Faculty of Education - Theses

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End date: 2001 × Start date: 2001 × Subject: Case studies × Subject: Melbourne ×

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    Critical thinking, culture and context: an investigation of teaching and learning in introductory macroeconomics
    Jones, Anna ( 2001)
    This study is an investigation of a critical thinking task, Critical and Analytical Learning in Macroeconomics (CALM), in its educational setting. CALM is an assessment task in a first year subject in an Australian university. The study takes into account the context of student learning, situated as it is within the discourses of Western tertiary education and the academic discipline of economics. Into the teaching environment, students bring with them their own previous learning experiences and cultural understandings. The study explores the relationship between the teaching context and the students' own background and the effect that this relationship has on learning. In particular, this study explores critical thinking as described by the students of Introductory Macroeconomics, the designers of the CALM project and the tutors. Two groups of students are considered in this study, local English speaking students and international Chinese speaking students. These two groups are significant in the student population in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce in which this study took place. Interviews were used to collect data from the designers of the CALM project and the students. A focus group and an interview were used to collect data from the tutors. From the data a three level model of critical thinking emerged. This model was informed by the three conceptualisations of critical thinking found the literature. The CALM designers' understandings of critical thinking had a profound influence on the ways in which critical thinking was perceived by the students, both local and international. Students' notions of critical thinking were shaped by the guidelines on critical thinking given to them by their lecturer. Although international students reported that they found the critical thinking task unfamiliar and that this difficulty was compounded by learning in a second language, they still described critical thinking in similar ways to their local counterparts. This similarity can be explained largely by the effort that the international students put into adapting to their new learning environment. Although the tutors had some divergent notions of critical thinking, their ideas had little influence on the students' understandings of critical thinking owing to the constraints of the subject and its assessment practices. This study signals the need for clear conceptualisation of complex notions such as critical thinking and for explicit teaching, modelling and scaffolding of what critical thinking involves. It also points to the need for an unpacking of the assumptions surrounding academic tasks, in this case critical thinking. In addition the study points to the limitations of critical thinking presented to students.
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    An action research approach to introducing problem-based learning in a higher education setting: a study in a School of Dental Science
    Aldred, Susan Elizabeth ( 2001)
    This study employed an action research approach to curriculum change in the School of Dental Science at The University of Melbourne. The curriculum change involved the implementation of problem-based learning (PBL) in a number of subjects in the Bachelor of Dental Science (BDSc) degree course. The impetus for this change arose from a 1997 curriculum review as well as wider changes in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences of which the School is a part. Action research provided a means of involving academic staff in the planning and implementation of curriculum change. The appropriateness and effectiveness of action research as an approach in this context is fully discussed. Key issues in the study were the nature of the educational change in this particular situation; the manner in which change was implemented; the reactions of both staff and students to change and the way in which the PBL curriculum evolved. The process of educational change is rarely a straightforward one and this study reinforces this view. A complex and powerful mix of individual beliefs about teaching and learning, organisational structures, tradition, professional values and a diverse student body all combined to make the change process in this setting demanding and challenging. It is the response to this challenge by this group of educators that this study illustrates.