3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/45
Browse
6 results
Search Results
Item An investigation into the relationship between what learners find relevant and how they perform in the grade 11 science curriculum(2009-04-02T07:29:06Z) Patel, FirozaRecent efforts in science education have focused on making the curriculum more relevant. Many discourses maintain that relevance improves the teaching and learning of science. This study attempted to identify a relationship between content that learners thought was relevant to them and how they actually performed in the examination. An evaluation was also done to determine whether there was a gender difference in choices regarding relevant content, and whether gender differences existed in the performances of learners in the year-end examination. The study involved forty-six learners from a low socio-economic school. Data from questionnaires and examination scripts were statistically analysed to determine if there was any correlation between relevance and performance. Results showed firstly that the most relevant topics were equation of motion and inorganic chemistry, with vectors being least relevant; secondly that there was no correlation between what learners regarded as relevant and how they actually performed in relation to content they identified as relevant; thirdly that there was no gender difference in performance in physical science, with regard to the year-end examination and the trend of boys favoring physics and girls preferring chemistry identified in other research, was shown to be true for these learners as well.Item An investigation of learners' home language as a support for learning(2007-02-28T11:14:42Z) Langa, MamphoThe report presents an investigation on how learners’ home language can be used as a support for learning mathematics. This qualitative case study was conducted in Phelindaba Primary School wherein learners use English as the language of learning and teaching which is not their home language. This school worked in collaboration with the Home Language Project to facilitate the learning of mathematics using the learners’ home language as a resource. The study revealed that when learners use their home languages they interact better with their peers, the teachers and their tasks. Learners used home languages to achieve conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, adaptive reasoning and strategic competence, which would in turn develop their productive dispositionItem First year university students conceptions of atmospheric pressure(2006-11-17T08:19:32Z) Small, JohnThis qualitative research project investigated the ideas of a small group of learners in the first year physics course at the University of the Witwatersrand in the area of atmospheric (air) pressure. These ideas constitute the prior knowledge with which these learners enter physics education at tertiary level. Clinical interviews were conducted with an initial sample of three (3) respondents, and the main study consisted of seven (7) first-year physics students. Data obtained during the course of the interviews was audio-taped and transcribed, and from an analysis of the transcripts a picture was obtained of the content of the knowledge held, and of the epistemological and ontological views that respondents entertained. What renders this work important is the argument that teachers are unable to assist the learning process without engaging actively with what their learners already know and believe. The first step in setting up learning experiences which can assist learners to become fluent in the construction of sound scientific explanations for phenomena and to become competent at weighing evidence is to determine the state of learners’ prior knowledge. The findings of this limited case study may be summed up as follows: There is very little indication, in the sample investigated in this study, that any meaningful learning has occurred in the areas of pressure, atmospheric pressure and the kinetic theory. These concepts have little or no explanatory power for learners in attempting to account for natural phenomena and technological applications in which atmospheric pressure is at work.Item COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP THROUGH AN ARTIST DRIVEN,COLLABORATIVE PROJECT BETWEEN LEARNERS FROM THE RIDGE SCHOOL AND SALVAZIONE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(2006-03-23) Schulz, Kathrin MarionA Community Partnership Art Event, resulting from curating and facilitating an educational collaboration was held on the 23 March 2004, ten years into South Africa’s democracy. Through a Masters in Fine Arts coursework entitled “Creating, Curating and Critiquing” offered at the University of Witwatersrand, I attempted to test the boundaries of the Arts and Culture Learning Area and explore alternatives to the current definition of “outreach”. The grade six learners from The Ridge School, an independent boys’ preparatory school and Salvazione Christian School, an assisted government school, were brought together over a period of ten weeks during regular school art lessons. Through the guidance and expertise of various artists, workshops were cocoordinated with the collaborative ideas of the learners coming to the fore. The process and dialogue established between learners, artists and educators was intended to shift my own parameters of teaching primary school art. Focusing on people rather than the final products points to a readiness to view knowledge not as a commodity owned b the expert teacher, but rather as something which can be constructed and developed with the learners. Originally the collaboration was intended as a celebration of the opening of new premises for Salvazione Christian School. The public art happening was held in a tent next to the informal settlement where a large majority of the children from Salvazione Christian School live. 3 Rather than what might be described as a modernist approach to art education, where the focus seems to be on the artist and artwork, the focus was on linking art to social interaction, and it was through the discovery of a form of hybridity that a number of differences between the two communities were challenged and exposed. This resulted in an approach that seems similar to the manner in which the Indian writer, Salman Rushdie writes of hybridity: “Hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs.” (Coombes, 2000:39) Through this hybridity tensions were created and explored rather than a ‘rainbow’ or melting pot created, where differences are glossed over as in a multicultural approach. The primary research methodology was participant observation in which directly observed data was analyzed and interpreted. Data was gathered from the interactions in the workshops, setting up the exhibition and the art event. As intended, a link between art and ‘outreach’ was established. In order for this link to change into a community partnership, it must be seen as part of a much longer process. The process as a whole did become a different kind of primary school art space, preparing the way for possible positive transformation of the visual arts in the arts and culture learning area at primary school level.Item The prevalence of alcohol and other drug use amongst school learners in Alexandra Township.(2006-03-13) Langa, MaloseThe aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of alcohol and other drug use amongst school learners in Alexandra Township. The participants in this study were 118 school learners in Alexandra Township. Of these 44 (40%) were in grade 9, 37 (32.2%) in grade 10 and 32 (27.8%) in grade 11; 55 (46.6%) were males and 63 (53.4%) were females; 50.4% were aged between 14—16, while 49.5% were aged between 17-20 years. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire, mostly requiring ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to determine use of various substances, the age of first use and the frequency use of these substances. This questionnaire has been used in other local studies and translated from English into Sesotho to maximize the validity of responses. The findings of this study indicate that in the past month the prevalence of 54.5% of males and 38.4% of females smoked cigarettes; 49.1% of males and 39.1% of females drank alcohol; and 36% of males and 12.6% of females smoked dagga. The everyday use of cigarettes was 41.7% for females and 47.2% for males; 7.2% of males and 3.6% females for alcohol; and 29.9% of males and 6.3 % for dagga. The results showed that there were no significant age and gender differences regarding the use of these drugs, except for dagga (X²=.005), with more males than females reported the use. It seems that the everyday use of alcohol, tobacco and dagga is very common than the use of other illicit drugs. Mental health workers should take note of the above findings while planning preventative strategies for the reduction of everyday dagga use, daily cigarette smoking and drinking of alcohol. The results are also important for those involved in treatment programmes to assist these school learners before they progress into more other serious drugs such as ecstasy, LSD, Crack cocaine and heroin.