The problem of this study was to compare schools that utilize individualized instruction with schools that utilize a traditional or group-oriented approach to instruction. Comparisons were made relative to student perceptions of the schools' environmental climates, expectancy for school success, and promotion and non-promotion practices. The sources of data included a review of the literature related to traditional elementary education, the history and development of individualized instruction, humanistic aspects of individualized instruction, and the role of school personnel expectancy in individualized instruction. The Elementary School Environment Survey was used to collect the perceptions of 1,600 fifth-grade students about their school environments. A teacher self-report questionnaire, as well as a principal self-report questionnaire, provided data pertaining to expectancy for school success and non-promotion practices. Sixty-two fifth-grade teachers and twenty elementary principals responded to the questionnaire. The data gathered in this study indicated that fifth-grade students have similar perceptions of their school climate related to involvement, independence, morale, equity, and resources. Students in the traditional or group-oriented schools perceived their schools as being more humanistic. Elementary principals and teachers in individualized instruction schools and in traditional group-oriented schools do not differ in their expectations for school success. Schools utilizing individualized instruction non-promote a much lower percentage of their students.

This study emerged from a desire to put to an end the crisis mentality surrounding the status of History as a subject in the secondary school. There appears to be consensus amongst didactitions and practitioners of the subject that the present malaise from which History teaching suffers derives from a number of complex sources. The study, however, takes as its point of departure the problem of the content orientated (product) syllabus which over-emphasises the acquisition of factual information and neglects the conceptual understanding (process) of the subject. Experience is providing the futility of teaching only content (information) to the modern adolescent. Therefore in order to resolve the problem the study focuses, inter alia, on concepts, structures and syllabuses. It is concluded that all subjects are based on conceptual structures which, in turn, have a direct bearing on the authentic education of pupils in general and conceptualization in particular. It is suggested, therefore, that historical content (product) can only have formative value if it is harnessed to facilitate conceptualization (process). Towards this end a History syllabus which embraces both the product and process approaches is advocated for implementation. In essence this means that the content of History is organised around concepts, that is, relevant concepts are chosen as themes around which the syllabus content is structured. Such an approach, it is believed, would not only help to develop universally valid generalizations but also facilitate the conceptualization process necessary for obtaining historical insight. A model, with examples, is presented as a suggestion for implementation in the classroom. Altenative proposals are also mentioned. If historical conceptualization is to be effevively realised in the classroom, then it becomes necessary to obtain a perspective on the learning-psychological processes involved in conceptualization. In this regard, specific theoris are highlighted to guide the History teacher in the classroom. Ti is finally hoped that the new approach suggested would assist teachers, at least to some extent, to resolve the problem of conceptualization in History teaching and thereby help to store the subject to its original position of respect in the school curriculum / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D.Ed. (Didactics)

The aim of this investigation is to determine the influence of pupils' perception on their academic achievement. The literature review indicated that sensation and perception are separate but unitary processes. It was also discovered that academic achievement is influenced by the perception of several factors pertaining both to the pupil himself as well as those responsible for his academic growth. There was conclusive evidence from both the literature and empirical investigation that perception influences academic achievement. Results from the empirical study confirm that pupils with negative perceptions achieve poor academic results and those with positive perceptions achieve good academic results. It has also been found that there is no difference in the overall perceptions of pupils in standards 6,7,8,9 and 10. There was a significant difference in the perceptions of boys and girls, with girls having more positive perceptions than boys. An attempt to change the negative perceptions of pupils to positive perceptions will inevitably result in an improvement in academic achievement. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The problem of this study was to determine the relationship of double sex standards to achievement and to selected personality variables of female college students. The following hypotheses were formulated: Hypothesis 1 Women with low acceptance of double sex standards will be found to have a higher grade-point average than will women with high acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 2 Women with low acceptance of double sex standards will have greater internal locus of control than will women with high acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 3 Women with high acceptance of double sex standards will be more influenced by powerful others than will women with low acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 4 Women with high acceptance of double sex standards will show a greater tendency to believe that chance controls their lives than will women with low acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 5 Women with high acceptance of double sex standards will have a greater fear of negative evaluation than will women with low acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 6 Women with low acceptance of double sex standards will show more motivation to succeed than will women with high acceptance of double sex standards. The testing of hypotheses resulted in rejection of Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 6, and acceptance of the remaining four hypotheses. The conclusions, limited to the subjects included in the study, are that women who differ greatly on the subject of equality between the sexes do not differ in their scholastic achievement or in their motivation to succeed. In terms of the variable of locus of control, it is concluded that in the two groups studied women who show high support for equality between the sexes are more internal and women who show low support for equality are more external as a group. Lastly, the conclusion can be made that women in the group who reject equality between the sexes are more fearful of receiving negative evaluations of their behavior.

The problem is concerned with social attitudes of graduate students toward graduate faculty and graduate faculty toward graduate students in the programs of a large college of education. The purposes are (a) to establish that the attitudes of acceptance of others, trust in people, philosophy of human nature, human values, and moral ethics exist among graduate students and among graduate faculty in a large college of education; (2) to determine the relative degree to which these social attitudes exist (a) among graduate students, (b) among graduate faculty, and (c) between graduate students and graduate faculty.

Thesis (Magister Technologiae (Education))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2010 / This study traces the effects of a children’s literature intervention on first year B Ed students’ reading habits and attitudes. A review of relevant literature includes concepts of literacy, with specific reference to family literacy, adolescent literacy and critical literacy; effective literacy practices; reading, reader response and theoretical perspectives of literature, including children’s literature, and its application in the classroom; motivation and reader-identity. A variety of quantitative and qualitative methods were used to gather data over a period of eighteen months. The data captured attitudes to reading and traced changes in attitudes, habits and motivation resulting from an intervention that required students to engage in reading a range of children’s literature texts. Findings showed movement from apathy to engagement at the lowest levels of change and from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation at successive levels of change. Most significantly, the intervention caused discontinuous (permanent) change in students’ constructions of themselves as readers. Key words: critical literacy; adolescent literacy; reader response; children’s literature; extrinsic / intrinsic motivation; discontinuous change; reader identity.

There is very little focus in previous research on first language (L1) use by teachers in the upper secondary English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom from the students’ perspective. In this context and from a Swedish perspective, this thesis examines what attitudes students in the Swedish upper secondary school have towards their teachers’ use of L1 (Swedish) in the EFL-classroom. The method used was qualitative semi-structured interviews, where nine students in total were interviewed. The collected data was then coded, thematized and categorized. The results show that the students mainly believed Swedish should be used when teaching vocabulary, when teaching grammar and for classroom management. They did not believe the L1 should be used by them in questions and answers and in general talk in the classroom. They also endorsed an overall judicious use of Swedish by their teachers and that their use of this language should be adjusted to the specific teaching group. Finally, it can be concluded that further research is needed on how the L1 can be used judiciously in particular situations and on what attitudes students of varying proficiency and age, as well as students who do not have Swedish as their L1 have towards teachers’ L1 use in the EFL-classroom.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes and treatment knowledge of medical student professionals regarding rape victims. In addition to generating normative data for a population which, as a function of their vocation may come in contact with victims, comparisons were made between a sample of those beginning their medical education process and those at the end of training in order to measure change in treatment knowledge and attitudes towards rape victims which occur during medical school. Also investigated were differences which exist in the attitude and treatment knowledge measures for rape victims compared to other emergency room patient populations, and the effect of gender of the physician upon those measures. A final element investigated the physicians' perceptions of a "real" rape as it relates to those measures.

This study is about the analysis of perceptions and attitudes concerning the study of isiXhosa at tertiary level Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth. The objective of this study is to investigate negative attitudes of African students with special reference to isiXhosa. Chapter One looks at the objectives of the research, the research problem, and its theoretical framework, as well as the literature review, the significance of the study, the research methods and definition of terms. Chapter Two deals with language planning and the current negative attitudes towards African languages, with special reference to isiXhosa. Chapter Three deals with status planning, the teaching of isiXhosa, language maintenance and multilingual education policy. Chapter Four discusses corpus planning, the role that Xhosa educators and students should play in the development of the language. Chapter Five discusses acquisition planning, the attitudes towards isiXhosa language and the maintenance of the language. Chapter Six concludes the study by presenting the summary and recommendations for the future research.

The purpose of the study is to determine if there is an effect on intervention/nonintervention attitudes associated with an introductory microeconomics class. The population consisted of all students enrolled in eighteen sections of Economics 1100 during the Fall semester, 1984, at North Texs State University. There were seven sections of Economics 1100, ten sections of Sociology 1510, and ten sections of Political Science 2010 used as control groups. The instruments used for pretesting and posttesting were the twenty-three item Attitude Scale and Demographic Questionnaire. The Attitude Scale contained twelve intervention and eleven nonintervention questions. Intervention questions were reverse scored so that a high score is noninterventionist and a low score is interventionist. Data were analyzed using a multiple linear regression to determine how each variable affected the intervention/nonintervention student attitudes.