This thesis contributes to the knowledge about the role of sociocultural resources in students’ learning in Science Education. In the analyses, both individual experiences and situation are taken into account. Different sociocultural resources – the teacher, artefacts and texts – that students encounter in educational settings are focused with the aim to study what role they play for which meaning making is made possible and relevant. To study these encounters, a pragmatist approach called practical epistemology analysis – i.e. an analysis of what students use as relevant information, valid questions and relevant attentiveness – is used and advanced. The empirical material consists of video recordings from Science Education classrooms in Swedish compulsory school. The first paper is an introduction to the line of work subsequently performed. In the second paper, a method for analysing the role of teaching for students’ meaning making – epistemological moves analysis – is developed and illustrated. This method focuses on those actions of the teacher that have a function of influencing what direction students’ learning takes. In the third paper, the practical epistemology approach is applied in order to clarify, within a sociocultural understanding of learning, the role of the interplay between students’ prior experiences and the use of artefacts in students’ meaning making. In the fourth paper, the practical epistemology approach is applied as a method for investigating the role of instructional texts in laboratory settings for students’ meaning making. The thesis shows how individual continuity can be understood and analysed within a sociocultural perspective on learning. The developed methods make it possible to study learning as constituted in action without ascribing teachers, artefacts or texts a pre-determined meaning prior to their use in a practice. The results show that the way sociocultural resources are made intelligible by the students shapes the conditions for further meaning making.

In the current situation there is not much written about assessment of laboratory work, and the majority of the working physics teachers are retiring and there are only a few newly qualified physics teachers. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how physics teachers assess laboratory work within upper secondary schools, with Gy2011 in mind. The new grade system, Gy2011, has a larger focus on the laboratory work then the earlier system Lpf 94. Skolverket has in their man-ual with examples of assessment two different sorts of laboratory experiments. The first assess-ment is regarding the planning of a laboratory work and the other about how able the pupil exe-cutes laboratory work. Both kinds of laboratory work have suggestions regarding reports and scoring matrixes. Teachers from three different schools in the southern parts of Sweden, have among other things, been interviewed concerning their opinion regarding assessment of laborato-ry work. The results show similarities between the schools but also differences. The assessment of the laboratory work differs between the schools and also within the schools.

The purpose of this study is to compare different ways to teach mathematics in the school's lower age groups, and to examine whether certain practices increase students' desire and motivation to learn the subject. The questions used to determine the purpose is the following: What vision has the students in the class at maths? How does the teaching of mathematics in the class look like? What vision has the students in the class at working with different approaches in education? Does the traditional approach  and the options that I am examining meet the steering documents requirements?  The essay is organized as a qualitative study. The study was conducted in an elementary school in Sweden, third grade. The methods used included interviews with students and observations in the classroom. I have also completed three lessons in which I introduced students to three different approaches. Mathematics lessons that this third grade has, begins and ends with the students work individually with the math book. Is it possible to increase students' desire to mathematics by introducing different approaches? For example if the mathematic lesson is based on a mathematics contest, in which students work in groups to discuss and argue for solving various problems. When using different methods in mathematics does the students have the chance to find their way of learning, where the different approaches gives students the chance to examine the mathematics with different senses. All are individuals, and therefore have different ways to learn.

For many years, I have tried to understand why students end up in difficulties in mathematics. As a future teacher, it is extremely important to have knowledge of the various factors that leads to difficulties in mathematics. As a teacher it is obvious to meet the students who find mathematics a difficult subject, and, therefore it is necessary to have a broader knowledge of how to respond and support these students. According to Ahlberg, number of students with mathematics difficulties is increasing every year, therefore, it is important to help students and organize a supporting school environment that promotes and encourages learning (Ahlberg 2001, p. 104-105). The aim of this degree project is find out, with the help of selected teachers, various factors that may lead to the basis for the students’ mathematics difficulties. The aim is also to find out how teachers work in order to support students with mathematics difficulties. I interviewed four trained mathematics teachers. All pedagogues have years of experience of teaching students with mathematics difficulties and all have had mathematics in their undergraduate studies. In my interviews, I used a tape recorder so that I could focus on questions, answers, and also be involved in as well as reflect over what was said. The results showed that there are various reasons for difficulties in mathematics and different ways of working to address student´s difficulties in mathematics. Mathematics difficulties can depend on emotional obstructions, a poor self-confidence, planning difficulties, a poor working memory, language difficulties, reading and writing difficulties and deficiencies in the didactical field. The result also showed that students’ difficulties can be reduced through dialogue, group works and a laboratory work.

There has been a lot of debate in media about mathematics teaching in grade school in Sweden. Many students experience that mathematics in grade school is abstract, which leads to decreased interest of mathematics in early years. An international study indicates that Swedish students in class 4 do not fulfill the mean for mathematics according to EU/OECD countries. The study also shows that Sweden practice a textbook driven education, compared to other countries. The aim for this study was to find out how a few pedagogues for class F-6 teach mathematics, and why they have chosen to educate the way they do. It was relevant to investigate if these pedagogues use a laboratory education method in their teaching, and if so, which profits and disadvantages they experience by using this method. I decided to use qualitative interviews, according to an interview guide, which agreed to the aim and the question form of the study. The empiric material that was collected from these interviews were analyzed and discussed with support from theories and earlier research, which I found relevant to this study. In the theoretical reference frame, I decided to use the most relevant of Piagets, Vygotskijs and Deweys views and thoughts of children’s knowledge, development and learning. The conclusion for this study is that all pedagogues used variation in their operation mode and in their mathematic education, where the textbook and a laboratory education are included.  Their choice of using a certain method is founded on the experience where many students think that mathematics is an abstract subject where all are different and learn mathematics in different ways. The pedagogues say that variation in operation mode where the students can participate in their learning at the same time as the mathematics makes visible, increases the condition for the students to understand mathematics. In the investigation, it was found that some of the pedagogues discovered a big student group alongside with few education hours that are reserved for mathematics, as a difficulty to use a laboratory working method in the spread they would like to.

The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of a working laboratory in mathematics education, how it influences students’ learning and the confidence the teacher has in the laboratory component. Focus has been placed upon the advantages and disadvantages that could follow in the working method. The method used in this essay is qualitative in order to answer all the questions that arise along the way, and in order to use this method in interviews. The interviews that has taken place has been with five class teachers that are currently teaching at a elementary school between the years of 1-5. The purpose of this study has been answered by using its literature and the qualitative method with the class teachers. The results of the research show that teachers express gratitude towards the method in use for mathematics studies. The study also proves that students get more interested in learning and continuous learning. This contributed to a more flexible way of learning. By working in a laboratory, the students get to work with concrete materials in order to clarify mathematical concepts. The only downside seems to be the fact that students appear to become attached to this method, refusing any other learning techniques. This, however, should not stand in the way of using the laboratory method with children.

There is a constant change in the world of school, new curricula and syllabi are made and the view of teaching and learning is changing. The desire to improve maths teaching in Swedish schools is strong, especially by laboratory work. How is it then that several teachers in our schools are still using the traditional way of teaching mathematics, which I consider to be relying a lot on the textbook and work for an automated approach? The purpose of my study is to investigate how three different math teachers on an F-5 school in the southern Stockholm area, choose to work with mathematics and why they choose to work according to a special approach. In order to obtain the information I seek, I have chosen to use the qualitative method to get a better understanding of my results. I have both observed the teachers during mathematics lessons on multiple occasions and interviewed the three teachers individually. The theories I have chosen to support my thesis on are the socio-cultural perspective and the cognitive perspective. Based on the results of my investigation I found that teaching in general assumes a lot from the textbook. Teachers in the survey feel a sense of security, to build upon the textbook, which they consider covers much of the knowledge students should have. The teachers use the textbook as a base and complements with laboratory features and communicate mathematics. The approach they choose to use has a lot of time allocated for teaching mathematics. Time isn’t enough for all the teachers to do what they want and they are worried that students will forget the basics of mathematics. Even the large number of students in the class plays the role of the choice of working, because all students should have time to develop.

In this manuscript there a new method that possesses an element of early development of children is introduced. In this case the “game”, that learn pupils of primary school to perform the laboratory work, is suggested. The primary school students are acquainted with the aim of experiments, the order of their performing and the results description. There have performed several examinations of the after performing the laboratory work. Thus, the good development results were achieved. Primary science education in Lithuania is compared with primary education in Sweden.

Amidst calls to incorporate inquiry meaningfully into the practice of laboratory work in secondary school chemistry and calls to investigate how teachers negotiate their professional identities under widespread reforms in education, this study sought to explore the interface of teacher professional identity and how teachers facilitate inquiry for learners during practical activities. Utilising a social constructivist lens and a qualitative case study approach, the study focused on three inquiry actions; namely, question posing, experiment procedure design and articulation of solutions through a teacher identity lens. Data capture comprised a mix of semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, observations, field notes and a research journal. Data was analysed utilising the content analysis method. Findings were fourfold. First, teachers displayed four identity positions in Inquiry-based Laboratory work, which was interwoven with their professional training, personal school experiences, beliefs and attitudes and sense of agency. Second, teachers’ professional identity influenced how they engaged learners in question posing, experiment design procedure and giving solutions as inquiry actions. Third, teachers held strong beliefs in chemistry as a two-pronged subject and utilised laboratory work to consolidate and develop learner understanding of scientific concepts and theories. And fourth the manner in which teachers facilitated inquiry in the chemistry laboratory manifested as an interface between teacher professional identity and the principles of IBLW. / Thesis (PhD--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / Unrestricted

In den Ingenieurwissenschaften ist die Arbeit in Laboren ein zentraler Bestandteil aktiver Hochschullehre und -forschung. Jedoch besteht ein grundlegendes Problem in der Einbettung von Laborarbeit in computergestützte Arbeitsabläufe wie etwa dem E-Learning. Für eine nachhaltige Kompetenzentwicklung bei Studierenden können die Bereiche der aktiven Laborarbeit und der Lehre nicht weiterhin isoliert voneinander betrachtet werden. Der vorliegende Artikel beschreibt den Aufbau einer kooperativen Forschungsumgebung für die wissenschaftliche Laborarbeit, welche sich in die hochschulweiten und sogar organisationsübergreifenden IT-Infrastrukturen nahtlos einbetten lässt. Dabei wird deutlich, dass eine innovative kooperative Forschungsumgebung Synergien zwischen Forschung und Lehre maßgeblich fördern kann.