The aim of this research was to better understand teacher's beliefs about visual literacy and to explore how their beliefs influence their teaching practice. In order to investigate this, a case study was conducted that comprised of lesson observations and semi-structured interviews with two secondary school English home language educators. The backdrop to the research was the implementation of the new national curriculum for grade 10. The participants, though well educated and experienced teachers, felt their training had been inadequate in the area of teaching visual literacy and although they acknowledged the importance of visual literacy, it seemed to have a fairly low priority in their actual teaching practice. In particular, very little attention was given to the production of multimodal texts by learners. The reason for this low priority may be related to the requirements of the formal assessment programme as well as limited lesson time in which to cover an extensive curriculum. The research findings would seem to suggest a need for in-service training in this area as well as access to suitable learning support materials and teacher resources.

Scientific external representations (ERs), such as diagrams, images, pictures, graphs and animations are considered to be powerful teaching and learning tools, because they assist learners in constructing mental models of phenomena, which allows for the comprehension and integration of scientific concepts. Sometimes, however, students experience difficulties with the interpretation of ERs, which· has a negative effect on their learning of science, . . including biochemistry. Unfortunately, many educators are not aware of such student difficulties and make the wrong assumption that what they, as experts, consider to be an educationally sound ER will necessarily promote sound. learning and understanding among novices. On the contrary, research has shown that learners who engage in the molecular biosciences can experience considerable problems interpreting, visualising, reasoning and learning with ERs of biochemical structures and processes, which are both abstract and often represented by confusing computer-generated symbols and man-made markings. The aim of this study was three-fold. Firstly, to identify and classify students' conceptual and reasoning difficulties with a selection of textbook ERs representing· IgG structure and function. Secondly, to use these difficulties to identify sources of the difficulties and, therefore, factors influencing students' ability to interpret the ERs. Thirdly, to develop a model of these factors and investigate the practical applications of the model, including guidelines fOf improving ER design and the teaching and learning with ERs. The study was conducted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and involved a total of 166 second and third-year biochemistry students. The research aims were addressed using a p,ostpositivistic approach consisting of inductive and qualitative research methods. Data was collected from students by means of written probes, audio- and video-taped clinical interviews, and student-generated diagrams. Analysis of the data revealed three general categories of student difficulties, with the interpretation of three textbook ERs depicting antibody structure and interaction with antigen, termed the process-type (P), the. structural-type (S) and DNA-related (D) difficulties. Included in the three general categories of difficulty were seventeen sub-categories that were each classified on the four-level research framework of Grayson et al. (2001) according to v how much information we had about the nature ofeach difficulty and, therefore, whether they required further research. The incidences of the classified difficulties ranged from 3 to 70%, across the student populations and across all three ERs. Based on the evidence of the difficulties, potential sources of the classified difficulties were isolated. Consideration of the nature of the sources of the exposed difficulties indicated that at least three factors play a major role in students' ability to interpret ERs in biochemistry. The three factors are: students' ability to reason with an ER and with their own conceptual knowledge (R), students' understanding (or lack thereof) of the concepts of relevance to the ER (C), and the mode in which the desired phenomenon is represented by the ER (M). A novel three-phase single interview technique (3P-SIT) was designed to explicitly investigate the nature of the above three factors. Application of3P-SIT to a range of abstract to realistic ERs of antibody structure and interaction with antigen revealed that the. instrument was extremely useful for generating data corresponding to the three factors.. In addition; analysis of the 3P-SIT data showed evidence for the influence ofone factor on another during students' ER interpretation, leading to the identification of a further four interactive factors, namely the reasoning-mode (R-M), reasoning conceptual (R-C), conceptual-mode (C-M) and conceptual-reasoning-mode (C-R-M) factors. The Justi and Gilbert (2002) modelling process was employed to develop a model of the seven identified factors. Empirical data generated using 3P-SIT allowed the formulation and validation of operational definitions for the seven factors and the expression of the model as a Venn diagram, Consideration ofthe implications of the model, yielded at least seven practical applications of the model, including its use for: establishing whether sound or unsound interpretation, learning and visualisation of an ER has occurred; identifying the nature and source of any difficulties; determining which of the factors of the model are positively or negatively influencing interpretation; establishing what approaches to ER design and teaching and learning with ERs will optimise the interpretation and learning process; and, generally framing and guiding researchers', educators' and authors' thinking about the nature of students' difficulties with the interpretation of both static and animated ERs in any scientific context. In addition, the study demonstrated how each factor of the expressed model can be used to inform the design of strategies for remediating or preventing students' difficulties with the interpretation of scientific ERs, a target for future research. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

The use of external representations (ERs) such as diagrams and animations in science education, particularly in the Molecular Life Sciences (MLS), has rapidly increased over the past decades. Research shows that ERs have a superior advantage over text alone for teaching and learning. Research has also indicated a number of concerns coupled with the use of ERs for education purposes. Such problems emanate from the mode of presentation and/or inability to use ERs. Regarding the later, a number of factors have been identified as major causes of student difficulties and they include visual literacy as one of the major factors. Given that little has been done to understand the nature of VL in the MLS the current study was conducted with the general aim of investigating this area and devising a way to measure the visual literacy levels of our students. More specifically, this study addressed the following research questions: i) What is the nature of visual literacy in MLS?; ii) Can specific levels of visual literacy be defined in the MLS?; and iii) Is a taxonomy a useful way of representing the levels of visual literacy for MLS? To respond to these questions, the current literature was used to define the nature of visual literacy and the visualization skills (VSs). These were then used to develop a Visual Literacy Test made up on probes in the context of Biochemistry. In these probes, the VSs were incorporated. The test was administered to 3rd year Biochemistry students who were also interviewed. Results were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. The later analysis utilized the Rasch model to generate an item difficulty map. The results of the current study show that visual literacy is multifaceted in nature and is context based in that it requires specific propositional knowledge. In line with this, it was found that visual literacy is expressed through a cognitive process of visualization which requires VSs. Based on the performance of these skills, learners’ optimal visual literacy in the context of the MLS can be defined. Such performance can be assessed through the development of probes in the Biochemistry context. Furthermore, the current research has shown that using probes, the difficulty degree of each VS can be determined. In this instance, the Rasch model is a preferred method of ranking VSs in the context of Biochemistry in order of difficulty. From this, it was shown that given the uniqueness of each skill’s degree of difficulty, each skill can thus be regarded as a level of visual literacy. Such levels were defined in terms of the norm difficulty obtained in the current study. Given the multifaceted nature of visual literacy, the current study adopted the view that there are infinite number of VSs and hence the number of levels of visual literacy. From the variation in the degree of difficulty, the study showed that there are nonvisualization and visualization type difficulties which contribute to the differences in visual literacy levels between Biochemistry students. In addition to this, the current study showed that visual literacy in the MLS can be presented through a taxonomy. Such a taxonomy can be used to determine the level of each VS, its name and definition, typical difficulties found in the MLS as well as the visualization stage at which each skill is performed. Furthermore, this taxonomy can be used to design models, assess students’ visual literacy, identify and inform the remediation of students’ visualization difficulties. While the study has successfully defined the nature of visual literacy for the MLS and presented visual literacy in a taxonomy, more work is required to further understand visual literacy for the MLS, a field where visual literacy is very prevalent. / Thesis (M.Sc.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

This thesis reports on a collaborative action research case study into the teaching of visual literacy to Grade 10 learners in a rural high school in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Visual literacy is one of the critical aspects that have been incorporated in the teaching of English First Additional Language as required by the National Curriculum Statement (Grade 10-12), which has been implemented in Grade 10 as from 2006. With the aim of improving learners’ performance in visual literacy I designed a visual literacy unit that consisted of lesson plans running over 7 periods in 10 school days. In implementing the unit the learners were first grouped and then exposed to visual grammar and visual texts and then they critically viewed such texts and designed their own. Data was collected daily in the form of individual learner journals, researcher’s journal/diary, and copies were kept of activities done by learners (individually or in groups). Also, two teachers were invited as non-participant observers to each visit a lesson. Learner focus groups were conducted and critical friends were interviewed, tape recorded and transcribed. A camera was used to take still photographs to show learner activities in groups and during group presentations. The data revealed that visual literacy could be taught meaningfully in a rural high school as the learners could identify, cut, paste and discuss elements of visual language and they finally designed their own advertisements in groups. In the analysis of data the following factors emerged as hindrances for successful teaching of visual literacy in a rural high school: lack of resources; learners’ lack of a foundation in visual literacy from Grades 7-9; and problems revolving around time management and pacing. As action research comes in spirals, this research represented the first one and the researcher found the study an eye opener and a foundation to build on in the second spiral (that is not part of this research).

The changing role of literacy in primary education, with its emphasis on the acknowledgement of the learner’s values, beliefs, culture, background and language is the focus of this study. The research was concerned with understanding the literacy practices of Foundation Phase Grade 3 teachers who are able to intentionally promote and mediate literacy acquisition among their learners. A qualitative design was used to describe the approaches of effective literacy teachers. The research study discovered that while the teachers made use of a number of teaching methods that underpinned a de-contextualised and constructivist approach, a socio-cultural approach to literacy was lacking. The results call for a broadening of the definition of literacy; one that acknowledges the socio-cultural background of the learners in developing a literacy disposition that prepares learners for a changing world. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)

The changing role of literacy in primary education, with its emphasis on the acknowledgement of the learner’s values, beliefs, culture, background and language is the focus of this study. The research was concerned with understanding the literacy practices of Foundation Phase Grade 3 teachers who are able to intentionally promote and mediate literacy acquisition among their learners. A qualitative design was used to describe the approaches of effective literacy teachers. The research study discovered that while the teachers made use of a number of teaching methods that underpinned a de-contextualised and constructivist approach, a socio-cultural approach to literacy was lacking. The results call for a broadening of the definition of literacy; one that acknowledges the socio-cultural background of the learners in developing a literacy disposition that prepares learners for a changing world. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)