The importance of family relationships and the quality of parenting to the psychological, social, physical and economic well-being of children has been well documented. The government has also emphasised the importance of supporting parents and has provided Local Authorities with additional funding. This has resulted in schools having increased responsibility with regard to providing support for parents. Further research into the effectiveness of parenting programmes that schools can provide is therefore required. The principal research question addressed by the current study, was to establish whether a positive parenting programme, delivered at school, could facilitate long-term change for parents and their children. This research also aimed to establish whether levels of parental self-efficacy (PSE) were altered by the programme and the mechanisms that could have facilitated this change. Participants (N=18) agreed to participate in a semi-structured interview. Results highlighted three main themes (Identified changes in parenting and/or children’s behaviour, implementing strategies from the programme and the parenting programme process). The research concludes that the parenting programme directly altered parenting behaviours and that PSE levels increased, leading to an indirect change in parenting behaviour. Mechanisms within the parenting programme that increase PSE reflected those that raised self-efficacy as hypothesised by Bandura (1989).

Parenting plays a vital role in determining a child's development and future life opportunities. Irrespective of the skills and resources parents bring to parenting some parents still find the role challenging. A number of key interventions designed to improve parent-child relationships are reviewed, with evidence abstracted suggesting that Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) affords an effective intervention leading to positive behaviour change when used with parents and their children. This study explores the experiences of VIG from two parent (mother)-child dyads. Utilising a pragmatic, case study design, it explores two parents' and their children's views of their experiences of VIG intervention and examines whether any changes are sustained over time. Furthermore, it seeks to illuminate how VIG has contributed toward any assessed changes, and what users perceive as key features facilitating and/or compromising positive experiences of the intervention and its outcomes. Findings suggest that both parents and children valued quality time together, invested in shared activities, and developing a greater capacity for self-reflection as features of VIG that had contributed to its success as both a process and in its outcomes.

As the profession of educational psychology approaches its centenary year it is of interest to reflect on the development of practices and the influences on these. Throughout the history of the profession, educational psychologists have worked within the cultural and political landscape of the time and have worked with a number of partners. The partnerships between parents and educational psychologists (EPs) have received little attention in the literature and provide one example of work practice. This research explores the work of EPs through the views of EPs and parents. Central to the research is an exploration of the cultural and historical influences on the current working practices of EPs. Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) was utilised as a framework for data collection and analysis. In addition, the research is partially viewed through a Foucauldian lens, with Foucault’s view of history, and the concepts of ‘governmentality’ and ‘disciplinary power’ influencing the direction of the research. Seven parents and seven EPs were interviewed, focussing on the work of the EP. Emerging themes were analysed and discussed from cultural and historical perspectives. Seven meta-themes emerged; expectations, partnership, knowledge, power, professional approach, the profession of educational psychology and distinctive contribution. Conclusions drawn highlight the influence of culture and history on the current work of EPs with implications and suggestions for enhancing future partnerships with parents.

Learning scientific concepts can be challenging for many pupils and consequently much research has been carried out to locate and explain the social and cognitive processes involved in bringing about changes to learners' abstract conceptual understandings. This thesis contributes to this field by offering a text-world account (Werth 1999, Gavins 2007a) of how scientific concepts are constructed and linguistically represented in classroom discourse. More specifically, its first aim is to explore how a group of twenty, first year secondary pupils and their teacher construct and linguistically represent the abstract scientific concept of heat energy (and related concepts) in discourse. In so doing, it examines how the concept emerges and develops during a series of classroom activities, including a teacher-led demonstration, a simulated role-play and a group discussion/writing task, in addition to teacher and pupil interviews. By using the Text World Theory framework (see Gavins 2007a; Werth 1999) to focus on the linguistic choices and their corresponding cognitive effects, it becomes possible to explore the cognitive architecture of the pupils during the learning events and interviews. Thus, it is hoped that this study makes an innovative contribution to the field of cognitive linguistics and science education by explaining and exemplifying how learners' scientific concepts develop in naturalistic settings (Amin 2015). As a text-world approach to investigating classroom discourse is a relatively new area of exploration, the thesis also aims to examine the effectiveness of the text-world framework to explore multimodal, interactive classroom environments. The class involved in this study belonged to a state secondary school in a large urban city in Scotland. There was a broad ability range amongst its pupils, many of whom spoke languages other than English at home. The data generated was the result of a four-month prolonged investigation with the class, which resulted in the video and audio recordings of 15 lessons, 8 pupil interviews and 5 teacher interviews. Part of this data was later transcribed and analysed using the text-world framework. This framework proves to be well-suited to the task of investigating the conceptual structure of the classroom participants, due to its ability to track and explore multiple conceptual worlds established through spatial and temporal shifts, as well as modality and metaphor. By applying the framework to the relatively unexplored context of the classroom, extensions to the framework are made that show how the classroom discourse, the knowledge frames of the pupils as well as the social and concrete world of the classroom, play a key role in the development of abstract thought in a classroom setting.

The national concern to improve the level of education in Malaysia prompted the Ministry of Education to conduct a comprehensive review of the education system and introduce the Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013-2025) to transform the education system. One of the aims was to upgrade the quality of in-service teacher training for teachers. This has resulted in a reshaping of the type of courses and delivery mode for in-service education for teachers (INSET). CPD providers in Malaysia tend to conduct training using the cascade model due to limited resources and expertise and teachers are hardly consulted about their needs or learning preferences. This is likely to have a significant impact on the quantity and quality of INSET for teachers in a top-down national priority driven system. This study examines the perceptions of a group of Malaysian English language educators, comprising primary school non-specialist English language teachers and senior teachers who are newly appointed School Improvement Specialist Coaches (SISCs) of their INSET experiences. It covers the areas of their previous INSET experiences and their perceptions of the effect of INSET on their classroom practice. The research also aims to identify their future expectations of INSET in terms of their professional development needs, their pupils' needs, school needs and their views on national needs of Malaysia's education system with reference to INSET. This research is informed by the qualitative survey approach which establishes variation in terms of values and dimensions that are meaningful within a certain population. The study focuses on diversity in a population of educators who attended INSET programmes on literacy, pedagogy and Language Arts. The methods that were used comprised focus group interviews and individual interviews. The researcher followed the INSET journey of three groups of primary school educators who were selected using convenience sampling and purposive sampling. The findings suggest a strong relationship between the educators' educational backgrounds, pre-service training, their knowledge of the English language subject and continuing professional development. These impact upon their teaching as a result of their understanding of the objectives in the Primary School Standard Curriculum document, their priorities and preferences in how to teach the English language, their culture and language. This study identifies gaps in different aspects of professional development especially on INSET needs for subject specific skills, pedagogical skills and collaborative learning through districtwide INSET and school-based INSET in Malaysia.

The purpose of this study was to develop the Talk Skills pedagogic intervention, implemented in the Korean adult L2 learning context, which aims to raise awareness of effective L2 talk and teach oral communicative strategies that help students to achieve it. The study is underpinned by theories that foreground the importance of language use in L2 classrooms, focusing, most importantly, on the relationship between interaction and second language acquisition, and sociocultural theory for language learning. Review of the literature showed that students had the best opportunities for language learning when classroom talk embodies characteristics such as students giving opinions, offering reasons, sharing information, respectfully challenging each other, attempting to reach agreement, negotiating meaning, noticing and building upon gaps in their language and promoting language learning through scaffolding and emergent language. This type of talk is termed here exploratory talk for language learning. However, research into the Korean context showed that Korean L2 learners encounter problems with classroom group oral interaction that inhibit the production of this kind of talk and that may lead to unfulfilled potential for learning. This led to the hypothesis that adult Korean L2 learners could benefit from lessons that raise awareness of this kind of talk and learn strategies to help achieve it. Drawing on previous attempts at metacognitive awareness raising of effective classroom talk, as well as literature on oral communicative strategy training, the Talk Skills intervention was developed using a design-based research (DBR) methodology. The scope of the project was limited to exploring the soundness and local viability of the intervention, using lesson transcript data, student interview feedback, my own field notes and expert appraisal from my course tutors to refine the intervention across two iterations. Initial impact of the project was also explored by analysing feedback from a small number of teachers who have used elements of the intervention in their adult English language courses. Taken as a whole, this thesis argues that Korean adult L2 learners can benefit from metacognitive awareness raising of exploratory talk for language learning and the learning of oral communicative strategies to help achieve this kind of talk. The thesis further argues that this aim can successfully be achieved using a design-based research methodology to both develop the Talk Skills intervention as a pedagogic tool, and further offer specific insight into instructional techniques, student engagement and teacher’s interactional roles that aid the success of its implementation. Finally, this thesis argues that as DBR is an underutilized methodology in the field of L2 research, the Talk Skills project offers a useful example of DBR for practitioner researchers wishing to embark on intervention design and development.

This doctoral study examines the everyday experiences of the Learning Mentor, a support role introduced into English state schools fifteen years ago. It was conceived as part of a broader New Labour policy agenda which sought to resolve the relationship between ‘risk’ and ‘social exclusion’ as the root cause of many social problems. According to the official narrative, Learning Mentors were part of a wider initiative to ‘eliminate and never excuse’ underachievement in the most deprived parts of England. Their primary task of ‘removing barriers to learning’ was premised on the notion of offering a different type of pupil-support from that which already existed in schools, being described in official accounts as a “professional friend” and “challenger of assumptions”. The role can also be understood as part of a transformative agenda which elevated ‘low level’ workers to paraprofessional status across a range of public services. The thesis is premised on two key areas: first, how this type of occupational domain has been historically constructed and continues to evolve through policy transformations which are enacted at the local level. Second, how the work activities and practices associated with these and other school support workers, expose issues around ‘structure’ and ‘agency’. The methodological approach was informed by Institutional Ethnography in that in order to establish how the work of Learning Mentors was practised, viewed and understood within the school, the researcher undertook to gather and document the work knowledges of several groups: firstly the mentors themselves, followed by children and young people as pupils; teaching and support staff, and middle and senior managers. In tracing the genealogy of Learning Mentor practice, attention was also paid to the legacy of an earlier educational paraprofessional emerging in the 1960s and termed the ‘community agent’; along with a burgeoning youth mentoring movement from the late 1980s – developments which both took place in the United States of America. The problematic of the study which became apparent was that although warmly received by pupils, Learning Mentor practices were marginalised, misunderstood and relatively unseen; casting doubt on the role’s level of influence suggested by formal prescriptions. Furthermore, despite the support systems in which they worked being formally presented as coherent and straightforward entities, they were in fact found to be ‘messy’ and contested spaces which were inhabited by different groups of practitioners, whose differing identities informed and underpinned their own respective practices.

This thesis examines the factors that make the low-fee private school (LFPS) accessible to the poor. While the provision of education in developing countries has traditionally been regarded as the responsibility of the state, recent evidence on the growth of the LFPS in such contexts appears to challenge the government's role as the most viable option. The main argument of the thesis is that the poor have no real choice. The thesis also argues that fee-free public education only provides a partial solution to the financial barrier to access since there are factors other than direct costs that influence the way poor households respond to principles of supply and demand for education. The state's role in the provision of education is supported by the argument that it is a public good, and it must therefore remain the responsibility of the government to protect the poor and other vulnerable groups from denial of access. Nevertheless, private education provision is a growth enterprise in rural areas, one key reason for which is the perception that it provides a better quality of education than the state can offer. Given such expansion in an era of fee-free public education, some commentators have questioned whether those that send their children to an LFPS can really be described as poor, since school choice is clearly dependant on the ability to meet the costs. In order to understand how the cost and quality of education interact with school choice decisions, 536 households in three poor rural communities of Mfantseman District, Central Region, Ghana were surveyed. The data were used to examine the difference in cost between public and private provision, and to explore those factors associated with school choice and the related expenditure. In addition, to gain further insight into the implications of the survey's statistical outcomes, a number of participants with interests in both public and private schools were interviewed – including 38 household heads in the lowest income quintile, 6 head teachers, 14 teachers, 8 parents, 7 Parent Teacher Association (PTA) executives and 3 School Management Committee (SMC) executives with children in both school types. The findings reject the hypothesis that school choice in the communities under study was not affected by socio-economic factors, since the majority of households had no real option. In particular, the prohibitive cost of food at both types of school, but compulsoriness at LFPSs, had adverse consequences on the willingness of children to attend. However, a minority of poor households that did access LFPSs were able to do so due to school practices such as flexible fee schemes, teacher discipline and better interaction with parents, as well as through assistance obtained via social networks. In addition, the study also finds that private schools had a better track record in BECE examination than public schools in the communities under study. What is clear is that, this better BECE track record by LFPSs coupled with higher aspirations that some poor households have for their children fuelled interest in private schooling. The study concludes that the claim that the rural poor access LFPS in numbers has been exaggerated. This is because it is the relatively better-off households that enrol their children in private school, while a minority of the poor that access LFPSs are able to do so because of manipulative school practices and the nature of its interaction with parents. As a result, the study suggests that it would be in the interests of the poor if rural public schools were improved – including the provision of free school meals – given that greater state support to the private education sector would only benefit the relatively better off. Finally, fee-free public schooling facilitated by the capitation grant should ensure that schools are more accountable to the communities they serve – schools should be made to show how the grant was used to improve access and quality and together with the community set targets for improvement. Improving academic quality and teacher discipline would enable them to restore their image in rural communities and hence encourage demand for public education.

This thesis aims to build a theory for understanding the role of aid in achieving the education Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in fragile states. In so doing, it responds to claims that both educational research (see e.g. Cohen et al., 2000), and the economic literature on aid and international development (see e.g. Deaton, 2008), are insufficiently grounded in theory. In finding a methodological voice for this thesis, I distinguish between three research paradigms: positivist, interpretive and critical theory. I ask whether theory is essentially a positivist project, better suited to quantitative methods and to the natural sciences. I argue for a 'mixed-method' approach, proposing that when qualitative methods generate data that are subjected to a stronger process of generalisation – including comparison between data derived from qualitative and quantitative methods, and from macro and micro level analysis – then that evidence may be sufficiently strong to underpin theory. I use a four step process to build theory: (i) categorising data into domains for analysis, (ii) hypothesising linkages between these domains, (iii) investigating these hypotheses through assessing the evidence supporting them, (iv) organising hypotheses into a theoretical framework. To assess the strength of evidence in support of each hypothesis, I use an instrument to ‘grade the evidence', based on a threefold assessment of method, observer bias and corroboration. I include evidence from new research conducted for this thesis, including: a portfolio analysis of 145 DFID education projects in fragile states (1991-2007), and an analysis of primary data collected for the 2008 DFID ‘Education Portfolio Review'. The findings of this research confirm a potential relationship between aid inputs and education outcomes in fragile states. Positing that this relationship might work through intermediate financing and institutional effects, it finds weak evidence for the former, but stronger evidence for the latter. With both aid and non-aid inputs (e.g. diplomacy, military engagement), external inputs appear better at supporting existing incipient reform than generating that reform, suggesting that donors should adopt a more modest and opportunistic approach to aid, as opposed to deploying a ‘transformational' blueprint (Easterly, 2009). The inter-dependence between aid inputs and non-aid inputs points to the importance of deploying instruments within a single approach to strategy and possibly delivery. There is relatively strong evidence for ‘pre-conditions' for successful interventions – proposed here as political will, community ownership and security / stability – whereas evidence for conventional proxies of ‘aid effectiveness' is weak relative to the importance generally ascribed to it. The evidence linking education and social stability is mixed, and weakly researched in developing country contexts – potentially significant for critical theorists who question the wisdom and motives of donor governments investing in education to counter radicalisation. I conclude by assessing whether the theory generated has validity or utility. I assess the theory against five key characteristics of theory: empirical grounding; explanatory power; predictive power; utility; verification / falsification. I conclude that my theory has explanatory power and utility, but that claims to generalisability are weak, given the importance of context. The thesis and its product (the ‘theory') provide a framework that advances our understanding of the relationships between aid and education outcomes in fragile states. It tests the evidence base for these proposed relationships and, notwithstanding limits of generalisability, offers a narrative and framework with practical utility for future research, policy development and programming.

Glasgow Dental School (GDS) offers a varied learning environment for well-motivated, high-achieving students. These students, along with institutional, professional and public stakeholders, demand high quality, efficient, effective and modern teaching practices. A new undergraduate curriculum was introduced at GDS; a more authentic learning experience was to be delivered with a move away from traditional teaching based solely within the dental hospital. Outreach teaching facilities were introduced and a cohort of NHS clinical tutors joined academic staff. Both new and old staff were required to develop their teaching skills. Some tutors expressed distress at the lack of availability of training to enhance teaching skills, and implementation of a Peer Observation of Teaching Scheme (POT) was considered as a way to address this issue. POT focuses on providing opportunities for staff to improve their teaching skills. It can be conducted successfully with inexperienced teaching staff and limited resources. It can help identify and eliminate poor teaching practice while enabling participants to develop their skills, self-identity and group identity as teachers. POT, in this study, is a reciprocal process whereby one peer observes another teaching and provides supportive and constructive feedback. Its underlying rationale is to encourage professional development in teaching and learning through critical reflection, by both the observer and the observed. In this thesis, I outline the implementation of the POT scheme across clinical sites at GDS. The study involved multiple stakeholders and therefore required approval, accommodation and support across six geographically diverse Scottish health board areas. The process and outcomes from the evaluation of the POT scheme are presented. The current body of published research offers little in relation to POT for the development of teaching chair-side clinical dentistry, a distinct area where students carry out multiple invasive procedures on patients during each teaching session. Appraisal of the scheme and its impact was conducted using evaluation methodology underpinned by constructivist epistemology. Ethical approval was sought and granted. Results describe motivations to teach and evaluation of the POT process in relation to its authenticity, acceptability and practicality. Analysis of who is truly considered a ‘peer’ as well as aspects of trust, honesty and respect are presented along with the perceived issues for colleagues sharing critical feedback. Impact of the POT scheme is explored in terms of teaching, reflection, increased self-awareness, and lessons learned about personal teaching practice. There is a strong focus on the role of POT for quality enhancement. Key issues highlighted by the findings include; the notable differences between participants from a range of academic backgrounds; study limitations; and feasible alternatives for the development of teaching staff. The POT scheme was successfully implemented and analysed. It was an authentic method for encouraging reflection and development of teaching practice. Recommendations for further progress are outlined. These include whether POT should be mandatory; how to facilitate wider group discussion; systems for implementation of shared good practice; and increasing access to teaching qualifications. Further research is required to directly measure the impact of POT on student learning and look at how the scheme has impacted on development of the wider community of practice.