Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemA terrible honesty : the development of a personal voice in musical improvisation(University of Melbourne, 1996)
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ItemClinical teaching : an exploration in three health professions(University of Melbourne, 1996)
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ItemSlipping through the net : an investigative case study of the educational progress of newly-arrived non English speaking background immigrants in a state secondary school(University of Melbourne, 1996)The present study is an evaluation of ESL provision to newly-arrived NESB migrants in a state secondary school. The students in the target group had spent less than seven years in Australia. The case study was undertaken in a school with a high concentration of newly arrived NESB migrants. It attempts to establish whether the ESL assistance these students receive enables them to have equal access to curriculum options, and whether their retention and success rates at VCE are comparable to those of their Australian-born peers. The study is divided in six chapters. Chapter 1 outlines the history of ESL provision nationally and on a state level. It examines the policy documents to establish what the aims of the program were, and how these aims have adapted to the changing needs of successive migrant intakes. It examines the implementation of the program, and the theoretical framework within which it takes place. Evaluation theoreticians are consulted to place the program in an evaluative context. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical framework for the ESL program as well as for the case study and outlines how the methodology takes shape on both levels. It gives information about the community setting, the school and the student population. Finally it gives information about the questionnaire that was administered in the school, and explains what, why and how the data were gathered. Chapter 3 presents, mainly in a quantitative format, the information as derived from the questionnaire. It gives information about the students' ethnicity, linguistic background, English tuition prior to coming to Australia. It pays particular attention to the fragmented nature of their education and the disruption to their academic development prior to arrival. It also examines their first experiences in the Australian education system. The information analysed in Chapter 4 is extracted from school and other official documents pertaining to subject choices, the students' ability, (or inability, as the case may be) to access curriculum options at the start of their VCE years. Year 11 and 12 enrolments are examined, as well as success and failure rates in the different subject areas. Statistics on school retention and attrition rates at senior level complete the school data. Chapter 5 is given over to the students' voices. Four in-depth interviews of VCE students are followed by comments to open-ended questions from students in the entire ESL cohort surveyed. In Chapter 6 the information gathered in the preceding chapters is discussed. The obstacles that prevent ESL students from achieving either equality of access or equality of outcome are analysed in the light of relevant research. The conclusion contains some considerations for further action.
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ItemSingle-sex science classes in a co-educational setting(University of Melbourne, 1996)Midway College, a co-educational, Independent, secondary school, north west of Melbourne, has implemented a program of single-sex science classes as a means of gender equity for their female students. The majority of students-have single-sex science classes in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10, while a few students are placed in mixed gender groups because of the imbalances in student numbers or special programs. This science program has been running now for nine years. Evaluation of the program has been conducted using both qualitative and quantitative methods, including; calculation of retention rates in science; numbers of girls in various science disciplines; survey and interview of students, teachers and parents; draw-a-scientist- test; and classroom observation. The results indicate that single-sex science classrooms provide supportive, co-operative environments which enhance the confidence of female students, while moderating the student attitudes and reducing the stereotypical image of 'a scientist'. The confidence gained in single-sex science classes enables -all students to choose their VCE subjects from the full range offered, however, the relevance of the subject is of prime importance in this subject selection. Single-sex science classes do not, of their own, increase the participation of girls in physics or boys in biology.
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Item'We're an aberration' : life histories of nine academic women in colleges of advanced education, 1968-1991(University of Melbourne, 1996)The thesis draws on data from nine academic women who worked in colleges of advanced education (CAEs) from 1968-1991. The sample was selected from the writer's network of colleagues and academic friends - seven of whom I had observed when employed at the same institutions. Six of the women worked at Melbourne College of Advanced Education (MCAE), one at Sydney College of Advanced Education (SCAE), one at Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences and one at the Institute of Catholic Education (ICE). Their interviews were finalised the year before MCAE's amalgamation with the University of Melbourne. As it was the intention to focus on CAEs, this study is not concerned with post-amalgamation cultures. The thesis begins by offering a critique of life history methodology, raising several points about its strength, weaknesses and, importantly, about the interwoven nature of the data as it captures the inter-relatedness of the women's lived lives. A third voice, the writer's, responds to the women's stories and the interpretations of them. (These passages are underlined). Three chapters follow. 'Girlhoods in households and schoolhouses' documents the women's childhood and its construction in the social contexts of home and school in the years 1931-1961. Accounts of the women's primary and secondary schooling provide insights into how these experiences allow the academic women opportunity to make sense of their memories. Sometimes painful familial observations or a desire for autonomy are motivators for the young women choosing the post secondary courses they do. The next chapter, 'Career paths: careering from... careering to...?', brings out four factors about careers in the women's life histories. The historical � context, the influences of women members in the family, childcare arrangements and the women's careers prior to CAE appointment. The first factor is the unique historical period in Victoria, as it was in other Australian States, which saw a great expansionist phase in education. The subjects in this study were able to take advantage of this and move into openings at CAEs in education from 1968-1975. A smaller burst of growth occurred in some CAEs offering nursing courses and two of the women entered CAEs in 1979 and 1985. The second section of this chapter argues that the academic women came from households where their mothers, aunts and grandmother did not fit the stereotype of passive women. Many of the academic women were raised in women-led households with fathers absent at World War Two. The childcare section explores the notion that decisions about women entering paid work are also decisions about childcare. The third chapter, 'The culture of work', focuses on those women who worked at MCAE in the period immediately prior to amalgamation with the University of Melbourne. Contradictions in practices at MCAE are noted - collegial and competitive ideologies and practices exist in tension. Belief in MCAE as the leading CAE in Australia constructs and is constructed by the academic women working there. The chapter concludes by listing where the nine CAE women are as this thesis concludes. The conclusion to the thesis raises some areas for further research - for example, investigation into the effect on women's careers post amalgamations. It addresses in part the omission of NESB academic women. The changing demands on academics is raised and recommendations made about team oriented postgraduate and research projects.
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ItemTeachers & curriculum : personal mythopoesis and the practical in pedagogy(University of Melbourne, 1996)This study explores the dynamic between the person of the teacher and work with curriculum. The person is taken to be constituted in narratives. I have, accordingly, utilised a language of myth in order to speak of personhood. Myth is the collective or individual operation of imagination whereby experience is able to be intensely owned. It is this operation of mind that I relate to the ways in which curriculum might be experienced. At issue in this process is the capacity of the person of the teacher to illuminate curriculum material, or to make curriculum a living experience for students. Though my focus is imaginational and mythic, I seek to show - through an intimate study of the inner worlds of six teachers at one school site - that it is at this impalpable level lhat 'the practical' in pedagogy becomes most significant as a curriculum consideration. By linking the subtle work of imagination to the 'practical intelligence' access is gained to the significance and meaning of personal agency and, in particular, the nature of critique in teacher work with curriculum. This introduces to the familiar theory/practice dichotomy that pervades curriculum thinking, and which tends to disempower the teacher voice, a new and incommensurable perspective. The practical emphasis, by being linked to the personal imaginational work of teachers, breaks out of an encapsulation within the classroom and the profession. Knowledge, represented in microcosm in the curriculum, is shown, via this reconceptualisation of the practical, in its living dimensionality. The imperatives of this living aspect of curriculum experience, identified in source, process, operation, and direction, stand against the different imperatives of instrumental conceptions of curriculum.
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ItemHealing hands : a study of the healing skills and practices of overseas educated registered nurses and the implications for nurse education in Australia(University of Melbourne, 1996)Australia's health care clientele reflects the diversity of this multicultural society. Patients and health care professionals have expectations of health care which may not be met to their satisfaction, or needs. The perceived inadequacies and increased demands on the Australian health care system are reflected in the literature and by active political lobbying, thus there is an urgent need to investigate how the health care system can be improved or modified to meet these deficits. One mechanism which may provide some of the changes required, is to utilise the skills, experience, and qualifications of Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) nurses. In utilising this valuable and available resource nursing education curricula can be modified to adequately incorporate transcultural nursing practices so that nurses can provide culturally sensitive nursing care for their patients. This study describes some of the dimensions of the cultural diversity in Australia, as it relates to health care. In particular reflections and observations of NESB educated nurses of the Australian health care system are discussed, in particular standards of care, nursing care, nursing education and issues related to the interweaving of cultural diversity within the Victorian health care system and the nursing profession. The purpose of this study is to provide insights on how to enrich the education of all nurses to meet the challenges of caring for Australia's multicultural population. Recommendations for the establishment of the Migrant Health Professionals Network and additional courses to meet the specific needs of NESB health professionals have already come to fruition.
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ItemAccommodation and resistance : the adult and community education sector response to competency-based training 1985-1995(University of Melbourne, 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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ItemThe influence of the ideas of progressive education on teacher training in Victoria, c.1920 to c.1950(University of Melbourne, 1996)To what extent did 'progressivism' influence Victorian teacher training, 1920-1950? The thesis examines the various contributions of such figures as George Browne and Dorothy Ross and the role of the directors of education, Tate, Hansen and McRae. Among the events discussed are the re-opening of the Psychological Laboratory at the Teachers' College, the revision of the primary curriculum in 1934, the influence of the 1929 Elsinore Conference of the New Education Fellowship and the 1937 international conference of the NEF in Australia. The acceptance or rejection of progressive ideas in teacher training in the State, and the reasons for this, are a binding theme in the investigation. When the new education' was introduced at the turn of the century, the educational debate in Victoria became largely an argument between those who considered that all children should have the benefit of a liberal, though academic education and those who considered that education should be vocational. Both sides ignored the reformers' advocacy of a new way of looking at the all-round development of the child being educated. When progressive education was introduced by George Browne in the early 1920s some attention was paid to its ideas and its practice, but it was generally ignored in favour of the orthodox transmission model of teaching, learning and schooling. Teacher training reflected this and wider social values that were dominant. In the State system, the relative rejection of innovation was based on apparently entrenched cultural and educational ideas and practices, ministerial intransigence, the timidity or indifference of some in official positions and, more generally, the inertia inherent in the maintenance functions of a large public system. There was some teacher training based on progressive ideas at the Associated Teachers' Training Institution under Catherine Remington and Dorothy Ross. The relative smallness of this operation left it open to the personal influence of innovative individuals. Ross became Headmistress of Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School in 1939 and George Browne used the school extensively as a practical example of the progressive ideas promoted in the School of Education at the University of Melbourne. By the 1950s the progressive movement had lost much of its momentum world-wide. Victoria was no exception. Coincidentally, both Ross and Browne retired from their formal educational positions at this time. In a different form, progressivism re-surfaced in the late sixties and early seventies, i
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ItemThe value of library advisory committees( 1996)The study reported in this thesis investigated the value of Victorian university library advisory committees to committee members, with particular reference to their liaison function. A review of the literature gave some indication of their value. It also indicated that their liaison function was wide ranging and successful to varying degrees. However, the literature focused on these aspects from the point of view of librarians. There is a paucity of literature that articulated the views of non-librarian committee members, or investigated the value of library advisory committees from their perspective. It was the aim of the present study to redress this imbalance and investigate the value of library advisory committees, thus highlighting their benefits and disadvantages, for both librarians and non-librarians alike. The methodology used in the study was a survey using a self-administered questionnaire. The sample consisted of all members of all library advisory committees in four major Victorian universities. In addition to closed questions, the questionnaire used many open questions in order to draw out members' attitudes to and perceptions of their committee. The results of the survey indicated that on many aspects of committee operations and functions, committee members have parallel views regardless of whether they are librarians or non-librarians; consequently a profile of the typical committee member emerged. These results suggested that committees are functioning successfully and are valuable to their members, particularly as a means of liaison. However, it was notable that, in relation to policy issues, the views and priorities of librarians and non-librarians differed significantly. Unlike librarians, non-librarians were more likely to be of the opinion that their committee should offer more opportunity for policy input and involvement. The present study also revealed that more work needs to be done to determine the value of library advisory committee for students.