Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemAn interactive ethnographic performance: ethnography, theatre and drama pedagogy for a professional learning context( 2015)This thesis investigates the practice and efficacy of performance ethnography within a professional learning context of women in research leadership. Performance ethnography is a form of research that creates a theatrical representation of ethnographic inquiry. It is valued for its ability to represent ‘the rich array of cultural practices’ within ethnographic findings to audiences as a dynamic and immediate form of dissemination (Pelias, 2008, p. 189). Researchers have used performed research as an educational tool in the fields of teacher training and healthcare education. This study aims to investigate whether an ethnographic performance text is an effective professional learning tool while concurrently investigating the practice of the performance ethnographer when constructing such a text. A performance ethnography investigating the lived experiences of women working in university research leadership was conducted. Across four phases of research, the performance ethnographer’s practice of fieldwork, analysis and interpretation, foundations for scriptwriting and theatrical representation was documented and analysed. A six-scene ethnographic performance text was constructed and then performed by professional actors to an audience of senior female researchers from university-based research environments. The responses of the workshop participants to the ethnographic performance text and accompanying drama activities, in the LH Martin ‘Women in Research Leadership’ professional learning course were analysed. Emerging from this study is a form of performed research defined here as interactive ethnographic performance - an ethnographic performance text intersected by drama activities to enhance the learning experience. The research found that the complementary ethnographic and artistic processes combined with drama pedagogy produced an authentic, engaging and pedagogically effective interactive performance text for an audience of senior research women. In this study, the ongoing role of the performance ethnographer throughout each phase of the research enabled the evolving understandings of the research participants’ lived experiences to be infused and synthesised into a multilayered performance text. This study showed that the interactive ethnographic performance text communicated the findings of the inquiry into research leadership issues. For the audience of female research leaders, strategies for managing complex relationships and interactions in the workplace were central areas of exploration that heightened the learning experience. Points of inquiry into the nature of leadership within a research workplace focused on negotiation, mentoring and strategic decision-making. This study reveals four central elements that are critical to learning through an interactive ethnographic performance: firstly, the workshop participant’s engagement in the fictional framework; secondly, the workshop participant’s identification (emotional and embodied) with the characters and situations; thirdly, the opportunities for embodied problem solving; and finally, shared and individual reflection. This model of interactive ethnographic performance applied to professional learning provides opportunities for deep engagement and critical reflection, provoking new insights and generating new knowledge. The dialogue set up between the audience as workshop participants and the ethnographic performance with the intersecting drama activities creates a site for powerful collective learning. This study of the practice of constructing and presenting an interactive ethnographic performance demonstrates its potential to generate effective learning experiences in professional learning environments.
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ItemDevelopmental assessment and metacognition in teachers´ professional learning and differentiated teaching( 2014)This study examined the relationship between the developmental use of assessment data and teachers’ metacognition in relation to differentiated teaching and professional learning. The impact on differentiated teaching practice was investigated, analysing its influence on students’ reading comprehension. The study was conducted as part of the Assessment and Learning Partnerships (ALP) project. The focus of ALP is on the development of teachers’ knowledge and skills to make collaborative data-driven decisions about differentiated teaching within a developmental framework (Griffin & Care, 2009; Griffin, Murray, Care, Thomas, & Perri, 2010). The approach to professional learning in this study drew on the model proposed by Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002). This model describes teachers’ professional growth consisting of four domains -external, personal, practice and consequence- which are mediated by the processes of enaction and reflection. Reflection was unpacked as the metacognitive process teachers engage in when using data in a developmental approach. It is a metacognitive process as it involves teachers’ capacity to monitor and control their own understanding and learning (Duffy, Miller, Parsons, & Meloth, 2009). A five components model was proposed in this research to explain this metacognitive process, labelled as MC/DPL (MC stands for metacognition, D for differentiated teaching and PL for professional learning). It connects teachers’ comprehension of differentiated teaching and their capacity to plan, monitor and evaluate their professional learning. The relationship between teachers’ MC/DPL and variables under the four domains involved in professional learning were analysed. This approach to the research design is aligned with previous research in the area, which recognises personal and sociocultural variables that impact metacognitive development. The research is grounded in a criterion-reference framework and the variables involved were measured using Item Response Theory (IRT) (Rasch, 1980). Data from 578 teachers of 113 schools across Victoria were analysed to investigate the relationships between variables in the four domains and MC/DPL. Data from a subsample of 208 teachers, who assessed a group of 3952 students between Year 1 and 10, were analysed to evaluate the impact on students’ learning. The teachers’ MC/DPL process was found to be associated with the teachers’ professional learning teams’ (PLT) activities and engagement, in the external domain. In the personal domain a stronger association was found between MC/DPL and efficacy beliefs and assessment knowledge. All these variables were associated with differentiated teaching practice, although the most relevant were teachers’ efficacy beliefs, MC/DPL and assessment knowledge. In terms of impact on students’ progress in reading comprehension, the group of teachers whose students reached the top 10 percent of improvement had significantly higher levels in the classroom practice variable in comparison to the group that reached the bottom 10 percent of improvement. This finding brings attention to efficacy beliefs, as the main predictor of the classroom practice found in this study. Overall, this study suggests that metacognition in relation to differentiation and professional learning as well as knowledge about the developmental nature of assessment are important for differentiated teaching. However, teachers need to feel confident in their capacities to teach within this new paradigm in order to be able to change their classroom practice, and therefore more attention needs to be given to the support they receive through the process. Implications for teachers’ education and further research are discussed.