1,720,955 research outputs found
Factors Contributing to Teacher Truancy in Two Secondary Schools in Bulawayo
No full textThis report presents findings from a case study of teacher truancy in two high schools in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Qualitative data from case studies exploring teacher truancy were followed by quantitative data using surveys. A cluster sample of 118 teachers and census of 70 class monitors and 9 education officers provided information for the study. This was complemented by documentary analysis of teacher reports and schemes. The study found that teacher truancy was highest among mathematics teachers. Truancy was in the form of early departure from lesson (75%), lateness (64%), digression to story telling (46%) and absence from school (41%). Early departure and digression was common for the low ability classes while late coming was popular in high ability classes. A chi - square test confirmed no association between teacher truancy arid subject taught.
Factors contributing to teacher — truancy were in the flaw of the recruitment and education system, prescriptive class deployment and lack of pedagogical teacher support system. Study recommends the use of consultative class deployment, teacher supervision workshops for heads of departments and empowering of class monitors and parents to complain against teacher truancy
An analysis of Zimbabwean teachers' interpretation of the advanced level physics curriculum : implications for practice
Get PDFThe purpose of this study was to explore the Zimbabwean physics teachers’ interpretation of the Advanced Level Physics curriculum. The study was motivated by the teachers’ lacklustre approach to adopting new practices and the poor alignment of their understanding with the practice envisaged by developers (Fullan, 2007:39; Ndawi&Maravanyika, 2011:68). Zimbabwean Advanced Level physics teachers are in this predicament, as evidenced by the low numbers of undergraduate students and the misconceptions displayed by physics learners enrolling for first year university work in physics-related disciplines (Kazembe and Musarandega, 2012:4). Having an idea of physics teachers’ perceptions, experiences and current practices with regard to the revised Advanced Level physics curriculum maybe fertile ground for intervention measures and policy decisions. To obtain a more holistic picture of the physics teachers’ practices, a mixed methods research approach using the convergent parallel research design was adopted for the study. A closed survey questionnaire was used to solicit for information from 56 physics teachers in four educational provinces. Random sampling was used to select the survey respondents. From these participants, 10 were purposively selected for face-to-face in-depth structured interviews basing on their availability and accessibility. Ten schemes of work,one from each interviewed teacher, for one school term and six past examination practical paper 4 question papers were collected and analysed using a document analysis guide. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square, whereas qualitative data was collated into themes for discussion purposes. The findings of the study reveal that the physics teachers have embraced the ideals of the physics curriculum and adapted it to their operating context through the reiterative interpretation process to construct personal meaning. The teachers are mainly utilising teacher-centred approaches to impart knowledge to the learners which is not consistent with the physics curriculum anticipations of using learner-centred approaches. The physics teachers are superficially interpreting the physics curriculum.The physics teachers need to embrace the learner centred teaching approach andbe empowered to enhance their curriculum interpretation and teaching practices through staff development.D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)Curriculum and Instructional Studie
Exploring the Practice of “Extra” Lessons as Offered in Chinhoyi Urban Secondary Schools, Mashonaland West Province, Zimbabwe
No full textThe purpose of the study was to establish the practice of extra lessons inChinhoyi urban secondary schools in Zimbabwe. A case study was adopted to facilitate anin-depth understanding of the practice of extra lessons in schools. Purposive sampling wasused to select the two schools for the study and the participants. A total of 160 participantswere used to solicit information for the study. Questionnaires, interview schedules andobservation checklists were enlisted for gathering data for the study. The study establishedthat extra lessons targeted those students who could pay for the service rendered; werebeing carried out during normal school hours, lunch hour, after school hours and weekends;the activities were not being supervised; popular with pupils preparing for publicexaminations; promoted elitism and unequal access to education; provided lucrativeemployment for teachers; were a result of shoddy teaching during normal hours and thatpupils would benefit more if extra lessons are supervised and coordinated. The studyrecommends that extra lessons be done outside normal school hours, with parents havingthe honours to identify the tutors, discuss areas of the learner’s concerns with them andmonitor progress made during the lessons. The study also recommends that extra lessonsshould be supervised and coordinated if students are to effectively benefit .SchoolDevelopment Committees should discuss with parents and come up with modalities toincentivise teachers so that all students benefit and that policy makers need to take adecisive position on the status of extra lessons in schools
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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