Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar

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Quality in E-learning Within a Cultural Context
(2010-06-24) Masoumi, Davoud
New Spaces for Language Learning. A study of student interaction in media production in English
(2010-06-07T08:43:42Z) Vigmo, Sylvi
The thesis project takes as its starting point an interest in foreign language learning as a social and cultural activity. Globalisation and digital media have contributed to changed conditions, especially for learning English. These changing conditions offer opportunities and new arenas as well as a challenge for current educational practice. Against this background, the research questions aim to explore foreign language learners’ activities to contribute to our understanding of these changing conditions. The context the digital media environment represents differs from the educational context, and holds different spaces for language activities. The overarching aim in this thesis has been to investigate the linguistic activities of a group of learners of English in school as they engage in a film production. The foreign language learner is here seen as a producer of language and as participating in several practices. Of specific interest was to explore emerging hybrid practices through the analyses of foreign language learners’ activities in an educational context that integrates adolescents’ media literacy repertoires. These research interests were realised by means of an intervention study, Design-based Research (DBR), at upper secondary level. The intervention in existing practice also involved the teacher as the designer of the foreign language-learning task itself. The empirical data mainly consist of video data, which captured the foreign language learners’ activities in one specific case when engaged in a film production. Other empirical data produced during the study consist of classroom observations, learners’ artefacts e.g. paper-based storyboards, teacher interviews and the learners’ final film production. Interaction analysis was applied for the analysis and the foreign language learners’ spoken interaction was analysed in-depth during the production process: from a focus on characters, a narrative, to the editing of their footage. The results from this study demonstrate diverse language learner foci, which display various interrelationships between the digital media resources, adolescents’ media repertories and the language learners’ linguistic production. Digital media offered new spaces and opportunities for language production, spoken and written, and for representing language in use, but were also shown in some cases to constrain the learners. Improvisation and scripted talk during the digital media production led to negotiations and strategies, which involved a playful approach to words, code switching and the use of adolescents’ media experiences as resources. The results from the analyses discuss emerging hybrid practices and potential implications for foreign language education, and point to reasons for looking beyond the common classroom discourse for further research and development.
I otakt med tiden? Folkhögskolorna i ett föränderligt fält
(2010-06-03T10:09:51Z) Runesdotter, Caroline
Folk high schools have often been out of synchronisation: both behind the times and as pioneers, and always eager to keep up with their unique identity. There have been variations over time and simultaneously. Folk high schools are diverse. Folk high schools are economically vulnerable and dependent on external funding. Reduced governmental subsidies and new forms of governance introduced in the 1990s have challenged the institutionalized ways to consider and to run the Folk high schools. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate changes in instutituional logica and identities over time. As the title of this thesis, Folk High Schools in a changing field, suggests, one of the key concepts of the discussion is organizational fields. Organizational fields are perceived as organizations with common structures and aims, operating in a nonlocal environment, kept together by a common meaning system and the conviction that they need each other. The concept of organizational fields is one of the fundamental ideas developed within new institutionalism in organization theory. New institutionalism’s focus has shifted from the individual organization to interaction between organizations and the environment. An organizational field is kept together by cultural frames or patterns of meaning. By employing the concept of organizational field as a tool it has been possible to analyze how the ideas and identities of folk high schools are constructed. The results show that a comprehensive diversification of folk high schools has taken place. The schools have differentiated themselves over time and from each other in terms of their activities and owners. Their relations to the environment are increasingly based on business commissions. The results also show that the school’s activities are increasingly short term focused and quickly carried out. This leads to new and more temporary relations. In the long term, this challenges the common meaning system and the very idea about folk high schools’ uniqueness.
Quality in E-learning in a Cultural Context: The case of Iran
(2010-06-02T20:32:33Z) Masoumi, Davoud
Higher education institutions in general and virtual institutions in particular are experiencing pressure to become more competitive all over the world. Such striving for excellence can be associated with and seen as a consequence of globalization that is propelling the reshaping of higher education. Further, a number of failed e-learning projects along with the accountability movement in higher education have significantly amplified concerns about quality in e-learning. Accordingly, there are worldwide calls for enhancing and assuring quality in e-learning specifically in the context of the developing countries. Such calls for quality enhancement, accountability, added value, value for money, self-evaluation, and role players’ satisfaction in higher education settings cannot go unheeded. This study attempts to reduce the gap between the investigated discourses, i.e. “quality discourse”, “e-learning discourse” and “culture and cultural-pedagogical discourse”, by developing a comprehensive e-quality framework that is sensitive to specific cultural contexts. Until recently, these discourses have seldom converged, especially in the context of developing countries. Taking a pragmatic approach in this development research, a mixed methods research was adopted in this study. This approach allowed the researcher to investigate this complex phenomenon using a variety of evidence types and perspectives. Addressing the concerns regarding enhancing and assuring quality in e-learning, a comprehensive e-quality framework is developed by taking into account the pros and cons of the previous models, frameworks and studies of e-quality. This e-quality framework provides a structure for enhancing and assuring quality in virtual institutions. Taking the Iranian virtual institutions -as a case of developing countries-, the study then investigates how culture and cultural-pedagogical issues can be integrated when developing and implementing an e-quality framework. Next, addressing embedded cultural-pedagogical dimensions in Iranian virtual institutions, we look at how the e-quality framework can adapted to “fit” in other cultural contexts. Finally, the e-quality framework is validated - in terms of its usefulness in a specific context - with respect to the Iranian virtual institutions. This study outlines a conceptual model, i.e. a culture-sensitive e-quality model, to demonstrate how the cultural and cultural-pedagogical issues can be built in and taken to account when developing and implementing an e-quality framework.
What is taught and what is learned. Professional insights gained and shared by teachers of mathematics
(2010-06-02T13:14:43Z) Kullberg, Angelika
The aim of the thesis is to contribute to knowledge about relationships between teaching and learning in school. The framework used in this research, variation theory, states that, to improve student learning, attention must be paid to what is being learned, the capability that is to be improved and the features (critical features) that it is necessary for the learner to discern. The studies reported here focus on the significance of critical features and are based on two ‘learning studies’ in mathematics, one of the density of rational numbers and one of the addition and subtraction of negative numbers. In a learning study, teachers work together with design, analysis and revision of their teaching of a single lesson with the aim of enhancing students’ learning by gaining insight about features that are assumed to be critical and enacting them in their teaching. The question answered in this research is whether the insight gained in the learning studies about critical features can be shared by other teachers and used to enhance other students’ learning. Two studies based on the previous studies were carried out together with a total of eight teachers and sixteen groups of students. Each teacher enacted two lessons with different conditions in terms of the critical features made use of. The lessons were video recorded and analysed with respect to which critical features were enacted in the lessons and what the students learned as indicated in pre and post tests. It is suggested that the critical features were transferable in two regards, in terms of student learning and in terms of a means of communication that could be shared among teachers. It was indicated that the critical features that were enacted in the teaching constrained what it was possible to experience in the classroom and what students learned. What was taught seemed to be reflected in what the students learned. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that it was not sufficient to simply name the critical features to the students; it seems that they must be discerned in order for learning to take place. It was found that the teachers made use of the critical features that were identified by other teachers in a learning study as a means to plan and teach lessons. This suggests that teachers can make use of the notion of critical features in their own teaching to enhance student learning.
Barnehagens relasjonelle verden - små barn som kompetente aktører i produktive forhandlinger
(2010-05-19T07:23:12Z) Alvestad, Torgeir
The present study investigates the negotiations that take place in play among the youngest children in preschool. What are their negotiations about? How do they negotiate? What kinds of strategies do they use during their negotiations? The study has its focus on learning about fellowship through practice and experience in the negotiations that take place among the youngest preschool children. The study’s relevance also relates to the development of pedagogical practice among the youngest children in preschools. The theoretical platform is comprised of the perspectives of childhood psychology (Sommer, 2004) and childhood sociology (Corsaro, 2002). In both perspectives children are regarded as competent active in producing their own culture and active in calling on information and learning. The main concepts used in the analysis of the empirical data are ‘inter-subjectivity’ and ’the role of others’. The concepts are based on the theoretical frameworks of Daniel Stern (1991) and George Herbert Mead (1962). A group of twenty four children, thirteen girls and eleven boys, aged between two to three, were regularly video recorded. The children were enrolled in day-care groups in two of the biggest cities in Norway. The study reveals that the negotiations that take place among the children are mainly about their relationships, play materials, and the content of their play. They negotiate both verbally and nonverbally. They express their intentions towards each other with words and through gestures, glances, laughter and smiles. They use different strategies in their negotiations that relate to content and intentions. They also seem to develop or change their strategy if, for example, an initial strategy is not successful. Their strategies can be both emotional and connected to solving problems. In addition, they often use humour as a strategy. The study shows that the children who play the most with others and who know each other best, are those who are most successful in their negotiations. They often have a common focus and common intentions, as well as sharing emotional conditions in their play and negotiations. It seems that those children who are the most competent playmates are also those who are most competent in negotiations. The reason for this might be the connection between play and negotiations. To be able to play successfully demands that those sharing the play are prepared for negotiations about relations, play materials and the content of the play. However, the children’s negotiations depend on their previous experiences in this field. The more experienced the youngest children are in negotiations, the more complex and flexible their negotiations might be. A pedagogical consequence of this study is that staff in preschools should support the smallest children by giving them more time to meet and play together. This can give the children extended possibilities to develop their own strategies of negotiations in play. This in turn will support children’s learning in becoming creative, seeking and reflective individuals who create their own space of action. The experiences children are gaining through negotiations in play might also be important for other situations of negotiation, contributions and democratic practice.
Kramar, kategoriseringar och hjälpfröknar. Könskonstruktioner i interaktion i förskola, förskoleklass och skolår ett
(2010-05-07T06:01:25Z) Odenbring, Ylva
In the present study, gender constructions are analysed, as they appear in a preschool, two preschool classes and one class in the first grade. The analysis is based on observations of the interaction that takes place physically and verbally between children and between children and adults in various contexts. Theoretically, this dissertation takes its starting-point in the as¬sumption that gender relations vary with the context, which enables multiple forms of femininities and masculinities. This dissertation consists of two studies based on different empirical data. In the first study, video recordings from the FISK project [The Preschool and School in Collaboration Project] are analysed and takes its starting-point in conversation analysis (CA). The second study consists of data produced from a separate fieldwork carried out in one preschool class, for which I am personally responsible. The fieldwork has an ethnographic approach, as I studied the daily activities of the preschool class for a lengthy period of time. Since the study aims to study constructions of gender in educational institutions, I found Connell particularly applicable as he refers to gender patterns as the gender regime of an institution. In the present study, the analysis is focused on constructions of gender as they occur in school interaction, using Connell for discussion at the global and institutional levels. To further understand these processes at an institutional level, Thorne’s work on borderwork and crossing was applied to the study. Conversation analytical theories were used on the first study to analyse the gender structures as they emerge in interaction at the micro level. As shown both in previous research and in the results of the present study, order and discipline are important parts of the daily routines in preschools, preschool classes and primary schools. One way of maintain order and discipline in preschools, preschool-classes and primary schools are by using sub-teachers. In the present study, I argue that what in pre¬vious research is defined as a sub-teacher consists of different functions where gender constructions emerge in different ways. In the present study, I also analyse and discuss the importance of non-verbal actions. The analysis shows that these actions are important recourses of how gender is expressed. What differs from previous research is that boys hug each other and talk about love. Overall, there are few studies that discuss the importance of bodily interaction, which is why the results of this dissertation ought to be considered as new. In the children’s conversations, body, intimacy and love are topics that occur quite often in their conversations. When talking about love, the children refer to persons of the other sex, so by strictly referring to other sex the children are part of constructing the heterosexual hegemony. Gender boundaries are also strengthened by the teachers’ categorisations of the children. On the whole, the analysis shows that the teachers’ use of gendered categorisations lead to constructions of social hierarchies based on gender. Also, the children are part of this in their use of categorisations in child-to-child interactions as a way of positioning themselves.
Towards an interlanguage of biological evolution: Exploring students´ talk and writing as an arena for sense-making
(2010-01-22T09:45:10Z) Olander, Clas
The aim of this thesis is to explore what is involved when learning science, by focusing on students’ appropriation of the school science language. The aspiration is to explore relations between, on the one hand, content-oriented aspects of making sense of a specific area in school biology, and on the other hand, more generic patterns that are linked to learning in general: the influence of different social languages, and also the conceptual, epistemological, and ontological constituents of learning something. The strategy for empirically exploring what is involved when students make sense of biological evolution from a language perspective includes examination of instances in the classroom where meaning and sense of terms as well as semantic patterns are articulated in writing and talking. The analytic attention is on, on the one hand, students’ individual writing, and on the other, students’ talk in peer group discussions. The latter has guided the main part of the work, and one conclusion is that the students frequently shift between different social languages, mainly a colloquial and a scientific language. Both languages are a productive resource in students’ appropriation of the school science language. This is understood to rely on the establishment of an arena, an interlanguage discourse, where scientific terms and theories may be introduced, negotiated, and made sense of, in particular in relation to colloquial language and everyday experiences. In that way, this interlanguage discourse is an arena for sense-making. The students most frequently start their talk as a negotiation concerning conceptual notions that is linked to a discussion about epistemological pattern and sometimes the talk also is linked to ontological framing. The students negotiate the meaning of conceptual notions, which has both colloquial and scientific origins, for example variation, randomness, need, and development. Irrespective of the origin of the notions they are an asset in the students’ sense-making process. Epistemologically the students make their argumentation plausible by referring to resources, for example names or theories. Furthermore, they structure their explanations both with internal logic, for example causality or teleological reasoning, and external linking between specific examples and general ideas. In each of these dimensions, the argumentation can have different quality. Links between the general and specific can be systematic rather than sporadic, explanations can be causal rather than teleological, and resources can be theories rather than names. Ontological framing is mainly done as negotiations about what is allowed to talk about or whether agency matters in a school science discourse.
Handdockans kommunikativa potential som medierande redskap i förskolan
(Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 2009-09-14T07:39:17Z) Forsberg Ahlcrona, Mirella
Skolans mötespraktik - en studie om skolutveckling genom yrkesverksammas förståelse
(2009-09-06T19:53:58Z) Olin, Anette
The practical work in a school and the interpretation processes of professionals form the focus of this study, the aim of which is to understand school development through the professionals’ own understanding. The collaborative work conducted in meetings at a specific school form the focus of enquiry. Using an action research approach, questions are posed about 1) how the interpretation processes in the meeting-practices can be understood, and 2) in what ways those interpretation processes are of significance for processes of change ongoing at the school. The study is carried out using an action research approach through an inquiry into my own practice as a development leader, as well as that of my colleagues. A critical hermeneutic view that draws on the work of Paul Ricoeur is used to interpret the empirical data, which consists of a logbook from my own work, recordings and minutes from teaching team and school management group-meetings, together with group interviews with all of the professionals about the development work that had taken place during the period of the study. The results show that, even though the actions of a professional can be interpreted as a form of responsibility in action, there is nevertheless a need for interpretation, communication, and critical reflection over the consequences in practice, since consequences do not always correspond with the aims of actions. Thus, space for ongoing interpretation processes are of importance in order for professionals to be able to make well-reasoned decisions about their work. A comparison between the ways of handling a process of reform in the practice of two different teaching teams reveals that their collective interpretation processes function as a form of “critique in practice”, in the sense that problematic situations and conflicts reveal aspects of the work where critical reflections collide with the rules and norms that are supposed to regulate practice. Such situations call for thorough inquiry. The analyses of the discussions and the use of the language at two meetings reveal that communication and decision-making among the professionals at the school can be characterized as conflict-ridden. Conflicts of interpretation constitute a condition which opens up the possibility for new understandings to arise.
Lojalitet och motstånd - anställdas agerande i ett föränderligt hemtjänstarbete
(2009-08-31T06:52:41Z) Hjalmarsson, Marie
This thesis aims to shed light on the dynamics and the complexity in the relationship between power and resistance in labour, from an employee-perspective. This is done by describing and analyzing how a group of employees in municipal home help services interpret and make use of their possibilities to act, in relation to a process of change, initiated by the management, involving new technology. Hand-held computers were implemented by the management and the home helps were supposed to use them to register their daily work performance. A theoretical framework based on power and resistance in accordance with Michel Foucault and Jon McKenzie, together with Ackroyd & Thompson’s concept of self-organization, is used. The study has an ethnographic approach. The empirical material is based on a combination of participant observation, interviews and document analysis. Two major periods of observations were conducted. The first period focused on understanding the work performance and its routines. During the second period, the use of (or rather attempts to use) the hand-held computers was in focus. The interviews with the 11 home helps focused on the meaning and content of their work with regards to work performance, skills and knowledge, possibilities and limitations and their opinions of the ICT project. Five management representatives, a local councillor, a software consultant and a union representative were also interviewed in order to grasp a management perspective. The results show a pattern in the actions of the home helps. It is a rational way of acting where adaptability, responsibility and reliability permeate thoughts and actions. It functions as a premise for how the home helps interpret their possibilities to act at work. They address their loyalty in several directions: to the care recipients, but also to their colleagues, to the management and to the organization as such. This rationality of loyalty is reproduced by the home helps but also by the management. The home helps are aware to a certain extent of the loyalties in their actions and every so often they use them in a conscious way. They reflect on how strong the loyalty should be and towards whom or what it should be directed. The actions of the home helps at work in general and in relation to the ICT project in particular is characterised by loyalty and consent rather than by formal resistance. The home helps don’t show any formal resistance but they do self-organization. They strive towards a relative autonomy and to maintain their dignity. This way of acting is however related to the rationality of loyalty that has a regulating influence on their informal resistance. Despite the limited and informal character of the self-organization of the home helps, it can be considered subversive. It has a possibility of undermining the exercise of power and it creates an alternative professional identity to the one offered by the management.
Food for Thought. Communication and the transformation of work experience in web-based in-service training
(Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 2009-08-31T06:36:58Z) Nilsen, Mona
The background of the present study is an interest in the use of digital technologies for in-service training activities in industry. Globalization, international competition and transnational production are elements that currently transform work practices and work organizations. In the food industry, which is the empirical context of this study, globalization has resulted in a number of changes including new forms of production, new international regulations and an increase in quality control of food and food production. These food quality initiatives and the new regulations, in turn, have resulted in a need for in-service training of staff. By analyzing how people actually engage in and use web-based environments as part of in-service training efforts, the overall aim of the research is to contribute to our understanding of the kind of communication and agency that emerges in web-based environments, and how such environments constitute contexts for communicative socialisation and learning for people employed in industry. The focus of the present study is on the nature of activities that unfolds when using digital media and learning resources in such settings. Analytically, such a focus is pursued employing a sociocultural perspective on communication and learning. Empirical material has been collected from archived chat log files from web-based in-service training courses. The results from this study, as outlined and discussed in four empirical articles, show that the participants accommodated rather smoothly to the affordances of the technology. They also managed to increase their skills and exert agency when engaging in communicative activities mediated by chat technology. Through chat interaction with other participants and experts, the course participants gradually appropriated some of the analytical tools and practices of quality assurance. Put differently, they literally wrote themselves into a different understanding of their current work practices. One of the productive features in these training activities is that they constituted hybrid contexts for learning. For instance, they are hybrid in the sense that practices of instruction, on the one hand, and practices of production work on the other, were salient resources for participation. From a pragmatic point of view, this study indicates that these activities supported by web-based technologies seem to offer feasible models for organizing distance learning in both further and in-service training
Anpassning och motstånd. En etnografisk studie av gymnasieelevers institutionella identitetsskapande
(2009-08-24T12:57:10Z) Johansson, Monica
Läsförmågan bland 9-10-åringar. Betydelsen av skolklimat, hem- och skolsamverkan, lärarkompetens och elevers hembakgrund
(2009-05-19T14:34:21Z) Frank, Elisabeth
Title: Reading skills among 9-10 year olds. The importance of school climate, collaboration between school and home, teacher competence and pupils’ home background Language: Swedish, with summary in English Keywords: PIRLS; reading achievement; school climate; safety; parental participation; collaboration; home and school partnership; teacher competence; two-level structural equation modeling ISBN: 978-91-7346-655-4 The main aim of the thesis is to acquire knowledge about conditions in the school and classroom context that are relevant to students’ reading skills. In focus are school and classroom climate and the collaboration between home and school. Also taken into account are the effects of students' home background and teacher competence. The data consists of the grade 3 sample from the Swedish participation in the PIRLS (Progress in Reading Literacy Study) study in 2001 conducted by IEA. The statistical method principally used was structural equation modeling (SEM) where theoretically grounded latent variable models were fitted to the data. The manifest variables used as indicators were selected from the teachers’, the schools’, students’ and the parents’ questionnaires. A standardized reading achievement score was used as an outcome variable. The study includes three broad steps. Based on a comparison of low and high performing classes, it identifies in the first step areas that seems to be important for achievement. In this step, a number of survey questions are also identified, which serve as indicators of the concepts identified in the next step. The second step consists of a literature review in which previous research and theory in selected problem areas are studied. Through theories and/or previous research, a number of concepts are identified whose relationship to reading achievement is examined in the next step. In the third and final step, a series of theoretically based structural equation models are fitted to the data. In the first stage, measurement models of broad constructs such as “parental participation” and ”safe climate” are identified and later included in a two-level structural model. These latent variables are related to achievement both at the individual and at the class level. The results indicate that safety as well as the collaboration between school and home play an important role in explaining differences in reading achievement between classes. Between students in classes safety also seems to be important for explaining reading skills, whilst the effect of parental participation at the individual level seems to be almost negligible. In the final analysis, the relationships between each construct and reading achievement were investigated in separate models where both teacher competence and student home background was included. It is shown that the positive effect that safety as well as parental participation had on achievement was dependent on student home background and teacher competence at the class level, but also to some extent at the individual level. The results also showed that teacher competence and student home background do not seem to be systematically related to each other. To summarise, it can be noted that there are differences between classes not only with respect to pupils’ home background and reading achievement. There are also differences in the form of climates that vary in safety but also in the extent to which the parents participate in schoolwork. It was clear that there were also differences as regards the teaching teacher’s competence. There are many indications that this competence includes not only promoting good reading skills but also creating a safe climate and positive collaboration between school and home.
Demokratiska värden i förskolebarns vardag
(2009-05-17T19:14:02Z) Karlsson, Rauni
The theme of this thesis is democratic values in pre-school and how these are revealed in the children’s relations in that setting. It describes what the children take responsibility for and how they do it; how they demonstrate care in the sense of consideration, and what they show respect for and how they show it. The study was carried out within the framework of the state pre-school as portrayed in two pre-school departments in a municipality in western Sweden. The daily activity was followed in two pre-school groups comprising children aged 3-6 years, among which field studies were carried out over a total of 36 weeks. Observations focusing on the children’s behaviour and their communication both with each other and the teachers, made with the help of an open research protocol, audio-recordings and diary notes, resulted in descriptive field records, which were analysed in four stages. The understanding of domain theory was used as a conceptual tool for comprehending and explaining how values, value judgement and consensus may be distinguished and sorted. The analytical procedure has been influenced both by a perspective of positioning and power relations and interpretation based on value theory. The analysis has resulted in three thematic values, among which Responsibility is shown in the way the children behave in words and actions, meaning that the children do not speak about taking responsibility but, a fact that is central to this study, initiate responsibility. They show in different ways that they take responsibility for everyday matters both on their own behalf and on behalf of others. Care refers to the perception of others’ needs in an empathic way, and that the children demonstrate by their actions an empathic understanding of someone else. This means that care is a value that the children use in order to support each other within their cultural community as separate from adults’ perspective. In this way, their caring acts sometimes appear to be in opposition to the perspective that the teachers’ positions express. Respect is shown to be a value that means that the children, when encountering another, abstain from what they are doing or change their current position for that other person’s benefit. In certain situations, the children abstain from their self-chosen position in favour of a social convention or an opinion that is asserted, which means that respect is embedded in a complex way. Gender differences have been identified as an all-pervading theme in the empirical material. An important part of the children’s experiences takes place in the group divisions between girls and boys, which is why these affect the affinity that they develop. In the everyday structure, girls and boys participate as social actors with expectations and norms formed with the support of the gender differences that are made. Both girls and boys stress the importance of their fellowship, while at the same time a pattern can be discerned that ascribes girls and boys different degrees of agency.
Framing in educational practices. Learning activity, digital technology and the logic of situated action
(2009-05-11T07:28:36Z) Lantz-Andersson, Annika
An overarching ambition of this thesis is to study the in situ practices that emerge when technology becomes part of educational activities and, in addition, to examine what students’ definition of such activities will be. By analysing students’ concrete uses of digital technology in regular classroom practices, the study intends to demystify how digital technology codetermines activities in educational settings. A background of this interest is that there are many different claims in the literature and in the public debate regarding what learning will be like when such tools are used. Accordingly, the use of digital technologies is in this thesis studied from the perspective of student activities and rationalities. Analytically, this is done within a sociocultural perspective and, in addition, with the help of the conceptual distinctions of frame analysis. Empirical material have been collected via video recordings of secondary school students’ engaging in solving word problems in mathematics presented by means of educational software. The analyses aim at scrutinizing what the presence of educational software in mathematics implies for the students’ learning practices in situations when they encounter some kind of difficulty in their problem solving. The results, presented in three studies, show that for long periods of time the students’ interaction involved not only the contents but also different functionalities and design qualities of the digital technology. The findings in this study thus point to the need to question the alleged benefits that surround the implementation of digital technologies. According to the empirical findings in the three studies presented in this thesis, along with knowledge from previous research, digital technology cannot be said to improve learning in any linear sense. Instead, educational activities involving the use of digital technologies imply a different way of learning with new possibilities and new problems; a different pedagogical situation and a different relation between the students and the contents.
Self-Assessment of Writing in Learning English as a Foreign Language. A Study at the Upper Secondary School Level
(2009-04-19T19:15:56Z) Dragemark Oscarson, Anne
The main aim of this study is to explore the role of self-assessment in EFL learning in developing lifelong language learning skills and in furthering the development of more comprehensive and thereby fairer assessment practices. The study explores how upper secondary school students perceived their own general and specific writing abilities in relation to syllabus goals and whether these perceptions are affected by self-assessment practices. It also explores students’ and teachers’ experiences of integrating self-assessment into everyday classroom practice. The study is based on the theory that metacognitive skills such as self-regulation and self-monitoring are important for the development of autonomous learning skills. Two teachers and four groups of Swedish upper secondary students participated in the study during one school year. Using grades, students self-assessed the results of two written assignments, namely a classroom writing assignment and a written test task. The classroom writing assignment was also analyzed linguistically by the researcher. The two teachers and eight student focus groups were interviewed about their experiences at the end of the study. The results of the study showed that at the group level students were well able to assess their general writing results in relation to the criterion (the teachers’ grades). At the individual level the results were more variable, partly depending on the type of writing activity assessed and on the amount of practice students had had of self-assessment. Students’ assessments of their writing ability in general showed a stronger relationship with teachers’ grades than did students’ assessments of their results in a particular classroom writing assignment. Students’ assessments tended to become more realistic with practice. The results also showed that the specific writing skills that students at upper secondary school focused on in their writing are spelling and grammar, rather than other skills such as sentence structure, vocabulary, paragraphing and punctuation skills. Students were self-critical with regard to these skills and tended to underestimate their performance in relation to the researchers’ assessment of the same. Students and teachers were positive to the incorporation of self-assessment activities in the EFL writing classroom and saw it as a transferable skill that underpins lifelong learning in other subject areas. The method used in a classroom assignment, where the writing process approach was coupled to self-assessment questions and non-corrective feedback from the teacher, was found to be a practical way of helping students become more aware of their language skills and language levels. Both teachers and students considered student self-assessments as contributing valuable additional information to ordinary tutoring and testing. The implications for EFL writing are that syllabus goals that encourage student responsibility and autonomy are viable and realistic, but students need to practice self-assessment, preferably from an early age, to become adept at employing the approach effectively on a regular basis.
Lärarprofessionens genusordning. En studie av lärares uppfattningar om arbetsuppgifter, kompetens och förväntningar
(2009-04-06T07:03:22Z) Hjalmarsson, Maria
Om teori och praktik i lärarutbildning. En etnografisk och diskursanalytisk studie.
(2009-03-31T07:32:19Z) Eriksson, Anita
This thesis takes its point of departure in the discussion about theory and practice relationships in the 2001 Teacher Education Reform Act. In this reform a clear point is made concerning the connections between teacher education to research on the one hand and the teaching profession on the other, through an emphasised relationship between theoretical knowledge and practical experience. The main aim of the thesis is therefore to investigate how the theory and practice relationship appears within teacher education in educational conversations between students and between students and teacher educators. The intention is to record and analyse the content of these conversations in relation to formal policy texts and the content and organisation of the education as a whole and to try to understand more about how students in pre-service teacher education construct knowledge about their coming profession and what role conversations of the kinds focussed play in this process. The questions raised in the research are related to how theory and practice can be brought into a closer and more productive relationship, which is a key aim of teacher education since 2001 according to formal policy texts. The research has used a combination of ethnography and critical discourse analysis as a theoretical and methodological framework. Data production has been founded upon participant observation, interviews, field interviews and an analysis of policy and other texts about higher education in general and teacher education in particular. The field research has been conducted in a teacher education programme for the Swedish pre-school and early school years at one particular Swedish university. In the analysis of written policy the concepts of scientific foundations, proven experience, theory and practice were given particular attention and it was seen that these concepts are used and situated dualistically. Proven experience is the concept that seems to be most problematic of the four in so much that it is not defined in the policy documents and in texts about higher education there are several different definitions. Teacher educators predominantly use two teaching strategies to generate possibilities for students to couple theory and practice and construct professional knowledge. However, some differences were noted in the aims with conversations expressed by school/pre-school and university based teacher educators respectively. These differences created some difficulties for student teachers in constructing their professional knowledge. In their conversations students look for, compare, share, professionally relate, professionally ground, theoretically relate and theoretically ground and analyse content. Practical experience has been pointed out as important for connecting theory and practice and seems to be a precondition for students when they try to professionally ground literature and lecture content. The absence of such experiences made these activities more problematic. A performativity demand in relation to formal examination requirements tended to eclipse discussions about professional knowledge and to a certain extent this obstructed the realisations of the aims teacher educators have had.
Den pedagogiska samlingen i förskoleklassen. Barns olika sätt att erfara och hantera svårigheter
(2009-02-16T17:37:55Z) Simeonsdotter Svensson, Agneta
The aim of the study is to identify children’s different ways of experiencing and handling difficulties in the pre-school class’s pedagogical circle time and increase our understanding of children’s actions in a situation they regard as difficult. It is a question of studying children’s experiencing in relation to what and how aspects, how difficulties are manifested in the actions of children and children’s and teacher’s perspectives on this. Questions based on the aim are formulated as follow: What do children experience as difficult in pedagogical circle time? How do children handle these difficulties? How do children act to solve these difficulties? How do teacher’s act to help the children solve these difficulties? The theoretical starting points consist of the developmental pedagogic theory, a special needs communicative, relation-oriented perspective and the symbolic interactionism. The focus is on the concepts of variation with respect to the what and how aspect in children’s experiencing (developmental pedagogy), participation, communication and learning (a communicative, relation-oriented perspective) and action/symbol, interaction, language and identity/self (symbolic interactionism). Children’s perspectives and a pre-school class for all children are reflected in the theoretical starting-points. Children’s perspectives are a common denominator in all three theoretical starting-points. The research group of 115 children consisted of 15 different pre-school classes in 12 different schools. Sixty-one of the children were girls and 54 boys. Data collection methods are: video recording/observation using a digital video camera with a monitor and feedback on videotaped observation – interviews with children in the form of talk about questions based on the videotaped circle time context. The theoretical starting points/analytical concepts are discussed together in order to show the breadth provided by the data. If only a theoretical starting point had been used, it would not have been possible to describe the picture provided by the data to the same extent. One starting point shows one way of describing a situation while several starting points describe and bring out several aspects of a situation. The three theoretical starting points/analytical concepts are research approaches that, together and individually, emphasise children’s experience-based world/perspectives. To sum up, the analysis shows what children on a collective level experience as difficulties and how they handle difficulties. The children’s different actions in the interaction with adults and other children reveal varying ways of experiencing and handling difficulties. Difficulties emerge when there is insufficient interaction, communication and participation between teachers, children and task/content in the pedagogical circle time situation. The results in the present study show that in the interaction, sufficient attention is not always paid to children’s perspectives. Communication is given less space and the children’s participation is thus limited to a large extent. The children’s perception of themselves as regards self-esteem and the ability to learn is not treated from the children’s perspective to the extent desirable.

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