Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe attitudes of teaching college students to the role of primary teacher( 1978)The particular problem chosen here was one of 'normative consensus': to what extent were 150 second year students in the State College of Victoria at Geelong in agreement as to the forms of behaviour which could be regarded as appropriate when acting the role of primary teacher? More specifically in this case how much consensus was there regarding the role of the primary teacher in given situations as seen through the students' eyes, and as they perceived the college lecturers and the practising teachers to view this role? The students were asked to complete a set of four role-norm inventories developed by Foskett (1969). Each inventory contained 45 identical questions which examined four main areas of teaching, attitude to pupils (15 items) attitude to colleagues (10 items), attitude to parents (10 items) and 10 items concerning the teacher's attitude to the community. The students answered the inventories from four points of view: - R.N.I. 1 as they thought they ought to behave; R.N.I. 2 as they intended to behave when they began teaching; R.N.I. 3 as they thought the college lecturers would like them to behave and R.N.I. 4 as they thought practising teachers would behave. The norms and expectations were measured on a 5 point Likert-type scale. The data from the inventories were used to obtain the mean and standard deviation for each item. The means were then compared, item by item, to see if significant differences existed between the various role-setting at .01 level of significance. There was one item of significant difference between R.N.I 1 and R.N.I. 2, 12 between R.N.I. 1 and R.N.I. 3 and 21 between R.N.I. 1 and R.N.I. 4. The results indicated that students tended to identify with their college lecturers and to be opposed to the way they perceived teachers to behave, especially in the area of classroom interaction. Various weaknesses of the research methods employed were examined but nonetheless the evidence that the process of teacher training might serve to produce conflict between the novitiate teacher and the school was considered strong enough to warrant further investigation.
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ItemAn exploratory study of the questions asked by student teachers in a junior science lesson( 1976)The science curricula of the severities stress the importance of teaching science as scientists might practise it. This has been well illustrated in the enquiry oriented curricula marketed in the last decade in Australia. A significant attempt has been made to apply learning theories in their development. The Australian Science Education Project has attempted to integrate Piaget's theory of cognitive development into the. units. However, for all the emphasis in the units placed upon the active, initiating role of the learner and the careful sequencing of direct experience with objects of knowledge, they need their agent of understanding, the committed teacher, who is able to encourage her pupils to talk and write about their own transactions and discoveries. It is more than possible that many teachers who use the materials will fail. to use to the full the methods implicit in the underlying theories. There is a need to prepare young teachers for effective work in these contexts appropriate to the new materials. In this study, the nature, distribution and patterning of student teacher questions were investigated in two of these contexts. Both contexts, the demonstration-discussion and the small group activity and discussion, have in coryey'1n the purpose of generating primary data and the provision of experience in observation, inference and validation. An attempt was made to develop a study which combined appropriate elements of the approaches of the "naturalistic" and "experimental" schools of research into classroom processes. The design was broadly of the post-test only control group form with repeated measures on teaching context. Randomization was handled in large part by the distribution of mixed ordered teaching plans. A total of twelve student teachers were observed near the end of their training year, teaching the sane lesson based on two pages of the Stage 1 A.S.E.P. Unit, "Forces", to grade eight classes. Both direct . coding and transcript coding procedures were employed in the analysis of the student teacher questioning, using high and low inference categorizing systems. In the main study, the Smith and Meux (The Logic of the Classroom) and the Withall (The Social-Emotional Climate Index) systems were applied to the student teachers' questions to describe the levels of "enquiry" and "learner supportiveness" promoted in the lesson. Considering the small sample size, the results must be cautiously interpreted. However, a fairly consistent picture emerged suggesting that young teachers maintain a higher level of enquiry through asking a greater proportion of logically complex and hypothetical questions in the demonstration-discussion context than in the small group and discussion context. In the former, the students appeared to be involved in fewer administrative interactions. No differences were found between the social-emotional elements of the two environments in terms of "learner supportiveness" and "teacher centmedriess". Some limited comparisons were possible with Tisher's Brisbane data collected in traditional science classrooms using the saine instruments. An analysis of the pupil responses to questions intended to elicit logical explanations indicated that considerable discrepancy existed between the student's intent and the nature and logic of the responses. Implications for research into teacher questioning, teacher education and curriculum.development are discussed.