Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Zululand, 1999. / The two major employers in South Africa are the government and the commercial sector. Owing to problems faced by government, jobs in the public sector are shrinking and this makes the commercial sector the only potential employer. Most jobs in the commercial sector are in the field of Economics and this poses a challenge on Economics teachers. They are faced with a challenge of teaching Economics affectively and meaningfully so that learners are made aware of the careers and job opportunities in the field of Economics. Much then can be done by the Economics teacher to help learners towards embarking on a career in the field of Economics. Research with regard to this study will be conducted as follows: * A literature study of available literature will be done. * An empirical study comprising a structured questionnaire to be completed by Economics teachers of high schools. A Likert-rype scale questionnaire with these response categories, namely Agree, Uncertain and Disagree, was constructed. Fifty respondents representing Economics teachers were randomly selected from 16 high schools in Umlazi. The data was in the form of a response to one of the three response categories (Agree, Uncertain, Disagree). Scores of the responses to each of the three categories were calculated. The descriptive technique was employed for the quantitative analysis of data. This investigation has the value that it will provide an image of Economics teachers' perceptions of motivational challenges facing them as Economics teachers. Certain recommendations have been made. The aim of these recommendations to encourage the Economics teachers to improve the teaching of Economics schools by: * Subject enhancement programmes for Economies * Regular educational audit * Further research

Problem-based learning has long been recognized as an innovative and effective instructional strategy for enhancing problem-solving and critical skills, which are essential for 21st-century employability. Despite its recognized benefits, PBL adoption in K-12 education remains limited due to significant implementation challenges. This integrative literature review investigates PBL instructional strategies and teachers' experiences, focusing on their challenges and the types of problems used in K12 classrooms, while analyzing empirical studies from 2004 to 2024. The study findings reveal teachers' challenges in terms of problem design and development, scaffolding, technology integration, assessment, and promoting student collaboration, with time availability being a recurring concern. Again, teachers' implementation strategies are flexible but could, however, be summarized into (1) preparing learners for PBL, (2) an iterative cycle of activities, and (3) presentation and evaluation. The findings also revealed that design problems dominate the type of problems that are incorporated into K-12 PBL implementation studies. Beyond setting the foundation for future research in the area, this integrative review offers a deeper understanding related to PBL's application in K-12 settings, providing valuable insight for educational stakeholders. / Doctor of Philosophy / Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered teaching method that supports the development of relevant problem-solving and critical-thinking skills which are critical for career success and employability in the 21st century. Although many studies have emphasized its effectiveness, it is not widely used in K-12 education. This limitation is attributed to different implementation challenges. This integrative literature review investigates PBL instructional strategies and teachers' experiences, focusing on their challenges and the types of problems used in K-12 classrooms, while analyzing empirical studies from 2004 to 2024. The study findings reveal teachers' challenges in terms of problem design and development, scaffolding, technology integration, assessment, and promoting student collaboration, with time availability being a recurring concern. Again, teachers' implementation strategies are flexible but could, however, be summarized into (1) preparing learners for PBL, (2) an iterative cycle of activities, and (3) presentation and evaluation. The findings also reveal that design problems dominate the type of problems that are incorporated into K-12 PBL implementation studies. Beyond setting the foundation for future research in this area, this integrative review offers a deeper understanding related to PBL's application in K-12 settings, providing valuable insight for educational stakeholders.

According to the Swedish curriculum for the compulsory school, every teacher has an obligation to differentiate students’ education to promote their development and learning needs. The study carried out in this paper is a qualitative interview study with Swedish teachers that have experience teaching particularly gifted students in mathematics. The study is based on the implementation theory where the aim of the study is to present an overview of different challenges that teachers encounter when trying to implement the decisions made regarding education of gifted students in mathematics. Furthermore, the aim of the study was to see if there were differences, and what those differences were, between the challenges that Swedish teachers mentioned versus the challenges that are acknowledged in previous international research.  A deductive approach is used rooting the analysis in key concepts based on previous research. The key concepts or challenges we found were mathematical competence, student interests and motivations, appropriate challenge for students, inclusion, identification, prioritizing, time, materials, lack of education and collegial cooperation. We found plenty of similarities to the previous research on the area but could however also see tendencies in our study which hasn’t been discussed in the presented previous research. For example, we noticed that teachers in our study mentioned the importance of experience. We also noticed that some of the key challenges from the previous research didn’t seem to be as prominent in this study.