The focus of this thesis is the study of mobile learning, specifically learning in different locations and under various contextual situations, from the perspective of university students. I initially derived and designed a theoretical mobile context-aware learning schedule (mCALS) framework from an extensive literature review. Its objective is to recommend appropriate learning materials to students based on their current locations and circumstances. The framework uses a learning schedule (i.e. electronic-based diary) to inform the location and available time a student has for learning/studying at a particular location. Thereafter, a number of factors are taken into consideration for the recommendation of appropriate learning materials. These are the student’s learning styles, knowledge level, concentration level, frequency of interruption at that location and their available time for learning/studying. In order to determine the potential deployment of the framework as a mobile learning application by intended users, I carried out three types of feasibility studies. First, a pedagogical study was conducted using interviews to explore together with students (a) what their learning requirements were when studying in a mobile environment, (b) whether the framework could potentially be used effectively to support their studies and, (c) using this user-centred understanding, refined user requirements of the framework. Second, a diary study was conducted where I collected data and analysed the usability feasibility of the framework by (a) determining whether students could plan their daily schedule ahead and keep to it, (b) ascertaining which learning contexts were important and, (c) establishing which learning materials were appropriate under which situations. Two validation studies were conducted. The first one was an online experiment utilising Java learning objects. Participants of this study were suggested appropriate learning objects to study with, based on their amount of available time, current motivation level for learning and their proficiency level of Java. The second validation study was an investigation into high-quality Java learning objects available in the public domain. Finally, a technical design of the framework was carried out to determine whether the framework at present could realistically be implemented using current mobile technologies. The data analyses of the feasibility studies show that (a) a learning schedule approach is successful to an extent in obtaining location and available time information to indicate accurate values of these contexts, (b) different learners may require different personalisation strategies when selecting appropriate learning materials for them in mobile environments, and (c) the mCALS framework is particularly well-suited for self-regulated students. I also proposed a set of suggestion rules which can be used to recommend appropriate Java learning materials to students in different contexts. The validation studies show that 1) the proposed suggestion rules are effective in recommending appropriate materials to learners in their situation, in order to enhance their learning experiences, and 2) there are a sufficiently large number of high-quality LOs available in the public domain that can be incorporated for use within my framework. Finally, the development of mCALS has been considered from three perspectives – pedagogical, usability and technical. These perspectives consist of critical components that should be considered when developing and evaluating mobile learning software applications. The results demonstrated that the mCALS framework can potentially be used by students in different locations and situations, and appropriate learning materials can be selected to them, in order to enhance their learning experiences.

This thesis presents research performed over the span of 9 years in the area of adaptive multimedia interfaces (specifically Adaptive Hypermedia in eLearning), with special focus on a cultural education model. In particular, the thesis looks at how the adaptive interfaces can cater for cultural diversity in education, instead of presenting a homogenous delivery for the whole student population, regardless of their cultural background. Specifically, this research provides a framework for cultural adaptation, CAE (Cultural Artefacts in Education), based on Marcus & Gould’s web model, as well as its source, Hofstede’s indexes. This framework is supported by a questionnaire, the CAE questionnaire, a key product of this research, which has been shown to map on Hofstede’s indexes, and which has been used to model features for personalised adaptive interfaces for different cultures. The questionnaire is in English language, but this work also presents a study showing to what extent the results obtained are similar to native language questionnaire results. The CAE Framework is further extended by providing two ontologies, a full-scale ontology, called the CAE-F ontology, and a light-weight ontology, called the CAE-L ontology. These ontologies detail the HCI (Human Computer Interaction) features that need to be integrated into an adaptive system in order to cater for cultural adaptation. These features can be used for all types of adaptation, as defined in adaptive hypermedia. The latter ontology is then illustrated in a study of eleven countries, for the specific cultural adaptation case of interface adaptation, of which current research is extremely sparse. These illustrations are further used in a formative evaluation, which establishes to what extent the cultural adaptation ontologies can be applied. This is followed by a summative, real-life evaluation of cultural adaptation for Romanian students, and the results are reported and discussed. This study validates the proof of concept for using CAE in a real world setting. Finally, the overall achievements of this work are summarised, conclusions are drawn, and recommendation for further research are done.

Behavioural, emotional and social difficulties in school-aged children are a significant problem in the UK. Such children represent a difficult challenge for educational institutions. Teachers and experts have said that these children find it almost impossible to stay on task in educational activities for more than a trivial amount of time. Interest in computer games as a medium for learning and other non-entertainment purposes has risen significantly in recent years, in part because they can provide an engaging experience to motivate users. This makes the medium an attractive tool for this demographic. There are many problems however facing designers who would attempt to integrate educational content into a game platform. The issue of effective integration between game and education has long been a problematic issue affecting educational game development. Gameplay aspects can often be overlooked in academic projects. Good educational games should integrate the learning content and game experience, this is something that is particularly difficult to achieve effectively. This thesis details a study to design educational games to aid behavioural emotional and social learning. The methodology attempts to blend good game design principles with educational content in such a way that users can be engaged with both the activity and the educational concepts contained within. Two trials were undertaken in schools with participants suffering from a range of severe behavioural emotional or social problems. The results provide evidence suggesting that, if educational gameplay is achieved, these children can be engaged, not only with the game as an activity, but with the educational content on which it is based. The implications are then explored and the potential of educational gameplay evaluated in context of the wider industry of educational and serious games. While this method of integrating educational content within game platforms is effective, it is difficult to achieve, in many subject areas, perhaps prohibitively so.

Existing evaluation research has presented equivocal findings regarding the efficacy of outdoor adventure education (OAE) interventions for vulnerable young people. The evidence-base is weakened by methodological limitations and a paucity of unified theoretical models. The current study presents an evaluation of the psychological impact of a naturally occurring OAE intervention for children perceived to be vulnerable by their mainstream primary school teachers. This study attempts to address previous methodological limitations and to facilitate a real-world application of the Adventure Experience Paradigm (AEP: Martin & Priest, 1986; Priest, 1992, 1993). The mixed-methods research design involves an exploratory qualitative phase, a randomised control trial (RCT, n = 38) and group interviews with participants (n = 27). The RCT forms the most significant part of the design, measuring the impact of the intervention on participants’ locus of control, self-perceptions and teacher-reported emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD). The results show that the intervention did not have a statistically significant effect on participants’ locus of control or self-perceptions. There is some evidence to suggest that the intervention had a positive impact on teacher perceptions of participants’ EBD, however, these findings are limited by a possible Hawthorne Effect. The group interviews allowed the researcher to explore participants’ perceptions of the OAE intervention however, conclusions are tentative due to the surface-level nature of the thematic analysis procedures employed. Participants appeared to perceive the intervention in a positive light with emerging themes of ‘The Physical Experience’, ‘Outside Comfort Zone’ and ‘Competence’ identified. These findings appear to contradict the quantitative findings and offer support for the AEP. Overall, the validity of the quantitative findings is limited by low statistical power and ceiling effects as a result of sampling error. These limitations are discussed and the findings are interpreted in line with existing research and the AEP. Implications for future research and professional practice are also considered. The findings support the benefits of mixed-methods approaches and RCT designs in future OAE evaluation research.

Currently, the data mining and machine learning fields are facing new challenges because of the amount of information that is collected and needs processing. Many sophisticated learning approaches cannot simply cope with large and complex domains, because of the unmanageable execution times or the loss of prediction and generality capacities that occurs when the domains become more complex. Therefore, to cope with the volumes of information of the current realworld problems there is a need to push forward the boundaries of sophisticated data mining techniques. This thesis is focused on improving the efficiency of Evolutionary Learning systems in large scale domains. Specifically the objective of this thesis is improving the efficiency of the Bioinformatic Hierarchical Evolutionary Learning (BioHEL) system, a system designed with the purpose of handling large domains. This is a classifier system that uses an Iterative Rule Learning approach to generate a set of rules one by one using consecutive Genetic Algorithms. This system have shown to be very competitive so far in large and complex domains. In particular, BioHEL has obtained very important results when solving protein structure prediction problems and has won related merits, such as being placed among the best algorithms for this purpose at the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) in 2008 and 2010, and winning the bronze medal at the HUMIES Awards for Human-competitive results in 2007. However, there is still a need to analyse this system in a principled way to determine how the current mechanisms work together to solve larger domains and determine the aspects of the system that can be improved towards this aim. To fulfil the objective of this thesis, the work is divided in two parts. In the first part of the thesis exhaustive experimentation was carried out to determine ways in which the system could be improved. From this exhaustive analysis three main weaknesses are pointed out: a) the problem-dependancy of parameters in BioHEL's fitness function, which results in having a system difficult to set up and which requires an extensive preliminary experimentation to determine the adequate values for these parameters; b) the execution time of the learning process, which at the moment does not use any parallelisation techniques and depends on the size of the training sets; and c) the lack of global supervision over the generated solutions which comes from the usage of the Iterative Rule Learning paradigm and produces larger rule sets in which there is no guarantee of minimality or maximal generality. The second part of the thesis is focused on tackling each one of the weaknesses abovementioned to have a system capable of handling larger domains. First a heuristic approach to set parameters within BioHEL's fitness function is developed. Second a new parallel evaluation process that runs on General Purpose Graphic Processing Units was developed. Finally, post-processing operators to tackle the generality and cardinality of the generated solutions are proposed. By means of these enhancements we managed to improve the BioHEL system to reduce both the learning and the preliminary experimentation time, increase the generality of the final solutions and make the system more accessible for end-users. Moreover, as the techniques discussed in this thesis can be easily extended to other Evolutionary Learning systems we consider them important additions to the research in this field towards tackling large scale domains.

This study explores how experienced science teachers promote conceptual change. It examines how instructional strategies, learning methods (Darden, 1991) and conceptual change interrelate. Three research methods (expert micro-teaching, verbal protocols and retrospective debriefing) were used. Data were video-recorded and managed using NVivo. Six groups of 11 year-old pupils took part (three girls and three boys) in each expert micro-teaching interview, led by a science specialist (Advanced Skills Teacher). A ‘Concurrent Verbal Protocol and Retrospective Debriefing’ interview (Taylor and Dionne, 2000) happened with the teacher approximately one month later. Six teachers participated altogether. About fifteen hours of interview data were analysed using grounded theory methods. The interpretivist theoretical perspective (symbolic interactionism) was underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology. What can be considered evidence is inevitably affected by the researcher’s methodological position. So what constitutes reliable evidence can be contentious. Appropriate criteria for evaluating the grounded theory emerging from this study were used. Interpretivist approaches for investigating conceptual change in school science are necessary to avoid dominance by positivist literature. This approach, proved successful in other fields (Pressley, 2000), is new to this context. The assumption that instructional strategy is a plan does not adequately explain the data collected here. However, abandoning attempts to unpick complicated interactions between pupils and teacher whilst learning takes place, leaves practitioners without guidance. Consensus exists among most conceptual change researchers that instructional strategies, learning methods and conceptual change must be considered together where possible. This present study proposes a grounded theory for how experienced science teachers promote conceptual change and questions how instructional strategy is understood in the literature. Findings show that during and between sporadic periods of ‘conceptual conflict’ participants used eleven ‘teaching and learning techniques’. The relative weight given to each technique was termed the ‘strategic profile’ of the teacher. ‘Tactics’ is the theory of the use of teaching and learning techniques in conceptual combat. ‘Strategy’ is the theory of the use of such conceptual combats to try to achieve an aim (here to promote conceptual change). Teachers (and pupils) demonstrated and described tactical and strategic behaviour. Techniques, tactics and strategies frequently failed. How participants managed such ‘friction’ was described. Teachers and researchers view classroom dynamics from different perspectives. This study argues that an interpretivist approach, which moves back and forth between the particular and the general, can help bridge the “gap” between practice and theory in this field (Duit et al., 2008, p.629).

This inter-disciplinary study develops a group level approach to learning design and practice in the classroom. This is supported by the use of technology to support learners in their collaborative development of questions. General use of these technologies has tended to focus on tutors setting questions and students responding. This thesis explores a more sophisticated view of these technologies using a student-generated perspective. Five case studies are presented including induction, professional development and placement review. These cases are each in different contexts. This study also develops a group-level concept of learning design. This approach has a structural view of group learning which consists of different ways of organising interaction amongst the whole class. In addition, it also has a psychological view of group learning based around the psychological impact of group membership and different group-level perspectives. This is in contrast with conventional instructional design approaches to pedagogy which are based on representative individuals. In response to this group-level approach, this study reviews individual and socio-cultural theories of learning on order to understand the interaction between individual and whole-group perspectives which are a feature of this practice. Social Identity theory is added to this as a potential bridge between these different theoretical frameworks. Shared Thinking, the name given to this group-level practice, completes the design, theory and practice framework of this study. This practice points to the pedagogical complexity implied by new uses of classroom technologies discussed in this study. The combination of an instrumentalist and a social psychological aspect of pedagogy illustrate this complexity based around the development and manipulation of a shared sense of identity. The tutor’s role therefore combines management of the process with the curation of social identity.

This is the first study in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) integration into Early Childhood Education (ECE) to call upon a blended theoretical framework of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, Fullan’s concepts of educational change and complexity theory. In drawing the collected data together within the framework of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, a range of linear factors that influence practitioners’ use of ICT in the playroom at the micro-level (teachers’ pedagogical beliefs, confidence, technological pedagogical knowledge); meso-level (local school policy, leadership, support) and macro-level (national ECE curriculum and national ICT policy) were identified. Currently, structured research into ICT integration in ECE is extremely limited in Saudi Arabia. This thesis addresses this substantial knowledge gap in the practice of ICT integration in Saudi Arabian ECE settings through a collective case study approach of Saudi Arabian programs. According to the literature, Scotland, for some time, has been at the forefront of developing strategies for the integration of ICT into early years. Policy in Scotland has also been supported by a range of literature, studies and reference to ICT use in the curriculum; that have assisted practitioners in making important pedagogical decisions for using ICT in the playroom. For these reasons, Scotland is included in this research as an example that can provide some insights for improvement in the Saudi Arabian context. Six case studies were used to address the study’s research questions: four in Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia and two in Scotland (located between Glasgow City Council and East Dunbartonshire). As part of the research’s endorsement of a holistic approach, the researcher triangulated multiple research methods (questionnaire, semi-structured interview, playroom observation and documentary analysis) to investigate the status of ICT use in preschool settings and factors that influenced teachers’ ICT practices. The target community was made up of practitioners in ECE settings, including head teachers and practitioners from both private and public preschools. Research findings suggest that practitioners in both locations hold a positive perspective of the importance of ICT integration into ECE. However, enthusiasm and positive attitudes do not always lead to high levels of ICT integration. In Saudi Arabia in particular, much of the integration is achieved in an informational, teacher-centred/traditionalist manner, rather than encouraging child-centred, constructivist approaches. The results revealed that teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and their relationship to teaching practices strongly influenced integration practices. Furthermore, school characteristics were equally, if not more, influential upon integration levels. In general, in the Saudi ECE sector, the journey to ICT integration is at an initial, unstructured stage and observed attempts at integration are largely the result of practitioners’ individual efforts. Investigating ICT integration into teaching and learning in the Scottish preschool case studies provides examples of child-centred learning through ICT that suggest ways of integrating ICT fruitfully into the micro-level of the playroom. The Saudi context can benefit from examining these constructivist practices. Scotland is more advanced in ICT integration than Saudi Arabia because it has a policy for ICT integration into ECE; though, in both sectors there exist similar factors that influence practitioners’ approaches to integration at both the micro- and meso-levels (practitioner confidence, ICT-based activity management skills). Practitioners in both contexts hope for the comprehensive improvement of ICT integration, and there is a clear desire for an explicit educational policy for ICT in preschool education and for continuous teacher training. Overall, this research provides the first detailed picture of Saudi preschool teachers’ ICT practices, perspectives and attitudes toward technology use in ECE and will have the capacity to inform present and future national ECE policy. Furthermore,findings from both case studies provide international stakeholders and practitioners with a series of guidelines for effective ICT integration.

There has been much written about active learning in higher education over the last few decades however, there is a lack of a cohesive definition or any critique of this term. Active learning is often associated with learning and teaching which is progressive and involves student participation. As the demographic of students in higher education continues to change, learning and teaching needs to adapt, therefore it is important to explore what teachers and students mean when they use the term active learning. The main aim of this research project was to investigate active learning in the context of higher education. This research includes an exploration of whether there is a relationship between active learning and good teaching as well as investigating if the understanding and practice of active learning is influenced by teachers’ and students’ beliefs about the purpose of university education. In this research, active learning is considered predominantly from a UK perspective, and alongside this I also provide some small international examples of perspectives on active learning. Finally, drawing on the literature and findings of this project, this research offers two new conceptualisations of active learning in higher education. One main research question guided this project: what is active learning in the context of higher education? There were two sub questions: is there a relationship between good teaching and active learning and how do students’ and teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of a university education influence the practice of active learning? Employing case study methodology, data for this research project was collected at the University of Glasgow, UK. A small amount of data was also collected using opportunistic sampling in three international settings: An-Najah National University, Nablus, occupied Palestinian territories; Hawler Medical University, Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq; and University of Cape Coast, Ghana. In total there were 13 Interviews with teaching staff, 3 focus groups with students and 14 observations of teaching. Data was collected across a range of disciplines and included postgraduate, undergraduate and adult education. The main findings in this research were: (i) active learning in higher education continues to be a messy, complex and an inconsistently defined term; (ii) active learning can be more than just physical activity, it can be a set of beliefs and attitudes towards learning itself; (iii) national culture and context are not significantly influential in the practice and understanding of active learning, many themes in this research were trans-contextual; (iv) active learning can happen when teachers give students a framework from which they can build, shape and direct their own learning. This research offers two new conceptualisations of active learning; the first relates to how teachers promote active learning, the second relates to how active learning is understood and practised by students. These new conceptualisations challenge previous research in active learning which has tended to be over-simplified and under-critiqued. The main recommendations of this research are: (i) that teachers and students must continue to have dialogue about active learning, what it means, what it looks like and its perceived benefits, (ii) that teachers should be aware that they can promote active learning in different ways, (iii) Teachers should adopt teaching strategies which help promote a deep approach to active learning and students should be willing to be reflective and take responsibility for their learning.

O presente trabalho parte do debate posto pelo pensamento pós-moderno aos estatutos da modernidade e procura investigar sua relação com a teoria e prática educacional e mais especificamente escolar e com o campo do currículo. Buscou-se analisar como o pensamento, o discurso e a condição pósmoderno podem e/ou afetam o currículo e a vida da escola. Para isso, a pesquisa lançou mão de um estudo de caso de uma escola pública de Ensino Fundamental de forma a analisar as múltiplas dimensões da vida escolar e as ações, práticas e discursos dos diferentes integrantes da escola ? professores, alunos, direção, coordenação e agentes escolares. Buscou-se assim, refletir sobre como a escola e seu currículo se colocam diante do pensamento, discurso e condição pós-modernos, e como a posição pós-estruturalista pode ?ler? os fenômenos do currículo escolar. Em termos de resultados da pesquisa procurou-se estar atento ao que dizia o campo, a escola, sem perder de vista quais debates travavam os diferentes matizes do pós-moderno em educação. O lema do ?aprender a aprender?, seja como ideologia do capitalismo atual, seja como forma discursiva dominante no cenário pedagógico contemporâneo, mostrou-se presente em práticas e discursos de diversos integrantes da escola. Em um segundo momento, refletiu-se sobre como o mundo do trabalho e a cidadania se interseccionam com o universo da escola e seu currículo. Analisou-se, assim, os desafios e avanços que esta escola tem conseguido para nela desenvolver e implementar uma cultura mais democrática em sua gestão e por procurar aproximar-se da comunidade, vinculando-se através da cultura, do esporte e do saber. Por outro lado, as barreiras sociais impostas às camadas pobres para a mobilidade e ascensão social ? por meio do emprego, do acesso aos bens de consumo e da extensão da vida estudantil até a universidade ? tornam ainda maiores na medida em que a escola está submetida à lógica neoliberal do Estado Mínimo, à maximização dos resultados com o mínimo de recursos financeiros, à desvalorização do professor e a uma pedagogia calcada no aprender a aprender. No terceiro momento, analisou-se as contribuições da perspectiva pós-estruturalista, sobretudo de linha foucaultiana, na compreensão do currículo escolar. Para isso, compreendeu-se o currículo como política cultural, como lugar de disputa por determinadas narrativas e pelo ?direito? de se narrar o ?outro?. A abordagem destas questões referentes ao diálogo entre teoria e empiria, se guiou pela proposição de se situar criticamente em relação a pós-modernidade. Seja relevando seus aportes que enfrentam certos estatutos da modernidade e seus efeitos de dominação, como o universalismo e a neutralidade da razão e da ciência, as meta narrativas e a concepção de sujeito do conhecimento autocentrado presentes nas teorias (críticas) educacionais, seja pela necessidade de se apontar o risco de adesão aos ideais neoliberais do capitalismo atual através de práticas pedagógicas e políticas educacionais, o objetivo deste estudo foi refletir sobre possíveis interconexões e relações a respeito da teoria e prática educacionais com o pós-moderno quando se debruça sobre a escola e o currículo na atualidade. Este estudo se balizou, dentre outros autores, em Silva (1999, 1999b), Moreira (1994, 1997), Duarte (2001), Canário (1996), Foucault (2000) e Santos (1999). / This work starts from the discussion presented by the post-modern thought before the rules of modernity and tries to investigate its relation with the educational theory and practice, and more specifically the school?s and its curriculum field. I tried to analyze how the post-modern way of thinking, the discourse and the condition can and/or may affect the curriculum and school life. For this, the research has studied a primary public school to analyze the multiple dimensions in school life and the actions, practices and discourses of different school members ? teachers, students, the principal, coordinators and school agents. Therefore, I aimed to reflect how the school and its curriculum are placed before the post-modern thought, discourse and conditions, and how the poststructural position can ?read? the phenomena of the school?s curriculum. According to the results of the research I tried to be aware of what the field and the school said, without losing track of what discussions were held between the different shades of the post-modern in education. The motto of ?learning to learn?, either as an ideology of the present capitalism, or as a dominant discursive form in the contemporary pedagogical scenario has showed itself to be present in practices and iscourses by different school members. On a second moment, I reflected how the working world and the citizenship intertwine with the school universe and its curriculum. I analyzed, therefore, the challenges and the advances that this school has achieved to develop, to implement a more democratic culture by means of its direction and to get closer of the community, binding through culture, sport, and knowledge. On the other hand, the social barriers imposed to the poorer tracts of society to provide social mobility and ascension ? though jobs, the access to consuming goods and the extension of student life up to college ? have become even greater as long as school is submitted to the neo-liberal logic of the Minimal State, to the maximization of the results with the minimum financial resources, to the devaluation of teachers, and a pedagogy rooted in learning to learn. On a third moment, I analyzed the contributions of the post-structural perspective, mainly of the Foucault line, for the understanding of the school curriculum. For this, I understood the curriculum as a cultural policy, as a place for dispute of certain narratives and for the ?right? to narrate the ?other?. The approach of these questions concerning the dialogue between the theory and the empirics was guided by the proposition of placing oneself critically before post-modernity. Either emphasizing its rapports that face certain rules of modernity and its dominating effects, like the universalism and the neutrality of reason and science, the discursive targets and the conception of the subject of self-centered knowledge present in the (critical) educational theories, or the need to point out the risk of adhering to the neo-liberal ideals of the present capitalism through pedagogical practices and educational policies, the object of this study was to reflect about some possible interconnections and relationships between the educational theory and practice and the post-modern when we focus on the school and its curriculum today. This study was based, among other authors, on Silva (1999, 1999b), Moreira (1994, 1997), Duarte (2001), Canário (1996), Foucault (2000) and Santos (1999).