The two-part Views on Chemistry Practicals (VOCP) instrument for measuring the views of grade 10 to 12 Physical Science students about the benefits and problems of Chemistry practicals was empirically developed and trialed using six schools in Gauteng. The summary part of the resultant VOCP instrument comprises 24 Likert items and the explanatory part comprises 24 multiple-choice items with 163 options, thus creating a unique current record of a wide range of students' views of chemistry practicals and providing teachers with a tool for improving chemistry practicals. The trial of the instrument with 230 students from three schools indicated that the summary part of the instrument is reliable (Cronbach alpha coefficient) and that a shortened explanatory part of the instrument is reliable (Chi squared values for 17 items with 98 options). The validity of the VOCP instrument was established through the empirical development of the instrument using triangulation of data. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Natural Science Education)

The two-part Views on Chemistry Practicals (VOCP) instrument for measuring the views of grade 10 to 12 Physical Science students about the benefits and problems of Chemistry practicals was empirically developed and trialed using six schools in Gauteng. The summary part of the resultant VOCP instrument comprises 24 Likert items and the explanatory part comprises 24 multiple-choice items with 163 options, thus creating a unique current record of a wide range of students' views of chemistry practicals and providing teachers with a tool for improving chemistry practicals. The trial of the instrument with 230 students from three schools indicated that the summary part of the instrument is reliable (Cronbach alpha coefficient) and that a shortened explanatory part of the instrument is reliable (Chi squared values for 17 items with 98 options). The validity of the VOCP instrument was established through the empirical development of the instrument using triangulation of data. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Natural Science Education)

This study explores the issues involved in the theoretical bases, rationale and implementation of practical work in junior secondary science programs. The part that practical work has played in science education, both internationally and in Australia, is reviewed. Links are made between statements made by science educators more than 200 years ago to those made by modern day researchers into science teaching and learning. The study draws together the research traditions of the philosophy of science, science curriculum development, learning environments, and educational psychology. The researcher has carried out a multi-stage field study using both qualitative and quantitative methods to achieve the objectives of the study. Developments in the philosophy of science as they impinge on science education are reviewed. Science practicals are defined for the purposes of this study and a new Theoretical Model for Science Practicals is proposed. The model enables the description and statement of purpose of eight types of science practicals. The target population of the study is Australian science teachers and students. The model provides a theoretical basis for the development of the survey instrument, Science Practicals Inventory (SPI), to investigate students’ perceptions of the use of practicals in science learning. The eight types of practicals described in the model were used as the scales for the SPI. Qualitative data collected during separate group interviews of science teachers and students supported the development of the SPI together with quantitative data from three pilot studies. The SPI was validated using samples of high school students from Tasmania and Western Australia. / Using statistical procedures involving factor analyses, alpha reliability, discriminant validity, and ANOVA, a valid, reliable, efficient, eight scale, 50 item instrument has been developed. Analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data in this study enabled issues involved in the theoretical bases, rationale and implementation of practical work in junior secondary science programs to be clarified and better understood. The results of this study include implications for science curricula and recommendations for further research and are generalizable to science teachers and students in Australia. The SPI is available for further application in action research, science program evaluation, science teacher professional learning and science program renewal.

This thesis reports on a literature survey and an investigation that was done on the Histology course for MBChB II learners at Medunsa. All aspects of the course were investigated including the present course as well as the possibility of replacing the lectures by multimedia computer presentations and a video. The multimedia computer presentations were specially developed for the study while an earlier developed video was also included into the study. Two instruments were used to gather information from the learners. Responses from a questionnaire as well as learner records were statistically evaluated. This information as well as information gathered from the literature was used to design a new proposed course in histology. A number of issues emerged from the study. The first issue is that histology is the least favourite of all the subsections of Anatomy. Learners prefer to study their histology by watching a video. The learners who watched the video more than four times did not do better than the others. Multimedia changed the attitude of the learners towards histology to some extent. Learners have a perception, which could not be proved, that if they study with the aid of multimedia their marks and their recollection will improve. Learners often left lectures before the end or did not attend. The reason that the learners indicated for this tendency was lack of concentration. Most learners want the system of lectures changed. They want some lectures to be replaced by multimedia. Most learners rate the histology lectures as good. The majority of learners do not want the histology course to be changed into a multimedia course. From the study it is clear that the microscope can be successfully replaced by an instructivist way of learning like a video or a multimedia computer presentation. It is however not ideal to replace a constructivist way of learning, like using a microscope, with a way of learning that is only instructivist, therefore it is suggested that the microscope is replaced by another constructivist way of learning. Providing groups of learners with unique images from the histology slides to be studied and annotated was suggested. It also became clear that if a computer-based histology course is to be implemented in future, learners will have to go through a transitional phase where the lectures and practicals are gradually replaced by multimedia. / Thesis (PhD (Information Science))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Information Science / unrestricted

My thesis's topic is life in the soil. This thesis discusses soil itself and organisms that live in it. At the same time it describes an implementation of the topic Soil in schooling into an educational program in a specific primary school. The theoretical part contains eight basic areas - soil formation, its characteristics, soil types, functions, soil degradation and protection, soil nutrients, methods of studying soil fauna and, last but not least, topic of soil in general education schedule for primary schooling and school edaucation schedule of a specific primary school. Empirical part of the work contains an analysis of the natural history textbooks on the topic of soil and a description of teaching material which was used during lessons at the Primary School Bystřice. The aim of the work was to verify the functionality of the resulting teaching materials which were evaluated in post and pre-tests. Both tests were first evaluated separately and then compared together. The resulsts were very similar. In th both of class was the same number of students were get better or get worse. The class 9.B had better point evaluation. KEYWORDS soil, soil fauna, soil practicals, analysis of textbooks, teaching materials

Few South African students pass Grade 12 Physical Science with symbols required by university science, engineering and health science faculties. A large number of students who sit for Grade 12 Physical Science and Mathematics exams pass with symbols that are well below those required by the mainstream science courses at South African universities. Most South African universities have introduced Science Foundation Programmes with the aim of upgrading those students who failed to obtain university entrance symbols in the relevant subjects. Amongst the courses offered in Science Foundation Programmes is Foundation Physics. This study investigates the influence of Foundation Physics in order to find out if the programmes in different institutions are successful in empowering the students who failed to get the required entrance mark in Grade 12 Physical Science. Four South African Historically Black universities participated in this study. The Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation test (FMCE) (Thornton & Sokoloff, 1998) and mechanics marks were used to assess students' understanding of Newtonian mechanics. Data was analyzed from socio-cultural perspective. A total of 194 students participated in the study. Two groups of students were compared, i.e. those who did Foundation Physics (Foundation group) and those who did not do Foundation Physics (non-Foundation group). The students were tested after they had completed a mechanics module, which forms a great foundation of Physics I (Introductory Physics). Two focus group interviews were held with selected Foundation and non-Foundation students per institution. Students voiced their experiences in Physics I and Foundation Physics. Students were chosen to represent focus groups according to their performance in the FMCE test. Mechanics class performances were also used to evaluate students' performance. In order to establish how Foundation Physics is taught, Foundation Physics Lecturer interviews were conducted at all four institutions. Analysis of data showed that both Foundation and non-Foundation students performed equally in Physics I mechanics module. Foundation group performed better than the non-Foundation group in the FMCE, which is a conceptual test. Foundation Physics lecturers indicated that there were some differences in the way mechanics was taught in Physics I and Foundation Physics. These differences affected students' performance. The lecturers also indicated that there was minimal interaction between Physics I lecturers and Foundation Physics lecturers pertaining to the teaching of the two courses. What influence does Foundation Physics have on the performance of students in Physics I? This study found that students who did Foundation Physics performed better than those who did not do Foundation Physics in conceptual questions and both the groups perform equally in questions that require memorizing and calculations. This implies that Foundation Physics courses are empowering the students to perform well in Physics I. However, as it is evidenced by this research, the differences in assessment in Physics I and Foundation Physics courses in some institutions hampers Foundation Physics students' learning, because the questions asked require them to memorize without understanding, something they are not used to. The researcher recommends that Foundation Physics staff and Physics I staff should start communicating, not only about how Foundation Physics should be run as was the case in the past, but also on how best Physics I should be run. This might help in making sure that the two courses are assessed similarly at one institution. / Mathematics, Science and Technology Education / D. Phil. (Mathematics, Science and Technology Education)

Submitted by Vanessa Nunes (vnunes@unisinos.br) on 2015-03-13T19:12:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 circulacao_saberes.pdf: 2465039 bytes, checksum: 31b9e7e71d543210ae19b173c8691631 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-13T19:12:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 circulacao_saberes.pdf: 2465039 bytes, checksum: 31b9e7e71d543210ae19b173c8691631 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-25 / Nenhuma / Essa tese busca elaborar o fenômeno da circulação de saberes sobre Jornalismo na sociedade em midiatização, especialmente no que concerne à compreensão de articulações entre circuitos estabelecidos e fluxos comunicacionais mais tentativos de prática e crítica jornalística. Para tanto, são observadas experiências de práticas jornalísticas (produção de blogs e sites por amadores e apropriação de notícia s em redes sociais) e experiências de críticas jornalísticas (circulação de textos acadêmicos e de especialistas em Jornalismo na Internet). A partir da análise desses casos, que são observados tão somente em suas características que servem ao fenômeno, busca-se apreender a relação (afetações, promessas e expectativas) entre circuitos e fluxos comunicacionais de prática e crítica jornalística na sociedade em midiatização. Os referenciais teóricos que tensionam esses observáveis derivam de perspectivas da midiatização desenvolvidas especialmente por Braga (2006; 2012a; 2014). Quanto à prática jornalística, essa tese produz inferências sobre a capacidade que os amadores têm em dominar lógicas midiáticas e criar seus próprios espaços de produção de sentidos e narrativas sobre o mundo, à parte de, mas também em relação, aos grandes meios de comunicação de massa. Acerca da crítica jornalística, as inferências produzidas revelam um cenário em que os circuitos acadêmicos já estabelecidos se fecham entre os próprios pesquisadores, enquanto que fluxos comunicacionais de crítica sobre a produção dos meios de comunicação são exercidos, ainda de maneira dispersa e tentativa, via redes sociais. Em ambos os eixos de análise – de prática e crítica jornalística – verifica-se, sobretudo, que saberes em Jornalismo circulam na sociedade em midiatização, independente da atuação de circuitos acadêmicos ou profissionais. / This thesis seeks to elaborate the phenomenon of circulation of knowledges about Journalism in the mediatization of society, especially as regards the understanding of linkages between established circuits and communicational flows more tentatives of practice and criticismo journalistic. To this end, experiments of journalistic practices (production of blogs and sites by amateur and appropriation of news in social networks) and the experiences of journalistic criticism (circulation of academic texts and experts in Journalism on the Internet) are observed. From the analysis of these cases, that are observed only in its features that it work to the phenomenon, we seek to apprehend relations (affectations, promises and expectations) between circuits and communicational flows of practice and criticism journalistic in the mediatization of society. The theoretical frameworks that work these observables are mediatization's perspectives specially developed by Braga (2006, 2012a, 2014). As for journalistic practice, this thesis produces inferences about the ability of amateurs to dominate media logics and create their own spaces of production of meanings and narratives about the world, apart from, but also in relation to major media. About journalistic criticism, the inferences produced reveal a scenario in which academics circuits established are closed between the researchers themselves, while comunicational flows of criticism about the production of the major media are exercised, in a dispersed and attempt manner, in the networks social. In both lines of analysis - of the practical and the criticism journalistic - we can saw that knowledges about the Journalism are circulating in the mediatization of society, regardless of the performance of academic or professional circuits.

Few South African students pass Grade 12 Physical Science with symbols required by university science, engineering and health science faculties. A large number of students who sit for Grade 12 Physical Science and Mathematics exams pass with symbols that are well below those required by the mainstream science courses at South African universities. Most South African universities have introduced Science Foundation Programmes with the aim of upgrading those students who failed to obtain university entrance symbols in the relevant subjects. Amongst the courses offered in Science Foundation Programmes is Foundation Physics. This study investigates the influence of Foundation Physics in order to find out if the programmes in different institutions are successful in empowering the students who failed to get the required entrance mark in Grade 12 Physical Science. Four South African Historically Black universities participated in this study. The Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation test (FMCE) (Thornton & Sokoloff, 1998) and mechanics marks were used to assess students' understanding of Newtonian mechanics. Data was analyzed from socio-cultural perspective. A total of 194 students participated in the study. Two groups of students were compared, i.e. those who did Foundation Physics (Foundation group) and those who did not do Foundation Physics (non-Foundation group). The students were tested after they had completed a mechanics module, which forms a great foundation of Physics I (Introductory Physics). Two focus group interviews were held with selected Foundation and non-Foundation students per institution. Students voiced their experiences in Physics I and Foundation Physics. Students were chosen to represent focus groups according to their performance in the FMCE test. Mechanics class performances were also used to evaluate students' performance. In order to establish how Foundation Physics is taught, Foundation Physics Lecturer interviews were conducted at all four institutions. Analysis of data showed that both Foundation and non-Foundation students performed equally in Physics I mechanics module. Foundation group performed better than the non-Foundation group in the FMCE, which is a conceptual test. Foundation Physics lecturers indicated that there were some differences in the way mechanics was taught in Physics I and Foundation Physics. These differences affected students' performance. The lecturers also indicated that there was minimal interaction between Physics I lecturers and Foundation Physics lecturers pertaining to the teaching of the two courses. What influence does Foundation Physics have on the performance of students in Physics I? This study found that students who did Foundation Physics performed better than those who did not do Foundation Physics in conceptual questions and both the groups perform equally in questions that require memorizing and calculations. This implies that Foundation Physics courses are empowering the students to perform well in Physics I. However, as it is evidenced by this research, the differences in assessment in Physics I and Foundation Physics courses in some institutions hampers Foundation Physics students' learning, because the questions asked require them to memorize without understanding, something they are not used to. The researcher recommends that Foundation Physics staff and Physics I staff should start communicating, not only about how Foundation Physics should be run as was the case in the past, but also on how best Physics I should be run. This might help in making sure that the two courses are assessed similarly at one institution. / Mathematics, Science and Technology Education / D. Phil. (Mathematics, Science and Technology Education)

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:57:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Shirley Pires Cruz.pdf: 1162221 bytes, checksum: 0725ee26ed78f74bb2fcfcdd9f9db54e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-16 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The following study tried to reveal and comprehend educational practicals in families that live in a lower class neighborhood in Sao Paulo city. Revealing the senses of educational practicals of these families, it has been, firstly, entering their worlds, contextualize their living experiences, and in order to do that, it has been important and revealing get to know their particulars, because the intention of this research has not been only to generalize the senses of the familiar educational practicals. The sense can be comprehended in this work, like the path where these practicals point, it means, the direction of the configured practicals from the narrative obtained from the interviewed families. It s important to remember that, the sense appear according to the situation, which means, within space and time, within a determined context or season, therefore what has emerged from this research refers to investigation that has taken place. This is an existential qualitative phenomenological research. As part of this study we have two families from EMEF s students of the neighborhood. These two families have taken two meetings where reflexive interviews were made, according to Szymanki proposal, besides the testimonies taken in group meetings. The data analysis was inspired on the Existential Phenomenology that was applied to get the educational practicals from their speeches. The results achieved point that the educational practicals of the studied families reveal the sense of being a father and a mother and take the role of being the educators of their own children, leading them to a better life. We haven t noticed a dialogic practical, but a command respect-obedience relationship, although this image of a educator family, committed in their children education, most of the times do not adequate to the concept that some educators have about lower-class families / O presente estudo procurou desvelar e compreender sentidos de práticas educativas de famílias moradoras de um bairro de baixa renda no município de São Paulo. Desvelar sentidos de práticas educativas dessas famílias foi primeiramente adentrar em seus mundos, contextualizar suas vivências e para isso foi importante e relevante conhecer e considerar suas peculiaridades, pois a intenção dessa pesquisa não foi generalizar os sentidos de práticas educativas familiares. O sentido é compreendido nesse trabalho, como o caminho para onde apontam tais práticas, ou seja, o rumo e a direção das práticas configuradas a partir das narrativas obtidas pelas entrevistas com essas famílias. É importante lembrar que sentido dá-se em situação, isto é, num espaço e tempo, num determinado contexto ou época, portanto o que emergiu nesse trabalho foi referido à investigação que aqui se realizou. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa de base fenomenológica existencial. Participaram do estudo duas famílias de alunos de uma EMEF da região onde moram. Com essas famílias foram feitos dois encontros para a realização de entrevistas reflexivas, segundo a proposta de Szymanski, além dos depoimentos coletados em reuniões coletivas. A análise dos dados inspirou-se na Fenomenologia Existencial de cunho hermenêutico para se desvelar os sentidos das práticas educativas no discurso dessas famílias. Os resultados alcançados apontam que as práticas educativas das famílias estudadas revelam um sentido que expressa a responsabilidade de ser pai e mãe e de assumirem o papel de educadores de seus filhos, instrumentando-os para uma vida melhor. Não observamos uma prática dialógica, mas de imposição e obediência, porém essa imagem de família educadora e comprometida na educação dos filhos, muitas vezes não se adequa ao conceito que alguns educadores têm sobre as famílias de classes populares