The inception of technology education as a learning area in the South African national curriculum has posed challenges different from those in the other learning areas. Technology education is, compared to subjects such as mathematics and science, still a fairly new subject both nationally and internationally. As a result technology education does not have a large research base or established subject philosophy. This can lead to problems in understanding the nature of technology and other pedagogical problems, such as the fragmentation of curricula in which content is simply parcelled in ‘departments’. One way through which technology can be conceptualized and understood is through technology as knowledge (epistemology). In the absence of an established subject philosophy for technology education, one can draw on frameworks from other disciplines in the field, such as engineering and design practice, for insights into technological knowledge. Educators, however, still need to determine the usefulness of these frameworks to technology education. The purpose of this study therefore, is to investigate the usefulness of an epistemological framework chiefly derived from engineering to be able to describe the nature of technological knowledge, in an attempt to contribute towards the understanding of this relatively new learning area. The conceptual framework for this study was derived mainly from Vincenti’s (1990) categories of knowledge and knowledge-generating activities based on his research into historical aeronautic engineering cases. A combination of quantitative and qualitative research was used to provide insight into the categories of knowledge and knowledge-generating activities used by students at the University of Pretoria during capability tasks. This included an analysis of the questionnaire (quantitative data), which was administered to and completed by the students, as well as a content analysis (qualitative data) of the students’ project portfolios. Findings from this study suggest that the conceptual framework chiefly derived from and used by professional engineers is useful in technology education. The findings also suggest that both the categories of technological knowledge and the knowledge generating activities apply to all the content areas, i.e. structures, systems and control, and processing, in technology education. The study recommends that researchers and educators deepen their understanding of the nature of technological knowledge by considering the categories of technological knowledge and the knowledge-generating activities presented in the conceptual framework. In order to “operationalise” the conceptual framework, educators must consciously attempt to include items of knowledge from each category of knowledge when conceptualising capability tasks for their learning programmes. The framework can then be used as a matrix to evaluate their learning programmes to ensure that all knowledge items (categories and activities) are addressed in each capability task in the technology learning programmes. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

In dem vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung über den Projektträger VDI/VDE-IT geförderten Vorhaben "Wirksamkeitsbeurteilung von Transferformen zwischen Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft für die Branchen Produktionstechnik, Umwelttechnologie und Materialforschung" wurden unterschiedliche Formen und Wege des Wissens- und Technologietransfers zwischen Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft analysiert und beschrieben, um Erfolgsmuster für deren Zusammenarbeit aufzuspüren.:Inhalt Vorstellung des Forschungsvorhabens ..........................................3 Kapitel 1: Feldstudie ...................................................................7 1.1 Vorgehensweise ..........................................................7 1.2 Befragungsergebnisse ................................................8 1.2.1 Ergebnisse der Unternehmensbefragung ...................8 1.2.2 Ergebnisse der Multiplikatorenbefragung .................23 1.2.3 Ergebnisse der Intermediärsbefragung .....................24 1.2.4 Ergebnisse der Wissenschaftlerbefragung ...............25 1.2.5 Zusammenfassung ....................................................30 Kapitel 2: Wirkungsstruktur ....................................................31 2.1 Thematische Eingrenzung .........................................31 2.2 Zur theoretischen Hinsicht: Zwei einleitende Vorbemerkungen ................................32 2.3. Die Wirkungsstruktur ......................................................33 2.3.1 Das innovative KMU........................................................34 2.3.2 Zwischenstand: Die Transfernähe innovativer KMU ...37 2.3.3 Der Umgang mit Forschungseinrichtungen ..............37 2.3.4 Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft: Zwei Parallelwelten ...40 2.4 Konkrete Bedingungen für erfolgreichen Wissenstransfer......................................................................42 2.4.1 Einordnung der üblichen Chiffren ..............................42 2.4.2 Der Escort Service für die Grauzone ... ...................44 2.4.3 …und das Problem der Königskinder ........................46 2.5 Literatur .....................................................................48 Kapitel 3: Rollenbilder Der systemische Ansatz .....................................................49 Soziales System .................................................................49 Der rollentheoretische Ansatz ............................................55 Grundannahmen über gelingende Kommunikationim Innovations-Transferraum ..............................................61 Literaturverzeichnis ............................................................63 Kapitel 4: Szenarien Transferszenarium: Ziele, Rollen, Interaktionen .................64 Akteure und Impulsgeber ...................................................65 Arbeitsbedingungen in Transferszenarien ..........................68 Motivation und Effekte .......................................................69 Unterschiedliche Situationen –unterschiedliche Szenarien .................................................70

Syftet med detta examensarbete är att komma underfund med hur introduktionen kan förbättras för nyanställda arbetsledare utan tidigare erfarenheter från arbetsområdet. Examensarbetet är en respons på Peabs interna enkät som under ett antal år belyst hur medarbetarna bland annat ser på trivseln och arbetsmiljön på sin arbetsplats. Denna enkät är till för att finna förbättringsområden. Flera anger att de anser att introduktionen är otillräcklig och behöver förbättras. Denna rapport använder sig av en kvalitativ metod med intervjuer av tio personer med koppling till yrkesrollen arbetsledare samt ytterligare tio kompletterande intervjuer. De huvudsakliga slutsatser och förbättringsförslag som dragits från intervjuerna är att nyanställda arbetsledare ska få tillgång till bättre arbetsbeskrivningar om hur Peabs arbetsmetoder och vad dess kärnvärden är och dessutom få klart för sig vad företaget har för förväntningar på de nyanställda. Större delen av intervjupersonerna ansåg att någon form av strukturerad utvecklingsplan var att föredra. Under rapportskrivandet upprättades följaktligen en sådan, som anger vilka moment och fördjupande kurser som är lämpliga för en nyanställd arbetsledare. Fokus riktas på både de praktiska och teoretiska avsnitten och innefattar samtliga arbetsmoment från grundläggning till färdigt hus. / The purpose of this graduate thesis is to figure out how to improve the introduction for newly employed work managers with no earlier experience within this field. This thesis came as a response to Peabs’ internal survey which for a couple of years has illuminated the coworkers´ view on their well-being and working environment at the workplace. The survey has been used for finding improvement areas and several respondents have reported that the introduction is inadequate and is in need of improvement, which thus has led to this thesis for the division Peab Bostad in Solna. This report uses a qualitative interview method of ten persons with connection to the work manager role and additional ten complementing interviews. The main conclusions and suggestions for improvement which were brought up from the interviews (for this thesis) are that all the interviewed believe that the newly employed work managers should be assigned with a significantly enhanced description of Peabs’ work methods, core values and the company’s expectations of the newly employed. The majority of the interviewed regarded some form of a structured development plan was to be obtained. Consequently a plan intended for a newly employed work manager was established, including phases and corresponding courses to be taken prior to each phase. The focus is on both the practical and the theoretical parts which include all the work phases from the start to the completed building. This report illuminates the importance of an increased co-operation between the experienced staff and the newly employed inexperience work managers. Accordingly they will receive support from several individuals and thus increase the feedback.

Recent studies on human cognition have presented credible evidence that learners are not tabula rasa as previously conceived by traditional theorists, rather they enter new lessons with some preconceptions, most of which are resistant to change in spite of teachers' efforts to assuage them. As such the challenges confronting science educators and educational psychologists are to understand the nature of learners' preconceptions, designing and implement appropriate instructional interventions that would enable the learners become aware of and reconcile their conceptions that are inconsistent with accepted views of science. Several perspectives have been advocated on how learners' preconceptions can be modified through instructions. While traditional theorists subscribe to substitution of inaccurate conceptions with accurate ones, the constructivists identify with giving the learners autonomy to inquire and re-evaluate their own ideas. The former has been confronted with widespread criticism and is becoming less and less tenable. This research identifies with the latter. Conceptual change entails restructuring of ideas. It is a cognitive process that involves change in attitude toward learning. Based on the theoretical assumption that learning is facilitated through teaching that give the learners autonomy search to new ideas, verify them, and restructure existing ideas, I developed a model of conceptual change from where I deduced the four sub variables of the conceptual change that this study explored. The sub variables include formulation of ideas, search for new ideas, review of meaning, and transfer of knowledge. My assumption was that conceptual change can be facilitated through instructions that engage learners in experiences relevant to the four sub variables that I have mentioned. This conceptual framework served as my reference point for the designing of the Constructivist Teaching Model that consists of four instructional phases. Judging that I was resident and working in Seychelles as a teacher trainer at a time I developed the Constructivist Teaching Model, I chose to implement and evaluate it first in Seychelles. Hence this study is titled `The implementation and evaluation of a constructivist intervention in secondary school science teaching in Seychelles'. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the constructivist teaching model as an intervention to facilitate conceptual change. Basically, there are two main aims of this study. First, to investigate to what extent the constructivist teaching model facilitates conceptual change. Secondly, to investigate if the paradigms shift from the traditional method to the constructivist method of science teaching is welcomed in Seychelles. This study was carried out in two phases Pretest and Evaluation. Pretest was aimed at identifying the weaknesses of the initial version of my model of constructivist teaching with a view to eliminate those weaknesses to further strengthen the model. In a nutshell pretest was a step taken to enhance the validity of the model. Evaluation on the other hand was aimed at making a judgment whether a difference actually exists between the learners that received constructivist instruction and those that received traditional lecture instruction in terms of the four sub variables of conceptual change. To enable for this judgment necessitated an experiment. The experiment was conducted with a total of six secondary schools selected from the ten secondary schools on the island. The participants included 178 learners, 6 science teachers and 8 independent persons. The learners were constituted into three Bands; 1, 2 and 3. Each Band consisted of a Control group and an Experimental group. Altogether six groups were formed, with 3 Control groups and 3 Experimental groups. There were 59 learners in Band 1, comprising of 29 learners in the Control group and 30 learners in the Experimental group; Band 2 comprised a Control group of 25 learners and an Experimental group of 28 learners; and Band 3 consisted of 33 learners in each group. The learners in Band 1 were used for pretest that lasted for five week. The learners in Bands 2 and 3 were used in the evaluation that lasted for thirteen weeks. The groups were non-equivalent, suggesting that randomisation was not possible as the learners were in intact classes. Learners in the experimental groups received constructivist instruction while their counterparts in the control groups received traditional lecture instruction. Both groups were exposed to the same experimental conditions except in the methods of teaching. Data was collected through teacher interviews, independent observation, measurement of learners' achievement, and analysis of documents. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data was analysed on the basis of content or meaning of the information given by the respondents. Following the design of this study the performance and achievements of learners that received constructivist instruction were compared with their counterparts who received traditional instruction. Guiding this study are two main assumptions. The first is the assumption of equality of the variance, and the second is the assumption of normality of the distribution. The results of Levene's test of equality of variances indicated a violation of the assumption of homogeneity of the variances of TI and CI groups while the results of test of skewness and kurtosis give the indication of normality of distribution of scores in both groups. The results of descriptive statistics analysis showed that the learners who received constructivist instruction performed better than the learners that received traditional instruction in terms of formulation of ideas, search for new ideas, review of meaning, and transfer of knowledge. The results of inferential statistics showed that the difference in the means of the two groups on each of the sub variables of conceptual change is significant. This evidence indicates that my model of constructivist teaching produced an effect measuring 0.86 and a power of 0.85 based on Cohen's Blueprint, and a reliability of 0.72 based on Cronbach's test of internal consistency. Besides statistical evidence, analysis of the opinions of science teachers who implemented the Constructivist Teaching Model in their respective classes and the independent persons who observed teaching and learning in both the experimental and control groups showed a preference for the constructivist approach over the traditional approach. On the grounds of the evidence gathered through observation and measurement this study concludes that the constructivist approach to science teaching is more effective than traditional lecture approach in facilitating the ability of secondary school learners in Seychelles to reconstruct ideas. This study also found that science educationists in Seychelles welcome the paradigm shift from the traditional approach to the constructivist approach. / Educational Studies / D. Educ. (Psychology of Education)

Inequalities as a diagnostical tool for discovering formalism in various domains of school mathematics Abstract: This thesis targets various types of errors and their causes, in particular formal using of mathematical symbolism, appearing in students solutions of specific inequalities. The theoretical part refers on articles dea- ling with the difficulties manifested in students solutions of inequalities and with factors influencing appearence of these difficulties, on the basic publi- cation dealing with the theory of errors and the factors that influence the occurrence of these. In the practical part, I analyze works of students from one secondary school in Prague. The aim of the diploma is to detect domains where negative transfer of knowledge influence the domain of inequalities. Errors identified in these solutions are closely linked with domain of equati- ons, but they are also influenced by knowledge from the domain of function, sets, algebraic expressions, mathematical logic and numbers. Keywords: Work with errors, typology of errors, inequalities, mathemati- cal symbolism, transfer of knowledge, goniometric inequalities, strategies in solving inequalities 1

The background to this study lies in the discrepancy between the perceptions of international student mobility in the context of the internationalisation of higher education by the EU and universities on one hand and international students themselves in terms of their motivations to study abroad on the other hand. This is a comparative study based on three main case studies, of six universities in New Zealand, Oxford University in the UK and the Charles University in the Czech Republic. It explores the students’ experiences abroad in terms of their intercultural competence, the shaping of identities, the acquisition and transfer of knowledge, the possible forming of cosmopolitan mind-sets and empathy, perceptions of employability and their future mobility aspirations. This thesis also considers the barriers and ‘push and pull’ factors of mobility, perceptions of risk and uncertainty in regards to mobility and the role of serendipity in student mobility, which has been overlooked in the literature on mobility and migration. The theoretical framework of the study builds on social capital theory, Europeanisation and the ‘do-it-yourself biography’ theory. The nature of this topic, however, suggested the employment of the concepts of globalisation, transnationalism and consideration of other forms of capital, such as the total human capital, mobility capital and transnational identity capital. This is predominantly a qualitative, mixed-method and longitudinal research project, which uses surveys, case studies, interviews and the data collecting tool called grounded theory. It triangulates data to support and enhance the analytical validity of the thesis. This research concludes that student experiences abroad as well as the internationalisation efforts of universities and the EU would benefit from the introduction of education for global citizenship, which should focus on the intercultural competencies of students. The thesis suggests sociocultural elements for example the cosmopolitan mind-set can enhance the economic, academic and political rationales of internationalisation, such as employability.

Recent studies on human cognition have presented credible evidence that learners are not tabula rasa as previously conceived by traditional theorists, rather they enter new lessons with some preconceptions, most of which are resistant to change in spite of teachers' efforts to assuage them. As such the challenges confronting science educators and educational psychologists are to understand the nature of learners' preconceptions, designing and implement appropriate instructional interventions that would enable the learners become aware of and reconcile their conceptions that are inconsistent with accepted views of science. Several perspectives have been advocated on how learners' preconceptions can be modified through instructions. While traditional theorists subscribe to substitution of inaccurate conceptions with accurate ones, the constructivists identify with giving the learners autonomy to inquire and re-evaluate their own ideas. The former has been confronted with widespread criticism and is becoming less and less tenable. This research identifies with the latter. Conceptual change entails restructuring of ideas. It is a cognitive process that involves change in attitude toward learning. Based on the theoretical assumption that learning is facilitated through teaching that give the learners autonomy search to new ideas, verify them, and restructure existing ideas, I developed a model of conceptual change from where I deduced the four sub variables of the conceptual change that this study explored. The sub variables include formulation of ideas, search for new ideas, review of meaning, and transfer of knowledge. My assumption was that conceptual change can be facilitated through instructions that engage learners in experiences relevant to the four sub variables that I have mentioned. This conceptual framework served as my reference point for the designing of the Constructivist Teaching Model that consists of four instructional phases. Judging that I was resident and working in Seychelles as a teacher trainer at a time I developed the Constructivist Teaching Model, I chose to implement and evaluate it first in Seychelles. Hence this study is titled `The implementation and evaluation of a constructivist intervention in secondary school science teaching in Seychelles'. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the constructivist teaching model as an intervention to facilitate conceptual change. Basically, there are two main aims of this study. First, to investigate to what extent the constructivist teaching model facilitates conceptual change. Secondly, to investigate if the paradigms shift from the traditional method to the constructivist method of science teaching is welcomed in Seychelles. This study was carried out in two phases Pretest and Evaluation. Pretest was aimed at identifying the weaknesses of the initial version of my model of constructivist teaching with a view to eliminate those weaknesses to further strengthen the model. In a nutshell pretest was a step taken to enhance the validity of the model. Evaluation on the other hand was aimed at making a judgment whether a difference actually exists between the learners that received constructivist instruction and those that received traditional lecture instruction in terms of the four sub variables of conceptual change. To enable for this judgment necessitated an experiment. The experiment was conducted with a total of six secondary schools selected from the ten secondary schools on the island. The participants included 178 learners, 6 science teachers and 8 independent persons. The learners were constituted into three Bands; 1, 2 and 3. Each Band consisted of a Control group and an Experimental group. Altogether six groups were formed, with 3 Control groups and 3 Experimental groups. There were 59 learners in Band 1, comprising of 29 learners in the Control group and 30 learners in the Experimental group; Band 2 comprised a Control group of 25 learners and an Experimental group of 28 learners; and Band 3 consisted of 33 learners in each group. The learners in Band 1 were used for pretest that lasted for five week. The learners in Bands 2 and 3 were used in the evaluation that lasted for thirteen weeks. The groups were non-equivalent, suggesting that randomisation was not possible as the learners were in intact classes. Learners in the experimental groups received constructivist instruction while their counterparts in the control groups received traditional lecture instruction. Both groups were exposed to the same experimental conditions except in the methods of teaching. Data was collected through teacher interviews, independent observation, measurement of learners' achievement, and analysis of documents. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data was analysed on the basis of content or meaning of the information given by the respondents. Following the design of this study the performance and achievements of learners that received constructivist instruction were compared with their counterparts who received traditional instruction. Guiding this study are two main assumptions. The first is the assumption of equality of the variance, and the second is the assumption of normality of the distribution. The results of Levene's test of equality of variances indicated a violation of the assumption of homogeneity of the variances of TI and CI groups while the results of test of skewness and kurtosis give the indication of normality of distribution of scores in both groups. The results of descriptive statistics analysis showed that the learners who received constructivist instruction performed better than the learners that received traditional instruction in terms of formulation of ideas, search for new ideas, review of meaning, and transfer of knowledge. The results of inferential statistics showed that the difference in the means of the two groups on each of the sub variables of conceptual change is significant. This evidence indicates that my model of constructivist teaching produced an effect measuring 0.86 and a power of 0.85 based on Cohen's Blueprint, and a reliability of 0.72 based on Cronbach's test of internal consistency. Besides statistical evidence, analysis of the opinions of science teachers who implemented the Constructivist Teaching Model in their respective classes and the independent persons who observed teaching and learning in both the experimental and control groups showed a preference for the constructivist approach over the traditional approach. On the grounds of the evidence gathered through observation and measurement this study concludes that the constructivist approach to science teaching is more effective than traditional lecture approach in facilitating the ability of secondary school learners in Seychelles to reconstruct ideas. This study also found that science educationists in Seychelles welcome the paradigm shift from the traditional approach to the constructivist approach. / Educational Studies / D. Educ. (Psychology of Education)

The importance of universities as knowledge hubs is increasing due to knowledge production via research and teaching. An emerging aspect of knowledge management literature is the study of the knowledge requirements of universities. In particular, the transformation from knowledge creation to knowledge sharing has proved to be important in the university context and is subject to cultural differences. For example, previous research has indicated that a physician’s Tacit Knowledge Capacity (TKC) is affected by social software and social media. This creates opportunities to carry out new research on different occupations that have an intense TKC. As part of this research, a survey was conducted in order to assess the TKC of lecturers in both Germany and North Cyprus. These are two countries that have universities providing knowledge management programmes. The research determined the TKC in both countries and compared the two in order to determine if cultural factors affect the TKC of the profession. Through this research, the authors aimed to contribute to the ongoing research on the knowledge requirements of universities that will enable them to be knowledge intensive institutions. The Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Near East University, which has 2200 students and 20 chairs, was compared with the Faculty of Business and Economics at the Technische Universität Dresden, which has 2800 students and 23 chairs. The study was carried out to provide an intercultural comparison, which is currently lacking in the Knowledge Management field. The research findings have highlighted the factors influencing the transfer and the accumulation of tacit knowledge.

Students’ performances in mathematics in an Open Distant Learning setting have not always been impressive. An exploratory study into the problem solving skills of the University of South Africa students in the Calculus module MAT112 is being conducted using past examinations scripts between 2006 and 2009. The study re-assesses the work done in the end-of-year Calculus examinations, by both looking at the distribution of marks awarded and assigning new scores based on an assessment rubric adapted for the problem at hand. Further assessment of qualitative dimensions that is important for problem solving in Calculus is developed from the data obtained from the assessment rubric. Using factor analysis, a hesitation factor, transfer-of-knowledge factor as well as ingenuity factor, are identified in successful Calculus problem solving. The study proposes two conceptual models; the first is to guide students in solving Calculus problems while the second one is meant to assist lecturers in the assessment of students of Calculus. / Science and Technology Education / M. Ed. (Technology Education)

Text in English / The literature review indicated similarities between education and chess playing and possible transfer of knowledge between these two different domains. A link was then suggested between some aspects of intellectual abilities and chess instruction in children, but not in adults (Frydman & Lynn, 1992; Waters, Doll & Mayr, 1987). In this research study the aim was to explore the relationship between chess playing and cognitive and intellectual development in Grade R learners at Garsieland. Therefore the positive influence that chess playing brings to bear on the intelligence of 64 Grade R learners (as measured on intelligence scales) was investigated. The data was collected through short biographical questionnaires and psychometric tests and the participants in both groups were assessed on two occasions. The study suggested that chess instruction exerted a positive (small) effect on Performance intelligence and subsequently on the Global scale of the Junior South African Intelligence Scales. The children in both groups also exhibited improved cognitive development after the 40 week period during 2009. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)