Note taking is one of the most widely-practised and commonly used activities among students in the classroom. However, despite the massive advancement of technology in education, pen and paper still seem to be the (most) favoured note taking approach among students. This, however, could be the result of not having note taking technology that provides students with relative advantages and substantial value in comparison to pen and paper. On the other hand, social media has been growing in popularity. Short messages can be easily conveyed via microblogging applications, such as Twitter. Therefore, the research aims to investigate the effect of using the short content creation feature of microblogging (140 characters) as a note capturing approach in the classroom. This research adopted a design science research methodology consisting of three phases. The first phase, investigation, reviewed the literature and conducted an exploratory study. The literature review showed that there is an increased interest in using technology for learning activities. However, the existent technological support for note taking, in particular, is not popular. In addition, an exploratory study was conducted with 254 undergraduate students at the University of Warwick. The study showed that students had a lack of interest in taking notes using current note taking application on their mobile devices. Hence, to tackle this issue, the development phase proposed a micro note taking mobile application to support students’ note taking at university-level. In addition, this phase included the development and implementation of the mobile micro note taking application (M2NT) based on microblogging technology for data collection purposes. Finally, the evaluation phase included a main experiment conducted with 42 students using three types of note taking approach (i.e. pen and paper, word processor, and the micro note taking application). This was followed up with questionnaires distributed to students after experiencing each note taking approach. In addition, the experiment ended with a final comparison questionnaire and focus group discussions. Furthermore, the students’ micro notes and their feedback were analysed to investigate the implications of mobile micro note taking. Analysis of the data provided insight into issues related to students’ note taking activity, as well as an evaluation of students’ experiences and the perceived usefulness of note taking using a micro note taking mobile application. Additionally, the research findings showed that using the developed mobile micro note taking positively supported the students’ experience and perceived usefulness of the practice of note taking. Future research directions and recommendations are discussed at the end of this research.

This thesis provides a theoretical basis for applying complexity theory to classroom learning. Existing accounts of complexity in social systems fail to adequately situate human understanding within those systems. Human understanding and action is embedded within the complex systems that we inhabit. As such, we cannot achieve a full and accurate representation of those systems. This challenges epistemological positions which characterise learning as a simple mechanistic process, those which see it as approaching a view of the world 'as it is' and also positions which see learning as a purely social activity. This thesis develops a materialist position which characterises understandings as emergent from, but not reducible to, the material world. The roles of embodied neural networks as well as our linguistic and symbolic systems are considered in order to develop this materialist position. Context and history are shown to be important within complex systems and allow novel understandings to emerge. Furthermore, shared understandings are seen as emergent from processes of response, replication and manipulation of patterns of behaviour and patterns of association. Thus the complexity of learning is accounted for within a coherent ontological and epistemological framework. The implications of this materialist position for considering classroom learning are expounded. Firstly, our models and descriptions of classrooms are reconciled with the view of our understandings as sophisticated yet incomplete models within complex social systems. Models are characterised as themselves material entities which emerge within social systems and may go on to influence behaviour. Secondly, contemporary accounts of learning as the conceptual representation of the world are challenged.

Teacher educators have increasingly been considered as a crucial occupational group for improving educational standards by the Chinese government, but they are under-researched. Currently, many teacher educators in different teacher education institutions in Shanghai are not identified as teacher educators. Therefore, their contribution to teacher education is not sufficiently valued and support for their professional development is limited. A better understanding of what identities teacher educators have is necessary in order to help define their diverse professional development needs and provide the support necessary for them. However, from the study’s findings it became clear that ‘identity’ is often misunderstood as ‘role and responsibility’ in the Chinese context. Therefore, this study refocused more on exploring the roles and responsibilities, experiences, understandings, and beliefs that guide the professional learning and practices of teacher educators in three different types of institutional settings (university-based, college-based, and teacher training school-based) in Shanghai. This study used a mixed-methods design, utilising both quantitative and qualitative data concurrently, using fifteen teacher educator interviews (nine individual interviews and six group interviews) and the online Teacher Educator Survey (n=252). All data were analysed in a systematic way. The discussion of the findings draws particularly on the policies on teacher educators in Shanghai, on research on the professional development of teacher educators across the world and on the theory of organisational culture that involves how individuals respond to policy in particular settings. This study produced a number of key findings: the teacher educators in Shanghai were identified as an attractive professional group, in which the professionals had a strong sense of commitment and willingness to stay. The roles of Shanghai’s teacher educators and the related expertise, career pathways and motivations, were determined by their different organisational cultures, which were affected by both national and regional policy directions. Teacher educators in Shanghai made strong demands on both the purposes of, and the approaches to, professional development and these were diversely manifested and were highly consistent with the different professional roles, policy directions and organisational cultures. Although Shanghai’s teacher educators were provided with satisfactory ‘physical support’ for their professional development, the non-physical support did not seem sufficient. This study provides evidence of the complexities of teacher educators’ roles, responsibilities, and professional development, which may be of benefit for teacher educators, teachers’ associations, leaders of teacher education institutions and policy makers internationally, as it highlights the importance of understanding and supporting the need to build, sustain and improve teacher education. At a theoretical level, the contribution of this study is a more nuanced understanding in terms of a model of teacher educators’ roles; of the different impact of organisational culture on teacher educators depending on their institutional type; and of their expressed professional commitment and loyalty.

This study develops and explores a technique of individual time data analysis (ITDA) which can be used as a tool for demonstrating the effectiveness of resource use in further education. The study focuses on Information Technology (IT) resources and investigates effectiveness by surveying individual students’ reported resource use and exploring the relationship between this and performance. Using quantitative data from a positivist methodological standpoint, the study aims to provide techniques which are accessible to educational practitioners. Two surveys were used in a West Midlands sixth form college. The first was conducted in the academic year from September 1998 and the second from September 2006. Data was gathered on students’ use of IT resources and performance was measured using students’ value added results. This information was used in a statistical analysis which evaluated the effectiveness of the students’ resource use. The conclusions differed for the two surveys. The 1998 survey showed that those students who spent a greater proportion of their time using IT resources were more likely to achieve better value added results. However, the 2006 survey appeared to show the opposite. As a result of the two surveys the ITDA technique was evaluated and recommended for further development by practitioners.

A comparative examination was undertaken of funding mechanisms and Quality Assurance Systems (QAS) in higher education in Egypt and the UK with the aim of identifying implications for reform in Egypt. These issues are examined by applying the concepts of autonomy, accountability, efficiency and equity as analytical and evaluative tools, chosen because of their central place in the analysis of the governance and finance of higher education. The principal sources of data are document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 47 academic and administrative staff in Cairo University and 29 at the University of Birmingham. The main findings show that different forms of funding and QAS differ in their consequence for the autonomy, accountability, efficiency and equity of universities. There are also contested perspectives between the expectations of policy pronouncements and the experience of those working in the sector. It was also found that there are overlapping contextual factors of governance and culture that contribute to the impact of funding and QAS so that they cannot be understood as stand-alone ‘objective’ phenomena because they are shaped and re-shaped by the regulatory and cultural environment. This leads to the conclusion that changes to funding and QAS in Egypt need to be reformed and developed in ways that address issues of governance and culture. A set of pilot projects is proposed to test their feasibility and build support for change. While the study has identified several fundamental systemic problems that need to be addressed, it is argued that these are best done through evolutionary pilot projects such as evolving a funding formula; cost-sharing; staffing; student representation systems and capacity building and training.

This study is an investigation of the use of L1 in two sixth grade CLIL Geography and Home Economics classrooms in two Cypriot Primary schools. An overview of the international literature indicated that L1 is used in such classrooms for disciplining and instruction giving (Gierlinger 2007), group work (Dalton-Puffer 2007), text mediation and explanation of ideas (Buchholz 2007, Arthur and Martin 2006), off-topic talk(Nikula 2005) and label quests (Heath 1986, Arthur and Martin 2006). This study is ethnographically-informed as it employs fundamental elements of ethnography together with analysis of video-recordings of classroom interaction, a key characteristic of the micro-ethnographic approach (Erickson, 1996, 2004; Garcez,2008). The findings from 640 video recorded lessons (320 minutes of each subject) show that the functions of bilingual events span the single word to interactive exchange in length, and are evenly distributed across instructional and regulative registers (Christie 2000, Gardner 2006). The four-fold new classification identifies an expanded repertoire of word level bilingual events, including the L2>L1 label quests which are particularly important in CLIL contexts; a range of bilingual events including codeswitching for instructional purposes; a new category of events related to code management; and clear examples of regulative events such as disciplining and giving instructions that are well documented in the literature.

The research was a case study into the pedagogy in a maintained nursery with a specialist provision for children with severe and complex additional needs (AN). It used conceptual frameworks developed within a sociocultural approach from Vygotsky’s (1978) theory to investigate the mediation of children’s cognitive development and inclusion, regarded as participation, by the pedagogy and practitioners. Rogoff’s (1995) Three Planes of Analysis was adopted as a unifying conceptual framework to represent the pedagogy. Data was collected from: semi-structured interviews with 13 practitioners working with children with and without AN in the mainstream and specialist provision; observations of Mediated Learning Experiences (MLEs) between practitioners and children with and without AN, and observations of two children, one with and one without AN during a session in the nursery. A thematic analysis of the data (Braun and Clarke, 2006) suggested themes relating to practice, learning and cognitive development and participation within the community plane; mediation of learning and cognitive development within the interpersonal plane and mediation of participation within the personal plane. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 1999) was used to show the interconnected activity systems that constituted the pedagogy within and between these three planes. Implications for EP practice were suggested.

This study examines the discursive practices of two Family Literacy, Language and Numeracy practitioners teaching a family literacy programme together. Drawing on positioning analysis and linguistic ethnography, I am exploring how the practitioners use narratives-in-interaction to position themselves, each other, the parents with whom they work, and the programme on which they teach. This research reveals how both dominant and locally constructed discourses are invoked, reworked and embedded within the practitioners’ narrative allusions, with such discourses often becoming naturalised through their repeated citation. Analyses of the interactional and lexical content of narratives-in-interaction facilitate this study’s twin-focus on the social identification of the narrated, and the narrators’ emergent identity construction. Investigating the discourses that circulate about parents uncovers how the telling of narratives not only impacts on the ways in which the parents are socially identified in discursive terms, but suggests that this may affect how the parents are dealt with in more practical ways by the practitioners. Through the sharing and co-construction of small stories, the practitioners make claims in relation to their own identities, particularly in terms of their working relationship with one another and the roles they undertake in concert and in counterpoint to each other.

Postgraduate trainee teachers undergo profound shifts in their pedagogical understanding and practices through the year that they are taught at a UK Higher Education Institution. Using an ‘explanatory sequential design’ mixed methods approach in a paired pre–post data retrieval scheme, this longitudinal study investigated the espoused pedagogical beliefs of three cohorts of PGCE trainees at the onset, and toward the end, of their studies in a primary initial teacher education department in a major HEI in the UK, with corroborative results and discussion from further cohorts. Using an adaptation of the ‘practices’ scale of Swan (2006), trainees’ pedagogical beliefs were charted and described on a created continuum running from transmissionist to child-centred through answering 25 items, and shifts from pre-course to post-course were investigated on two fronts – individually and for each ‘practice’ under study. Two general principles are represented in the data: trainees seem to either make rather more radical shifts towards child-centeredness or more slight shifts towards a more teacher centred orientation. The average shift documents a significant trend towards a greater learner-centrism across all cohorts in the longitudinal study, which was further explained and substantiated by the qualitative comments from participants in the Community of Inquiry sessions that were run.

Autonomy has been proposed by Self-determination theory (SDT) as universally beneficial to subjective well-being (SWB). This assumption is questioned, however, by cross-cultural researchers who argue that autonomy is less central within collectivist societies. The thesis addressed this controversy by conducting a mixed methods study with Ecuadorian and British university students. In line with SDT, the results of questionnaires and focus groups demonstrate that autonomy is likely to be conducive to SWB in both collectivist (Ecuador) and individualist (the UK) societies. On the other hand, the findings suggest a cross-cultural differentiation in ways in which various versions of autonomy correlate with SWB. Self-generated or individual autonomy correlated positively with SWB in both cultural contexts, whereas autonomy achieved by genuine self-endorsement/internalization of external influences was only beneficial for participants from the collectivist culture. Furthermore, the data point to higher levels of individual autonomy in the British sample. Finally, the findings from focus groups indicate the higher importance and internalization of external influences among Ecuadorian students. Overall, therefore, although the study reconfirms key tenets within SDT, it also suggests that the studied variables and their relationships might be mediated by cultural self-construal, which, in turn, can have implications for international pedagogical practices.