This exploratory mixed methods study focuses on perceptions of three key stakeholder groups in a UK initial teacher training (ITT) course regarding how to observe experienced teachers and peers effectively to learn to teach. It set out to investigate perceived effective observation practices in the academic year 2012-2013 and utilised 40 semi-structured interviews of student teachers, university tutors and school mentors as its primary method and a questionnaire (n=89) and document analysis of the course handbook as its secondary ones. The adopted theoretical perspective for analysis included the social leaning theories of Legitimate Peripheral Participation and Communities of Practice. The research has identified many observation techniques, institutional requirements and personal qualities perceived to be conducive to producing effective observation practices in this course. The secondary questions investigated the degree of agreement among the participants’ perceptions, student teachers’ perceptions of the innovation of peer observation, changes in their observation practices during the course and future plans for changing their observations. The results revealed a high degree of agreement among the participants, positive attitude toward peer observation despite a slight preference for observing experienced teachers and few changes to their observation practices. This research attempts to contribute to the literature, which is lacking in the UK, regarding this topic and its findings should prove useful for identifying effective observation practices for future ITT courses.

In 1998, the publication of a major piece of research (Black and Wiliam, 1998) triggered an explosion of interest both nationally and internationally in a hitherto neglected topic: formative assessment. My interest in conducting this re-search stemmed from my involvement as a secondary school music teacher in the development of formative assessment practice within the classroom, but as my primary interest was in teaching the piano, I became curious about formative assessment practice in piano lessons, particularly the provision of feedback, which is a discipline-specific area that had received little attention. This study examined the efficacy of feedback in one-to-one piano lessons in four case studies, involving students aged 11 to 14 years, in a rural location within the United Kingdom. Data were collected through lesson observations, interviews with teachers and students, together with lesson notes and students‘ practice diaries. The results of the research indicated that while the teachers within the case studies had not received any training in formative assessment or the provision of feedback to students, feedback was provided in similar ways, thus illustrating features of piano teaching, which had probably developed over centuries. The feedback differed from that provided in school-based classroom situations in important respects, although there were some similarities with other cognate performance-based disciplines. Students‘ self-efficacy and motivation were influenced by the feedback they received in lessons, and concerning self-regulation, which is an essential factor in pianoforte studies, students received little information about how to actually utilise feedback and feed-forward in their private practice. The conclusion indicates that within the context of one-to-one piano lessons, while some aspects of feedback practice were effective, others were less efficacious. Thus, teachers could benefit from access to training in the provision of formative feedback and feed-forward, in line with current research into best practice in schools.

This research focused on tutors and first and third year cohorts of undergraduate students within a department of clinical and health studies. The aims of the study were to explore tutor and student perceptions of the advantages of, and barriers to, computer-assisted learning (CAL) and perceived influence of CAL on reflection and reasoning skills. Two questionnaires were developed, to survey the two populations of participants, involving 197 students and 31 tutors. Illuminative follow-up semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 23 students and 13 tutors. The questionnaire datasets were analysed descriptively, and inferentially using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney procedure, to test for differences between age groups, gender and year of training The interview transcripts were thematically analysed and inductively coded. Member checking by transcript checking, and by discussion of emergent themes by four participant focus groups was undertaken. The student and tutor questionnaires and interviews resulted in common perceived advantages of CAL. These included a perception of CAL as an adjunct or support tool rather than a primary approach to teaching and learning. CAL was seen as a tool for improving work presentation, facilitating communication, enabling formative assessment, helping organise notes and as an information source. It was also perceived as giving flexibility to learning in any place, at any pace and any time. CAL was seen as able to save time, and induce positive emotions when things went well. Common barriers to CAL were lack of time to develop or use CAL and time wastage, limited computer literacy/skill level, negative emotions, inadequate training and support, access issues, cost and lack of portability. Loss of face-to-face contact with CAL was also a barrier to its use. CAL was not the preferred means of engendering reflection and reasoning skills. Emergent theory was identified and the study concludes with recommendations on training and support.

To develop reading skills of students, teachers have been advised to provide metacognitive reading strategy instruction by researchers. However, previous research has provided limited understanding of how teachers could foster metacognition of reading strategies in a ‘real’ classroom setting. Moreover, previous research tended to focus on the impact of metacognitive reading strategy instruction on students’ reading ability and has offered only a partial view of the students’ experience of such instruction. Studies facilitating metacognitive reading strategy instruction in an ESL setting are also rare. This action research study provides a detailed data-led understanding of how metacognition of reading strategies could be promoted in university level ESL students in Pakistan. It also explores qualitatively the impact of the instruction on students’ awareness, use and regulation of the reading strategies introduced. Data was collected through interviews, learner diaries, think aloud protocols, end of class feedback, researcher journal, note-taking, questionnaire and reading test in two action research cycles over the 2013 academic year. The findings revealed that providing explicit instruction and opportunities for collaborative discussion about strategy use as well as promoting students’ interest in reading helped raise students’ metacognition of reading strategies. The findings also suggest that metacognition and motivation worked together to interact with each other during the lessons, paving the way for raised student interest, awareness, use and regulation of the reading strategies introduced. The study supports, reinforces and extends findings in metacognitive reading strategy instruction research. It also makes a theoretical contribution through highlighting that the metacognitive knowledge of self and the metacognitive experiences of task performance could be affectively charged. The study outcomes are useful for understanding the process of metacognitive reading strategy instruction in an ESL setting and offer practical insights of value to professional involved in teaching reading skills to university level students.

The Schools Council Geography 16-19 Project was used as a case study to investigate the project perceptions of a sample of Heads of Geography who had adopted the scheme. The department heads were sent a questionnaire containing a multiple-choice section which offered different interpretations of the project's philosophy, aims and methods. Each question was followed by three answers, one of which was a statement taken from Geography 16-19 dissemination literature and supported by statements from a project team member. The answers chosen by the Heads of Geography were scored for project-congruency. The total scores were ranked and a small sample of three Authentic Adopters (with the highest project-congruent scores) and three Eccentric Adopters (with the lowest scores) were identified. These six teachers were then interviewed with the intention of discovering which reference groups they used. The interviews were semi-structured in order to gain relevant data with which to test five hypotheses. 1. Heads of Departments who choose nonmembership reference groups are more likely to be Authentics. 2. Members of the Project Pilot Team are more likely to be Authentics than other project-adapting Heads of Geography. 3. Heads of Department who are engaged in Anticipatory Socialisation are more likely to be Authentics. 4. Heads of Department who have seldom been involved in major curriculum change are more likely to be Eccentrics. 5. Heads of Department belonging to Type B and D of Runciman's Relative Deprivation Typology (i.e. those dissatisfied with their own status and/or that of their profession) are likely to be Authentics.

This thesis examines what influences teachers when they engage with, or disengage from CPD at one U.K. University that is a major provider of teachers` CPD. The research has been carried out with the aim of informing the management and development of CPD programmes. The views of head teachers, teachers and local authority education specialists were captured during eleven interviews and two focus groups. Participant observation data was collected over a period of four years between 2006 and 2010. Whilst the initial incentive was to understand the relationship between CPD and professional identity among this group, what came out of my data was that teachers were seeing CPD as an oppressive form of professional discourse. The thesis thus theorises these teachers` thoughts by drawing on critical counter-hegemonic ideas, such as but not limited to those represented in the work of Michel Foucault. The inquiry concludes that the ways in which these teachers perceive power has an influence on the ways in which they engage in CPD and that this is closely entwined with how they view their professional identity. The thesis suggests that if universities are to play a significant role in the professional development of teachers, firstly they need to understand these influences and address such feelings. Secondly they need to embrace ways of working with schools and head teachers that acknowledges this understanding.

This thesis explores the question of what constitutes ‘good education’ in the 21st Century, particularly in the context of the further education (FE) sector, and argues that an intensified regime of performativity in FE colleges has resulted in the dominance of an increasingly impoverished model of education. This ethnographic study, undertaken from 2009 to 2012, analyses the experiences of two cohorts of trainee FE teachers as they progressed through their Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) and Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) years. The methodology explicitly foregrounds the role of serendipity in the research, and its role in revealing critical moments in the students’ encounters with the FE workplace. The data include field notes of PGCE class discussions, students’ reflective diaries and my own reflections. An initial literature review explores the notion of ‘good education’ and the sociopolitical policies which have reshaped it, with a particular focus on their impact on FE teachers. My readings of other relevant literature are then integrated with the research findings, providing a context against which to interpret the data. The thesis also draws on an eclectic range of theory including critical pedagogy, social theories of time and analyses of consumerism in contemporary culture in order to offer a multi-layered explanation of the findings and to identify three key themes: the scripting of teachers and their practices; time pressures on teachers and students’ sense of consumer-driven entitlement. These themes are then synthesised using the overarching framework of Bauman’s (2000) concept of liquid modernity. I argue that this concept offers a holistic explanation of the forces impacting negatively on teachers and their practices. The study concludes by exploring opportunities for teacher resistance to such negative impacts and recommending strategies which might be adopted in a bid to reinstate a model of good education in colleges of further education. The thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge in a number of ways. It is innovative in its explicit use of serendipity in the field of FE research. It contributes new knowledge about the recent intensification of instrumentalism in FE, showing that this is not simply a static phenomenon. It provides evidence of new intensifications of managerial control over the teacher and his/her practice, shifting from broad prescriptions to direct scripting. This is linked to an innovative application of social theories of time to FE teachers' initial education and workplace experience, revealing the intensification of time pressures and their impact. I also link these to the emergence of a consumerist sense of entitlement among students, and its impact on student-teacher relations and the nature of education, which have not previously been discussed in depth in the literature on FE. Finally, the thesis offers an original and holistic interpretation of all three themes using Bauman's (2000) concept of liquid modernity, and utilises this synthesis to offer strategies for transforming the nature of education in FE.

This thesis is concerned with examining what the influence of reading is, on those young men who choose to read. Looking at the responses of a number of young men, a tripartite approach details the reading history of each respondent, discusses participants’ responses to their general reading, and examines participants reading and responses to John Boyne’s novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The research aims were to develop both a theoretical and empirical understanding of how reading influences selfhood, whilst exploring ideas about reading and its value. Within education there is a perception that ‘Boys don’t read’. This study examines whether young men, beyond the influence of school, read; and if they do read, what value they place on it. Respondents, aged 21 to 26, comprised a small scale opportunist sample, all comprehensive-school educated. Key questions addressed focused on what the experiences and perceptions of reading among participants were, what value was placed on reading, and what was learnt from it, and how that reading influenced the selfhood of those young men who read? Theories relevant to reading and self construction are presented. The data were collected by the researcher from the participants via face to face interviews, and is analysed and interpreted under four sections; the reading accounts, their interpretation, themes therein and the sense of self of the participants emergent from their reading responses. In its conclusion, the study strongly suggests that the effect of reading has a potent influence on the selfhood of those who read, in term of intellectual, moral and emotional development.

Using e-learning has become a credited learning delivery method in developed countries. The importance of this research arises from a widespread acknowledgement that implementing and evaluating quality in the learning process, whether it is face-to-face or e-learning, is important to guarantee the success of developing learners‘ understanding and knowledge. The research uses an instrumental case study to investigate the efficacy of e-learning in the Egyptian higher education context and to produce a model of implementing and evaluating quality in e-learning systems. Several methods are adopted including interviews, questionnaire, focus groups, VLE feedback, and a pre-post achievement test to collect the data. The study describes the participants‘ attitudes toward e-learning, what they perceive as quality e-learning systems and as critical success factors for implementing such systems inside the Egyptian higher education, and how they view the effectiveness and quality of e-learning systems. In addition, the study indicates that the majority of the participants are satisfied with using e-learning systems in their learning as long as the critical success factors are applied. This research also suggests that e-learning has a positive impact on learners‘ achievement levels.

This ESRC funded study investigates how young children integrate a range of multimodal strategies, including talk, body movement, gesture and gaze, to make and express meaning at home and playgroup during their first year in preschool. Using longitudinal ethnogrpahic video case studies of four 3-year-old children, two boys and two girls, this study identifies patterns in the children's uses of different communicative strategies that relate to the dynamics of the social, institutional and immediate contexts in which they are situated, particularly with regard to whether at home or in playgroup; with familiar or less familiar other; with adults or peers; with peers of the same sex or age group and with different playgroup activities. The thesis draws on post-modern interpretations of knowledge and truths to reflect critically on the different pedagogic discourses concerning the role of talk in learning implied in the Foundation Stage Cuurriculum and to revisit Vygtskian and neo-Vygotskian theories of talk and learning in the light of children's multimodal sign making in different settings. Byinterpreting the children's gaze, facial gestures and body movements as part of both communicative and meaning-making processes, the study peices together unique and composite understandings of how children conform to and resist the communicative practices of the 'speech community' (Hymes 1996) within the playgroup studied. These findings in turn give new insights into the genesis of pupil identity and issues of power, control and agency. Futhermore, the study discusses the development of systems for handling and representing complex video data alongside more traditional data collection methods, including audio recordings, field and diary notes and interviews. The thesis concludes by discussing how the study findings contribute to growing understandings of the multimodal processes of young children's making and expresing of meaning and consequent implications for early years policy and practice.