Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemMindfulness in Education: Critical Debates, Perspectives, and Pragmatic Recommendations( 2023-11)Interest in mindfulness for education has burgeoned. However, this growth in interest is followed by emerging debates and criticisms regarding the intentions and the social and political implications of integrating mindfulness into schools and universities. While scholars have increasingly attended to these critiques and criticisms, it is unclear how these issues and concerns may translate into practical considerations for educational leaders, policy makers, and stakeholders. This dissertation sought to explicate foundational discussions on three critical considerations for mindfulness in education: 1) a persistent tension between the need to adapt mindfulness for contemporary and secular applications, while preserving the integrity of the practice; 2) the social and political implications arising from implementing mindfulness amidst a context of neoliberalism, commercialism and consumerism; and 3) the nascent status of existing empirical evidence on mindfulness, and a limited research understanding of the potential adverse effects of mindfulness-based programs/practice, when done with children and adolescents, especially those with a predisposed vulnerability. This dissertation offers pragmatic recommendations to address each of these critical considerations. To provide empirically grounded insights into the three critical considerations for mindfulness in education, this dissertation presents three research studies which examined educators’ and university-attending emerging adults’ perspectives on mindfulness in education, and their experiences with mindfulness practice and mindfulness initiatives provided by their educational institutions. The findings provide support to the acceptability of mindfulness, as a universally applicable, suitable and beneficial approach to mental health and well-being, among educators and university students. In general, educators’ and university students’ perceived purpose and motivations for practicing mindfulness tended to reflect ‘thin’ and ‘instrumental’ goals, which align with the commonly proposed aims of the practice, both in the literature and in popular culture. Concerns relating to potential religious conflicts and adverse effects from mindfulness practice were raised by few educators. In addition, educators valued independent research evaluation of mindfulness in education, though they lacked confidence in the current state of research. Overall, educators believed that mindfulness was valuable to education, and was beneficial to practice by students and educators regardless of their age or religious backgrounds. However, educators emphasised on the importance of committing to ‘proper’ implementation of mindfulness in education, in order for such a movement to have positive impact on education. These results are discussed in light of the proposed critical considerations. Further contribution of the dissertation to the topic is discussed and future directions for research are proposed.
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ItemCrafting wellbeing at work: Analysing the effects of job crafting to guide the development of a new coaching-assisted job crafting program( 2023-12)Job crafting involves employees proactively redesigning their work boundaries to better align with their work needs, skills, interests, and passions. Research on job crafting has increased exponentially in recent years, yet the growing literature on job crafting has become relatively saturated with cross-sectional research. This means that much of the evidence on job crafting is limited in its ability to allow causal inferences. Furthermore, the available work that generally does allow for stronger causal inferences, such as experimental research, has shown somewhat mixed findings, suggesting that a deeper analysis is needed to determine whether causal inferences are currently plausible and also what makes interventions more effective in yielding desired work outcomes. Thus, the aim of this research is to explore and analyse the causal effect that job crafting has with key outcome variables, and to develop and pilot an approach that may help overcome some of the limitations of job crafting interventions. These aims were addressed using three studies and a conceptual review. Study 1 is a systematic review and meta-analysis using longitudinal job crafting literature (k = 66, N = 27,195) that revealed that job crafting at Time 1 had strong, positive associations with a range of desired work outcomes at a later time point. Findings from this study provide evidence of temporal separation, thereby providing stronger evidence for a potential directional relationship than previous reviews which primarily consist of cross-sectional research. However, as longitudinal research does not allow for absolute conclusions about causality to be drawn, Study 2 extended these findings with an analysis for causality to assess whether a causal relationship exists between job crafting, and two key work outcomes: work engagement and job performance. Using Hill’s (1965) framework, the extant literature was appraised against six criteria and showed that there was evidence to suggest that a positive, causal relationship may exist between expansion-oriented job crafting and work engagement. Findings from this study also revealed that job crafting interventions are generally limited by such factors as including isolated job crafting workshops, with participants afforded little ongoing support, structure, and guidance, that have reduced the effectiveness of the interventions. I argue that these limitations could be overcome by integrating workplace coaching into job crafting interventions. Thus, Study 3 conceptually reviewed the feasibility and highlighted the benefits of integrating coaching with job crafting interventions as a way to increase their effectiveness. Study 4 piloted this new integrated intervention empirically in a mixed method pilot study (n = 8 intervention group, n = 6 control group). Qualitative feedback about the intervention delivery and coaching was also obtained. Findings from this study provided promising preliminary evidence regarding the positive effect that the addition of coaching had on job crafting interventions.
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ItemUncovering Student Values and Wellbeing Across Mathematics and Science Education( 2023-09)Over the past few decades, interest in student wellbeing has increased worldwide. However, the literature focuses on general wellbeing rather than subject-specific experiences. Given the pervasive negative attitudes, emotions, under-participation, and disengagement of students in mathematics and science education, I argue for a wellbeing approach that supports students to thrive, which is contextualised to these subjects. This thesis aimed to elucidate value-based student wellbeing experiences specific to mathematics and science education. An exploratory sequential mixed methods approach was employed to uncover diverse students’ values to develop and empirically confirm mathematical (MWB) and science (ScWB) wellbeing frameworks. In total, 13,708 primary and secondary students across three countries (Australia, mainland China, and New Zealand) responded to a survey. Thematic and statistical analyses were undertaken for the qualitative and quantitative components of this survey, respectively. Across diverse age groups, cultures, and countries, findings suggested that the fulfilment of seven core or ‘ultimate’ values fostered students’ MWB: Accomplishments, cognitions, engagement, meaning, perseverance, positive emotions, and relationships. The same seven plus an autonomy ultimate value were associated with students’ ScWB. Despite the similarity of these ultimate values for diverse students, the instrumental values underpinning these ultimate values appeared to be culturally unique. Australian students rated their wellbeing higher in science than in mathematics education. Gender differences in wellbeing were wider in science than mathematics education, with males reporting significantly higher ScWB than females. My research makes subject-specific wellbeing visible. Findings can potentially inform curriculum development, teacher education, and educational policies to support more engaging and meaningful mathematics and science pedagogies.
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ItemWhat is logical deduction, in relation to physics, and how can students improve in this?( 2023-11)This research was done in the context of the increasing emphasis on thinking in education and the contention by many researchers that improvement in thinking leads to improvement in learning. The other context is the difficulty of physics as a subject at high school and the constant search for better methods of teaching the subject. The objective was to investigate the suitability of logic education as a method to improve students understanding of physics. The current state of physics and thinking education was explored in the Literature Review. This included an analysis of methods aimed at improving student performance in physics, improving thinking and improving performance in physics by improving the thinking that occurs in this subject. Consequently, logical deduction in physics was deemed an area with the potential to support such improvement. As well, the process of logical deduction was found to need clarification. The nature of logical deduction was, therefore, explored using a philosophical method. The first outcome of this was that the process usually thought of as ‘logical deduction’ was reconceptualised as ‘deductive inferring’. This was to better reflect its nature as a thinking process. Wittgenstein’s critique of solitary rule-following was then applied to the processes of deductive and inductive inferring, and they were problematised accordingly. Consequently, a more accurate delineation of these processes was given as deductive-like and inductive-like inferring. To assess the suitability of logic education for physics education, the thinking involved in physics problem-solving was investigated empirically using a think-aloud method. It was found that deductive-like inferring played a key role in this thinking. For instance, it was implicated in moving from the information given in a question, alongside assumed knowledge, towards an answer. The results strongly suggested that logical deduction should be an element in a suite of thinking skills explicitly taught to high school physics students, and that more emphasis should be placed on logic and thinking more generally in education. The results of these analyses also motivate further research in this area and suggestions for these were made.
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ItemThe experience of transition and adjustment for mature-age, undergraduate students in their first year of university(University of Melbourne, 2015)
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ItemDevelopmental assessment and metacognition in teachers' professional learning and differentiated teaching(University of Melbourne, 2014)
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ItemWorking through tension : a response to the concerns of lesbian, gay and bisexual secondary school students(University of Melbourne, 2001)
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ItemA terrible honesty : the development of a personal voice in musical improvisation(University of Melbourne, 1996)
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ItemMeasurement of the ability to generate higher order learning in MOOCs(University of Melbourne, 2016)