The curriculum for ICT in UK schools was discontinued in September 2012 and replaced by a 'rebranded' subject of Computing, divided into three sub domains: Computer Science; Information Technology; and digital literacy. The latter was positioned as basic technical skills. There were concerns in the education community that the new curriculum promoted programming and computer science topics to the detriment of digital literacy and applied uses of technology. Much of the Computing education literature perpetuates the hegemony of the logical and abstract, and implies computational thinking and rationality are synonymous with criticality. During the same period, a maker culture was growing rapidly in the UK, and discourses around these activities promoted an entirely different notion of digital literacy, aligned with the wide body of literacy literature that focuses on notions of empowerment and criticality rather than basic functional skills. A digital maker tool called the Raspberry Pi was released with the intention of supporting the development of computer science and digital making competence, and thus sat at the boundary of the academic and maker communities. This thesis argues that developing 'criticality' is a vital component of Computing education and explores how learning activities with the Raspberry Pi might support development of 'criticality'. In setting the scene for the investigation, I will first explore the notions underpinning discourse around both computational and critical thinking and digital literacy, suggesting that the frictions would be best overcome by abandoning abstract constructs of knowledge and assumptions that it is possible to separate theory and practice. I show how the term 'critical' is itself problematic in the literature and I look to Wenger's social theory of learning to avoid the individualistic limits of Papert's constructionism, a popular learning theory in Computing education. Wenger's constructs of knowledgeability and competence help tell a different story of what it means to be a learner of the practice of Computing, both in learning for academic purposes and with intentions towards becoming a practitioner. In concert with learning citizenship, these constructs offer a more ethical framing of 'criticality'. Informed by this theoretical position, I suggest an original, exploratory implementation of Q methodology to explore learning with technology in school settings. I qualitatively compare 'before' and 'after' Q studies that represent perspectives at the individual and collective level, with reference to observations of classroom learning. The methodology facilitates a nuanced and complex investigation and the findings of the project suggest that where pupils are already predisposed to the subject, working with the Raspberry Pi develops a broader knowledgeability, but where there is no such predisposition, a pedagogy of expressibility influences how participation in Raspberry Pi learning activities may impact knowledgeability.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:31:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Vera Rita de Mello Ferreira.pdf: 1305531 bytes, checksum: e0eda02d980a9828958a84072155a449 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-02-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The main goal of this thesis is to offer data useful for the constitution and consolidation of Economic Psychology in Brazil. The underlying hypothesis is that information about this area may stimulate interest in it and create favourable conditions to build a network of researchers, based on interdisciplinary cooperation. A historical perspective has been adopted, employing the analytical-descriptive method. Introduc tion to this area, that belongs to the interface Psychology-Economics, comprehends an overview of its situation in countries where it has already been established, historical roots and origins, and the main models formulated by relevant contemporary authors within it. Historical perspectives, definitions of the discipline and three essential concepts rationality, economic behaviour and decision- making are discussed throughout this research. The last two chapters offer two models: the first one aims to contribute to the issue of decisionmaking and is based on psychoanalytical theories and observations, focusing the polarity illusion vs. thinking, supported by the conception of emotions prevailing over reason; the second one discusses potential insertions for Economic Psychology in Brazil, emphasizing the importance of informing the population on their economic behaviour and how decisions are made, which would include both knowledge about Economics and its mechanisms, and psychological operations as well, in order to help people to take over their own decision- making processes in the economic realm. It is suggested that data gathered in this research may expand the premises over which economic policies are routinely elaborated so as to bring them closer to a more realistic level, both externally and psychologically / Esta tese tem como objetivo fornecer subsídios para a construção e instalação da Psicologia Econômica no Brasil, partindo-se da hipótese de que o conhecimento deste campo possa despertar o in teresse por ele e facilitar a constituição de uma rede de pesquisadores com colaboração interdisciplinar. Desenvolvida a partir de uma perspectiva histórica, adota o método analítico-descritivo. A apresentação da área, situada na interface Psicologia-Economia, tem início com uma visão panorâmica da situação atual nos países em que se encontra constituída. A seguir, percorre-se suas origens e principais modelos, elaborados por autores contemporâneos, a partir de obras que se destacam dentro dela. A perspectiva histórica, definições da disciplina e três conceitos básicos racionalidade, comportamento econômico e tomada de decisões estão presentes em todo o trabalho. Os dois últimos capítulos oferecem propostas: a primeira é um modelo que se pretende que contribua para a investigação das decisões econômicas, fundamentado em teorias e observações psicanalíticas, com foco sobre a polaridade ilusão e pensar, que repousa na concepção do mundo emocional que sobrepõe-se à razão; a segunda proposta discute possíveis modos de inserção da Psicologia Econômica no Brasil, com ênfase sobre a importância de proporcionar-se condições para informar a população acerca de seu comportamento econômico e maneiras como decisões são tomadas neste âmbito, que contemplaria tanto dados sobre a Economia, como conhecimentos sobre nosso funcionamento psíquico, com o objetivo de favorecer a apropriação, por parte de todos os segmentos, das escolhas que fazem. Ainda dentro esta perspectiva, sugere-se que a reunião destes dados possa expandir as premissas que sustentam inúmeras políticas econômicas, de modo a torná-las mais condizentes com nossa realidade externa e psíquica

Increasingly unpredictable, extreme and erratic rainfall with higher temperatures threatens to undermine the adaptive capacity of food systems and ecological resilience of smallholder landscapes. Despite growing concern, land managers still lack quantitative techniques to collect empirical data about the potential impact of climatic variability and change. This thesis aims to assess how ecosystem services and function and how this links with biodiversity and human wellbeing in smallholder agro-ecosystems in a changing climate. To this end, rather than relying on scenarios or probabilistic modelling, space was used as a proxy for time to compare states in disparate climatic conditions. Furthermore, an integrated methodological framework to assess ecosystem services at the field and landscape level was developed and operationalised, the results of which can be modelled with measures of wellbeing. Various multidisciplinary analytical tools were utilised, including ecological and socio-economic surveys, biological assessments, participatory open enquiry, and documenting ethnobotanical knowledge. The study was located within monsoon rice farms in the Terai Plains of Nepal, and dry season vegetable farms in Northern Ghana. Sites were selected that are climatically and culturally diverse to enable comparative analysis, with application to broad areas of adaptive planning. The linkages that bring about biophysical and human changes are complex and operate through social, political, economic and demographic drivers, making attribution extremely challenging. Nevertheless, it was demonstrated that within hotter and drier conditions in Ghana long-tongued pollinators and granivores, important for decomposition processes and pollination services, are more abundant in farms. Results further indicated that in cooler and drier conditions in Nepal, the taxonomic diversity of indigenous and close relative plant species growing in and around farms, important for the provisioning of ecosystem services, decreases. All other things equal, in both Nepal and Ghana findings indicate that overall human wellbeing may be adversely effected in hotter conditions, with a potentially significantly lower yields, fewer months of the year in which food is available, higher exposure to natural hazards and crop loss, unemployment, and psychological anxiety. Yet, surveys indicate smallholders continue to maintain a fair diversity of species in and around farms, which may allow them to secure basic necessities from provisioning ecosystem services. Moreover, farmers may employ adaptive strategies such as pooling labour and food sharing more frequently, and may have greater access to communication, technology, and infrastructure. Novel methodological and empirical contributions of this research offer predictive insights that could inform innovations in climate-smart agricultural practice and planning.