Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-80).

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

Thesis (M.S.)--Worcester Polytechnic Institute. / Keywords: Fisher's exact test; cross tabulations; CMH test; regression model. Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-97).

Teachers and special education teachers play a vital role in the creation of a study environment that fosters productivity in students. The current study aims to further expand the knowledge regarding teacher’s perception of common work with developing an optimal study environment within the classroom and the educational institution. In order to achieve this, qualitative interviews have been performed and study results analyzed according Nilholm´s model of the three different perspectives on special education: The critical perspective, the compensatory perspective and the dilemma perspective.The study results show that the concept of order and study environment is not clearly defined among the interviewees. However, the concept appears to presuppose the teacher’s responsibility to create the sense of security and effective study environment to those students who express the wish to educate themselves (Children make the things right only if they have been shown the correct way to do it). The same rule is applied in differentiating desirable behavioral traits in students from those which are undesirable and unapproved. Moreover, teacher’s role in the establishment of order and productive study environment possesses decisive impact on the educational goal achievement in the students. Thus, the teacher has to be skilled in nurturing the sense of secure and creating the feed-back responsive relations with students as well as setting high expectations and taking initiative into leading and influencing students. In addition, this study emphasizes importance of an adequate and a well designed education for teachers enabling them to mange and resolve conflict situations to which they are exposed on daily basis, as well as to equip them with necessary forms, strategies methods and tools in order to achieve this goal. According to the study results the manual-driven methods appear to be the most successful and structured in achieving order and productive study environment, however they also proved to be more excluding than including for the students. Interaction and a dialogue between school principal and individual teachers in the practical realization of education is also an important segment in achieving this goal. Finally, this study did not observe any difference in working assignments between student chancellor and special education teacher in creating order and productive study environment.In summary this study shows that teachers and special education teachers have a decisive role in creating optimal study environment, as well as setting norms and differences between desired and approved behavioral traits in students. Moreover, adequate and well-designed education of teachers is a most important prerequisite to achieve this goal

There is a need to understand the transition of students from primary to secondary schooling outside the confines of practitioners' and academics' viewpoints. This thesis explores that transition from the perspectives of the students themselves. It argues that they experience the transition into secondary schooling as challenging. This issue is significant because transition into high school coincides with adolescent developmental changes - social, physical, emotional, cognitive and psychological - as well as the move from the relative stability of one teacher a year to different teachers for each subject, and the shift in status from being the most senior to the most junior students in their school. These students also face challenges such as friendship and identity issues as well as problems locating places in the new environment, for example, subject classrooms, play areas, teachers' rooms. This study's theoretical framework is constructed from a phenomenological psychological stance. A phenomenological methodology guides this study, allowing students' experiences to speak for themselves. Other methodologies were not appropriate as the researcher wanted to hear the students' voices while they were experiencing transition. Few studies in the past have attempted to study transition into high school as it is lived and experienced by students themselves. This empirical study addresses that gap in the literature. Its findings could provide the necessary information needed to further assist educationalists in developing appropriate programs and activities to support this group. Sixteen adolescents participated in the study. Of two common methods of collecting data in phenomenological studies - interviews and journal writing - journal writing was chosen. This data collection technique enabled the researcher to learn about transition from students' perspectives. The data were collected in the first ten weeks of high school from Year 7 students (first year of high school in New South Wales). Drawing on the work of Giorgi (1985a, 1985b), who translated aspects of phenomenological philosophy into a concrete method of research (Ehrich, 1997), a phenomenological psychological approach was used to analyse the data in a step-by-step process. There were four steps to the analysis of the data. The first step involved reading through the entire description of the participants' experience to get a sense of the meaning of the experience as a whole. In the second step, the description was read to identify meaning units, i.e. words/phrases that clearly express meanings of the experience of transition. In the third step, the analysis involved transformation of the meaning units from participants' concrete descriptions into more general categories. The fourth step involved two aspects: a situated structural description of the experience was written, and finally the researcher produced a general structural description that represented the whole experience of the phenomenon. Because of the small sample selected, the study does not claim generalisability across other populations of adolescents. However, what the study does is to highlight seven essential themes of transition. First peers can play a significant role in enabling a smooth transition to high school. Second, schools support transition through a number of programs and activities to help students adapt to the new environment. Third, students need to learn new procedures, location of rooms and other new routines in this environment. Fourth, learning occurs through the academic, practical and extracurricular activities and some learning is more challenging than other types of learning. Fifth, high school transition is enhanced when students are confident and feel a sense of achievement and success in their new environment. Sixth, homework and assignments are a part of the high school curriculum. Finally, teachers' attitudes/abilities can affect student integration into high school and make learning fun or boring.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Accompanied by 1 videocassette, as appendix III: Family relations test.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1994. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 17, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Ronald Halinski, William Rau (co-chairs), Paul Baker, Kenneth Strand. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-156) and abstract. Also available in print.

This study measures resident student perceptions of on-campus living and study environments at the University of Namibia campus residence and their relation to student academic performance. Data were obtained from a stratified random sample of resident students with hostels (individual dormitory) as strata. Student academic performance was measured by grade point average obtained from the university registrar. Student perceptions of living and study environments were obtained from a survey. Inferences were made from the sample to the population concerning: student perceptions of the adequacy of the library and campus safety, and differences in perceptions between students living in old-style and new-style hostels. To relate student perceptions to academic performance, a model regressing GPA on student perception variables was constructed. The principal findings of the analyses were that (1) Student perceptions do not differ between old and new hostels; (2) There is an association between time spent in the hostel and the type of room, ability to study in room during the day and the type of room, ability to study in room at night and the type of room, time spent in hostel and number of times student change blocks, ability to study in room at night and availability of study desk in room, ability to study in room at night and availability of study lamp in room, effectiveness of UNAM security personnel and safety studying at classes at night and also between effectiveness of UNAM security personnel and student perception on whether security on campus should remain unchanged respectively; (3) Mean GPA differs with respect to the type of room, ability to study in room during the day, time spent in hostel, number of times student change blocks, current year of study, time spent on study, students who are self-catering, sufficiency of water supply in blocks and also with students who are enrolled in Law and B.Commerce field of study and with students receiving financial support in the form of loans. (4) The variables found to be significant in the regression model were Law field of study, double rooms, inability to study in room during the day and self-catering respectively.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri--St. Louis, 1989. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy