Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Recreation Management Youth Leadership, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 62-70).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [59]-63).

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This thesis investigates changes in Chinese undergraduate students’ language learning motivation during the transition from their home cultural setting to the host cultural setting, while studying on a China-UK 2+1 collaborative programme at the University of Bedfordshire. Since the 1990s, there has been growing attention to research on L2 motivation in classroom or other educational settings. To bridge the gap between general and L2 motivational theories, a number of theoretical frameworks have been developed. The most comprehensive of these is Dörnyei’s (1994a) three-level motivational framework. However, there is as yet little empirical evidence to verify this. The study employed mixed methods. Firstly, in order to identify whether these students’ language learning motivation changed over time, a two stage questionnaire survey was carried out with 158 students. Questionnaires were first administered in October shortly after students arrived in the UK to begin their courses and again in May when they were close to completing their degrees. Factor analysis was used to verify the structure of the questionnaire. Paired t-tests were used to evaluate whether significant changes had occurred in each of the motivational dimensions addressed. Secondly, in-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with 14 of the questionnaire respondents. The interviews explored motivational change in more open-ended fashion and in greater depth. Students’ comments were transcribed, translated and categorised on the basis of Dörnyei’s (1994a) framework. The conclusions, triangulated by both the key findings and the interview results, indicate that Chinese students have strong instrumental orientations and that their language learning motivation changes significantly at the Learner Level and Language Learning Situation Level of the framework. Some patterns underlying these changes were also discovered. The research findings additionally served to support the applicability of the Dörnyei (1994a) framework. Based on the empirical research findings, some practical recommendations are offered respectively for Chinese students and academic staff. These include: 1) The university should provide more information, or relevant training, about the British academic system and culture. 2) Academic staff need to understand Chinese students more fully and might adjust their teaching style to accommodate them. 3) There is a need for the university to redesign the academic English module to help students efficiently cope with their studies in the UK.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the predictive influences of epistemological beliefs, achievement motivation, learning approaches on sixth grade students&rsquo / achievement in classification concepts. The study was carried out in the fall 2006-2007 semester. One thousand forty one 6th grade students from twenty five randomly selected elementary schools in &Ccedil / ankaya district of Ankara participated in this study. In this study Turkish version of the Learning Approach Questionnaire, Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire, Achievement Motivation Questionnaire and Classification Concept Test were used as measuring instruments to collect relevant data. Multiple Regression Correlation Analyses was computed in order to find out the contribution of students&rsquo / learning approaches, epistemological beliefs and achievement motivation to their achievement in classification concepts. The results revealed that these variables explaining 14% of the variation in students&rsquo / achievement in classification concepts. Stepwise multiple regression analyses was conducted in order to find out which variable best predicted students&rsquo / achievement in classification concepts. Students&rsquo / learning approaches were found to be the best predictor of achievement explaining 12% of the variance. The remaining 2% of variance was explained by epistemological beliefs of the students. Achievement motivation, however did not contribute to students&rsquo / achievement in classification concepts. Results also revealed significant positive correlations between students&rsquo / achievement in classification concepts, their learning goal orientations, epistemological beliefs and learning approaches. Students&rsquo / performance goal orientations, and self efficacy beliefs, however, were not found to be related to their achievement in classification concepts.

The thesis Didactics of statistics is devoted to the problem of understanding of the basic concepts of probability theory and statistics. I have conducted a research in which I studied the understanding of the basic statistical concepts such as average, randomness, chance, variability, and sample by college students. I also studied whether the students are able to work with statistical data, whether they can read values from a chart, identify, and interpret their arithmetic mean. I interpreted the data obtained from the research using the model of the French psychologist Jean Piaget, according to which it is possible to distinguish three stages in the development of a theory, which Piaget named INTRA, INTER and TRANS. My research indicates that students' ideas about the basic statistical concepts are often very different from the ideas of the teacher. There is also interference between the scientific concepts and the similarly sounding terms of the everyday language. It is important that the teacher is aware of these differences and explains them using appropriate examples.

Context: The problem this thesis address is concerned with experimental software engineering and is associated with validity of the studies with students as subjects. Often in software engineering experiments students are used because students are easily available and are willing to participate in experiment studies, professionals are rarely available to participate in research study and there are several benefits of using students as research subject.The validity of experiments studied with students are questioned because students are less experienced and skilled compared to professionals. Objectives: The goal of this research is to find evidence whether or not the research studies with students as subjects can be trusted to get valid results. Identify factors that influence the results of experiment studies with students. Identify the ways to improve the validity of experiment studies with students. Methods: In this systematic literature review a number of article sources are used, including Compendex, Inspec, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, and Springer Link. Experiment studies in software engineering are selected after reading titles and abstracts to decide whether the articles are relevant to the subject. Snowball sampling is done to identify several experiment studies that address same research problems. Results: It is found that graduate students serve as good proxies to study professional practices compared to undergraduate students, because there are significant differences between result/findings of studies with undergraduate students as subjects and studies with professionals as subjects. The following factors influencing the results of experiment studies are identified: Number of subjects, Task related knowledge, Motivation levels of subjects, Training provided, Task related experience and Incentives or grades given for participation in the experiment. This study also identifies some problems with the way of conducting and reporting experiments in software engineering. Addressing these problems could improve the validity of experiment studies with students. Conclusion: The results indicate that students can be used to study professional practices but they cannot be said true for all areas and problems of software engineering because the results of experiment studies with different type of subjects in different area and problems are varying. Which means that whether or not students could be used to study a professional practice depends upon the research problems being studied, type of students subjects chosen for the study, difference between students chosen and professionals to whom the results/findings will be generalized. We conclude that graduate students serve as good proxies to study professional practices compared to undergraduate students. The cumulative experience or overall industry or academic experience of subjects does not seem to be affecting the result/findings of experiment studies unless the overall experience includes task related experience. Even though the study identified above mentioned factors that influences the results/findings of experiment studies there still might be few factors which the study might have failed to identify due lack of data. We suggested improvements for reporting that could improve the comparability of studies. / Often in software engineering experiments students are used because students are easily available and are willing to participate in experiment studies, where as professionals are rarely available to participate in research study. This thesis investigates whether it is ok to use students as experiments subjects while studying professional practices. Thesis also investigates the factors which influences the results of experiment studies with students. The derived knowledge from the thesis can assists researchers improve the way of conducting and reporting software engineering experiments, It also aids in improving the comparability of experiment studies.

The diploma thesis deals with the motivation of university students to study the teaching of biology. The aim of this thesis was to find which factors influenced the students when deciding the field of their studies. Student motivation was examined using a qualitative method of semi-structured interviews. The research group consisted of 11 university students of the master's degree program of the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Education at Charles University in the teaching fields combined with biology. The research results show that the primary interest in biology was evident in respondents already during their early childhood or later at an elementary school. In relation to biology, the respondents were influenced by the family and the teachers at either primary or secondary schools. The thesis presents extrinsic and intrinsic motives for the study of biology. The choice of teaching was affected the most by the interest in working with children and the expectation of creative work in the future, even though the respondents were aware of the low financial valuation, the time and psychological demands of the profession. The biology teachers also opted for the possibility of further subject developing and supporting interest in biology interest among pupils. The thesis also contains a...

Teachers, while teaching, are facing to some sections of schoolwork which make serious problems to understand. The main task of this diploma thesis is solving the issue of organic chemistry on the field of Gymnasium. The pedagogical attitude was chosen for the selection of problem parts. New educational materials were purposed on the basis of gathered information and thanks to the research the efficiency of teaching the organic chemistry and its problematic parts should augment the undestanding of the problematic parts as well as the bettering of education. Theoretical part of the diploma thesis looks into the methodology of pedagogical research, curriculum documents, didactic methods and forms and literature exploration of defined problem parts of textbooks of organic chemisty for the high schools. Consequently, the practical part exposes results of the performed pedagogical research and the analyse of schoolbooks. Including noticed facts, the main output of the dissertation is the package of the new educational materials and various methods of education focused on the specific parts of the curriculum of organic chemistry, specificaly the set of the new instructional backgrounds solving the circumstances of organical chemistry. These educational materials and the proposed methods of education were also...