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Student Number : 8800092K - MSc research report - School of Education - Faculty of Science / This research report explored the strategies which grade 12 learners employ to solve geometric problems. The purpose of this research was to gain an understanding of how grade 12 learners begin to solve geometric problems involving cyclic quadrilateral and tangent theorems. A case study method was used as the main research method. The study employed the van Hiele level’s of geometric thought as a method for categorising learners levels of understanding. Data about the strategies which learners recruit to solve geometric problems were gathered using learner-based tasks, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. From the data gathered, the following patterns emerged: learners incorrect use of theorems to solve geometrical problems; learners base their responses on the visual appearance of the diagram; learners “force “ a solution when one is not available; learners’ views of proof. Each of these aspects is discussed. The report concludes that learners strategies to solving geometric problems are based largely on the manner in which educators approach the solving of geometrical problems.

Ocular disease is one of the most common problems encountered in sea lions at various zoos and aquariums around the world.1 The California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) is one of the most common marine mammals maintained in zoos and is also the most commonly afflicted with ocular disease. Studies have shown that pinnipeds housed in captivity manifest an array of ocular lesions.2 Eye disease can range from a pinpoint corneal opacity to loss of vision due to keratopathy, cataracts and secondary glaucoma. Glaucoma is a disease that has not been extensively studied in the sea lion.3 Observation of clinical signs and determination of intraocular pressures (IOP) are critical for early diagnosis. IOP measurement may elucidate intraocular disease and provides information on the balance between aqueous humor production and outflow. The objective of this study is to measure IOP in California sea lions that have clinically normal eyes as well as those with varying degrees of ocular diseases, and to evaluate the incidence of secondary glaucoma in this species.

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This study aimed to examine how variable exposure to language statistical patterns affects reading behaviour, specifically, eye-movements during reading. The statistical patterns of language affect how individuals store, produce and comprehend language. When reading, individuals with greater linguistic proficiency typically have been shown to rely less on language statistical information compared to less proficient readers. Based on the Lexical Quality Hypothesis, however, it was hypothesized that spelling bias, a print-specific probabilistic cue, may only be utilized for representations with sufficient strengths of representation - through increased exposure to print in individuals, or through higher frequency of occurrence for individual words, since these individuals, and these words, would be expected to have representations of high quality in the reader’s mental lexicon. Undergraduate students with varying amounts of reading experience were presented with sentences containing English noun-noun compound words that varied in spelling bias, i.e. the probability of occurring in text either as spaced (window sill) or concatenated (windowsill). Linear mixed effect multiple regression models were fitted to the eye-movement data and demonstrated that compound words presented in their more supported format - i.e. the format with the highest bias, were read faster, but that this effect was modulated by reading experience, as measured by a test of exposure to print, as well as by word frequency. Only individuals with the most reading experience, and words with the highest frequencies benefited from this facilitatory effect of bias. This distributional property can thus be used during reading, but only when individuals' lexical representations are of sufficiently high quality. The results of this study thus suggest that future research considering the relationship between linguistic properties and reading must consider individual differences in reading skill and exposure. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

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