Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemMeasurement of the ability to generate higher order learning in MOOCs(University of Melbourne, 2016)
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ItemInvestigating the effect of mathematics problem context on the performance of Year 10 students( 2016)This thesis is to revisit and scrutinise a possible effect of problem context familiarity, context engagement, and levels of context use on the performance of Year 10 students in PISA and PISA-like problems. Two research phases (i.e. a quantitative phase and a qualitative phase) shaped the design of this study. These research phases adhere to the mixed methods explanatory sequential design. The quantitative phase investigated whether an alteration of students' context familiarity and context engagement influenced the students' performance when solving PISA and PISA-like problems—that were controlled, to the best extent possible, in their textual and problem core features. There were two experiments that differed in the criteria for choosing the problem contexts (expert judgement vs students judgment). Then, students' performance was compared at different levels of context use. Later, the relationship between students’ performance and degrees of context familiarity, degrees of context engagement, and levels of context use was examined, principally using an ordinal logistic regression model. The qualitative phase used stimulated recall interviews to understand how students interpreted and experienced context familiarity and context engagement as well as the students' behaviours towards the accessibility of problems and the solution methods to the problems, and therefore students’ performance. The results of the quantitative phase showed that more familiar and engaging contexts did not improve students’ performance in either experiment, that the performance decreased as levels of context use increased, and that neither higher degrees of context familiarity nor higher degrees of context engagement affected the students' performance but higher levels of context use did. Added to this—and as part of the research work involved in the quantitative phase— a system to classify mathematical problems in terms of levels of context use was developed theoretically and validated statistically. Main results of the qualitative phase indicated that although students appeared to have a well-established understanding of context familiarity this was not strong enough to influence the use of the problem context as a resource to solve a problem that required the students’ interaction with the real-world context.
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ItemUsing data from computer-delivered assessments to improve construct validity and measurement precision( 2016)Rapid uptake of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has influenced every aspect of modern life. The increased use of such technologies has brought many changes to the field of education. The current work focuses on educational assessment, and in particular, on some hitherto unexplored implications of increased computer delivery of educational assessments. When an assessment is paper-delivered, what is collected is the final product of a test-taker's thinking. In form, this product might range from their choice of response to a multiple-choice item, to an extended written response, but, regardless of form, the final product can offer only limited insight into the thought process that led to the final product. By contrast when an assessment is computer-delivered, it is a trivial matter to collect detailed information about every student interaction with the assessment material. Such data are often called “process data”. The current work uses process data from computer-delivered assessments of digital reading and problem solving included in the 2012 cycle of the Programme for International Assessment (PISA) to explore issues of construct validity and measurement precision. In previous work, process data have either been used in purely exploratory ways, or, while a link to theory has been made, the central issues in the current work have been at most, a peripheral focus. A review of the literature suggested four indicators derived from process data: navigation behaviour (to be used in relation to digital reading items) and total time, decoding time, and number of actions (to be used in relation to both digital reading and problem solving items). While all the indicators were derived directly from frameworks of digital reading and problem solving, there were differences in the expected relationship between the indicator and ability. In particular, while effective navigation behaviour is part of good digital reading across items with different demands, the relationship between total time, decoding time and number of actions may be expected to vary depending on the demands of an individual item. Therefore in the current work, two different approaches were needed. In the case of navigation behaviour, the indicator was included directly in the scoring of items, so that students received some credit for reaching the target page containing the information needed to answer the question even if they did not answer correctly. By including an indicator that is explicitly valued in digital reading in scoring, we can better assess the intended construct and therefore improve construct validity. In the case of total time, decoding time and number of actions, these indicators were included as regressors in the scoring models used, thereby increasing measurement precision. Results of the current work suggest that the new data arising from computer-delivered assessments can be used to improve our measurement of digital reading and problem solving by better measuring the intended construct, and by increasing measurement precision. More generally, the current work suggests that process data can be used in a way that is responsible, and well-linked to theory.
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ItemShaping futures, shaping lives: an investigation into the lived experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australian boarding schools( 2016)The role of boarding schools in helping to overcome education disadvantage for First Australian young people has received increasing attention, and funding, from government, the media, and private sector investors in recent years. Notwithstanding policy approaches encouraging, and for some populations even mandating, that students leave home to attend boarding school, little research has sought to understand how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students experience ‘mainstream’ boarding school and what impact it has on later life outcomes for them, their families and communities. It is well understood that a wide range of social factors, ranging from the macro-social to the individual, influence the health of populations generally, and Indigenous populations specifically (Saggers 2007, Anderson 2007). Education attainment levels are recognised as one of the social determinants of Indigenous health (Dunbar 2007). By contrast, in education policy, scant regard is paid to the social factors that underpin education engagement and success for First Australian students in predominantly non Indigenous schools. This thesis uses a narrative, multiple case study method to examine the experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australian boarding schools, and in their post school years. In all, seventy-four interviews were conducted, across every state and territory except Tasmania. These include interviews or focus group discussions with alumni of boarding schools (35); parents or community members (27); and school leaders or staff in boarding schools (12). Interview data were analysed to identify what participants sought to achieve through boarding school; what constrained or enabled positive outcomes; and what were the actual outcomes achieved by alumni in the short, medium and, in some cases, long terms. This research presents the most comprehensive evidence to date on the lived experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in Australian boarding schools. It establishes that as well as being determinants of health, racism, trauma, and social connectedness were also fundamentally important to education success for participants in this study. Data presented here indicate that when schools engaged authentically and proactively with these issues they assisted these young people to maximise the benefits they derived from education. Findings challenge the narrow and exclusively empirical measures currently used to define education ‘success’. Whereas schools and scholarship providers focus on preparing students to fit into school systems, research findings indicate that more critical attention should be paid to the systems themselves.
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ItemAnangu Muru Wunka - Talking Black Fella: a critical policy analysis of the Northern Territory compulsory teaching in English for the first four hours of each school day( 2016)This research investigated the effects on two remote Indigenous communities of a Northern Territory (NT) of Australia education language policy, Compulsory Teaching in English for the First Four Hours of each School Day (FFHP). Although the policy was introduced in 2008, it continues to have profound effects on the policy landscape of the NT which has never re-established the bilingual policy platform. The investigation involved a critical analysis of the FFHP and an ethnographic study of its effects. The research reported here follows two qualitative lines of study – the policy text (the process and content of the policy) and policy discourse (the discourse around the policy) in addition to its effects on those it was targeting. The data gathering methods entailed collecting key texts from critical moments of the FFHP implementation - the policy itself and operational guidelines in addition to media texts and a Hansard record. The field data collection comprised interviews with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous language education experts, two community case studies (one of which retained its bilingual program at the school and one which did not as a result of the FFHP) and critical ethnographical research. The latter used purposively selected adult and child participants for group and individual interviews (a total of 53). Given the Indigenous context of the field research and the desire to accurately depict remote Indigenous perspectives, Indigenous methodologies and participatory research approaches were employed. This entailed culturally appropriate consultation with participants, checking the accuracy and interpretation of interview data and Indigenous led participant selection. The analysis of the policy and key community interviews was achieved with critical discourse analysis (CDA). The particular approach to CDA employed was that developed by Reisigl and Wodak (2001) called Historical Discourse Approach (HDA) which emphasises the historical situatedness of discourse and the political dimensions and contexts at work in political texts. CDA is also frequently paired with ethnographic data collection. All community interviews were subjected to content analysis (CA) in order to deduce the major patterns and themes that arose in relation to the effects of the FFHP. This study revealed a language and cultural hierarchy operating with the adoption of the FFHP that entails a postcolonial construction of Indigenous people as ‘invisible’ and deficient. Although not as blatant as the texts associated with the separately occurring Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), there are distinctly covert negative representations that similarly allude to Indigenous abnormality and failure and imply criminality. In addition, the ideologies, presuppositions and assumptions of neo-liberalism and symbolism of the nation-state operating in the policy, construe, if only covertly, Indigenous languages (ILs), culture and people as in need of mainstreaming to achieve higher socio-economic status, well-being and national ‘belonging’. This is despite evidence that categorically demonstrates attachment to language and culture enhances well-being and socio-economic status. The effects of the policy on the two communities were surprisingly similar. Both communities complained of erosion in community participation and employment at the local schools that undermined the economic independence, self-determination and governance of the local population. Community participants were critical of the erratic policy creation and implementation and marginalisation of community members. The community with suspended bilingual programs complained of greater negative academic, well-being, behaviour and cognitive effects on children and a deterioration in resilience, all of which were difficult, if not impossible, to address given the oppressive political climate ‘out bush’. Such policy failure is common throughout the Indigenous policy landscape in Australia. As a consequence of the lack of legislative protection offered to Indigenous people and abuse of international human rights entailed in the FFHP, this study highlights the need for future policy creation and evaluation to be conducted from an Indigenous perspective and governance.
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ItemInside-out outside-in: a dual approach process model to developing work happiness( 2016)Placed within the positive organizational behavior and positive organizational scholarship paradigm, this PhD proposes and empirically tests a dual approach process model to developing wellbeing. Specifically, it examines associations between employee positive attitudes, perceptions of positive organization culture and employee wellbeing in a school setting. Further, it suggests two underlying processes that may explain these associations: selective exposure, confirmation bias, and attitude development. Using a mixed-methods approach three studies were undertaken: an observational design three-wave repeated measures field study to examine the naturally occurring patterns of relationships, and two positive psychology intervention studies to explore processes that may explain those relationships. Results suggest that positive attitudes and perceptions of positive organization culture influence work happiness in independent and synergistic ways. There is also some evidence for the processes of selective exposure, confirmation bias, and attitude development as the underlying mechanisms for these relationships. This thesis makes a new and unique theoretical contribution to the fields of Positive Organizational Behavior (POB) and Positive Organizational Scholarship by examining how psychological capital, organizational virtuousness and work happiness interrelate. It presents a theoretical model to developing wellbeing in the workplace and addresses a number gaps from the extant research, including: the need to understand more about how positive psychology interventions work and the processes through which they influence wellbeing (Lyubomirsky & Layous, 2013); the call to adopt a systems-approach to the implementation of positive education (Waters, 2011); the examination and use of implicit attitudes in organizational research (Latham, Stajkovic, & Locke, 2010); and the need to integrate positively oriented fields of research such as POB and POS (Youssef & Luthans, 2011). In an applied context, this research will help practitioners understand pathways to develop the psychological resources of employees, the importance of adopting a dual approach to foster and sustain wellbeing and the influential role that timing can play in the efficacy of wellbeing interventions.
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ItemAcademic staff and international engagement in Australian higher education( 2016)Australian higher education appears to be in the vanguard of internationalisation worldwide. In line with global changes to higher education, Australian universities have adopted comprehensive international strategies across their teaching, research and outreach agendas. By many measures, this strategic approach to internationalisation has been successful. Given the central role of academic staff within the life of the university, and with international strategies now touching on all aspects of a university’s activity, academic staff are important to the further internationalisation of Australian higher education. Yet little is known about the factors which influence the international engagement of Australian academics (that is, their involvement with the international dimensions of all aspects of their work) and the extent to which they consider international activities an important aspect of their academic work. This study has investigated the engagement of academic staff with the international dimensions of their work. It sought to identify the extent to which different aspects of international engagement have been integrated into contemporary understandings of academic work in Australia, as well as to examine the factors which influence academic staff choices in relation to their international engagement. Based on an Adaptive Theory approach (Layder, 1998), the research took case studies of two universities – a younger progressive university and an older research intensive university – which, between them, are broadly representative of one third of the Australian university sector. Qualitative data were collected through document analysis and in-depth interviews with thirty-seven academic staff drawn from Science and Business disciplines. The study found that the international dimensions of academic work are predominantly centred on research, despite the literature on internationalisation pointing to a more comprehensive focus and despite institutional strategies advocating for a more balanced approach to international engagement. In terms of contributions, the study has conceptualised a typology of international engagement to address the gap identified in the literature in relation to a holistic understanding of the international dimensions of academic work. Further findings are presented in relation to the influence of institutional and disciplinary context, as well as personal and individual factors. Particular to the Australian context is a finding in relation to geographic isolation, which is commonly described as both a driver and barrier to the international engagement of Australian academic staff. This study argues that institutions need to recognise the complex and interweaving nature of the factors which influence academic staff in relation to the international dimensions of their work. This recognition is important if institutions seek to foster greater international involvement amongst their academic community. In addition, institutions could review the role of leadership at the local level in fostering greater international engagement beyond research, as well as reconsider the availability of funding and technology to mitigate the barrier to international engagement of Australia’s distance from other countries.
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ItemThe predictive effect of adolescent emotional intelligence, IQ and gender for academic achievement: A study of the Victorian Certificate of Education( 2016)Objective: This study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and academic achievement in the adolescent population. The term adolescent emotional intelligence (AEI) was introduced to delineate the unique biopsychosocial development and growth that occurs in adolescence as it may impact on the construct of emotional intelligence (EI), which is developmentally differentiated from that of childhood and adulthood. Few researcher studies have analysed the individual differences in the effect of AEI in academic achievement in secondary school students. Hence, this study sought to investigate the simultaneous predictive effect of AEI, IQ and gender in adolescents completing their final year of secondary school. Methodology: Australia, as a member country of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), was selected for this study. Four secondary schools located in Victoria took part in the study. The Year 12 students in the study (n = 224males, n = 145females) were 16 to 18 years of age (N = 369). The Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (Adolescent Version) provided a trait EI measure of AEI. The Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices provided a measure of fluid intelligence, which was operationalised as the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). The Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) percentile rank score stipulated a national standardised measure of academic achievement. The simultaneous predictive effects of AEI, IQ and gender for VCE academic achievement were investigated using a saturated regression model. Results: Analysis of AEI and the four AEI traits resulted in five regression models, predicting 26 to 29% of VCE academic achievement. The positive predictive effect of AEI in academic achievement accounted for a VCE percentile rank score of 4.13 points per standard deviation. Further, analysis of the AEI trait regression models identified a main effect for the interaction between gender and emotions direct cognition. Decomposition of the regression equations in IQ and gender combination groups found the effects of AEI and AEI traits for VCE academic achievement were heterogeneous, subject to developmental differences in the IQ and gender combination groups. Therefore, the predictive effect of AEI was dynamically and adaptively utilised by Year 12 students in their VCE academic achievement, subject to individual differences in adolescent AEI, IQ and gender.
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ItemEngagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours and the influence of adaptability and emotional dysregulation( 2016)Antisocial and risk-taking behaviours or behaviours that show a disregard for, or the violation of, social norms such as the law or the rights of others are a prevalent social issue. In this research, the types and levels of antisocial and risk-taking behaviours were investigated through five studies using three convenience samples (n = 181, n = 393, and n = 285). The interrelationships between antisocial and risk-taking behaviours with emotional dysregulation and adaptive change were then investigated. During Study 1, a measure of engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours was developed and psychometrically evaluated. This measure was then utilised in Study 2 to explore the initial ages of engagement in 45 behaviours, prevalence rates in an Australian sample, and the associations between the behaviours. The retrospectively recorded initial ages of engagement supported the age crime curve as engagement predominantly occurred during adolescence (overall mean age = 17.01, SD = 2.51). The recorded initial ages of engagement also suggested that initial engagement in antisocial behaviour occurred earlier than engagement in substance-related behaviours. It was also found that engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours tended to increase in severity with age and that engagement in one antisocial behaviour increased an individual’s propensity for engaging in other antisocial acts. To further our understanding of engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours, this construct’s relationship with emotional dysregulation and adaptive change was explored during Study 3. It was found that emotional dysregulation and low use of the adaptive change factors were significantly associated with engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours and that emotional dysregulation mediated the relationship between adaptive change and engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours. Study 4 investigated the influence of gender, adaptive functioning, and education attainment on engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours, emotional dysregulation, and adaptive change. Males demonstrated a higher propensity for engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours and lower emotional dysregulation compared to females. As anticipated, no gender differences in adaptive functioning were found. The adaptive change typologies were found to be predictive of emotional regulation difficulties and use of the adaptive change factors but not engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours. Education attainment was found to be predictive of all the constructs, as individuals with low education attainment had a higher propensity for engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours, and emotional dysregulation; and received lower adaptive change scores compared to those with high education attainment. Study 5 investigated the influence of subculture affiliation and found that engagement in antisocial and risk-taking behaviours was associated with subculture affiliation. The findings of this research provide insights for practitioners and researchers, and for informing future interventions.
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ItemLearning to live together: humanism and education after the postcolonial challenges( 2016)The idea of humanism has a long history in philosophies of education. Within the Western philosophical traditions, humanism has assumed different forms, often in response to the shifting historical conditions. It has provided a basic template for envisioning educational goals, and for the kind of individuals and society education is expected to produce. In more recent decades, humanism as a philosophical construct has, however, been the subject of criticisms from a wide range of political and disciplinary perspectives. Such criticisms have arisen from a variety of sources, including structuralism, post-structuralism, feminist, environmental and animal studies. One of the more distinctive criticisms has emerged from postcolonial theorists. These theorists have suggested that while humanism was often portrayed as a liberating project, it in fact served as a driving force behind colonial oppression itself. In colonial education, it legitimized the construction of colonial relations. Postcolonial theories have challenged this role performed by humanism. A question emerges then as to whether this implies a rejection of humanism itself. This thesis engages in a critical analysis of the challenges that three major postcolonial theorists – Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Edward Said – pose to the viability and desirability of humanism. After constructing an historical account of humanism and its connections to education within Western traditions, it briefly explores some of the contemporary debates about humanism as a construct. It then suggests that in different ways and to varying degrees, Fanon, Spivak and Said, in their prioritizing of the lived experience of the subaltern, keep open the possibility, and desirability, of humanism as a matter of justice. They do not thus entirely abandon humanism, but suggest the need to rearticulate its meaning and significance so that it is used as a moral resource with which to negotiate the shifting conditions of cultural difference and exchange. The thesis contends therefore that the conditions of globalization have made the idea of humanism more relevant and urgent than ever. Rather than making grand claims or guarantees about its success, this thesis makes the more modest argument that a humanism emerging from the postcolonial challenges needs to be treated as a dynamic notion whose meaning is rearticulated through on-going dialogue and negotiations within and across communities. Education has a major role to play in this, in developing the conversational skills and moral dispositions that enable us to live together, despite our differences.