The concept of critical thinking has been influential in curriculum policy and practice across sectors of UK education and has been identified as a key consideration in recent consultations about A level reform. The purpose of this study is to describe the meanings attributed to critical thinking in expert accounts and to compare these with policy maker and participant meanings in the context of A level Critical Thinking. A distinctive feature is the attention given to underlying epistemological and ontological assumptions of these accounts. The prevailing concept of critical thinking is of a universally applicable set of skills and dispositions for assessing reasoning and evidence, which derives from the informal logic movement and rests on a fallibilist epistemology. This contrasts with discipline specific concepts. In social realist theory critical thinking has been associated with ‘soft genericism’ and implicated in an ‘evacuation of knowledge’. A critique and extension of this theory is proposed which differentiates between multiple forms and functions of critical thinking in the curriculum. Evidence on student views was gathered in a mixed methods case study, supplemented by a teacher response activity. Students attributed high value to critical thinking and were confident in their ability to apply skills to academic and life situations; whilst they felt that these skills were not taught in other subjects. In apparent contradiction, teachers suggested correspondence between the skills expected for high performance across subjects and those in A level Critical Thinking. Additionally, they emphasized the importance of subject specific contextualising to depth of critical evaluation. It was concluded that knowledge and critical thinking are complementary rather than conflicting forces in education and that a differently conceived critical thinking based on social constructionist epistemology is compatible with and essential to the knowledge curriculum envisaged by social realists.

The global spread of English and its wide-ranging use worldwide have exerted a great influence on the socio-cultural and sociolinguistic situation and led to a substantial change in language use, pedagogy and policy. This changing situation of English use has brought about the new emerging mode of communication, which is English as a lingua franca (henceforth ELF). The hybridity and heterogeneity is an inevitable result of frequent and widespread language contact in ELF situations, and this variability and diversity is characterised as the primary nature of ELF communication. This fluid and hybrid nature of ELF communication has resulted from the need for more accommodative and adaptive behaviour in the interaction. Therefore, accommodation has been considered as one of the most influential and effective pragmatic strategies in ELF. The research reported in this thesis aimed to investigate how flexibly and effectively ELF speakers deal with the variability and diversity by employing various accommodative strategies, and the study is particularly focused on pragmatic accommodation among East Asian ELF speakers. The findings of the study show that East Asian speakers of ELF strategically and dynamically engage in pragmatic processes of co-construction of meaning and accommodation and adopt convergent pragmatic strategies such as repetition, paraphrase, and utterance completion. The high frequency of accommodation strategies for solidarity seems to indicate that East Asian speakers of ELF draw on their own cultural values and communicative behaviours, which emphasise positive politeness and rapport-oriented relationships in conversation, and the result suggests the need for reconsideration of communicative competence in order to foreground the significance of pragmatic and strategic competence in intercultural communication settings. The study provides pedagogical implications of the need for awareness on sociolinguistic issues in teachers education and suggests a more ELF-oriented and diversity-driven teaching approach.

Despite the significant body of research on examination malpractice, there is still the need to focus research on preventing examination malpractice in secondary schools. At present, schools prevent examination malpractice through invigilation, structural arrangements in the examination rooms and punishment of offenders. These methods are failing schools in preventing examination malpracitce because they do not address students' problems that determine examination malpractice. The aim of the study was to axplore the effectiveness of preventing examination malpractice by consulting students on schooling and by consulting students on schooling and by using a community approach in its prevention. Research into consulting students, their participation in identifying school problems and in initiating solutions to them through student voice has become increasingly evident in the last few decades, but to date, student voice has not been studied as a method for preventing malpractice in schools. Research has predominently used questionnaires to capture students' views on examination malpractice thereby taking for granted, students' feelings, values , interpretations and experiences of their personal and school contexts that determine examination malpractice. The study is geared towards understanding this unexamined areas. The study reports the use of "qualitative dominant" mixed methods to explore the perspective of teachers and students on examination malpractice and on consulting students on schooling. Multiple case studies of students and teachers in three secondary schools in Nigeria were carried out. Data was collected through a combination of focus groups, interviews, questionnaires and observations. Data was analysed by using interpretative and deductive approaches. Key findings from the study show that examination malpracitce is prevalent in secondary schools and is predominently determined by academic/institutional factors. The study confirms that as students are experienced in schooling, consulting them about schooling and about preventing examination malpractice will likely improve their committment to education, their responsibility towards the prevention of examinataion malpractice and enhance teacher and student relationships and examination integrity/morality

Over the last two decades, teacher education (TE) has witnessed substantial changes in the way the divide between theory and practice is viewed. This has resulted in changes in the approaches used to deliver TE programmes. Since Dewey (1933), teacher educators have been concerned with how to prepare teachers who are reflective about what they are doing. Hence, there has been widely applied emphasis on the investigation of practice. This study describes the introduction of Reflective Practice (RP) to Libyan fourth-year trainee teachers to enhance their thinking about pedagogic skills. Its main aim is to examine to what extent trainee teachers will engage in a reflective practice (RP) programme, how they will reflect on their everyday understanding and practice and how they may improve their thinking about practice as a result. It describes how an action research study was conducted with a group of 30 prospective teachers over a period of 14 weeks and involved three phases. The first two phases lasted twelve weeks. In the first phase, the participants engaged in general discussions on instructional strategies, and this paved the way for the second phase, where there was in-college teaching practice. Finally, the participants practised teaching for two consecutive weeks in a real-life context, i.e. in a secondary school. The findings indicate that the implementation of RP in the Libyan context promoted a culture of observation and critical discussions in a setting that has traditionally been characterised as passive and non-reflective. The study indicates that RP is an essential component of pre-service teachers’ development. However, if we are to make more progress, we need to aim for more understanding of the pedagogic process that supports trainee teachers’ (TTs) pedagogic inquiry. This will require good collaborative work between colleges and schools, between educators and language tutors in schools and colleges, and among TTs themselves.

The students in the Brunei mainstream education system eventually learn most subjects in English, which is not the first language for most of them. Reading in English is valued as it provides access to knowledge across the curriculum for the majority of students in Brunei as elsewhere too. Reading both for comprehension and learning are two areas of interest in this study. This thesis looks at the strategy use of (upper) secondary students of different abilities from three schools in Brunei when reading their academic materials in English. It aims to compare reading strategies the students used and which strategies the teachers taught (the use of) in two subject areas: English Language and Content Subjects. Adopting both quantitative and qualitative approaches, data was primarily collected from upper secondary students in three schools in Brunei; one of which consists of high ability students while the other two schools have mixed ability students. In the quantitative part of the study, students responded to the questionnaire on the perceived reading strategies used when reading. In the qualitative part of the study, twenty five students participated in semi-structured interviews where ten of them did a think-aloud reading activity. In terms of reading strategy use, the quantitative results showed that students employed cognitive reading strategies more than metacognitive strategies when they read in English. The qualitative results also revealed that students of different ability groups, in general did not differ greatly in the types of strategies they used. However, the frequency in the use of strategies and in the elaboration and execution of these strategies do vary among the students and across the two subject areas. Findings of the study further suggest that; (a) reading in the two subject areas differ in the emphasis of reading strategies, (b) ability may contribute to the differences in strategy use among students in the two subject areas.

This thesis explores the use of mobile phones to support English vocabulary learning in Malaysian schools and develops an implementation strategy which consists of the policy and procedure through an Educational Research and Development (ER&D) methodology (Borg and Gall, 1979) with the interview as the main research tool. The methodology consists of rigorous steps in developing, evaluating and disseminating the implementation strategy as well as exploring other issues associated with mobile learning implementation in Malaysian schools. Based on the respondent’s perspectives, it has been established that the implementation strategy developed in this study would have the potential to provide guidance in the implementation of mobile learning in Malaysian schools. There is also a potential to utilise mobile phones to complement the existing practices in Malaysian schools: adding value to the existing initiatives for teaching the English Language in Malaysian schools; complementing the ICT policy in the Malaysian Education System; complementing the Malaysian Smart School vision to utilise mobile technologies; and becoming an alternative teaching and learning tool. This study also explores emerging themes in the implementation of mobile learning. These are the opportunities of utilising mobile phones including: to support English Language subject; as an affordable device; as a common device among students; as a future teaching and learning tool; as an engaging and motivational learning device; to support various learning activities; and to prepare students for their future with digital literacy. The challenges identified are: misuse, current educational policy, management and maintenance, stakeholders’ attitude, digital divide and personal space invasion. The study sheds light on the situation regarding the utilisation of mobile phones including the challenges that need to be addressed to make it a reality. It is envisaged that the implementation strategy would help towards the realisation of mobile learning implementation in Malaysian schools.

No description available.

This thesis will illustrate the strong, significant and positive relationship between attendance at secondary schools in England and the role of the form tutor. The aim of this thesis is to use narrative methodology to show how this relationship is auto/biographical in nature and how it could potentially be critically important to understanding and raising attendance levels. Part I will provide evidence that school attendance is currently officially approached in a restricted, quantitative manner. This has led to inaccurate and ill-defined data and initiatives, with little success in raising attendance. Further, there is a lack of qualitative understanding surrounding the role of the form tutor. Thus, although students and form tutors recognise how their personal and qualitatively described interactions influence attendance, this is not identified by official publications. Part II will argue that a new epistemological approach is required to incorporate the qualitative, individual and auto/biographical elements already positively influencing attendance but currently unable to gain just recognition. Wittgenstein’s (1953) philosophical theories will be argued to include dialectic elements of meaning and therefore provide grounding for a new approach to attendance. In turn, this requires the structure and content of narrative time, identity and ethics, based upon Ricoeur (1955, 1965, 1969, 1975, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1990), to fully communicate the significant relationship between attendance, individuals and the role of the form tutor: ultimately enhancing the accuracy, definition and understanding of attendance. Part III will discuss the practical implications of this new epistemology and methodology, through an analysis of the methods used here to undertake research with a small group of form tutors within a secondary school in England. It will also be noted how narrative theory and my own auto/biographical experiences have affected this thesis. The content presented crosses multifarious boundaries, bringing together a passion for mathematics, philosophy, science and self-consciousness, with a personal experience of family love and professional experience of attendance. Consequently, this thesis auto/biographically brings together academic, practical, applied, theoretical, professional and personal concepts to gain a more meaningful understanding of secondary school attendance.

The University of St. Andrews is unique in that one half of its intake has Scottish Certificate of Education (S.C.E.) qualifications and the other General Certificate of Education (G.C.E.) qualifications. Also, the S.C.E. qualified students have consistently been more likely to fail than have their G.C.E, qualified counterparts. The aim of this thesis is to develop a scale to compare S.C.E. and G.C.E. qualifications and to investigate some of the causes for the differential performance. The first part of the thesis considers whether the level of failure at St. Andrews is higher than that at other universities and then reviews the varied literature on academic performance to assess the potential relevance of a number of variables as predictors of performance. It has been common iii educational research to adopt linear weightings for S.C.E. and G.C.E. grades in statistical analyses. The next section investigates the linear weights and finds chat, at St. Andrews, they may be improved upon. An alternative scoring system is developed and a model to estimate an entrant's probability of failure constructed. Thirdly some qualitative reasons for the differential in performance are examined through two surveys: one of the academic and social experiences of the students' first year, and the other of the reasons given by students for choosing an ordinary degree. Finally, some suggestions are made regarding possible improvements in procedures for monitoring student progress and of the potential for improving the assistance offered to new students to help them to complete successfully a degree course.

<p> New Castle County Vocational Technical School District (NCCVT) is a vocational school district in Delaware consisting of four high schools. NCCVT&rsquo;s vision &ldquo;is to deliver world-class Career and Technical programs combined with rigorous academic curricula to equip students with the 21st century skills that will best serve the State of Delaware and the global community&rdquo; (NCCVT, 2018, para. 1). I have served as the principal of St. Georges Technical High School (St. Georges) since 2012. As the principal, I have recognized the value of distributive leadership. </p><p> Distributive leadership involves working with several people to help inform decision-making that will improve the performance of educators and increase student achievement. The shared responsibility and experiences that teachers encounter through distributive leadership affect teacher capacities and motivation. The portfolio focuses on building the necessary leadership capacity to both achieve our instructional focus and reach our student achievement goals. Specifically, the ELP (Building the leadership capacity to achieve instructional focus and increase student achievement) centers on developing three school-based teams of teachers and administrators working together to improve teacher practices focused on literacy. The three leadership teams developed are the Powerful Development Team (PDT), Instructional Leadership Team (ILT), and the Instructional Coaches. Particular attention is given to the PDT because they exemplified an effective model of how distributive leadership can be operationalized at the building level. The improvement strategies centered on achieving the instructional focus goals, increasing capacity and distributing leadership. Teachers and administrators worked collaboratively to complete the following: a) select leaders and establish the PDT, b) build leadership capacity, and c) teach leadership skills and literacy strategies. The improvement strategies resulted in the development of: a) a qualified team of teachers working collaboratively to accomplish the school-wide instructional goals, b) two teams of teachers (ILT and coaches) supporting instructors with implementation of the school-wide instructional focus, c) a PDT team learning leadership skills and literacy strategies; d) three teams (PDT, ILT, and coaches) enhancing the instruction of teachers. These developments led to an increase in student achievement, including an increase in scores on the PSAT and SAT. On both assessments the school scored above the district and state average. The PDT believes that our instructional focus on research-based literacy strategies that is aligned with the Common Core Standards played a major factor in the students&rsquo; increased achievement on the PSAT and SAT. Recommendations for the future include providing specific feedback and resources for candidates who are not selected to participate on the PDT, collecting and analyzing data to determine goals for the instructional leadership groups, reevaluating the administrative walkthrough tool, creating a coaches&rsquo; walkthrough tool, and providing additional training on the four disciplines that will help build a cohesive team and healthy organization. </p><p>