http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/205873 Tue, 21 May 2013 12:47:53 GMT 2013-05-21T12:47:53Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/retrieve/416260/logo.jpg http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/205873 http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/244366 Title: Secondary music students' compositional development with computer-mediated environments in classroom communities Authors: Kirkman, Philip Abstract: Over the last decade digital technologies have brought significant changes to classroom music, promising support for the realisation of a musical education for all students. National curricula and exam specifications continue to embed technology more deeply. While these changes increasingly impact on music classrooms, there is a growing awareness that the presence of digital technologies may not always promote meaningful compositional development, particularly at GCSE level. A ‘musical’ curriculum seeks to promote meaningful compositional development by building upon a student’s previous musical experience and by providing practical, integrated and collaborative composing experiences. Existing empirical research demonstrates that a wide range of digital technologies are used in secondary classrooms to support students’ compositional processes. When used successfully, such technologies give rise to computer- mediated environments which promote musical composing experiences. At the same time, current models of compositional development do not adequately account for the ways in which such contextual factors mediate students’ compositional development. In response to this, the current research employs a multiple case study approach to explore the ways in which two secondary music students’ compositional development proceeds when working with digital technologies. Drawing from both symbolic interactionism and activity theory as complementary theoretical lenses, students’ own views of their developing composing process are positioned in a critical and reflexive dialogue with the researcher’s own constant analysis. Tools for data collection include a novel synchronous multiple video capture technique (SMV) developed to meet the demands of the project. The methodology draws on ethnographic techniques and the framework for analysis is based on an adapted constant comparative procedure. Set in the context of a UK secondary school the thesis explores several themes which emerge from the stories of Sam and Emily, our two student cases, and which add to current understanding of compositional development with computer-mediated environments. A theoretical model is proposed which presents the process of compositional development in terms of four connections that emerge from Sam’s and Emily’s ways of working. They are: connecting in institutional space, connecting in personalised space, connecting in emancipated space and connecting in shared space. Four developmental points are offered within these spaces: a point of enabling, a point of discovery, a point of transformation and a point of connection. Each point of development is linked to a type of development which, drawing on the literature, have been given the following titles: scaffolded development, serendipitous development, computer-mediated development and creative development. Finally, the study suggests several implications for teachers and avenues for further research relating to the nature of personalised spaces, providing varied contextual opportunities, understanding computer- mediated composing and promoting student ownership. Mon, 02 Jul 2012 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/244366 2012-07-02T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/244330 Title: White working-class boys' negotiations of school experience and engagement Authors: Stahl, Garth Abstract: This thesis investigates how white working-class boys experience social and learner identities in three educational sites. It presents the findings of an in-depth sociological study of teenage boys from one locality in South London, focusing on the practices of ‘meaning-making’ and ‘identity work,’ the boys’ experience and the various disjunctures and commonalities between the social and learner identities. Working-class boys are often presented in homogeneous terms and this study explores the heterogeneity of being a working-class boy and the diversity of their experiences in education. The work is positioned within the debates regarding masculinity in schooling and working-class disadvantage; my focus is on how boys’ ‘lifeworlds’ are created in contrast and in relation to their schooling experience. How boys contend with neoliberal educational processes which are fundamentally about “continually changing the self, making informed choices, engaging in competition, and taking chances” (Phoenix 2004: 229) and the construction of what I call ‘egalitarianism’ was an important homogenous feature in the data. The methodological approach employed is integral to gaining this understanding. I draw on Bourdieu’s signature concepts and theoretical framework in order to understand the complexities and negotiations surrounding reconciling educational success with working-class values. To further my understanding, I also utilise elements of intersectionality questioning, in order to address the interplay between class, gender and ethnicity in the social and learner identities the boys constitute and reconstitute through the various discursive practices in which they participate. Description: This thesis is embargoed until December 2014 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/244330 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/243250 Title: Beautiful little moments: a principally ethnographic study of eight East Anglian artists' pedagogies Authors: Denmead, Tyler Abstract: This research investigates artists’ pedagogies to address the limited understanding in the education field of how artists enact their pedagogies, why they value them, and how they describe them. I purposively selected eight people from a UK-based charitable organisation that offers creative projects for children and adults in and beyond schools. I used a principally ethnographic multiphased research design and adopted methods of data collection and analysis from grounded theory to progres- sively focus on artists’ interests that have been overlooked by education research. In the exploratory phase of research, I conducted 13 participant-led, unstructured interviews with eight artists from the organisation. I progressively focused on salient concepts that emerged from this phase through participant observation and further interviews in subsequent phases. I observed six of the eight artists from the exploratory phase as they facilitated 20 workshops in total across five sites. Each workshop averaged approximately two hours in length. I observed three or- ganisational retreats when these eight artists collectively planned, described and discussed workshops. I attended a daylong conference hosted by the organisation on outdoor learning, which included presentations by two artists I observed. I participated in two artist-led reflective conversations when five artists and three site partners discussed workshops I observed. I conducted seven semi-structured interviews with three partners and three workshop participants. To represent their pedagogies, I selected three of the five sites for descriptive cases studies that featured four of the eight artists working in outdoor settings. These workshops served, for the most part, nursery and primary school children along- side nursery nurses, teachers, and members of their families such as parents and grandparents. These four artists member checked these descriptive case studies through additional interviews. I presented a separate framework that interprets themes that emerged in these three descriptive cases. Using a nested case study approach, I included the perspectives of the eight artists who participated in the study to interpret these themes: space, time, material, body, and language. I used a focus group with six of the eight artists, as well as separate interviews with the founder and director, to examine similarities and differences in interpretation and strengthen the trustworthiness of my account. This research found that these artists attempt to create conditions for open-ended enquiry across five dimensions—space, time, material, body, and language—so that participants experience immersive and pleasurable “beautiful little moments” when they extend possibilities for being in ways that could not have been prescribed or judged. The artists positioned their pedagogies as a critique of a market-driven ethos pervading institutions, particularly schools, that have narrowed opportunities for being. Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/243250 2012-01-10T00:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/241737 Title: An exploration of how a drama-based pedagogy can promote understanding of chemical concepts in 11-15 year old science students Authors: Dorion, Kirk (Calvin) Abstract: A growing body of evidence suggests that some Science teachers use drama-based strategies in order to promote understanding of abstract scientific concepts. These strategies employ action and imagination to simulate systems and processes that are too fast, too slow, too big, too small, too expensive or too dangerous to observe in the classroom. A small group of quantitative and qualitative studies over the past thirty years has suggested that these physical simulations enable learning in secondary students, by promoting discourse and by conveying concept features through a range of sensations. The field is as yet under-theorised, consisting of single case designs and unreplicated methodologies. This multiple case study focused upon an intervention design based on a pedagogical model developed in my Masters research. This study aimed to explore the characteristics of students’ interaction and the nature of their resultant conceptions over four months. Each case focussed upon one of eight Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 classes across a variety of UK schools. In each, a curriculum-based particle theory topic was taught in a double-period lesson. Data included video, participant observations, and interviews with three students from each class collected at pre, post and delayed intervals. Findings suggested that the pedagogy engendered engagement and self-regulation in group model-making tasks, and supported thought experiment-type visualisations of dynamic processes. Conceptual development was found to continue up to four months after the lessons. A model of learning was developed in which social interaction and multimodal discourse promoted the association of conceptual features with affective, visual and embodied images, which supported recall, discussion and further conceptual development in the longer term. Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/241737 2011-11-08T00:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/237250 Title: Explicit versus tacit knowledge in early science education: the case of primary school children's understanding of object speed and acceleration Authors: Hast, Michael Abstract: Children are not blank slates when they begin school; instead, they bring prior conceptions about the everyday world with them. Situations of motion are ubiquitous in everyday life, and because of much interchange with the physical world conceptions are affected from a very early age. Yet prior conceptions of motion usually do not comply with accepted scientific views, and therefore conceptions need to be changed within the course of education. A differentiation can be made between explicit declarative knowledge and tacit procedural knowledge. 144 children aged 4 to 11 years were assessed on their explicit understanding of object speed and speed change along a horizontal, down an incline, and in free fall. Study 1 assessed the children’s predictions of motion using a range of everyday objects. Their conceptions were further assessed in Study 2 using a tube and two balls of different weights. Study 3 was a computer-presented quasi-replication of the tube-and-balls study. The results of these three studies suggest that children’s explicit predictions of motion are limited or incorrect. At the same time, many infancy studies have unveiled underlying knowledge about the physical world, which is considered tacit in its nature. Some researchers posit the idea that this knowledge does not change at its core and persists throughout the lifespan. While infancy research methods would be difficult to apply in a sample of children, judgement tasks may help in tapping tacit understanding in this age range. In Study 4, the children were shown video clips of the same set-up used in Study 3 but with motion occurring, either correctly or incorrectly. The children had to judge whether what they saw in the clips looked correct or not. The results indicate a mismatch between tasks requiring explicit predictions and a task relying on tacit judgements, suggesting judgements are more accurate than predictions. A dual-pathway model incorporating explicit and tacit reasoning is proposed, limitations of the current work are discussed, and suggestions for future work are made. Overall, it is evident that two kinds of understanding about the same topic are available in young children, and it is hoped that early science education can eventually consider this differentiation in order to facilitate conceptual change. Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/237250 2011-02-08T00:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226859 Title: Improving secondary students' revision of physics concepts through computer-mediated peer discussion and prescriptive tutoring Authors: Soong, Benson Abstract: In this dissertation, I report on the design, implementation, and evaluation of my intervention for the revision of physics in a mainstream public secondary school in Singapore. This intervention was conducted over a one-year period, and involved students who were taking their GCE 'O' level physics examination after immersion in the intervention, which was conducted as part of their regular physics revision curriculum. Based on sociocultural theory, the intervention changed the practice of how physics revision was conducted in a particular secondary physics classroom. The intervention consisted of a computer-mediated collaborative problem-solving (CMCPS) component and a teacher-led prescriptive tutoring (PT) component. The CMCPS portion of the intervention required the students to follow basic “ground rules” for computer-mediated problem-solving of physics questions with other students, while the PT portion saw the teacher prescriptively addressing students' misconceptions, misunderstandings, and other problem-solving difficulties as captured by the discussion logs during the CMCPS session. The intervention was evaluated in two stages. First, a small-scale (pilot) study which utilised a control group (CG) / alternate intervention group (AG) / experimental group (XG) with pre- and post-test research design was conducted in order to evaluate whether the intervention was effective in promoting improved learning outcomes of a small group of students. Given the success of the pilot study, a main study involving the entire class of students was conducted. This main study was evaluated by comparing the cohort's actual GCE 'O' level physics results with their expected grades (as given by the Singapore Ministry of Education based on the students' primary school's results). Also, the students' 'O' level physics results were compared with the average physics results obtained by previous cohorts. The quantitative data indicated that the intervention for physics revision appears to be effective in helping the entire class of students revise physics concepts, resulting in improved test scores, while the qualitative data indicated that the students' interest in physics had increased over time. The physics teacher also reflected that the intervention had provided her with much deeper insights into her students' mental models. Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226859 2010-10-11T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226853 Title: Education for Muslim children in the UK : a critical analysis of some issues arising from contrasting liberal and Islamic approaches to contemporary problems Authors: Halstead, James Mark Abstract: An analysis of contemporary trends in the education of Muslim children in the U.K. indicates that in the 1960s and 1970s there was a strong emphasis on meeting the special needs of Muslim children, but these needs were neither defined by the Muslim community nor based on any framework of Islamic values. More recently, some education providers have sought to respond at least to some Muslim demands, and a notion of accountability to the Muslim community is developing in some quarters. Accountability, however, implies rights, and rights are usually understood from within a liberal framework of values. On a liberal view, the rights of Muslim parents to bring up their children in their own religion and the rights of the Muslim community to educate Muslim children in keeping with distinctive Islamic beliefs and values are constrained by the claim that the autonomy of the child must be vouchsafed in any form of educational provision. There is clearly a deep-seated clash of values between Islam and liberalism. From a sketch of fundamental Islamic values, an Islamic view of education may be developed which is in disagreement with liberal education particularly on three points: the need for critical openness, the need for personal and moral autonomy and the need to negotiate a set of agreed values if any common educational system is to be achieved. The search for sufficient common ground between liberals and Muslims is unsuccessful because Muslims insist on building their education around a set of religious beliefs which liberals believe schoolsh ave no businesst o reinforce, while liberals offend Islamic principles by insisting that religious beliefs, like all beliefs, must always be considered challengeable and revisable and should therefore be presented to children in a way which respects the ultimate freedom of individuals to make choices for themselves. The only way out of this impasse in practice is for liberals to back down from their insistence on a common education for all children, and to accept that Muslims should be allowed their own denominational schools. The danger that the Muslim community may become isolated and socially vulnerable may be reduced through increased co-operation with other faith communities, especially Christians. The dissertation thus consists of three intertwining strands: multi-culturalism in educational policy; applied social philosophy, especially relating to rights and liberal education; and Islamic theology. It begins with an examination of contemporary practice, moves to an analysis of the issues and principles underlying that practice, and then finally returns to practice with recommendations made in the light of the preceding discussion. Mon, 07 May 1990 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226853 1990-05-07T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226850 Title: Educational, social and career aspects of teenage Muslim girls in Britain : an ethnographic case study Authors: Basit, Tehmina Naz Abstract: This dissertation is an empirical investigation of a group of adolescent British Muslim girls. It examines the educational, social and career aspirations of these girls in the context of their present experiences by means of an ethnographic case study. It endeavours to explicate the lives of the girls in contemporary Britain by employing a qualitative methodology and in the process generate theory grounded in the data. The empirical data were gathered over a period of twenty months, mainly by indepth interviewing of the three types of respondents, using semi-structured interview schedules. By using triangulation, the research illuminates the same issues from three different perspectives: the pupils, the parents and the teachers. The study portrays adolescence, as experienced by these girls, as a period of hope and expectation, rather than a time of stress, confusion and rebellion. The girls are optimistic about the future and, though largely working class, have middle class aspirations. They hope to effectuate these ambitions through the mediums of education and careers, yet they also want to get married and have children. These girls have supportive families whose values are moulded to a large extent by an Islamic ethos and who want to help these adolescent girls to realise their multiple aspirations. However, the teachers, by and large, not only perceive these aspirations as unrealistic, but they also misunderstand various religious and cultural mores of these families. While the girls' aspirations are being shaped by the views of the parents and, to some extent, of the teachers, they are not replicating the lives of their parents and teachers. Indeed, they are active participants in shaping their own multiple identities and aspirations by means of a subtle combination of negotiation and persuasion. Mon, 12 Jun 1995 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226850 1995-06-12T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226318 Title: "It'll look good on your personal statement": a multi-case study of self-marketing amongst 16-19 year olds applying to university Authors: Shuker, Lucie Abstract: The aim of the study presented in this thesis was to understand how 16-19 year old students within three different types of educational institution, approached the process of having to ‘market’ themselves in the context of applying for university places, and why discourses and practices of self-marketing have become more prominent in recent decades. The research focused particularly closely on the role of the Personal Statement as part of the Higher Education application process, and the ways that the particular characteristics and situations of different schools and colleges may shape distinctive self-marketing practices among their students. A multi-case study model was used, in which interviews were conducted with 36 students and various key members of staff, across three institutions and over three successive research phases. This interview data was supplemented by further data gathered from field observation and documentary analysis. The final interview with each respondent used the student’s Personal Statement as a resource to explore their self-marketing behaviour in more detail. Drawing on a Bernsteinian theoretical framework it was found that each institution had developed a pedagogy of self-marketing that was strongly embedded within and shaped by the dominant pedagogic code of that institution - both pedagogies being part of an ongoing strategic response to the conditions of the local education market-place. Self-marketing in the context of making applications to Higher Education institutions involved: firstly the recognition of a ‘destination habitus’ (a combination of institutional status and disciplinary habitus), and secondly the realisation of that destination habitus through the use of particular discourses in the production of the Personal Statement and, in some instances, performance in selection interviews. Crucially, the ‘imaginary subject’ projected by the dominant pedagogic code of the school/college was a reflection of the ‘destination habitus’ of the typical university/course that students from that institution in the main applied to. Individual student’s orientations to self-marketing were then summarised in, what I have termed, a ‘self-marketing profile’, which shaped the discourses they deployed on their Personal Statement, and was itself shaped by the institution’s pedagogy of self-marketing. The primary conclusion of this thesis is that the far-reaching education reforms of the late 1980s in England and Wales have created market pressures which powerfully constrain both 16-19 institutions and Higher Education institutions to create market ‘niches’ for themselves, which then significantly influence students’ self-marketing practices. These practices are therefore strategic responses both on the part of the institutions that students are currently located in, and also those they are applying to, and demonstrate that the institution 16-19 year olds attend makes a very significant difference to their orientation toward and experience of self-marketing. Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226318 2010-06-07T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/223866 Title: Constructing Stage-Environment Fit: Early Adolescents' Psychological Development and their Attitudes Towards School in English Middle and Secondary School Environments Authors: Symonds, Jenny Abstract: This longitudinal multiple methods study used an ethnographic approach to examine the development of early adolescents’ psychology during pubertal and school transitions. It explored potential associations between attitudes to school, perceptions of school life and transfer, home and peer relations, and puberty over the course of a school year. It compared two groups of UK 11 and 12 year olds (Year 7), one in a middle school (age range 8–13 years) without transfer at age 11, and the other in a secondary school (11–16 years) where transfer from primary school had just occurred. Pupil attitudes to school were surveyed across the Year 7 cohort in each school at the beginning (N=252) and end (N=262) of the school year. The initial survey facilitated selection of two matched groups of target pupils (N=20) who were engaged in an active participation method designed to improve validity. Data on perceptions of school and growing up were gathered in 80 interviews, 40 audio diaries, 42 hours of participant observation and by 63 targeted observations across three school terms. An end of year survey assessed the attitudes of the target pupils and their year groups. Qualitative data were analysed inductively using grounded theory coding procedures which uncovered early adolescent needs that mismatched with many design features of secondary schooling. Of particular developmental offence were impersonal teachers and lessons that were non-practical, without opportunity for independent learning and unsupervised skills building and that were irrelevant to adolescents’ career identities. Analysis of the quantitative survey data using multivariate procedures identified attitudinal factors congruent with previous research. Overall attitude to school was best predicted by perceptions of teachers and enjoyment of lessons rather than by adolescent developmental factors. Cluster analysis identified four pupil types validated by the target pupil findings. Of these the autonomy seekers had the most freedom outside of school and the greatest decline in attitudes across the year. The findings assisted generation of new theory incorporating concepts of maturity status markers and focal contexts. School transfer was found to impel an ecological transition across multiple developmental contexts which increased pupils’ maturity self-perceptions, yielding mixed developmental implications. Using Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems framework as an analytical tool facilitated interpretation of the emergent themes in relation to Eccles & Midgley’s (1989) US-based theory of ‘Stage-Environment Fit’. The findings support the application of a modified Stage-Environment Fit theory in English schools. Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/223866 2009-12-04T00:00:00Z