Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-178).

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-122).

This study explored the usefulness of peer tutoring among elementary school-aged nonnative speakers of English (NNS). In this study, the more proficient NNS of English tutored their less proficient NNS peers. I explored the usefulness of peer tutoring in the natural classroom environment of the English as a second language (ESL) students in Grades 4 to 7. The study focuses on how and to what extent the ESL students can assist each other in the academic and language learning of a science study on the human body during peer tutoring sessions. Taking an ethnographic research approach, the study employed a variety of data collection methods such as classroom observations, formal and informal interviews with the participants, tape recording peer tutoring sessions and collecting writing samples of the students' work. Eighteen ESL students, the classroom teacher and the researcher as participant observer were the participants in this study. Seven themes emerged from the data for discussion of the findings of the study. The results of this study demonstrate that with teacher scaffolding, such as modelling strategies, explicit instruction, and contextual hands-on group tasks for experiential learning and sharing, that NNS of English can and do assist their NNS peers during peer tutoring. Further to this, results indicated that the matching of tutors and tutees is complex and requires careful consideration when forming the tutoring dyads. An interesting aspect of the study revealed that discourse and "concepts" were being scaffolded at the same time and that students were able to include description and causal discourse in their writing about topics on the human body.

Buddy Reading, a literacy event that pairs two students as they share the reading of a book, was investigated from cultural, textual and social stances. Using a sample of 10 pairs of students from grades one and three, this study explored 1) the influences of school culture and classroom conventions that effected Buddy Reading, 2) the interaction between Grade 1 early readers as they read with more proficient Grade 3 buddies, and 3) student and teacher perceptions of Buddy Reading. Data collection involved four phases and included classroom observation, video recording students as they read together, photographic interviews of students and standard interviews of teachers. Findings indicated that student and teacher perceptions paralleled classroom practice, with the exception of students' perception of the type of decoding skills used. Although half of the proficient readers reported that they encouraged their younger partners to 'sound out words', they usually corrected oral reading errors by 'telling' or 'pronouncing' the word for their buddy. Students did not use scaffolding dialogue as they read with their buddies, and it was concluded that Buddy Reading could not be used as an alternative for reading practice with an adult. Social interaction between students was observed and discussed. School culture, tradition and rituals had a significant effect on the organization of the Buddy Reading Program and classroom practice.

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.