Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe influence of Chinese sociocultural values about education on the educational outcomes of Chinese students in Australia( 1996)This is a study into how Chinese sociocultural values attached to education have influenced the academic performance of Chinese students. The scope of this investigation is resident students of Australia whose parents have migrated to Australia. These students are largely educated in Australia. In the literature review reference is made to studies of Chinese cultural values including works by M. Bond, G. Hofstede, F. Hsu, D.T. Nakanishi and H.W. Stevenson. The methodology employed is appropriate to Chinese collective culture of small group bilingual interviews of parents whose children are 'excellent students. A proforma is used to collect profiles of the participating parents so that significant information about these participants can be taken into consideration when various factors are speculated and surmised. The study has focussed on a group of Chinese parents who are largely bicultural / bilingual, well educated and motivated to promote their children's opportunities to survive Australia where they lack social contact or capital. Underpinning and threading through this wish to see progress for their children is the undying cultural values attached to being, an educated person within the Chinese concept of "self".
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ItemImplementation and implications of the National English Profile for improving assessment strategies in a primary classroom( 1996)The National English Profile provides the framework for teachers to use in assessing the literacy development of children in Australian schools. This study documents how one school and, in particular, one teacher, implemented the National English Profile. In order to place this initiative in the context of educational change in Victoria today, recent initiatives and changes to the teaching of language have been examined. Current literature in the field of literacy and assessment have been critically reviewed. As a foreground to the study, the process of educational change is examined in two interrelated case studies. The first looks at how the site school reviewed their Assessment and Reporting Policy. The second examines personal educational change of the researcher with regard to the teaching and assessment of literacy. Both of these case studies refer to current literature in the field and refined the focus of the research in one classroom. This research study draws on and investigates a national initiative in assessment. It traces the implementation and implications of the National English Profile on classroom based assessment strategies. It took place over two years, at a time of quite dramatic change in state education in Victoria. The study provides insight into how teachers managed and adjusted to these changes in one particular school. The research design is drawn from naturalistic inquiry methodology. Data were collected from teachers, parents and children of the site school through questionnaires and interviews. From an analysis of these data, generalisations were made about the understandings a group of teachers, parents and children have about the worth of the National English Profile and the usefulness of particular classroom based assessment strategies. The use of Portfolios as a system of work sample collection that is both manageable and purposeful for teachers and children has been examined in this study.
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ItemDisability, education and ethnic families: the changing Greek-Australian experience( 1996)This study set out to examine whether there would be a difference in the attitudes held towards people with disabilities by two different generations of Greek Australians. The first group were those who had spent their formative years in the mother country whilst the second had been born in Australia. It was assumed that the attitudes held would be shaped by both the experience and the communal value system. The working hypothesis was that the attitudes held by the Anglo oriented group of young Greeks would be more akin to the general community than to the Traditional Group. The literature indicates that children raised in a multicultural environment will begin to absorb the values of the dominant society even when their own ethnic group maintains a cohesive set of values and provides a context in which to live a fulfilling life. The literature suggests there are six areas where the Greek tradition might significantly vary from the dominant group. These can be illustrated by the specific questions:- causes attributed to disability, responsibility for care, access to social services, access and participation in mainstream education, access to employment, and the rights to personal development. A survey was undertaken to evaluate the attitudes system of the groups, two of Greek background and one of Anglo-Australians. The results, with two small exceptions confirmed the hypothesis and provided conformation of the proposition that attitudes towards disability are shaped by the cultural context in which one lives and schools need to take into account the structure of ethnic families of Greek background. To maximise the levels of cooperation and communication the family values must be understood and respected. For the schools to assist those with disabilities to achieve meaningful and satisfying lives it is necessary to ensure that the whole family unit benefits.
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ItemAccommodation and resistance: the adult and community education sector response to competency-based training 1985-1995( 1996)The thesis examines the Adult and Community Education (ACE) sector response to Federal Government vocational education and training reforms, and particularly Competency-Based Training, during the period 1985-1995. The government, motivated by its inability to meet a burgeoning demand for vocational training, has courted ACE authorities and adult educators to gear more of their educational effort to meeting workforce needs as a partner in a generously funded national reform process. The characteristics which define ACE as a separate sector and the rationale for, and claimed benefits of, the vocational education and training reforms are documented. It is shown that much of the reform process and CBT, in particular, is at odds with the ideologies, purposes and education traditions of ACE. These differences and the manner in which the reforms have been imposed, have kindled a massive debate and polarization of opinion about educational philosophy and practice in Australia. Obstacles to the successful implementation of reform are examined from an ACE perspective. These include: a perceived lingering ignorance and prejudice about ACE within government and other education and training sectors, the deliberate avoidance of criticism and debate about CBT by government agencies, a shifting new training discourse which has displaced valued language in education, and a perceived inadequate economic rationale for the CBT approach to education. In addition, a number of claims about the value of the CBT doctrine are challenged and discussed, including its unsuitability for all curriculum, the inadequacies in the notion of 'competence' and finally, the view argued by CBT proponents, that there is no difference between education and training. Evidence is also offered to demonstrate the substantial successes and benefits of the VET reform process, including those for ACE students. However, although the ACE sector has accommodated many of the changes, it has continued to oppose CBT, in particular, seeking a more holistic approach to curriculum. One response to this, which is described in the thesis, was the development of a Competency-Based Learning model between 1992 and 1994, which, for hundreds of adult educators, accommodated their concerns about CBT, in that it provided options, flexibility, a defined holistic description of learning and most of all, it respected the key tenets of adult education ideology.
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ItemStudent learning with Internet: is it emancipatory?( 1996)Learning is regarded by some educators to be of great value only when it contributes to an enlightened, empowered and emancipated view of the student's role in their own education (Barthes, 1977, Brunner, 1994, Freire, 1972, Grundy and Henry, 1995). Internet is a relatively inexpensive computer technology which some have seen to offer a practical vision of such 'new age' learning (Goodman, 1995). The study took place at a 1500 student K-12 co-educational single campus independent school, south-east of Melbourne, at which the author is a teacher of English and Economics. Since 1994 the school has attempted to integrate Internet computing across the curriculum. One entrepreneurial curriculum investment has been the establishment of a small group of senior students whose interest and technical competence in computer based electronic communication has led the school to license it to take on a key role, with privileges, across the school's computer resources. The challenge was not to perceive the information technology as extending individual instruction, but to examine instructional reform in methods by which students learn in the context of group problem solving and how the computer would be used in this regard (Koschmann, 1994). Largely autonomous and self-evaluating, this School Internet Group (known as the SIG) provided the data for this study. Utilizing an interview based case study methodology (Scheurich, 1995) the study sought to elicit responses from five of the group members relating to their emergent understanding of their own 'SIG-thinking' and its personal significance. The subjects were asked first to characterise SIG-thinking in a metaphor which were treated as complex semantically creative 'signs' that represent a blending of imaginal and symbolic thinking. This metaphoric projection provided a narrative structuring device to each student's story. These subjects' self-defining metaphors became their psuedonyms in their stories. The study was concerned both with the public realm of social interaction and with the private realm of autonomous cognition. The students' stories were incorporated within a narrative analysis in which the concepts derived from theoretical sources and empirical possibilities were applied to the data to determine whether instances of these concepts of emancipation and empowerment were to be found (Polkinghorne, 1995). The narrative style findings of the study may inform school policy at the research site, where a number of associated staff were able to read or sense implications for a loosening of the 'straight jacket of academic success' that restricts resonant, adaptive curriculum reform. The study may be useful for schools considering different principled policies or their own action research in the educational use of computers. For the reader beyond there are four criteria for judging the emancipatory quality of the educational experience.