Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemExperiences of Russian-speaking immigrants in Australia: beliefs about language learning, teacher learner roles and learning style preferences( 2007)In previous years the Australian Government's Migration Programme focused on attracting a family member category first. Recently the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, Amanda Vanstone stated, "We've aided the growing Australian economy by attracting skilled migrants who continue to make a valuable contribution to Australia's economic growth". A quarter of skilled immigrants come from non-English speaking backgrounds, for instance, from Eastern Europe. Newly arrived immigrants receive English instruction in the Adult Migrant English Program. There has been little research on immigrants with high levels of education who were exposed to foreign language learning prior to migration. This in itself constitutes a serious gap in the knowledge required for the efficient language teaching of this group of students. This study examines the English learning experiences of eleven highly educated immigrants from the former USSR in the adult ESL classroom. It explores students' beliefs about language learning, beliefs about teacher and learner roles and students' preferred learning styles. This in-depth study employed a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection. The theoretical framework behind this study is based on the situational-interpretative orientation to research, whilst the approach adopted here is a synthesis of phenomenology, sociology and ethnography. This study found that Russian-speaking immigrants take formal language learning seriously. They expect ESL courses to be highly organised and structured. This study identified the main factors that impact on immigrants' language learning. Russian-speaking students demonstrate a strong instrumental motivation for learning English. They are in favour of traditional methods of learning the language. This study concludes that students' beliefs are culturally shaped. Students' prior educational experiences contribute to their beliefs in terms of approaches to language learning and strategy usage. Russian-speaking learners have high expectations of their ESL teachers. They assign multiple roles to the teacher ranging from an authority to a friend. Russianspeaking students view the learner's role as needing to follow teachers' commands, obey the teacher, work hard and be serious. The data indicates that students' beliefs are deeply rooted in their past educational experiences gained in the country of origin. Results indicate that changes in learners' beliefs occurred over the six months measured. These changes were associated with motivational, environmental and personality factors. Changes in learners' beliefs resulted from the connections students made between their past and present language learning experiences. Russian-speaking ESL learners prefer visual and kinaesthetic learning styles. They identified individual learning as a minor preference. Russian-speaking students appear to be pessimistic about their language abilities. They prefer to use a bottom-up approach and typically learn English for personal gain. Building on these results, this thesis argues that individual voices of language learners should be heard and propose a Principled Negotiated Approach to Pedagogy which would allow teachers and learners to discuss issues central to the learners' achievement in language learning. The implications of the results are provided.
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ItemA critical genre based approach to teaching academic writing in a tertiary EFL context in Indonesia.( 2005)This thesis reports on the effectiveness of using a genre-based approach in teaching academic English writing to studnet teachers who were learning English as a foreign language in a state university.
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ItemScientific literacy and the reform of science education in Australia: a chemistry perspective( 2006-01)There is considerable qualitative and quantitative data to suggest that chemistry in Australia is in a state of decline. This trend has been in evidence for the last fifteen years and is most evident from a progressive decline in demand for tertiary chemistry courses over this period despite an overall increase in demand for science courses in Australian universities. There is quantitative evidence to suggest that Australia is experiencing a ‘skills shortage’ of ‘trained chemists’ to support the development and sustainability of the chemical industry and, perhaps more significantly, the proportion of chemistry graduates entering the teaching profession is also decreasing. This thesis examines the reasons for this decline in the status of Australian chemistry by conducting a series of interviews with Heads of Departments of Chemistry in Australian universities to find out their concerns on this issue and, more specifically, to ascertain the actions that they are enacting to address the decline in demand for tertiary chemistry courses and the difficulty in retaining students in the chemistry major. This process also revealed numerous constraints, most significantly, financial constraints, that impede ‘change’ in the tertiary chemistry sector. (For complete abstract open document)
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ItemAn examination of how Australian art gallery educators perceive their role: two case studies( 2003)This study investigates six art educators working in two Australian art galleries at the turn of the millennium. The study examines how they perceive their role as reflected in the beliefs they hold, the type of lessons they present, and the kind of techniques they use to teach secondary school students in a gallery environment. The study also explores the influencing factors and institutional processes that have acted to inculcate existing attitudes and practices or to instigate change. Research in the area of gallery education indicates that whereas gallery educators twenty years ago felt obliged to analyse and explain artworks for viewers, gallery educators today see the viewer as an active agent in the construction of meaning. This implies that gallery educators seek to empower students by encouraging them to interpret artworks. This notion is based on the premise that knowledge is socially constructed, determined by the individual's respective background and experiences. The six case study subjects explain their roles as complex and demanding. Each offers a different account of the strategies they use to 'engage' students and to involve them in the process of interpretation. All utilise a 'floortalk' approach but with considerable variation. Different approaches such as drama, humour, stories and questioning are used by the teachers. However, the key link between all six case subjects is that they perceive their key role as being to 'engage' students and to stimulate them to actively construct meaning for themselves. In Bourdieu's terms this involves a process of providing students with "cultural capital', namely the kind of knowledge pertaining to the field of art education, its language, content, logic and aesthetic "grammar'. Such art language is needed for students to think, act and talk in relation to the social orthodoxies and heterodoxies established by the field. It was therefore these objectives and the strategies each case subject used to achieve them that are the focus of this study.
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ItemThe epistemological authority of an ESL teacher in science education( 2000)This thesis investigates the epistemological authority of an ESL teacher in science education. The state of Victoria, Australia, reflecting a world-wide trend in English speaking countries, has adopted a policy of mainstreaming ESL within the secondary school context. One of the ways this policy has been implemented in government secondary schools in Victoria is by ESL specialists and mainstream teachers jointly planning the curriculum. There has been very little research into how an ESL and a mainstream teacher actually negotiate pedagogic understandings when planning together. This thesis explores the planning relationship with a view to enhancing policies of mainstreaming. The central data in the study are the two planning conversations of two teachers, one on the topic of genetics and the other on motion. The conversations are analysed using positioning theory and appraisal theory within a transformational model of social action. It is argued that positioning theory, with its focus on personal identity formation, offers an analysis of agency and structure, but not of the language used in the conversation. Appraisal theory, with its focus on the linguistic resources used by the teachers to negotiate meaning, allows for a detailed linguistic analysis which assists the positioning analysis. The analysis offers insights into how the teachers maintain and sustain their planning conversations, within a secondary school context. The analysis of the planning conversations reveals overwhelmingly the difficulties and sources of tension that can emerge in a planning relationship between a science specialist and an ESL specialist, even when they enjoy a good working relationship. There are genuine dilemmas and difficulties in attempting to bring together the different and competing epistemological assumptions of the two teachers, who ome from very different disciplinary discourse communities. It is argued that the attempt by the two subject specialists to work together and 'fuse their horizons' is difficult. This is partly because the two discourse communities they represent are very different, and partly because one such community - namely science - enjoys considerably greater power in the working relationship. Overall the findings of this thesis indicate the considerable difficulties in the way of achieving successful mainstreaming of ESL in the secondary school context. The policy directives about mainstreaming have assumed that it is a simple process of the ESLteacher sharing teaching strategies with the mainstream teacher. The study will demonstrate that negotiating pedagogic understandings is a profound journey of epistemological reconstruction, the nature of which had not been anticipated by the policy makers. This is because the two teachers' views of language and teaching are negotiated through their subject disciplinary prejudices and biases. The study offers a model that theorises the personal professional development project implicit within the mainstreaming of ESL policy.
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ItemThe effect of intervention in pretend play on social participation of pre-adolescents with severe to profound hearing loss( 2002)This study investigated the effect of intervention in pretend play on the social participation of children with severe to profound hearing loss. Twenty-four participants were involved in the study. All participants were enrolled in regular schools in inclusive settings and each communicated using listening and speech. The intervention was conducted within this regular school setting by teachers of the deaf in the role of visiting teacher. Goals for the intervention were included in the participant's individual education plan. The major hypothesis investigated was that intervention in pretend play increases the ability of the child with hearing loss to engage in rule-based games. The minor hypotheses were concerned with the effect of the intervention on communicative turns, on game rule knowledge, on social role knowledge and on rule articulation. Results showed that while no statistically significant results were found in behaviours that could be directly attributed to the intervention, there were increased performances for the group as a whole across the period of the intervention on six of the variables measured. These were appropriate game turns, violated game turns, directing others, rule language, rule explanation and rule recall. The findings of this study provide further insight into the skills required for effective participation in play and rule-based activity. As the study shows, playing a game does not necessarily imply full participation. Full participation occurs when there is communication about the rules, articulation and clarification of the rules, and negotiation when rules are violated. Full knowledge of the script of the game and the ability to act in accordance with the rules have the potential to increase a child's social participation.
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ItemAssessing metacognition( 2000)Researchers, educators and curriculum documents promote the importance of metacognition for student learning but much confusion in the field continues to exist about what the term 'metacognition' means. This lack of clarity creates obstacles for researchers and educators. It is difficult to teach and assess what has not been clearly defined. Because of the importance attached to assessed curriculum, a likely implication is that metacognition will not be widely embraced as a worthwhile part of the curriculum unless metacognition is clearly defined and is included as part of assessment practices. This thesis investigated the assessment of metacognition within the curriculum domain of mathematics. The study involved Year 6 students from three different schools. Conventional techniques used for monitoring metacognition are criticised in terms of their validity and reliability. The need for practical assessment tasks was identified to minimise limitations of individual techniques and attend to questions of rigor. A new multi-method approach was developed and trialled for the assessment of three key metacognitive functions: Awareness, Evaluation and Regulation. The main features of this approach were a hands-on card sorting task and a video replay used within the context of a problem based clinical interview. This thesis sets out the consequences of implementing a new method for the assessment of meta cognition. The data generated provides a detailed endorsement of a theoretical model for metacognition developed in the course of this thesis. The findings of the study call into question previous research into metacognition (both methodologically and in terms of actual findings) and shed significant light on the nature of metacognition and its use by Year 6 students in the solution of mathematical problems. The results consistently show that student metacognitive behaviour is predictable regardless of school, class or task. The study also provides a technique for assessing and researching metacognition that could be adapted for other purposes and in other contexts.
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ItemAccessing the discourses of schooling: English language and literacy development with aboriginal children in mainstream schools( 1998)This thesis reports on aspects of an intervention program in literacy and language development implemented for Aboriginal children at Traeger Park School in Alice Springs. The study proposes that the provision of access to academic/literate discourses for Aboriginal children is an issue that has been either avoided or devalued generally in Australian linguistic research. This negative orientation has been particularly prevalent in mainstream linguistic studies which have followed Labovian (ie. Labov 1969) perspectives on notions of difference/deficit since the 1970's.
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ItemPolitics and prescription: an analysis of reading texts in Victorian government primary schools 1872-1970( 2007)For a period of almost one hundred years - from the 1872 Education Act until 1970 the Victorian Education Department prescribed the reading curriculum of children in government primary schools, using texts from Ireland and Britain, followed by three sets published by the Department. This thesis describes the procedures undertaken in the selection of these texts, and analyses their contents in the light of the educational thinking of the times and the prevailing political, social and economic conditions. The Irish Books of Lessons were components of a national system of education in Ireland designed to provide a non-denominational religious education for all children. Emphasis was placed on literary and moral values, Old Testament history and political economy. Transplanted to the colony of New South Wales, the Irish ideal of a common education failed because of intractable religious disputes between Anglican and Roman Catholic clerics. In Victoria there was discord in parliament relating to the contents of the books and the secular provision in the 1872 Education Act. In 1877 these books were replaced by the British Royal Readers, containing informational matter, English literature, and history related in terms of battles won and deeds of service for the Empire. Alterations to some items in the Royal Readers on the order of the Minister of Public Instruction because of their religious content caused further contention in parliament. Action from Roman Catholic sources succeeded in the banning of other books from schools on sectarian grounds, an outcome that had important ramifications for the administration of education in Victoria. Religious sensibilities were appeased with the Minister's decision to replace imported texts with the locally-produced School Papers in 1896. These monthly publications contained literature, informational items, stories for enjoyment and others of a moralistic bent. The Anglophile nature of the Royal Readers was maintained with material promoting loyalty to Britain and the Empire. Wide coverage of the Boer War and World War I was included. The inter-war period saw a growing emergence of an Australian identity in the School Papers, with fewer items calling for fealty to Crown and Empire, and local writers increasingly featured. The Victorian Readers, introduced in 1928, were the repository of the literature that remained an important element of the reading curriculum, much of it from Australian authors. Articles promoting peace in the reading material at this time foreshadowed the muted coverage of World War II in the School Papers. The new set of reading books published in the 1950s and 1960s continued in the literary style of their predecessors, with writing by current Australian and international authors. The capacity of the School Papers to respond to events as they unfolded enabled the readers to be kept informed of Australia's increasing involvement with Asia, the decline of old affiliations and the formation of new geopolitical alliances.