An investigation of some differences in A-level mathematics syllabuses in England and Wales

At the time when this study began, there were nine boards offering Advanced Level Mathematics syllabuses. Some of the boards offered three,and sometimes four versions of A-level Mathematics. The study looks at these various forms from a number of different standpoints.The first of these is a consideration of the 'readability' of the question papers themselves, using the Cloze Procedure. The data is analysed by a three-way, fully crossed, analysis of variance.The work then moves on to consider the structure of the various papers.It then proceeds to analyse questions from the papers under various headings. The method is a substantial modification of a method used by the GCE examination boards in cross-moderation studies.A questionnaire was developed to explore the opinions of sixth form teachers, regarding the various versions of A-level Mathematics. The opinions of university staff were also sought. The question as to whethersome A-level courses are better preparation for university mathematics courses is addressed. Results of students at A-level and in the first year university mathematics examinations are compared. The students who participated in the 'readability' exercise were also interviewed, after looking at further questions from a selection of A-level Mathematics papers.During the course of this study, a number of boards have started to offer modular, or unit based, courses. This significant development is considered towards the end of the study. Two schools and a sixth form college were visited, each one using a different modular A-level syllabus. An account of the observations is given.The study closes with a discussion of the findings from the various themes and makes suggestions for possible improvements

An action research study with low proficiency learners in Japan to promote the learning of vocabulary through collocations.

This action research (AR) study explores an alternative approach to vocabulary instruction for low-proficiency university students: a change from targeting individual words from the general service list (West, 1953) to targeting frequent verb + noun collocations. A review of the literature indicated a focus on collocations instead of individual words could potentially address the students’ productive challenges with targeted vocabulary. Over the course of four reflective cycles, this thesis addresses three main aspects of collocation instruction. First, it examines if the students believe studying collocations is more useful than studying individual lexical items. Second, the thesis investigates whether a focus on collocations will lead to improvements in spoken fluency. This is tested through a comparison of a pre-intervention spoken assessment task with the findings from the same task completed 15 weeks later, after the intervention. Third, the thesis explores different procedures for the instructing of collocations under the classroom constraints of a university teaching context. In the first of the four reflective cycles, data is collected which indicates that the students believe a focus on collocations is superior to only teaching individual lexical items, that in the students’ opinion their productive abilities with the targeted structures has improved, and that delexicalized verb collocations are problematic for low-proficiency students. Reflective cycle two produces evidence indicating that productive tasks are superior to receptive tasks for fluency development. In reflective cycle three, productively challenging classroom tasks are investigated further and the findings indicate that tasks with higher productive demands result in greater improvements in spoken fluency. The fourth reflective cycle uses a different type of collocation list: frequent adjective + noun collocations. Despite this change, the findings remain consistent in that certain types of collocations are problematic for low-proficiency language learners and that the evidence shows productive tasks are necessary to improve the students’ spoken ability

Post-16 curriculum choice: processes, values and tensions at a dual-curriculum UK independent school

This study explores the processes, values and tensions experienced by students when making post-compulsory curriculum choices at the independent boys’ school in South London where I am International Baccalaureate Coordinator. The research was conducted with Year 11 students as they chose what subjects to study in Year 12 and under which overarching curriculum (IB Diploma or A-levels). A purposive sample of 21 students (10 individuals and two groups), manifesting wide-ranging attributes, were interviewed in a coaching format on three occasions across a six-month period in the academic year 2020-21. Narrative and thematic analyses of the interview transcripts revealed that post-16 curriculum choice is guided by subject interests, ongoing progress in Key Stage 4 courses and assessments, aspirations, influential family members and friends, advice from teachers, perceived ‘fit’, extra-curricular interests and past experiences. The information on which decisions are based is often inaccurate or incomplete, and some students demonstrated negative self-talk. Each individual student selects their curriculum route and subjects in adherence with school requirements, but is influenced by the values they hold (and the relative importance of these values). Yet, five categories of choice process emerged: placidity, quiet assurance, borderline obsessional, performances of satisfaction and thriving. Combining a Bourdieusian lens with critical realism tools reveals the relevance of capital, habitus, field, reproduction, doxa and symbolic violence, and I have noted some of the tensions in my professional role through autoethnographic techniques. The International Baccalaureate mission encourages educators to increase uptake. But efforts to do so without establishing how distinctive students in particular school settings make curriculum choices are futile. I argue that educators and researchers can connect to students through coaching to reveal more than could have been discovered otherwise. All 16-year-olds, when making curriculum choices, deserve to be informed about the short-term realities and awakened to the long-term implications

Black Boxes : Airport Space, Liminal Mechanisms, and Systems of Autobiography

Treating the first-person experience of airport space as an ethnographic tool, this thesis examines spatial perception and its breakdown in multiple examples of imagined and real twentieth century spatial constructs. First, it considers examples of failed or redundant mechanisms which function as liminal constructs, either through their presence as physical objects or through use as tools with which to perceive liminal spaces. It emphasizes their function as points of access for narrative and delineates their status as examples of failure in relation to Bruno Latour's use of the term "black box," appropriated from the world of air crash investigation, and to Walter Benjamin's collection and juxtaposition of research in Tbe Arcades Project. Second, it explores the type and sequence of spaces encountered by a traveller in a large contemporary international airport, and those behaviours that are inscribed and prescribed upon people and mechanisms therein. It critiques Marc Auge' s ideas of the "non-place" through explorations of a distinctly airport-specific culture and possible deconstructions of airport space by passenger use and mechanical and architectural functions. Finally, it relates these to narrative space through an examination and practice of systemic approaches to autobiography in works by Georges Perec, Michel Leiris, and Raymond Queneau. It uses the first-person construction of a narrative of airport space-a first-person "silent reading" of public space-to construct a system of research through which twentieth-century liminal space may be inhabited and critiqued from within and on its own terms. Thus the constraint and potential offered by these diverse liminal spaces are deconstructed in terms of the personal narrative, and through use of airport space demonstrate an inhabiting of research through an innovative and revealing method