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Globalisation (increasing international flows of finance, culture, technological know-how, information, people etc.) has created pressure for a lingua franca. It is widely accepted that English now fulfils this role, with some academics in English language teaching suggesting that the language is no longer owned by ‘native speakers’ and requesting a re-evaluation of the ‘native speaker’ English language teacher in terms of his/her traditional importance in the field. These academics have queried, for example, the continued relevance of ‘native speaker’ pronunciation, methodology and the professional status of the ‘native speaker’ teacher compared with the ‘non-native speaker’ English language teacher. In this study the professional identities of a small group of ‘native speaker’ teachers are explored through data obtained from interviews, field-notes, critical incidents in the researcher-as-teacher’s professional life and by e-mail correspondence. From the collected data it appears that these ‘native speaker’ English language teachers retain a view of themselves as having a superior professional identity, based on their pronunciation, classroom practices, ethnicity, British educational backgrounds and their relational stance to ‘non-native speaker’ teachers. On the other hand, the teachers’ ambivalent relationship with both the new academic understandings of English language teaching and their own professional development appear to contribute to a dilemma in their superior identity constructs. Only one teacher in the group manages to engage with the new understandings and is thus able to conceptualise a professional identity as an English language teacher which seems more in tune with the new global role of English. Overall, in fact, this study reveals a considerable discrepancy between the lived reality of the ‘native speaker’ teachers’ professional lives and the new understandings of academics about English language teaching in a globalising world. The study also highlights a concerning gap between the teachers’ current self-constructs and the implications for the development of practice of new academic theory.

This study explored the teaching processes in mathematics education for adults and how they are shaped by certain social and institutional forces. Teaching processes included the selection and ordering of content to be taught; the choice of such techniques as lectures or groupwork; the expectations, procedures and norms of the classroom; and the complex web of interactions between teachers and learners, and between learners themselves. The study addressed three broad questions: (1) What happens in adult mathematics classrooms? (2) What do these phenomena mean for those involved as teachers or learners? and (3) In what ways do certain factors beyond the teachers’ control affect teaching processes? The theoretical framework linked macro and micro approaches to the study of teaching, and offered an analytical perspective that showed how teachers’ thoughts and actions can be influenced and circumscribed by external factors. Further, it provided a framework for an analysis of the ways in which teaching processes were viewed, described, chosen, developed, and constrained by certain “frame” factors. The study was based in a typical setting for adult mathematics education: a community college providing a range of ABE-level mathematics courses for adults. Three introductory-level courses were selected and data collected from teachers and students in these courses, as well as material that related to the teaching and learning of mathematics within the college. The study used a variety of data collection methods in addition to document collection: surveys of teachers’ and adult learners’ attitudes, repeated semi-structured interviews with teachers and learners, and extensive ethnographic observations in several mathematics classes. The teaching of mathematics was dominated by the transmission of facts and procedures, and largely consisted of repetitious activities and tests. Teachers were pivotal in the classroom, making all the decisions that related in any way to mathematics education. They rigidly followed the set textbooks, allowing them to determine both the content and the process of mathematics education. Teachers claimed that they wished to develop motivation and responsibility for learning in their adult students, yet provided few practical opportunities for such development to occur. Few attempts were made to encourage students, or to check whether they understood what they were being asked to do. Mathematical problems were often repetitious and largely irrelevant to adult students’ daily lives. Finally, teachers “piloted” students through problem-solving situations, via a series of simple questions, designed to elicit a specific “correct” method of solution, and a single correct calculation. One major consequence of these predominant patterns was that the overall approach to mathematics education was seen as appropriate, valid, and successful. The notion of success, however, can be questioned. In sum, mathematics teaching can best be understood as situationally- constrained choice. Within their classrooms, teachers have some autonomy to act yet their actions are influenced by certain external factors. These influences act as frames, bounding and constraining classroom teaching processes and forcing teachers to adopt a conservative approach towards education. As a result, the cumulative effects of all of frame factors reproduced the status quo and ensured that the form and provision of mathematics education remained essentially unchanged.

This study explored the teaching processes in mathematics education for adults and how they are shaped by certain social and institutional forces. Teaching processes included the selection and ordering of content to be taught; the choice of such techniques as lectures or groupwork; the expectations, procedures and norms of the classroom; and the complex web of interactions between teachers and learners, and between learners themselves. The study addressed three broad questions: (1) What happens in adult mathematics classrooms? (2) What do these phenomena mean for those involved as teachers or learners? and (3) In what ways do certain factors beyond the teachers’ control affect teaching processes? The theoretical framework linked macro and micro approaches to the study of teaching, and offered an analytical perspective that showed how teachers’ thoughts and actions can be influenced and circumscribed by external factors. Further, it provided a framework for an analysis of the ways in which teaching processes were viewed, described, chosen, developed, and constrained by certain “frame” factors. The study was based in a typical setting for adult mathematics education: a community college providing a range of ABE-level mathematics courses for adults. Three introductory-level courses were selected and data collected from teachers and students in these courses, as well as material that related to the teaching and learning of mathematics within the college. The study used a variety of data collection methods in addition to document collection: surveys of teachers’ and adult learners’ attitudes, repeated semi-structured interviews with teachers and learners, and extensive ethnographic observations in several mathematics classes. The teaching of mathematics was dominated by the transmission of facts and procedures, and largely consisted of repetitious activities and tests. Teachers were pivotal in the classroom, making all the decisions that related in any way to mathematics education. They rigidly followed the set textbooks, allowing them to determine both the content and the process of mathematics education. Teachers claimed that they wished to develop motivation and responsibility for learning in their adult students, yet provided few practical opportunities for such development to occur. Few attempts were made to encourage students, or to check whether they understood what they were being asked to do. Mathematical problems were often repetitious and largely irrelevant to adult students’ daily lives. Finally, teachers “piloted” students through problem-solving situations, via a series of simple questions, designed to elicit a specific “correct” method of solution, and a single correct calculation. One major consequence of these predominant patterns was that the overall approach to mathematics education was seen as appropriate, valid, and successful. The notion of success, however, can be questioned. In sum, mathematics teaching can best be understood as situationally- constrained choice. Within their classrooms, teachers have some autonomy to act yet their actions are influenced by certain external factors. These influences act as frames, bounding and constraining classroom teaching processes and forcing teachers to adopt a conservative approach towards education. As a result, the cumulative effects of all of frame factors reproduced the status quo and ensured that the form and provision of mathematics education remained essentially unchanged. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

M.Ed. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Cur. / Knowledge brings with it power, confidence and courage. It is therefore important to prepare for childbirth not only physically, but also emotionally and psychologically. This research tells the story of the childbirth and breastfeeding experiences of the primigravidae who attended childbirth education classes. The objectives of the research were to: • explore and describe how childbirth education contributed to the birthing and breastfeeding experiences of the primigravidae; • write guidelines for the childbirth educators to aid them in improving the childbirth education contents. The research utilised a qualitative, descriptive, exploratory and contextual design (Mouton, 1996:102). In depth, semi-structured phenomenological interviews were held with women meeting the sampling criteria. Permission was obtained from the University of Johannesburg and informed consent was obtained from the women volunteering to participate in the research. Trustworthiness was maintained by using strategies of credibility, applicability, dependability and confinnability, as described by Lincoln and Guba (1985:289-331). Recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using the technique by Tesch (in Creswell, 1994:155-156). The services of an independent coder were utilised and a consensus discussion was held. The results showed that childbirth education and support reduces fear and help women to cope better with labour. Lack of all the information leads to unrealistic expectations and may result in negative birthing experiences. Emotional support from the midwife in the hospital is important to the labouring women; therefore, it is important for the childbirth educator to work together with the midwives in the hospital in order to avoid disappointment and unmet expectations. Conclusions were drawn and recommendations made concerning nursing practice, nursing education and nursing research. Guidelines for the childbirth educators were described to assist them in improving the childbirth education contents.

Research has shown, with respect to the learning of mathematics, that whole class interactive teaching, its form and function, is a complex phenomenon. Teachers develop and exploit pedagogical strategies, which they believe are effective either in engaging their children in mathematical learning or in presenting mathematics to learners. Such strategies, whether later shown to be effective or not, are typically assumed to develop during periods of teacher education or through practice after qualification. Alongside these assumptions is the belief that teachers who are enthusiastic about and have a secure subject knowledge with respect to mathematics will evoke similar enthusiasm, confidence and competence in their learners. However, observations during my years as a teacher educator have led me to conclude that trainee teachers, even those with similar qualifications, frequently behave very differently when put in front of children. Such differences confound the naïve assumption, for example, that similar enthusiasm and confidence will yield similar patterns of teaching practice. Thus, what primary teachers do and why they do it has vexed me for a number of years. I have wanted to know, in particular, what makes teachers teach differently during whole class episodes, not least because my experiences as both teacher and teacher trainer have led me to believe that it is during these periods that teachers induct their children into those mathematics-related beliefs and behaviours that will determine the extent to which they enjoy and engage meaningfully with the subject. Addressing such questions demands an appropriate methodological stance. Consequently an exploratory case study of six teachers, two during a first, essentially pilot phase, and four during a second, was undertaken. All teachers, to facilitate understanding of how exemplary practice differs from one person to another, were considered, against various criteria, as effective. The pilot enabled me to evaluate not only the effectiveness of extant frameworks for analysing classroom behaviour but also my skills as an interviewer and observer of classrooms. The second phase, drawing on what had been learnt during the first, was more open in that existing frameworks were abandoned in favour of allowing the data to speak for themselves rather than being constrained by others’ conceptualisations of effective teaching. Both phases, to examine teachers’ underlying beliefs about mathematics and its teaching, their classroom practice, particularly during whole class episodes, and their rationales for their actions, were addressed by means of a battery of data collection tools. Teachers’ backgrounds and underlying beliefs about mathematics and its teaching were examined through preliminary, life history, interviews framed by a loose set of questions derived from the literature. Interviews were video-recorded. Teachers’ classroom actions were captured by means of a tripod-mounted video camera placed discretely in their classrooms, augmented by a wireless microphone worn by the teacher and a separate, static microphone to capture as much of the children’s talk as possible. Finally, teachers’ rationales and explanations for their actions were examined through the use of video-recorded video stimulated recall interviews. All recordings, whether of classrooms or interviews, were transcribed for later analysis. Analysis during the first phase drew extensively on pre-existing frameworks. While they were helpful in identifying both similarities and differences in teachers’ beliefs, actions and rationales, it became clear that they failed to capture the subtleties and nuances of meaning embedded in the high quality data yielded by the approaches adopted. In so doing it became clear that while data collection approaches were appropriate, analyses needed to be more open in order to allow the data to give up the depth and complexity of their stories. During the second phase, while it was acknowledged that this was not a grounded theory study, analysis drew extensively on the coding strategies of the constant comparison procedures of grounded theory. This approach to analysis yielded results previously unknown in the literature. Quite unexpectedly two groups emerged from the data. Significantly, each was underpinned by teachers’ experiences as learners of mathematics and whether the enjoyment they had gleaned from those experiences was instrumentally located or relationally located. The first group, identified as the mediators, having been engaged, in various ways, with mathematics and derived pleasure from relational experiences expected their children to experience mathematics similarly. Their teaching was based on a desire to develop, in collaborative ways, a deep conceptual knowledge that would form the basis for later procedural skills and, significantly, problem solving. Teachers in the second group, identified as the mediated group, having derived pleasure from their procedural successes as children, saw mathematics and its teaching as skills-based. Their classroom actions and commensurate rationales were focused on surface learning and the replication of the pleasure they had experienced when young. Interestingly, the beliefs of both groups and, to an extent, their classroom actions were independent of any training they had received. The Mediators showed different signs of professional independence and autonomy. They had a clear articulation of their warranted principles and were able to exploit these in the ways that mediated the constraints within which they worked. Moreover, and this presents substantial implications for teacher education, teachers in the Mediated group, exhibited few signs of professional independence; their actions being constantly mediated by the constraints, whether institutional or governmental, within which they worked. They had few articulated principles around which they based their teaching. These differences permeated all aspects of their work.

Chan Wai Yu. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-110). / Acknowledgements --- p.ii / Abstract --- p.iii / Table of Contents --- p.v / List of Tables --- p.viii / List of Figures --- p.ix / Chapter Chapter I --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1 --- Background to the study --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Purpose of the study --- p.3 / Chapter 3 --- Limitations of the study --- p.4 / Chapter 4 --- Significance of the study --- p.5 / Chapter Chapter II --- REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE / Chapter 1 --- Definitions of problem and major approaches in problem- solving research --- p.6 / Chapter 2 --- Information-processing theory of problem solving --- p.8 / Chapter 3 --- Cognitive theories and the acquisition of procedural knowledge in problem solving --- p.11 / Chapter (i) --- Anderson's ACT* theory --- p.12 / Chapter (ii) --- Schneider and Detweler's model --- p.16 / Chapter (iii) --- Research in skill acqusition --- p.23 / Chapter 4 --- Cognitive theories and transfer of problem-solving performance --- p.29 / Chapter (i) --- Transfer and Anderson's ACT* theory --- p.30 / Chapter (ii) --- Other studies and explanation about transfer --- p.32 / Chapter (iii) --- Research in transfer --- p.34 / Chapter 5 --- Research in genetic problem-solving --- p.38 / Chapter 6 --- Brief summary of literature review --- p.40 / Chapter Chapter III --- RESEARCH DESIGN / Chapter 1 --- Definition --- p.42 / Chapter 2 --- Hypotheses --- p.44 / Chapter 3 --- Sampling --- p.44 / Chapter 4 --- Subjects --- p.45 / Chapter 5 --- Materials --- p.45 / Chapter 6 --- Procedure / Chapter (i) --- Pilot studies --- p.47 / Chapter (ii) --- The main study --- p.48 / Chapter 7 --- Data analysis / Chapter (i) --- The practice schedule experiment --- p.55 / Chapter (ii) --- The protocol --- p.57 / Chapter Chapter IV --- ANALYSIS AND RESULT / Chapter 1 --- Statistically analysis of tests scores / Chapter (i) --- Reliability --- p.59 / Chapter (ii) --- Comparison of the problem solving test scores between the two groups --- p.61 / Chapter (iii) --- "Effects of treatment groups, test types and time conditions on the performance" --- p.65 / Chapter 2 --- Analysis of the protocols / Chapter (i) --- Problem-solving procedures --- p.72 / Chapter (ii) --- Problem-solving performance --- p.77 / Chapter 3 --- Discussion --- p.87 / Chapter (i) --- Acquisition --- p.87 / Chapter (ii) --- Retention --- p.89 / Chapter (iii) --- Transfer --- p.90 / Chapter (vi) --- General discussion --- p.93 / Chapter Chapter V --- CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS / Chapter 1 --- Conclusions --- p.95 / Chapter 2 --- Suggestion for further investigations --- p.97 / Bibliography --- p.99 / Appendix A The power law --- p.111 / Appendix B Figure8 --- p.112 / Appendix C Supplimentary note --- p.113 / Appendix D Pretest --- p.114 / Appendix E Practice schedule exercises --- p.115 / Appendix F Posttests --- p.125 / Appendix G Problems in the second protocol interview --- p.133 / Appendix H Transcripts of the protocols --- p.134

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