The main purpose of this Masters thesis is to contribute to the understanding of high school teachers information seeking behaviour in the transition from university studies to occupational practice. The theoretical framework encompasses theories of professional socialization, the sociology of knowledge, of professions, and of library and information science. The empirical material has been collected through interviews with six recently qualified high school teachers in different subjects. The interviews have been analysed on two different levels; first on a descriptive level and then on a theoretical level. The major findings are that the academic context limited the student teachers information seeking and they did not have the opportunity to choose cognitive authorities on their own initiative.

The aim of this master thesis is to gain greater knowledge of interpersonal communication. This study explores on one hand how interpersonal communication can be used as an important part of reference work in a Swedish electronic synchronous reference service, and on the other how interpersonal communication affects the relationship between user and librarian. By using communication theory and establishing a positive relational contact with the user in the electronic environment, the outcome of the reference encounter can be successful for both the librarian and the user. Furthermore, the importance of recognising relational barriers is of great relevance to the relational contact. The scope of this master thesis is to find what relational factors are used and can be used in the interaction between user and librarian.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how power is distributed in the mathematics classroom and how students achieve agency when ICT (Information and communication technology) is used as a teaching tool. Three learning situations, structured by mathematics, are analysed: in the first situation mathematics is taught in a traditional way, in the second mathematics is taught in interdisciplinary projects, and in the third mathematics is taught using ICT as a pedagogical tool. The theoretical concepts of power and agency are used as analytical tools within a socio-political framework. The concept of power is used to assess the students? ability to influence their learning and degree of inclusion in the three learning situations.

Abstract The use of electronic media plays an important part in the life of youth and especially Internet and mobile phones are important in the social and cultural networks of youth. The first step of this thesis is to examine the ICT-based activities of upper secondary school students through an online survey. The second step is to examine what didactic implications can be derived from the ICT-based activities in the subject of Swedish. Results from this survey and national and international research show that young people spend the majority of their leisure time on the Internet. The result also shows that media activities displace other school related activities such as traditional reading and writing.

Tidigare forskning har bland annat visat att barn som vistas i klassrum med bra kvalitet är mer engagerade och att ett bra emotionellt stöd från läraren bidrar positivt till barnets sociala anpassning och lärande. Klassrumskvalitet delas enligt CLASS upp i emotionellt stöd, klassrummets organisering, pedagogiskt stöd och barnens genomsnittliga engagemang. Syftet i denna uppsats är att ta reda på vilket av områdena; emotionellt stöd, klassrummets organisering och pedagogiskt stöd som starkast predicerar barnens genomsnittliga engagemang i. Observation valdes som metod och gjordes på 16 olika förskoleavdelningar fördelat på 4 olika förskolor. Resultatet visade att det emotionella stödet starkast predicerar barns genomsnittliga engagemang.

[saknas].

In 2007 the Prevention Unit at Södermalm in Stockholm started a group activity for parents and children. The group activity?s intention is to offer families support in their early interaction. This study is a part of providing knowledge about this intervention. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze the stories which are produced by five participants in a support group for parents and children.

This is a study of seven men that have suffered from a cruel punishment. The punishment involved getting their ear/ears cut off, prison with more torture and their families being deported from their homes to another town.My sample involved seven Iraqi men who suffered from this punishment during Saddams regime, they got this punishment because they refused to fight against Iran and Kuwait. I went to Iraq and met with the men in person and did interviews with them to understand the effect of the punishment on their personalities, and how the punishment have influenced their lives and interaction with other people in the society and around them.The study focuses on their suffering and how they have been able to live with this stigma. The method the study has used is the kvalitative method that involved interviewing them in their country Iraq and analyse their answers and then come to the results. My study was between 26 of March 2004 to 26 of April 2004.My study is based on the theory of social interaction and especially the symbolic interaction theories of G.H.

The main object for this thesis is to study how students in library and information science at Högskolan i Borås search and valuate documents in the process of writing a paper. The study is based on a series of interviews with 12 students. Our methodology is also based on studies of their final product. The goal of the study was to map out how the students make their decisions during their search process. We studied the students use of search words, relevance judgements and how their need for information changed trough out the writing of their paper.

The following essay aims to determine what textbooks and teaching media educators in the county of Västerbotten use when teaching the relation between religion and science. Based on educational science theory and through analyzes of factual texts, the teaching materials was examined to determine how much focus they put on the thematic of religion and science. The result shows how the different teaching materials affect this thematic differently. The main conclusion is therefore that students in Sweden could, depending on the teaching materials used in their education, be taught by different standards to reach the same requirements..

This master thesis deals with events, dynamics and problems of mediated information seeking within the context of a new information service called "Book a librarian". The study, based on a survey and interviews both in academic and public libraries and participant observations in academic libraries, has its theoretical base in the cognitive theory of information retrieval interaction. The cognitive view is used to throw light upon the need of an ongoing dialogue during the session in order to detect the information needs of the user and to conduct a successful retrieval of information. The communicative interaction is seen as threepart interaction between the intermediary, the user and the information system, where the current cognitive states of all three participants are involved. The study shows that the cognitive obstacles for a successful mediation and information retrieval are mostly connected to participants current knowledge of the subject and of the retrieval techniques.

This investigation is about how teachers in school can motivate and create interest for science among younger children. Teachers were interviewed about attitudes to their subject and how this affects their lessons.I have also tried to find out, both by interviewes but also by studying litterature, what the most important thing is to teach in science, which knowledge is necessarry in the future and why.My result indicates that teachers find science both interesting and important but at the same time they also think it is a difficult subject to teach even if they are educated. Both the litterature and the teachers in my study agree that knowledge in science gives us a chance to ask questions, take stands and solve problems and that this knowledge is important for us in our future..

The impact of classroom enviroment with respect to learning.

This research explains and describes the role music notations may play in an unconventional way. The aim of this research is to show that by balancing composition, interpretation and improvisation, the performer(s) could produce or open the door to a reservoir of new sounds, which could emerge through a composer?s awareness of the need to balance these elements. That act of balancing depends on the musician?s interpretation through their interaction with the music notation, with their action process on the instrument and each other.

The aim of this paper is to examine why Swedish teachers and multilingual secondary   school pupils think it is important to read fiction, how Swedish teachers work with fiction in the multicultural classroom and how they motivate their multilingual pupils to read more by adapting fiction to their capabilities and experiences. We have done interviews with four Swedish teachers and 12 multilingual pupils. The following questions are the starting point of this essay:Why do Swedish teachers and multilingual pupils think that it is important to read fiction?  ?How can the Swedish teachers in the multicultural classroom motivate their multilingual pupils to read more fiction?The result of this paper showed that both the Swedish teachers and the multilingual pupils thought it was important to read fiction because it partly gives themselves the opportunity to acquaint with other cultures and it helps them to improve their language. The teachers motivate their multilingual pupils by reading out loud, reading in groups and by minimizing language difficulties that may occur in the fiction.