The disparate numbers of boys and girls who elect to continue with mathemalics and/or physical science in the higher slandards of the school system has recently attracted much research atlention and the complexity of the interrelaledness of causal factors has become obvious. The broad aim of the study was to investigale the significant drop-out rate of girls at the end of the junior secondary phase of education (approximate age of fourteen lo fifteen). This was to be carried out for mathematics and physical science and undertaken using a cross-sectional and a longitudinal study. The cross-sectional study entailed administering mathematics and physical science attitude questionnaires to 3531 standard six, seven and eight pupils from 4 co-educational, 2 allgirls' and 2 all-boys' schools, from middle and upper socioeconomic communities with similar language and cultural backgrounds . The longitudinal study involved pupils from two coeducational schools and one all-girls' school. It was a progressively-focused study starting with questionnaires administered to 358 standard six girls and boys, narrowing down to questionnaires and interviews used with 50 girls and 28 boys in standard seven and finally to interviews with 10 girls from standard eight. The parents of these ten girls were interviewed at the end of the study. The attilude questionnaires yielded strong sex differences which favoured the boys in both subjects for all the attitudes measured and also pointed to a progressive deterioralion of altitudes over the three-standard span. They also established significant differences in attitudes which favoured the pupils from Single-sex schools. It was further concluded that the girls were more strongly guided by their attitudes when making their subject-choice decisions. In the longitudinal study, reasons were suggested for pupils either taking or dropping mathematics and physical science. The introduction of algebra in the first year of high school presented a problem to pupils. In physical science, electricity was singled out as giving the subject a male bias. Socialization influences in the home were the main issue dealt with from the parent interviews . Sex-roles and stereotypes were dealt with in depth. Recommendations were made involving classroom strategies, curriculum possibilities, school policies and further research

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Not available / text

This study examined the relationship between select role-related stressors, as measured by the Teacher Stress Measure, as well as the background variables of gender, years of experience as aspects of educator burnout, as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). From a sample of 104 educators from schools in the Pietermaritzburg region, it was found that burnout is exhibited largely through feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment. While both males and females appear to be affected similarly, the less experienced educators appeared to be more susceptible to burnout than their more experienced counterparts. This study also indicated that stressors such as redeployment, promotion and salary correlated with burnout, although not significantly. Learner pressures, lack of support and recognition, poor interpersonal relationships, role ambiguity, role conflict, lack of decision-making and role insufficiency (which encapsulates the issue of Outcomes Based Education) were found to have a significant influence on educator burnout. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

Doctor of Education / The teaching and learning field has been renowned for being a rapidly changing and multifaceted environment. Moreover, being both intensely personal and public, the process of cultivating, discovering and relaying knowledge has also been influenced from a wide range of participating individuals to the broader groups in society. Such numerous possibilities for interaction have highlighted the difficulty of defining ‘good’ teaching and learning, especially considering the growing objectivism of modern day value systems. An increasing number of educators have thereby responded to this confusion by returning to more fundamental and holistic views of ‘knowing’ the ‘other.’ Such rising concerns for holistic teaching and learning practices represent many exciting possibilities for developments towards authenticity and autonomy, as teachers become responsible explorers of their profession. The current study is an autoethnography of my own teaching experiences at a small Korean Christian University. It captures my desires to develop greater sensitivity and empathy as a critical teacher practitioner, and further documents efforts to acquire aesthetic and creative skills as a writer. Ultimately, through my experiences as a teacher researcher, I have sought to develop a deeper picture of the knowing process as a rich and mutual dialogue between the 'knower' and the 'other.’ To do this, I have constructed eight stories based on my teaching experiences. The first describes the reflections accompanying my experiences of writing, whilst the next three involve narrative portrayals of certain striking colleagues and students. The following two stories convey the ‘faith’ and ‘acceptance’ experienced through the study, and the last two act as a form of reflective closure to the overall teaching and researching experience Since I believed that the symbolic and holistic nature of story writing could convey the depth, complexity and open-endedness of the knowing process, I have chosen narratives and reflective writing to capture and depict my experiences (Van Manen, 1997). Interviews and journals writing of my students and my colleagues have also been included to further explore these ideas. Accordingly, this current study seeks to portray a view of 'knowing' that enables teachers and students to become co-researchers, who can cultivate sensitivity, creativity and empathy towards the 'other.’

Doctor of Education / The teaching and learning field has been renowned for being a rapidly changing and multifaceted environment. Moreover, being both intensely personal and public, the process of cultivating, discovering and relaying knowledge has also been influenced from a wide range of participating individuals to the broader groups in society. Such numerous possibilities for interaction have highlighted the difficulty of defining ‘good’ teaching and learning, especially considering the growing objectivism of modern day value systems. An increasing number of educators have thereby responded to this confusion by returning to more fundamental and holistic views of ‘knowing’ the ‘other.’ Such rising concerns for holistic teaching and learning practices represent many exciting possibilities for developments towards authenticity and autonomy, as teachers become responsible explorers of their profession. The current study is an autoethnography of my own teaching experiences at a small Korean Christian University. It captures my desires to develop greater sensitivity and empathy as a critical teacher practitioner, and further documents efforts to acquire aesthetic and creative skills as a writer. Ultimately, through my experiences as a teacher researcher, I have sought to develop a deeper picture of the knowing process as a rich and mutual dialogue between the 'knower' and the 'other.’ To do this, I have constructed eight stories based on my teaching experiences. The first describes the reflections accompanying my experiences of writing, whilst the next three involve narrative portrayals of certain striking colleagues and students. The following two stories convey the ‘faith’ and ‘acceptance’ experienced through the study, and the last two act as a form of reflective closure to the overall teaching and researching experience Since I believed that the symbolic and holistic nature of story writing could convey the depth, complexity and open-endedness of the knowing process, I have chosen narratives and reflective writing to capture and depict my experiences (Van Manen, 1997). Interviews and journals writing of my students and my colleagues have also been included to further explore these ideas. Accordingly, this current study seeks to portray a view of 'knowing' that enables teachers and students to become co-researchers, who can cultivate sensitivity, creativity and empathy towards the 'other.’

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.

No description available.

This study investigates student and instructor perceptions of the causes and effects of anxiety and motivation's effect on a student's ability to learn a second language. The study focused on the participant's perceptions of the causes and effects of anxiety, and relationships between anxiety and motivation, in both short-term and long-term learners.