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This thesis explores the impact of an inquiry-based learning programme on students’ self-reported levels of self-regulated processes and related motivations in the science classroom. Appreciating the interest seen in developing self-regulated learning and motivation in young students (Gläser-Zikuda & Järvelä, 2008; Zimmerman, 2002) and considering current discussions regarding the way science is taught around the globe (Kalman, 2010, Leou, Abder, Riordan, & Zoller, 2006), it was deemed important to explore the development of these constructs in young science students through participation in a curriculum initiative currently being implemented across the UK - the CREativity in Science and Technology (CREST) programme. The three studies included in this thesis followed a longitudinal quasi-experimental design using a naturalistic setting. After placing the research within a theoretical framework (Chapters 1 & 2) and describing the pilot work and methodology for the three investigations (Chapter 3), Study 1 (presented in Chapter 4) explored the impact of the CREST programme on developing self-regulated processes and related motivations in young students (n=34) compared to a control group of students from the same school (n=39). The findings indicated that students participating in the programme experienced significant increases in their self-reported levels of self-regulated learning and career motivation in comparison to the control group of students and that these developments were retained six months following programme completion. The results also demonstrated the potential for the CREST programme to reduce the decreasing trends relating to self-determination and intrinsic motivation found in the control group and reported in the wider literature in the field. Study 2 (presented in Chapter 5) built on the methodology of Study 1 and investigated class differences in response to the CREST programme. Study 2 aimed firstly to replicate the findings from Study 1 regarding group differences in self-reported levels from pre-test to post-test on the measured variables. While a reference control class (n=18) showed no significant changes from pre-test to post-test, on average, students taking part in the CREST programme showed significant increases in self-regulated learning, self-determination, self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and overall science motivation. However, due to the lack of an appropriate control group of equal size (n=160), conclusions were drawn cautiously. Another aim of this second study was to gain an understanding of whether individual classes of students experienced the programme differently and identify classroom dynamics that might predict the degree of benefit students obtain. The findings showed no class differences in response to the CREST programme relating to the self-regulated processes and related motivational constructs measured, and highlighted the sensitivity of the analyses used in classroom effects research. Study 3 (presented in Chapter 6) followed a similar quasi-experimental design (n=188) to Studies 1 and 2, with the addition of another intervention condition of students who had participated in CREST the year before the study was conducted. This, more, rigorous methodological design allowed for longer-term retention effects to be investigated. The results from this study highlighted the immediate and three-month delayed impact of the CREST programme on increasing self-reported for this sample of students. However, retention at the nine-month delayed post-test was not observed, suggesting that strategies need to be in place in order to maintain any developments through CREST programme participation. Teacher ratings of students’ self-regulated learning were also measured and did not align with the students’ self-reported results, highlighting the difficulty for teachers to identify and quantify internal processes like self-regulation among their students. While extensive research has been conducted on self-regulated processes and related motivations in students of all ages, the need for an increased understanding in natural classroom settings through implementing more rigorous research designs in specific learning contexts has been identified. Bringing the findings together, the three studies included in this thesis illustrate the beneficial impact of CREST programme participation on self-regulated processes and related motivations in young science students. The series of intervention studies presented provides a distinct contribution to research, demonstrating that these constructs can be developed in natural classroom settings by promoting an environment that encourages students to be more self-regulated and motivated in their science learning.

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The purpose of these two studies was to examine two factors that may influence the effects of uncertainty on information processing. The first factor is the positioning of uncertainty relative to a target of judgment, and how this affects people’s judgment processing. The second factor had to do with the degree to which uncertainty signals active goal conflict or not. In the first study, 145 participants with a mean age of 19.51 were induced with uncertainty either before or after information about the target accused of illegal behavior. The results demonstrated that uncertainty before information produced higher guilt judgments of the target and uncertainty after information produced lower guilt judgments towards the target, but only in a subset of conditions. The second study, with 121 participants and a mean age was 19.58, primed participants with one of two different goals. It then induced uncertainty threat which either was or was not relevant to the primed goal, and asked participants to make judgments based on information given about the target as in Study 1. The results revealed that for women, but not for men, uncertainty threat produced stronger guilt judgments when the uncertainty was relevant to the primed goal. Together, these results indicate that both the positioning and goal relevance of uncertainty may impact its effect on information processing.

Humans can often report a subjective sense of confidence in a decision before knowing its outcome. Such confidence judgements are positively correlated to accuracy in perceptual and memory tasks, but the strength of this relationship (known as metacognitive accuracy) differs across people and contexts. Computationally, confidence judgements are believed to relate to the strength of evidence favouring each option, but it has been suggested that confidence also captures information from other sources, such as response time. This thesis explores the pragmatics of confidence: what factors influence confidence judgements, how accurate confidence judgements are, and how they might influence future behaviour. Our knowledge of the antecedents of confidence is extended by this work in two ways, by introducing novel predictors of confidence and by increasing our understanding of well-known ones. I find that bilinguals have worse metacognitive accuracy than monolinguals. This bilingual deficiency in metacognitive accuracy cannot be explained by response time and stimulus strength, suggesting that there is at least one important predictor of confidence that remains unaccounted for. I introduce such a predictor in a new eye tracking correlate of confidence: Gaze-shift-frequency, the number of saccades between options, negatively predicts subsequent confidence in perceptual and value-based decisions. In the value domain, the total value of the options is shown to positively relate to confidence despite being negatively related to accuracy, the first such dissociation to be recorded, as far as I am aware. The dissertation extends our understanding of response time as a predictor of confidence by showing that it influences confidence more for judgements that are made after a choice, relative to those made simultaneously with the choice. This differential influence of response time explains the higher metacognitive accuracy of sequential confidence reports. I explore the consequences of confidence judgements in the context of value-based choice. Lower levels of confidence are associated with changes of mind when the same options recur in subsequent trials. To test whether these changes of mind are rational, I approximate choice accuracy in the value domain. I propose a novel method based on the transitivity of the full choice set, so that choices that violate the most transitive ordering of the items can be treated as errors. I find that participants who were more metacognitively accurate showed a decrease in transitivity violations over time. These results extend prior work linking confidence judgements to error correction in the perceptual domain.

Cette recherche a pour but, premièrement, de reconnaître les traits distinctifs de la pédagogie dans l’enseignement thaïlandais, dans ses relations à la culture. Notre analyse s’appuie sur l’enseignement de la langue thaïe et de la langue française, plus particulièrement sur le développement des compétences linguistiques nécessaires à la compréhension textuelle dans ces deux langues. Pour appuyer cette étude, nous nous référons au Cadre Européen Commun de Référence pour les langues. Nous nous intéressons également aux compétences métacognitives, et plus précisément métalinguistiques, dont le rôle s’avère important lors de la reformulation de la compréhension. Deuxièmement, cette enquête tend à comprendre l’activité de lecture des apprenants de FLE. Nous mettons l’accent sur le processus d’interprétation au cours duquel l’insuffisance ou l’incohérencedes compétences linguistiques peuvent causer l’incompréhension. Troisièmement, en plus des compétences linguistiques, nous pensons que la subjectivité personnelle peut aussi influencer les opérations d’interprétation du texte. Les arts du texte, selon laconception de F. Rastier, nous conduit à observer les différentes opérations d’interprétation mises en oeuvre par chaque apprenant afin de comprendre un même texte. Dans cette enquête, nous insistons sur l’emploi de l’anaphore, plus particulièrement l’expression nominale on, dont la valeur référentielle est particulièrement difficile à identifier / The primary objective of our research is to identify and bring to the fore, in Thailand’s educational system, the distinctive features of the sciences or art of teaching with reference to culture. Our analysis is based on the teaching of both Thai and French languages, and more especially on linguistic competence the learner needs in order to understand written texts in both languages. We copiously referred to The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages to support thisanalysis. In the same vain, we made reference to meta-cognitive competences, and especially metalinguistic ones whose role is of paramount importance in the reconstruction of understanding/comprehension. On the other hand, this research aims at understanding the reading activities of Thai learners of French language. We lay emphasis on the interpretation process during which the lack or incoherency of linguistic competence could hinder understanding. Finally, beside linguistic competence, we believe individual subjectivity can also influence the operations involved in interpreting a text. The arts of text (understanding), according to F. Rastier, allow us to critically observe the different interpretation or reconstruction operations used by each learner in his bid to understand a text. In this respect we explore the use of anaphor, and particularly the nominal French expression ‘on’ which referential value is often very difficult to grasp

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Syftet med min studie var att undersöka hur elever i årskurs 7 upplever att utvecklingssamtal och dess förberedelser är en del i deras lärandeprocess, om uteblivna skriftliga omdömen påverkat lärprocessen, samt vilka likheter och skillnader det finns mellan elevledda jämfört med lärarledda utvecklingssamtal. Med en enkätundersökning jämfördes attityder hos elever från två olika skolor; Tätortsskolan som använde skriftliga omdömen och lärarledda utvecklingssamtal och Storstadsskolan utan skriftliga omdömen och med elevledda utvecklingssamtal. Mina resultat visar: Att större andel av eleverna som fått skriftliga omdömen anser att de fått information om hur de ligger till i de olika ämnena. Att skriftliga omdömen är mindre bra på att kommunicera till elever hur de ska göra för att utvecklas. Att en stor del av elever med lägre betyg inte förbereder sig inför elevledda utvecklingssamtal och är svåra att engagera i sin lärprocess. Att det är stor skillnad på elevledda respektive lärarledda samtal beträffande vem eleverna tycker pratar mest, men det är inga signifikanta skillnader i hur de olika typerna av samtal bidrar till elevernas lärprocess. / The main goal of my study was to investigate how pupils in lower secondary school appreciate parent-teacher conferences with preparations as part of their learning process. The main issues were how written assessments affect the parent-teacher conferences and how pupils value teacher-led parent-teacher conferences compared to student-led parent-teacher conferences. A written survey-investigation was used in order to compare the attitudes of pupils from two different schools. One school used written assessments and teacher-led conferences; the other school did not use written assessments and had student-led conferences. My findings show: That a bigger part of the pupils receiving written assessments think that they are informed about their knowledge levels in relation to the requirements. That written assessments are not optimal to communicate to pupils how to improve their work. That a major part of pupils with lower grades did not prepare themselves for the student-led conferences and thus were difficult to involve in this type of learning. That the pupils in student-led conferences are more involved in the conversations but that there were no significant differences between the different types of conferences in the perspective of their learning processes.