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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ItemCitizenship, democracy and full-service schooling integrated services(University of Melbourne, 1998)
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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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ItemPALS: aid or method? : a study of children's responses to learning a language through interactive satellite television(University of Melbourne, 1998)This research considers the role of Interactive Satellite Television (ISTV) in primary Languages Other Than English (LOTE). It investigates the response of students in three Year 5 and 6 classrooms, where the same ISTV material was being used in two different ways. Student response was noted as it was revealed in learning behaviours and these were considered in relation to factors considered significant in the literature: interactivity, learner needs and learning styles, the role of the facilitator, including facilitator attitudes, and the impact of program content on motivation and learner interest. The study addresses the questions � How is Primary Access to Languages Via Satellite (PALS) being used? Can it serve equally well as an aid, one among many resources available to a qualified teacher in a classroom, and as a total method for a language class managed by a facilitator? The study shows there is considerable difference in how teachers and facilitators employ PALS, some using it as designed, direct to air, some as videotaped material. The data show PALS to be more effective when used as a method. However the key factor in success would appear to be how the material is used, provided there is the opportunity for student interactivity and the classroom adult, whether teacher or facilitator, has good pedagogical skills. PALS can be used successfully as either stand-alone in e t hod for a facilitator, or as aid, a supplementary resource available to a teacher. The conditions for success in either case appear to rest on the professional attitudes and skills of the facilitator or the teacher, on the ability of the content to be motivating and interesting, and on the opportunity for students to interact live-to-air.
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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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ItemFamily story women: a comparative study of femaleness in family story literature for adolescents, in the 1890s and the 1990s.(University of Melbourne, 1998)Written in the late nineteenth century, Ethel Turner's first and most famous novel Seven Little Australians was significant to the development of Australian children's literature. Turner's writings have been well-documented by the critics of Australian children's literature and notable features of her work were the family setting, the construction of young women, the realistic character development and the content appropriate to adolescents. While the family setting in adolescent literature remains important, and the critics connect Turner's texts with modern adolescent literature, there has been little critical examination of the 1990s family story and the construction of young women, and there have been no published systematic comparative examinations over one hundred years from the 1890s to the 1990s. Thus, this comparative literary analysis examines the femaleness of the family story young women in the adolescent literature written by two middle class female authors Ethel Turner in the 1890s and Joanne Horniman in the 1990s. The texts were chosen because they were written approximately one hundred years apart and the main characters are young women in a family setting. As well as analyzing and comparing the construction of the femaleness of the main female characters in the selected texts, this research critically examines the similarities and differences in terms of the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, gender issues in the texts and what the authors think females are and should be like. The research concluded that there has been significant change in the construction of the young women by these two authors. Turner's approved young women were conventional, compliant, obedient and domestically successful in a confining patriarchal society. In contrast Horniman approves of young women who are capable, problem solvers, independent and personally responsible, but also accepts unconventionality in a society that encourages individuality.
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ItemSoundings in the dramaturgy of the Australian theatre director(University of Melbourne, 1997)Soundings in the Dramaturgy of the Australian Director examines the processes of Australian theatre directing in terms of dramaturgy. The contention of this thesis is that while all directors call on all the elements of dramaturgy, each director concentrates primarily on one of these elements. A National Directing Survey is undertaken to determine the fields within which Australian directors work and to determine the dramaturgical emphasis of different directors. Three directors who are indicative of different dramaturgical emphases are chosen for case study analysis. This dissertation looks at the dramaturgy of the Australian director through the use of case studies of three theatre directors. Building on a definition of dramaturgy developed in the work of Darko Suvin, I examine the work of these three Australian theatre directors in terms of their organisation of non-empirical space/time as borne by their performers who represent by means of action, meaning to an audience. Each director is interviewed with specific reference to the concerns of dramaturgy as outlined by Suvin (Suvin 1984:3). Through the use of these case studies of three theatre directors, the dramaturgy of Australian directors is outlined in terms of Suvin's definition A production of each of the three directors is analysed in terms of the elements of dramaturgy. Results from the interviews are coupled with observational insights into each director's production and these findings are combined in an analysis of their dramaturgy. Conclusion are drawn about the dramaturgy of Australian directors. The usefulness and importance of dramaturgy to the study of theatre are emphasised and further areas of study in the dramaturgy of theatre directors are suggested.
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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.