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This thesis investigates PISA’s impact on students’ learning in a local context, Fangshan District of Beijing, in China. PISA’s growing influence on educational policymaking in domestic education systems has been widely discussed, but concerns about policy borrowing and PISA’s governing power on education have been raised. However, these discussions rarely look further into local contexts to investigate PISA’s impact on students’ learning. Through mixed methods research, this thesis presents an investigation into the impact PISA has had on students’ learning and how this impact occurs. A conceptual framework employing theories about washback effect and ecological systems theory was developed to underpin the research. Sixteen local educational policymakers and practitioners were interviewed to identify how PISA is used in the local context, and to gather their views on the perceived impact of PISA on students’ learning. Fangshan PISA data were used to triangulate their perceptions, and also to expand the understanding of their use and translation of PISA data in policymaking. Thematic analysis of interview data reveals that PISA is perceived as a new perspective, which is different from domestic assessment in some aspects, for benchmarking the quality of local education. PISA is also used as an impetus motivating local initiatives to improve educational quality, in which some PISA concepts are integrated. The mechanism of PISA’s impact on students’ learning was conceptualised via making the factors of different contextual layers which negotiate PISA’s impact explicit. Interviewees perceived that through school enactment of the local PISA-motivated initiatives, and reforms of national curriculum and assessment, to some extent, students’ learning has been gradually fostered. These perceptions are largely supported by the trend analysis and multilevel modelling of PISA data. Research findings also indicate the challenges that the local PISA data users face for appropriately interpreting and translating PISA data to inform educational policymaking.

There is an increasing academic and policy interest in subjective well-being (SWB). However, the questions of whether and how public policy can promote children’s SWB remain understudied. This thesis aims to reduce this gap by studying the association between education policy and students’ SWB, with a focus on life satisfaction (LS). To quantitatively study this question, this thesis analyses data on 15-year-old students in 33 countries that participated in the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. The analysis draws on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development and it is conducted by using a range of advanced quantitative methods, mainly multilevel regression. This thesis presents analysis demonstrating an association between several education policy-relevant factors and students ́ LS, which is particularly prominent –and observed in almost all countries- for schoolwork-related anxiety, bullying and parents’ emotional support in relation to school. Results also indicate that schools may play an important role in shaping students’ LS. This is supported by evidence that these associations tend to vary by school, by evidence on the existence of school effects in almost all countries, and by the finding that a proportion - substantial in some countries- of the variation in students’ LS is explained by differences between schools. Moreover, findings suggest that school type and school peers’ characteristics can be important to students’ LS too. In addition, in many countries, the links between schools and education policy and students’ LS differ for girls and boys and for students of different socio-economic status. Finally, in all the analyses described above, there are significant differences across countries. Overall, this thesis makes key contributions to our understanding of whether and how children ́s SWB can be influenced by schools and education policy, supporting calls that education policy should also be assessed in terms of its impact in children ́s SWB.

This thesis investigated the influence of values, culture and context on technology adoption behaviour. This thesis aimed to theoretically develop and validate the Values-Enhanced Technology Adoption (VETA) model, integrating Schwartz’s Theory of Human Values with the Unified Theory of the Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2). The VETA model was validated through survey data in four research organisations based in East Africa (Kenya and Uganda), The Gambia and the United Kingdom. Contextual differences in adoption factors were explored through interviews with e-learners. Workers were surveyed during their participation in a professional e-learning course and interviewed six weeks after their e-learning experience. Survey analysis was completed using Partial-Least-Squares Structural-Equation-Modelling (PLS-SEM); interview data was analysed through computer aided thematic analysis. The VETA model was partially confirmed in the context with performance expectancy, price value, and habit predicting learner intention to use e-learning. Values interacted with the VETA model as predictors of adoption factors. The value of achievement was most important in predicting intention to use e-learning. Learners prioritising achievement as an important aspect of their worldview perceived e-learning to be important in their social context and worthwhile in terms of cost and benefit. The type and source of social influence differed in the African contexts from the UK: peer, champion, and manager influence were informational for African learners. The lack of facilitating conditions in the African environment was a perceived barrier to e-learning use for African learners that could be overcome with special endeavours which were not needed in the UK environment. This thesis demonstrated the integration of values and technology adoption literature in the development and validation of the VETA model, and expanded the constructs of social influence, price value, performance expectancy and facilitating conditions in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK. Despite contextual differences, the VETA model applied consistently across the East African, West African and UK contexts.

Statistics is increasingly taught as a part of the curriculum programmes of a wide spectrum of disciplines at higher-level institutions. The main goal of this doctoral study is to get an understanding of non-mathematician students' perceptions, challenges and experiences when undertaking a university level introductory statistics course. This research also seeks to investigate affective, motivational and cognitive factors, which may be associated with students' academic performance in statistics. A mixed-methods research design (that is a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods) was employed. A self-reported questionnaire was administered to a larger sample of students (over five hundred) near the beginning and towards the end of the instruction of a statistics course. A sub-sample of the students was interviewed and thirty of them were selected to act as a source of qualitative evidence to complement the quantitative results. This study reports on data from a sample of undergraduate majors who attended statistics courses from recognised (both public and private) universities in Cyprus across two academic semesters. Students with a variety of mathematics backgrounds and experiences and from diverse academic departments and degree programmes participated in the study. Quantitative data analyses (including multivariate analyses such as structural equation modelling techniques) and interview data analyses (using thematic analysis) were performed. The qualitative findings highlight, amongst other things, the importance of the role of the instructor in the statistics education learning process. The key finding of the structural equation modelling techniques, when modelling performance in statistics, is that self-efficacy and resilience in both questionnaire administrations explain and predict statistics performance over and above the other variables (such as liking, interest, value, difficulty and anxiety) included in the model. More specifically, self-efficacy and resilience are found to be directly and positively related to the performance. Self-efficacy has a prominent position in the model since it is also found to be associated with all the variables incorporated into the model. It is suggested that self-efficacy and resilience, particular in the context of statistics education, are constructs worthy of further investigation from researchers and educators. The potential contribution of the study is to benefit the development of statistics education and offer implications and recommendations for teaching and learning statistics based on the findings.

From 2011 teacher education curricula in Malaysia have been required to emphasise the teaching of science using science inquiry skills. However, the performance of science pre-service teachers using these skills is an under-researched area. It is acknowledged in the teacher development literature that personal beliefs mediate the knowledge and practice of pre-service teachers in their classroom. This study explores how the self-efficacy beliefs of science pre-service teachers in Malaysia relate to teaching performance using science inquiry skills. This thesis presents the development and validation of a measure of teacher's self-efficacy: Self-efficacy in Teaching using Science Inquiry Skills (SETSIS). The conceptual framework used in this study consists of three factors: knowledge efficacy (KE), personal teaching efficacy (PTE) and outcomes belief expectancy (OBE). Using a multi-methods research approach the study developed the SETSIS instrument comprising 72 items using a five-point rating scale. The SETSIS instrument was piloted using a cross-sectional survey of 325 pre-service teachers at 13 Institutes of Teacher Education across Malaysia. Factor analysis confirmed the contribution of the three factors with high reliabilities (α > 0.9). The SETSIS also met the Rasch rating scale model requirement in terms of reliability, dimensionality, difficulty and item discrimination but, needs to include more difficult to affirm items to distinguish the high self-efficacy level. A concurrent validation using a separate knowledge test and teaching practice assessment confirms weak associations but were able to establish the models to infer knowledge and teaching practice performance among the samples. Overall, the findings confirm new conceptualisations of teacher self-efficacy among pre-service teachers using the three factors proposed in the SETSIS. The empirical evidence supports the utilisation of the factors of the SETSIS in assessing the belief component of pre-service teachers in teacher education. However, the study suggests different utilisation of the factors to infer pre-service teachers' performance in content knowledge and teaching practice.

International students have an undeniable effect on the higher education (HE) landscape worldwide, from economics and political strategies to HE efforts to focus on and improve ‘the student experience’. However, most previous research about students’ motivations for having an international experience and experiences of student engagement has focused on factors identified from the staff perspective rather than that of the students. As ‘student engagement’ is a widely used term in HE policy and practice, it is important to increase understanding: of the concept itself; how motivations influence student engagement; and how different types of student engagement may affect students’ perceptions of their experiences. Therefore, this research explores the nature of the relationships between identified motivations, types of student engagement, and perceptions of international students at a university in the United Kingdom (UK) in order to increase understanding of the students’ experiences from the students’ perspective. Using a phenomenological approach with a mixed methods design, data was collected from students during the 2012/13 academic year which included 249 questionnaires and 10 semi-structured interviews. Students reported various motivations which impacted their decision to come to the UK for part of their HE experience and also had an effect on how they engaged in their international experiences. Additionally, responses from students indicate that students tend to focus on the non-academic aspects of their experiences (i.e. social interactions, friendships, travel, clubs and societies, etc.) when reflecting on their international experiences with other students as opposed to academic aspects (i.e. studying, coursework, etc.). Finally, the findings suggest, when compared with academic engagement behaviours, international students’ perceptions of their experience were more influenced by behaviours for non-academic engagement; specifically, data indicates that non-academic engagement behaviours can decrease students’ concerns whilst abroad and also have a positive influence on students’ overall perceptions about their international experience.

This study is the first attempt to develop, implement and evaluate a computer plus talk teaching sequence with the purpose of enhancing 15-16 years old students‘ understanding of chemical rate of reaction concept in Uganda. A total of 247 students aged 15-16 years from two High Schools participated in the study. The experimental class (C&TA) consisted of 108 students, 51 males and 57 females while the comparison class (NTA) consisted of 139, 73 males and 66 females. Based on recommendations in the literature that chemical rate of reaction is a difficult topic to teach and learn, I developed a research-based teaching sequence on chemical rate of reaction using a computer and talk approach, implemented this teaching sequence in Uganda and evaluated this teaching sequence by making comparisons with ‗normal‘ teaching. Research-based teaching is a novel approach to pedagogy in Uganda, so I had to train the experimental teacher for two weeks. The trainings were very important in ensuring that the teacher acquired working knowledge about C&TA prior to the actual implementation in the classroom. The study investigated whether the students who followed the C&TA had better understanding of the difficult areas (also called learning demands): (1) rate of reaction, (2) proper orientation of reacting particles, (3) the relationships between activation energy and chemical rate of reaction, (4) the effect of temperature and (5) the effect of concentration of reactants on chemical rate of reaction. I undertook a quasi-experimental study to assess the C&TA‘s impact. I analysed classroom interactions to inform discussion of what influenced its effectiveness, and inform decisions about whether the C&TA sequence was implemented consistently with its design. The statistical analyses of the post-test scores show that the experimental class (C&TA) students demonstrated better understanding across all the five difficult areas compared to the comparison class (NTA) students. The findings indicate that female students benefited (a little) more from the intervention than male students. The results show that the C&TA intervention had an effect of the same magnitude across the ability range. Further findings show that C&TA support teaching large classes and that it is possible for a teacher in Uganda to teach in a more interactive/ dialogic way with relatively little training on the communicative approaches. Evidence shows that aspects of the C&TA teaching sequence that were effective in supporting students‘ learning of chemical rate of reaction were: computer simulations and modelling, teaching goals, worksheets, social constructivist perspective on teaching and learning along with the communicative approaches. Further findings show varied benefits and challenges from using C&TA. The teacher and students perceived C&TA as a good method of teaching and learning. Indicating that the use of a computer and talk approach (C&TA) is a feasible alternative teaching approach to didactic teaching in science classrooms in Uganda. It also suggests that C&TA could be adopted for teaching and learning other subjects.