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The aim of this thesis is to contribute knowledge about pedagogical change in Swedish vocational education and training (VET). The study focuses on vocational schools between 1918 and 1971, and discusses the educational practices that balanced on the border between school and work. The practices under study are probation periods, production work, and “diligence allowance”. By focusing on these practices, which ceased when the vocational training was integrated with upper secondary school in 1971, this study seeks to illustrate how shifts in work and school traditions in the VET discourse are relevant to pedagogical change in vocational training. The central questions of the thesis seek to pinpoint the ways in which the traditions manifested themselves and how the pedagogical content of the educational practices were renegotiated. The study is based on extensive empirical data consisting of public enquiry reports, an organisational journal, archive material, and memory books from vocational schools from the relevant period. The VET discourse has been analysed using Johan Asplund’s concept of “figures of thought”. The central figures of thought in vocational training – school and work – have been used to see how the practices’ pedagogical content and aims were renegotiated. This renegotiation made it possible to adapt to school structures in a way that made these practices problematic. Consequently, they could be removed when vocational training was integrated with upper secondary school. In the period leading up to the 1950s, the pedagogical foundations were largely inspired by work practices. Thereafter, it became increasingly common for tensions between the logics and structures embedded in work and school to arise in the VET discourse. This process led to a shift in emphasis in the discourse, from the “work” figure of thought to the “school” figure of thought.

The lack of the teaching of scientific critical thinking is seen as a major problem in the American educational system by many current educators, theorists, and researchers. Using Introductory Psychology students as subjects, the present study attempted to improve these skills by teaching students using new research method materials as part of classroom instruction. The students were measured with a test developed for the study. The new materials were found to improve students' scientific critical thinking ability over students in courses not using the new materials. These materials can be helpful in improving students' ability to evaluate scientific claims presented in the media. / Department of Psychological Science

The underlying purpose of the study was to learn more about how elementary-aged children deal with tests purporting to measure critical thinking skills. This involved four related purposes: (a) development of a testing instrument, (b) analysis and evaluation of the test instrument, (c) to determine the difference of performance between grades, and (d) identification of commonality factors among the tests.

Finns det gnostiska föreställningar inom dagens New Age rörelse? Hur gestaltar de sig vad gäller tanken om gnosis och dualism? Jag fokuserar i mitt uppsatsarbete på en strömning inom New Age- rörelsen som går under benämningen New Thought, en rörelse som uppstod i 1800-talets USA och som fått stort gehör, framför allt genom amerikansk självhjälpslitteratur. Jag har därför valt att studera litteratur inom denna genre, för att se på vilka sätt det gnostiska tankegodset förmedlas idag. Jag använder den vetenskapliga litteraturen som forskningsbakgrund och den amerikanska självhjälps - litteraturen som studieobjekt. Resultaten av min studie visar att man inom New Thought rörelsen utgår från att människan är gudomlig och att hon kan återuppväcka minnet av sin egen gudomlighet. Uppvaknandet kommer att leda till ökat välstånd och framgång på alla plan då hon blir medveten/upplyst och börjar skapa sin egen verklighet genom att välja positiva tankar. Sjukdom, fattigdom och problem är illusioner. Kroppen och det materiella framställs på ett tvetydigt sätt inom New Thought – rörelsen. Gränslösa, gudomligt positiva tankar tros manifesteras i form av hälsa, skönhet, välstånd och materiella ting, samtidigt som kroppen framställs som något negativt, något som ska underordnas det gudomliga medvetandet. Föreställningen om gnosis är därför central och belyses starkt inom New Thought rörelsens självhjälpslitteratur och verksamhet. Den dualistiska föreställningen med anor från gnosticismen är visserligen nedtonad, men fullt skönjbar.

Hume and Spinoza are the most systematic representatives of two opposing traditions of argument about the relation of thought and feeling in the emotions. The Humeans treat emotions as essentially feelings (impressions or affects) with thoughts incidentally attached. The Spinozists say roughly the reverse, treating emotions as essentially thoughts ('ideas' or 'beliefs') with feelings incidentally attached. It is argued that the Spinozists are closer to the truth, that is, that thoughts are of greater importance than feelings fin the narrow sense of felt sensations) in the classification and discrimination of emotional states. It is then argued that if the Spinozists are closer to the truth, we have the beginning of an argument to show that Freudian or, more generally, analytic therapies make philosophic sense. That is, we can begin to understand how people's emotional lives might be trans- formed by consideration and interpretation of their memories, beliefs, etc.; how knowledge might help make one free.

No description available.

Theory of mind has been described in philosophical and psychological literature as "folk psychology", and is the tacit understanding that our behaviour is driven by our thoughts, desires and beliefs (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). Children are widely considered to have attained theory of mind understanding when they are able to pass the test of false belief understanding devised by Wimmer and Perner (1983), at around 4 years of age. There are many theories as to how a child comes to hold a folk psychology, including innate modularism (Leslie, 1987, 1988, 1994), theory change (Gopnik & Wellman 1992), developing representational understanding (Perner, 1991, 1995, 2000), and experiential understanding developed in a socio-linguisitic context (Nelson, 1996). In addition, theory of mind has been linked to the development of symbolic understanding (Deloache & Smith, 1999; Perner, 1991), pretend play (Leslie, 1987; Taylor & Carlson, 1997; Youngblade & Dunn, 1993), language (Astington & Jenkins, 1999; Nelson, 1996; Olson, 1988) and executive function (e.g. Hughes, 1998a; Kochanska et al., 1996; Reed et al., 1984). The present study sought to bring together these diverse findings and to attempt to provide an integrated account of the emergence of theory of mind understanding during the preschool years. Sixty-four New Zealand children were assessed on their mental state understanding, deceptive abilities, symbolic functioning, language, and executive skills, when they were aged 30, 36, 42 and 48 months of age. There were a number of key findings in the present study. Language was a powerful predictor of false belief performance both within and across time, and was also related to many of the other variables included in the study. Performance on the scale model test of symbolic functioning was related across time to children�s concurrent and later false belief understanding. Scale model performance was also intertwined in a bidirectional relationship with language, and language appeared to play an increasingly important role in mediating the relationship with false belief understanding across time. False belief understanding and scale model performance were also related within and across time to executive function. There was evidence to suggest that the importance of working memory was due to its role in conflict inhibition. Although deception has sometimes been posited to be a precocious manifestation of theory of mind (Chandler, Fritz, & Hala, 1989), in the present study deceptive ability lagged false belief understanding. Furthermore, false belief understanding was related to children�s subsequent (but not earlier) responses to a protagonist�s intention. This supports the hypothesis that false belief understanding allows a qualitative change in the execution of deception, whereby children can move from simple physical strategies to more sophisticated mentalist strategies. Overall, the present study provides some evidence to suggest that symbolic functioning, language, and later theory of mind may form part of a single developing skill set of symbolic representation. In dynamic interaction with social understanding, and supported by cognitive abilities such as executive function, and the socio-linguistic context, it is argued that understanding of one�s own and other minds emerges. Children�s ability to solve the false belief problem at 4 years of age is presented as a milestone on a developmental continuum of social understanding.

Thesis (PhD) -- University of South Australia, 1999

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This research explores the possibility of a phenomenology of religion that is ontological, founded on Martin Heidegger’s philosophical thought. The research attempts to utilise Heidegger’s formulation of phenomenology as ontology while also engaging in a critical relation with his path of thinking; as a barrier to the phenomenological interpretation of the meaning of Religion. This research formulates Religion as an ontological problem wherein the primary question becomes: how are humans, in our being, able to be religious and thus also able to understand the meaning of ‘religion’ or something like ‘religion’? This study focuses on the problem of foundation; of whether it is possible to provide an adequate foundation for the study of religion(s) via the notion ‘Religion’. Further, this study also aims to explore the problem of methodological foundation; of how preconceptions of the meaning of Religion predetermine how religion(s) and religious phenomena are studied. Finally, this research moves toward the possibility of founding a regional ontological basis for the study of religion(s) insofar as the research explores the ontological ground of Religion as a phenomenon. Due to the exploratory and methodological/foundational emphasis of the research, the thesis is almost entirely preliminary. Herein, the research focuses on three main issues: how the notion of Religion is preconceived, how Heidegger’s phenomenology can be tailored to the phenomenon of Religion, and how philosophical thought (in this case, Pre-Socratic philosophy) discloses indications of the meaning of Religion. Pre-Socratic thought is then utilised as a foundation for a preliminary interpretation of how Religion belongs-to humans in our being. This research provides two interrelated theses: the provision of an interpretation of Religion as an existential phenomenon, and an interpretation of Religion in its ground of being-human. With regard to the former, I argue that Religion signifies a potential relation with the ‘originary ground’ of life as meaningful. Accordingly, the second interpretation discloses the meaning of Religion as grounded in being-human; that for humans in our being, the meaning of life is an intrinsic question/dilemma for us. This being-characteristic, I argue, can be called belief.