Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemQuestions of identity: the researcher's quest for the beginning teacher( 2004-07)In this study, the discourse about beginning teachers is a central focus. I attempt to unravel the strands of this discourse and juxtapose the voices of beginning teachers with scholarly and authoritative voices which speak about or on behalf of beginning teachers. This thesis attempts to link narrative and narrative theory with critical and cultural theory in order to highlight the nature of this discourse about teachers at career entry. Issues of identity and the ‘process of becoming’ (Britzman, 2003) remain central throughout this work.
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ItemSupporting Student Learning in 'High Risk' University Subjects and the Interrelationships to Effective Teaching; An Analysis of a Peer Tutoring Experience( 1998-12)This dissertation is concerned with the detailed accounts of twenty-one students who participated in a peer tutoring program known as Supplemental Instruction (S.I.) In this approach, the development of students’ study skills through weekly peer tutoring sessions, is built on particular subject curriculum, not separate from it. In this study the subject selected was Statistics for Marketers. The approach is designed to assist students to succeed in ‘high risk subjects’ through voluntary attendance at the S.I. sessions. The central question to this study was how can students’ critical awareness of their learning experience while participating in an S.I. group, inform our teaching practice in universities, at a time when we are facing an incredibly challenging, competitive environment. The interest in S.I. stemmed from its links with the concept of peer monitoring as a learning strategy, studied in earlier research. It appeared to offer an innovative first year intervention strategy, at a time when Australian universities are beginning to compete more openly in offering students high quality teaching and learning. Research to date had not investigated to any depth how the approach worked nor gained any detailed student accounts of their learning experiences in an S.I. program. (For complete abstract open document)
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ItemSandwiched in between: radiographers as instructors( 1993)This qualitative study is concerned to hear the voices of radiographers who act as instructors in the professional practice development of students and qualified colleagues in the medical radiation sciences. Ten medical imaging technologists from a number of major public hospitals were interviewed. The radiographers’ voices are presented speaking to their experience of the work of the radiographer as practice, the work of the radiographer as instruction, their relationship to the teaching institution and their involvement in the qualifying year of professional practice known as the intern year. The study considers some theoretical and methodological issues that attend on the hearing of the voices of the radiographers who act in this instructional role. An eclectic theoretical position is presented and allied to a methodological strategy that acknowledges the dangers of speaking for the respondents, ethical considerations in the collection of the data, and the issue of interpretation of texts. A number of themes emerging from the texts that represent the voices of the radiographers are discussed including radiography and gender, radiography and instruction and radiography and professionalism. Some suggestions for further research are made.
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ItemAssessment of student problem-solving processes with interactive computer-based tasks( 2009)Problem solving is recognised as an important intellectual activity in schooling and beyond. In particular, generic problem-solving skills which transfer across learning areas are valued educational outcomes. The objective of this study was the design and evaluation of an online assessment system that provided diagnostic information on students' development of problem-solving competencies at upper primary and lower secondary school level. This resulted in the development of a methodology for collecting and interpreting problem-solving process data to assess important procedural aspects of problem solving. In this research study, existing assessment design and analysis methodologies were extended and applied to produce descriptions of problem-solving behaviour useful for both students and educators. The assessment system utilised recent advances in technology, assessment design and analysis, and problem-solving theory to guide the development of interactive computer-based tasks and to facilitate the interpretation of complex process data from student solution processes. Rules for interpreting computer-captured process data were empirically validated using qualitative verbal protocol analysis techniques. This study introduced a novel contribution to assessment design methodology called a temporal evidence map. This data transcription tool was designed for displaying and analysing concurrent sources of process data collected throughout task piloting exercises. Use of this tool culminated in the refinement of tasks and scoring rules, and informed development of additional tasks for the main data collection phase of the study. Following large-scale online data collection, the data were probabilistically modelled using Bayesian Inference Networks. A range of model evaluations were carried out to gauge aspects of assessment validity and reliability. Finally, the inferences generated via Bayesian modelling were used to produce diagnostic student profile reports suitable for informing instruction. Educators have much to gain from technology-based assessment systems underpinned by cognitively diagnostic models of cognition. In particular, supporting assessment inferences about procedural quality is well-aligned with 21st century skills in information-rich educational and vocational settings. This study provides diagnostic information to educators about how, and not just if, students solve problems.
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ItemJourneys of adaptation of Chinese and Vietnamese international students to academic writing practices in higher education( 2007)The study reported in this thesis explores how Chinese and Vietnamese international students exercise personal agency and mediate their academic writing to adapt to disciplinary practices at an Australian university. It also examines academics' attitudes toward student writing. The study employs a trans-disciplinary framework for interpreting student writing practices and lecturers' views within the institutional structure. This framework has been developed by infusing a modified version of Lillis' heuristic for exploring students' meaning making in higher education with positioning theory. The study documents the complexities and multi-layered nature of the adaptation processes that the students go through in their attempts to mediate their academic writing. A prominent finding of the study indicates the emergence of three main patterns of adaptation, committed adaptation, surface adaptation and hybrid adaptation, that the students employ to gain access to their disciplinary writing practices. The students' process of adaptation arises from their intrinsic motivations to be successful in their courses and to participate in their disciplinary community. However, where they differ is in their internal struggle related to what they really value amongst the possible disciplinary writing requirements they adopt in constructing their texts. The findings of the study show that the students' journeys of adaptation appear to be much more complex than what is often described in the current literature as being largely related to language and cultural factors. The analysis or the students' practices shows that they exercise personal agency by drawing on various strategies to facilitate their understandings of disciplinary expectations. In particular, the students have transformed their own practices through seeking ways to contact their lecturers to deepen their understandings of the disciplinary expectations, ask for feedback on draft versions of writing assignments and go through the redrafting process. The students are quite successful in using different ways to increase their understandings of the disciplinary expectations and even find the process rewarding. This shows that contrary to popular belief, international students in this study are able to demonstrate initiative and problem-solving skills. They actively exercise their own power as students, which allows them to participate in their disciplinary written discourse. The findings also indicate that what is of paramount importance to students' success is the interaction and dialogues they establish with their lecturers. The students' varying practices in spelling out what is expected of them establish a case for the importance of individual factors of each student and that success or failure is likely to relate to the possession of certain dispositions, regardless of one's ethnic background. The positioning analysis of the four lecturers involved in the study shows that they appear to be aware of the needs of international students and are determined to accommodate them in many ways. There are however a number of mismatches in the display of disciplinary knowledge among the academics themselves and between the academics and the students. Yet, in the relevant literature, what challenges international students is often attributed to such factors as English language, study skills and cultural adaptation, which arise from international students themselves. The study reported in this thesis reveals that the inconsistency and subtlety of the lecturers' explanations of the academic expectations makes it more challenging for international students to make sense of what is required of them in specific disciplines. Even though the lecturers attempt to find ways to facilitate students' understandings of the conventions, there is little mutual transformation occurring in terms of negotiating different ways of constructing knowledge. The findings of the study give insights into ways that a dialogical pedagogic model for mutual adaptation can be developed between international students and academics rather than the onus being on exclusive adaptation from the students. The model offers concrete steps towards developing mutual relationships and changes of international students and staff to each other within the overarching institutional realities of the university. Such a dialogical model is put forward as a tool to enhance the education of international students in this increasingly internationalized environment.
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ItemEducation and training for mask theatre( 1991)Mask is neglected in contemporary Western theatre, and yet the West has a cultural need for mask, because of its function as a tool for exploring and enabling relationship between the individual, the community and the environment. Curriculum in mask is based upon transitional experience, whereby the student is brought to realize, through dialogue, a relationship between themselves and the mask. This relationship engages the student subjectively as well as objectively. The role of the teacher, of both mask making as well as mask animation, is to deepen the relationship the student has with the mask. The mask making curriculum is about finding methods for the realization of Impulse. Impulse is the result of dialogue between the mask maker and the emerging mask. The mask making process is about finding a visual language for analysis and development of the emerging mask. The mask animation curriculum involves finding methods for developing and deepening a relationship with mask. This occurs through play, the student exploring and deepening their response to the mask within a heightened realization of the mask's cultural meaning.
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ItemA study of self-beliefs in children aged 8 to 12 years old in the domain of mathematics( 2002)Theories of self-efficacy, self-concept, self-worth and causal attributions have formed the framework for a large number of studies in educational fields. The reflections children make in learning contexts have rarely been linked to these concepts. Just as rare has been the qualitative classroom-based research on these concepts. This study provides information and analysis on qualitative and quantitative data related to 8 to 12 year old children's capability beliefs, self-worth and reflections in the subject of mathematics. It recognizes that children are agents of their learning as well as affected by their learning; their beliefs are integral to successful learning. The investigator and children attend a medium sized primary school in a middle socio-economic area of metropolitan Melbourne, in Victoria, Australia. The range of data is examined in two sections: one for the whole sample of 154 students, one for a grade 3 class taught by the researcher. Findings of the study indicate children tend to maintain positive maths self-beliefs in a year, self-concept effects performance more than other researched beliefs, and, while there is a substantial relationship between various capability beliefs, they also differentiate within particular contexts. Some quantitative results confirm prior research; some are contrary to expectations, for example, maths self-concept tended to predict maths achievement better than specific self-efficacy. A learning/intervention program trialled with one class led to improvement in children's subject value, self-beliefs and task behaviour, though alternative explanations for this are reasonable. All names used in this document are fictional, thereby protecting the confidentiality guaranteed to participants consenting to this study.
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ItemA comparative analysis: 'English' in the Newbolt report (1921) and in the Bullock report (1974)( 1983)This thesis argues the legitimacy and usefulness, within the field of Comparative Education, of studies which focus on the comparative description and analysis of a complex concept or subject-model, as established in two Reports, separated widely in time. What is contrasted and analysed is the substantive definition of 'English' emerging from the Reports of Committees of Inquiry, appointed by the Ministers responsible for Education in England in 1919 and 1972, and chaired respectively by Sir Henry Newbolt and Sir Alan Bullock. The opening chapter demonstrates, in identifying the location of such studies within Comparative Education, that the comparison of documentary sources is a study valid, both at a theoretical and a descriptive level, in contemporary studies in this field. In particular it argues, that especially as comparisons of this type focus on 'change' and 'reform' within the educational curriculum, such studies are fruitful and illuminating in a heuristic sense, and capable of generating explanatory views of how the curriculum of a particular subject comes to be what it is. Chapter 2 provides an analysis, useful for comparative purposes, of the membership and identity of each Committee of Inquiry. In turn, this analysis is used to illuminate the nature and content of each Report, and in particular to provide a framework appropriate for evaluating the extent to which each definition or model of 'English' was a reflection of the lives and times of the particular individuals appointed to each Committee. Although, in total, more than forty persons composed the Newbolt and Bullock Committees, and although the amount of detailed biographical information available varies greatly from person to person, it emerges that there were clearly identifiable groups, representing or even, in a sense, incarnating - particular interests, which pushed the findings and recommendations of the Inquiries in particular directions. Clues are also thus provided about each Committee's motives for and emphases in prescribing the nature, purpose, and content of 'English' in the ways it did. After establishing this background and context, in terms useful for comparative analysis, the concept or model of 'English' as each Committee understood it within the generic categories of 'Language' and 'Literature', is examined. The nature, place, and role of each of the constituent parts of 'English' are compared and contrasted, and within the framework of this comparative approach, key elements in each constituent part are scrutinised, assessed and related to the 'identity' of the Committees which produced them. This process of comparative analysis clearly demonstrates that each Committee was, for its time and place, fulfilling a highly significant role related to educational change and reform, as well as to the definition of 'English' in England in 1921 and 1974. Insights thus emerge which are useful in producing an understanding of the processes of curriculum definition and development. This thesis indicates the extent to which, in England both in 1921 and 1974, the formulation of the aims of 'English' and of its content and teaching, reflected and emerged from 'interests' collaborated in Committees set up by the Government of the day to carry out processes of review and reform. In so doing, it confirms the legitimacy, as well as heuristic value, of studies of this type within the field of Comparative Education.
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ItemSecond class theatre: theatre for young people in Victoria 1966-2000( 2003)The thesis examines the formation of theatre companies servicing schools and the community in Victoria. It traces the evolution of amateur children's theatre to the formation of full-time professional theatre companies. Many of these were called Theatre In Education (TIE) or Theatre For Young People (TYP) companies. The lack of historical research in this field contrasts with the number of journals and research articles on the growth and development of Drama In Education. There exists no comprehensive history of these theatre companies and their contribution to the development of Australian Theatre for Young People. The research in this thesis involves the use of primary research using audio recordings of oral histories, archival materials, company reports and supporting secondary research materials. The thesis sees the parallel growth of theatre and drama in education as integral to the operations and survival of these companies. Drama and Theatre Studies arc now part of the Victorian Certificate of Education for students in Years 11 and 12. Subsidy provided by State and Federal arts bodies has fostered and maintained a small number of companies in Victoria over a thirty two year period. Self sufficient, unfunded companies co-exist with subsidised companies by focusing on the Curriculum Standards Framework. Subsidised and non subsidised companies vary in the range and quality of theatre presented in schools and other venues. The research findings support the thesis that Theatre for Young People in Victoria has been undervalued in terms of its contribution to Victoria's theatre history. It has been treated as second class or less important than adult theatre. Funding bodies and theatre companies have placed an over emphasis on cultivating young people as the audiences of the future. Victorian Education policies have failed to regulate standards for artists and adequately support them in schools. This has resulted in a high turnover of artists and companies servicing schools.
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ItemThe internationalisation of higher education in Australia: management and strategy options for faculties of education( 1998)Internationalisation is becoming an increasingly important issue in the field of higher education in many universities. The aim of the research is to examine the management approaches used by higher education institutions in Australia in relation to the process of integrating the international dimension into the primary functions of an institution of higher education. This research has considered the ways in which institutions are accommodating, through their own planning and development processes, the growing demand for a greater international view, taking in both the range of international activities and the elaboration and/or reformulation of the fundamental missions of teaching, research and service. While the need for and benefits of internationalising are gaining increased recognition, the mechanisms needed to ensure that the elements of internationalisation are integrated, institutionalised, and treated as a core activity of the institutions are still to be explored. It should be recognised that approaches or strategies will differ according to the particular settings and circumstances as well as profiles of individual institutions. This research, however, aims to identify distinct broad models or common approaches being adopted by best practice higher education institutions in Australia, and so construct a strategic framework for internationalisation. Thus 'strategic framework', for the purpose of this study, comprise those strategic commitments which guide the institution's international orientations for the future.