Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemDevelopmental assessment and metacognition in teachers' professional learning and differentiated teaching(University of Melbourne, 2014)
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ItemElementary education in two Indian states: comparative analysis of literacy in rural districts of Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh( 2014)The thesis is about elementary education in rural districts of the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. The main questions addressed are: · How successful are the state education systems in rural areas of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan in providing universal elementary education that achieves at least basic levels of literacy? Have the state education systems in rural areas of the two states moved beyond attainment of basic literacy to aspire to a broader, quality, education? · What are the factors that account for the different levels of outcomes of the elementary state education systems in these two states? · What do girls themselves in the study regions report about factors that affect their education? In setting the context for examining these questions, the thesis provides a short historical survey of Indian education and a detailed, but concise, summary of contemporary elementary education in India. As literacy is often seen as the prime purpose of elementary education, a chapter is devoted to examining contrasting view of ‘literacy’, as well as factors to do with its benefits and measurement. Conceptual models are outlined, contrasting simplistic notions of the ways schools are perceived to operate with more complex ones better representing factors that affect students education. Emphasis is placed on the distinction between the provision of education (via access to schools staffed by teachers) and educational outcomes as assessed by the capabilities of students emerging from schools. Extensive summaries of the fieldwork in each state are reported and discussed. The fieldwork summaries are based on observations in 40 schools and interviews with teachers, students and parents - about 120 in total. Data about education provision and student achievement in the study districts obtained from government and NGO sources is compared with that obtained from fieldwork. The differences between Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh reported in government and NGO sources were confirmed by fieldwork observations, which in fact found the extent of the differences even greater. Observations in operating classrooms showed a stark contrast between the states with negligible attempt at teaching in Rajasthan schools. Interviews with teachers revealed very different attitudes from Rajasthan and Himachal teachers towards the education of children in their classes. Interviews with parents and students confirmed the very different experiences of schooling of students in the two states. The different elementary education outcomes in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan are not the result of factors that obtain maximum government attention: infrastructure, facilities and incentives (concrete buildings, drinking water, uniforms, mid-day meal etc). The assumption that that student enrolment and attendance automatically lead to education is incorrect. The most important factor in improving education is the role of teachers, in respect of which, apart from teacher presence in schools, pedagogical knowledge, ability to engage and willingness to teach is required.
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ItemMeasurement practice in Evaluation Capacity Building( 2014)Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) aims to enable individuals and organizations to adopt the concepts and practices of evaluation. Its purpose is to mainstream the generation and utilization of evaluation information within organizational systems and structures. It is important in that it mediates the true impact of evaluation to organizational outcomes. The aim of this thesis is to explore measurement practice in relation to content, implementation and context, and to examine how outcomes are measured in ECB initiatives. When ECB is viewed as a learning intervention, it calls for a progressive approach to measurement. This means that ECB outcomes measurement must consider the ECB content developmental proficiency. This study used the Broadbased Research Synthesis Method and examined sixty-three (63) published ECB reports with respect to content, implementation, context and measurement practices in ECB. Item Response Theory Analysis documented ECB content construct and hierarchical structure and Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed ECB content sub-domains. The findings illustrate that ECB content topics delivered in practice fit this developmental progression continuum. The main contribution of this study to the field of Evaluation, in particular in the area of measurement in Evaluation Capacity Building, is the introduction of the notion that ECB is a learning intervention. Through this assumption, it was demonstrated that ECB follows a developmental proficiency construct. This study has clearly established that ECB can be viewed as a learning progression. Based on this perspective, it has set a case to reframe ECB content, implementation and measurement practice. It is suggested that future ECB initiatives utilize this alternative framework for ECB content delivery and measurement of ECB outcomes.
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ItemThe use of online technologies to enhance student learning and foster engagement in drama education( 2014)This thesis explores the use of various online technologies in drama education. It asks in what ways can a teacher utilise emerging technologies to enhance learning and foster engagement in drama in a secondary school context. This was a single case study undertaken in a naturalistic environment where descriptive data was obtained and analysed using an inductive approach. Students used online technologies alongside more conventional classroom practice in a Year 10 drama course, such as writing blog posts in between lessons to replace the traditional drama journal. Wikis were used to co-construct meaning on common student goals, while the teacher employed audio podcasts instead of delivering theory lectures, writing classroom notes or distributing handouts. The students also used a Web forum as a repository for research information and a place for teamwork. This blended learning approach: a mixture of face-to-face instruction accompanied by out-of-class online communication, resulted in a student-centred, constructivist environment that exposed the different learning styles of the students. During the course of this study, due to the use of online technologies many students experienced increased engagement in their learning, enhanced cooperation with others, a sense of collegiality with classmates, and improved learning outcomes.
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ItemSustaining pedagogic innovation in vocational education settings: an actor-network theory account( 2014)Market based approaches to education reform have gained ‘grip’ in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia. In VET policy discourse, innovation is taken to be the main means of achieving this reform. Accordingly, innovation holds pride of place in the neoliberal reform program currently reshaping the VET system, and what VET educators do. However, neoliberal ideologies do not always ‘fit’ with local pedagogic practices and may serve to constrain rather than foster innovation. Given the pre-eminence of innovation in VET policy and management discourse, this ‘lack of fit’ is a policy problem. Drawing on key concepts from the practice-based approach of actor-network theory, this study sets out to critically examine how pedagogic innovation is understood and practiced in VET. An investigation of four cases of pedagogic innovation attends chiefly to what makes pedagogic practices innovative, and how they might be fostered and sustained in VET settings. These are critical questions for a sector in the midst of tumultuous reform and under scrutiny for its capacity to innovate and produce innovative workers. In contrast with innovation as diffusion (Rogers, 2005), innovation as translation (Latour, 1987, Callon, 1986) is tendered as a productive way to think and practice innovation. In the empirical analyses, pedagogic innovation presents as improvised, tenuous and emergent enactments in which spatiality, affectivity and distant policies play a constitutive part. Innovative pedagogies are not packages of learning transactions, or the diffusion of knowledge and skills, as current policy framings have it. Rather, they are co-constitutive knowledge creating practices which are entangled in pedagogic networks consisting of surprisingly complex and powerful actors. What matters most to their ‘innovativeness’ is ‘who and what’ are enrolled in the networks. Care emerges as the dominant practice the four educators use to make sense of the complex forces impacting on their pedagogic work and to ensure the best outcomes they can for learners. This study concludes that neoliberal framings of pedagogic innovation, with their predilection for competitive markets, quality regimes and control ‘from above’ (Bathmaker and Avis, 2013), run counter to the relational, material and caring practices that predominate in everyday pedagogic work. Opportunities for pedagogic innovation emerge in the tensions and when innovative learning and practices of inquiry are embedded in the professional being of educators. They are also possible when the responsibility for innovation is shared beyond the immediate domain of pedagogic work.
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ItemEvaluating social accountability interventions: the case for mixed methods and program theory( 2014)Social accountability interventions that promote citizen-state engagement are a relatively recent phenomenon in international development. To date, the evidence of their impact is small, insufficiently robust, but growing. A reasonably strong body of research exists in the international development literature spanning the past decade. However, it is only in recent years that researchers have investigated these interventions from an evaluation perspective. There remains a significant gap in the evaluation literature on guidance for evaluators specific to these interventions and identification of the most suitable evaluation approaches. The majority of published evaluations of these interventions are conducted through Randomised Control Trials (RCTs). These studies have made a significant contribution to our understanding of the broad components that make up these interventions, including information, collective action and government response. However, to date the qualitative analysis, especially of political context, is lacking, and there are very few high quality evaluations of these interventions using alternative approaches to RCTs. Based on the findings of this paper, theory-based evaluations are advocated drawing on the early evidence from RCTs, using mixed methods and including political analysis through a trans-disciplinary approach.
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ItemThe impact of a bimodal bilingual input on deaf children’s communication and language development( 2014)This study explores the impact of hearing parents’ bilingual English and Auslan (Australian Sign Language) input on the communication and language development of their young deaf children. The participants in this study were eight severe-to-profoundly deaf children and their hearing parents living in Victoria. The families were enrolled in a state-wide Victorian Department of Education and Training bimodal bilingual early childhood intervention program for deaf children and their families. Despite earlier diagnosis of infants’ deafness, access to early intervention programs and enhanced amplification technology, communication and language outcomes for children born with permanent deafness have been generally below those of hearing children. The communication needs of deaf children therefore continue to present significant challenges to parents and educators. Given the diverse language and learning needs of deaf children and the numerous factors contributing to their language outcomes, no single mode of communication has been found that suits all children. Amongst the various communication approaches adopted by early childhood intervention programs for deaf children is a bimodal bilingual approach, in which the children are exposed to spoken language and sign language. However, although the literature reports numerous studies that focus on language input and communication development for young deaf children, there are very few studies devoted to bimodal bilingual communication and first language acquisition. This study therefore aimed to measure the language outcomes of children exposed to English and Auslan early in their development and to determine the extent to which the parents’ interaction strategies promoted optimal language outcomes for their children. Due to the heterogeneity of the participants in this study, it was difficult to control the wide range of variables known to impact on the language development of young deaf children. Therefore, a single case design was chosen as the methodology for this study which incorporated detailed descriptions about each case and allowed each of the eight cases (i.e. parent or child) to act as their own control. Three research questions were explored in the study and were designed to elicit a deeper understanding of the factors contributing to the children’s language outcomes. The research questions related to three main areas: parental language input, the parental sensitivity to their children’s communication needs and the children’s language outcomes. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, data were collected from bi-monthly assessments over 20 months, allowing for ten progression points to be analysed. Particular attention was given to measuring the Auslan proficiency of the parents, type of language input, the children’s emerging language skills and modality preferences and the factors influencing these preferences. Several assessment tools were devised specifically for this study and are described in detail in the Method Chapter of this thesis. The findings of the study reveal that the children’s language outcomes were strongly predicted by parent sensitivity and that the children with the strongest language skills changed their modality preferences over the duration of the study. These findings contribute valuable insight into the nature of effective parent-child interactions using a bilingual approach and identify the communication strategies that promote positive language outcomes for young deaf children.
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ItemQuality talk interactions in preschools( 2014)Teacher-child interactions in early childhood education settings can have a strong influence on children’s emerging literacy and language abilities which are essential for life-long learning and productive engagement in society. In this study, teacher-child quality talk interactions were examined from videos of three different teacher-led literacy activities in 23 preschool rooms in the children’s year before primary school - rooms selected for the preschools’ excellent reputation. A socio-cultural approach focusing on children learning to think is followed throughout. Specifically, participation by turns during episodes of Sustained Shared Thinking (SST) (Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2003) and complexity of talk in terms of Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) and Type Token Ration (TTR) were compared to ordinary talk. Teachers’ use of questions, acknowledgments, Gricean maxims and leadership of child concept development, or blending, were also counted. Based on these measures, six quality indicators were selected, averaged and used to rank rooms for further comparisons. Coded transcripts were subjected to a quantitatively dominant mixed methods analysis which found significant relationships within and between classes. Children’s MLU and TTR increased in SST talk, whereas teachers ranked higher tended to decrease their complexity of language while using a higher ratio of words in relation to the children, especially at the start of SSTs. Other indications of intentionality led to the conclusion that teachers higher on the overall ranking were more systematically purposeful in adjusting their goals, activities, and language than those of lower ranking. Quality talk in three distinct patterns emerged from among these same top ranked teachers. The approach used by the majority of teachers had high numbers of open questions and blends and was termed “Expansive” to capture the dialogic process and goal of concept development. A clearly defined minority approach using high numbers of closed questions and Gricean maxims was termed “Focusing” to capture the dialogic process and goal of refining the clarity of thinking encapsulated at the level of the utterance. A third approach did both, but with low levels of acknowledgements. The usefulness of distinguishing and gaining further understanding of these approaches for measuring and improving teacher-child talk interactions is discussed.
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ItemStoryboard: primary school students designing and making explanatory animations( 2014)This practitioner action research project involved eight students from an inner Melbourne Primary School who created explanatory animations in 2011. Third generation activity theory was used in this study as a methodological lens to examine the explanatory animation process at various stages as both a tool and an object. The explanatory animation creation task was initially the object of activity but as reflexive practice, the project itself became the unit of analysis. My claim here is that the children’s mental models, as depicted through the animation key frames, functioned as both flexible models and diagnostic tools. Vygotsky and Sakharov's dual stimulation method was used as a theoretical framework to conduct the current study due to the close unity between conceptual tasks and their resolution. The dual stimulation method requires that “the subject must be faced with a task that can only be resolved through the formation of concepts” (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 124). Vygotsky explained the nature of this link by stating that “the path through which the task is resolved in the experiment corresponds with the actual process of concept formation” (ibid, p. 128). This research provides a chronology of the children's conceptual consolidation by providing a tangible insight into the children's evolving mental models.
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ItemCitizenship and inequality: the Teach for Australia program and the people who enter it( 2014)This study examines the aims, philosophy and assumptions on which an Australian Commonwealth Government initiative - Teach for Australia (TfA) are based, and considers the values, perceptions and experiences of a number of teachers who entered Victorian Secondary Schools at the beginning of the 2011 school year as part of the TfA program. Modelled on the American version Teach for America and the British version Teach First, the Teach for Australia Organization claims its purpose and mission is to supply “outstanding… inspiring and passionate young Australians to teach in disadvantaged communities…to drive the systemic change needed to eliminate educational disadvantage in Australia”. This research asked two core questions. First, what are the assumptions the TfA organisation presents in its mission and vision statements and promotional material, in relation to its program addressing educational disadvantage in school settings? Second, how are the recruited teachers’ perceptions of their capacity to fulfil Teach for Australia’s mission of changing lives in classrooms and leading systemic change, affirmed, challenged or modified during their classroom experiences? Theoretically this thesis draws on a range of theories and concepts from educational sociology. In particular Bourdieu’s thinking tools of habitus, cultural capital, and fields offer a language and starting point with which to analyse the collected data. Using qualitative data generated through interviews, email correspondence and document analysis the research sought to uncover the sociological and policy assumptions underpinning this model of teacher recruitment. The participants in this study were drawn from the second cohort of TfA and interviewed over a two year period. The thesis shows that the advertising and policy assumptions of the program appeal to recruits by emphasising both altruism and eliteness, as well as leadership as a way to disrupt the problem of disadvantaged schools. The key findings of the research indicate that the people who embark on the TfA pathway into teaching do so holding in tension the desire to be of service to disadvantaged communities, with the desire to progress their careers in both the corporate sphere and as leaders in the schools they enter. The stories the participants of this research tell warn of the dangers of expecting new teachers to have meaningful impact on systemic change that requires the setting up of a group of teachers that are considered elite and to stand in contrast to the existing teaching workforce.