Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemTeaching abstract physics to junior secondary students using computer technology(University of Melbourne, 2001)This study investigated the use of computer technology in the teaching of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity to junior secondary students. A teaching unit was developed incorporating a computer program for the purposes of the research. Six subjects completed pre-tests prior to undertaking the program and post-tests at the conclusion of the program. The subjects were also interviewed at the conclusion of their post-tests. All subjects demonstrated some degree of conceptual change in their understanding of relativistic effects. Five of the six subjects demonstrated a considerable change in their conceptual understanding of abstract phenomena described by the theory.
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ItemThe relationship between levels of social competence and of false belief understanding in children with Asperger's Syndrome( 2001)Social competence is seen to develop in young children through an awareness of self, then others and on to an awareness of others' mental states in what is known as theory of mind. Children with Asperger's Syndrome are characterised by impairments in social development. It has been suggested that a delay in developing a theory of mind underlies this deficit in social behaviour. Lalonde and Chandler (1995) examined the relationship between social behaviour as determined by teacher ratings on a questionnaire and performance on theory of mind tasks related to the understanding of false belief. Their subjects were normal pre-schoolers. The study reported here used the methodology of Lalonde and Chandler (1995) to investigate the relationship between social behaviour and understanding of false belief in six school-aged boys with Asperger's Syndrome. No clear outcome on the relationship was obtained although greater understanding was seen to relate to age. Observations of some real life social behaviours of three subjects were made. The real life observations extended the data obtained by experimental means.
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ItemWomen in Collingwood in the depression of the 1930s( 2001)This thesis is about the lives of women in Collingwood during the Depression of the 1930s. They fought tirelessly to have their families fed and clothed, often sharing the little they had. Homes were primitive, bathrooms were uncommon and most houses had no water in the home. Shopping was done on a daily basis as there were no refrigerators. With constant childcare under these conditions, women were almost literally chained to the home. Even in the 1930s it was not accepted that women work outside the home. In some instances women would go without food to ensure that their children were fed, some women suffering from malnutrition. The Women's Hospital was where Collingwood women went for treatment. As there was no Medicare, doctors were unavailable to the working class. Marriage called for perseverance as divorce was uncommon. With the working-class wife heading the family, men, especially unemployed men, regarded this as a blow to their pride. A common occurrence for families unable to meet their rent payments was eviction. Eventually the Government gave a subsidy towards the rent for those who received an eviction order. Many people relied on charity, indicating just how desperate they were. Over 11,000 women out of 16,000 women in Collingwood were either unemployed or dependent on husbands' uncertain incomes. For many, charity was the only answer. Many of the remaining 5,000 women were domestic servants, barmaids, factory workers or shop assistants. Barmaids had a lowly reputation as their work was not regarded as respectable 'women's work'. Professional women, teachers and kindergartners came from the more affluent areas to work in Collingwood. Some women resorted to crime, shoplifting and even violence as a matter of survival. Others turned to abortion and prostitution, both outlawed at this time. Men were not neglected in this thesis. They suffered humiliation and degradation as they formed endless queues, and more often than not returned home only to report no job.
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ItemThe impact of information technology on the development of literacy skills in a secondary school( 2001)This study reports on a relationship between the increased use of Information Technology (IT), in both domestic and school environments and the development of literacy in reading comprehension and vocabulary skills in a sample of 52 students in a junior high school. The study was prompted by a perception based on my own personal observation as a classroom teacher in the computer studies area, that the increased availability of personal computers was coinciding with a decline of literacy skills demonstrated in submitted written work by my students. Other teachers also expressed their concern that students were displaying more interest in using IT and a coinciding reduction in reading and writing in class. The study reveals that a majority of students has access to personal computers at home and that they spend more time playing computer games than they do reading the kind of variety of printed text that would benefit the development of their basic comprehension, vocabulary and writing skills. Some correlations were found between high computer use and low scores on Progressive Achievement Tests in Reading (Vocabulary and Comprehension) as well as with low scores on other written exercises. These findings indicated that a high use of personal computers impacts on the development of literacy in reading (comprehension and vocabulary) and writing skills. The parents of the children studied were also surveyed and their comments indicated that the majority felt that their children spent more time on computers than they did on reading any type of printed text or practising their handwriting skills. Despite this, parents were convinced of need for the computer technology in their domestic environment for the educational development their children require. A majority of teachers who were interviewed also expressed their concern at how students were not developing literacy skills at this age. They felt that the acquisition and the development of basic literacy skills should occur at this stage of schooling. It was felt that it was crucial that students, growing up in the "Information Age", developed language literacy skills as well as computer literacy skills. Further study on a wider scale is necessary to specifically identify whether the decline in language literacy is directly tied to the advancements in Information Technologies and their increased use by students. In reality there may be a transformation of literacy that is occurring faster than society and schools can adapt to it. Literacy is a relative concept that must be set in the context of economic and social demands.
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ItemAn investigation of adult attention-getting strategies used with children with typical development, hearing impairment and autism( 2001)This study investigated the use of adult attention getting strategies with children with typical development hearing impairment and autism. Six children with typical development six children with hearing impairment and two children with autism and their primary caregivers were involved in the study. Their ages ranged from 29 months to 44 months at the time of videotaping Data consisted of videotaped adult child interaction during a free play session at the setting of their choice. Adult s attention getting strategies and the latency of the child s response in the middle five minutes of the play session were coded. The results show that parents of typically developing children and autistic children used verbal attention getting strategies more frequently than did children with hearing impairment. Parents of children with hearing impairment used more attention getting strategies overall. Children with typical development had quicker responses to attention getting strategies than the other two groups of participants. The more responsive the child was to the adults attention getting strategies the less these strategies were used by the adults. For the groups with typical development and hearing impairment non verbal attention getting strategies were responded to more quickly than were verbal strategies. Children with autism responded to verbal and non verbal attention getting strategies Just as quickly. The parents of children with typical development experienced more success in gaining their children s attention whereas the parents of children with hearing impairment and autism experienced a similarly reduced success rate to their attention getting strategies. Results also showed that there was a negative correlation between success response rate and response latency to each attention getting strategy. The findings of the study show some similarities some differences and the successfulness of particular attention getting strategies used by the parents of children with typical development hearing impairment and autism It also provides experimental data of attention getting strategies used by the parents of the three groups.
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ItemThe communicative interactions of hearing impaired students with hearing peers and regular teachers( 2001)This project examined the levels of control used in interaction by regular teachers and normally hearing peers with mainstreamed hearing impaired students. The communicative interaction of thirteen students; ten normally hearing and three hearing impaired, and their teacher was observed. Observations were recorded and then analysed based on the characteristics of communication developed by Wood.D, Wood.H, Griffiths.A & Howarthl (1986). The interactions experienced by hearing impaired students are important to the development of their communicative competence. It is through interaction with more mature users of language that communicative development takes place (Wood, Wood, Griffiths & Howarth,1986). The literature suggests that the hearing-impaired student experience high levels of control in interactions with others, in particular from their parents and teachers. Webster (1986) used the expression that mothers of deaf students 'command' the child. High control does not allow the hearing-impaired child freedom in response, or the development of extended communication acts in which both partners, can participate, learn and share responsibility. Both partners, parents and children, need to search for meaning in their communication with each other (Webster, 1986). It is through accessing meaning that language makes sense. Paul (1994) suggests that hearing impaired students are exposed to a lower quality of oral communication because they are labelled as deaf. Activities, such as speech or listening training, often take the place of meaningful conversation. The data suggests little difference in the level of control used by teachers when interacting with hearing and hearing impaired students. Similarly, there was little difference found with the level of control used by hearing students in their interactions with either normally hearing of hearing impaired peers. Interactions were short involving few exchanges. The characteristics of the language used consisted of mainly wh type questions, personal contributions, instructions and gesture. The information gathered would suggest that the input to interaction in this regular mainstream setting are not consistent with research of parent -child interaction and pre-school settings and provide opportunity for interaction and promotion or development of communicative skills.
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ItemYoung people and their resources( 2001)This paper examines approaches taken to the study of stress and coping, with particular reference to adolescents. The Conservation of Resources model of stress and coping is considered and its companion research tool (the COR Evaluation) is modified for use with a group of Australian adolescents. The modified version is shown to be a reliable and valid tool for use with young people. Adolescents indicated that they value the resources described in the modified COR questionnaire. In addition, this sample of students saw themselves as having between some to a good amount of these resources, and would find it stressful to lose them. When the Resources scores were compared with the results of the Adolescent Coping Scale, it was found that those students who scored as productive copers were those students who reported themselves as high in resources, while those students who scored highly on non-productive coping were low in resources. When the scale relating to having resources was factored, it appeared that productive coping related strongly to the four resource factors of Purpose, Friends, Self-satisfaction, and Family; whereas non-productive coping was negatively correlated with Purpose, Self-satisfaction and Family, but not Friends. Non-productive copers did not see loss in any of the factors as stressful, and were not impacted particularly by gain. If young people who have resources cope more productively than those who do not regard themselves as having resources, there are interesting implications for treatment and education. Certainly it would be desirable to understand more completely the relationship between non-productive coping and resources so that more effective assistance can be given to those young people. The resources approach offers us a new perspective on stress and coping in adolescence, which has implications for treatment, educational development, and future research.
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ItemCreating a positive learning environment for salespeople( 2001)The researcher, a credit management professional, observed that in the organisations in which he worked, some salespeople appeared to operate outside of the organisational guidelines and sometimes, propriety. Furthermore, salespeople and credit people were regularly in conflict with one another. That this situation exists should be surprising, because both groups of employees are charged with growing the worth of their organisation. The purpose of this research was to discover from the salesperson's perspective, what learning conditions produced behaviour beneficial to all organisational stakeholders. In addition, it was also thought, senior personnel, through their decisions and actions in the workplace, played an important role in this learning process. The research data was collected through a questionnaire forwarded to a small group of salespeople. These salespeople worked in a number of industries and in a variety of sales roles, from management to retail to distribution representative. A qualitative questionnaire was used to seek responses of a personal nature from the participants. These responses may not have been forthcoming from quantitative research methods. For instance, a number of questions asked the participants to confirm whether they had participated in illegal and or unethical behaviour. It was found, whilst testing an earlier questionnaire format, such questions proved to be intrusive. One individual realised his/her responses exposed a different value set to that he/she thought were important to him/her. Senior personnel control the employment and operational resources of the organisation. The consistent factor that appeared throughout the research was that the actions and behaviour of the organisation's senior personnel were of critical importance. Based on learning theory and the participants' data, it may be concluded that certain employment terms and conditions are required to create a positive learning and work environment for salespeople. These terms and conditions include (i) a base income sufficient to meet normal living requirements, (ii) a sense of belonging and a degree of permanency, (iii) an opportunity to participate in goal setting and achievable challenges, (iv) a sense of being respected and valued, and (v) trusted by the senior personnel to operate ethically and successfully without close supervision.