This study is concerned with how competent mathematics teachers develop pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in statistics teaching. Pedagogical content knowledge was used as the theoretical framework that guided the research and data collection. The study’s methodology consisted of two phases. In the first phase, the six identified mathematics teachers undertook a conceptual knowledge written exercise. The result of this exercise was used to select the best four performing teachers for the second phase of the study. The second phase consisted mainly of lesson observations, interviews, written documents in the form of completed questionnaires, written diaries or reports, document analysis designed to produce rich detailed descriptions of participating teachers’ PCK in the context of teaching statistics concepts at school level. The concept mapping exercise was used to indirectly assess participating teachers’ content knowledge and their conceptions of the nature of school statistics and how it is to be taught. The qualitative data obtained were analysed to try to determine individual teachers’ content knowledge of school statistics, related pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of learners’ conceptions in statistics teaching, knowledge of learners’ learning difficulties as well as how they developed their PCK in statistics teaching. The analysis was done based on iterative coding and categorisation of responses and observations made to identify themes, patterns, and gaps, in school statistics teaching. Commonalities and differences if any, in the PCK profiles of the four participating teachers were also analysed and determined. The results of the study showed that overall, individual teachers develop their PCK in school statistics teaching by: (a) formally developing their knowledge of the subject matter in a formal undergraduate educational programme, as well as subject matter content knowledge during classroom practice; (b) using varied topic-specific instructional skills such as graphical construction skills in teaching statistical graphs; (c) using diagnostic techniques (oral questioning and pre-activity, class discussions and questioning) and a review of previous lessons to introduce lessons, and to determine learners’ preconceptions in statistics teaching ; (d) Using teaching strategies that can help to identify learners’ learning difficulties as well as intervention to address the difficulties; (e) continually updating their knowledge of school statistics by attending content knowledge workshops and other teacher development programmes designed to improve content knowledge and practice. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / unrestricted

Information assurance (IA) projects are essential components of the information technology industry and often fail due to budget overruns, missed deadlines, and lack of performance by the project teams. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the strategies necessary to improve IA project team performance. Lewin's situational leadership theory was used as the conceptual framework for this study. Interviews were conducted with 20 IA professionals located in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. The data were transcribed, coded, and clustered for the identification of common patterns based on the Moustakas' modified van Kaam analysis. The major themes that emerged from the interview data included the importance of: communication and teamwork, technical knowledge, training, hiring of skilled resources, and balanced project teams. An organization-wide internal training program emerged as an overarching best practice to improve the leadership strategies within the IA sector. The study results may help improve project success and grow the IA industry by creating more jobs.

Doctor Educationis / Three questions are central to this thesis: First, can the practice of teaching be made safe from luck through the controlling power of knowledge and reason? Second, even if it can be made safe from luck, should it be? Third, if it is neither possible nor desirable to exclude luck from teaching, what knowledge and personal qualities will put practitioners in the strongest position to face the contingencies of luck and, more especially, to face those conflicts which arise as a consequence of circumstances beyond the practitioner's control? Martha Nussbaum's account of luck and ethics in Greek philosophy and tragedy prompts the questions and provides, with Aristotle, many of the conceptual tools for answering them; Thomas Nagel's work on moral luck provides the categories for a more refined account of luck and its place in teaching. With respect to the first two questions, I argue that as a human practice teaching is open to the vicissitudes of fortune and cannot be made safe from luck, except at the expense of its vitality. Like other human practices, teaching is mutable, indeterminate and particular. Both its primary and secondary agents (teachers and pupils) and the practice itself are vulnerable to luck in four categories: constitutive, circumstantial, causal and consequential. But teaching is not just a matter of luck; it is a public practice in which some people are put into the hands of others for specific purposes, usually at public expense. If we have no way of holding practitioners accountable for their actions, the practice loses credibility. Any money or trust put into it is simply a gamble. For these and other reasons, the drive to exclude luck from practice is strong. Yet strong luck-diminishment projects are themselves a threat to the vitality of the practice. During the twentieth century two strong luck-diminishment projects have been especially detrimental to teaching: one rooted in the science of management, the other in the empirical sciences. Both have resulted in a proliferation of unfruitful and often trivial research projects, to misconceived programmers of teacher education, to distorted notions of knowledge and excellence in teaching, and to self-defeating and impoverished practice. Luck-diminishment projects rooted in logic are more or less threatening to vital practice, depending on how far they are committed to instrumental reasoning and a science of measurement. These are blunt and controversial claims. A central task of the thesis is to refine and defend them. The refinement proceeds by way of a contrastive analysis of strong luck-diminishment projects and others which are more responsive to the indeterminacy of practice. With respect to the final question, I argue that there are at least three sets of necessary conditions for a flourishing practice in the face of luck. One concerns what Aristotle calls the virtues of intellect and character. Central among these are practical rationality (conceived non-instrumentally), situational appreciation, and the knowledge required for an intelligent pursuit of the definitive ends of teaching. A second set concerns enabling institutions. A third concerns the kind of community best able to nurture those qualities necessary for vital and excellent practice. All three sets are themselves vulnerable to reversal. Keeping the practice of teaching alive and ensuring that it remains true to its definitive ends is thus a matter of sustained struggle.

In response to the continued reduction in higher education funding at the state and federal levels, educational administrators at both public and private institutions have had to reduce the number of course offerings, resulting in layoffs of those faculty members who do not meet regulated degree requirements for enough courses to retain their fulltime status. This study examined the effect of instructors' content knowledge (subject matter degree) on the results of the students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness (SETE) at a private for-profit junior college. The study employed an ex post facto causal-comparative research design. The data were analyzed through a hierarchical multiple linear regression in order to determine how much of the variance in students' responses on their evaluations of teacher effectiveness was accounted for by the instructors' content knowledge after controlling for gender, course experience, formal training in education and/or instruction, and time of day (session). The questions were categorized into four subscales using Shulman's Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action: comprehension, transformation, instruction, and evaluation. The data were then disaggregated into the following course subjects: English, math, natural science, psychology, and sociology. Results of the analyses suggest that instructors' content knowledge may have a negative effect on SETE results for the subscale evaluation. No effect of content knowledge was found on SETE data in the areas of comprehension, transformation, or instruction. The data suggest that the control variable of morning session has a negative effect on SETE data for the subscales comprehension, transformation, and instruction, while course experience shows evidence to suggest a positive effect within comprehension and transformation. When disaggregated by course subject matter, data suggest a negative effect of formal training on SETE results for English and psychology. Data also suggest a negative effect of morning session on sociology while course experience had a positive effect. The evidence suggests that a subject matter degree has no practical significance in defining instructional effectiveness from the perspective of the student, and that decision makers look to other assurances of instructional quality and not rely solely on a subject matter degree as a proxy for the requisite content knowledge.

Context-based Reasoning (CxBR) and Contextual Graphs (CxGs) involve the modeling of human behavior in autonomous and decision-support situations in which optimal human decision-making is of utmost importance. Both formalisms use the notion of contexts to allow the implementation of intelligent agents equipped with a context sensitive knowledge base. However, CxBR uses a set of discrete contexts, implying that models created using CxBR operate within one context at a given time interval. CxGs use a continuous context-based representation for a given problem-solving scenario for decision-support processes. Both formalisms use contexts dynamically by continuously changing between necessary contexts as needed in appropriate instances. This thesis identifies a synergy between these two formalisms by looking into their similarities and differences. It became clear during the research that each paradigm was designed with a very specific family of problems in mind. Thus, CXBR best implements models of autonomous agents in environment, while CxGs is best implemented in a decision support setting that requires the development of decision-making procedures. Cross applications were implemented on each and the results are discussed.

Denna studie har granskat nedanstående frågeställningar, där punkt 2 varit i huvudfokus. 1. I vilken omfattning anser gymnasielärare att förkunskaperna i bråkräkning brister hos nyblivna gymnasieelever och vilka konsekvenser anser lärarna att sådana brister får när det gäller elevernas möjligheter att tillgodogöra sig gymnasiets matematikundervisning? 2. Vilka strategier använder gymnasielärare för att hantera bristande förkunskaper i bråkräkning och på vilka grunder vilar dessa strategier? Bakgrunden till studien var en uppfattning att förkunskapsbristerna i bråkräkning hos nyblivna gymnasieelever är utbredda och att gymnasielärare på något sätt behöver finna sätt att förhålla sig till dessa brister. Tidigare forskning indikerade stora brister i förkunskaper. Det teoretiska ramverket utgick bland annat från den didaktiska ämnesanalysen, framförallt såsom presenterad av Löwing (2016). Datainsamling gjordes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem lärare på två skolor. Materialet bearbetades och analyserades med hjälp av tematisk analys. Lärarna i studien gav sammantaget en bild av att det finns ett icke oansenligt problem med bristande förkunskaper i bråkräkning, i synnerhet om man beaktar de många områden inom gymnasiematematiken där bråkräkning behövs för att adekvat tillgodogöra sig innehållet. En grund för att hantera bristande förkunskaper i bråkräkning, var att synliggöra elevernas förkunskapsnivå, på individuell basis såväl som för klassen. Ett huvudinstrument för synliggörande var de inledande diagnosprov som de undersökta skolorna använder sig av. De strategier som används för att möta förkunskapsbristerna kunde sorteras i två teman, Repetition och Eleven. Den dominerande repetitionen görs i inledningen av gymnasiet. Det som dock särskilt utmärkte de lärare i undersökningen som hade väl utvecklade ämnesdidaktiska strategier var dels att de hade en motsvarande utvecklad analys av problembilden, dels att de aktivt arbetade med konceptuell förståelse och integrering av procedurkunskap, snarare än att fokusera på renodlad procedur repetition. Det gick att dra paralleller mellan lärarnas ämnesdidaktiska strategier och den didaktiska ämnesanalysen i teoriramen, även om lärarna i denna studie inte arbetade på samma systematiska och detaljerade nivå. Under temat Eleven arbetades aktivt med att utveckla elevernas inställning, självförtroende och motivation när det gäller matematik, även här grundat i en aktiv problemanalys. De som läser natur- och teknikprogram, det vill säga matematikkurser på c-nivå, har typiskt inte denna utmaning tillnärmelsevis i samma utsträckning, som de som läser till exempel hantverksprogram eller estetprogram. / This study has researched two issues, where the second has been the primary focus. 1. To what extent do upper secondary school teachers view new students’ prior knowledge of fractions as deficient and what consequences do the teachers consider that such deficiencies have regarding students' abilities to assimilate the ensuing mathematics teachings? 2. What strategies do upper secondary school teachers use to manage deficiencies in prior knowledge in fractions and on what grounds do these strategies rest? The background to the study was a perception that the deficiencies in prior knowledge in fractions of upper secondary school students is substantial and that teachers somehow need to find ways to manage these deficiencies. Previous research indicated major deficiencies in prior knowledge. The theoretical framework was based primarily on the Educational Subject Matter Analysis, as presented by Löwing (2016). Data collection was done through semi-structuredinterviews with five teachers at two schools. The material was processed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Overall, the teachers in the study gave the impression that there is a substantial problem with prior knowledge deficiency in fractions, especially considering the many areas in upper secondary mathematics where fractions are needed to adequately assimilate the teachings. One basis for dealing with prior knowledge deficiencies, was to assess the students' level of prior knowledge, on an individual basis as well as for the class. A main assessment instrument was the initial diagnostic tests used by the surveyed schools. The strategies used to meet the prior knowledge deficiencies was sorted into two themes, Repetition and The Student. The dominant repetition is done in the beginning of the school year. However, what particularly distinguished the teachers in the survey who used well-developed didactic strategies was that they had a correspondingly developed problem analysis, and also that they actively worked with conceptual understanding, rather than pure procedure repetition. Parallels could be drawn between the teachers' didactic strategies and the Educational Subject Matter Analysis, although the teachers in the study did not apply it systematically. The Student theme primarily involved active work to develop the students' attitude, self-confidencea and motivation with regards to mathematics. Those who study science and technology programs, i.e. advanced level mathematics courses, typically do not have this challenge to the same extent as those who study for example craft aesthetics programs.

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The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between mathematics teachers’ subject matter knowledge and their teaching effectiveness. A convenient sample of 19 grade 11 mathematics teachers and 418 students were initially selected for the study and took part in some stages of the study. Of this lot, only 11 teachers and 246 students participated in all the stages of the study. Explanatory Mixed methods research design which entails the use of a co-relational study and a descriptive survey design were employed in the study. Data was collected from the teachers using a self report questionnaire, Teacher Subject Matter Knowledge of Trigonometric Functions Scale (TSMKTFS) and peer evaluation questionnaire, and from students using teacher evaluation questionnaire and Student Trigonometric Functions Performance Scale (STFPS). All the instruments had their validity and reliability accordingly determined. Quantitative data gathered was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics while qualitative data gathered from teachers’ and students’ tests were analysed using task performance analysis. It was found that a positive, statistically significant relationship existed between teachers’ subject matter knowledge and the composite measure of their teaching effectiveness. The relationships between teachers’ subject matter knowledge and students’ achievement and also between teachers’ subject matter knowledge and students’ rating of the teachers’ teaching effectiveness were found to be positive and statistically significant. However, the relationships between teachers’ subject matter knowledge and teachers’ self rating as well as teachers’ subject matter knowledge and peers’ rating of teachers’ teaching effectiveness were not found to be statistically significant though they were positive. Further data analysis showed that there was a difference between the subject matter knowledge of effective and ineffective teachers and also between the students taught by effective teachers and the students taught by the ineffective teachers. / Institute of Science and Technology Education / PhD (Mathematics Education)

The topic of the presented thesis is a comparison of selected contemporary Czech and German history textbooks, designed for high schools. It analyzes the Czech and the German high school system, with a focus on the teaching history. It compares the structure of the textbooks, verbal and visual content, control methods and the adoption process of the subject matter.

of the Thesis "Amendements unrelated to the subject-matter of a bill in the legislative practice of the Czech Republic" The aim of the thesis was to describe the matter of amendments unrelated to the subject- matter of a bill. The first chapter of the thesis gave an introduction into the legislative procedure in Czech Republic and presented possible ways how an unrelated amendment can become a part of a bill. The second chapter was focused on unrelated amendments themselves. Firstly, it explained their essence and gave examples. Afterwards, unrelated amendments were characterised from different points of view, e.g. who and why iniciates them, why are they problematic, and how they can be sorted. The third chapter paid attention to selected decisions of the Constitutional Court of Czech Republic. The fourth chapter presented possible ways of how to prevent legislators from adding unrelated provisions to the bills according to contemporary rules and also mentioned possible ways how legislative rules can change.