1,720,957 research outputs found
Kenya's urban high school teachers' perceptions of diversity : implications for curriculum implementation and pedagogy
No full textThis study focuses on illuminating Kenya's urban high school teachers' perceptions of
students' diversity and how these differences influence their curriculum implementation,
pedagogy, and students' classroom interactions in the learning process. Located within
theoretical frameworks of intersectionality and critical pedagogy, the study shows how multiple
layered identities and differences identified by teachers interplay and intersect to influence their
performance and students' academic success. The theoretical debate over critical pedagogy in
diverse contexts shows how Kenya's high school teachers effectively develop classroom
environments that address differences and acknowledge arrays of factors that create inequalities.
Findings also show that teachers' work continue to be informed by government and institutional
policies that favor uniformity and conformity creating contradictions and dilemmas for them.
The study applies a mixed qualitative methodology based on interpretive and descriptive
phenomenology to inform the study. Participants were selected based on purposive sampling
from urban high schools in western Kenya. Data for the study were generated through baseline
questionnaires, field interviews, classroom observations, and analysis of archival documents.
Findings highlighted arrays of factors identified by participants as contributing to students
differences in their specific context. Differences identified by teachers that were common across
institutions were academic abilities, entry behavior, primary education backgrounds, proficiency
in English language, socio-economic status, and students' motivational status. Some of the
factors perceived to influence teaching and learning differed across disciplines, gender of the
participants, and the nature of the schools. It was concluded that the impact of these differences
on teaching and learning needs to be addressed if high school access, quality, and subsequent
academic performance is to be realized for all students in Kenya's high schools.Education, Faculty ofCurriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department ofGraduat
Integrating African Indigenous Knowledge in Kenya’s Formal Education System: The Potential for Sustainable Development
No full textThe current paradigm shift toward promoting education for sustainable development gravitates toward alternative approaches to school curricula in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is argued that solutions to problems that currently plague the continent and with reference to the Kenyan context must proceed from understanding of local capacities such as the role of indigenous knowledge in promoting sustainable development. This can be achieved by integrating indigenous knowledge into the formal education system to address some of the knowledge deficiencies for development that is currently formulated from the western perspective. This approach challenges the dominance of western knowledge in Kenya’s school system that makes education disembodied from context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of indigenous knowledge, provide rationale for valuing indigenous knowledge in formal school system, examine the government’s efforts to indigenise curricula, and dilemmas to integrating indigenous knowledge in formal education with implications to teacher education programs
Examining Female Students\u27 Motivation and Preferences for Course Choices in an Undergraduate ICT Program in a Californian University
Get PDFThis paper reports on a study of female students’ motivations and preferences for course and career choices in an Information Communications and Technology (ICT) undergraduate program. Descriptive-interpretive phenomenology was adopted to investigate the phenomenon. Bandura’s self-efficacy framework was influential in interpreting participants’ motivation toward course choices and preferences. Findings revealed intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as significant influences on participants’ decisions to go into either technical or design majors of the ICT field. Extrinsic motivation came from influences such as stereotyping of gender abilities, prior computing skills, and role models while intrinsic motivation was based on individuals’ career interests and self-efficacy in specific sectors. Findings reflected that the majority of female participants preferred the design track within the ICT career field (web design, computer animation, and instructional design), with interest in self-employment. A very small number of female participants enrolled in the technical track involving computer programming, networking, and database administration, indicating female students’ preference for the design aspects of ICT
Economic empowerement of women through higher level technology training
No full textLow participation of women in higher levels of technology training is a continued phenomenon that impacts their economic positions in the current technologically oriented economy. The study illuminated the participation level, perspectives and experiences of female undergraduates in the Telecommunications, Multimedia and Applied Computing (TMAC) program at the California State University Monterey Bay. Using a phenomenological approach, findings revealed low participation and a continued decline in women\u27s enrollment and graduation levels in the TMAC program. Although the participants\u27 responses showed that women were aware of the advantages of technology careers in the current economy, many still opted for the design aspects of computing avoiding the technology track. Stereotyping of gender abilities was identified as a phenomenon that influenced women\u27s decisions in their abilities to go into the different tracks of the program. This undermined women\u27s beliefs in their capabilities in the techology track of the program. Recommendations require that the institution builds on female students\u27 self-efficacy by connecting them to the real world of work through strengthened internship programs; develop intermediate level courses to act as a bridge to higher-level technology courses; establish a deliberate move to sponsor females who show talent in technology by soliciting for funding for their studies in the technology track of the program and develop an action project that would ensure that policies and activities are put in place to achieve gender equity in the program
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
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