The purpose of this essay is to examine Egyptian university students´attitudes about the Egyptian education system´s ability to support a democratic process in Egypt. In order to carry out my study, scientific books and articles have been read and interviews have been made among Egyptian university students. The interviews contained questions about the Egyptian education system´s impact on the democratic process in Egypt and which impact the Egyptian education system has had on the Egyptian revolution. The conclusion drawn from my study is that Egyptian university students find the contemporary Egyptian education system based on authoritarian rules and with a lack of democratic values. The Egyptian university students believe that to establish democratic institutions in Egypt, the Egyptian citizens need a better understanding about democratic values. However, some of the students believe that the democracy that should be established in Egypt, must be based on Islamic values and to succeed with that, Islamic studies must play a greater part in the Egyptian education. When it comes to the Egyptian education system´s impact on the Egyptian revolution the Egyptian university students´opinions were somehow divided.

<p>The purpose of this essay is to analyse how and why culture and tradition is created and maintained within a minor student society at a Swedish university by looking at its history. <em>The West Coast Nation</em> student society provided the material which was subsequently analysed and three sociological perspectives were applied in order to give the study a theoretical base. In order to investigate the purpose of the society, durkheimian theories on functionalism were applied. Moreover, Bourdieu’s thoughts on social fields were used as well as Elias’ theories on the established and the outsiders. The results indicate that the purpose of a student society of this sort is to provide the students with a culture and a group with which they may identify. From a historical perspective, the West Coast Nation seems to have had an increase in members steadily from the early 90’s on, but at the start of the 21^st century, the numbers dwindled, something which had as a result that a process of professionalization was begun. Furthermore, the society displayed strong intentions of establishing and maintaining continuity, which may be a result of the nation having trouble keeping members and board members since students, who form the basis of the society, leave the university after a few years.</p>

The purpose of this essay is to analyse how and why culture and tradition is created and maintained within a minor student society at a Swedish university by looking at its history. The West Coast Nation student society provided the material which was subsequently analysed and three sociological perspectives were applied in order to give the study a theoretical base. In order to investigate the purpose of the society, durkheimian theories on functionalism were applied. Moreover, Bourdieu’s thoughts on social fields were used as well as Elias’ theories on the established and the outsiders. The results indicate that the purpose of a student society of this sort is to provide the students with a culture and a group with which they may identify. From a historical perspective, the West Coast Nation seems to have had an increase in members steadily from the early 90’s on, but at the start of the 21st century, the numbers dwindled, something which had as a result that a process of professionalization was begun. Furthermore, the society displayed strong intentions of establishing and maintaining continuity, which may be a result of the nation having trouble keeping members and board members since students, who form the basis of the society, leave the university after a few years.

Disertacijoje analizuojamas elektroninio mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos, fenomenas universitetinėse studijose. Pirmojoje dalyje pristatoma mokslinės literatūros ir dokumentų analizė, kurios pagalba išryškintos technologinės ir kultūrinės prielaidos, kurios leidžia el. mokymą(si) analizuoti kaip sociokultūrinę sistemą. Išanalizuoti el.mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos, esminiai sistemą kuriantys ir jos funkcionavimą palaikantys elementai. Išanalizuota mišriojo mokymo(si), kaip elektroninio mokymo(si) formos sampratos raida ir turinio sklaida. Išryškinta šiuolaikinių IKT kaita (iš saityno 1.0 į saityno 2.0). Aprašyta dėstytojų kolegialios ir profesionalios edukologinės paramos virtualaus centro projekto, kurio tikslas yra el. mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos fenomeno, plėtra universitete, koncepcija. Empirinėje dalyje kokybinis tyrimas leido išryškinti dėstytojų ir studentų požiūrį į mišrųjį mokymą(si), kaip el.mokymosi formą. Kokybiniu tyrimu pagrįsta dėstytojo, kaip el. mokymo(si) sociokultūrinės sistemos elemento dalyvio, veiklos reikšmė, plėtojant el. mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos fenomeną. Atskleisti naujosios saityno 2.0 technologijomis grindžiamos plėtros subkultūros aspektai el.mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos, elemento (dalyvio- dėstytojo) veikloje. Kiekybinis tyrimas atskleidė, kad dauguma dėstytojų žino saityno 2.0 įrankius, tačiau juos nuolat naudoja gerokai mažesnis skaičius (dažniau laisvalaikiui negu darbui)... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The Thesis analyses the phenomenon of e-learning as a socio-cultural system in university studies. The first part presents the analysis of scientific literature and documents, highlighting technological and cultural assumptions allowing to analyse e-learning as a socio-cultural system. Main elements, forming the socio-cultural system and supporting its operation, are analysed. The development of the conception and content dispersion of blended learning, as a form of e-learning, is analysed. The change of contemporary ICT from web 1.0 to web 2.0 is highlighted. Conception of a virtual centre for peer and professional educological support with the goal of developing e-learning as a phenomenon of a socio-cultural system at the university was described. Qualitative research in the empirical part allowed to highlight attitude of students and teachers to blended learning as a form of e-learning. The qualitative reasearch justifies the value of the activities of a teacher as an element of system in the development of the phenomenon of e-learning as a socio-cultural system. The aspects of development subculture based on web 2.0 technologies in the activities of teacher. Quantitative research show, that a lot of lecturers are aware of the tools related to web 2.0; however it is constantly used by a significantly smaller number, and more often for leisure than for work; lecturers tend to learn and look for information independently, although they state that qualification refreshment... [to full text]

The Thesis analyses the phenomenon of e-learning as a socio-cultural system in university studies. The first part presents the analysis of scientific literature and documents, highlighting technological and cultural assumptions allowing to analyse e-learning as a socio-cultural system. Main elements, forming the socio-cultural system and supporting its operation, are analysed. The development of the conception and content dispersion of blended learning, as a form of e-learning, is analysed. The change of contemporary ICT from web 1.0 to web 2.0 is highlighted. Conception of a virtual centre for peer and professional educological support with the goal of developing e-learning as a phenomenon of a socio-cultural system at the university was described. Qualitative research in the empirical part allowed to highlight attitude of students and teachers to blended learning as a form of e-learning. The qualitative reasearch justifies the value of the activities of a teacher as an element of system in the development of the phenomenon of e-learning as a socio-cultural system. The aspects of development subculture based on web 2.0 technologies in the activities of teacher. Quantitative research show, that a lot of lecturers are aware of the tools related to web 2.0; however it is constantly used by a significantly smaller number, and more often for leisure than for work; lecturers tend to learn and look for information independently, although they state that qualification refreshment... [to full text] / Disertacijoje analizuojamas elektroninio mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos, fenomenas universitetinėse studijose. Pirmojoje dalyje pristatoma mokslinės literatūros ir dokumentų analizė, kurios pagalba išryškintos technologinės ir kultūrinės prielaidos, kurios leidžia el. mokymą(si) analizuoti kaip sociokultūrinę sistemą. Išanalizuoti el.mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos, esminiai sistemą kuriantys ir jos funkcionavimą palaikantys elementai. Išanalizuota mišriojo mokymo(si), kaip elektroninio mokymo(si) formos sampratos raida ir turinio sklaida. Išryškinta šiuolaikinių IKT kaita (iš saityno 1.0 į saityno 2.0). Aprašyta dėstytojų kolegialios ir profesionalios edukologinės paramos virtualaus centro projekto, kurio tikslas yra el. mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos fenomeno, plėtra universitete, koncepcija. Empirinėje dalyje kokybinis tyrimas leido išryškinti dėstytojų ir studentų požiūrį į mišrųjį mokymą(si), kaip el.mokymosi formą. Kokybiniu tyrimu pagrįsta dėstytojo, kaip el. mokymo(si) sociokultūrinės sistemos elemento dalyvio, veiklos reikšmė, plėtojant el. mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos fenomeną. Atskleisti naujosios saityno 2.0 technologijomis grindžiamos plėtros subkultūros aspektai el.mokymo(si), kaip sociokultūrinės sistemos, elemento (dalyvio- dėstytojo) veikloje. Kiekybinis tyrimas atskleidė, kad dauguma dėstytojų žino saityno 2.0 įrankius, tačiau juos nuolat naudoja gerokai mažesnis skaičius (dažniau laisvalaikiui negu darbui)... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

The division of disciplines into hard or paradigmatic and soft or paradigmatic, pure or applied, social professions and science-based professions (Biglan, 1973; Kolb, 1984; Becher, 1989) only emphasized the integrity and the duality of the physical education study field (Van Hilvoorde et al., 2010) borrowing knowledge from other sciences and disciplines: medicine and health (hard-applied), social sciences (soft-applied), life sciences (pure-hard) (Biglan, 1973; Becher, 1989; Leta, Rosa, 2012). Searching a way to gain new knowledge, a shift was made to a holistic, integrated physical education as a kinesiology discipline (Reeve, 2007; Twietmeyer, 2012; Tinning, 2013) and sport science phenomenon (Wilber, 2000; Skurvydas, 2008), which had led to the perception that taken one discipline is not able to solve global problems (Gill, 2007; Krishnan, 2009). Knowledge of physical education are applied and created in the areas: medicine and health, sport, and education (Kirk, 2009; Naul, 2003; Leta, Rosa, 2012). Such versatility of the field underlines the relevance of the fields of study covering (creating and applying) knowledge of physical education and the manifestation of identity of students from such fields of study. An abundance of names and terms relating to the physical education study field (sport science) affects not only the existence of this field in the universities but leads to the self-recognition, interactions, conflicts between theoreticians and practitioners of the... [to full text] / Disciplinų skirstymas į kietąsias, arba paradigmines, ir į minkštąsias arba prieš-paradigmines, grynąsias ir taikomąsias, socialines ir mokslines profesijas (Biglan, 1973; Kolb, 1984; Becher, 1989) tik pabrėžė kūno kultūros žinių integralumą ir šio tyrimo lauko dvilypumą (Van Hilvoorde et al., 2010), žinių skolinimąsi iš kitų mokslų ir disciplinų: medicinos ir sveikatos (kietosios-taikomosios), socialinių (minkštosios-taikomosios), gyvybės mokslų (grynosios-kietosios) (Biglan, 1973; Becher, 1989; Leta, Rosa, 2012) bei lauko pavadinimų kaitą (Lawson, 2007; Kirk, 2010; Zeigler, 2014). Tyrimai, susiję su kūno kultū¬ros žinių ir universitetinių studijų kontekstu (Henry, 1964; Park, 1989; Newell, 1990; Filho, 2000; Kirk, 2009; Freeman, 2012), atskleidė kūno kultūros (sporto mokslo) lauko problemas aukštajame moksle ir jo kompleksiškumą. Ieškant naujų žinių kūrimo būdų, buvo pereita prie holistinio, integruoto kūno kultūros lauko kaip kineziologijos disciplinos (Reeve, 2007; Twietmeyer, 2012; Tinning, 2013) ir kaip sporto mokslo fenomeno pažinimo (Wilber, 2000; Skurvydas, 2009), nes susivokta, kad viena disciplina yra nepajėgi išspręsti globalių problemų (Gill, 2007; Krishnan, 2009). Tyrimai (Kirk, 2009, Naul, 2003; Leta, Rosa, 2012) rodo, kad kūno kultūros žinios kuriamos ir taikomos šiose srityse: medicina ir sveikata, sportas, švietimas ir ugdymas. Toks kūno kultūros (sporto mokslo) lauko įvairiapusiš-kumas pabrėžia žinias (Kirk, 2009, 2010; Freeman, 2012; Schary, 2014) ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Tyrimo tikslas: atskleisti studentų verslumo ugdymo/si galimybes universitete. Tiriamieji: MRU, VU, VGTU ir LEU studentai. Tyrimo metodai: 1. Teorinis - ES ir Lietuvos dokumentų, reglamentuojančių verslumą analizė; MRU, VU, VGTU ir LEU studijų programų aprašų bei strateginių planų analizė; 2. Empirinis tyrimas - anketinė studentų apklausa apie verslumo ugdymo/si galimybes universitetinėse studijose; 3. Statistinis metodas - anketinės apklausos duomenų apdorojimas SPPS 15.0 kompiuterine programa. Tyrimo rezultatai: Išanalizuotas tyrimas parodė, kad visų keturių universitetų: MRU, VU, VGTU ir LEU studentų nuomonė apie verslumo ir verslumo ugdymo sampratas nesiskiria. Studentai pritaria tam, kad verslumą aukštojoje mokykloje ugdyti reikia, tačiau nežino, ar jų universitete verslumas yra ugdomas, nesidomi ir nedalyvauja universiteto vykdomose veiklose, skirtose ugdyti verslumą, nežino ar patys yra verslūs. Studentai nežino, ar į studijų programą yra įtrauktas verslumo ugdymas. Nežino, ar jų universitete yra galimybė laisvai pasirinkti verslumo dalyką, tačiau sutiktų papildomai studijuoti verslumą, tik pageidauja, jog būtų sudaryta galimybė patiems laisvai pasirinkti. Tyrimo rezultatai atkleidė, kad labiausiai verslumas yra ugdomas MRU ir VU, kiek mažiau VGTU ir mažiausiai LEU. Raktiniai žodžiai: verslumas, verslumo ugdymas, universitetinės studijos. / The objective of the research: to show the possibilities of developing entrepreneurship in university studies. The researched: students of MRU, VU, VGTU, LEU. Methods of the research: 1. Theoretical - analysis of EU and Lithuanian documents regulating entrepreneurship, analysis of study curriculum and strategic plans in MRU, VU, VGTU, LEU; 2. Empirical research - questionnaires for students about possibilities of developing entrepreneurship at university; 3. Statistical method - processing of the data and the results by a computer program SPPS 15.0. The results of the research: Having analyzed the data, the results showed that conceptions of entrepreneurship and its development do not differ in all 4 universities, they are the same in MRU, VU, VGTU and LEU. Students agree that it is a must to develop entrepreneurship in institutions of higher education but they do not know if such studies can be chosen in their curriculum. Also, they are not interested in the activities about developing entrepreneurship and have no idea if they are enterprising themselves. Students do not know if such a subject as developing entrepreneurship is present in their curriculum and if they can freely choose it themselves. Students would like to have developing entrepreneurship as a subject in their study curriculum which they would be able to choose freely by themselves. The results of the research have shown that entrepreneurship is best developed in MRU and VU. It is less developed... [to full text]

This thesis describes the architecture, implementation issues and evaluation of Mentor - an educational support system designed to mentor students in their university studies. Students can ask (by typing) natural language questions and Mentor will use several educational paradigms to present information from its Knowledge Base or from data-mined online Web sites to respond. Typically the questions focus on the student’s assignments or in their preparation for their examinations. Mentor is also pro-active in that it prompts the student with questions such as "Have you started your assignment yet?". If the student responds and enters into a dialogue with Mentor, then, based upon the student’s questions and answers, it guides them through a Directed Learning Path planned by the lecturer, specific to that assessment. The objectives of the research were to determine if such a system could be designed, developed and applied in a large-scale, real-world environment and to determine if the resulting system was beneficial to students using it. The study was significant in that it provided an analysis of the design and implementation of the system as well as a detailed evaluation of its use. This research integrated the Computer Science disciplines of network communication, natural language parsing, user interface design and software agents, together with pedagogies from the Computer Aided Instruction and Intelligent Tutoring System fields of Education. Collectively, these disciplines provide the foundation for the two main thesis research areas of Dialogue Management and Tutorial Dialogue Systems. The development and analysis of the Mentor System required the design and implementation of an easy to use text based interface as well as a hyper- and multi-media graphical user interface, a client-server system, and a dialogue management system based on an extensible kernel. The multi-user Java-based client-server system used Perl-5 Regular Expression pattern matching for Natural Language Parsing along with a state-based Dialogue Manager and a Knowledge Base marked up using the XML-based Virtual Human Markup Language. The kernel was also used in other Dialogue Management applications such as with computer generated Talking Heads. The system also enabled a user to easily program their own knowledge into the Knowledge Base as well as to program new information retrieval or management tasks so that the system could grow with the user. The overall framework to integrate and manage the above components into a usable system employed suitable educational pedagogies that helped in the student’s learning process. The thesis outlines the learning paradigms used in, and summarises the evaluation of, three course-based Case Studies of university students’ perception of the system to see how effective and useful it was, and whether students benefited from using it. This thesis will demonstrate that Mentor met its objectives and was very successful in helping students with their university studies. As one participant indicated: ‘I couldn’t have done without it.’

Syftet med föreliggande studie har varit att utveckla kunskap om studenters motivation avseende val till högre utbildning. Den tidigare forskning som presenteras har dels genomförts ur ett utbildningssociologiskt perspektiv där man visat hur traditioner hänger samman med individens val att utbilda sig, och dels utifrån motivationsteoretiska perspektiv som redogör för individuella motivationsfaktorer rörande utbildning. Föreliggande studie har syftat till att studera fenomenet ur det sistnämnda perspektivet. Med hjälp av en kvalitativ metod har intervjuer genomförts med sju studenter. Resultatet visade att studenterna hade motiverats att söka högre utbildning dels med anledning av att förvärva kunskap, dels för att i förlängningen få ett fast jobb med fast inkomst samt för att känna uppskattning från andra människor. Resultatet har analyserats med hjälp av Maslows behovsteori som inkluderar fem typer av mänskliga behov som människan motiveras av att tillfredsställa (Maslow, 1987). De mänskliga behov som synliggjordes i studenternas angivna motivationsfaktorer var behovet av trygghet, behovet av gemenskap, tillhörighet och kärlek, behovet av uppskattning, det kognitiva behovet samt självförverkligande. Vi har funnit två motivationsfaktorer som de mest tongivande. Den ena är att i förlängningen uppnå en trygg vardag efter avslutade studier. Den andra handlar om att förvärva kunskap om det valda ämnet. / The aim of the present study was to develop knowledge about students’ motivation regarding the choice to attend university. A presentation of previous research is given, including motives to attend university from a sociological perspective focusing on general traditions regarding higher education. Previous research also focuses on individual aspects through motivational perspectives regarding education. This study aimed to study the phenomenon from the latter perspective. Using a qualitative method interviews with seven students was completed. The results showed that the students had been motivated to attend higher education partly because of the desire to acquire knowledge and partly to ultimately get a permanent job with a steady income and to be appreciated by other people. The results have been analyzed using Maslow’s theory of needs that includes five types of motivational needs (Maslow, 1987). The human needs that were reflected in the students motivational factors was the need for safety, the need for love and belongingness, the esteem needs, the cognitive need and self-actualization. We have found two motivational factors as the most influential. One is the motivation to attain a safe everyday life after graduation. The second concerns the motivation to acquire knowledge about the chosen topic.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The study explores the completion rates (the number of years a student takes to complete a degree) of graduates at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa. The graduates in the study all did at least one semester of statistics in their final year of study. The students' completion will be described with respect to school results and socio-demographics. Differences between students who finished their studies in the prescribed time of three years and those who took longer than the prescribed time will be highlighted. Factors that aid or hinder students from successfully completing their studies in the prescribed time will be analyzed. An entry selection model will be developed to screen the students. This will assist with an enrolment strategy. The most significant result found was that the political environment played the most significant role in throughput. The next significant result from the study showed that the grade 12 aggregate played a significant role in throughput. It is suggested that UWC be proactive in developing alternative methods of selecting students, since the new Further Education Training (FET) school system, which will be implemented in 2006, will omit the grade 12 aggregate.