to teach biliteracy effectively, especially in the early school years when students learn to read. There is an increasing demand for bilingual teachers in Oregon each year to teach in bilingual programs, particularly at the primary grade levels. However, for the most part, the emphasis of instruction and teacher preparation is on developing student English skills rather than supporting bilingualism (Flores, Sheets, & Clark, 2011; Macedo, Dendrinos, & Gounari, 2003; Wink, 2005). There is a need in Oregon to effectively prepare bilingual teachers who can help Spanish-speaking students develop biliteracy skills in the early grades. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore in depth the lived experiences among Oregon bilingual reading specialists in relation to biliteracy. The research question was "How do bilingual reading specialists understand the phenomena of teaching biliteracy to bilingual students?" Three themes emerged from the interviews conducted: collaboration, language and caring. The insights gained from the lived experiences of bilingual reading specialists can allow teacher educators, school district personnel, and state policy makers to better understand the phenomenon of developing biliteracy and change the way we prepare bilingual teachers in Oregon regarding biliteracy pedagogy. Recommendations are offered for stakeholders, such as the need to include courses in biliteracy as part of the initial teaching license, deliver courses in Spanish, and provide practicum experiences that prepare bilingual teachers and reading specialists to collaborate with colleagues and families. Also, it is important that some of the strategies identified at the state level as part of the English Learner Strategic Plan specifically focus on biliteracy and dual language programs.

Submitted by Elba Lopes (elba.lopes@fecap.br) on 2016-06-02T18:28:52Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Rafael Sandini Augusto.pdf: 7978466 bytes, checksum: 66fad61e1bd2e6c436fb75c309ba837c (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T18:28:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Rafael Sandini Augusto.pdf: 7978466 bytes, checksum: 66fad61e1bd2e6c436fb75c309ba837c (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-27 / This study deals with the financial habits of college students, studying in Mass Higher Education Institutions. The aim was to ascertain the financial knowledge and financial practice of university students who attend three mass universities in S??o Paulo - SP. The study included 426 students who responded to the questionnaire. As noted in the study, the sample did not show a homogeneous behavior and also provided some evidence of the use of principles of financial education, such as the invoice conference credit cards held by 62.44% of young people, 62.91% have routine to pay the bills on time and 66.9% have the habit of comparing prices before making a purchase, however they also have contrary characteristics to these principles as no comparison in interest rates between the forward options, identified in 56.34% of the sample, 50.46% had a tendency to make impulse purchases, which shows strong evidence of non-literacy of mass university students. It is still possible to observe a significant percentage of young people who show the margin of use of the principles of financial education, they present contrary habits such as the use of overdraft limit found in 11.03%, the third party the name of the loan reported by 28% of respondents and the incidence of 30.04% already had their name registered in the credit protection services. The work is relevant to managers of the surveyed educational institutions, as this could guide them in implementing financial education programs for students, to make them more qualified young people for making financial decisions, contributing to the reduction of evasion and delinquency of these students since they began to plan their spending and to distribute their income according to your personal demands. / Este estudo trata dos h??bitos financeiros de estudantes universit??rios, que estudam em Institui????es de Ensino Superior de Massa. O objetivo, foi averiguar o conhecimento financeiro e a pr??tica financeira de jovens universit??rios que frequentam tr??s universidades de massa na cidade de S??o Paulo - SP. Participaram do estudo 426 alunos que responderam ao question??rio. Como foi observado neste estudo a amostra n??o demonstrou um comportamento homog??neo e apresentou ind??cios da utiliza????o de princ??pios da educa????o financeira, tais como, a confer??ncia da fatura de cart??es de credito realizada por 62,44% dos jovens, 62,91% tem a rotina de pagar as contas em dia e 66,9% tem o habito de comparar o pre??o antes de realizar uma compra, porem tamb??m apresentam caracter??sticas contrarias a estes princ??pios como a n??o compara????o da taxa de juros entre as op????es de compra a prazo, identificada em 56,34% da amostra, 50,46% apresentaram tend??ncias a realizar compras por impulso, o que demonstra fortes ind??cios da n??o alfabetiza????o dos jovens universit??rios de massa. Ainda ?? poss??vel observar um percentual significativos de jovens que se mostram a margem da utiliza????o dos princ??pios de educa????o financeira, pois apresentam h??bitos contr??rios a tais, como a utiliza????o do limite do cheque especial constatado em 11,03%, o empr??stimo do nome ?? terceiros relatados por 28% dos entrevistados e a incid??ncia de 30,04% j?? tiveram seu nome cadastrado nos servi??os de prote????o ao credito. O trabalho se torna relevante para os gestores das institui????es de ensino pesquisadas, pois poder?? orient??-los na implementa????o de programas de educa????o financeira para os alunos, visando tornar estes jovens mais capacitados para a tomada de decis??es financeiras, contribuindo na redu????o da evas??o e inadimpl??ncia desses alunos, uma vez que passaram a planejar seus gastos e a distribuir sua renda de acordo com suas demandas pessoais.

Writing-to-learn strategies have been administered in the past to enrich student learning. The purpose of this study was to see if K-W-L prompts in science journal writing could benefit student content knowledge within biology. Two high school biology classes were provided with learning journals. The journals given to the students during the treatment unit were provided with K-W-L question prompts to guide student learning while during the comparison unit students were given an open ended writing assignment. Pre and posttests were administered to determine student-learning gains. Student motivations and opinions of the treatment were collected through student interviews. The combined results were used to determine to what extent could K-W-L prompts in science journal writing influence comprehension of content knowledge. This study found there to be no difference in student learning gains when utilizing the K-W-L literacy strategy versus another free-writing activity. When scored, student K-W-Ls total scores did correlate to student success on unit tests. This opens up the potential for K-W-Ls to serve as an adequate tool for formative assessment. Here the K-W-L could be expanded to enrich student question asking, potentially aid students learning English, and potentially be used by students without teacher scaffolding.

Scientific external representations (ERs), such as diagrams, images, pictures, graphs and animations are considered to be powerful teaching and learning tools, because they assist learners in constructing mental models of phenomena, which allows for the comprehension and integration of scientific concepts. Sometimes, however, students experience difficulties with the interpretation of ERs, which· has a negative effect on their learning of science, . . including biochemistry. Unfortunately, many educators are not aware of such student difficulties and make the wrong assumption that what they, as experts, consider to be an educationally sound ER will necessarily promote sound. learning and understanding among novices. On the contrary, research has shown that learners who engage in the molecular biosciences can experience considerable problems interpreting, visualising, reasoning and learning with ERs of biochemical structures and processes, which are both abstract and often represented by confusing computer-generated symbols and man-made markings. The aim of this study was three-fold. Firstly, to identify and classify students' conceptual and reasoning difficulties with a selection of textbook ERs representing· IgG structure and function. Secondly, to use these difficulties to identify sources of the difficulties and, therefore, factors influencing students' ability to interpret the ERs. Thirdly, to develop a model of these factors and investigate the practical applications of the model, including guidelines fOf improving ER design and the teaching and learning with ERs. The study was conducted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and involved a total of 166 second and third-year biochemistry students. The research aims were addressed using a p,ostpositivistic approach consisting of inductive and qualitative research methods. Data was collected from students by means of written probes, audio- and video-taped clinical interviews, and student-generated diagrams. Analysis of the data revealed three general categories of student difficulties, with the interpretation of three textbook ERs depicting antibody structure and interaction with antigen, termed the process-type (P), the. structural-type (S) and DNA-related (D) difficulties. Included in the three general categories of difficulty were seventeen sub-categories that were each classified on the four-level research framework of Grayson et al. (2001) according to v how much information we had about the nature ofeach difficulty and, therefore, whether they required further research. The incidences of the classified difficulties ranged from 3 to 70%, across the student populations and across all three ERs. Based on the evidence of the difficulties, potential sources of the classified difficulties were isolated. Consideration of the nature of the sources of the exposed difficulties indicated that at least three factors play a major role in students' ability to interpret ERs in biochemistry. The three factors are: students' ability to reason with an ER and with their own conceptual knowledge (R), students' understanding (or lack thereof) of the concepts of relevance to the ER (C), and the mode in which the desired phenomenon is represented by the ER (M). A novel three-phase single interview technique (3P-SIT) was designed to explicitly investigate the nature of the above three factors. Application of3P-SIT to a range of abstract to realistic ERs of antibody structure and interaction with antigen revealed that the. instrument was extremely useful for generating data corresponding to the three factors.. In addition; analysis of the 3P-SIT data showed evidence for the influence ofone factor on another during students' ER interpretation, leading to the identification of a further four interactive factors, namely the reasoning-mode (R-M), reasoning conceptual (R-C), conceptual-mode (C-M) and conceptual-reasoning-mode (C-R-M) factors. The Justi and Gilbert (2002) modelling process was employed to develop a model of the seven identified factors. Empirical data generated using 3P-SIT allowed the formulation and validation of operational definitions for the seven factors and the expression of the model as a Venn diagram, Consideration ofthe implications of the model, yielded at least seven practical applications of the model, including its use for: establishing whether sound or unsound interpretation, learning and visualisation of an ER has occurred; identifying the nature and source of any difficulties; determining which of the factors of the model are positively or negatively influencing interpretation; establishing what approaches to ER design and teaching and learning with ERs will optimise the interpretation and learning process; and, generally framing and guiding researchers', educators' and authors' thinking about the nature of students' difficulties with the interpretation of both static and animated ERs in any scientific context. In addition, the study demonstrated how each factor of the expressed model can be used to inform the design of strategies for remediating or preventing students' difficulties with the interpretation of scientific ERs, a target for future research. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

The use of external representations (ERs) such as diagrams and animations in science education, particularly in the Molecular Life Sciences (MLS), has rapidly increased over the past decades. Research shows that ERs have a superior advantage over text alone for teaching and learning. Research has also indicated a number of concerns coupled with the use of ERs for education purposes. Such problems emanate from the mode of presentation and/or inability to use ERs. Regarding the later, a number of factors have been identified as major causes of student difficulties and they include visual literacy as one of the major factors. Given that little has been done to understand the nature of VL in the MLS the current study was conducted with the general aim of investigating this area and devising a way to measure the visual literacy levels of our students. More specifically, this study addressed the following research questions: i) What is the nature of visual literacy in MLS?; ii) Can specific levels of visual literacy be defined in the MLS?; and iii) Is a taxonomy a useful way of representing the levels of visual literacy for MLS? To respond to these questions, the current literature was used to define the nature of visual literacy and the visualization skills (VSs). These were then used to develop a Visual Literacy Test made up on probes in the context of Biochemistry. In these probes, the VSs were incorporated. The test was administered to 3rd year Biochemistry students who were also interviewed. Results were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. The later analysis utilized the Rasch model to generate an item difficulty map. The results of the current study show that visual literacy is multifaceted in nature and is context based in that it requires specific propositional knowledge. In line with this, it was found that visual literacy is expressed through a cognitive process of visualization which requires VSs. Based on the performance of these skills, learners’ optimal visual literacy in the context of the MLS can be defined. Such performance can be assessed through the development of probes in the Biochemistry context. Furthermore, the current research has shown that using probes, the difficulty degree of each VS can be determined. In this instance, the Rasch model is a preferred method of ranking VSs in the context of Biochemistry in order of difficulty. From this, it was shown that given the uniqueness of each skill’s degree of difficulty, each skill can thus be regarded as a level of visual literacy. Such levels were defined in terms of the norm difficulty obtained in the current study. Given the multifaceted nature of visual literacy, the current study adopted the view that there are infinite number of VSs and hence the number of levels of visual literacy. From the variation in the degree of difficulty, the study showed that there are nonvisualization and visualization type difficulties which contribute to the differences in visual literacy levels between Biochemistry students. In addition to this, the current study showed that visual literacy in the MLS can be presented through a taxonomy. Such a taxonomy can be used to determine the level of each VS, its name and definition, typical difficulties found in the MLS as well as the visualization stage at which each skill is performed. Furthermore, this taxonomy can be used to design models, assess students’ visual literacy, identify and inform the remediation of students’ visualization difficulties. While the study has successfully defined the nature of visual literacy for the MLS and presented visual literacy in a taxonomy, more work is required to further understand visual literacy for the MLS, a field where visual literacy is very prevalent. / Thesis (M.Sc.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.