VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Can pupil choice over English curriculum content improve pupils' sense that the subject is 'for them'? Assessing the impact of curriculum choice on pupils' engagement, confidence and sense of inclusion in the English
Keywords: MLT
MLT2017
English curriculum

In this qualitative research and development project, I investigated the impact of pupil text choice on engagement in English lessons. School curricula have been shown to favour middle-class pupils (Demie and Lewis, 2010) and this project focused primarily on the experiences of a school priority: Pupil Premium pupils. Two low-attaining Year 7 classes from a co-educational comprehensive school were used for this study. Pupils chose their own novel from a shortlist to study for one term. Independent reading and collaborative activities developed while teaching became focused on skills over content. Attitudes to engagement were assessed qualitatively using Likert-scale questions, free text questionnaires and semistructured group interviews before, during and after the intervention. Findings showed the positive impact of choice on engagement. Pupils overwhelmingly enjoyed their book, looked forward to English lessons more and began reading more frequently at home. Many felt they were learning more, were better independent readers and knew what book they would read next. Interviews revealed many pupils were beginning to develop greater self-identities as readers as a result of choice. Some inconsistencies between questionnaire and interview data led to revelations about pupil perceptions of reading and its difference between the home and the school. Implications for further practice are discussed
To what extent do students' and teachers' perspectives demonstrate that dialogic marking is an effective approach to feedback in a UK secondary school?
Keywords: MLT
MLT2017

Feedback is one of the most powerful tools in a teacher's repertoire; when utilised effectively it is a catalyst for student progress. Written feedback, however, has recently become the catalyst for union action and government workload reviews but, surprisingly, a 2016 meta-review on written marking suggested that only a few robust studies into its impact have taken place. This highly contextualised study contributes to this gap in literature. Focusing on a secondary school English Department's strategy to provide 'dialogic' feedback, with students responding to teachers' marking, this small-scale piece of practitioner research investigates the teachers' and students' perceptions of the consequent learning. The investigation compares the impacts of and perceptions towards the departmental marking strategy with an alternative approach designed through collaboration with some of the department's teachers. This marking intervention was designed to reduce teachers' workload whilst maintaining or improving the effects of dialogic marking. The investigation attempts to answer the following research questions:
•What are the characteristics of 'dialogic' marking in the schools' English Department?
•What are teachers' incentives for investing substantial time into dialogic marking?
•How do students perceive teachers’ marking, in particular dialogic marking, in relation to their learning?
A qualitative approach to research included an artefact analysis applying a coding scheme and semi-structured interviews of a sample of the students and teachers involved. Close collaboration with the department and its teachers throughout the study resulted in an additional cycle of research, applying the newly-designed marking intervention to a second class. Findings suggested that dialogic feedback was taking place, when particular definitions were applied, and was largely perceived by students and teachers to contribute usefully to the learning process. However, some evidence suggested that this positive impact came at the expense of teachers' workload; a potentially unsustainable situation. Indications that the marking intervention maintained and even enhanced the perceived learning experience resulted from the analyses. Whilst further research is called for, both in and out of this school's setting, and refinements have already begun with the department's approaches to marking, the marking intervention should certainly be utilised by the department and the wider school community as a strategy to provide effective feedback in a manageable fashion.
An inquiry into the compatibility of character education and liberal education for Year 9 boys
Keywords: MLT
MLT2017

This inquiry tested initial perceptions of Year 9 boys in relationship to character education, in a school that actively espouses a 'liberal' intellectual tradition. A five week teaching block was used as an intervention on these themes as part of their Philosophy and Religion lessons. Students revisited their perceptions and attitudes. A questionnaire was used as the primary research instrument at 'entry' and 'exit' from the project. The questionnaire integrated qualitative and quantitative methods to ascertain if a significant attitudinal shift had taken place.
Eight sub-questions emerged from contention in the academic literature, and these were designed to test specific aspects of the relationship between the character and liberal traditions. The research cohort became more resistant to the compatibility of these themes in their education after the explicit classroom based reflection. The percentage of students attesting a positive appraisal of compatibility fell by 16%, between pre and post interview testing, with that rise attributed to the negative attitudinal response. The most critical students evidenced concern around the authoritarianism of character education, which suppressed opportunity for truly free thought. This inquiry suggests caution is required in considering further advancement of explicit character education models, with specific reference to the public school tradition. In terms of a foundational philosophical perspective, the inquiry considers whether an unwieldy influence on character education in contemporary educational practice, is actually a means of creating a 'hidden curriculum' with questionable motives.
Early anti-Methodism as an aspect of theological controversy in England, c.1738-c.1770
Keywords: Church of England
heterodoxy
theological controversy
anti-Methodism
Methodism
eighteenth-century England

This thesis provides the first large-scale reintegration of anti-Methodism into the wider theological controversies of the eighteenth century. It argues that there was a close connection – and in many cases, a direct link – between anti-Methodist writers and those involved in other theological controversies. Moreover, it shows that anti-Methodist polemics interacted with and were informed by contemporary debates on such issues as Deism, miracles, and the afterlife. This study also explores authors who used anti-Methodism as a forum to voice heterodox views. The fact that these heterodox ideas were often disagreeable to both evangelicals and High Churchmen is significant because it suggests that – on various points of theology – John Wesley and George Whitefield differed little from their ‘orthodox’ Anglican opponents. By highlighting these theological similarities between evangelicals and High Churchmen, this thesis challenges the traditional stereotype that the eighteenth-century Church of England had become indifferent to theology. Chapter One introduces Wesley and Whitefield’s key Anglican opponents, and discusses the print culture of early anti-Methodist literature. Chapter Two locates the soteriological disputes between Methodist and anti-Methodist divines as part of a long-standing debate on faith and works, which can be traced back to earlier clashes between Reformed and Arminian divines during the Restoration period. Chapter Three analyses Methodist teachings on self-denial, and considers the ways in which anti-Methodist clergymen reconciled their attacks on evangelical asceticism with their seemingly contradictory charges of antinomianism. Chapter Four explores how anti-Methodism was used as a platform to voice heterodox views on original sin and the afterlife. Chapters Five and Six provide a fundamental reappraisal of the relationship (and perceived relationship) between evangelicalism and irreligion by showing that anti-Methodism overlapped with anti-Deism and the eighteenth-century miracles debate. The final chapter shows that anti-Methodist authors often adopted a decidedly partisan approach to historical writing, which was modelled on seventeenth-century polemical historiography.
General practitioner hospitals and the relationship of general practice to hospital medicine
Keywords: hospital
practitioner
practice
GPs
general
GP
practitioners
medicine
hospitals

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the relationship between consultants and general practitioners, particularly as far as hospital in—patient care is concerned. How has the role of each of them evolved? What is the effect of the division between consultants and general practitioners on in-patient care? What is the role of the general practitioner as far as in-patient care is concerned, particularly in general practitioner units?
In order to examine these questions the historical origin of the general practitioner and consultant is described, and the results of two surveys are presented.
The first survey was carried out in 1970 in a teaching hospital, The Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and is called the Radcliffe Survey. The second was carried out in 1970-71 and consisted of a survey of all medical admissions from one general practice in Wantage to Wantage Hospital and consultant wards in the United Oxford Hospitals; this is called the Wantage Survey.
The results of these surveys are used to examine a number of hypotheses. These will be stated in detail, but broadly speaking the aim of the surveys was to try to discover how much hospital care can be provided in a general practitioner hospital as an alternative to consultant care, how the admissions to the two types of hospital are selected and how they differ. Obstetrics is not included in either survey because the role of G.P. obstetric units has been well covered in a number of publications. The Radcliffe Survey was concerned with medical and surgical patients, but it is medical admissions that form the largest part of in-patient care in general practitioner hospitals and, at the same time, the least investigated. Therefore, the Wantage Survey was concerned almost exclusively with medical admissions.
Theory and modelling of energy transport in quantum nanostructures
Keywords: FMO
Open quantum theory
Density Matrix
Photocell
Excitonic energy transport

This thesis is concerned with quantum properties of excitonic energy transport in nanostructures that are embedded in a noisy environment. Of principal interests are ways to exploit this environment to facilitate the transport of energetic excitations.
The first research chapter deals with an extension to the 'standard' open quantum system picture, where the Hilbert space is split into three: system, environment, and a wider universe. This division is natural for many biological and artificial nanostructures. A new analytical method, based on a phase space representation of the density matrix, is developed for studying such division. The effects of the wider universe are shown to be captured by a simple correction of the environmental response function.
The second research chapter addresses the question: when do second-order perturbative approaches to open quantum systems, which are intuitive and simple to compute, provide adequate accuracy? A simple analytical criterion is developed, and its validity is verified for the case of the much-studied FMO dynamics as well as the canonical spin-boson model.
In the third research chapter, an intuitive model of a photocell is studied. The model comprises two light-absorbing molecules coupled to an idealised reaction centre, showing asymmetric dimers are capable of providing a significant enhancement of light-to-current conversion under ambient conditions. This is done by 'parking' the energy of an absorbed photon in a dark state which neither absorbs nor emits light.
In the final research chapter, a basic model for what can be thought as a "quantum brachistochrone" problem is investigated. Exotic energy configurations are found to yield considerable enhancement to the exciton’s transfer probability, due to similar mechanisms studied in the previous chapter.
Surface mapping of faceted metal oxides by chemical probe-assisted NMR for catalytic applications
Keywords: Nuclear magnetic resonance
Surface features
Facet-dependent activity
Oxygen vacancy
Surface characterization

Semiconductive metal oxides are of great importance in environmental remediation and electronics because of their ability to generate charge carriers when excited with appropriate energy. The electronic structure, light absorption and charge transport properties have made the transition metal oxides an attractive material as photocatalyst. Recently, facet-engineering by morphology control has been intensively studied as an efficient approach to further enhance their photocatalytic performance.
However, various processing steps and post-treatments used in the preparation of facet-engineered particles may generate different surface active sites which may affect their photocatalysis. Moreover, many traditional techniques (PL, EPR and XPS) used for materials characterization (oxygen vacancy, hydroxyl group, cation…etc.) are not truly surface specific but analyzing a range from surface few layers to bulk. Accordingly, they can only provide very limited information on chemical states of the surface active features and their distribution among facets, causing difficulties to unambiguously correlate facet-dependent results with activity. As a result, this often leads to different interpretations amongst researchers during the past decades.
As the publications of titanium and zinc ranked top two among studies of first row of transition oxides in the past decades, this thesis will firstly review on the disagreements generated among researchers when they correlated the performance of ZnO and TiO2 with their facet activities based on traditional techniques. As there are shortcomings of these techniques in producing truly facet-dependent features, some results can be misleading and with no cross-literature comparison. To address these issues, we have developed a new technique "probe-molecule-assisted NMR" which allows a genuine differentiation of surface active sites from various facets. This surface-fingerprint technique has been demonstrated to provide both qualitative (chemical shift) and quantitative (peak intensity) information on the concentration and distribution of truly surface features among facets. In light of the new technique, this thesis will revisit the facet-dependent photocatalytic properties and shed light on these issues.
Policy experimentation and institutional power dynamics in China’s higher education reforms
Keywords: Education
Policy process
Education reform
Higher Education
China
Policy experimentation

In response to the challenges presented by unprecedented growth in higher education (HE) since 1978, China adopted policy experimentation (PE) as a means of introducing and testing HE reforms. This study involves four in-depth case studies of important reforms facilitated by policy experiments at different junctures of China's HE development: early 1980s, mid-late 1980s, late 1990s, and early 2010s. Within each reform, two elite universities as 'experiment points' (shi dian) were selected. Through cross-case analysis informed by semi-structured interviews and extensive documentary analysis, the study offers a holistic historical perspective on how PE has been used to bring about institutional changes in China’s higher education.
The study documents different rationales used for implementing policy experiments. State actors use PE to exert pressure on universities to introduce reforms, to lower associated risks and to strengthen the nation's overall HE policymaking capacity in a volatile and extremely heterogeneous context. For their part, university leaders have adopted PE locally to navigate China’s politically charged policymaking environment and to negotiate with state actors more favourable terms for reforms. Therefore, the PE approach enables state-university interactions and power negotiations that create and maintain 'strategy space' for consensus-building and institutional changes. It is an iterative process characterised by central-local interaction and intentionally ambiguous boundaries. The state, however, retains ultimate authority for legitimatising, selecting and expanding policy experiments. It is best understood as elite-enabled experimentation within existing political hierarchies.
Over time, China’s PE approach has become a semi-institutionalised mechanism for HE reforms. In the various policy experiments discussed in this study, PE functions as a productive, disciplinary and symbolic force at different stages of the policy process. Sometimes it appears to offer a genuinely productive mechanism for producing, identifying and negotiating innovative policy options that may be replicated at a larger scale; sometimes its essential use lies in its generated regulative effect; and sometimes it assumes more of a symbolic role allowing the government to acquire or consolidate reform legitimacy. Policy processes are mediated by these different uses of PE towards either reform efficacy or institutional conformity. This study situates these reforms within broader political, social, economic and historical contexts, and highlights the policy implications for higher education reform internationally.
Childhood pneumococcal pneumonia in Nepal
Keywords: Vaccines
Transcriptomics
Epidemiology
Immunology
Pneumonia
Diagnostic tests

Pneumonia is the greatest cause of childhood mortality outside the neonatal period, yet the pathogen-specific aetiology of childhood pneumonia remains poorly defined. Vaccine probe studies estimate that approximately one third of children &LT;5 years of age with radiographic endpoint consolidation have pneumococcal pneumonia in settings prior to the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccination (PCV), such as much of South Asia. 10-valent PCV was introduced to the Nepali infant immunisation schedule in August 2015.
I investigated childhood pneumococcal pneumonia in Nepal. I aimed to describe the prevalence of pneumococcal infection in children with suspected invasive bacterial disease admitted to Patan Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal; to assess the impact of 10- valent PCV on pneumococcal pneumonia; and to assess two potential diagnostic tests for pneumococcal pneumonia based on the childhood response to pneumococci – assay of antibodies from lymphocyte supernatant (ALS) and analysis of differential gene expression (transcriptomics) – in children with pneumonia at Patan Hospital.
Pneumococci were the second-most most prevalent pathogen isolated from the blood of children between 2005 and 2016. Interrupted time series analyses of data from children admitted with pneumonia from March 2014–December 2016, showed a small increase (approximately 4%) in the odds of admission with pneumonia in comparison to non-pneumonia admis- sions temporally associated with 10-valent PCV introduction. However, it was not possible to adjust these time series analyses for extreme events including earthquakes (April 2015) and clean fuel shortages/increased air pollution (winter 2015/2016). In contrast, the indirect cohort method (a case-control approach in vaccinated vs unvaccinated children) showed vaccine effectiveness of 84% on the odds of nasopharyngeal carriage of vaccine-type pneumococci, but no effectiveness on pneumonia in these early data.
Assay of IgG ALS pneumococcal capsular polysaccharides was complicated by what appear to be non-specific binding to capsular polysaccharides (of both S. pneumoniae, particularly serotype 3, and H. influenzae). Assay of IgG ALS to the best-performing of five pneumococcal proteins assessed had a sensitivity of 88% and specificity of 71% for the discrimination of pneumococcal pneumonia from other bacterial pneumonia. A transcriptomic signature discriminated between pneumococcal pneumonia and other bacterial pneumonia with a sensitivity of 91% and specificity of 100%.
This thesis therefore contributes to knowledge of the clinical epidemiology of pneumococcal disease in South Asia. These data may also contribute to public health policy-making in the region. In addition, the development of two diagnostic tests for the aetiology of childhood pneumonia may be useful for future studies of childhood pneumonia aetiology.
'The living and the dying' : the rise of the United States and Anglo-French perceptions of power, 1898-1899
Keywords: International history
Emotional history
Cultural history
Spanish-American War
France
United States
Dreyfus Affair
Transatlantic relations
Diplomatic history
Fashoda crisis
British Empire

This thesis examines Anglo-French perceptions of power within the context of the rise of the United States of America. It uses several overlapping events falling within a moment at the end of the nineteenth century (1898-1899) – the Spanish-American War, the Dreyfus Affair and the Fashoda crisis – to explore various British and French actors’ perceptions of national power, decline, and international competition. It draws heavily on diplomatic material, but its methodology is primarily cultural. It examines ways in which various cultural assumptions affected perceptions of power and global events. It takes a particular interest in the relationship between ideas about gender and dimensions of national power. It focuses on contemporary preoccupations and assumptions, whether spoken or unspoken, and argues that they could prove determinative. External realities were refracted into perceptions that in turn drove prescriptions and policy.
The thesis juxtaposes perspectives from multiple states, thereby contextualizing or comparing British, French and occasionally American preoccupations with those of their transatlantic contemporaries. It draws upon archival sources which previously have been under-examined or approached from different perspectives and research priorities. Its exploration of the cultural dimensions of thought about national power and success is grounded in an awareness of the analysis and actions of certain diplomats and politicians involved in the more practical business of international affairs. Conversely, diplomatic and other records are situated within their cultural milieu, to better understand the context in which views about the international order were shaped. The thesis necessarily makes excursions into the history of emotions, since its actors' political analyses at times appear entangled and aligned with their emotional responses. The thesis therefore serves as an example of an international history that integrates diplomatic with cultural and emotional elements and demonstrates their mutual illumination.