Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur förskolepedagoger ser på anknytning och vilken betydelse de ger den vad gäller möjligheter till barns lärande och utveckling. Det är en kvalitativ intervjustudie där data analyserats utifrån en fenomenografisk ansats. Utifrån de kategorier som framträdde i analysen och koppling till anknytningsteori, sociokulturellt perspektiv på lärande och läroplanens utsagor om förskolans uppdrag så framkommer det att anknytningen och samvaron har inte betydelse för huruvida barnen lär och utvecklas – däremot ges dessa stor betydelse för möjligheterna att lära och utvecklas på ett så positivt sätt som möjligt för att på så vis klara framtidens krav och förväntningar bättre.

This study has examined how the attainment of theoretical frameworks may create the conditions for and support subsequent learning of related material. In this regard, it has investigated a particular conception of Vygotsky‟s proposal that learning only occurs in the zone of proximal development, which he defined as the gap between what can be performed independently and what can be achieved with assistance. Specifically, it used a multi-pronged, mixed method research approach to probe the relationship between the actual level of development, as reflected by an ability to do proportional reasoning, and potential development, which was measured as the ability to perform certain strategic procedural operations in the molecular biosciences which were underpinned by proportionality. This four phase study which was carried out on a class of 106 second year students registered for Basic Molecular Biosciences II in the School of Molecular and Cell Biology, at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, initially measured proportional reasoning ability by posing a generative question requiring proportional reasoning to the class during a lecture and established that only 49% of the students who participated were able to answer the question. It could be shown statistically that these students were more adept at answering a contextual question based on proportion than those who had answered the generative question incorrectly, which suggested that actual development created the conditions for future learning. A paper and pencil test developed from Fleener (1993) which claimed to measure the hierarchical development of proportional reasoning ability was administered to the class and was used to select two groups for comparative purposes. The first group (group one) was comprised of the 23 students who scored 50 % or less, and the control group (group two) consisted of the 15 students who scored 100 %. Using these two groups, it was shown that the control group performed better than group one on specific questions underpinned by proportion which had been included in pre-laboratory tests and in summative assessments. Moreover, the control group‟s general performance in the course, as assessed by their marks in the examination at the end of the first semester, was substantially better than that of group one (67 % as opposed to a 51% average mark). These results were supported by findings where conceptual development of proportion had been judged from student‟s informal written accounts of the concept. Drawing on biological evidence, it was concluded that the actual level produces the structures necessary for further development. The second phase of the study utilized two focus groups constituted from students who iv had been randomly selected from the two groups compared in phase one of the research. Facilitated guided informal discussions probed which of factors like play and leisure activities, early childhood enrichment, schooling, mathematical ability and practices, instruction in proportional reasoning, and parental involvement, might have augmented the development of proportional reasoning ability. In phase three, the factors which emerged from the discussions were interrogated in a specially designed questionnaire which was administered to a sub-set of students who were concurrently registered for Basic Molecular Biosciences II and Biochemistry and Cell Biology II. Statistical analysis of the questionnaire which occurred in phase four of the research led to the conclusion that enrichment in early childhood, and having learnt proportion at school were the two factors that contributed most to attainment of the actual level of development which would enable subsequent learning of more elaborate procedural knowledge constructs based on the concept of proportion. These results supported the view that mediation results in internalisation of the embedded knowledge which can be drawn on for further learning in that domain. Therefore, in the final analysis of the research, it was concluded that actual levels of development create conditions for potential development as conceived by Vygotsky‟s zone of proximal development.

The purpose of this research project was to investigate the effects of a short-term teaching experiment on the learning of decimal numbers by primary students. The literature describes this area of mathematics as highly problematic for students. The content first covered student understanding of decimal symbols, and how this impacted upon their ability to order decimal numbers and carry out additive operations. It was then extended to cover the density of number property, and the application of multiplicative operations to situations involving decimals. In doing so, three areas of cognitive conflict were encountered by students, the belief that longer decimal numbers are larger than shorter ones (irrespective of the actual digits), that multiplication always makes numbers bigger, and that division always makes numbers smaller. The use of a microgenetic approach yielded data was able to be presented that provides details of the environment surrounding the moments where new learning was constructed. The characteristics of this environment include the use of physical artifacts and situational contexts involving measurement that precipitate student discussion and reflection. The methodology allowed for the collection of evidence regarding the highly complex nature of the learning, with evidence of 'folding back' to earlier schema and the co-existence of competing schema. The discussion presents reasons as to why the pedagogical approach that was employed facilitated learning. One of the main findings was that the use of challenging problems situated in measurement contexts that involved direct student participation promoted the extension and/or re-organization of student schema with regard to decimal numbers. The study has important implications for teachers at the upper primary level wanting to support student learning about the decimal numbers system.

This study aimed to investigate elementary school EFL teachers¡¦ use of scaffolding strategies for enhancing EFL students¡¦ cognitive engagement, and to examine whether the teachers¡¦ beliefs correspond to their strategy use. The three main focuses of the study included: 1) the types of scaffolding strategies used by elementary English teachers to enhance EFL students¡¦ cognitive engagement; 2) the processes of using these scaffolding strategies; 3) the teachers¡¦ beliefs in using these scaffolding strategies. The present study utilized an exploratory-explanatory case study design. Two elementary English teachers participated in this study. Data were collected from interviews and classroom observations during late-August to mid-October 2007. The researcher carried out all the interviews and classroom observations after she got the two teachers¡¦ permission to participate in this study. Five hours of interviews and eleven hours of classroom observations were collected from one teacher, while one and a half hours of interviews and nine hours of classroom observations were collected from the other. The interview data were audio-taped and then transcribed word by word. The classroom observation data were video-taped, and the useful parts were transcribed word by word. The researcher adopted constant comparative method and the template approach for data analysis. The process of data analysis with the use of constant comparative method included categorizing the types of scaffolding strategies from the collected data and analyzing the two elementary English teachers¡¦ beliefs of using scaffolding strategies. In addition, Gallimore and Tharp¡¦s (1990) six teaching strategies were used as a template to confirm that there was no missing code in the data analysis process. The three major findings of this study are as the following: 1) the two elementary English teachers in this study believed that cognitive engagement is classified into three categories: attention, memory, and critical thinking; 2) the two elementary English teachers in this study used scaffolding strategies in different ways to help students achieve different categories of cognitive engagement; 3) the two elementary English teachers¡¦ different beliefs of cognitive engagement played an important role in their use of scaffolding strategies, and they guided students to achieve different levels of cognitive engagement in class based on their beliefs. The findings of the present study, in general, respond to EFL teachers¡¦ perceptions of ZPD (Vygotsky, 1978) and scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Rose, 1976) which pointed out the importance of teacher¡¦s role in assisting students¡¦ second language learning. The expected findings discussed are as the following: 1) similar scaffolding strategies for enhancing students¡¦ cognitive engagement found in the present study were recognized in previous studies; 2) teachers¡¦ beliefs played an important role in teachers¡¦ use of scaffolding strategies. Unexpected, or interesting findings discussed are as the following: 1) one teacher in the present study believed that cognitive engagement was a sequential concept; 2) the two teachers in the present study showed different perceptions of the role of EFL teacher in initiating students¡¦ critical thinking; 3) The two teachers in the present study were not aware that students could be active listeners or learners in class; 4) The two teachers in the present study put more emphasis on students¡¦ memory of vocabulary and sentences than on critical thinking. Three pedagogical implications are suggested in this study: 1) Elementary English teachers need to be aware that critical thinking of some students¡¦ might need assistance from teachers; 2) elementary English teachers need to be aware that step-by-step assistance is more likely to help students achieve critical thinking; 3) teacher education should provide related courses about cognitive engagement, and practice teachers should learn how to assist students in engaging cognitively in English class. Finally, this study suggests three directions for further research: 1) the future study should investigate on teachers¡¦ beliefs or perspectives on using scaffolding strategies in class; 2) the future study should take students¡¦ perspectives into account to identify the effectiveness of scaffolding strategies in enhancing EFL students¡¦ cognitive engagement; 3) the future study should take parents¡¦ expectation or perceptions of English teaching into account to investigate how parents¡¦ expectations and feedback influence teachers¡¦ scaffolding strategies.

During the last few decades peer collaboration has been commonly practised in Second Language (L2) writing classrooms. Despite the conceptual shift towards process, student-centred orientation to writing pedagogy, there are still many L2 composition courses around the world which consider writing as a finished product and assign a central role to writing instructors. This qualitative case study research is one of the first attempts which have been set out to probe the interactional dynamics, revision behaviours, writing performance, and perceptions of Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students engaged in peer review and collaborative revision activities in two genres, process and argumentation, in light of sociocultural perspective of learning. The participants were 5 lower intermediate to intermediate English translation student dyads enrolled in a semester long essay writing course. Drawing on the data collected from audio-recordings, observations, written texts, and interviews, the study investigated how this group of L2 learners approached these two distinct tasks, how they reacted to the feedback they received either from their partners or teacher, how they used the comments to improve their writing performance, and how they viewed each of the tasks they were involved in. Analysis of audio-recorded data revealed that students stayed on task for most of the allocated time and employed three distinct dyadic negotiations; evaluative, social, and procedural with both partners being capable of pooling ideas and providing each other scaffolded help regardless of their level of L2 writing proficiency. However, the majority of conversations and scaffolding concentrated on surface level features of compositions. Further, examination of written texts produced by students during writing cycles demonstrated that they incorporated higher number of teacher‟s comments into their subsequent drafts than their peers‟ feedback and collaborative revision contributed to greater degree of improvement in the quality of the essays they developed compared to peer reviewing. Retrospective interviews also indicated that collaborative tasks were generally perceived as useful, yet the participants expressed scepticism about the validity of peer comments and did not feel competent enough to address their partners‟ papers. Nevertheless, they showed more favourable reactions towards collaborative revision activity than peer reviewing. The researcher concludes that collaborative revision can be used as an interim activity for the move from the traditional, product-based, teacher fronted L2 writing pedagogy to a more theoretically sound, process-based, student fronted approach to writing instruction in EFL contexts.

Syftet med arbetet är att söka reda på olika metoder lärare använder i klassrumssituationer för att stödja elevernas utveckling i matematiska uttryck gällande muntlig kommunikation mellan elever och lärare. Arbetet är baserat på observationer av tre lärare i årskurs 4, 6 och 9. Insamlad information från observationerna har resulterat i tre olika lektionsstrukturer och ett antal frågemodeller. Gemensamt i samtliga lektioner är att eleverna får först diskutera och berätta innan läraren blanda sig i; läraren har använt elevernas samtal för att bygga vidare och utgår på det sättet utifrån elevernas kunskaper. Vissa lektioner har fokus legat i diskussionen och elevers presentation av sina lösningar för klassen. I andra lektioner har läraren använt en specifik didaktisk metod för att stimulera diskussionen och elevernas förståelse. Samtliga lärare uttrycker att ett mål de haft är att eleverna skall få chansen att diskutera och ge uttryck för sina tankar verbalt.

Good student evaluations are not always the measure of a successful class, and in spite of my consistently high student evaluations, I knew something had been lost in my classes. In an effort to revitalize my teaching, to increase both student participation and instructor satisfaction, I undertook an experiment in which I taught two sections of the same literature survey differently. One class was taught as I had, of recent years, been teaching: primarily lecture. The second class was decentralized: circled seating arrangement, all participants (including me) seated, and a required student literary response journal. Change is much easier decided upon than implemented. Instructor discomfort when climbing out of teaching ruts can be strong enough to impede progress (temporarily) but is a sure sign of growth Although the decentralized classroom increases a sense of vulnerability, it also increases camaraderie. Class discussion can and does veer in unexpected directions but also leads to unanticipated insights and increased student involvement with the material. The instructor's job becomes more complicated because although there must be latitude for a range of responses, the class discussion must not be allowed to drift totally off topic. Thus, the instructor must have the restraint to allow students to express and defend their ideas, and must not rein in apparent misdirections too quickly. To do so would risk stifling student involvement and precluding significant new insights. One casualty of increased student participation in discussion is the amount of material that can be covered. The physical arrangement of a class in a circle encourages student discussion, but that decentralization is really more a function of attitude than of physical space. An essential component of the successful discussion class is the student literary response journal. The journal encourages students to focus on and wrestle with the reading assignment. In the process they can hone their analytic skills, preview and practice articulating their ideas, generate ideas for formal essays, and receive private, non-threatening encouragement from the instructor. / Ed. D.

Det är en återkommande utmaning för lärare att identifiera de faktorer som gör att några elever har svårt att klara en kurs de läser på gymnasiet. Om läraren ska kunna sätta in rätt stöd för att hjälpa eleven behöver läraren förstå orsaken. En orsak till att en elev inte lär sig innehållet i en kurs kan vara att hen inte har förutsättningar för att ta till sig undervisningen. Denna studie undersöker vilka förutsättningar eleven behöver ha uppfyllt för att kunna lära sig innehållet i de olika kapitlen i läroboken Impuls Fysik1. Detta görs med en läromedelsanalys som har det sociokulturella perspektivet som teoretisk grund. Lärobokens innehåll kan beskrivas som organiserat i förutsättningskedjor. Om en elev inte lär sig ett begrepp i kedjan bryts kedjan och eleven har inte förutsättningar för att fortsätta framåt i kursen. Majoriteten av de begrepp som bildar förutsättningskedjorna är så kallade tröskelbegrepp. Studien visar också att kapitelproven inte mäter om eleven har förstått de olika begrepp som ingår i förutsättningskedjorna, däremot matchar de noga kraven för betyget E som de formuleras i kunskapskraven och de centralt framtagna kursproven.

Language development is a part of what pre-school teachers are supposed to teach children in pre-school and reading books, singing songs and rhyming is something that goes on although it isn’t always thought of how or why it is done. Phonological awareness, as just mentioned, is something that pre-school teachers work with on an everyday basis. The purpose of this study is to see how pre-school teachers work with the part of the phonological awareness that is called phonemic awareness. This study aims to see how pre-school teachers teach how the letters of the alphabet sounds and what words sounds like in the beginning, in the middle and at the end of words and how the children in pre-school get to learn how to use these sounds in their language development. The methodology used in this study is semistructured interviews with pre-school teachers. The results of the interviews conducted in this study show that pre-school teachers have several different ways to teach young children in the preschool about phonemic awareness. / Språkutveckling är en del av vad förskollärare ska undervisa barn i förskolan och att läsa böcker, sjunga sånger och rimma är något som hela tiden pågår, men det är inte alltid att det tänks till på hur eller varför det görs. Fonologisk medvetenhet, som just nämnts, är något som förskollärare arbetar med på vardaglig basis. Syftet med denna studie är att se hur förskollärare arbetar med den del av den fonologiska medvetenheten som kallas fonemisk medvetenhet. Denna studie syftar till att se hur förskollärare lär ut hur bokstäverna i alfabetet låter och hur ord låter i början, i mitten och i slutet av orden och hur barnen i förskolan lär sig att använda dessa ljud i sin språkutveckling. Den metod som använts i studien är semistrukturerade intervjuer med förskollärare. Resultaten av de intervjuer som genomfördes i denna studie visar att förskollärare har flera olika sätt att lära unga barn i förskolan om fonemisk medvetenhet.

It is widely recognised that parents play an important role in children’s emotional and intellectual development, including their success at school. Recently, there has been a growing awareness of the potential of parents to support and enhance children’s English foreign language learning, especially since English learning resources are easily accessible through electronic media. In appreciation of this, there has been an increased interest in recent years in finding ways to harness parental potential through the creation of home-school partnerships in many parts of the world, including in the field of teaching English as an additional language. An important point of departure for developing effective home-school dialogues is an informed understanding of what parents are already doing to support their children’s learning, as an awareness of this can help schools and governments provide parents with targeted input to assist and improve their efforts. However, to date, this remains under researched. Of the limited research that has been undertaken, very little has examined parental efforts to support their children’s learning at home in non-western settings, and research into parental support for children’s foreign language learning is virtually non-existent. In order to address this research gap, the study reported in this thesis examines parental support for young children’s foreign language learning in Saudi Arabia with respect to English T.V. viewing. Drawing upon Vygotsky’s concepts of mediation and the ZPD, it aims to examine the extent and the ways in which parents currently mediate their children’s viewing of English T.V. programmes in Saudi Arabia, the factors which impact on their mediation practices, and how this is seen to contribute to their children’s experience of English language learning. The study is comprised two stages. The first stage entails the distribution of a questionnaire to 500 parents of children aged 6-8, who are currently learning English in a number of private schools in Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia in order to gain a global overview of parental perspectives on mediation. This is followed by stage 2, which aims to examine the features and quality of parent-child mediational dialogues. This is achieved by collecting recordings of the dialogues of two parent-child dyads watching DVDs of English T.V. programmes over a four-week period as well as interviewing parents and their children on the experience. The results of the study show that parents believe in the importance and value of supporting their children’s learning (both in general and with regard to their EFL learning). Moreover, they show that they are actively engaged in trying to do so. However, they also highlight a number of ways in which their mediational practices could be improved so that these are less directive and more responsive to their children’s learning needs and growing ability to self-regulate. More broadly, they highlight the need to engage with the complexity of parental mediation as an activity system in discussions of the quality of mediational practice. That is, to understand that parental efforts to mediate need to be considered alongside task, sociocultural setting and, most importantly, the child’s engagement with parental efforts. A number of implications are drawn from the results of the study. Chief among these is that research into parental mediation should look at the inter-relationship between the different elements of the parental mediational system identified and that this provides richer in-depth understandings of parental efforts to support their children than are currently available from those who seek to understand this merely as parental scaffolding. In addition, it is argued that the picture this in-depth analysis revealed provides valuable information which can be used to inform the need for home-school partnerships and the support parents need to make sure they engage in these effectively in settings such as Saudi Arabia where there is currently little appreciation of the importance of parental involvement and the concept of home school partnerships remains in its infancy. In line with the emphasis on the complex multidimensional understanding of mediation as activity as illustrated by the results of the study, it is argued that efforts to promote parental involvement should primarily focus on how parents can help promote quality learning experiences for their children.