Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015 / ENGLISH ABSTRACT : The contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) provides an established theoretical framework for pursuing positive intergroup relationships (Hewstone & Swart, 2011; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006) and stipulates certain optimal conditions under which contact reduces prejudice. The secondary transfer effect of contact describes a process whereby attitudes towards outgroups not encountered in the original intergroup encounter might also be improved (Pettigrew, 2009; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). A three-wave longitudinal experimental study amongst white South African students at Stellenbosch University (N = 58) was undertaken, using two experimental groups (direct and extended) and a control group. The present study investigated whether direct and extended contact with a black (African) confederate would not only improve attitudes towards black (African) South Africans in general, but also improve attitudes towards Indian South Africans, not involved in the contact situation (i.e., the secondary transfer effect). Findings show that the experimentally manipulated contact reduced intergroup anxiety (from baseline levels measured one week earlier) towards black (African) South Africans. These effects were, however, non-significant, and suggest the present study may have been under-powered. Moreover, the findings showed that experimentally manipulated contact significantly improved outgroup attitudes and outgroup trust (from baseline levels measured one week earlier) towards black (African) South Africans in the direct contact condition, as well as the extended contact condition (outgroup attitudes only). Finally, the present study found significant evidence for the operation of the secondary transfer effect via attitude generalisation. Positive intergroup contact with the black (African) South African confederate predicted a significant change in outgroup attitudes towards black (African) South Africans in general from Time 1 (baseline) to Time 2 (post-task), which in turn predicted more positive attitudes towards Indian South Africans in general at Time 2, controlling for prior quantity and quality of contact with Indian South Africans. The secondary transfer effect was not observed for outgroup trust. The present study contributes to the existing literature on the secondary transfer effect and replicates international findings within the South African context. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING : Die kontak hipotese (Allport, 1954) bied ʼn gevestigde teoretiese raamwerk vir die voortsetting van positiewe intergroep verhoudings (Hewstone & Swart, 2011; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006) en bepaal sekere optimale toestande waaronder kontak vooroordeel verminder. Die sekondȇre oordrag effek van kontak beskryf ʼn proses waardeur houdings teenoor buitegroepe wat nie gedurende die oorspronklike intergroep kontak teёgekom is nie, ook verbeter word (Pettigrew, 2009; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). ʼn Drie-golf longitudinale eksperimentele studie onder wit Suid-Afrikaanse studente verbonde aan die Universiteit van Stellenbosch (N = 58) is onderneem, met behulp van twee eksperimentele groepe (direkte en uitgebreide) en ʼn kontrole groep (N = 16). Die huidige studie het ondersoek of direkte en uitgebreide kontak met ʼn swart (Afrikaan) Suid-Afrikaner nie net houdings teenoor swart (Afrikaan) Suid-Afrikaners in die algemeen verbeter nie, maar ook houdings teenoor Indiёr Suid-Afrikaners, wie nie by die oorspronklike kontak situasie betrokke was nie ook verbeter (d.w.s. die sekondȇre oordrag effek). Resultate toon dat die eksperimenteel gemanipuleerde kontak intergroep angs teenoor swart (Afrikaan) Suid-Afrikaners verminder (vanaf basislyn vlakke gemeet een week tevore). Hierdie effek is egter nie beduidend nie, moontlik omdat die statistiese kragdoeltreffendheid van die studie onvoldoende was. Die resultate toon verder dat eksperimenteel gemanipuleerde kontak buitegroep houdings en buitegroep vertroue (vanaf basislyn vlakke gemeet een week tevore) teenoor swart (Afrikaan) Suid-Afrikaners beduidend verbeter in die direkte kontak groep, sowel as die uitgebreide kontak groep (slegs vir buitegroep houdings). Ten slotte, die huidige studie het beduidende bewyse gevind vir die werking van die sekondȇre oordrag effek via houding veralgemening. Positiewe intergroep kontak met die swart (Afrikaan) Suid-Afrikaner voorspel ʼn beduidende verbetering in die buitegroep houding teenoor swart (Afrikaan) Suid-Afrikaners in die algemeen van Tyd 1 (basislyn) tot Tyd 2 (na die eksperimentele manipulasie), wat op sy beurt meer positiewe houdings teenoor Indiёr Suid-Afrikaners in die algemeen teen Tyd 2 voorspel, nadat daar vir beide kwaliteit en kwantiteit van vorige kontak met Indiёr Suid-Afrikaners beheer is. Die sekondȇre oordrag effek is nie vir buitegroep vertroue waargeneem nie. Die huidige studie dra by tot die bestaande literatuur oor die sekondȇre effek van kontak en ondersteun soortgelyke internasionale bevindinge binne die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks. Stellenbosch University.

This study tested the hypothesis that the combination of teachers' sense of efficacy, and teacher motivation predicts student participatory behavior, and that teacher behaviors mediate this relationship. This study consists of two parts: surveying community college instructors and observing instructors' lectures and student participation.

Oral communication is a central aspect of language learning in EFL-classrooms all over the world. Therefore, problems arise when students are passive, or unwilling to communicate and participate. The aim of this study is to investigate what factors impact Swedish upper secondary students’ willingness to communicate using self-reported data. The data in the study is gathered from a questionnaire with 203 participants currently studying in Swedish upper secondary school. The data analysis comprised inferential statistics to investigate causal relationships between the concepts of foreign language anxiety (FLA), self-perceived communicative competence (SPCC), extramural English (EE), and willingness to communicate (WTC). The results of the study suggest a causal relationship between the concepts, thus contributing to previous studies on factors that impact and describe willingness to communicate. Also, the results indicate that students’ extramural English habits impact their behavior in oral communication. In conclusion, motivating the utility of the English language for real-world purposes, in combination with a positive classroom environment, and the improvement of students’ oral communication confidence are imperative tools for the stimulation of willingness to communicate in the EFL classroom.

A survey testing student uses of and attitudes towards traditional broadcast television news and eleven "tabloid" programs was conducted using 300 students enrolled at the University of North Texas. The 10:00 p.m. newscast was most watched by the students. The most watched weekly news magazine was "60 Minutes." The Oprah Winfrey Show" was the daily "tabloid" leader. "America's Most Wanted" led the weekly "tabloid" shows. Students perceived daily newscasts as important sources of information. "USA Today," the weekly news magazines "60 Minutes" and "20/20,1" and "America's Most Wanted" were also cited by students as being "important" information programming. However, the survey showed "tabloid television" was not a major source of informational programming for college students.

This study investigated the changes in attitudes of Japanese first and second grade children who were exposed to microcomputers in school. Eight hundred and three first-and second-grade children were selected from six Japanese public schools. Approximately half of the subjects were selected from urban, suburban, and rural schools using computers, while the remaining subjects were from schools not using computers. The Young Children's Computer Inventory was the instrument used for this study. It was derived from a questionnaire originally developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and contained four subscales: Attitudes Toward Computers, Motivation to Study, Empathy, and Creativity. A Japanese language version of the questionnaire was mailed to the principal of each school, where teachers distributed the questionnaires.for the subjects to complete with their parents at home. Ninety-one percent of the students returned completed questionnaires. Demographic information was also collected for each classroom.

Det finns flera faktorer som påverkar elevers prestation inom matematik, bland annat elevers matematiska självkänsla. Denna pilotstudie utvecklar och diskuterar ett verktyg för att undersöka hur väl matematiklärare uppfattar sina elevers matematiska självkänsla. Frågeställningen som avsågs att försöka besvaras var följande: Hur väl stämmer matematiklärares uppfattningar om sina elevers matematiska självkänsla överens med elevens matematiska självkänsla?  Genom att granska elev-lärarsvarskombinationer undersöktes hur väl individuella elevers matematiska självkänsla uppfattades av sin matematiklärare. Resultatet påvisar att lärare summativt överskattar elevers matematiska självkänsla. Nollhypotesgranskning visar ej på någon tydlig trend då hälften av de undersökta elev-lärarsvarskombinationerna styrker nollhypotesen och hälften motsäger nollhypotesen. / There are several factors which affect students' performance in mathematics, including the students’ mathematical self-esteem. This pilot study tests a tool to examine mathematics teachers' perception of their students’ mathematical self esteem. The research question that was intended to be answered was the following:  How well do mathematics teachers' perceptions of their students' mathematical self-esteem agree with the students mathematical self-esteem?  By examining student-teacher response combinations through a null hypothesis, it was investigated how well individual students' mathematical self-esteem was perceived by their mathematics teacher. The results show that teachers summatively overestimate students' mathematical self-esteem. Null hypothesis review does not show any clear trend since half of the student-teacher response combinations examined confirmed the null hypothesis and half rejects the null hypothesis.

This study investigates how different educational activities affect students’ motivation and how teachers can induce students’ motivation to learn English as a second language (ESL) in Swedish lower secondary schools. Data was gathered through a questionnaire and analyzed through a sociocultural perspective. In the questionnaire, which was handed out to students in ages 13 to 15 at three different schools, the participants had to indicate if they become motivated or unmotivated by certain activities or if the activities do not have any impact on their motivation. The results indicate that the activities which most students become motivated by are likely to also be encountered outside school. These are activities such as watching a film, playing Monopoly, listening to a song, chatting online, playing a computer game or video game, or having a conversation with a close friend. In contrast, the activities which most students become unmotivated by are task- or fact-oriented activities which are likely to be encountered inside school or in work-related situations in their future adult life, such as holding a presentation, writing news articles, doing work-sheets and reading word lists with grammar exercises and glossary, or participating in job interviews. The results also show that students in Swedish lower secondary schools have positive attitudes towards ESL learning in general and that there are many similarities between the different schools regarding what students find motivating and non-motivating. Thus, the results do not encourage eliminating certain educational activities from the learning process. However, in order to induce students’ motivation for ESL learning, teachers could increase the use of activities that many of their students find motivating and decrease the use of activities that many of their students find non-motivating.

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which socioeconomic factors, demographic factors, parent and student attitudes, and parent involvement were associated with math achievement. Students in Grade 5 were selected as the population for this study. Random sampling procedures were used to select the sample. Students in the sample completed a modified version of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales. Normal Curve Equivalent Scores (NCEs) from the math scales on the TerraNova Standardized Achievement Test were obtained for all students from the individual school records. Parents of the students also participated by answering questions pertaining to their attitudes toward math, their level of involvement in the classroom, and questions that pertained to socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The findings from this study suggested that each of the six scales used from the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales were all significantly associated with the math, computation, and composite scores of the TerraNova Standardized Achievement Test. Family annual income, parents' educational level, and parent involvement were also significantly associated with math achievement. Four of the six attitudinal scales; the Mathematics as a Male Domain, Confidence in Learning Mathematics, Parent, and Mathematics Anxiety Scales, were significantly related to parents' educational level, family's annual income, and gender. Socioeconomic and attitudinal factors were the most powerful predictors of math achievment, while gender and parent involvement were not strong predictors.

Chatbot is a digital tool that, via AI technology, makescommunication between humans and technology possible.Chatbots are commonly used as, for example, digitalcustomer service assistance, but have recently also madeinroads into the education sector. Previous research hasshown predominantly positive results when it comes to theapplication of chatbots as a learning tool, especially how itcan promote the learning and interaction process of students.However, there is insufficient research that examinesstudents' attitudes towards using chatbots as tools in theirstudies. This study therefore aims to identify students'attitudes towards using chatbots in the educationalenvironment. The research question What preferences dostudents have for using chatbots for educational purposes?was answered through a cross-sectional study and mixedmethod research. An explanatory-sequential design wasused where questionnaires first were used as a datacollection method and then interviews were conductedbased on the quantitative data. The technology acceptancemodel (TAM) was the basis for creating the survey questionsand it was answered by 86 students studying at Mid SwedenUniversity, which resulted in a response rate of 14.93%. Thesurvey responses were analyzed with the help of identifyingthe central tendency, which was carried out by finding theresult's mean value, median value and typical value. Theinterview questions were created based on the results of thesurvey questions and 4 interviews were conducted. The datafor the survey and the interviews could then be analyzedusing TAM3.The study resulted in an ambiguous attitude towards the useof chatbots in an educational environment where it identifiedboth negative and positive attitudes in students. In thesurvey responses it was possible to identify that malestudents and those under the age of 36 have a more positiveattitude towards using a chatbot, which also was confirmedin the interviews. It has also emerged that previousexperience and voluntariness are important in the attitudetowards and acceptance of using a chatbot. / En chatbot är ett digitalt verktyg som via AI-teknologimöjliggör kommunikation mellan människa och teknik.Chatbottar är vanligt förekommande som exempelvisdigitala kundtjänstmedarbetare men har på senaste tidenäven gjort intåg i utbildningssektorn. Tidigare forskning harpåvisat övervägande positiva resultat när det kommer tillapplicering av chatbottar som läroverktyg, framför allt hurde kan främja inlärning- och interaktionsprocessen hosstudenter. Dock finns otillräcklig forskning som undersökerstudenters attityder till att använda chatbottar somhjälpmedel i deras studier. Denna studie syftar därför på attidentifiera studenternas inställning till att användachatbottar i utbildningsmiljön. Forskningsfrågan: Vilkainställningar har studenter till att använda chatbottar i sinutbildning? besvarades genom en tvärsnittsstudie ochflermetodsforskning. En förklarande-sekventiell designtillämpades där enkäter initialt användes somdatainsamlingsmetod och därefter genomfördes intervjuerbaserat på det kvantitativa resultatet. Teccnology acceptancemodel (TAM) låg till grund vid skapandet av enkätfrågornaoch den besvarades av 86 studenter som studerar på femolika program på Mittuniversitetet vilket resulterade i ensvarsfrekvens på 14,93%. Enkätsvaren analyserades medhjälp av att identifiera den centrala tendensen, vilketutfördes genom att finna resultatets medelvärde,medianvärde och typvärde. Fyra intervjuer genomfördes därintervjufrågorna skapades baserat på resultatet avenkätsvaren. Data för enkät och intervjuer analyseradessedan med hjälp av TAM3.Studien indikerade en tvetydig inställning till användandetav chatbottar i utbildningsmiljö då det identifierats bådenegativa och positiva inställningar hos studenter. Ienkätsvaren gick det att identifiera att manliga studenter ochde under 36 år har en mer positiv inställning till att användaen chatbot vilket även styrktes vid intervjuerna. Det har ävenframkommit att tidigare erfarenhet och frivillighet är viktigtvid inställningen och accepterandet av att använda enchatbot.

This thesis aims to measure and compare the attitudes of university students at three different public universities (The University of Central Florida, The Udmurt State University, and The Middle East Technical University) in three very distinct countries (The United States, Russia, and Turkey, respectively) with the hope of understanding their opinions toward the cultural ramifications resulting from the globalization process. The hypothesis is that the higher the exposure and receptivity of university students to cultures different from their own, via "cosmopolitizing" variables, i.e. study abroad. foreign television, music, or food, the more likely they would be to accept the concepts surrounding globalization and reject those of localization, whether expressly aware of the concepts or no thereby more likely they will be to rank "strongly globalist., on a determined dimension of globalism. An anonymous survey was translated and disseminated to students at each of the three universities referenced above in order to gather a representative sample that could potentially be studied as a microcosm of each country's university student population as a whole. The data garnered was then put through a series of statistical analyses, using SPSS, in order to understand the correlations between variables and to analyze their statistical significance. While there is existing literature discussing the attitudes and opinions of adults towards the concept of globalization there is a dearth of research and information collected on the views and attitudes of the very influential university-age population. This thesis seeks to fill in the informational gap and provide a framework for further continuation of this study.