Internship and supervision are prerequisites for professional counselling training and are vital for professional efficacy. However, research of these training functions in the Hong Kong counselling professional context has been limited. This study aims to explore student counsellors’ perceptions and experience of the counselling supervision in their training within a university-based counselling programme in Hong Kong. The research focuses on how far the culture and cultural assumptions affect the learning process when facing success, struggles and difficulties, and what constitutes and hinders an effective supervision environment for student counsellors. Ten counselling psychology undergraduates, who had already gone through a large part of the internship and supervision process, were invited to participate in this research. A qualitative methodology, including the implementation of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and semi-structured interviews, was chosen and participants were asked to describe in detail their perceptions and experiences regarding their counselling internship and supervision. The data were generated through the Verbatim records of interviews and records of observation which included nonverbal behavior and the researcher‘s reflection journals. The interview data were analyzed according to themes and subthemes. Five master themes emerged: Guanxi; Perception; Expectation in relation to the learning environment, Mental processing in the learning and Guanxi strategies. The data were analyzed and reanalyzed. Three considerations, cultural, developmental and contextual, in the internship and supervisory experience are portrayed as implications for stakeholders. The notion of Guanxi and Guanxi strategies appears to be the dominant domain to which greater attention needs to be paid in the process of training, especially in regard to counselling supervision. Designers of academic programmes are encouraged to take into serious consideration the dimension of Guanxi in the training. The idiosyncratic desires of the student counsellors and their expectation in relation to the internship setting and supervision environment as well as the mental processing of student counsellors throughout the learning process are revealed. The results have implications for stakeholders with respect to the knowledge and understanding of the impacts of supervision and internship on professional development in our cultural context.

Studies conducted on reflection claim that when student teachers are being trained to become language teachers, reflective practice should start from the early stages. Rodman (2010) states that reflective practice helps pre-service teachers (hereafter PSTs) to actively consider and reconsider beliefs and practices that allow them to improve their ability to monitor decisions about what and how to teach. However, it has been observed in other studies (e.g. Ward and McCotter 2004) that some PSTs remain at a simple descriptive level of reflection. Kwan and Simpson (2010:417) state that this is because ‘reflection usually begins with an unstructured approach […] which may not enable the teacher to move from a mere ‘thinking’ process to a higher level of reflection and action’. This thesis shows the results of an action research study developed in a public university in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. The outcomes in this study help to understand how collaborative reflections are produced and promoted in a Second Language Teacher Education programme. The study also provides an insight into the concerns, learning and development of Pre-service teachers in Mexico. The main goal of the study was to intervene and introduce the use of various tools, strategies and values to engage in collaborative and dialogic reflection. The findings show that the participants positively engaged in reflective practice with the use of (mainly) two tools (journals and group reflections) and the promotion of reflective strategies, collaborative and dialogic reflection, as well as the support of continuous questioning in a non-threatening environment. Data revealed that the student teachers followed a process of reflection that developed from simple descriptions to a more evaluative process at the end of the intervention.

This thesis describes an analysis of the representations of teachers in the British press during the 1990s. The research topic was a matter of personal interest to the researcher but an extensive review of educational literature revealed it to also have potential theoretical value. Analysis of the literature showed that these representations could be described conceptually according to the position of teachers' characteristics within two continua: one relating to commonality and contradiction, the other to continuity and change. These continua were used to predict the potential theoretical value of this study and to form the basis of four research questions. The study involved an empirical examination of 900 newspapers using a modified version of grounded theory. The rationale for this approach was based on precedents set by philosophy on the nature of meaning and studies on the process of communication. The examination yielded findings in the form of eight key concepts for the teacher, namely: the employee, symbol, service provider, intermediary, school functionary, classroom practitioner, source and person. The continua were applied to these findings and re-defined so as to contribute to theory. Using the continua, a comparison was drawn between the representation of teachers in the press and the literature. The comparative analysis revealed ways for research to develop a more comprehensive and sophisticated understanding of how the teacher is represented in different cultural contexts, mediums and tirneframes. Using different foci and emphases research could build on the contributions made by this study. The methodology was evaluated, raising suggestions for using modified grounded theory in further research on the representation of teachers.

This thesis reports an investigation/exploration of one-to-one teacher-student feedback interactions inside EAP classrooms about learners’ academic writing at a higher education institution in England. It is constructivist, and a single case study with embedded units. It also draws on the inquiry traditions of grounded theory. Interviews with EAP teachers and students as well as classroom observations/field notes and supplementary audio recordings as methods of data collection were utilized. Informed by the hypothesis-generation procedure of grounded theory, the study first followed the stages of open, selective and theoretical coding to present a holistic account of one-to-one classroom feedback interactions between teachers and students in the complete data. After developing the theory, the components of the theory were compared and contrasted (within when possible, and) across case units. The analysis of classroom observations revealed three patterns of teacher-student relationship in the feedback interactions. These relationship patterns were collaborative relationship, normative relationship and subordinated relationship. It was also revealed that teachers and students constructed these relationship patterns by utilizing certain actions. In collaborative relationship, teachers utilized actions of diagnosis, suggestion, stimulation, and warning. Learner actions in this relationship were initiation, clarification, suggestion, verification/confirmation, surmise, and challenge. In normative relationship, teachers utilized actions of arbitership and evaluation while learners used conforming and withdrawal. In subordinated relationship, teachers utilized deferral, and learners used adducing. The interview data revealed learners’ and teachers’ institutional-self as the possible influencing factor on how relationship patterns were constructed. Likewise, learners’ critical awareness of academic writing was found as one of the potential consequences of those relationship patterns. No possible consequence was revealed for teachers. The study contributes by presenting an analytical framework to analyse classroom feedback interactions inside EAP classes while foregrounding EAP classroom setting as an underexplored area to understand diverse controversial issues in the field of EAP.

This study examined the pedagogy of ICT and the aim of the research was to explore teachers’ perceptions of ICT capability and whether their practice in the classroom matched their personal constructs. This is particularly pertinent given the current environment of curriculum change in Wales. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was used as an analytical framework within this study. The use of this tool has enabled different dimensions within the case studies to be recognised and discussed. The use of the activity settings over time has allowed a fourth dimension to be added to the analysis and to examine how the teachers in the case study have managed their recognition of the emergent contradictions. The use of the activity setting to analyse similar settings from different viewpoints has prompted the use of CHAT as a tool to model likely contradictions which may emerge from the introduction of any new curriculum. The use of CHAT in an educational setting in this way has built on the use of Activity Theory to analyse the workplace activity in highlighting change and participant’s reaction to that change. Two continuums emerged, one concerning how ICT capability was perceived in terms of skills used, with the metacognitive skills at one end and the tools of specific software applications at the other. The other continuum was concerned with the pedagogy of ICT. It emerged that the schools employed different pedagogical strategies which resulted in the use of different pedagogical tools by the teachers within the study. The pedagogical continuum ranged from a mechanistic rigid pedagogy to one of facilitation with pupils creating opportunities for knowledge construction. These variations have implications for the pedagogy of any new computing curriculum which may be introduced and the need for continued professional development to enable effective teaching of that new curriculum.

They’re helpful Because it tells you about About all the stuff you need to work on And what stuff you are good at already (Nick aged 10) Following recent reform in special educational needs (SEN) education in England, schools and settings are expected to include children with SEN in statutory meetings about their progress. In the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH), a model of ‘person-centred annual review’ meetings has been developed. The meeting centres on the young person and includes discussion of strengths, difficulties and future plans. Information is presented in accessible language and using visual representations. Children are encouraged to participate fully in the meeting. This idiographic and exploratory study sought the perspectives of six young people about their experience of these meetings. All the children had SEN and attended a single primary school in LBTH. Narrative interviews were conducted: children were asked to describe and draw the review. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and a narrative analysis was conducted incorporating psychodynamic concepts. Interviews were converted into ‘rough verse’; a condensed way of presenting the children’s words and interviewer’s prompts. Children presented a largely positive view of their experience of such meetings; all children described their own strengths and positive characteristics, most described difficulties and what they were working on, all described changes that they attributed to the meeting. The children’s accounts support the view that the meeting was an ‘intervention’, in that these children felt the meeting changed aspects of their experience of school, including practical benefits and feeling better understood and supported. Implications for educational settings are outlined, and the value of meaningful pupil participation in reviews is considered.

This thesis, at the meeting point of information systems and education research, starts with a critical assessment of the theoretical assumptions underlying ICTmediated learning research, and takes issue with instrumentalist approaches to technology as a means of encouraging learning through collaboration and of achieving innovation in work practices. I argue that technologies and knowledge (as well as what is considered worth learning) are imbricated in an ongoing “scene of struggle” where different interests, institutional logics, rationalities, and realities are negotiated. This research draws on an empirical case study which follows the efforts of an interdisciplinary research team in a 3-year project while developing and evaluating a Learning Design Support Environment (LDSE). The expected aim of the LDSE project was to foster a community of practice among academics that would share knowledge of teaching practices, and collaboratively discover innovative approaches to technology-enhanced learning. I also bring the broader sociotechnical context into the discussion, to understand the different institutional logics entangled with this technology. A conceptual framework is developed that integrates insights from recent contributions in institutional theory and actor-network theory. The former sensitise us to the broader social context and the complex interaction of different institutional logics. The latter emphasizes the entanglement of technology, knowledge, and practices. This framework offers an effective lens to understand how technologies aimed at supporting collaborative learning at work, and particularly in teaching, are bound up with practices and institutional logics in a given sociopolitical context. Such understanding will reveal the assumptions of straightforward means-to-ends innovation in technological interventions aimed at achieving learning and change, by laying bare the complex sociotechnical processes involved in making “a technology work” and in legitimating knowledge and practices.

This action research project examines my development as a philosophy teacher and the impact my lessons have had on a class of 10-11 year old pupils. My wish was to develop a style of philosophy that best fitted my epistemological outlook – an outlook informed by poststructuralism. This thesis chronicles my second year of philosophy teaching, during which I attempted to move beyond teaching philosophical thinking skills toward a philosophy that was inspired by my thoughts on post-structuralism. During the academic year 2009-2010, I took a Year 6 class (pupils aged between 10-11 year olds) for a series of weekly philosophy lessons. I did not have a clear idea of the direction the post-structuralist philosophy lessons would take, so I decided an action research project would help me to me make incremental improvements as the cycle progressed. The action research project consisted of three cycles with each cycle concluding in an action plan to further improve the poststructural dimension of lessons. A distinctive approach to teaching a post-structural influenced philosophy was developed. The findings of the study show that a poststructuralist influenced philosophy has much to offer practitioners who wish to explore the practical application of poststructuralism in a classroom.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether it is possible for a teacher (as a non-game developer) to create educational computer games that could be considered 'fun' to play. The influences of game genre and graphical fidelity on this process are also investigated, along with the practicalities and barriers that constrain the (mainstream) use of computer games within the education system. A literature review was conducted into the motivations for using educational games, the educational and conventional approaches to games design, and finally the development frameworks/software tools available for the purposes of implementation. Building upon the literature review, a questionnaire based survey and a games design pilot were conducted in order to establish what constitutes educational games design 'best practice'. Based on the feedback/results obtained, a small number of educational games were developed (using the package "GameMaker") and piloted for use within the subsequent main study. The main study consisted of a series of educational game playing sessions (supported by questionnaires) aimed at addressing the thesis research questions. The results of the study (in combination with an additional literature review) suggest the following: • It is possible for teachers (as non-game developers) to create 'fun' educational computer games, although this may not always be the most practical or preferred approach. • Low fidelity graphics do not negatively impact the successful use of computer games within an educational environment. • Educational games can be used practically within the education system, but with constraints and barriers preventing their mainstream adoption, unless schools, government and educational game advocates work together towards a shared vision. • Due to limitations within the study, the influence of genre on the use educational games remains unresolved. This thesis contributes new knowledge through the discovery that computer games do not require high fidelity graphics in order to be used successfully within an educational environment (at the primary school level), and addresses a gap within the current literature through the documentation of the author's 'real world' experience of developing educational computer games (from a teacher's point of view).

Prompted by the prevalence of discourses surrounding the need to cultivate creativity for the benefit of wider society and for children themselves, this study aims to explore how creativity is fostered in young children aged 3 to 4. The study recognises that the cultivation of creativity in young children is indivisible from the social ecology in which they are located: it is subject to a network of influences, from the cultural to the local. By inquiring into these influences, it creates an account of how they interact to shape a national approach to early years education and the fostering of children's creativity within it. Using the concept of story as a model, this study has adopted a narrative-style methodological approach in order to look at the phenomenon in a holistic manner. For this purpose, the approach combined documentary analysis with interviews, reflective stories, observations, walking tours and map-making with children and early years practitioners. Beyond this, it compares the educational system of England with Catalonia in order to look beyond more popularly researched national systems of early years education and to use the comparison as a lens to help identify the dominant influences on the cultivation of creativity of children in a national approach to early years education. The study particularly highlights the effects of history, cultural values, policy and practice on the fostering of individual children's creativity in early years settings, extending understanding of this process beyond the confines of classroom and curriculum.