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- Karlsson, Göran, 1954-
(författare)
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Instructional technologies in science education : Students’ scientific reasoning in collaborative classroom activities
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study originates from an interest in how students interpret scientific concepts demonstrated with animated instructional technologies. Currently, science education makes use of diverse kinds of instructional methods. For the advancement of instruction, new technologies have continuously been employed. Such new instructional technologies have always been accompanied with expectations that they should reform teaching. The availability of IT in schools and the selection of animated displays for instructional purposes provide new opportunities for education. This thesis accounts for three empirical studies of students’ collaborative work with instructional technologies. For the purpose of studying students’ scientific reasoning, two kinds of animated instructional technologies were designed. The three studies focused on designing and exploring the whole educational intervention and are located in the area of design-based research. They provide detailed analyses of secondary school students’ collaboration on an assignment of giving a joint written account of the instructed concept. Analytically, this is done within a socio-cultural framework that uses interaction analysis inspired by ideas from conversation analysis and ethnomethodology. Study I and Study II report observations from instructional technologies that deal with the flow of materials in the carbon cycle. The two studies were connected, as the outcomes from the first study informed the educational framing of the second study. Study III reports findings from a sub-study of a design experiment where students worked in a virtual laboratory to learn about the solubility of gas in water. The results from the studies show that students’ reasoning was influenced by several aspects, such as the characteristics of the animated display, language use, school cultural norms, the formulation of the assignment and the students’ pre-knowledge. The analyses also evinced that the students’ interpretation of a demonstrated concept often diverted from a canonical scientific one, which warns against assuming that the collaborative meaning-making of animated instructional technologies automatically leads to a creation of the desired scientific concept. These findings emphasise that when designing and applying animated instructional technologies in education, one has to consider a wider context where assignment formulation, teacher guidance, school culture and semiotic processes influence how students approach and frame their assignment.
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| 2. |
- Lagergren, Anniqa, 1964-
(författare)
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Barns musikkomponerande i tradition och förändring
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on education at Swedish community music and arts schools and at primary schools. The aim of the study is to contribute to knowledge formation within the field of music education by examining how children make music in an institutional context and how the development of new approaches in teaching and learning affect how children practise music. This is studied by observing what happens when children aged 9 to 12, compose music when they have access to digital tools in a community music and arts school and in a primary school – with specific focus on how composing tasks take shape under varying contextual and interpersonal conditions. 13 children from a community music and arts school and 21 children from a primary school participated in the study. In order to gather material for this study a survey was undertaken to examine the children’s experiences of music, instruments and digital tools. In order to observe and examine composing activities and the music the children had composed, these sessions were recorded on video. The theoretical framework for the study is based on a sociocultural perspective. The results indicate contextual-related differences between the activities in the community music and arts school and the primary school. The differences are observed in the activities and the music the children compose. By addressing interpersonal-related differences the reason why some groups of children undertake the task of composing and some groups of children do not undertake this task can be examined further.
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| 3. |
- Westberg, Niklas
(författare)
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Meddelanden från enskildheten : En sociologisk studie av ensamhet och avskildhet
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study explorea and analyse how loneliness and solitude are constructed as problems and how they are explained by ”society” in different forms of texts and by people who themselves define their situations as characterized by loneliness or solitude. The latter forms a special focus and my ambition is to understand how they answer to a social situation that in different ways problematize them as persons and construct their life situation as an anomaly. Even if the situation is characterized by loneliness or a search for social distance the task of explaining the situation is not taking place in a social or cultural vacuum; as the situation is viewed as an anomaly society creates it’s own interpretations and discourses which influences individuals and groups understanding. Therefore two different kinds of empirical material have been used. First, texts from research and science concerning loneliness and solitude as well as representations from other textual genres. Second, texts written by self defined lonely people and persons who expressly seek solitude and these are collected from two ”places” on Internet. From a dating service specialised in lonely people and a community of people who strives towards solitude as a way of life. The main unit of analysis consits of the language in these texts and are interpretated by an textual analysis influenced by discource analysis. A major problem regarding loneliness and solitude is ”the social”. Even if solitude are about social inattention, discourses are often occupied by social life in different manifestations; mostly in form of a social dissatisfaction that motivates freedom from society and community. In loneliness discourses lack of social connection, naturally, represents a central theme. Because solitude is understood as motivated by the individual and loneliness as caused by forces that the individual usually doesn’t control, the individual in discourses of solitude appears as one of pride and agency while the individual in loneliness discourses appears as a shameful victim. Solitude and loneliness are deviances which are managed with help of explanatory ”accounts”: 1) Excuses in form of ”scapegoats” where other peoples deficiencies is singled out as cause or motive to both loneliness and solitude. 2) Excuses with reference to illness and psychological problems, which to a large extent explains loneliness. 3) Justifications of solitude with reference to freedom to self-realization and communion. Based on my analysis a composed situation appears wherein lonely people and people seeking a private space seems to have a lot in common: social dissatisfaction and alienation, designation of scapegoats, a longing for authenticity etc. It is even possible that they, to a degree, share a life-situation characterized by alienation and despair but ”choses” different vocabularies or discourses for rendering the situation as intelligible, which makes a shared situation into different ones.
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