Um estudo sobre a razão prática em Tomás de Aquino, analisada sob a luz de seus primeiros princípios. Parte-se da pergunta de como o ser humano descobre o que é bom e mau para si o que requer cobrir dois momentos distintos de sua obra: o tratamento dado à synderesis e, em seguida, como os princípios por ela apreendidos se articulam e como funcionam na mente humana. Defende-se, por fim, que é um equívoco ler os princípios da lei natural como primariamente normativos no sentido deontológico do termo. São, antes, diretivos, conferindo à razão prática individual os bens de cuja posse depende a felicidade humana. As implicações dessa leitura para a ética de Tomás de Aquino que aparece agora sob forte roupagem eudaimonista são, por fim, analisadas. / The present study focuses on Aquinass exposition of practical reason, analyzed in light of its first principles. We begin with the question of how an individual human being discovers what is good and bad for himself, which is at the root of natural law, that is, rationally grounded morality. This requires covering two distinct moments of Aquinass work: his treatment of synderesis and, after it, how the principles apprehended by synderesis relate to one another and what kind of knowledge they give to the human mind. It is argued that it is a mistake to see the first practical principles as normative in the deontological sense. Rather, they are directive, furnishing practical reason with the goods on whose possession human happiness depends. The implications of this reading for Aquinass ethics are then analyzed and his ethical stance emerges as strongly eudaimonistic.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2001. / The aim of this study was to examine the impact of socio-economic factors on scholastic performance (achievement) ofleamers in the secondary school. The study was conducted in the Southern Region of the Northern Province, in the Nebo District. The Southern Regio which is made up of basically Nebo and Sekhukhune, forms part of the former Lebowa and is basically rural. A literature study was-conducted, which unravelled and brought into surface factors of social and economic nature, which are contrary to effective learning and contributes towards poor performance, especially in public secondary schools. Literature study revealed that learners from disadvantaged backgrounds especially in the rural communities have their learning process heavily affected and disturbed by social and economic factors. An empirical survey was also conducted to establish the views and opinions of parents, educators and the learners themselves. A qualitative research method was used. Letebele Marishane Secondary School in Ngwaritsi circuit was used as a case study. Educators completed questionnaire whilst learners and parents were engaged in focus group interviews (discussion groups). Information gathered through observations was also taken into account. Both the literature review and the empirical survey agreed that the learner's background that is his/her family, home environment; his/her neighbourhood and other factors of economic and social nature can impact positively or negatively on performance in the classroom. That is, according to information gathered, learners from advantaged backgrounds stand a better chance in the classroom than learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is evident therefore that poverty that prevails amongst the rural communities impacts on learning and performance in the examination and other classroom activities.

Thesis (M.Ed.) -- University of the North, 1997 / Refer to the document / HSRC (Human Science Research Council)

There are some inadequacies in our American way of life. One of these is the inadequate help and attention given to the problem of children who become shackled with their lower class environment with little or no desire to incentive to rise above this. The major challenge to any teacher is the ability to stimulate and inspire children to achieve or succeed. There are different degrees of achievement. For one child, great achievement is not the same as for another. The realization of this prompted the decision to see what differences in achievement exist among the three main socio-economic classes.

Previous research has focused on the role concerted cultivation has played as a pathway to academic achievement and cognitive skill acquisition, but there has been little to no attention given to the potential role concerted cultivation plays as a pathway to non-cognitive factors that shape academic achievement in school. There is substantial evidence that non-cognitive factors significantly determine educational and economic mobility, but we know relatively little about the specific role that parenting style, and concerted cultivation in particular, plays in shaping non-cognitive factors. The work of Bourdieu provides a rationale to hypothesize that the pathway connecting concerted cultivation to academic achievement is mediated by non-cognitive factors. Overall, the results support the central hypothesis of the study positing that non-cognitive factors mediates the relationship between concerted cultivation and academic achievement. Each of the non-cognitive variables assessed, positive behavior, behavior problems, and mastery, significantly mediate the effect concerted cultivation domains have on academic achievement. Specifically, positive behavior significantly mediates the relationship between parental involvement and both reading score and high school GPA; behavior problems significantly mediates the relationship between parental involvement and reading score and language patterns and reading score, and parental involvement and high school GPA and language patterns and high school GPA; and mastery significantly mediates the relationship between parental involvement and reading score.

The attainment of high grades on the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) is critical to the future study and employment prospects of many Australian adolescents. Thus it is important to understand the factors that contribute to performance in the VCE. The aims of this study were twofold: the main aim was to test competing models of academic performance, subsuming a range of situational and dispositional variables based on a) self-efficacy theory, b) target and purpose goals, c) cognitive skills and self-regulatory strategies, and d) positive psychology. These models were each tested in terms of English performance and mathematics performance as these units contribute proportionally the most to overall VCE scores. In order to study whether pressures peculiar to the VCE impact on performance, the competing models were tested in a sample of Victorian students prior to the VCE (year 10) and then during the VCE (year 11). A preliminary study was conducted in order to develop and test four scales required for use in the major study, using an independent sample of 302 year nine students. The results indicated that these new scales were psychometrically reliable and valid. Three-hundred and seven Australian students participated in the year 10 and 11 study. These students were successively asked to provide their final years 9, 10 and 11 English and mathematics grades at times one, three and five and to complete a series of questionnaires at times two and four. Results of the year 10 study indicated that models based on self-efficacy theory were the best predictors of both English and mathematics performance, with high past grades, high self-efficacy and low anxiety contributing most to performance. While the year 10 self-efficacy models, target goal models, positive psychology models, self-regulatory models and cognitive skill based models were each robust in the sample in year 11, a substantial increase in explained variance was observed from year 10 to year 11 in the purpose goal models. Results indicated that students’ mastery goals and their performance-approach goals became substantially more predictive in the VCE than they were prior to the VCE. This result can be taken to suggest that these students responded in very instrumental ways to the pressures, and importance, of their VCE. An integrated model based on a combination of the variables from the competing models was also tested in the VCE. Results showed that these models were comparable, both in English and mathematics, to the self-efficacy models, but explained less variance than the purpose goal models. Thus in terms of parsimony the integrated models were not preferred. The implications of these results in terms of teaching practices and school counseling practices are discussed. It is recommended that students be encouraged to maintain a positive outlook in relation to their schoolwork and that they be encouraged to set their VCE goals in terms of a combination of self-referenced (mastery) and other-referenced (performance-approach) goals.

Multiple choice testing has been introduced as an assessment instrument in almost all educational systems during the past twenty years. A growing body of research seems to indicate that tests structured to a multiple choice format favour males. In the ACT, Queensland and Western Australia, a multiple choice examination known as ASAT was used to moderate student scores. Using data from the 1989 ASAT Paper 1, as well as data from the ACT Year 12 cohort of that year, an investigation was made of the items in the ASAT paper. This investigation attempted to identify specific types of questions that enabled males, on average, to perform better than females. Questions, which had a statistically significant difference between the results of males and females, were examined further. An ASAT unit was given to students to complete and their answers to a questionnaire concerning the unit were taped and analysed. The study found that males performed better, on average, than females on the 1989 ASAT Paper 1. The mean difference in the quantitative questions was much greater than in the verbal questions. A number of factors appear to contribute to the difference in performance between males and females. A statistically significant number of females study Mathematics at a lower level, which appears to contribute to females lower quantatitive scores. Females seem to be considerably more anxious about taking tests and this anxiety remains throughout a multiple choice test. Females lack confidence in their ability to achieve in tests and are tentative about "risktaking" which is an element of multiple choice tests. The language of the test and male oriented content may contribute to females' negative performance in multiple choice testing.

A study was conducted among a sample of Korean American students to investigate the potential moderation of the risks related to English proficiency by the protection of school belonging. Perceived scholastic competence, self-reported school grades, and academic expectancies were used for dependent variables. It was hypothesized that students with higher sense of belonging would be less affected by English proficiency than their peers with lower sense of belonging. The risk of English proficiency was confirmed. However, school belonging did not have as much of an effect as expected and students with higher English proficiency seemed to gain more benefit from increased school belonging. This finding reminds educators of the pressing importance of English proficiency, and future research is suggested to investigate the unique effects of belonging among students of Korean, and perhaps other Asian, backgrounds.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of Scholastic, Incorporated's ReadAbout software system on student achievement in the subject of reading. The study assessed the relationship between the amount of time third and fourth grade students spent utilizing the program and their scale scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) reading test, as reported in student records of third and fourth graders at Comal Independent School District, Texas. Additionally, the study attempted to determine possible differences among students for the variables of gender, primary language of learning, and socio-economic status, as reported in student records of third and fourth graders at Comal Independent School District, Texas. For the purpose of this study, school and student performance analysis included only the nine elementary schools in the Comal Independent School District that served third and fourth grade students during the 2007-2008 school year. The student population under study consisted of a total of 585 third graders and 792 fourth graders (1377 total students). The research findings of this study include the following: 1. There was a statistically significant relationship between the amount of time that both third grade and fourth grade students spent using the ReadAbout software system and their performance on the third and fourth grade TAKS reading tests. 2. No statistically significant relationships were determined for gender or socioeconomic status when the amount of time individuals in each subpopulation spent using ReadAbout and the students' TAKS reading test scale scores were compared. However, in the analysis for primary language of learning, a small group of Spanish-speaking students who used ReadAbout for more than 16.5 hours prior to taking the test outperformed their English-speaking peers in the same usage category, and this difference did prove to be statistically significant.

This dissertation focuses on two distinct relationships: 1) classroom peer ability and student end-of-course test outcomes and 2) school tracking policy and student end-of-course test outcomes. Utilizing the education production function and hierarchical linear models, this dissertation contributes to the literature in the field of public policy by extending the work of previous scholars and focusing attention on these relationships in three high school subjects (English I, Algebra I, and Biology). In addition, I present a novel method for identifying tracking intensity within schools. The primary research questions addressed in the dissertation include: 1) To what extent does the ability level of classroom peers contribute to student test score performance?; 2) Does the variability of prior achievement within classrooms correlate with student test score outcomes?; and 3) Is there a relationship between school tracking policy and student test scores? Collectively these questions directly relate to policy options at the school, district, and state levels.