MASTER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION
DISSERTATIONS
NON-ACADEMIC SKILLS
Should and can non-academic
skills be measured? How?
COMPLETED DISSERTATIONS
Educational expeditions: Are they providing opportunities to develop the IB Learner Profile and ATL skills? An Enquiry Based Project
This study examines the effectiveness of an educational expedition, in providing an opportunity for International Baccalaureate (IB) students to develop their IB Learner Profile attributes. It also seeks to examine if an existing life-effectiveness questionnaire (LEQ) is suitable to measure the students’ perceived gains and how this relates to the IB’s Learner Profile as well as the IB’s Approaches to Learning (ATL) within its Middle Years Programme (MYP). This is important to my school and the IB community at large as the fundamental aims of the IB are delivered through the successful development of the Learner Profile in its students’.
Twenty students from a cohort of 204 participating a 5-day residential, school educational expedition were selected. The Life-effectiveness questionnaire instrument LEQ-H developed by Neill and his colleagues (Neill, 2008; Neill, Marsh, & Richards, 2003) was selected. This was administered pre and post expedition. In addition to this semi-structured interviews with teachers involved were carried out.
The results indicate that the LEQ-H was able to identify significant positive gains in certain life-effectiveness, particularly self-confidence and these indicate the possibility of similar positive development in students’ IB Learner Profile attributes. The outcome of the results suggests that the next step forward is to develop a specific LEQ for IB schools’ to measure the development of the Learner profile and certain ATL Skills over time.
Andrew A F Webber; B.Eng. (Hons), P.G.C.E.
Challenges students encounter in developing their Affective Skills to become Self-Regulated Learners. An Enquiry Based Project
The purpose of this research is to explore how the Affective Skills of Mindfulness, Perseverance, Emotional Management, Self-Motivation and Resilience can be taught to students, using specific models, to help students develop as Self-Regulated Learners in the MYP, and from the feedback received from students, understand what challenges they encountered when applying the models, to practice and develop the skill. This project aims to provide clarity regarding the definition of a Self-Regulated Learner, and provide recommendations on how MYP schools can incorporate a Self-Regulated Learning Framework into the planning and design of the curriculum in the MYP, and for MYP schools to have an awareness and understanding of the challenges students will encounter in order for these challenges to be considered when planning the curriculum to promote a system which is student centered. The challenges, which students encountered, can be divided between challenges within their control, and challenges beyond their control. Using models will enable feedback to be given to students in order to overcome the challenges. The challenges beyond their control can be controlled by the school through integrating and embedding a philosophy of creating Self- Regulated Learners during the planning and organisation of an MYP Curriculum.
John Michael Harvey; (L.L.B)
ONGOING DISSERTATION RESEARCH
Engaging Student Voice in Developing approaches to improve Teaching and Learning
Emotional Intelligence: scaffolding soft skills in
pre-university students
Student experience of a no-hands up policy in an IB Mathematics classroom
Efficacy of service learning
on students in the
IB framework
To view completed and ongoing dissertation research projects within these topics, click on the questions below.
