Recent research has suggested that ten percent of school aged children and young people within the UK experience a clinically diagnosable mental health problem (Green et al., 2005). Schools, teachers and educational psychology services are increasingly required to help with the prevention, early recognition and management of mental health difficulties. In particular, teachers have been identified as important supporters of pupil mental health needs as tier one mental health workers and providers of universal mental health services (DfCSF & DH, 2008; Ofsted, 2005). However, a comprehensive review of both government and academic literature indicated that the feasibility of this expectation is largely unexplored, particularly within the UK context. Therefore, this thesis sought to investigate the perspectives of mainstream secondary school teachers regarding pupil mental health needs in order to develop a predictive model of their willingness. The rationale for focusing on willingness was that psychological theory indicates that willingness is an important determinant of actual behaviour (e.g. Ajzen, 2005). A model was developed based upon the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), but which included other relevant elements identified within the literature. The model was tested using a questionnaire developed for the purpose of the study, which was found to have both internal reliability and validity. Teachers from 14 schools within 9 South Wales LEAs completed the questionnaire (n=217). Regression analysis provided support for the proposed model, indicating that teacher age, level of personal experience and attitude towards the role were particularly strong predictors of teacher willingness. This research has many implications in terms of developing the capacity of schools to support the mental health needs of their pupils, for example, in providing an understanding of some of the social-cognitive processes which may influence teacher willingness. Additionally, the research has identified an important role for educational psychologists in terms of supporting schools to develop teacher willingness, for example, through tailored training.

“We provide a solution that allows saving 15 to 20 euros per invoice...It is very important in a strategy of service and cost reductions for our customers and for us.” “For us, it is very important as we generally reduce our inventories by 30%, thus we recover cash flow. It is not negligible.” These quotes out of my case studies show that the primary goal of the implementation of Web-based applications is the achievement of transaction cost efficiencies: cost cutting, time saving, and information integration. But do they achieve such results? Sometimes they do sometime they don’t. In order to understand why, I consider it is necessary to take a different perspective from the one taken until now. Indeed, existing studies on interorganizational information systems focus on economical and strategic issues and consider organizations as opaque entities. First, issues at hand may not be economic or strategic but social or legal. Next, they neglect that inter-organizational relationships imply a number of long-standing social interactions between individuals of each organization. Moreover, these individuals interpret the mediation project and act taking decision, implementing, or using the mediating technology – that these individuals make sense of the IT mediation project. In the present research, I propose to open the black box of organizations and explore how people sensemaking conditions the achievement of transaction cost benefits and is conditioned by the interorganizational context. My overarching research question is: How do people make sense of the Internet mediation of long-standing interorganizational relationships?

This PhD thesis develops a Brechtian research pedagogy for intercultural education. Taking its lead from progressive intercultural educators and researchers who conceptualise intercultural experiences as being ‘radically embodied’, this thesis is underpinned by a concept of culture as fluid and constantly ‘in the making’. In order to give ethical and pedagogical consideration to such a performative view of culture, Brechtian thinking and theatre practice is employed and translated into the intercultural education research space. Placing Brechtian Verfremdung – ‘estrangement’ - at the heart of methodology, such research pedagogy works from within the precarity of intercultural spaces. Based on an immanent ethics that emerges from and shapes within the relationships built in the research space, the researcher’s role is that of the facilitator and co-producer of data. A Brechtian research pedagogy is thus considered a mode of production; one that does not conceptually presuppose ethics and pedagogy, but considers them as ‘becoming’ and integrated within its methods. It asks two questions i) can a Brechtian informed approach to pedagogy create and change experiences of ‘strangeness’ and ii) if so, how is this achieved and manifested? The focus of this thesis is international students’ dynamic and in flux experiences of strangeness. During four half-day workshops in consecutive weeks, a group of ten international postgraduate students encounter a Brechtian research space, where, using drama, creative writing and filming methods, they engage in an open, embodied conversation on ‘intercultural experiences’. I trace participants’ process of intercultural learning and ‘intercultural making’ through the embodied methods used in the drama research workshops. These embodied methods stimulate a variety of reflective modes and produce multilayered data for analysis: pictures, conversations, creative writing pieces and even non-verbal gestures. In order to prevent an early reification of these ‘texts’ into academic ‘strangeness knowledge’, they are in turn estranged and used in a mode of artistic production. This allows for active thinking about the research question as well as aids reflection on the modes of encounter within the research space. ‘Estrangement’ draws attention not only to the content of intercultural stories used, but to their inherent discursive structures and the effects these can have on participants’ well-being. The research project’s main emphasis, then, is on the process of research and starts to work towards a respective Brechtian representational practice by developing the term ‘dialogic aesthetic framing’. It is suggested that representations should be equally seen as modes of production, dependent on an audience’s active reading between the research’s ‘metaphoric gaps’. Future research would seek to develop this more product-oriented focus further, so as to test and develop concrete artistic, representational practices for a Brechtian research pedagogy.

This study seeks to explore the problems of genetics learning and to identify possible ways forward. The work was carried out at junior high school level in Taiwan. Genetics is often thought of as a subject or a topic in biology that is difficult to learn and understand, especially for novices. A review of literature on learning difficulties in genetics is provided to explore the nature of the difficulties, with likely explanations for the difficulties observed. Undoubtedly, many would acknowledge that genetics is an important subject to learn in these days and age where its applications are ubiquitous and even the cause of many debates. However, due to the nature of the subject matter and the way learning processes occur and, possibly, the way it is being taught, the understanding of genetics ideas of the majority of students is thought to be very poor and full of confusions and alternative views. Thus, the overall aim of this study is to explore learning difficulties and problems in genetics and then to develop and test ways by which the situation might be improved. The research for this thesis was carried out in three stages. In the first stage, the adolescent learners’ preconceptions about genetics were explored before they move to the formal course. The result indicated that the essential foundational concepts, such as structure and function of cells and its organelles, cell divisions (mitosis and meiosis), reproduction, and basic mathematical requirements and the concept of probability, are generally vague and misconceptions are widespread. In the second stage, factors that might affect the learning of genetics for adolescent learners were investigated. The factors were prior knowledge related to genetics and the effects of the limitation of learners’ psychological characteristics (namely, perceptual fields or the degree of field dependence and the working memory space). Results showed that students’ performance in genetics examination revealed a significant correlation with their prior knowledge, the working memory capacity and the degree of field dependence. Based on the findings from the first and second stage of the research, a set of teaching material of genetics course for the first year of junior high school students was developed in the third stage. The teaching material was deliberately constructed not only to minimise demands on the working memory, but also to encourage attitude development. The performance of students was found to be significantly better than for those who had been taught by the traditional approaches. Numerous comparisons of attitudes between the two groups revealed that attitudes of social awareness as well as attitudes towards aspects of the learning processes involved were more positive for those who had used the new materials It should be pointed out that all conclusions derived from this study must be treated tentatively. Inevitably, any new approach will have a novelty factor which may enhance performance. Nonetheless, the evidence taken together does support the hypothesis that learning arranged in line with information processing insights is more effective. In addition, the strategies used were designed in line with understandings of the ways attitudes develop and the effectiveness of these approaches has been demonstrated. Overall, the study has highlighted several problems and, on the basis of the evidence obtained, suggests possible ways forward for a better approach to genetics learning.

Educational policies and systemic inequalities have created “very different educational realities” for African American students and their white counterparts (Darling-Hammond, 2005) resulting in low literacy rates, low test scores, and high dropout rates. Culturally relevant pedagogy has been shown to increase the academic achievement of culturally diverse students (Gay, 2000; Howard, 2003; Ladson-Billings, 1994). However, many in-service teachers struggle to effectively implement a culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) (Esposito & Swain, 2009; May, 2011; Rozansky, 2010), and limited research has been conducted on professional development aimed at supporting teachers’ knowledge and practices around CRP (Knight & Wiseman, 2005; Milner, 2009). Guided by sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1934/1986; Wertsch 1991), critical theory (Freire, 1970), critical race theory (Delgado & Stefanic, 2012; Taylor, 2009) and critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970; Giroux, 2003), this study examined teachers’ changing beliefs and practices as they engaged in professional development on issues related to culturally relevant pedagogy and literacy development. Questions guiding this study were: (1) What shifts do teachers make in their conceptual and pedagogical understandings around CRP when engaged in professional development activities? (2) What factors enhance or inhibit teachers’ ability to implement CRP during literacy instruction? (3) How do teachers navigate contextual constraints to implement their beliefs in relation to CRP? The methodology for this study is formative experiment, as its goal is to bridge the gap between theory and practice, (Bradley & Reinking, 2011). A continuous, teacher-centered professional development focused on CRP served as the intervention for this formative experiment. Data sources include audio-recorded interviews and teacher debrief session, video-recorded professional development sessions, and field notes from classroom observations. Findings of this study indicate that theoretical learning, critical self-reflection, collaboration, and longevity are integral to support shifts in teachers beliefs and practices around culturally relevant pedagogy. Findings also show that the shifting process is dynamic and complex and occurs differently for individuals. Implications of this study suggest that professional learning should be differentiated for teachers as it considers teachers beliefs, experiences, and work context during the learning process. Teachers can form communities of practice to support each other’s learning goals and implementation of CRP.

This thesis is primarily a philosophical exploration of emotions. From a feminist, liberal perspective, I focus on the cultivation of morally appropriate emotions, particularly compassion, in education. My central claim is that emotions are essential elements of human intelligence and wellbeing. They are complex responses to events of significance to us and, because emotions play a central role in our lives, they help to define who we are and why we are as we are; they are expressions of our values and what we value. Emotions can motivate us to action, and so we need, if we want just institutions, to ensure that those actions are ethical and proportionate. On the view that emotions can be rational, and that they result from eudaimonistic judgements, if we want a society of healthy human beings who have concern for others, who know how to treat others fairly and sensitively, how to take action when things go wrong, then we need to attend, I argue here, to emotional health in education. We should aim to habituate the emotional capacities of all individuals as an enduring resource of good character. At issue, is how to educate young people to have healthy emotions that are ethical, proportionate, discerning and deliberative, that have ethical action as their goals, and which do not negatively discriminate on the basis of gender. In the development of emotional wellbeing and moral character, compassion is an emotion that merits particular attention. Such is the potential ethical power of this emotion, that I propose compassion to be the arch-guardian of the moral domain and, accordingly, a prerequisite for the cultivation of moral sentiment and respect for human dignity. A consideration of emotions will raise questions about who should feel, how we should feel, when, and to what extent, emotions such as compassion, sympathy or anger in acceptable and appropriate ways. I argue, too, that we should attend to the how and why of interpreting these emotions. Whilst a number of analyses reveal how powerful emotional interpretations are in stigmatising, labeling or stereotyping men and women, rarely, if ever, are questions raised in education about the assumptions on which gendered emotions rest. I respond here by proposing that if education is to serve a role in the cultivation of morally appropriate emotions, then we must question, and should no longer accept, gendered emotions, that is emotions that belong to, or are more ‘natural’ for one sex than another. Acknowledging the importance of care for wellbeing, I question the claims of some care ethicists who would have us believe that care does not require moral theory and that it is not an issue of justice. I assert, to the contrary, that unless an ethics of care rests on sound moral and conceptual constructs, it will perpetuate a bifurcation of emotion and reason whilst sustaining stereotypically gendered emotions. In order to illuminate my argument for the cultivation of de-gendered, just emotions, I draw upon empirical research on the effects of deformed emotional attitudes towards women and children which seriously impede their wellbeing and functioning. I draw, too, on novels, both for the exemplification of my arguments and as a vehicle which, creatively and sensitively used, can help us to shape our imaginative and empathic capacities to take into the folds of our consciousness people who are both similar to and remote and different from us. I am accompanied throughout the thesis by a fictional pupil ‘Nancy’ with and through whom I exculpate complex theoretical and philosophical issues. The thesis re-affirms the importance of cultivating morally appropriate de-gendered emotions, particularly compassion, and concludes with the proposal that we should incorporate and embed an understanding of the emotions in the education curricula, for both pupils and those who teach them. I propose, too, that emotions might be regarded as an architectonic capability anchoring and influencing all other human capabilities.

In Scotland, as in many countries, the relationship between research, policy and practice has been complicated, not least because of the multiple stakeholders involved in the change process. This interpretive study focuses on Assessment is for Learning (AifL), a centrally-funded development programme (2002-2008) established to address concerns raised in reviews of assessment practice and intended to create a coherent system of assessment for pupils aged 3-14 in Scottish schools. AifL’s central aspiration was to learn from previous experience of curriculum and assessment development and develop evidence-based national policy and practice in assessment which met the needs of all stakeholders. The study explores the policy messages communicated, and considers how policy communities can influence the relationship between national policy and practice in assessment. The design of the AifL programme was influenced by research on both assessment and transformational change. A crucial feature of the change process was the opportunity it provided for local contextualisation through the engagement of local education authorities, a group perceived as particularly important in ensuring the long term sustainability of the programme. AifL co-ordinators were appointed to take forward this important role in all 32 local authorities in Scotland but, although they shared a title, background experience and the nature of their appointment meant that this was not a homogenous group. Through analysis of interviews with AifL co-ordinators in seven Scottish local authorities, the study sought to explore the process of change and, in particular, what policy imperatives such as 'local contextualisation' actually mean in practice. It considered co-ordinators’ background experience, their perception of their role and the direction of assessment development within their local authority. The study has been conducted from an insider standpoint and the small-scale nature of the study allowed exploration of contextualization through narratives revealing individual perspectives. It raised several issues for, while the study had intended to explore approaches to building capacity and discern the impact of difference on national policy, the narratives themselves altered its direction. What emerged from this further illustrates the complexity of change for, although national assessment policy reinforced AifL, the study revealed that prevailing concerns with accountability had compromised its realisation. Whilst AifL had recognised that changing assessment practice required reform of the system as a whole, local contextualisation focused on formative assessment in classrooms to the comparative neglect of other functions of assessment. Other policy legislation had led to systems and structures for accountability in local authorities which placed persistent demands on teachers, so that identified tensions in assessment remained largely unresolved. To address conflicts between what are currently two separate streams of activity and improve the validity of the school evaluation process, assessment literacy generally and alignment of support and improvement roles specifically require further development. The study indicated that national reform initiatives dependent on local contextualisation must not only appreciate the multiple perspectives of stakeholders as AifL attempted to do, but also seek to expose and address competing priorities, underlying hierarchies and the influence of individuals with specific agendas. Policy messages should be clear and unambiguous taking account of relevant research findings and, crucially, must be reinforced in behaviours which reflect discourse and text. These conclusions may have implications for Curriculum for Excellence, a major reform of the Scottish curriculum. Much can be learned from what AifL managed to achieve - and more from what has been learned from the experience.

The demands of the continually changing and developing workplace require individuals to be adaptable, multi-disciplined and with the ability to work collaboratively, often in virtual environments. Professional engineers of today must meet these demands and have appropriate business and communication skills to operate in today's competitive, fast-moving, global environment. Yet these engineers still need to remain productive and routinely keep abreast of technological advances for their day-to-day working requirements. Thus, a range of continually renewable competencies is essential, which in turn puts pressure on both industry and academia to consider alternative ways to inform and educate their engineers and students. To help address these requirements, electronic learning (e-leaming) has been researched as a possible solution to facilitate a more flexible, distributed, collaborative, self-directed, virtual learning environment for both work-based professional engineers and engineering students. This research revealed gaps in both the existing literature and working practices regarding the elearning needs of engineers and in current approaches to meet these needs. Consequently, the main objective of the research was to develop a mechanism to assist providers of e-leaming to construct effective e-leaming activities in engineering development environments. In this context, 'development' environments refer to the engineer's product-development environment and the engineering student's study environment, with the increasing responsibility for selfdevelopment in an engineering career. The research identified and investigated factors that affect learning in these engineering environments, and examined current Web-based technologies to support and enhance learning experiences. A framework was developed as the mechanism to group the different and non-comparable learning factors together into philosophy, delivery, management and technology categories. These learning factors can be connected and sequenced differently in the categories, depending on the learning requirements. Hence, the main research innovation has been the creation of this framework to structure, link and order key learning factors, which offers guidance to e-leaming providers developing e-leaming environments. A predominant action research methodology was adopted for the research, as the author was involved with engineering environments and their e-leaming practices, decisions, developments and implementations in varying degrees. The main areas investigated for the research were: 1) Exploring learning methods & preferred learning styles in the engineering environment. Important findings here identified that engineers have a strong visual learning style preference and practise experiential learning in their engineering environments. 2) Examining technologies to support and enhance learning. This provided an understanding of 'hard' computer and Web capabilities, and 'soft' non-tangible technologies. Web technologies were of particular interest to this research due to their wide reach and interactive impact on the modem working and learning environments. 3) Investigating marketing considerations from the Web-based learning (WBL) providers' viewpoint. Marketing issues, products and services of WBL providers were investigated. This compared what and how the market offered and identified the business aspects of WBL. 4) Developing an e-learning framework. The research was consolidated to create a novel framework that grouped disparate learning factors for effective e-leaming development. 5) Studying practical engineering e-learning applications. Areas of the proposed framework were validated and refined from the case study data and experiences. Critical success factors (CSF) were derived to provide a business perspective for e-leaming developments, and these complemented the framework's learning factors. The above areas have been addressed in detail and documented in separate Engineering Doctorate submissions. This Executive Summary outlines and consolidates these areas, and describes, exemplifies and verifies the various factors within the e-leaming framework and the CSFs. The rationale, applications and guidelines for the e-leaming framework are also discussed. The framework provides a toolkit for building effective e-leaming activities in engineering development environments. Thus, the research shows that e-leaming can provide the solution to facilitate a flexible, continuous learning environment for engineers.

This doctoral research aimed to investigate how subject matter experts (SMEs) and game experts can collaborate to design and develop games for use in formal educational contexts. The research began with a literature review of key concepts and issues associated with game-based learning (GBL), which led to the process of defining and redefining the overarching research question, along with its scope and position in academia. A three-phase strategy was adopted to segregate the research into exploratory, confirmative and explanatory phases, wherein each phase comprised interrelated studies. These studies were integrated through the Spiral Research model to enable temporal focus shift, cross-case analyses and cross-case syntheses. In the exploratory studies, the perceived potentials of games and GBL in the formal educational context were examined revealing the differing views between SMEs and game experts. This in turn guided the conduct of the confirmative studies which compared the attitude of SMEs and game experts in both the 'usual' and the 'ideal' conditions towards GBL practice and collaboration that involves teachers, SMEs and educational game experts. Two questionnaire surveys were carried out, and the findings revealed that, under ideal conditions, both SMEs and game experts held positive attitudes to GBL—the games used, the teachers who use games in teaching, the studios that develop educational games, and the collaboration between SMEs and game experts. However, the respondents were uncertain whether the perceived 'ideal' GBL conditions were usually the case or not. Follow-up interviews were conducted in the explanatory phase in order to uncover the reasons behind these changes in attitudes. While a variety of reasons were found and presented as parts of the findings of the research, particularly the challenges faced in GBL practice and the problems encountered in GBL collaboration, this thesis asserts that effective communication between SMEs and game experts is the key success factor in resolving issues associated with GBL. Besides, there was a pressing need for models of GBL collaboration; hence the integrated GBL model was also developed. The model not only incorporates GBL practice into GBL collaboration, but also highlights the importance of effective communication in those processes. Despite being limited by methodological constraints and available resources, both the Spiral Research model and the integrated GBL collaboration model have made substantial contributions to the research into GBL, particularly for formal educational contexts.

This thesis discusses the topic of how to improve adaptive and personalized e-learning in order to provide novel learning experiences. A recent literature review revealed that adaptive and personalized e-learning systems are not widely used. There is a lack of interoperability between adaptive systems and learning management systems, in addition to limited collaborative and social features. First of all, this thesis investigates the interoperability issue via two case studies. The first case study focuses on how to achieve interoperability between adaptive systems and learning management systems using e-learning standards and the second case study focuses on how to augment e-learning standards with adaptive features. Secondly, this thesis proposes a new social framework for personalized e-learning, in order to provide adaptive and personalized e-learning platforms with new social features. This is not just about creating learning content, but also about developing new ways of learning. For instance, in the presented vision, adaptive learning does not refer to individuals only, but also to groups. Furthermore, the boundaries between authors and learners become less distinct in the Web 2.0 context. Finally, a new social personalized prototype is introduced based on the new social framework for personalized e-learning in order to test and evaluate this framework. The implementation and evaluation of the new system were carried out through a number of case studies.