Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemConflicting demands affecting the development of secondary education in Victoria, 1910-1970(University of Melbourne, 1971)
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ItemAn analysis of the logic of film criticism with special reference to film study courses in schools( 1970)The distinctive concepts, relationships between concepts, criteria and procedures for judgement-making which constitute the logic of film criticism have been left largely unexplored. As a consequence, film critics and film teachers, lacking an understanding of the distinot body of concepts and procedures characteristic of this form of discourse, have been unable to offer convincing justifications for critical judgements on the one hand, and f o r the belief that film study i s properly an educational activity on the other. In each case, factors or principles extrinsic to the internal logic of film criticism have been offered as justifications. It is shown that the search for justifications for both aesthetic and educational judgements which appeal to necessary formal or moral principles, or to the consequences believed to follow from an experiencing of films, cannot withstand analysis. A critical scourse in the arts i s properly effected by presenting descriptions of the works, expressed i n terms of, and justified with reference to, those concepts and criteriadistinctive of the form of art i n question. It is argued that the work of the English film critic, Robin Wood, and some recent semiological studies on the nature of meaning i n films, represent the beginnings of a clarification of the logic of film criticism. The matter is of central importance to the form and purpose of film study courses. If, to be counted as educational, an activity must be concerned with judgements publicly testable for truth or appropriateness, and if such judgements can occur only within the logical structure of a form of knowledge or discourse, then film teaching can properly be termed educational only if film study courses are informed by an understanding of the logic of film criticism. It follows then that Robin Wood's criticism and the small body of semiological work at present available could well serve as the source of this understanding.
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ItemSecondary education in Van Diemen's Land, 1820-1857( 1972)The history of the establishment of any school system is necessarily an account of contrasting individuals and their diverse attitudes and efforts. Van Diemen's Land is no exception; the only factor enjoyed in common by nearly all of the private schoolmasters was their motivation - want of a more lucrative or appropriate occupation. Few schools prospered in Tasmania in the period up to 1850 for the colony lacked the prosperous middle-class that supported the English public and proprietary schools. A convict, Thomas Fitzgerald, was appointed as the first public schoolmaster in 1807 but nothing of a secondary nature was attempted until 1819. From that point a number of schools can be traced. The most remarkable would be those conducted at Pressland House, Melville Street, Hobart Town, by a succession of capable schoolmasters, in Launceston by Charles Price, and at Ellinthorp Hall, near Ross, by Mrs.G.C.Clark. However, the most insignificant seminary made some contribution to the traditions of culture and education in Tasmania, and for this reason, each founder deserves to be considered, whether of the English or Scottish tradition, Rugbeian or parochial school derivation, trained or self-taught, emancipist or free settler. Whilst free enterprise provided the temporary educational needs of Van Diemen's Land, Church and State pondered ways to establish more permanent institutions. The efforts of Archdeacons T.H.Scott and W.G.Broughton came to nought but activities commenced with the arrival of Sir John Franklin in 1837, a governor determined to set up a public school of the Arnoldian pattern in Tasmania. John Philip Gell was selected as foundation headmaster and, until the College could be built, he conducted the Queen's School. This venture failed during the severe economic depression in 1843. Sir John Franklin's successor, Sir John Eardley-Wilmot, did not share his predecessor's enthusiasm for the College so in its place the Church of England planned a Church-sponsored system of schools. Bishop F.R.Nixon promoted a fund-raising drive, largely in England, which resulted in the establishment in 1846 of Christ's College, a grammar school and quasi-university, and two feeder schools, Hutchins School in Hobart Town and the Launceston Church Grammar School. At about the same time another group, composed largely of Dissenters, launched a High School in Hobart Town. Both the High School and Christ's College failed during the 1850's but the two feeder schools survived the economic troubles and Tractarian disputes of the period. It is clear that in all these schools, although economic and political factors played decisive roles, the most significant factor was the character of the persons organizing and controlling the schools. It is necessary therefore to see what manner of men worked for education in Van Diemen's Land in the first half of the nineteenth century.
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ItemColin Campbell : religion and education, 1852-1872( 1974)This thesis investigates the role of Colin Campbell in the church-state struggles over education. Having found squatting precarious, and possessing a large capacity for public life, Campbell was pleased to become involved in colonial events on the conservative side. As democracy advanced and his worst fears proved groundless, he endeavoured to liberalize his outlook. A spokesman for pastoral tenants, he was held accountable for squatter misdeeds. Only at the district level and within his church, was he allowed a full contribution. These aspects are illustrated throughout, but especially in chapters 1 and 7. Campbell believed in universal education bestowing on it temporal and religious responsibilities. He allotted church and state complementary functions, requiring them to work harmoniously in institutionalizing national education. His early concept of denominationalism is explored in chapter 2. However, in the 1850s society proved incapable of deciding the respective roles for church and state in education. This and Campbell's efforts in seeking a national school system are explored in chapters 3 and 4. Secretaryship of the Denominational School Board provided Campbell with an opportunity of applying administrative solutions to denominational school problems. He always endeavoured to apply educational principles and obtain an adequate and fair distribution of funds. But events smothered him. Rather than become a political tool,he resigned the secretaryship in 1859. Chapters 5 and 6 treat these themes. From the perimeter Campbell tried to save national education from secularism prior to 1872. Applying the principle of freedom of conscience, he asked that the state remain neutral on religious instruction. But unable to meet all requirements of society concurrently, it chose to equate secularism with neutrality. Campbell advised Anglicans to seek a "common Scriptural basis" compromise with other Protestant churches from which they might stand firm against secular liberalism. However, as chapters 8 and 9 demonstrate, his advice went unheeded. Finally, Campbell was reluctant to concede secularism a victory and accept the consequences, still hoping to revive a defunct church-state partnership. Although historically ignored, it is argued throughout that he made a considerable and worthy contribution to 19th century education.
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ItemFormal adult education in Victoria, 1890 to 1950( 1971)This history deals mainly with four official groups: a sub-committee of the University of Melbourne, the Extension Board; a voluntary agency symbiotic with the university, the Workers' Educational Association; the Joint Committee of these two; and a later, separate statutory body, the Council of Adult Education. Because, however, it is concerned with education it also takes note of some social history, history of ideas, and biographies. Adult education in Victoria has always been an offering made by its providers, rather than the result of a demand from potential students; and the innovations made, as each provision proved inappropriate to the community, have been based on an ideal or an idea. Those ideas appear to have been formed largely from two sets of pre-suppositions: some overall view of the nature of man, and some view of educational rigour - what degree of systematic teaching or learning was appropriate. In particular, the period under review saw the end of the motivating force of philanthropy in adult education, and the rise of something closer to the concept of a welfare service for all taxpayers. Chapter One covers the background of ideas abroad before 1891, and the institutions that embodied them in Victoria. Chapter Two takes the beginning of University Extension as the first major provision of adult education, embodying a philanthropic ideal originating in England. Chapter Three introduces the W.E.A., who challenged philanthropy and achieved state subsidy for the learning of the workers, now called upon by universal suffrage to share in government. The workers failed to cooperate with the movement, and Chapter Four details the hopelessness of both the Extension and the W.E.A. ideals as guides to practice, and the consequent parasitism of the Victorian W.E.A. on the university. Chapter Five covers the rejection of the W.E.A. from its entanglement in the counsels and finances of the university, its eventual extinction, and the successful move of the Director of Extension to push the management of adult education off the campus. Chapter Six is a brief overview.
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ItemPost-world war II development of commercial courses for girls in Victorian technical schools, with special reference to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 1945-1970( 1974)In the inter-war years (1919- 1939), commercial courses, traditionally part of the technical system of education and fast becoming the province of girls, suffered from the effects of the economic depression, made some slight gains during the recovery years and achieved importance in the war years. In the post-World War II years growing community interest in education in general, and technical education in particular, reflected the social and economic climate of the rapidly changing 1950s and 1960s. High population growth and an affluent society created new educational needs, and industry required new technical college courses to meet technological developments and the continuing emergence of new knowledge. Occurring initially when Victorian resources were being channelled mainly into other priorities owing to post-war conditions, these demands caused a crisis in education in the late 1950s and in the 1960s, the Victorian Government being unable to support the expansion of tertiary education to its fullest extent. Therefore the Commonwealth Government granted, under certain conditions, financial aid to tertiary technical education and, in Victoria, the already existing Victoria Institute of Colleges became the guardian of the course standards of its affiliated C.A.E.s. Thus technical education at the tertiary level was eventually in a position to offer its own degrees and provide what promised to be a viable alternative to university education. The technical system of education appeared to represent a man's world and echoed the general education practice of the day as far as girls were concerned, thus reflecting the community's attitude to the place of women in Australian society. Tradition was the over-riding influence on what girls were taught and, as a necessary corollary, the kind of careers they followed. Hence it transpired that girls confined their abilities to a narrow range of female occupations, one of the chief of these being office work. The popularity of office work in the 1950s and 1960s was reflected in the growing number of students enrolling for commercial courses in the technical system. Technical commercial education responded increasingly to community and industrial demands, and endeavoured to maintain relevance to the changing times as it pursued higher standards and created a new concept of vocational training at both junior and senior levels. With the onset of the 1970s commercial education in the Victorian technical system provided all but one of the known commercial courses and, in keeping with the technical educational philosophy of the times, retained its established diploma. In the pursuit of professional status for the potential secretary, degree courses in secretarial work were foreshadowed in two Victorian C.A.E.s, while the Institute of Private Secretaries (Australia) sought professional status for the secretary already within the workforce.
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ItemSome approaches to differences in entrants to pre-school, primary, and secondary teaching( 1972)In Australia, because of differences in training, qualifications, salary, unions, and prestige, teachers see themselves primarily as teachers at particular levels in the, educational structure, rather than members of a united "teaching profession". But whether these institutional and prestige differences are based on more fundamental differences has rarely been investigated. The present study considered 900 recent entrants to pre-school, primary, and secondary teaching, with the aim of identifying the strongest bases of inter-group differentiation among them, according to level of teaching entered and sex of student. Community stereotypes have concentrated on differences in academic ability as most fundamental; certainly selection processes based on academic achievement ensure that these exist. This investigation has compared academic ability measures with derived scales in a number of other areas, basically in two dimensions: the choice of teaching as an occupation, and the background (social and school) of teaching entrants. In the first area, both a factor analysis of expressed reasons for entry to teaching and a derived measure of commitment to teaching revealed marked differences in response patterns, according to sex and to level of teaching entered. In the second area, social background was measured on a socio-economic status index, based on six variables, and by a status discrepancy score. With these, identification of sex and level differences was confounded by inter-college differences, resulting from the private or state nature of the institution, and the impact of residential allocation to state primary teachers' colleges. The investigation of background also included school background of students, in terms of academic achievement at final school year level, and students' recollections of their own school experience. Again marked level and sex differences emerged. Thus real differences in many areas exist; which most strongly differentiated entering groups by level or sex? Not academic achievement, despite the community stereotype. Only when reasons for entry to teaching were excluded from analysis was this the strongest discriminator, dividing students according to a hierarchy of institutions attended and scholarships awarded (university, then state colleges, then private colleges). But to understand differences among pre-school, primary, and secondary entrants, or male and female recruits, analysis had to include the reasons for becoming a teacher; these and commitment to teaching were the most powerful sources of differentiation by level or sex.
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ItemChurch and state relations as they affected the Lutheran Church and its schools in South Australia, 1838-1900( 1971)Basically there were three stages in the development of the Lutheran attitude to, and relationship with, the State in nineteenth century South Australia. Education was the main issue involved. 1. Fear of State Interference, 1838-c.1865 The first Lutherans migrated to South Australia after suffering religious persecution at the hands of the Prussian State. They immediately established denominational schools, the first in the colony, and thereby gave effect to two principles of continuing importance for the Lutheran Synods. According to these education was primarily a parental responsibility and schools were nurseries of the Church. The Synods declined State aid for churches and schools between 1846 and 1852. 2. Desire for Cooperation, c.1865-c.1890 Although aid to denominational schools was abolished in 1852, various congregations in two of the three Synods accepted government grants for their schools between c.1865 and 1875. Independent Lutherans, who had no synodical connections, did likewise. To qualify for assistance these schools gave denominational instruction outside normal hours. In 1871 and 1873 synodical Lutherans campaigned for the retention of such an arrangement. However, the 1875 Act introduced a 'secular' solution. Consequently, independent Lutheran schools were ceded to the State and synodical schools had to compete with a much-improved State system. Synodical leaders continued to press for aid to Lutheran schools,. particularly between 1878 and 1884 when attention was focussed on the inspection of private schools, capitation grants and free education. 3. Independence, c.1890 After firmly opposing free education in 1890-1, the Synods adopted a policy of complete independence from the State in education. While the Lutherans had little influence on legislation concerning education, both they and their schools were strongly affected by the various Acts. Before 1875 the grant system led to some bitter controversies. The 1875 Act induced the Synods to introduce teacher training schemes. After 1878 fear of State inspection prompted increased concern about the efficiency of Lutheran schools., The introduction of free education in 1892 adversely affected Lutheran enrolments. It also led to significant curriculum improvements. However, the basic weakness of Lutheran schools, their lack of cohesion, persisted despite attempts at reform.
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ItemThe cognitive levels of grade VI, form II and form IV students when solving social studies type problems and the influence upon performance of varying the method of question presentation( 1972)An examination was made of the thinking abilities of students measured on social studies type tests and the influence upon performance of varying the method of presentation. The study was undertaken with subjects drawn from grade 6, form II and formlV. The social studies tests were five in number. Two were based upon verbal materials, two upon photographs and one upon actual objects. For the questions asked, each testing situation provided conflicting information which the subject could either ignore or attempt to resolve. Three treatment groups were used to assess the impact of varying the method of test presentation. In the first the subjects were given each set of data and the appropriate questions were posed. With the second variation the subjects were asked to consider possible answers to each question before they saw the data. The third variation involved a short teaching sequence where individual subjects were shown model answers to a question based upon a situation that was not part of the testing program. The qualities of these model answers were indicated and the subject was asked to replicate similar attributes in his own responses. This brief introduction was given to each subject in Treatment Three on five occasions, just prior to each of the five testing situations. Aside from the two major issues investigated, the study also examined the relationship between performance on the social studies situations and performance on the A.C.E.R. Intermediate Test D; A.C.E.R. Word Knowledge, Form B; a multi-choice social studies reasoning test; and a test of current affairs. In addition performance on the social studies tasks was related to the socio-economic status of parents and to performance on a replication of Piaget's colourless chemicals experiment. The results of the study are based upon an examination of the responses of 171 subjects from two different socio-economic areas and assigned at random to the three treatment groups. Performance was rated against the stages of cognitive growth proposed by Piaget together with some additional sub-sections. Overall, 8 categories were used to classify the responses; the categories ranged from the intuitive stage to the stage of formal operations. The analysis of results indicated that the performance of the three grade levels differed significantly from one another. The mean score of grade six, across the five tasks, was at the early level of concrete operations. Form II was still within the concrete stage although at a higher or more sophisticated level. Form IV mean score almost reached the transitional stage between concrete and formal operations. Performance on the three groups of social studies tests - verbal, visual and objects - differed significantly from each other. This result was interpreted with caution. Although the verbal material situations were more difficult than the visual materials which in turn were more difficult than the objects test, this sequence of decreasing difficulty also corresponded to the order of test administration. Thus the change in difficulty level could have been due to a learning phenomenon rather than to the nature of the test materials. The differences in scores between Treatment Three and the other two treatments was accepted as a real difference and a significant interaction was discovered between grade 6 and Treatment Three. The correlations between the social studies tasks and other variables followed the order sequence of intelligence test scores, vocabulary, social studies reasoning, chronological age, social studies knowledge, colourless chemicals experiment, and socio economic status of parents. The lower correlation between the last two measures and the five social studies tasks was not anticipated.
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ItemRestricted conjunctive concept attainment( 1970)A restricted conjunctive concept is defined by the joint presence of a number of relevant attribute values and the absence of another attribute value. Such concepts are relevant to scientific generalizations. Three series of experiments were performed. Experiments IA, IB, and IC were designed to investigate the relative difficulties of restricted conjunctive concepts and conjunctive concepts, using Neisser and Weene type nonsense syllables as stimuli. Ss found the restricted conjunctive concept slightly more difficult to attain; time to solution for the restricted conjunctive concept was significantly higher. In Experiment II, the effects of three factors upon restricted conjunctive concept attainment were investigated: presentation sequence,in which positive, negative, and restricted, instances were presented in different orders. . amount of irrelevant information, in which stimuli varied in the amount of irrelevant information they contained. instructional conditions, in which Ss were given no hints ("complete learning"), hints about the nature of the rule, ("attribute identification"), hints about the relevant attributes ("rule learning"). A 3-factor anova design was used; only presentation sequence was a significant source of variance. Experiment III was a study of a scientific restricted conjunctive concept. Diagrams representing objects, with symbols representing force, distance, angle, time and speed, were used to define a restricted conjunctive concept. A 3-factor anova design was used to investigate the effects of the same factors. As in Experiment II, presentation sequence was a significant source of variance; unlike Experiment II, irrelevant information was a highly significant source of variance. Experiments II and III provided data which were used to test the one-element Markov ("all-or-none") model of concept learning. Tests of the binomial distributions of four-tuples and stationarity could not reject this model. When the strings of responses were Vincentized, the model still could not be rejected for the data of Experiment II, but was clearly rejected for the data of Experiment III. A two-element (three-state) model might account for the data of both experiments, but this was not tested statistically.