Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, March, 2004. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-197)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, March, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Studying issues of heritage language (HL) maintenance is gaining more significance than ever as our lives become significantly more complex and dynamic because of frequent migration and the transnational diasporas that such migration creates in its wake. HL maintenance is important in multicultural environments because familial relationships depend heavily on successful communication among family members. Viewing HL maintenance as a social practice, this exploratory qualitative study attempts to understand how participants are involved in their children’s HL maintenance by investigating, comparing, and contrasting the participants’ attitudes and practices. This study recruited eight Korean immigrant families with different lengths of residence in Greater Vancouver, an area that has seen a steady growth in the numbers of Korean immigrants. Combining social practice theory and qualitative research, this study uses discourse analysis to explore the participants’ language ideologies and beliefs about HL maintenance. This study also explored actual parental involvement in their children’s HL acquisition and maintenance. Furthermore, this study examined participants’ technology use as a means of HL acquisition and maintenance. In particular, the participants’ online conversations were examined to explore language use. This study supports the view that the parental role is important, even paramount, in children’s HL maintenance, but goes beyond this to show how technology can play a positive role in HL acquisition and maintenance. There are three central findings. First, a match between parental attitudes and behaviours concerning HL acquisition and maintenance and contributes to their children’s HL maintenance. Second, a mismatch or inconsistency between parental attitudes and behaviours correlates with children’s HL attrition or loss. Third, language revitalization can occur through HL and cultural practices in various online activities such as synchronous and asynchronous online communication, including access to Korean websites and playing games in Korean. To conclude, examining HL maintenance as a social practice offers new insights into the complexity and dynamics of the social practices of HL maintenance in the lives of Korean immigrants in Canada. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

Technology and Engineering Education has deep roots in Project Based Learning, with its beginning in the Industrial Arts, and tracing its ancestry to craft apprenticeships. This constructivist philosophy supports the idea that the creation of an artifact lends itself to higher order cognitive processes. This study analyzed the content of middle school Technology and Engineering Education Rubrics for evidence that higher order cognition was being assessed. Five raters coded ninety-eight performance indicators from six rubrics for the evidence of declarative, procedural, schematic, and strategic knowledge. Gwet's AC1 and percent agreement were calculated to determine inter-rater reliability. Additionally, the performance criteria were coded for six engineering constructs. The Engineering Constructs from the performance criteria were extrapolated to the performance indicators to see which Engineering Constructs were supporting higher order cognition. Analysis included the determination of whether or not the rubrics that were analyzed supported higher order cognition as well as their performance indicators, performance criteria, and which Engineering Constructs support higher order cognitive processes. / Doctor of Philosophy / What used to be known as the shop class, or Industrial Arts, has morphed into Technology and Engineering Education. With the emphasis now on teaching engineering processes and Project Based Learning instead of manual skills, there is a lack of research on whether or not the assessments have evolved enough to assess higher levels of cognition. Higher level cognitive processes in engineering design are defined as those processes that are used to troubleshoot and create. This study analyzed middle school Technology and Engineering Education rubrics to look for evidence of assessing higher order cognition. Rubrics are a commonly used tool in Project Bases Learning as a form of assessment. Rubrics are separated into two distinct parts: performance criteria; and their performance indicators. The performance criteria were analyzed for six different Engineering Constructs, and the performance indicators were analyzed for four cognitive constructs. The analysis looked for evidence of higher-level cognitive constructs, and which Engineering Constructs supported higher level cognitive constructs.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1980. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Visual communication (VC) resources can be seen as playing an increasingly important role in delivery and learning systems in today s design and technology education. The performance of current tools and resources is the primary concern of this research, and particularly whether they take full advantage of VC when delivering technological information to industrial design (ID) and engineering design (ED) students. This thesis sought key principles behind the visual communication of technology (VCT) and its association to designing, creativity and innovation through a literature survey. The findings concluded that there were many such assertions made with little evidence concerning the associations suggested. Some guiding sources and key emerging principles (KEPs) for good VCT practices were established. A miniature-kite-designing exercise was conducted as a case study for the purpose of examining the links between VCT, designing and creativity and/or innovation. Kite-technological-information posters were used as the VCT tool for the kite-designing case. A comparative study of kite-designing was conducted in Malaysia to check the reliability of the study, and another validation study was carried out for the purpose of establishing the validity of the data gathering. Visual technological information (VTI) for kite design (or a kite-poster) was refined accordingly to the KEPs established from the literature review, and its visual impact was tested through the use of eye-tracking technology. Some selected current and historical visual tools, which have been used in design and technology communication and were recognised as having positive impacts were analysed and articulated in order to reveal a deeper understanding of the KEPs. These were further validated through eye-tracking of reading patterns of participants on those selected visuals. The perceptual responses toward those visuals were also recorded and analysed. A theoretical research framework was established to investigate VTI representation used in books by Ashby (1999) and Ashby and Johnson (2002), in new authors scholarly papers (METU, 2010), and of the author s analysis and redesign of some of those studied VTIs based on the KEPs emerging from the research. A questionnaire survey was conducted within a number of higher education institutions in 3 regions around the world in order to achieve reliable data gathering. This third case study was validated through experts discussion of the findings and related issues. Within these three case studies, a mixture of scientific (using the eye-tracker device) and conventional methods (questionnaires, interviews, discussion group and comparative studies), and also others methods such as design workshops, analysing existing resources, using own practice of design-and-redesign activities were conducted to provide quantitative and qualitative measurements to empirically validate the literature search. Evidence of links between VCT, designerly activities which involved knowledge, skills and values within the technological communication, and of facilitating creativity was obtained. Empirical evidence showed that VTIs were effective in communicating knowledge, skills and values; where the KEPs criteria had played essential roles in enriching the visual emphasis of VTIs. The redesigning exercise using the author s own practice, which articulated the KEPs through the redesign of the existing VTIs for the purpose of more effective VCT, again obtained significant evidence of visual effectiveness and easy understanding capability. Evidence from the analysis of 2 books on materials technology for ID and ED students, views from the 2 materials experts, and the literature review suggested that ID and ED students require difference types of representational models and graphical strategies of VCT in their learning. However, the empirical data from the research, which was supported by one of the materials experts, suggested that ID and ED students even with different cultural backgrounds did not require different VTIs or the use of different VCT strategies for effective communication.

One way to determine if all students can learn through the use of computers is to introduce a lesson taught completely via computers and compare the results with those gained when the same lesson is taught in a traditional manner. This study attempted to determine if a virtual fetal pig dissection can be used as a viable alternative for an actual dissection for females enrolled in high school biology classes by comparing the knowledge acquisition and attitudinal change between the experimental (virtual dissection) and control (actual dissection) groups. Two hundred and twenty four students enrolled in biology classes in a suburban all-girl parochial high school participated in this study. Female students in an all-girl high school were chosen because research shows differences in science competency and computer usage between the genders that may mask the performance of females on computer-based tasks in a science laboratory exercise. Students who completed the virtual dissection scored significantly higher on practical test and objective tests that were used to measure knowledge acquisition. Attitudinal change was measured by examining the students' attitudes toward dissections, computer usage in the classroom, and toward biology both before and after the dissections using pre and post surveys. Significant results in positive gain scores were found in the virtual dissection group's attitude toward dissections, and their negative gain score toward virtual dissections. Attitudinal changes toward computers and biology were not significant. A purposefully selected sample of the students were interviewed, in addition to gathering a sample of the students' daily dissection journals, as data highlighting their thoughts and feelings about their dissection experience. Further research is suggested to determine if a virtual laboratory experience can be a substitute for actual dissections, or may serve as an enhancement to an actual dissection.

Since its inception in the 1980s digital technology is considered to be at the heart of contemporary education in the developed world, supported by national ICT strategies and exponentially rising levels of public funding. Yet the promised educational transformation, as measured by learning outcomes, has arguably failed to materialise, while developing countries continue to emulate unproven digital educational programmes. A substantial body of empirical research, conducted by policy makers, business and educators over the past fourty years has found tangible beneficial evidence consistently elusive. This qualitative-based study seeks to explain the dichotomy by critically investigating what is actually happening when digital technology meets education in UK secondary schools as opposed to what is often envisaged as 'should' or 'might' be happening. It moves the debate beyond both its learning focus predominance, and deterministic view of education and technology to one which addresses the educational phenomenon by reference to the broader context of the social, political, historical and cultural conditions that influence all educational practices and which recognises the mutual social-shaping nature of the relationship. Consequently, this qualitative study utilises semi-structured interviews in a multilevel framework to explore how secondary school heads of department; a hitherto under-researched group, at the organisation's structural intersection, have responded to the introduction of ICT from the 1980s to the current day. This thesis contributes to the advancement of knowledge and understanding by drawing attention to issues of continuity and change, and structure and agency within the educational process and by offering insights into why (unforeseen) developments have occurred, how they have evolved and with what consequences for the profession and its educational institutions. It concludes by establishing a link between ICT-induced structural developments and agency constraints, offering policy makers a means of addressing key detrimental oganisational procedures in order to improve educational processes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX179630.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-131).