Faculty of Education - Theses
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Item"Something to fall back on": women, work and education in seven Victorian high schools 1905-1945( 1993-12)This thesis examines seven Victorian high schools between 1905 and 1945 to see it the educational experiences provided there had an impact on the paid and unpaid working lives of the girls who attended. It outlines some of the theoretical problems associated with both the history of work and the education of girls and places these within the context of increased state involvement in society during this period.
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ItemEducators as parents: a study of the choice of post-primary school made by Ballarat educators for their own children( 1989)This study grew from reports in the literature that teachers in Government schools were enrolling their own children into non-Government post-primary schools. These reports seemed to be anecdotal, drawing from the experiences of observers, rather than any empirical base of information. Although there was a source of material which examined the reasons lay parents offered for their choice of post-primary school for their own children, a literature search failed to find similar work which looked at the choices teachers made at post-primary levels of schooling. This study was designed to collect data which could be used to identify where educators, defined as both school based post-primary teachers and others associated with post-primary schools, enrolled their children, the level of consideration they gave other post-primary schools and the reasons they offered for their final choice of school. To obtain the information, a triangulation approach was adopted which utilised three approaches 1. A questionnaire, designed to obtain quantitative data relating to respondents’ own educational background and their children's enrolment locations. 2. A series of Likert scale questions were also included in the questionnaire to seek the respondents' level of consideration of other post-primary schools in Ballarat. Provision was made for open-ended responses to these questions. 3. A limited number of interviews were carried out with educators, using a schedule of interview. The study was carried out in the Victorian provincial city of Ballarat in November 1988 and obtained information from eighty three educators engaged in post-primary schooling. The results showed that respondents preferred an academic post-primary school for their own children both when they were considering schools and when they actually enrolled their children. There was also evidence that educators employed in the Ministry of Education were enrolling their children into non-government post-primary schools. Issues which were raised by educators included placement policy, perceptions of post-primary schools and their own children’s contribution to the choice of a post-primary school.
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ItemA metalanguage for teaching and evaluating writing: an application of systemic functional linguistics in the analysis of argumentative essays written by senior secondary students in Hong Kong( 1997)In Hong Kong, the skill of writing is the main focus in the English syllabus. This is especially true for senior secondary students who have to sit for competitive public examinations in which essay writing is a major component. However, what constitutes good writing is often not explicitly taught in the classroom. In evaluating composition assignments, teachers tend to focus on identifying grammatical mistakes, mostly at the sentence level. This impoverished approach is found to be wanting in helping students become competent writers. In view of the problem in evaluating student writing, the present study attempts to draw on a theoretical framework, namely, Systemic Functional linguistics in analyzing the essays written by senior secondary students in Hong Kong. The model provides a useful tool in understanding and explaining writing quality at the text level including the overall schematic structures and the operation of register variables. The genre of argument was selected for the study as it is one of the important text types emphasized in the examination syllabus. Three texts representing three achievement groups (i.e. rated as 'good', 'average' and 'poor') were selected from twenty nine essays written by a class of Form six students as part of an internal examination. The texts were then analyzed using the grammatical systems of Theme, Mood and Transitivity with respect to their schematic structures and register choices. It was found that the top essay demonstrated the best control of configurations of the three grammatical systems in making textual, interpersonal and experiential meanings. The middle piece was moderately successful in that there were lapses in the grammatical choices whereas in the bottom piece, inappropriate and inconsistent choices resulted in an unsuccessful piece of writing. However, all the three essays reveal the problem of a lack of relevant subject knowledge and show the inadequacy of the existing writing syllabus. The analysis, though it cannot claim to be exhaustive, helps illuminate the features of writing quality that have hitherto been ignored in the English classroom in Hong Kong. It is therefore concluded that SF grammar is a useful tool for writing pedagogy and a metalanguage based on the grammar is recommended for classroom teaching.