This thesis explored the uses of continuous assessment and the experiences of lower attaining pupils in primary and junior secondary schools at Agona and Affutu Districts in Ghana. The study adopted a range of data collection methods including: self-completed questionnaires, semi-structured and focus groups interviews. A systematic sample of 107 primary and junior secondary teachers answered questionnaires and 12 teachers from the cohort were interviewed. Additionally, four focus groups of Primary 6 lower attaining pupils were interviewed. The main findings of the study were: • The majority of the teachers in the study felt strongly that continuous assessment enabled teachers to support lower attaining pupils to improve. • The teachers reported in the interviews that they used the same approach to assess all pupils including lower attainers in classrooms; this caused the pupils to perform poorly and eventually repeat classes. • The teachers identified policy, larger classes and lack of training as barriers to supporting lower attainers to improve. • Lower attaining pupils in the study reportedly became anxious, frustrated, and helpless before and during class tests, and upset when they failed. • They identified difficult tasks, lack of self-regulated learning and supportive environments as barriers to participating in class tests. The findings have implications for policy, practice, research, teacher training and professional development.

The study presented in this thesis was designed with a view to investigating the lived experiences of three young British women spending a Year Abroad (YA) in Italy as a part of their undergraduate degree course. The study was guided by four research questions (see § 1.3). The empirical work was ethnographically-informed and combined interviews, diary entries, photos and photo captions with audio and video recordings. My understanding of the participants’ experiences was mostly built up through thematic and lexical analysis of the interview transcripts. I first focused on the themes which recurred most frequently in the participants’ discourse. I then examined the affective lexis that the participants drew on in expressing emotions and, drawing on the insights occurred from this aspect of the data, I built an account of their perceptions of and reactions to cultural difference. In addition, I looked into the specific ways in which they negotiated and reconfigured their identities as second language learners during the experience abroad. This study offers a new lens on the YA experience and demonstrates the value of cross-disciplinary research, which takes account of emotions in the negotiation of second language learner identities and in the handling of intercultural encounters

This longitudinal research study looks into the attitudes and current practices of Taiwanese teachers in supplementary schools (buxibans) toward professional development. Using the method of triangulation, data from two case studies, survey questionnaire (2004 and 2008), and electronic discourse were gathered and analyzed. A five-point likert scale was used to measure the teachers’ attitudes, Cronbach alpha to measure reliability, Chi-square to test the strength of the correlations between variables, and T-Tests to compare the responses from surveys 1 and 2. An online teacher professional development (oTPD) framework, that integrated the principles of cognitive apprenticeship and informal mentoring in online environments, was used to facilitate 1) the delivery of oTPD over a period of time, 2) the transfer and construction of teacher knowledge and skills that would have direct implications on teachers’ practice and on students’ learning, and 3) the social interaction and collaborative efforts of international teacher-experts (invited mentors) in the oTPD process. Despite some challenges faced during the implementation of new learning activities and/or learning materials adapted from their participation in the oTPD, the results show that teachers who took part in this study benefitted from oTPD through the construction of new knowledge and skills and a positive engagement in professional development.

The aim of the current study was to investigate the impact of parental constructs of school upon their children’s constructs of school and their emotionally based school refusing (EBSR) behaviour. The literature review explores the range of definitions surrounding EBSR, examines the existing research conducted to date and explores the lack of research around parental constructs and the potential role parental constructs may have upon EBSR. Using a Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) (Kelly, 1955) methodology called the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT), 5 parents and their children’s (who present with EBSR) constructs were elicited around school and school related elements. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data collected from the RGT interviews and also the shared themes between the constructs elicited from the parents and children and also between the parent-child dyads. In addition, a chi-square methodology was used to examine whether any of the parent-child repertory grids could be identified as being significantly similar. The results are discussed in relation to PCP and the impact the findings may have upon interventions for the child and their family and also the practice of professionals around the family. Methodological challenges with the study are examined and opportunities for future studies are illustrated.

This study explores how science and history trainee teachers, who have different amounts of higher education in science, respond to news reports about science. In semi-structured interviews, using researcher and reader selected articles, readers were asked about the likelihood of veracity of knowledge claims and also their reactions to what they read. The thesis reports a range of heuristics which served to increase, or decrease, epistemic distance and so make the reader more or less willing to accept scientific claims as true. The quality of participants’ responses to news stories was also examined by using concepts maps to identify the extent to which ideas were interconnected. Concept maps were found to have a networked structures for both groups of participants, however, there was limited evidence for participant use of ‘ideas about interconnectedness’, thus there was limited evidence of epistemic thinking. The veracity of news stories is largely indeterminate for the non-expert reader given the limited information contained in the story and so readers’ multiple understandings are emphasised. Overall, there was not much difference between the two groups of readers.

Previous research has highlighted that Greek-Cypriot teachers need to be offered a solid programme to support their practices with regard to SEBD children, and to provide support to SEBD children in order to meet their educational needs. This study examines the effect of the SEAL programme on children with SEBD in a mainstream Greek-Cypriot primary school in terms of changing their behaviour. Five teachers were interviewed in the researcher’s attempt to identify the way that teachers understand the concept of SEBD, the kinds of SEBD behaviours observed, and the provision made available by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus (MOEC) and by the school under consideration to support the teachers’ practices. A seminar was given to raise awareness of the concept and to provide information on the SEAL programme to the teachers. Finally, a series of observations took place, before during and after the implementation of the programme with SEBD children (Years 1, 2, 3) in order to address changes in their behaviour. This study highlights different challenges that the teachers appear to come across while trying to educate SEBD children, and a number of areas that need to be improved within the Greek- Cypriot education system to improve practices with regard to SEBD children. Results also indicate the improvements in teaching practices and SEBD children’s behaviour after the implementation of the SEAL programme. Further research into strategies that could be used by teachers, and changes in the education system, are called for.

This research is an evaluation of a Key Stage 3 intervention, Sanctuary, from its inception, through its evolution across nine years. The research explores the dichotomy related to achievement and inclusion and the conflicts that emerge when poor behaviour is involved. Pupils were identified in each of the three key stage 3 Year groups using criteria. These identified pupils were taken out of mainstream school into the resource base for a three week intensive course aimed at improving their basic numeracy and literacy skills whilst still ensuring provision of the core curriculum. Their adapted curriculum also included strategies to manage behaviour and anger and opportunities to develop self esteem, empathy, resilience and nurturing. The first research question was to investigate if the intervention provision answered the needs of the identified pupils. This justification was based on a formative evaluation of available literature and research. The second research question looking at the impact of the intervention required a summative evaluative methodological approach using documentation, questionnaires and interviews. Teachers, peer members, parents, employers, external inspectors and the young people themselves recognised improvements commensurate with other similar research as a result of the intervention.

This research constitutes an evaluative case study of Specialist Leaders of Education (SLEs) deployed through one Teaching School Alliance (TSA) in the English West Midlands and their contribution to leadership development. While the Government purports that enactment of and engagement with the role will develop leadership capacity, the study explores SLE, recipient and head teacher perceptions across eleven primary schools as to whether this broad aim has been achieved and seeks to inform the research agenda at a time when a leadership recruitment shortage is anticipated. The study considers how leadership learning is both conceptualised and facilitated across deployments and whether or not 'professional growth' occurred. A new conceptualisation of professional growth is offered that synthesizes key tenets from the literature and themes emerging from the findings. This includes the notion of a transformed view aligned with greater 'role conceptualisation', socialisation experiences and a sense of belonging fostering a coherent 'leadership identity' and self belief leading to increased 'personal capacity'. Outcomes of the study suggest that professional growth in these aspects did occur for SLEs and their recipients through engagement with the SLE programme where successful matches were made. Modifications in order to best achieve the desired outcomes are also recommended.

This thesis is about learning strategies that are specifically taught, presented in instruction booklets and then learned, in order to perform verbal recall tasks. It is also about how learning strategies that are not specifically taught and in this thesis called 'representations' are used by individuals to work out problems. There are two parts to the thesis. The first part used wordlists and learning strategies to assist subjects in learning lists of words. The second part of the thesis used problems and no taught or instructed learning strategies, but asked the subjects to show their 'workings out' in answering the various problems. Four experiments are reported in the first part of the thesis. Subjects were aged 13 - 14 years in the first two experiments and 10 - 11years in the latter two experiments. The Cognitive Styles Analysis was only used in the fourth experiment. The words chosen in all the four experiments were familiar nouns and adjectives and selected from common categories including: food, mode of transport, and animals. The results of these experiments show that either being taught or learning the strategies from written instructions does not greatly influence subjects' list learning performance. Also, it is unclear from the literature if the learning of learning strategies in learning lists of words, has a long lasting effect on the learner. The second part of the thesis examined the 'workings out' of subjects after completing a variety of problems including: analytic reasoning, verbal reasoning, spatial, and mathematical word. This part of the thesis included two studies and in both the Cognitive Styles Analysis (Riding, 1991) was given. The subjects were postgraduates and undergraduates in experiments five and six, respectively. The data was analyzed in terms of not how many problems were correctly answered but how much representation and how many different types of representations were used in arriving at a solution to each problem The representations were categorised according to the number of 'characters',' lines', 'pictures' 'ideas' and 'letters' (number of characters used in total - the number of characters used in the answer) used in each problem The results showed that most subjects used representations in solving problems. They also showed that such factors as age and cognitive style had an influence on the type of representation used.

This research explores inter-professional supervision involving an educational psychologist supervising another professional and complements the recent guidelines on professional supervision produced by The Division of Educational and Child Psychology (DECP) (Dunsmuir and Leadbetter, 2010). The factors explored were purposes and boundaries of supervision; models of supervision; skills of the supervisor, including those that are distinctive to the profession of educational psychology; benefits and problems associated with supervision including the process of evaluation and ethical and legal issues pertaining to supervision. An interpretative epistemological stance was adopted. Ten semi-structured interviews were carried out with educational psychologists (supervisors) and other professionals (supervisees) recruited through purposive sampling. Interviews were transcribed orthographically and coded using thematic analysis. Findings suggest that inter-professional supervision was viewed positively. Supervision skills were recognised as a necessary pre-requisite but not necessarily distinctive to the profession of educational psychology. This research highlights the conflicting conceptualisations of supervision and the importance of contracting for increasing understanding of the supervision process, alerting stakeholders to important ethical and legal implications, and reconciling differences in expectations concerning the aims and functions of supervision.