Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemWood carvers of the Tami Islands(Melbourne State College, 1979)
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ItemA study of the notion of role in relation to the behaviour of full-time mature students in a regional college( 1979)The study seeks to analyze the motivations and performance of forty-five mature students in full-time courses in a regional college from the theoretical perspective of role. Role theory and empirical studies based on the literature are outlined and queried; a hypothetical model is set up, to ascertain the supposed behaviour of adults entering 'a re-socialization experience', and this is tested against findings from the study itself. The conclusion is that role theory has a limited validity as in explanation or predictor of adult behaviour, particularly in a complex society, and that many factors, environmental as well as philosophical, must be taken into account in assessing adult behaviour. Nevertheless, role behaviour can be seen as an element of behaviour, particularly the behaviour of older adults; it has less application to younger adults.
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ItemThe effects of student characteristics and computer based modes of drill and practice on achievement in primary school mathematics( 1979)The study was designed to investigate the effects of extraversion, sex and computer based modes of drill and practice in arithmetic on achievement in arithmetic for grade three children. A computer based system of drill and practice in arithmetic, based on the 'Strands' program from Stanford University, was developed and implemented for the experiment which was conducted during Term II, 1978. The system of drill and practice was used in an interactive, individualized mode (CAI), a non-interactive individualized mode (CMI) and two modes in which the teacher selected exercises from the program. In one of these teacher selected modes the performances of the children were displayed in the classroom. The children were classified as extraverts, introverts or medium extraverts as a result of their responses to the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory. The grade three children at Moreland Primary School were pretested for initial arithmetic achievement. They were randomly allocated to treatments of drill and practice in arithmetic after being ranked on the extraversion scale. The experimental program extended over eleven weeks in which the children were given daily drill and practice in arithmetic using the mode to which they were assigned. One hundred and seventeen students completed the program and the posttest. The experimental design for the investigation is a 2 X 3 X 4 factorial model for which an analysis of covariance was used to test the significance of the hypotheses formulated for the study. The cell frequency for the twenty-four cells was randomly reduced to three to enable analysis of covariance for equal cell frequencies. The hypotheses which were supported by significant t statistics are: i. Extravert students performed at a higher level of achievement in arithmetic than introverts ii. Boys had superior performance on the non-displayed mode of teacher selected. drill; when the results for the teacher selected mode were displayed the girls had superior performances iii. Extraverts are better suited to non-individualized modes of drill than introverts In six cases the analysis indicated possible trends that: i. Boys performed better than girls. ii. The performances on the teacher selected modes were superior to those on the individualized modes iii. The interactive, individualized mode of Grill and practice (CAI) produced superior results to the non-interactive individualized mode (CMI) iv. Extraverts are favoured by CAI, while the introverts are favoured by CMI v. In the teacher selected modes the introverts' performances improved on the displayed results mode; the extraverts' performances improved on the non-display of results, thus reducing the superiority of the. extraverts when the results were displayed.
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ItemAn appraisal of "The educational recommendations of the World Bank Mission Report on Papua New Guinea, 1964-74"( 1979)It is difficult to generalize about a varied and fragmented country like Papua New Guinea, with its varied and fragmented population. This large island with its forbidding terrain, tropical climate and luxuriant flora have combined to make it a retreat for successive and often hostile primitive groups. Despite all of this, of necessity, one is forced to generalize about both the country and its inhabitants, and thus largely ignore the above complexities. Consequently this thesis examines in a global manner the enormously difficult task of bringing Western-education to approximately two million indigenous New Guineans as part of an economic plan that was aimed at developing the country in the mid 1960's. In fact the explicit purpose of the thesis is to appraise the educational recommendations of the World Bank Mission's Report on Papua New Guinea in 1964, and as they related to the ensuing decade. As a prelude to this, and largely to provide the historical perspective in which the World Bank made its report, a great deal of background data on political and educational developments in New Guinea is included. Then the explicit educational recommendations of the Mission are highlighted using a sectoral approach. Finally the apparent outcomes are examined, and the educational achievements of the early 1970's are contrasted with the planned projections made by the Mission in 1964. A further aspect that should add to the validity of the appraisal of the World Bank Mission's recommendations, is a critique on the overall nature and basis of the Report. Thus although it is conceded that the World Bank's Report was primarily the result of an economic mission it is also argued that its plan for development provided vital direction and impetus to education in Papua New Guinea. Now despite the relatively naive economic thinking that surrounded the World Bank in the 1960's the Mission's report was a fundamental planning document that recognised that the education system required a complete restructuring to develop mid and higher level manpower to facilitate the growth process. As such the World Bank Report can be deemed to have been a most significant catalytic influence that was of vital evolving importance to Papua and New Guinea's development, especially from 1964 to 1968 and probably until the early 1970's.
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ItemThe establishment and operation of school councils in Victorian government high schools, 1973-1978( 1979)In 1976 reforms to the administration of Victorian government schools were instituted in response to pressure from political and education theorists, Education Department officials, parents and teachers. Advocates for reform were critical of a centralized and hierarchically administered education system which, they felt, was unresponsive to the needs of people affected by it - parents, teachers and students. Pressure for reforms to permit more broadly based participation in the administration of public institutions was responsible, between 1965 and 1973, for the granting of teacher autonomy in curriculum development. Finance was also allocated to schools by federal and state governments to enable them to define community needs and develop facilities to provide for those needs. Advisory councils came to be seen as too limited in powers and composition to effectively discharge these new responsibilities. Consequently, in 1973, the movement for reform of school councils commenced with discussions and negotiations between ministers, Education Department officials, representatives of parent, teacher and student organisations and interested groups in schools. These discussions were to result in the reform of the powers and composition of school councils and the election of newly constituted councils late in 1976. This study describes that reform movement and isolates the expectations of the advocates for reform. Interviews with principals and questionnaires administered to all councillors in nine high schools in the Ballarat Regional Directorate enable an analysis of the extent to which those expectations have been fulfilled over two years of operation of a limited sample of reformed councils from 1976 to 1978. Although new councils are now more representative and more actively involved in school administration the study shows that parental interest is still low, councils are not representative of all groups in society, and their powers are still too restrictive to allow them to influence the content and methods of instruction. These findings direct attention to the need for more detailed studies of community expectations for involvement in schools as well as careful analysis of decentralization of school government in view of the failure of the initial representative procedures in school councils.
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ItemThe relationship between peer group status and academic achievement in the primary school( 1979)Data collected during a school intervention programme were used to examine the relationship of academic achievement to peer group acceptance and to peer ratings for work orientation. The sample consisted of 371 primary school children, from Preparatory Grade to Grade 6. Children's friendship preferences were used to determine social acceptance within each grade and to identify children who were socially isolated. Performance skills were assessed by standardized tests in Grades 1 to 6; teacher judgments were used for Preparatory Grades. Scores were obtained on sociometric and achievement variables in May, and again in November at the conclusion of treatment designed to improve social relationships within each grade. The results from all grade levels showed that academic achievement was positively related to the total number of acceptances and to work orientation status, but negatively related to the total number of rejections. Only a moderate level of prediction was obtained from friendship preferences and work orientation ratings as the correlations with measures of achievement were generally well below 0.5. Ratings for work orientation were found to overlap with positive and negative friendship choices, and it was concluded that prediction of achievement would not be reduced substantially by elimination of work orientation from the predictor set. Children who were socially isolated performed worse academically than those who were not. A significant difference at the 0.05 level was obtained for spelling but not for reading in Grades 1-3; and for reading, addition, subtraction and division in Grades 4-6, but not for spelling or multiplication. Differences in performance in Preparatory Grades were not significant. Isolation in May was responsible for all differential effects in achievement in May and November, but the long term effects of isolation were of greater consequence, significant relationships emerging more frequently in November. This was interpreted as reflecting a progressive decrement in performance concomitant with consistent isolation throughout the school year. There was no evidence of a significant improvement in the performance of isolates compared with non-isolates during teacher intervention, but there was some indication of an improvement in social relationships in Grades 1-3.
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ItemSchool-based curriculum development : its introduction and implementation in Victorian state high schools 1968-1978( 1979)Curriculum reform in the nineteen-sixties was in part a response to economic and technological change. In examining the antecedents to secondary curriculum reform in Victoria, however, I have discussed educational as well as economic factors. Secondary curriculum reform was closely associated with the Director of Secondary Education, Ron Reed, the Curriculum Advisory Board he established, and the introduction of a policy of school-based curriculum development. The scope of the review, the strategy and the implementation policy adopted by Reed and the C.A.B. were unusual and are examined in detail in this study. The devolution of responsibility to schools for continuing development of the new curriculum was fundamental to Reed's policy. But while its basis was pedagogical, it involved a redistribution of control over education and thus was inherently political. The conflict between secondary teachers and secondary inspectors of which curriculum control was a part was therefore probably unavoidable. It was exacerbated, however, by an incomplete understanding of the limited nature of the policy, and of the curriculum theory on which it rested. By 1973 the reform movement had reached its peak. Many schools abandoned the reforms because they had failed to produce the anticipated results. Some schools persisted in developing the new curriculum, however, and the experiences of one such school, Ferntree Gully High School, are examined in detail here. It is my hypothesis that without the power within the school to revise the curriculum in the light of experience, continued development could not have taken place. It is clear, however, that this was not a sufficient condition, and I have examined the school experience in order to reveal some of the other conditions necessary. The impact of the reform policy, although primarily concerned with curriculum content and organization, was on the practices and organization of the school as a whole. In order to understand this it is necessary to see the relationship between curriculum content and classroom interaction and between curriculum organization and school organization. These relationships, implicit in the work of the C.A.B., are only now beginning to emerge in curriculum theory. ii
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ItemThe effects of trait anxiety, mathematical ability, method of testing, task difficulty, and their interactions, on state anxiety and performance in mathematics at primary school( 1979)A review was made of the theoretical and research literature related to the trait-state concept of anxiety, the relationship of anxiety to academic performance; and some factors confounding the anxiety, performance relationship. A study investigating the differential effect of anxiety on performance under two different methods of testing was reviewed. A study to replicate the findings related to anxiety, performance and varying test precedures was proposed. Data collected in the study made possible an investigation of Spielberger's Trait-State concept of anxiety and Spence's Drive Theory. One hundred and seventy six male, State primary school children drawn from sixteen grade five and six classes took part in the study. All testing was carried out in term I of 1978. As hypothesized the formal method of testing proved to be more anxiety arousing than the informal method of testing and students performed better under the latter testing procedure. Low anxious students performed better than high anxious students under both testing conditions. The study provided further support for Spielberger's Trait-State anxiety theory with high trait anxious students displaying higher levels of state anxiety than law trait anxious students, confirming that the State-A scale is a sensitive device for measuring differential anxiety arousal. The hypotheses related to Spence's Drive Theory were only partially supported by the results. Explanations as to why the interaction between task difficulty, ability and anxiety might not have been significant in this study were discussed. In general this study found evidence confirming the notion that high anxiety hinders performance, particularly for low ability students.
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ItemThe Victorian teachers' unions, 1946-1975( 1979)Victorian teachers' unions have a continuous history going; back to the 1880s although their influence prior to the Second World War was erratic. Teachers tended to be divided amongst themselves with the primary teachers dominating their post-primary colleagues. The 1946-1975 period saw dramatic changes in teacher. unionism and a growth in the field of white-collar unionism'. To start with Victorian state school teachers were unified within a confident V.T.U., which in 1945 had helped to. defeat the State Government and had subsequently seen, the establishment of the Teachers' Tribunal, but disunity. followed. The period became dominated: by the relationship between primary and post-primary teachers and the ensuing conflict led to the fragmentation of the V.T.U. and the establishment of separate unions for secondary and technical teachers v the V.S.T.A. and the T.T.A.V. The conflict was aggravated by the expansion in post-primary education and the fact that schools were ill-prepared' to cope with it. Thus the growing numbers of secondary and technical teachers became disillusioned with the conservatism of the V.T.U. and supported the establishment of new unions which catered specifically for their needs. These events led to a reassessment of the nature of teachers' unions and their methods of exerting influence. The V.S.T.A. and', to a lesser extent, the T.T.A.V., applied industrial tactics more commonly used by blue-collar unions in their attempts to initiate changes and. to make teaching a profession. The successes included abolition of some outmoded practices, control of entry to teaching, abolition of inspection, the development of a conditions policy and changes to the Teachers' Tribunal. Towards the end of the period in question a combination of internal and external factors-saw the V.T.U. lose some of its conservative image: and move closer to the other two unions, making a future federation of all state school teachers' unions a possibility. The three unions that evolved adopted a democratic structure, with large membership involvement and with policies decided by annual conferences and then implemented by all other levels - from council and executive down to, individual school branches. All three unions saw their function as developing industrial,, educational, pressure group, and social and "Friendly Society" policies and tactics. Teachers' unions continued to share many of the preoccupations and features of the white-collar movement. There was an uncertainty as to whether they should have allied themselves with the professions or with the blue collar unions. The uncertainty affected their methods of campaigning and their relationship with other bodies. Moves to develop closer links; with other unions through membership of the Trades Hall Council brought internal disagreements, although two of the unions took the step without encountering difficulties. The direction of the unions was influenced by two further factors: a change in the passive/conservative role of the dominant women members, and the difficulty of communicating policies. to the: public through the media.. Finally, there was more awareness; of the need of teachers to act in unity in the face of common problems, to develop links with other. employee organizations, and to look at new methods of strengthening their unions and planning for the future.