The purpose of this research program was to explore the effectiveness of the Predict- Observe-Explain (POE) teachingllearning technique to diagnose students' understanding of science and identify students' level of achievement with reference to the Science Student Outcome Statements for Australian schools. This research employed an interpretive action research approach with a sample of students from three Australian metropolitan high schools in grades 9, 10, 11, and 12, whose ages ranged between 14 and 17 years. Three data collection methods were used to generate data for interpretation, namely, written POE responses of students, in-class journals and student interviews. Data collected were interpreted using three theoretical perspectives, namely, Chi et al.'s theory of ontological categories, Hewson and Hennessey's conceptual change theory to determine the epistemological status of students' understanding of science, and Chinn and Brewer's model to classify types of students' responses to contradictory observations. This purpose of using this methodology was to obtain an in-depth, plausible and credible account of students' understanding and their level of achievement. POE tasks were concerned with heat and the expansion of water, solubility of salt, and power and resistance of light globes. The data revealed common ideas amongst students that are contrary to scientists' science; furthermore, students showed that they were able to articulate their own ideas based on the POE tasks. The findings in this research reveal that these POEs were effective in capturing a range of possible student observations and prediction outcomes when worded in an open-ended format. / Quality information on students' understanding and on the way they responded to contradictory data was obtained when POEs were administered by teacher demonstrations and were designed to produce phenomena that were clear, immediate and had only one aspect to observe. Furthermore, the data suggest that POEs are effective in identifying students' achievement across levels within a substrand of the Australian Student Outcome Statements and enable the teacher to observe and document a spread of achievement over a range of levels rather that a single outcome. The results of this research suggest that POEs are effective in diagnosing students' understanding of science and their level of achievement. The POE tasks can be used by teachers to insightfully design learning activities and strategies that start from the students' viewpoint rather than that of the teacher or the scientist. Findings in this research have implications for curriculum development and learning strategies, teacher development, and the promotion and assessment of students' understanding and level of achievement.

The primary purpose of this study was to develop a two-tier multiple choice diagnostic instrument to assess Singapore Grade 10 students' (15 to 17 years old) understanding and alternative conceptions of qualitative analysis. Additional and related purposes were to determine whether more advanced chemistry students, for example, junior college (Grade 11 and 12) students, undergraduates and graduate trainee-teachers have a better understanding of basic qualitative analysis than secondary students, and to develop appropriate teaching strategies and materials on qualitative analysis based on the findings of this study and a review of the literature on practical work.The results from the administration of the diagnostic instrument showed that Singapore Grade 10 students had many alternative conceptions related to qualitative analysis, and these were grouped under the headings of 'Displacement', 'Redox', 'Dissolution', 'Addition of acid' and 'Heating'. The cross-age study showed that the more advanced chemistry students generally had a better understanding of basic qualitative analysis but had similar alternative conceptions as the Grade 10 students. However, the alternative conceptions identified were consistently held by only a small number of students across all contexts examined in the diagnostic instrument, suggesting that a number of students either had more than one conception for a particular concept or no conceptions at all. The results from the trial of the qualitative analysis teaching package indicated that the teaching package was feasible. Teachers involved in the trial found it structured and comprehensive, and the students who experienced the teaching package performed better on the diagnostic instrument than a comparison group.The study recommends that better ways of conducting qualitative analysis practical work are required, and using the teaching ++ / package may be a step in this direction. The study also raises questions about the value of teaching qualitative analysis in secondary schools when important reactions involved in qualitative analysis are omitted from the syllabus, and when there is little incentive and time in the school curriculum for learners to understand what they are doing in qualitative analysis.

<p> The project describes the implementation of a program to simulate a simple computer. The program is implemented on a micro-computer for portability.</p> <p> A Secondary School student, in the Ontario Educational System, at about the grade 10 or 11 level may write programs for the simulated computer. The student may also simulate, interactively, some of the processes involved in executing his program.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

This diploma thesis deals with problems and diagnostics of students understanding of politics in the lessons social sciences. The theoretical part concerns several thematic units such definition of key terms and their relations, the theory of constructivism, the methodology of the pedagogical research or the system of political education at school. The practical part involves the qualitative research of students' understanding in two age categories, using the method of interview. Then, both groups of students were compared. On the basis of retrieved information the confrontation with frequently used coursebooks was created. Key words: Students' understanding, pedagogical constructivism, political education, qualitative research

Multiplicative reasoning permeates many mathematical topics, for example fractions and functions. Hence there is consensus on the importance of acquiring multiplicative reasoning. Multiplication is typically introduced as repeated addition, but when it is extended to include multi-digits and decimals a more general view of multiplication is required. There are conflicting reports in previous research concerning students’ understandings of multiplication. For example, repeated addition has been suggested both to support students’ understanding of calculations and as a hindrance to students’ conceptualisation of the two-dimensionality of multiplication. The relative difficulty of commutativity and distributivity is also debated, and there is a possible conflict in how multiplicative reasoning is described and assessed. These inconsistencies are addressed in a study with the aim of understanding more about students’ understandings of multiplication when it is expanded to comprise multi-digits and decimals. Understanding is perceived as connections between representations of different types of knowledge, linked together by reasoning. Especially connections between three components of multiplication were investigated; models for multiplication, calculations and arithmetical properties. Explicit reasoning made the connections observable and externalised mental representations. Twenty-two students were recurrently interviewed during five semesters in grades five to seven to find answers to the overarching research question: What do students’ responses to different forms of multiplicative tasks in the domain of multi-digits and decimals reveal about their understandings of multiplication? The students were invited to solve different forms of tasks during clinical interviews, both individually and in pairs. The tasks involved story telling to given multiplications, explicit explanations of multiplication, calculation problems including explanations and justifications for the calculations and evaluation of suggested calculation strategies. Additionally the students were given written word problems to solve. The students’ understandings of multiplication were robustly rooted in repeated addition or equally sized groups. This was beneficial for their understandings of calculations and distributivity, but hindered them from fluent use of commutativity and to conceptualise decimal multiplication. The robustness of their views might be explained by the introduction to multiplication, which typically is by repeated addition and modelled by equally sized groups. The robustness is discussed in relation to previous research and the dilemma that more general models for multiplication, such as rectangular area, are harder to conceptualise than models that are only susceptible to natural numbers. The study indicated that to evaluate and explain others’ calculation strategies elicited more reasoning and deeper mathematical thinking compared to evaluating and explaining calculations conducted by the students themselves. Furthermore, the different forms of tasks revealed various lines of reasoning and to get a richly composed picture of students’ multiplicative reasoning and understandings of multiplication, a wide variety of forms of tasks is suggested. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

This research developed a framework describing students’ developing understanding of function. The research started with the problem: How might typical learning paths of secondary school students’ developing understanding of function be described and assessed? The following principles and research questions guided the development of the framework. Principle 1. The framework should be research-based. Principle 2. The framework should include key aspects of the function concept. Principle 3. The framework should be in a form that would enable teachers to assess and monitor students’ developing understanding of this concept. Principle 4. The framework should reflect students’ big ideas or growth points which describe students’ key cognitive strategies, knowledge and skills in working with function tasks. Principle 5. The framework should reflect typical learning trajectories or a general trend of the growth points in students’ developing understanding of function. The following questions guided the development of the framework of growth points: 1. What are the growth points in students’ developing understanding of function? 2. What information on students’ understanding of function is revealed in the course of developing the framework of growth points that would be potentially useful for teachers? The framework considered four key domains of the function concept: Graphs, Equations, Linking Representations and Equivalent Functions. Students’ understanding of function in each of these domains was described in terms of growth points. Growth points are descriptions of students’ “big ideas”. The description of each growth point highlights students’ developing conceptual understanding rather than merely procedural understanding of a mathematical concept. For example, growth points in students’ understanding of function under Equations were: 1) interpretations based on individual points; 2) interpretations based on holistic analysis of relationships; 3) interpretations based on local properties; and, 4) manipulations and transformations of functions (in equation form) as objects. he growth points in each domain are more or less ordered according to the likelihood that these “big ideas” would emerge. o identify and describe these growth points, Year 8, 9 and 10 students in Australia and the Philippines were given tasks involving function that would highlight thinking in terms of the process-object conception and the property-oriented conception of function. Students’ performance on these tasks and their strategies served as bases for the identification and description of the growth points. he research approach was interpretive and exploratory during the initial stages of analysis. The research then moved to a quantitative approach to identify typical patterns across the growth points, before returning to an interpretive phase in refining the growth points in the light of these data. The main data were collected from students in the Philippines largely through two written tests. Interviews with a sample of students also provided insights into students’ strategies and interpretations of tasks. he research outputs, the research-based framework and the assessment tasks, have the potential to provide teachers with a structure through which they can assess and develop students’ growth in the understanding of function, and their own understanding of the function concept.

The main purpose is to study the meaning that teachers give the Holocaust as a field of knowledge; the subsequent nature of their teaching; and how it is understood by the students. In connection to this, the purpose is also to discuss the potential of developing a historical consciousness among the students as well as the possibility of bringing insights into the importance of fundamental democratic values. The intentions described by the teachers when teaching the Holocaust as a field of knowledge vary relatively much. Five main themes are found that show these variations. These are: “Never again!”; “Not only the Holocaust!”;“Think critically!”; “Understand the psychology of man!” and “Realize the value of democracy!” Common to the first two themes is the teachers' intention to inform students about crimes against humanity during the Nazi rule and/or under communist regimes. These teachers are mainly using tools that illustrate the horrific aspects of the crimes, focusing on the victims and the perpetrators. The three following themes differ from the first two as they focus the teaching on the steps to Auschwitz, instead of on the Holocaust itself. The intention here is to create an understanding of factors that can contribute to an explanation of what made the Holocaust possible. The concept of a historical consciousness is not expressively used or explained in the teaching, although it is obvious that some of the teachers expect their students to think in the dimensions of the past, the present and the future, as well as understand the relation between these dimensions.

In this thesis I describe a study of how the science of genetics is transformed into school science in upper secondary level textbooks and the impact that this transformation has on students’ understanding. The didactic challenge that we face is to decide which science from the academic disciplines we should bring into schools.   Using the History and Philosophy of Science as my point of reference, I identified and categorized five multiple historical models of gene function: the Mendelian model, the classical model, the biochemical-classical model, the neoclassical model and the modern model. I then developed a research instrument to be used to analyse how these models are transformed within the educational system via textbooks. Biology and chemistry textbooks from Sweden, as well as a number from English speaking countries, were studied. The models used to describe gene function in the textbooks were investigated, as were the conceptual changes between the actual models and the way they are presented in textbooks. Finally I studied how the transformed science in textbooks is understood by students.   I found that all the multiple historical models were used implicitly in the textbooks. The older historical models were presented more frequently, resulting in a simplified and deterministic description of genetics. Throughout the textbooks a specific model was usually described in a particular subject matter context. The models used in the textbooks were usually hybrid models consisting of features from several of the historical models, thus creating incommensurability. The textbooks do not provide any epistemological foundations to facilitate readers’ understanding of the implications of multiple models. Furthermore my results show that, when reading the textbooks, students’ have difficulties in detecting the use of multiple models, incommensurability, and the conceptual changes that occur in a content-specific context such as gene function. Overall, students’ understanding of the use of multiple models, conceptual change, and incommensurability reflects the way in which they are depicted in the textbooks. Students’ domain-specific difficulties in understanding genetics might therefore be due to the way science is transformed into school science.     These findings indicate the importance of epistemological aspects in the transformation of science into school science, i.e. science as a way of knowing, not only for students’ understanding of the nature of science, but also for their understanding of the conceptual knowledge. The degree to which school science should mimic the academic discipline, as well as an understanding of what is lost in the transformation of science into school science, are key issues discussed in the thesis.

The aim of the thesis is to diagnose the understanding of chosen topics regarding european integration of high school students in relation with incorporation of the topic among curriculum documents. Theoretical part of the thesis introduces the analysis of general educational programmes followed up with general summary of development of integration process into the form it has nowadays and also summary of institutions and their functions. Further we are introducing a contructive approach to teaching which is used as a base of practical part of our thesis. In the end of this part are stated the outcomes of the investigation of existing researches in this area. In the practical part of the thesis we implemented our own qualitative investigative sound using the method of half-structured in-depth conversation. The data gathered from this method were subsequently qualitatively analysed. In the end of the thesis we are introducing the outcomes of investigative sound and comparing them with outcomes of other researches where possible. The outcomes of the investigative sound were crucial for our teaching recommendations.

Diplomová práce zkoumá žákovské porozumění iracionálním čísl·m. Cílem bylo zmapovat a zhodnotit porozumění žák· ze druhého a třetího ročníku na gymnáziu. Vyhodnocení probíhalo na základě dotazníkového šetření od 69 respondent· a polostrukturovaného rozhovoru od 12 z nich. Výsledky ukázaly, že pro velkou část těchto žák· jsou všechna čísla s neukončeným desetinným rozvojem považována za čísla iracionální a s ukončeným desetinným rozvojem za čísla racionální. V závěru práce uvádím dva přístupy, které by mohly zmírnit tuto chybnou představu. 1