The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the teacher's background affect students' approach to mathematics teaching. Characteristically, in Sweden today is that mathematics is perceived as difficult subject and that the number of foreign teachers has increased. The study examines a phenomenon which the relationship between the teacher's language accent and substance difficulties.The method used for data collection is questionnaires, in order to investigate the phenomenon as the relationship between the teacher's accent and substance difficulties.The investigation has been carried out based on the students' point of view, both secondary and primary school pupils. What difficulties have arisen in teaching?  What is the biggest obstacle to achieve the goals of mathematics, to understand the teacher's language accent first in order to understand the subject, or that mathematics is difficult in itself to be understood as a substance.The result clearly shows that the teacher's accent does not affect teaching and students' view of mathematics as a subject.

To be educated in global climate issues can be challenging for pupils. This may contribute to anxiety and feelings of helplessness. Global climate change may also be a challenge for educators to convey to young learners, f-3. Educators can experience various problems when it comes to teaching about climate issues. The subject of climate change is a broad and complex area, according to the studied material in our thesis.

This thesis compares different methods for risk assessment of a creosote contaminated site in Vansbro, Dalarna. In a complementary study the importance of using representative data for calibration and validation of stationary groundwater models is discussed. The time dependency between surface water levels and groundwater levels on the site in Vansbro is evaluated by step response analysis. The results show that the groundwater levels reflect only long-term variation in the surface water levels. Hence the use of such long-term means for calibration and validation of the stationary groundwater models is the only theoretically defendable alternative.As a first step in the comparison of risk assessment methods the degree of contamination is evaluated on the basis of generic guideline values for contaminated soils, developed by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

The purpose of this essay has been to seek understanding of how young people in high school and adult education experience the use of educational media tools in teaching. Examples of questions submitted material has been: What are the positive and negative experiences of ICT in the classroom?The essay is of a qualitative nature, in which five students were interviewed about their experiences of ICT in the school environment. The result is analyzed from a sociocultural perspective and from an inward-student perspective.The results showed that students felt that it was difficult to absorb many of the ICT facilities as sources of knowledge in the school environment. Due to lack of quality in teaching material and difficulties of the pupils to sort out the important information of the injected..

This study is about to see whether the two models representing the strategies of lean production is to use and apply in different companies. The models are structured in two different ways in which one of them is checking the softer elements of lean production in the form of leadership and strategies. This model is called Lesat and is based on interviewquestions. The second model, called "learning to see" is about identifying flows. This, together shall then give an idea of how mature companies are when it comes to a whole in the concept of lean production, and susceptibility to use these models to their respective companies. The study is conducted in two companies, SKF couplings systems and AQ parkoprint.

Value-at-Risk (VaR) is among financial institutions a commonly used tool for measuring market risk. Several methods to calculate VaR exists and different implementations often results in different VaR forecasts. An interesting implementation is historical simulation, and the purpose of this thesis is to examine whether historical simulation with dynamic volatility updating is useful as a model to calculate VaR and how this differs in regard to type of asset or instrument. To carry out the investigation six different models are implemented, which then are tested for statistical accuracy through Christoffersens test. We find that incorporation of volatility updating into the historical simulation method in many cases improves the model.

Denna studie bygger på huvudfrågan: Har musiken i grundskolan någon påverkan på elevens inställning till musik senare i livet? Under studien har nya infallsvinklar tagit form och lett studien till resultatet: Musiklärarens påverkan. Från en relativt smal syn på musikundervisningen i grundskolan har element som t ex läroplaner och ledarskapsteorier vidgat studiens syn för vad musiklärare i grundskolan har haft för styrmedel genom tiden för de fyra läroplanerna, Lgr 62, Lgr 69, Lgr 80 och Lpo 94. Denna studie kan urskilja att det har skett en progressiv utveckling av varje ny läroplan, och att lärarrollen har utvecklats med denna process. Musikundervisningen i grundskolan har gått från en traditionell till en mer öppen undervisningsform.

The purpose of this work is to develop and test a design process where quick decisions and model building has a prominent role. The goal is to develop a number of products and build prototypes to be shown during the Carl Malmsten Furniture Studies spring exhibition 2012. I?m also writing a report describing my work.To reach my goal I have each day during the first phase conducted a short research and found a concept based on that days name day. Then I have continued in the workshop and worked with three-dimensional models.

Aim: The aim of the study is to show how a Bildung-oriented biology teaching could be designed, along with providing classroom examples of such teaching. In this study, the term Bildung, is defined based on the German Didaktik tradition as competences for self-determination, constructive participation in society, and solidarity. Theory: The study is based om Englund?s thoughts of teaching as didactic choices that express different views of meaning, socialisation, method, and context. This is referred to as companion meanings. Additionally, the theoretical framework is influenced by Gadamer?s thoughts on understanding through dialogue and Klafki?s didactic analysis of educational content for Bildung-orientated approaches. Method: The empirical qualitative study is based on ten semi-structured interviews of biology teachers at Swedish Folkh?gskola.

The potential of information technology as a means to invigorate democratic practise is constantly under discussion. Regardless of the differing opinions as to the most suitable way to utilise IT, there are certain democratic core values that have to be considered. One of these is freedom of information, defined by us as the right of every citizen to seek, obtain and express information. The aim of this study is to explore whether the use of IT as a means to enhance democracy can strengthen the citizens right to freedom of information. As an instrument for analysis we use an article by Jan van Dijk, professor of communication science.

The purpose of this study was to explore students' and teachers' experiences of the new pedagogical teaching tool, interactive whiteboard, which have gained increased popularity and wide spread usage in the classrooms. An observation during a mathematical lecture was conducted as a pilot study prior to the main research method of phenomenology; based on students? self-descriptions and interviews with two teachers, this methodological approach was used to investigate the subject matter. The interpretation, comparison and analysis of the results surrounding this new teaching method is explained by two theories, constructivism and socio-cultural perspective. The information shared by the students and teachers have been broken down into four categories: enjoyment & interest, practical, insight and no different.

By using steady-state measurements for predicting emissions under a dynamic drive cycle wouldsave a lot of time and money for the exhaust aftertreatment specialists at Volvo cars. The idea forthis thesis has been to investigate if statistical regression models can be used with good accuracy.Questions included are for example if common operating variables such as engine speed, air-fuelratio etc. is sufficient to predict engine-out emissions over the engine operating range with goodaccuracy. Focus was set on the modelling of warm engine, but also the more complex engineheat-up phase was investigated since it is a great contributor to total emissions. While NOxcouldnot be measured because of malfunctioning measurement equipment, only HC, CO andtemperature at inlet of first catalytic converter has been modelled.

The gap between practise and theory is often described in negative words in teachers? professional lives. Learning study is a model for teachers´ professional development where a theoretical framework is used to enhance practice. The theoretical framework used by teachers in learning study is variation theory. In this study the research object is variation theory and the aim is to present how variation theory becomes a guiding principle to understand teaching and learning processes.

The purpose of this bachelor-thesis is to investigate the possible effects of lease accounting on the estimation of bankruptcy. This is done by estimating the risk via prediction models based on accounting ratios for a sample of 43 listed firms in Sweden. Estimation is conducted twice for each firm, once base on unadjusted data as it is presented in the annual report of 2012, and one with data adjusted for operational leases (that is data is treated as if all leases present were to have been reported as financial leases). In the next step it is tested weather the predictive ability of the models is affected by this adjustment or not. For this purpose translation of bankruptcy risk into synthetic credit ratings via interest coverage ratios is done.

National Agency for Education for the results of national sample results show that students with another mother tongue than Swedish have low results with a larger percentage than majority students. Research shows that this depends on their mother tongue and the importance of language in the subject to learn.The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers experience, plan and implement their teaching field of mathematics in the preparatory class. The focus is on two perspectives; an intercultural perspective and a social perspective. The newly arrived pupils in the preparatory class come from different parts of the world which leads to an intercultural classroom being formed. The aim of the social perspective is understand how students integrate into the social in the classroom.I use qualitative methods through interviews.