More than 59 million children are out of schools across the globe (UNESCO Institute for Statistics and UNICEF, 2015), despite the promise of education for all children by the year 2015. The situation is more pronounced in developing countries particularly in Africa and South Asia. Strategies adopted globally to attract children towards schools rarely considered improving the existing physical environments, despite evidence that primary school aged children (five to 12 years) learn more effectively when their education is incorporated with surrounding environments (Khan & Islam, 2014; Lieberman & Hoody, 1998; Mygind, 2009). This study investigated the potential of a primary school ground to be an effective learning environment and explores how the design of an outdoor environment can contribute to children’s learning. This interdisciplinary project is underpinned by classic psychological theories of child development (e.g. Piaget, 1964 and Vygotsky et al., 1978), while Gibson’s (1979) ‘Concept of Affordance’ and Barker’s (1976) ‘Theory of Behaviour Settings’ have provided the framework for exploring the relationship between the school ground and children’s learning. A quasi-experimental action research project was carried out in a Government primary school in Bangladesh, which included the design and development of the school ground, with the direct participation of children, teachers and parents. Another primary school (with no change to the outdoor environment) was used as a control school to compare the outcomes. A mixed methods approach to conduct this quasi-experiment included data from existing exam scores, questionnaire survey, observation and behaviour-mapping, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. The key findings from this study indicate an overall positive influence of the designed outdoor environment on children’s academic performance and their motivation to learn. An increase in children’s cognitive, social and physical activities in the school ground is also evidenced by the study. The analysis of the data likewise reveals that different behaviour settings of the school ground offered opportunities for different teaching and learning activities. Both natural settings and settings with built features afforded more focused activities (e.g. gardens afforded exploration and connection with nature, while the play area afforded more functional play). Additionally, settings comprised of both natural and built elements (e.g. the area with loose materials and huts) and areas in close proximity with natural ones (i.e. the open yard) accommodated diverse and multiple teaching and learning activities (e.g. measuring, building/constructing and exploring). The findings further suggest that the design and use of the school ground had a surprising and unintended positive effect on teachers’ motivation and pedagogy. Through reflecting on the use of different landscape elements and settings in the school ground during formal outdoor classes and informal play times, the study has further come to propose some design recommendations for other new school grounds as well as the redesign of existing ones.

A qualitative and quantitative study was undertaken to understand the support for learning provided by African parents in the education of their children. In this study we investigated the extent, level, form and content of the support of parents in the learning of their children during the Foundation Phase with special reference to a Tsonga community. Parents’ support is regarded as an essential factor in children’s learning, but more information is needed about the practices of such support for African children in the Foundation Phase. There are some parents (educated or not) who do not provide effective support. In some instances, parents do not stay with their children because of migratory labour practices and siblings have to carry the responsibility. Some of the parents leave early for work and return home late while children are asleep, which makes it difficult for them to provide optimal support. It was found in this research that the amount and nature of literacy materials did not differ much between the working families and those who were not working. It was again found during the work sessions with both the literate and illiterate parents that there was extremely little variation in support methods in as far as numeracy and language were concerned. / Thesis (PhD (Orthopedagogics))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

The increasing reliance on technology for communication seems to have shown that nontechnology or traditional team building activities may not be effective in improving certain interpersonal skills (Klein et al., 2009). The researcher investigated whether the use of a serious game, i.e. an educational video game, is a better mode of delivery to improve group problem solving, team cohesiveness, team learning behaviours and, perceived team psychological safety rather than traditional team building intervention, i.e. a non-technology-based team building intervention (Emsley & Rumeser, 2018; Edmondson, 1999). The researcher conducted two post test only quasi-experiments to compare the methods of team-building. In Study 1, four teams of university students (n=15 total students) took part in either a serious game or a traditional team building intervention. The serious game was based on a scavenger hunt mobile application while the traditional team building activity was an obstacle course. Each team was assessed, after the team building interventions, on their group problem-solving skills and team cohesiveness in order to determine if there was a significant difference between the scores of the two dimensions above for intervention groups. Study 2 consisted of six teams of university students (n=30 total students) participated in either a traditional online team-building activity or an online team-based serious game. The traditional online team-building activity was a spectrum mapping activity, and the online team-based serious game was an online escape room. Each team then participated in the same thought experiment and were finally asked to answer a questionnaire. Furthermore, a field researcher participated in both activities and her experiences were noted through an interview. There did not seem to be sufficient evidence to support the hypotheses for the second quasi experiment. However, the was evidence collected throughout both quasi-experiments that suggests that serious games are more enjoyed by participants and there seems to be a clearer initiative to utilise the interpersonal skills acquired in the future.

La langue est sans aucun doute le reflet d’une culture et en cela elle permet à deux peuples non seulement de communiquer mais aussi de se découvrir. C’est la raison pour laquelle ce travail vise à répondre à deux objectifs : le premier est d’optimiser l’enseignement des langues, ici le français en Corée, le second est de favoriser les échanges entre nos deux pays en mesurant la portée culturelle véhiculée par une langue. Pour cela nous avons cherché à identifier les contraintes de l’apprentissage du français en décrivant les interactions entre enseignants français natifs et apprenants coréens dans l’enseignement supérieur en Corée. La constitution d’un corpus d’interactions authentiques mettant en contact 180 apprenants coréens avec 7 enseignants au travers de 13 cours de FLE a permis de décrire des phénomènes interactionnels récurrents d’ordre sociolinguistique. La grande distance linguistique séparant le français du coréen s’est manifestée par des incompréhensions et des malentendus d’origine phonétique, morphosyntaxique et sémantique issus de transferts entre les deux langues. Pour surmonter ces difficultés linguistiques, nous préconisons d’accompagner les cours de grammaire d’une immersion en langue cible par des cours de conversation. Mais notre étude montre combien les habitudes d’apprentissage des apprenants coréens, entre silences, rire d’embarras, hochements de tête et autres gestes illustratifs palliatifs à des lacunes langagières, doivent être prises en compte dans toute démarche didactique. / The language is undoubtedly the reflection of a culture and it allows two peoples not only to communicate but also to discover each other. It is the reason why this work aims at answering two objectives: the first one is to optimize the languages teaching, here French in Korea, the second is to favour the exchanges between our two countries by measuring the cultural significance conveyed by a language. For this we tried to identify the constraints of the learning of French by describing the interactions between French native teachers and Korean learners in the higher education in Korea. The constitution of a corpus of authenticinteractions putting in touch 180 Korean learners with 7 teachers through 13 courses of FLE allowed to describe interactionnels recurring phenomena of sociolinguistic type. The linguistic great distance separating French of the Korean showed itself by incomprehensions and phonetic, morphosyntactic and semantic misunderstandings of origin stemming from transfers between both languages. To overcome these linguistic difficulties, we recommend to accompany the grammar courses with an immersion in target language by courses of conversation. But our study shows how many the learning habits of the Korean learners,between silences, laughter of embarrassments, nods and other palliative illustrative gestures in linguistic deficiencies, must be taken into account in any didactic approach.

Durch die zunehmende Automatisierung der Tierhaltung gewinnt die Tier-Technik-Beziehung zunehmend an Bedeutung. Es besteht ein wachsendes Interesse am Tierverhalten, den Möglichkeiten des Lernens der Tiere und den Anpassungsstrategien. In der Dissertation untersuchte ich die Melk-, und Milchparameter und das Tierverhalten bei der automatischen Milchgewinnung. Die Messungen haben gezeigt, dass auf die Milchabgabe einzelner Individuen und insbesondere auf deren Euterviertel sehr differenziert einzugehen ist. Das Automatische Melksystem (AMS) vermag auf die speziellen Unterschiede der einzelnen Viertel, im Sinne einer verbesserten Tiergerechtheit, Rücksicht zu nehmen. Ein weiterer wichtiger Aspekt die Tiergerechtheit zu verbessern ist es, eine zuverlässige Prozesskontrolle durchzuführen. Dazu muss zunächst einmal festgestellt werden, wie sich die natürliche Variationsbreite der einzelnen Parameter darstellt, um pathologisch bedingte Abweichungen signifikant erkennen zu können. Die Gewinnung von verlässlichen Aussagen über den Gesundheitszustand von Kühen im AMS setzen voraus, dass verschiedene interdependente Parameter so verknüpft oder deren Messungen sooft wiederholt werden, bis ein intelligentes Entscheidungssystem seine Schlüsse ziehen kann. Dabei ist zu beachten, dass stark auffällige Werte ein hohes Maß an Information haben, aber eine entsprechend geringe Verlässlichkeit aufweisen. Sich wiederholende Werte haben hingegen einen geringen Informationsgehalt, dafür aber ein hohes Maß an Redundanz bzw. Verlässlichkeit, soweit sie nicht durch systematische Fehler entstehen. Für eine zuverlässige Prozesskontrolle kann es manchmal vorteilhafter sein, eine automatisierte Datengewinnung zu installieren, auch wenn der einzelne Parameter (z. B. die Leitfähigkeit) zwar wenig aussagekräftig, dafür aber die Durchführung deutlich zuverlässiger ist als bei Tests, die von Menschen manuell durchgeführt werden. Ähnliches gilt für die Haltungsumwelt von Tieren. Eine durch Automation dominierte Umwelt kann für Tiere deutlich berechenbarer und damit zuverlässiger gestaltet werden. Das bedeutet, dass für die Individuen weniger Stresssituationen mit den für sie unabsehbaren Folgen entstehen. Es sollte aber dabei beachtet werden, dass es zwingend ist, auf die Lerngeschwindigkeit der einzelnen Tiere, in Abhängigkeit von ihrer jeweiligen Lernsituation, einzugehen, um zuverlässige Umweltbedingungen für die Kühe mit einem AMS bereitzustellen. Es konnte weiterhin festgestellt werden, dass das Melken in einem AMS bei den Kühen nicht als belastender Stressfaktor identifiziert werden kann, wenn man die Herzfrequenz als Indikator heranzieht und diese über eine längere Zeit analysiert. Der zunehmende Einsatz von Technik in der Milchviehhaltung kann einen wichtigen Beitrag dazu leisten, die Haltungsumwelt der Kühe human und tiergerecht zu gestalten. / Relationship between animal and technology in automatic milk production: Due to the fact of the increasing automation in husbandry systems becomes the relationship between the animal and the technology more and more important. There is a growing interest to know more about animal behaviour, the ability of learning and the coping strategies in such systems. In the thesis I investigated the parameter of milking, of milk and of animal behaviour in an Automatic Milking System (AMS). The measurement has shown that the milk yield differs very much between the quarters of the udder. An AMS has the possibility to take such differences into consideration. This is one step towards more animal welfare. Another improvement of animal welfare is a better control of the process. For that, it is important to have a certain knowledge about the natural variation of different parameters, such as electrical conductivity of the milk, milk ingredients or milk yield. This makes the basis of the identification of anomalies depending on pathological problems. To get a reliable declaration about the state of health one has to connect different interdependent parameters and/or the measurement has to be repeated so often until an intelligent decision system can draw conclusions. Besides it is important to know, that a conspicuous value is highly informative, but it is less reliable, otherwise is an often repeatable value less informative but highly redundant, if there is no systematic failure. For a control of the process it is important to get reliable information, so it is sometimes better to automat the tests, instead of using human knowledge, which is often more informative, but less reliable (i.e. electrical conductivity). There is a similarity in husbandry systems because an automated system can be much more reliable and calculable for animals. That means less stressing situations because of incalculable reactions. For such a reliable environment in an AMS it is necessary to give every cow their individual time to learn the facts about the AMS. The milking in an AMS cannot be identified as a negative stress factor, if one uses the measurement of heart rate for identification. The increasing automation in the dairy husbandry can be an important contribution to create a humane environment for dairy cows and improve animal welfare.