In this study, an innovative 'peer tutoring' programme at a high school in KwaZuluNatal was examined. The aim of the study was to explore the limits and possibilities of this approach to enhancing learning at the school from the perspective of teachers, tutors and tutees. 30 learners who were tutees in the programme, 10 tutors, and 5 educators were interviewed through semi-structured interviews into order to examine how they were experiencing the programme. In addition, the researcher conducted non-participant observations of selected peer tutoring sessions at the school. The findings revealed that overall peer tutoring has positive benefits for learners and has the potential to enhance learning and teaching at the school. Some of the benefits that emerged are: increased motivation; enhanced self-concept; reduced inhibition; learning in a supportive, enabling environment; increased communication and dialogue; development of learner autonomy and independence. The study revealed there are areas in the programme that need to be systematically monitored, for example, peer interactions to ensure that they are not at a purely concrete knowledge telling level. Training has to ensure that deep level thinking and problem solving occurs. The active involvement of teachers is necessary at all levels, in particular to monitor discipline. The findings also suggest that the success of a peer-tutoring programme may be linked to the culture and ethos of the school as a whole. A school that upholds the principles of inclusivity, values of caring and affirming others, collaboration, and an ethos of working together may be an environment in which a peer-tutoring programme will flourish. The whole school community needs to build this kind of an ethos and culture - teachers, learners, parents, school management. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

This thesis is concerned with the nature of the peer group experience and friendship patterns amongst a sample of 3rd, 4th and 5th year secondary school pupils. The thesis has four parts and a General Introduction in which the need for more sociological research in the area of the peer group and friendship is asserted. Certain themes are developed in relation to the peer group and friendship, and arguments for the research established. In the final part of the General Introduction consideration is given to the nature of the sociology of youth in relation to social class and age grading in society. Part One has three Chapters. The first deals with recent research into the peer group, most of which is American in origin with the exception of certain ethnographic studies which have been published in this country over the last few years. In Chapter Two research into friendship is considered with Chapter Three providing a critical evaluation of the research presented. A general schema is provided, drawing on the literature review which provides the basis for the development of research methods and the subsequent research programme. Part Two establishes the basis for the thesis research and has one chapter. Four objectives are explored. The first concerns the importance of friendship to young people, the second with levels of friendship, the third with deriving definitions of friendship. The final objective examines the effects of age and sex on friendship and is compared with the findings from four significant studies undertaken in this area. Sociometry is considered in relation to "mapping" a group, a self esteem inventory is developed and the Higher Schools Personality Questionnaire evaluated with a view to measuring a number of personality traits. In Chapter Five of Part Three a research design for quantitative and qualitative research is presented. The data are presented in Chapters Six and Seven. 371 young people completed a questionnaire into their friendship and peer relations and two peer groups were intensively involved in group discussion in an endeavour to provide more detailed information on friendship and peer activities. The final part, Chapter Eight, is devoted to a detailed consideration of the findings from the research in the light of the established objectives. An appraisal is undertaken of the extent to which new knowledge has been provided in the social sciences regarding the peer group and friendship.

Peer-learning enhances the learning experience of students, but little research in this area has studied medical students developing their clinical physical examination skills. This thesis describes two peer-learning processes to aid this skill development: peer???learning from advanced beginners to novices (vertical); and peer-to-peer learning (horizontal). The hypothesis was that the process would be effective and acceptable to tutors and tutees. Vertical Peer Teaching: After a successful pilot scheme using junior doctors to tutor medical students, senior medical students were engaged as tutors as the junior doctors were too busy. Following instruction in tutoring and defining teaching topics, they taught a group of junior students. Evaluation of both groups was by summative clinical examination scores, by interviews and questionnaires. Scores were compared with non-participating control subjects. Tutors showed a significantly superior examination performance compared with the control group. Tutees showed a non-significant improvement. Tutors considered their skills had improved, with increased confidence in both performance and teaching, particularly in the communication and metacognitive domains. Tutees indicated the process to be very useful, with increased opportunity for feedback and questioning. There was little evidence of a reduction in the barriers between the years, perhaps because the student tutors were viewed in the traditional role of 'experts' . Horizontal Peer Teaching: Same-level dyads using a videotaped examination skill and script were assessed by summative examination and subjectively. These skills showed a significant improvement when compared to a control group. Despite this effect and many positive aspects reported, there were some concerns with the process. Students felt that a videotape and a peer instead of an ???expert??? was not as good as a traditional tutorial. In conclusion, the peer-learning was successful in several domains. Vertical peer-learning was accepted by both tutors and tutees, and horizontal-peer learning had a positive influence upon examination results. Vertical peer-learning appears to conform to students??? expectations of the inequality between beginners and tutors who are advanced beginners or experts, while horizontal peer-learning is more challenging, even though it is effective. The latter may need careful introduction for the process to be acceptable to students.

This thesis is a case study of dialogic learning in a university context as demonstrated in tutorial talk. The aim of the study is to examine the effectiveness or otherwise of dialogic learning as applied in an economics curriculum. More specifically, the thesis examines the learning experiences of a second language international student cohort as they attempted to understand the role of prediction and causality in economic principles and theories through spoken dialogue. This approach means interpreting the students’ learning as a semiotic process and the students’ cognitive development as shaped by their language in use. The theoretical framework for this examination is offered by the analytical resources of systemic functional linguistics, as developed by M.A.K. Halliday (from 1975 to 2004) combined with frameworks for mediated learning offered by Vygotsky (1986, 1987); Bakhtin (1986); Hasan (from 1985a to 2001); Bernstein (from 1971 to 2001) and Cloran (from 1994 to 2006 draft); and more recent research in ‘scaffolded learning’. The study applies these resources to analyse significant rhetorical functions of economic discourse, such as predictive reasoning and argumentation, and to examine how these were negotiated and mediated by the students and their lecturer. The method for analysing negotiation and mediation in these students’ learning draws on Rhetorical Unit (RU) analysis as devised by Cloran. Linguistically, the analysis takes account of categories and relations between the Rhetorical Units on the basis that these are able to provide theoretical explanations for the predictive reasoning construed in the interactions. The analysis of Rhetorical Units primarily involved the identification of relations between the basic constituent of the text, ie, the message, and how these relations constructed the units of rhetorical meaning in the discussion. The advantage of adopting this approach is the possibility of realising rhetorical activities as an abstraction at the semantic stratum, and, as such, how they were realised by lexicogrammatical phenomena. The analysis examined: first, the use of Rhetorical Units by the lecturer and students in their construal of the critical pedagogic discourses identified by Bernstein, being the regulative and the instructional; and second, the adjustments and shifts to more congruent explanations as a result of contingency strategies taken by both the lecturer and students in response to the students’ difficulties. The findings throw a different light onto dialogic learning in a new social constructivist pedagogical approach in a university context. The study reveals that while the students’ learning was a highly collaborative dialectical process, any transformations in understanding were not at all neatly incremental as described in the literature. Indeed, the negotiations were highly ‘peripatetic’; any increments in understanding were overall devolutionary. While the lecturer’s initial guidance reflected the monologic discourse of written economics, her responses became more congruent and reactive. It was shown that a key predictor of these contingency strategies was the kinds of meanings sought by the students’ extensive questioning. Hence, in this case study, the contingency strategies undertaken within the interactional dynamic reveal a different view of semiotic mediation, necessarily a process of semiotic remediation. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1283936 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Mechanical Engineering, 2006

Thesis (MTchLn)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). "February 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-147). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.H.P. Ed.)--University of New South Wales, 2004. / Also available online.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Murdoch University, 2005. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: leaves 155-166.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Lehigh University, 1999. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-202).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2008. / Title from file title page. Christine D. Thomas, committee chair; Miles Anthony Irving, Pier Junor Clarke, Marti Singer, committee members. Electronic text (138 p. : ill. (some col.)) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Aug. 15, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-124).