For many years, I have tried to understand why students end up in difficulties in mathematics. As a future teacher, it is extremely important to have knowledge of the various factors that leads to difficulties in mathematics. As a teacher it is obvious to meet the students who find mathematics a difficult subject, and, therefore it is necessary to have a broader knowledge of how to respond and support these students. According to Ahlberg, number of students with mathematics difficulties is increasing every year, therefore, it is important to help students and organize a supporting school environment that promotes and encourages learning (Ahlberg 2001, p. 104-105).

The purpose of this paper was to carry out and evaluate a pedagogic ICT-project, where the computer was implemented in art class. Focus was on the consequences of collaboration and also on the students? understanding of their own performance, compared to techniques in traditional art class.The study was qualitative and began with studies in literature. The contents of the literature are the foundation of the discussion, especially theories concerning the learning process, IT and computer-based learning. In the project, three different groups of students from upper secondary school attended and they where given tasks to solve in the image editing program Paint Shop Pro.

Following study is about motivation from a student perspective. Based on the prescribed literature and published research, the concept and field of motivation have been illuminated. The purpose of the study was to examine how students in ninth grade perceived their educational motivation and what kind importance they considered it had for their performance in school. The study is also supposed to base upon the result; clarify the differences if any between schools. In an attempt to get a clear image of this a quantitative method in the form of surveys was made on two schools in the Stockholm region. One of the schools had a really good merit value, and the other had a rather poor merit- value. By choosing a quantitative method a relatively large number of students where able to participate and equally large quantity of statistics have been presented. The result point at motivation in the participating students in both schools can increase and decrease through different factors.

The purpose of this study is to stress what experiences men working in the earlier school years share about being a minority group and what thoughts they have about why other men tend to avoid this profession.In this survey I have interviewed four male teachers in the earlier school years. In previous research it is claimed that men choose not to get a teacher training for the earlier school years partly because this profession is known to be dominated by women where it is difficult for men to feel at home. It is also claimed that teachers in training choose the later school years in order to focus more on teaching than looking after the children. None of the interviewed men sees it as a problem being a minority group, neither during training nor in teaching. What the men in this survey state as the main reasons for why other men do not choose to become teachers are the low levels of status and salary.

The assessing of student texts is an ordinary and important task for teachers, and the purpose of this study is to investigate, analyze and discuss which aspects of writing that particularly have an effect on the assessment of the student texts. The aspects in focus are: contents, genre, text length, paragraphing, sentence structure and choice of words.The data is drawn from six texts in the national test in Swedish for the 9th grade. Thetexts are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively regarding contents as well as language.The results show that the qualities of language influence the assessment more than the qualities of contents. Both word variation index and the number of long words increase in relation to raising marks. Uncommon words are also more frequent in texts which receive higher marks.

The purpose of this study is to examine how outdoor education (friluftsliv) in upper secondary school is perceived by both students and teachers, and to identify the conditions that influence their motivation and commitment to participate in outdoor education activities. The study also aims to analyze the significance of students previous experiences on their perceptions of outdoor education in school. The following research questions were investigated: ? ? ? ?Which factors do students and teachers believe promote or hinder students engagement in outdoor education in upper secondary school? ? ? ? ?How do students and teachers explain the ways in which previous experiences of outdoor activities affect students engagement and motivation in outdoor education? ? ? ? ?How do students and teachers perceive that organizational conditions and teaching design influence the possibilities of creating meaningful outdoor education? The study is theoretically based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and Sense of Coherence (SOC) (Antonovsky, 1991). SDT was used to understand how autonomy, competence, and solidarity influence student?s motivation, while SOC highlights how comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness shape student?s experiences of outdoor education.

Att ta steget från en universitetsvärld till att träda in i en yrkesverksamhet kan upplevas som okänt och den nyutexaminerade sjuksköterskan kan känna av påtagliga skillnader mellan de två kulturerna. Hälso? och sjukvården har idag ett ökat krav på effektivitet som påverkar all sjukvårdspersonal, så även blivande sjuksköterskor. Forskning har visat att just övergången från student till nyutexaminerad sjuksköterska kan vara en plötslig omställning och att upplevelsen att vara ny och oerfaren kan upplevas som chockartad. Frågor om nyutexaminerade sjuksköterskors upplevelser under denna transition är inte fullständigt besvarade och faktorer för att främja processen är inte klart definierade.

The purpose of this study is to explore specific pedagogical activities that benefit the student's verbal language development and to learn more about how our schools use teaching methods to achieve the ambitions in the governing documents in Sweden. The aim is finding the correlation between theory, research, governing documents and the educational work in our schools. This study contains an empirical survey in intention to see how teachers, pupils and school administrators experience school activities, to see if those activities are formed with the intention for pupils to reach the learning goals according to the governing documents.The aim of this study has been achieved by relating empirical data with theories and previous research on conversation analysis. Goffman's and Norrby's research on the importance of dialogue and previous research on dialogicity studied by Dysthe, Vygotsky and Bakhtin are presented. Those are related to empirical data and show that most teachers realize the importance of integrating dialogues in daily activities and in different learning contexts.

The purpose of this study is to find out teachers view on manipulatives as a way to concretize a certain mathematical content and to highlight knowledge and experiences within the range of using manipulatives to concretize. By answering the questions below different approaches a teacher may have towards the manipulatives and how that may impact on student?s learning will also be discussed in comparison to mainly traditional and socially constructive theories of learning.What is the teachers view on manipulatives as a way to concretize?What purpose do they have when using manipulatives?According to the teachers, what does it mean to concretize a certain mathematical content?According to the teachers, what connection is there between manipulatives and concretizing?Through interviews and observations conclusions can be made that the teachers are in general positive towards using manipulatives as a way to concretize a certain mathematical content although the definition of what a manipulative is differ somewhat between the teachers. The teachers working with manipulatives do it in a well thought out fashion but more research is needed to furthermore define the purpose of using manipulatives. Few countries spend so much time concretizing and working with manipulatives as Sweden do, but still Sweden score below the OECD-average on the mathematical PISA-tests.

This study investigates the difficulties that may arise for students as a consequence of differences that exist in mathematics education between different educational systems. The questions asked are when and why difficulties as a consequence of differences in writing or types of student problems may arise and in which way teachers and students attend to these difficulties. The focus is thus on the written parts of mathematics education and the questions are asked within the frame of general upper secondary education.In order to answer these questions, a sociocultural perspective based mainly on Sfard?s (2006) participationist theories together with Vygotsky?s (1999) general theories on development and learning is used. An important analytic tool is the discourse concept which in this context means a type of communication that brings some people together while excluding others from the communication.

The aim of this study is to examine some teachers and assistants? perception of conditions for students? democratic participation in the compulsory school for learning disabilities specialization training school. In order to deepen and more clearly describe the purpose of the study, three issues have been selected. Firstly, how do teachers and assistants perceive the concept of participation? Secondly, how do teachers and assistants perceive students opportunities for participation in teaching? And finally, do teachers and assistants perceive students? opportunities for participation in democratic activities of school? It is a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews.

Abstract:According to the curriculum of the Swedish school the pupils should develop their historical consciousness. The aim of this study was to find out which pupils develop this consciousness by listing to an historical novel, talking about that book and writing stories. The study went on for four weeks and the subject of the teaching was the Middle Ages. 28 pupils took part and a variety of methods were used: 1: questionnaire about the lives of the pupils, 2: Making observations of their attitude to the teaching and 3: story writing. The results show that the social background does not influence the development of an historical consciousness.

This Masters thesis concerns collaboration between teachers and librarians. Three theoretical perspectives, profession, power and legitimacy, are used to analyse the results of written interviews with eight teachers and one librarian at a comprehensive school. We did not find evidence of any deeper collaboration between teachers and the librarian. The effects of profession had little impact on the relation although the involved parties seemed to appreciate differences in education and points of view. The teacher retains power over education and grades while the librarian holds sway over the physical library and the purchase of books and other media.

Den här studien har genomförts för att undersöka hur en gitarrlektion fungerar över internet och hur den upplevs av dess användare. Undersökningen har genomförts genom att jag och två av mina gitarrelever har utforskat två olika gitarrhemsidor. Vi har tagit lektioner från dessa sidor. Där visas materialet genom video, ljud och med eller utan tabulatur. Därefter har mina elever intervjuats där de bland annat har fått svara på frågor om vad de tyckte om hemsidan, lektionen och lärarens kvalitet och hur det kändes att inte ha en lärare närvarande vid lektionstillfället.

Today an increasing number of schools and organizations are investing in so called Learning Management Systems. Researchers disagree on the pedagogical value of these tools. Some mean that Learning Management Systems cement old-fashioned behaviouristic teaching practices; others mean that the systems provide good opportunities in supporting learning in a socio cultural perspective. The aim of this study is to reach better understanding and increased knowledge of how the introduction of a Learning Management System influences the role of the teacher and how the learning is organized. We have conducted two case studies.