M. Ed. / This study was undertaken to evaluate a writing skills intervention so as to establish whether students’ performance in the subject Tourism Development had improved between a pre- and post test. The researcher, as lecturer of a group of first year students in the subject Tourism Development noticed the lack of (and need for developing) effective writing skills on the part of most of these students. Writing is an integral part of university students’ studies in that it enables them to complete assignments and write tests and examinations. The researcher had, during previous years, noticed that insufficient writing skills affected first year students’ overall academic performance in the subject Tourism Development. This prompted an inquiry into an intervention where writing skills were infused into the teaching methodology of the subject Tourism Development. A mixed method qualitative and quantitative research approach was used to collect and analyse data. The quantitative pre-experimental design served as the dominant data collection and analysis process, which was followed by a separate qualitative descriptive data collection and analysis process. Quantitatively, the existing marks gained for the students’ pre-assignments and first- and second assessments (before and during participation in the writing skills intervention), as well as the marks achieved by the students for their post-assignments and finalassessments (written after receiving writing skills development), were collected for comparison. The mark changes between the pre- and post-assignment marks, as well as between their first-, second- and final assessments were calculated to determine whether any percentage mark changes occurred between the assignments and assessments. Qualitatively, the participant students’, participant tutors’ and lecturer’s experiences of the writing skills intervention were collected from student reflection essays, minutes of a meeting (containing the tutors’ feedback) and the lecturer’s journal, from which applicable themes were derived. The findings indicate a change in the pre- and post assignment scores as well as in the first-, second- and final-assessment scores. The improvement in academic performance in the subject Tourism Development was confirmed and triangulated by the qualitative data. The recommendation was that writing skills development presented within the specific domain, in other words infused within the subject Tourism Development, should become common practice.

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the state of critical information literacy (CIL) in higher education as it is enacted and understood by academic librarians. This qualitative study investigated the institutional support, nonsupport, and barriers to CIL programs and the effectiveness of experiential critical pedagogy for information literacy (IL) learning as taught and studied by 19 CIL specialists. Purposeful sampling was used to gather a sample of 17 academic librarians and two professors of library and information science who had previously worked as academic librarians. The sample included 11 females and eight males; 18 participants were Caucasian and one was African American. Data were collected through 40-60 minute semi-structured interviews and a brief demographic survey. Experiential education served as the broad theoretical framework for this study, which stems from the tradition of critical theory. This study was guided by the work of two major experiential learning theorists and theories: Paulo Freire and critical pedagogy and Jack Mezirow and transformative learning. Mezirow and Freire focused their work on adult education and grounded their approaches in critical theory and focused on power relationships, reflection, and the emancipatory potential of education. The findings were framed through a lens of Freire’s conception of critical pedagogy because it was the major theoretical framework that most of the study participants used to guide their work. Findings suggest that academic librarians who teach CIL do not learn about it in their MLS programs. They tend to use three major critical teaching methods, including student-centered approaches, discussion and dialogue, and problem-posing methods. Participants tended to struggle more with using critical methods than with incorporating critical content. Slightly more than half regularly used critical methods in their teaching, but all participants incorporated critical content, including critical source evaluation and subject headings and language used in information production and dissemination. The findings also suggest that CIL specialists are likely to believe that CIL is best taught within the broader context of academic disciplines and that strong relationships with faculty are crucial for successfully implementing information literacy programs of any kind, including CIL programs. Most participants felt supported by their library administrators and at least minimally by college or university administrators, even though they thought administrators did not have a clear idea of what they do in the classroom. The professional identity and culture of librarians and librarianship played a large role in whether and how librarians were drawn to CIL and in their ability to practice it. The results of this study will allow librarians and educators to make more informed decisions about how to design, teach, and implement programs and will benefit library science scholars and policy makers in terms of knowing how it is being taught and supported at the institutional level.

Literature textbooks have been used in English classes, particularly in underresourced schools, since the late 1800s. Since then, literature textbooks have been the de facto literary studies curriculum for most high school students. Practitioners and researchers in the field of literary studies at the secondary level do not have an account of how the questions central to literary studies have been addressed by the publishers of high school literature textbooks since the 1960s. I selected six widely adopted tenth-grade literature textbooks and their accompanying teacher’s editions from three generations (the 1960s, 1990s, and 2020s) and analyzed the texts and authors, organization, and instructional apparatus in the student editions and the teaching materials in the teacher’s editions. I used the data to identify the types of literary texts, author characteristics, knowledge emphasized by textbook publishers, and the cognitive, social, and interpretive abilities they favored. I then compared these findings across the three generations. Three characteristics of literary study have remained stable from the 1960s to the 2020s. First, the knowledge privileged by textbooks—understanding literary terms and enlarging vocabulary—has remained constant. Second, students spent more time in class on solitary activities, such as keeping logs and reading texts, than on group activities. Most textbooks in the study emphasized a product-oriented approach to interpretation and favored a single, authoritative answer to questions.. Starting in the 21st century, literature textbooks have transformed from print-only editions to digital-only and hybrid print and digital editions, raising concerns about the cognitive and economic impact of screen reading. Audio, visual, and multi-media texts have become the focus of study on equal footing with textual genres, signaling the emergence of digital literacy, a form of literacy that has become necessary because of social, economic, cultural, and technological changes in the early 21st century. Digital editions allowed teachers and administrators to track data online from students’ assignments and assessments, suggesting that high school literature classes have become a site of instrumentarian power. 21st-century instructional apparatus introduced a two-step procedure for reading and interpreting texts. The first step emphasized the surface meaning of the text with comprehension activities. The second step instructed students to “close read the text" (Morrell et al., 2022a, p. 476). Both steps privilege an efferent reading of all genres while impeding students’ ability to have an aesthetic experience of literary texts.

Virtually all government and industry information and control systems rely upon computer professionals for systems development and maintenance. With the national workforce growing at only one percent annually and enrollments in computer and information sciences college programs declining, the need exists to obtain a continued contribution of good work from our existing workforce. A multiple-phase, multiple-case study research project was performed to develop an understanding of how technical currency is maintained, not as a discrete phenomenon, but within the setting of the work environment, considering project experiences, organizational relationships, professional preparation and continuing professional education, and individual motivation. Previous research indicated that project experiences contributed to, or provided a vehicle for, maintaining technical currency. Maintaining technical currency was found to require a continuous process involving organizational relationships, the individual's perceived value in the organization, constant assessments and evaluations of current and desired project involvement or position attainment, repeated and varied learning episodes, and actual project experiences. Individuals were motivated to take specific actions, such as participating in training courses, when such action was expected to yield a benefit. Project experiences alone were not sufficient to maintain technical currency, although they were an essential element. While formal education in preparation for a career was critical, formal courses did not contribute as significantly as other forms of continuing professional education to maintaining technical currency. A Technical Currency Model was generated that explains how individuals expend energy in one or more of five focus areas depending on their motivation at the time: (a) technical qualification for a project or position; (b) political qualification for a project or position; (c) performing on a project or in a position; (d) determining that change is appropriate; and (e) seeking the next project or position. / Ph. D.

Wong, Chiu Wing. / Thesis (Ed.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 336-358). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

The research reflected here examined in depth how one cohort of learners viewed and engaged in literature searches using web browser based resources. Action research was employed using a mixed methods approach. The research started with a survey followed by interviews and a screencast examining practice based on a series of search related exercises. These were analysed and used as data to establish what deficits in using the web to search for literature existed in the target group. Based on the analysis of these instruments, the problem was redefined and a workshop intended to help remediate deficiencies uncovered was run. Based on this a recommendation is made that a credit bearing course teaching digital research literacy be made available which would include information literacy as a component. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

Examines the use of Information and Communicative Technologies (ICT) by high school students from economically-disadvantaged households to complete homework assignments. Results of a survey of 240 high school students at an urban, inner-city high school located in Southern California, indicated, (1) the Digital Divide is narrowing among social classes, as most students reported having Internet access from their homes, (2) students willingness to embrace new uses of ICT in their studies, (3) the speed of completing homework was increased through the use of ICT multi-tasking and the use of search engines and, (4) computer maintenance issues were not a significant hindrance, as most students have some basic computer literacy skills.

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Master of Technology Degree in Library and Information Studies, Durban University of Technology, 2011. / This study investigated the impact of the digital divide on information literacy (IL) training of Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP) students at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). There are students entering the tertiary education environment in South Africa who have never used the Internet or have little or no knowledge of technology. Hence South African higher education institutions have a heterogeneous mix of both digitally advantaged students and digitally disadvantaged students. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of the digital divide on IL training of ECP students at the DUT and to recommend guidelines for teaching and learning of IL that would accommodate both digitally advantaged and digitally disadvantaged students. The sub-objectives of the study were: to identify in what ways the digital divide impacts on the IL training of ECP students; to identify innovative teaching and learning methods to accommodate the diversity of students in the IL classroom; and to recommend guidelines for teaching and learning of IL in the ECP that accommodates the digital divide among participating students. Hence, the three population sets for the study were: DUT ECP students of 2010, Subject Librarians teaching IL to ECP students and the DUT ECP Coordinator. The study employed a mixed method approach in its research design. Data was collected from ECP students by means of a questionnaire, an interview schedule was used to collect data from Subject Librarians involved in teaching of the IL module to ECP students and lastly, a separate interview schedule was used to collect data from the ECP Coordinator. Qualitative data that was collected from the survey questionnaire was analysed using SPSS (Version 18.0) whilst qualitative data collected from the interviews and from the questionnaires was analysed thematically using content analysis. The findings of this study reveal that the digital divide does impact on IL training in ways such as, slowing down the progress of IL lessons; basic computer skills need to be taught in the IL classroom and that disadvantaged students find it difficult to follow online lessons while advantaged students already have the expertise to access online information. Based on these findings the study recommends that computer literacy training precede IL training; that various creative teaching and learning methods, such as, group work, games, online tutorials and interactive websites be incorporated into IL training to accommodate both digitally advantaged and digitally disadvantaged students in the IL classroom.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

This study examined the extent to which each computer literacy objective domain, each specific mode of instruction, and each type of question were treated in Thai high school computer literacy text materials. Two textbooks and their accompanying teachers' manuals were examined using three analytical schemes as frameworks for the examinations. The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) computer literacy objectives were used to classify the content in the text materials in order to determine the degree of emphasis on each computer literacy objective domain. The Hawaii state Department of Education (HSDE) instructional modes were used to classify the content in the text materials in order to determine the degree of emphasis on each mode of instruction. Bloom's taxonomy of education, cognitive domain, was used to classify the review questions and exercises in the text materials in order to determine the degree of emphasis on each cognitive level. Detailed findings are given as numerals, percentages, and decimal values. Perspectives are offered on the need for textbooks which reflect the values and feelings objectives. Conclusions were that (a) text materials focus most on the programming/algorithms objectives and tend to exclude the values and feelings objectives; (b) text materials use only three modes of instruction, focusing first on the topic mode, second on the tutee mode, and last on the tool mode; (c) text material questions focus more on higher cognitive than on lower cognitive levels.