Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemTeaching the live: the pedagogies of performance analysis( 2016)Theatre as an artform is ephemeral in nature and offers a lived, aesthetic experience. Attending theatre and analysing theatre performance is a key component of the study of drama in senior secondary education systems in Australia, and in many international education systems. The senior secondary drama curriculum in Victoria offers a unique context for analysing live theatre performances. Lists of performances are prescribed for teachers and students to select from and attend. The year prior to the lists being created, theatre companies are invited to submit productions for consideration. The written curriculum determines that students write a written analysis of one production. This task assesses students’ knowledge, skills and understanding of what they experience at school level, and they are assessed again in an end-of-year‘ high-stakes’ examination, the results of which contributes to students’ overall graduating academic score. Methodologically, this study used case study methods to investigate the pedagogies of performance analysis, selecting four cases as a collective case study approach. Over a period of fourteen months the study investigated how the lists of performances were generated, how teachers and students selected a performance to attend, how teachers taught the analysis of live theatre performance to senior drama students in a high-stakes assessment environment, and critically examined the role of theatre companies within these processes. The data comprised document analysis, participant observation, field notes, semi-structured individual and focus group interviews, and researcher reflective journal. Specifically the study examined pedagogy and how teachers’ pedagogical choices moved the written curriculum towards enacted and experienced curriculum. It explored what influenced and impacted these pedagogies in order to consider what constitutes effective pedagogies for teaching the analysis of live theatre performance within the research context and, more broadly, wherever the analysis of theatre performance is included in senior drama curricula. The findings indicate that while the teachers who participated in the study sought to create rich educational experiences for their senior drama students, they needed to take a reductive approach and employ teaching strategies that reinforced capacities relevant to the exam rather than those that engaged with the live arts experience or recognised and incorporated the embodied practices of drama education. Consequently, the study questions the purpose of examining performance analysis. The study also revealed how theatre company practices impact the teaching of performance analysis. As a way to structure an effective pedagogy for teaching performance analysis the study recommends that a purposeful, structured and sustained community of practice be established between curriculum authorities, theatre companies and schools. It is one that acknowledges the four stages of pedagogy identified and is a model that has potential application in curriculum where performance analysis is part of studying drama and theatre.
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ItemEvaluating the effects of different classroom spaces on teaching and learning( 2016)(Terry Byers…) who examined the impact of physical learning environments on student learning outcomes and teacher practices. His study found a correlation between classroom design and student performances in mathematics and English, and, highlighted the need to better understand teacher attitudes to changes in learning spaces.
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ItemExploring an appropriation of reader-response theory for teaching and learning English literature in Vietnam( 2016)While learner-centred approaches to literature in second/foreign language education have enjoyed wide empirical support, the teaching of English literature in Vietnam still focuses on transmitting an objectified interpretation of a text. This study explores the potential of appropriating reader-response theory (Rosenblatt, 1994), which locates the meaning of a literary text through the reader-text connection, with the following question: In what ways can reader-response theory make a contribution to the teaching and learning of English literature at the undergraduate level in Vietnam? This research was conducted through the implementation of an innovative teaching intervention based on reader-response theory. The teaching intervention appropriated reader-response theory to nurture students’ own experiences of and responses to English literature through interactive activities. This intervention was designed to work within an institutional syllabus at a university in Vietnam. The study used action research, in which the researcher participated as the teacher implementing the teaching intervention. Action research complements reader-response theory as both attend to interactive meaning making in context. Data were collected from 48 English-major students through pre-course and post-course questionnaires, class recordings, a teaching journal, after-class evaluations, online communications and reading logs. The data were analysed using three perspectives: those of the teacher and student participants, and a real-time view of class conversations and artefacts. This research found that appropriating reader-response theory in this context involved creating a transition from teacher-centred to student-centred learning, where dialogic teaching and interactive activities were used to evoke students’ own responses to the text. This transition required the teacher to adopt a dynamic role taking students’ learning styles into account. Through this approach, the students became dialogic and critical in developing their own responses to the texts they studied. However, they showed some contradictory attitudes to the unconventionality of the reader-response approach, which asked for and helped develop the students’ own responses to literature rather than giving them final answers. The mixed reaction indicated the complexity of creating a new learning paradigm in a traditional context. The students seemed to negotiate this complexity and become more critical about their own learning as a result. An important implication of this study is that it illustrates the potential of reader-response theory to contribute to teaching programs that seek to enable learners to experience literature in a second/foreign language individually and interactively. Based on the research findings, a model for appropriating reader-response theory is proposed that coalesces and balances active individual reading, collaborative exploration of responses, and language and literary scaffolding. In authority-abiding, exam-oriented institutional contexts such as in Vietnam, appropriating reader-response theory also requires mindfulness of a potential tension between the old and new practice, especially with regard to assessment issues.
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ItemDifferent kids, different pedagogies: an examination of pedagogy in context( 2015)Educational research internationally has long focussed on the achievement gap between low and high socio-economic status (SES) students. The relationships between pedagogy, quality of teaching, SES and student outcomes have informed much of this research, with numerous studies suggesting that pedagogical approaches may vary according to the students’ background (Anyon, 1980; Haberman, 1991; Levin, 2007). This thesis presents the findings of a study focussing on the pedagogical approaches of teachers in two very different settings, one a school serving a predominantly middle class clientele in a wealthy northern Melbourne suburb and the other serving a predominantly low SES student body in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. The thesis sought to understand whether the pedagogical choices teachers make are influenced by the individual students they teach and the school contexts in which they work. This study also sought to understand factors that influence teachers’ decisions regarding which pedagogy to use in each class. Two secondary schools took part in this study. In each school four teachers were sought who taught two different classes in the middle years in the subjects of mathematics or English. These teachers were surveyed, observed and interviewed about their pedagogical practices. All students from the observed classes were also surveyed. A key area of contrast in the study was school contexts; one a high SES government school, and one a low SES government school. Throughout this process both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analysed to answer the following key questions of: 1. Do individual teachers use different teaching strategies in different classes? 2. Are there within-school differences in the teaching strategies of teachers? 3. Are there between-school differences in the teaching strategies of teachers? This thesis presents evidence suggesting that teachers’ perceptions of their students’ SES in these settings impacted on their expectations of the students in the different settings, on their pedagogical approaches, and on their views of student self-regulation. This research has implications for policy makers and institutions involved in the training of teachers.
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ItemPost: 9/11: hidden pedagogy: the positional forces of pedagogy in Victoria, Australia( 2015)This qualitative study charts the lived narratives of twelve participants, six teachers and six students from urban and rural Victoria, Australia. The study examines in detail the question ‘How do teachers teach, post 9/11?’. 9/11 has become accepted shorthand for September 11th 2001, in which terrorist attacks took place in the United States of America. The attacks heralded a ‘post- 9/11 world, [in which] threats are defined more by the fault lines within societies than by the territorial boundaries between them’ (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2011, p. 361). The study is embedded in the values that have come to the fore in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the ideological shifts that have occurred globally. These values and ideologies are reflected via issues of culture and consumption. In education this is particularly visible through pedagogy. The research employs a multimethodological (Esteban-Guitart, 2012) form of inquiry through the use of bricolage (Kincheloe & Berry, 2004) which is comprised at the intersectional points of critical pedagogy (Kincheloe, 2008b), public pedagogy (Sandlin, Schultz, & Burdick, 2010b) and cultural studies (Hall, Hobson, Lowe, & Willis, 1992). This study adopts a critical ontological perspective, and is grounded in qualitative research approaches (Lather & St. Pierre, 2013). The methods of photo elicitation, artefact analysis, video observation and semi-structured interviews are used to critically examine the ways in which teacher and student identities are shaped by the pedagogies of contemporary schooling, and how they form common sense understandings of the world and themselves, charting possibilities between accepted common sense beliefs and 21st century neoliberal capitalism. The research is presented through a prototypical form of literary journalism and intertextuality which examines the interrelationship between teaching and social worlds exposing the hidden influence of enculturation and addressing the question ‘How do teachers teach, post 9/11?’
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ItemLooking into "A BLACK BOX" - vocational education and training for international students in private registered training organisations in Melbourne, Australia( 2014)This study investigated and analysed situated realities influencing international students’ outcomes in seven commercial for profit private Vocational Education and Training (VET) providers in Melbourne, Australia. It draws from the notions of social structure – a system of human relations – as its theoretical and analytical lens to explore how the restructuring of the VET system using the competitive training market model in Australia reorganised the way it is understood and practised. The study shows that commercial for profit private VET providers operating in a competitive VET market mostly emphasise profit imperatives and education-migration policy frameworks to conceptualise and define international students’ characteristics, expectations, learning and educational outcomes. The study used a mixed methodology consisting of both quantitative and qualitative techniques to gather data in seven research sites in Melbourne. It used a longitudinal survey of international students; in-depth interviews of training managers and quality assurance auditors; and a survey of vocational teachers to gather the research data. General systems theory and interpretive approaches were used to analyse these data. The findings were triangulated to form core themes and sub themes comprising the contexts of delivery and assessments, international students’ characteristics and outcomes, and teacher pedagogic practices and perceptions. The study offers a basis for understanding how the intertwined, complex and situated mechanisms in a market model for VET combine to influence international students’ outcomes and skills training in general. It shows that when international VET students’ purposes for undertaking VET in Australia are divergent and shifting, the competitive training market model policy dimensions, which frame their participation, are mostly neither aligned nor congruent with the students’ expectations and aspirations for participating. Most international students’ educational and employment aspirations were not met; their prior employment and educational experiences were not emphasised; they were narrowly represented, conceptualised and defined in migration terms; and most of them were working in jobs unrelated to their training. It further shows that the situated factors influencing international students’ outcomes in commercial for profit private VET RTOs in the study are interconnected with the market model for VET, policy imperatives, international students’ characteristics and aspirations and the market-based environmental demands. Hence these factors, particularly the way international students and their providers are represented in the education-migration discourses and the way courses are delivered, cannot be understood in isolation. By implication, the construction of educational policy frameworks, which enable the naming of values inherent in the training packages model, must include international students’ learning contexts, expectations and purposes for studying in commercial for profit private VET providers. But, this cannot be achieved in a training environment where perceptions about the skills, knowledge and work-readiness of the graduates from this sector are viewed to be inconsistent with what their qualifications claim they have. Hence, policy makers and educators must reconstruct the purposes of VET outside the education-migration framework to include the internationalised VET cohorts’ educational and employment expectations and aspirations. Overall, the study shows that policy imperatives (interpretation and reinterpretation of policy), training packages implementation, teacher pedagogic choices and teaching and learning resources in a business environment influenced commercial for profit private VET provider contexts in the study, particularly international students’ aspirations, experiences and outcomes. Whilst some international students used VET as a pathway into higher education, to get a job in their field of training, to build and broaden their knowledge and skills and to improve their credentials with the hope to gain a better future, most of them made these choices at a severe cost to their aspirations and goals. By implication, the competitive VET market system elements may not be congruent with the other components of the education system and that the other components of the system do not support each other. Hence the study argues that international students and commercial for profit private VET providers’ contribution can only be more clearly understood and more substantially recognised if their characteristics, relationships in the delivery contexts and the discourses informing their participation are comprehensively mapped and analysed.
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ItemExpanding their horizons: hermeneutic practices and philosophising with children( 2014)The influences on the development of Lipman’s Philosophy for Children (P4C), a program that teaches philosophical thinking to students, can be found in the philosophy of the early American pragmatists and the pedagogical model of Socrates. The P4C method sees the teacher guide students through stages of rational thinking towards the resolution of philosophical questions that have been stimulated by the shared experience of a literary text or other artefact. The resolution of these questions takes the form of a defined concept. This approach to problem-based learning is founded on the progressive educational theory of Dewey, and the P4C classroom organisational model is based on the scientific communities valorised by Peirce. By establishing pragmatism’s and Socrates’ influence on P4C, I demonstrate its emphasis on methodical problem solving and conceptual development. This work critiques and develops the P4C tradition using a hermeneutic framework. Drawing on the work of the hermeneutic philosopher Gadamer, as well as the contemporary pragmatist Rorty, I examine some of the key philosophical and practical assumptions that underpin P4C. I question whether philosophical practice must be oriented towards concept development, and whether philosophy needs to be undertaken using a method as espoused by P4C. I re-situate the literary text as being central to the philosophical community’s discussions, where it is looked to as a potential source of truth, rather than as a stimulus for inquiry. I replace P4C’s commitment to dialogue with Gadamer’s conversation and play, and question whether philosophy must necessarily be seen as an inquiry as such. The empirical element of this work saw me explore these various ideas with members of my high school English and Literature classes. With these students I enacted the above critiques in order to evaluate their real-world potential. By inhabiting a Gadamerian interpretation of the Socratic figure, I cultivated understandings amongst these students of hermeneutic ideas such as application, fusion of horizons, prejudice and authority. Our philosophical discussions took place in context of text studies, where we engaged in the work of reading and interpreting classic novels. While maintaining some elements of Lipman’s P4C, my hermeneutic approach demonstrates the value of philosophical thinking that recognises tradition in an encounter with our past. It views philosophising as conversational and aims to develop in students Rorty’s quality of edifying thinkers, rather than Lipman’s conceptual thinkers. I consequently demonstrate the transformative effect of Gadamer’s event of understanding in developing students’ ability to analyse prejudice, cultivate solidarity with others, and exhibit the quality of phronesis.
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ItemPortrait of the artist who works with children( 2014)In both school and non-school based studies, the significant role of artists is often cited but rarely researched in any depth, except for a few notable exceptions (Brice-Heath and Wolf, 2005; Galton, 2008; Rabkin, Reynolds, Hedberg, & Shelby, 2011; Pringle, 2002; Selkrig, 2011; Waldorf, 2002). Despite the view that artists are a rich resource for the community (Mulligan & Smith, 2009), and the claim that there is much to learn from these professionals in relation to their work with children (Galton, 2008; Pringle, 2002; Waldorf, 2002), there are no known interpretive frameworks that provide artists, and the organizations that employ them, with a guide to reflect deeply and critically on their practice involving children in non-school contexts. This research maps the backgrounds, goals and practices of over fifty artists working in a public arts facility, ArtPlay. Located in the heart of Melbourne, ArtPlay provides a wide range of artist-led programs for children aged from three-to-thirteen years. Involving a blend of discovery and constructivist methodologies, aligned with ethnography and case study, this research sought understanding through immersion and dialogue, informed by a hermeneutic model of inquiry (Hammersley, 2011). The key questions for the study were, Why do artists work with children? How do artists work with children? and How does context influence why, and how, artists work with children? To answer these questions, data, gathered through interviews, observations and surveys was analysed through a process of ‘progressive focusing’ (Stake, 2000). Highlighted in this research are the complex factors that influence the artist’s goals and practices, including child age, other adult support, length of program, and the environment. The multi-faceted and contextualised portrait constructed indicates that artists aim to promote child confidence, creativity, aesthetic awareness and joy, through practices that give emphasis to personalized and informal connections, modeling, co-construction, and creative inquiry.
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ItemPedagogical and cognitive usability in online learning( 2013)The last decade has seen a sharp – and necessary – increase in attention to the quality of eLearning which has expanded a relatively new area of usability specifically for online learning: pedagogical usability. This research focuses on the usability attributes that contribute to effective eLearning and delineates those pertinent to teaching (pedagogical usability) and those specific to learning (cognitive usability). A multifarious methodology provided the elicitation of data from almost all conceivable and feasible angles of the execution of eLearning in a real-world setting – the main positions being: the pedagogical considerations from the teacher-developers’ planning sessions through to the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by students, as well as an in-depth usability inspection and evaluation of the Learning Management System (LMS) used as the tool for delivery. The project, in essence, put a microscope on the entire process of eLearning. The complementary use of twelve methods of data collection for rigorous triangulation provided a synergic framework that enabled the examination of each stage of eLearning. The analytical framework applied to the data comprised a complex integration of existing models and a specifically devised analytical model that assisted in the deconstruction of all the factors that contribute to pedagogical and cognitive usability. The study introduces the concept of cognitive usability as distinct from pedagogical usability on the grounds that certain features and contributing factors to VLEs are more teacher-driven (pedagogical) while others are more learner-consummated (cognitive). The study found that a VLE’s constitutional design is governed by teachers’ philosophies about teaching and learning and their teaching styles and repertoires which in turn are also governed by curriculum design; the teachers’ lack of techno-pedagogical skills coupled with the limitations of the eLearning platform hold an equally pivotal role in determining the VLE’s pedagogical usability. The study showed a strong relationship between the technical, pedagogical and cognitive usability of a VLE and found that using an LMS to create eLearning is fraught with problems that are rooted in the technical design of the LMS. Since LMSs are a mandatory feature in almost all educational institutions nowadays, the findings of this study are particularly important since so much research focuses on the use of eLearning without specifically addressing the software used to create it. While even a VLE with low techno-pedagogical usability can still facilitate learning outcomes, this study showed that approximately one third of VLE activity is ineffective due to poor LMS design which impacts on the VLE design, leading to low cognitive usability.
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ItemCultural perspectives, thinking, educators and globalisation: a critical analysis of the Future Problem Solving Program( 2012)Globalisation in its modern phase has inevitably included a strong educational element, in which learning programs that originate in one part of the world have been transported to another. In concordance with economic trends in the contemporary era, this export trade has been primarily one-way. Curricula that have been devised in the industrialised societies of more ‘developed’ States - the so-called ‘West’ – have been introduced into regions that have very different cultural, socio-economic and educational characteristics and traditions. Contemporary models of teaching higher order thinking as a discrete curriculum focus have been part of this movement, particularly since the notion of thinking skills came to be perceived as central to an advanced school education since at least the 1970s. As a result, while a number of thinking skills programs have been developed in educational systems within economically advanced countries, Future Problem Solving (FPS) Program International remains one of the few that has adopted a deliberate line of internationalism, moving into regions beyond its initial base of the USA, Australia and New Zealand, such as Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa, with varying degrees of success. However, as with similar learning programs, the Future Problem Solving Program has been introduced into new territories on the premise that the notion of thinking does not vary across cultures, and that, regardless of the socio-economic and cultural background of the new FPS region, this form of educational transference is both possible and inevitably successful. This research project investigated the validity of transplanting thinking skills programs from one system to another on an international scale by focusing on a trinity of concepts that delineates the centre of this conundrum: culture, thinking and international education. The Future Problem Solving Program, along with the specific thinking skills on which it is instituted, provided the context of the investigation, which employed a comparative analysis of educators in the multicultural societies of Malaysia and South Africa, with a view to establishing the degree to which cultural background determined how thinking skills are conceived and enacted by educators. Using a grounded theory perspective, the findings of the project were threefold: first, that, different cultures do tend to conceptualise elements of thinking in different ways; that a converging spectrum of cultural dispositions towards thinking can be identified; and that those whose cultural dispositions of thinking are more towards the middle of the convergence, where a balance across cultural dispositions is more in evidence, tend to be those who are either more exposed to cultures outside their country of origin, or who are more inclined to support the cultural transformation of a society in the name of social, or national, stability. The implications of these findings for globalisation of thinking skills initiatives such as the Future Problem Solving Program are significant, for they suggest that such thinking skills programs need to be reworked to meet the pattern of cultural dispositions of thinking that exist within a particular region if they are to be successfully instituted in different places as part of a conscious program of international growth.