This study provides a description of the writing done by Freshman English students in classes other than English at The University of Arizona. The study involved three aspects of observation and documentation of writing habits: a Questionnaire administered to 1,442 students, a Writing Checklist completed by twenty-three students over a one week period, and case study interviews of five students. All three aspects were considered in the findings for the following research questions: (1) What kinds of writing tasks are students doing in classes other than English? (2) How frequent are these tasks? (3) What quantities of writing are being done? (4) To what audiences are the students writing? The population for the study is representative of the university. The task of Taking notes was the most frequently occurring by far. Journals and Creative writing were the least frequent, also by a wide margin. Students felt that teachers were more concerned with content than with presentation. Little in-class time was spent on pre-writing activities. The highest responses were to questions about students' values and attitudes concerning writing. More school writing seems to take place on Monday and Wednesday, with Friday the lowest week day work response. Little work in writing occurs on the weekend. All three aspects point to similar conclusions: students are not writing very much, they are not writing in very many different modes, they are not getting very much guidance in their writing, and they are not getting very much affirmation for writing as a valid cognitive skill in the classroom. Some students are receiving some of these benefits, but the majority of university students are not. Little research has been done on university students to determine how much and what kinds of writing they are doing in classes other than English. If our society continues to value writing as an important skill, universities must re-examine the role of writing in college classes. Without the process of discovery that occurs when writing, the student's education and cognitive growth are greatly limited. Writing is a valuable cognitive aid that must be used in all departments.

The major problem of this study involved a comparison of two methods of teaching English and biology to college freshmen. Subproblems investigated in this study involved the apparent influence of each method of teaching on achievement in each course, on the self-concept of the student, on the students' attitude toward college and toward the learning center, and the effect of the commuterresident status on achievement, self-concept, or attitude. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of the experimental method of teaching to achieve desired growth in academic achievement of first-semester college freshmen enrolled in English or biology.

The effect of an interdisciplinary algebra/science course on students' critical thinking skills was examined. A traditional college algebra course was used as a comparison group. The students in the sample enrolled in college algebra and then half were randomly placed into the interdisciplinary course. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest comparison group design was used. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal was used to measure the students' critical thinking skills. This instrument consists of an overall critical thinking score as well as five subscores in the areas of Inference, Recognition of Assumptions, Deduction, Interpretation and Evaluation of Arguments. It was found that the students in the interdisciplinary course made greater gains in the overall critical thinking score as well as in four of the five subscores. However, the differences in the gains made in the two courses were not statistically significant. Disregarding course, other factors that were found to be closely related to critical thinking were Composite ACT, grade received in the course, Math ACT and grade point average. It was also found that students whose majors were in the Schools of Arts and Letters or Science and Technology scored higher on critical thinking than students whose majors were in the Schools of Business or Education. Factors found to have no relationship to critical thinking were ethnicity, gender and classification.

The research set out to describe how professional attributes (PAs) can be nurtured during the teaching and learning of auditing technical content in an open distance learning (ODL) environment. First the research described the necessity to include PAs in the academic programme. This was followed by describing the relevance of PAs during the performance of an audit and identifying and describing the PAs that an entry-level registered auditor are expected to demonstrate. The main categories of PAs identified were: professional demeanour, critical reasoning and communication. The University of South Africa was selected as the ODL institution and data were collected through individual interviews with auditing lecturers and a focus group discussion with auditing students. Tesch’s open method of descriptive coding was used for data analysis. Generic recommendations to nurture PAs and specific recommendations to nurture professional demeanour, critical reasoning and communication while teaching and learning auditing technical content in an ODL environment were proposed. / Auditing / M. Com. (Auditing)

Almost twenty-one percent of the United States population spoke a language other than English in 2011. Furthermore, there has been a dramatic increase in the enrollment of students of Hispanic and other ethnic backgrounds in U.S. post-secondary institutions between 1976 and 2013 (from 4% to 16%) (National Center for Education Statistics NCES, 2016). Until now, no systematic research has focused on the differential effects of selfefficacy on academic achievement in monolingual and bilingual undergraduate college students. The present study aimed to investigate this relationship, as well as contribute additional insight on whether the academic self-efficacy of monolingual and bilingual undergraduate college students plays a role in their academic success specifically in science and math courses. Additionally, the findings of this research study were expected to provide data to inform the development of educational programs that might specifically target monolinguals or bilinguals in enhancing students’ self-efficacy. Seven instructors of foundational undergraduate science courses and math courses at a southeastern university agreed to contribute to the study by asking their students for their voluntary participation in the data collection. A total of 361 students participated in the study. Overall, 256 (70.9%) participants reported being monolingual and 105 (29.1%) reported being bilingual; 335 (92.8%) students were enrolled in science courses and 26 (7.2%) were registered in math courses; 237 (65.7%) were female students and 124 (34.3%) were male. Demographics, self-efficacy, and sociolinguistic data were collected using the Self-Efficacy Research Study Online Questionnaire. Final science and math grades were also collected from the instructors at the end of the semester for all students who volunteered to participate in the study. The findings of this research study revealed that the self-efficacy levels of undergraduate college students in science and math predict their academic achievement in these subjects. They also showed that the self-efficacy levels of bilingual participants are higher than those of their monolingual counterparts. Findings also indicated that when the relationship between final grade and self-efficacy was examined separately in each linguistic group the correlation was significant and positive for monolinguals. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This study has a twofold purpose. The first is to determine through the administration of selected instruments the educational needs of television production personnel employed by businesses and industries engaged in the production of non-commercial television programs. The second is to develop a community college curriculum based on the assessed needs of the production personnel.

Huang, Zeping. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-132). / Abstracts in English and Chinese; appendix two in English and Chinese. / Acknowledgements --- p.i / Abstract --- p.iii / Abstract (Chinese) --- p.v / Table Of Contents --- p.vi / List of Tables --- p.ix / List of Figures and Graphs --- p.x / Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1. --- Motivation --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.2. --- The importance of language use in L2 writing --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.2. --- The possibilities of integrating corpora into L2 writing instruction --- p.2 / Chapter 1.1.3. --- The need for corpus-informed approach --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2. --- Purpose of this study --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3. --- Research questions --- p.5 / Chapter 1.4. --- Overall research methods --- p.5 / Chapter 1.5. --- Significance of the study --- p.5 / Chapter 1.6. --- Organization of the thesis --- p.6 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1. --- "Research on corpora and L2 writing...," --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1.1. --- Studies on corpus use from teachers' perspective --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1.2. --- Studies on students' direct use of corpus --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1.3. --- Empirical Studies on corpus and vocabulary learning --- p.17 / Chapter 2.2. --- Evaluations of the studies under review --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.1. --- Evaluation of research on corpus-informed teaching materials development --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.2. --- Evaluations of empirical research on students' direct use of corpus --- p.21 / Chapter 2.3. --- Call for further studies --- p.22 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- METHODOLOGY --- p.24 / Chapter 3.1. --- Participants --- p.24 / Chapter 3.2. --- Research Setting --- p.25 / Chapter 3.3. --- Materials --- p.25 / Chapter 3.3.1. --- Corpora used --- p.26 / Chapter 3.3.2. --- Selecting the target words --- p.28 / Chapter 3.3.3. --- Sifting the concordance lines --- p.29 / Chapter 3.3.4. --- Formulating the queries --- p.30 / Chapter 3.4. --- Research design --- p.32 / Chapter 3.4.1. --- Pretest --- p.33 / Chapter 3.4.2. --- Immediate posttest --- p.33 / Chapter 3.4.3. --- Delayed posttest --- p.34 / Chapter 3.5. --- Procedures --- p.35 / Chapter 3.6. --- Instruments --- p.37 / Chapter 3.6.1. --- Questionnaires --- p.37 / Chapter 3.6.2. --- Learning journals --- p.38 / Chapter 3.6.3. --- Uptake sheets --- p.38 / Chapter 3.7. --- Data collection and analysis --- p.38 / Chapter 3.7.1. --- Holistic scoring --- p.39 / Chapter 3.7.2. --- Analysis of the use of target words --- p.40 / Chapter 3.7.3. --- Questionnaire responses --- p.42 / Chapter 3.8. --- Chapter summary --- p.43 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- RESULTS --- p.44 / Chapter 4.1. --- Holistic scores --- p.44 / Chapter 4.2. --- Use of signaling nouns (SNs) --- p.46 / Chapter 4.2.1. --- Accuracy --- p.46 / Chapter 4.2.2. --- Complexity --- p.61 / Chapter 4.2.3. --- Retention of the target patterns --- p.73 / Chapter 4.3. --- Content Schemata nouns --- p.74 / Chapter 4.4. --- Evaluation of the concordance exercises --- p.75 / Chapter 4.4.1. --- Effects on vocabulary learning --- p.75 / Chapter 4.4.2. --- Effect on L2 writing --- p.78 / Chapter 4.4.3. --- Difficulties in doing the concordance exercises --- p.80 / Chapter 4.5. --- Chapter summary --- p.84 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- DISCUSSION --- p.85 / Chapter 5.1. --- Did the corpus-informed approach improve students' overall writing quality? --- p.85 / Chapter 5.1.1. --- Cut-off sentences --- p.87 / Chapter 5.1.2. --- Culture-loaded information in concordance lines --- p.88 / Chapter 5.2. --- Did the corpus-informed approach improve vocabulary use in students' writing? --- p.90 / Chapter 5.2.1. --- Interface of lexis and syntax --- p.91 / Chapter 5.2.2. --- Encouraging usage-based learning --- p.95 / Chapter 5.2.3. --- Raising learner awareness of collocation and colligation --- p.97 / Chapter 5.2.4. --- Retention of lexico-grammatical patterns --- p.98 / Chapter 5.3. --- Did students think that corpus-informed approach helped their writing? --- p.100 / Chapter 5.4. --- Towards a tentative model of corpus-informed writing instruction --- p.102 / Chapter 5.4.1. --- Preparing Materials --- p.104 / Chapter 5.4.2. --- During the exploration of a topic-specific corpus --- p.105 / Chapter 5.4.3. --- Follow-up activities after exploration of the topic-specific corpus --- p.106 / Chapter 5.5. --- Chapter summary --- p.108 / Chapter CHAPTER SIX --- CONCLUSION --- p.109 / Chapter 6.1. --- Summary of this study --- p.109 / Chapter 6.1.1. --- Enhancement of lexico-grammatical patterns --- p.109 / Chapter 6.1.2. --- Enhanced awareness of the importance of collocations --- p.111 / Chapter 6.1.3. --- Pivotal role of prior grammatical knowledge in corpus-informed learning --- p.111 / Chapter 6.1.4. --- Insignificant correlation between learning CSNs and ideas development --- p.113 / Chapter 6.2. --- Pedagogical implications --- p.113 / Chapter 6.2.1. --- Writing materials development --- p.114 / Chapter 6.2.2. --- Implementation of corpus-informed activities --- p.115 / Chapter 6.3. --- Limitations and suggestions --- p.117 / Chapter 6.3.1. --- A longer experimental time frame --- p.117 / Chapter 6.3.2. --- More lexical input --- p.118 / Chapter 6.3.3. --- More comparison groups --- p.118 / Chapter 6.3.4. --- Different proficiency levels --- p.119 / Chapter 6.3.5. --- Web-based concordances and more follow-up learning activities --- p.119 / Chapter 6.3.6. --- Case studies --- p.120 / Chapter 6.4. --- Closing remarks --- p.120 / Bibliography --- p.121 / Appendix One Questionnaire One --- p.133 / Appendix Two Questionnaire Two --- p.136 / Appendix Three Learning Journal --- p.139 / Appendix Four Pre-writing Vocabulary Study --- p.140 / Appendix Five Pretest Writing Task --- p.153 / Appendix Six Immediate Posttest Writing Task --- p.154 / Appendix Seven Delayed Posttest Writing Task --- p.155

Oftentimes it is the foreign language classroom that provides the basic foundation for language exposure and acquisition. In the context of the foreign language classroom there is not much exposure to the TL outside of this setting. This being the case, the quantity of the TL should be relatively high as it is an essential requisite for language acquisition. In addition, most recent research tends to suggest that high quantities of TL from the instructor is ideal. The main purpose of this study has been to focus on university-level foreign language classrooms to explore the issue of language choice, Ll or TL, among instructors. Over a ten week period, six languages were observed and audiotaped on five separate occasions. The study asked the following questions: 1) If Ll (English) is used in university-level foreign language classrooms, what is the ratio of Ll to TL?; 2) For what purposes is the Ll used?; 3) What are teachers' and students' perceptions and attitudes regarding use of the Ll in the foreign language classroom? A categorization grid was created to answer the second research question. A student questionnaire and teacher interview were administered to answer the third research question. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics. It was found that three out of the six languages used the Ll an average of 10% or less of the time, while the remaining three languages used the Ll for an average of 13% or more of the time. In regard to the second research question, four out of the six languages used the Ll most frequently for the purposes of language analysis and vocabulary translation. This investigation has attempted to explore and discuss practices within some foreign language classrooms at the university-level and to create greater awareness of those practices.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe how novice students solved computer programming problems in a beginning college level computer science (CS) course with an introduction to object-oriented programming (OOP) and what knowledge they obtained about OOP and computer problem solving (CPS) as a result of their experiences. Additionally, this descriptive study attempted to characterize the instruction provided to students in a beginning CS course as well as students' CPS strategies. An introduction to computer science class at the college level was selected for the sample. One experienced instructor and four students participated in this study. Data were collected through classroom observations, interviews with the instructor and students, classroom documents and researcher's journals. The analysis of the results revealed a teacher-centered instruction focused on syntactical details with an emphasis on the imperative paradigm and an introduction to object-oriented aspects of the C++ language. Results revealed that to develop the solution code for the given problems, students consistently approached them without a comprehensive written plan/design. The process students typically used in developing a solution for the given computer problem involved: (1) problem understanding, (2) preliminary problem analysis, (3) reliance on examples and (4) trial-and-error. Students typically approached debugging syntax and logic errors by (1) following the compiler generated messages, (2) using trial-and-error, (3) performing a desk-check strategy and (4) using the VISUAL C++ debugger. This study identified the features of CPS and OOP learning that can be studied for identifying how students approach CPS and OOP processes in other object-oriented languages (such as JAVA) and how their CPS and OOP processes develop as compared to C++. Differences in programming performances were found among males and females. Males in this study were more comfortable with the mechanical-orientation of programming as compared with their female counterparts. Future research is needed in CPS and OOP to explore gender issues in learning OOP languages. This study identified potential student CPS and OOP learning processes and factors using a qualitative approach. Future research should investigate the factors effecting introductory CS problem solving using a quantitative methodology or perhaps a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. / Graduation date: 2003

Informed by a sociocognitive view of writing, this study investigated six Chinese EFL students’ focus of decision-making and extent of criteria use in evaluating student texts, their decision-making in response to peer feedback and factors affecting their decision-making and criteria use in computer-mediated criterion-referenced peer review in one Chinese university setting. A multiple-case design was adopted and data were collected from a variety of sources, including think-aloud protocols, stimulated recall, semi-structured interviews, document analysis and classroom observations. An examination of the think-aloud and stimulated recall data revealed that five out of the six students displayed language-oriented decision-making while evaluating peers’ texts. The students also tended to emphasize consistently specific elements of student writing within language, content and organization regardless of task type. They used part of the assessment criteria to the extent that particular elements evaluated by them coincided with specific components of the criteria. In response to peer feedback, the students decided to incorporate it selectively into revision, with one student being an exception. Data analysis indicated that the students’ focus of decision-making and criteria use while evaluating peers’ texts were affected by the following factors: students’ own writing beliefs, conceptions and knowledge; teacher’s writing beliefs, conceptions and associated classroom practices; writing task types and features of student texts. The students’ decision-making in response to peer feedback was found to be subject to the influence of four categories of factors: student writer factors, especially their writing beliefs and knowledge; student reviewer factors; teacher factor and writing task factor. The findings provide an in-depth look into both the cognitive and social dimensions of peer review. On the basis of the findings, the study proposes a tentative exploratory model of Chinese EFL university students’ decision-making in criterion-referenced peer review. It captures the interplay between cognitive and social dimensions of peer review and throws light on the interaction between cognition and context in the case of learning to write through peer review. Particularly regarding the social dimension of peer review, the variety of factors influencing the students’ decision-making and criteria use in this activity indicate that their evaluation of peers’ texts and response to peer feedback were not linear processes, but were mediated by multiple factors. Among the various factors identified, the strong influence of the writing beliefs and conceptions held by the students, their peers and the teacher suggest the crucial role played by learner and teacher beliefs in affecting L2 students’ learning to write through peer review. This study also highlights the interactional effect of views about writing and learning to write exhibited by the students, their peers, the teacher and the “methodology” of criterion-referenced peer review on the students’ decision-making and extent of criteria use. Finally, the study makes pedagogical recommendations concerning how to enable students to make informed decisions in criterion-referenced peer review to bring its theoretical potential into full play. Recommendations for further research are also proposed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy