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- Emanuelsson, Jonas, 1962
(författare)
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En fråga om frågor : hur lärares frågor i klassrummet gör det möjligt att få reda på elevernas sätt att förstå det som undervisningen behandlar i matematik och naturvetenskap
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis reports results from a study that focuses on how teachers can learn about their students? learning in mathematics and science. Current perspectives on learning are positioned in terms of the acquisition and participation metaphor. A third metaphor, the constitutive metaphor, is proposed and elaborated as an alternative for the current study. The theoretical framework draws upon and tries to further inform phenomenography and the ?theory of variation?. The empirical material was generated from audio-taped classroom interactions and follow-up interviews. With the aid of concrete examples, teachers were probed on their understandings of selected parts of the interaction observed. The results are described in terms of variant and invariant aspects of possible learning objects for the teacher. I pay particular attention to what the students possibly focus upon, and how they deal with the focused content in three different zones ? the topical, the conceptual and the procedural zone. The outcome of the study is discussed in relation to teachers? knowledge. Pedagogical content knowing is scrutinised and a complementary perspective where teachers? knowledge is viewed as constituted by different contextualisations of the subject matter is used to illustrate the interdependency of content as a discipline, content as taught in school and content as understood by students. The result shows that teachers have, relatively speaking, small possibilities of making distinctions within the conceptual zone. In mathematics the topical zone dominates the interaction, in science the procedural. In other words, in mathematics the teachers mainly open for possibilities to learn, if their students remember facts and procedures; in science how they perform presentations and experiments. In both areas possibilities to make distinctions on qualities in how the students understand the content handled are rather small. The most important finding of the study is: In order to make distinctions in relations to other persons? ways of understanding something, this something must be kept invariant and acts of knowing must be allowed to vary in relation to the invariant object of knowing.
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- Eskilsson, Olle
(författare)
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En longitudinell studie av 10-12-åringars förståelse av materiens förändringar
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main aim of this study was to study young people’s ability to use science knowledge when talking about and explaining everyday phenomena involving transformations of matter. Pupils’ individual knowledge was studied both through their spontaneous explanations and through their explanations with appropriate help in discussions with me or with other pupils. The framework for learning in this study involved both pupils’ individual learning and their learning in a social context. In the project, pupils discussed everyday phenomena with peers and with me. The role of the discourse was stressed in the interviews as well as pupils’ use of parallel models of explanations. Data were gathered through four interviews with each one of 40 pupils from five classes during a longitudinal study over two years. The pupils were about 10 years old at the first interview. During the study three instructional units were carried out in the five classes. In the first instructional unit a basic particle model was introduced, to be used when discussing experimental situations during the instructional units. The development of the basic particle model was one of the themes during the instructional units. Other recurrent themes were states of matter, gases and chemical reactions. I decided not to introduce the concept of chemical reaction until the last instructional unit. Pupils’ statements in the interviews were categorised from these themes. The categorizations emanated from presented research on pupils’ conceptions of science but also from the statements of the actual group of pupils. The correctness of the science concepts used was also taken into account in the categorizations. Sometimes I altered a method used before and sometimes I developed a categorization for a special purpose in my study. An example of the category systems is the combined classification of pupils’ conceptions of the particle nature of matter that contains three perspectives: A/ the quality of pupils’ particle model as revealed during the interview B/ the nature of pupils’ use of the concept of molecule during the interview C/ the number of situations in the interview where pupils use the concept of molecule. The pupils did not replace their old models; they put for example a new particle model beside their old everyday model. Then they chose which model to use when they met new situations. Most of the pupils were able to use knowledge of science when talking about known everyday phenomena involving transformations of matter. Almost all of the pupils in the group developed their own thinking models during the project. Pupils’ growing ability to describe features of chemical reactions and the development of their own particle model could help them to understand for example the nature of chemical reactions.
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- Sheridan, Sonja, 1952
(författare)
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Pedagogical quality in preschool : an issue of perspectives
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main aims of this thesis on the pedagogical quality in preschool are: to define and describe a pedagogical concept of quality; to explore how quality is experienced and valued from different perspectives; to find out what characterises a pedagogical environment of high quality; and to discuss how those characteristics can be used to improve the quality of preschool. The thesis comprises four studies, a meta-perspective of the results of these and a theoretical framework. Two studies were part of a project, which aimed to improve the pedagogical quality in 20 preschools. The use of both external and self-evaluations of quality with ECERS gave an opportunity to compare these evaluations with one another as well as using the results to plan the content of a targeted development programme. In the third study, three preschools evaluated to be of low quality and three of good quality were selected for in-depth studies. Thirty-nine five-year-old children were interviewed about their conceptions of decision-making and how they experienced their possibilities for exercising influence in their own preschool. In a comparative study between Germany and Sweden, researchers made parallel and independent evaluations of the quality with ECERS in 20 preschools, 10 in each country. The underlying perceptual process was documented and reconstructed and presented in the form of five different themes. From a meta-perspective of the results, the concept of pedagogical quality is defined and described on a primary level, which can be seen as one step in the development of a theory of pedagogical quality. The results confirm that high quality in preschool is related to the competence of the teacher and show that activities in the participating preschools are rarely learning-orientated. This indicates that there is a difference between the children’s experience of exercising influence and the level of quality and shows that it is vital for the children to be involved in decision-making. The results clearly show that external and selfevaluations of quality differ, and that there is a tendency for teachers in low-quality preschools to overrate their own quality, while teachers in high-quality preschools seem to evaluate their quality lower than the external evaluator. The results confirm that structural aspects are no guarantee for high quality and show that low-quality preschools are more vulnerable to decreases in resources. Further, the results show that the quality in preschool can be enhanced through competence development even while organisational changes and financial cutbacks are taking place. To allow these conditions to exist and develop, at least four perspectives must be focused on during research on quality and in the development work, that is: the quality of interactions, the perspective of the teacher, the perspective of the child, and the perspective of society. The study suggests that a theory of pedagogical quality needs to be developed, to define the concept further, and that the complexity of pedagogical quality requires broad research approaches and an inclusion of different perspectives.
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