Faculty of Education - Theses

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Start date: 1944 × Subject: Curriculum planning × Subject: Science × Subject: Study and teaching ×

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    The Australian Science Education Project: a case study in curriculum implementation
    Gill, William ( 1991)
    The Australian Science Education Project (ASEP) was developed between 1969-74 as Australia's first national curriculum project. ASEP was designed to introduce major changes for years 7-10 science in materials, content and assigned roles for teachers and students. While initial sales of the ASEP materials were excellent in Victoria the extent of implementation was low. This study examines reasons for this unsuccessful implementation from a user (i.e. teacher and schools) perspective. Determinants or causes of the extent of implementation relating to the nature of the ASEP materials, the strategies for implementation and the nature of teaching and schools are examined. The fundamental cause of the low level of implementation in Victoria is related to the development of the ASEP materials from a 'technological' perspective with limited input by classroom teachers. The materials developed in this way could only be successful if the implementation strategies included extensive in-service and curriculum support for science teachers and this did not happen in Victoria. Based on Havelock's 'Problem Solver' perspective of curriculum change a model for effective implementation is proposed which incorporates a 'user' perspective and the notion of mutual adaptation between the innovation and the user system.
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    Researching teacher agency in primary school science: a discursive psychological approach
    Arnold, Jennifer Lynne ( 2004)
    This ontological study is concerned with analyses of the problem of the scientific reform of the primary school curriculum. It was conducted at a time when a solution was sought through State mandated curriculum and standards specification and primary teacher accountability. The case study developed as an interactive ethnography (Woods 1996) written from the point of view of the facilitator of a whole school science curriculum project. The focus of the enquiry emerged as an exploration of social episodes in the life of two experienced Early Years teachers engaged in the yearlong project. Discursive psychology became the theoretical framework for the analysis of the primary teachers' professional identity formation in their professional work=place conversations with the author. Pronominal coding has been used to mark the teachers' psychological location in their storylines of the implementation of enquiry-based science education in their classes. In the teachers' accounts they simultaneously position themselves in their acts and actions and in the local moral order of duties and responsibilities. A significant disparity is shown to exist between the ontologies of the primary teachers' and research accounts, which present mental state analyses of teachers' lack of confidence or reluctance to teach science related to limited scientific understanding. The. study offers a schematic model of social action that theorizes human agency as, developing and functioning within the interactional nexus of local community settings. The community operates in the lives of these teachers not as a latent, abstract concept; instead it gives ideological differences and teachers' understandings of themselves significance in everyday educational practices.