Faculty of Education - Theses
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Item"Only Connect": exploring student and staff understandings of connectedness to school and factors associated with this process( 2017)Young people’s relationship with school is a significant element in their relational set. With school a compulsory feature of most young people’s lives, the nature of their relationship with this institution can be highly influential in terms of the quality of their overall school experience. Young people experiencing fragile or alienating relationships with school are more likely to withdraw and experience the precarious outcomes that often follow. School connectedness is one of a number of terms used to describe young people’s relationship to school and has attracted increasing research interest over the past two decades. The consistent findings from the research are optimistic, situating school connectedness as protective in young people’s lives against a range of health compromising behaviours. Despite this bourgeoning research profile, school connectedness has yet to achieve conceptual clarity which threatens to undermine its utility as a construct. To address this conceptual ambiguity, this thesis used a qualitatively driven mixed methods approach to explore the meanings of connectedness to school. The study was conducted at a co-educational secondary college in outer metropolitan Melbourne. Data collection involved a 109-item researcher developed questionnaire including open and closed-ended questions administered to a sample of 206 students. In addition, data were drawn from 12 student focus groups and 11 staff focus groups and 12 student diaries. A literature audit was conducted on a selected set of articles and materials to determine core components of definitions and measures within school connectedness research. Five hypotheses regarding factors associated with school connectedness were also tested. The study has been framed by the following research questions: 1. What are the meanings of being connected to school? a) How is school connectedness understood in the literature? b) How do students understand their connectedness to school? c) How do teachers and other school staff understand students’ connectedness to school? 2. What factors are associated with students’ connectedness to school? School connectedness emerges from this study as a multi-dimensional, socio-ecological concept, placing the individual in relationship with others within the school and beyond. Three hypothesised associations between SC were supported: collaborative decision making with parents about selection of school, prior knowledge of school and proximity of residence to the school. The practice implications that arise from this study pivot around the relational climate of schools. According to this study’s findings school connectedness flourishes in schools with opportunity rich environments with relationally inclusive, respectful and supportive climates. Further research is needed to arrive at deeper understandings of SC and consolidate its place as a unique concept among the multiple terms used to describe a young person’s relationship to school. A priority in this future research is including student and school staff perspectives as a key pathway to understanding this important concept.
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ItemInvestigating the use of talk in middle and secondary classrooms( 2016)This thesis describes two projects which investigated effects of systematic interventions upon students’ patterns of productive engagement and discussion in group learning contexts. In the first study, the Paideia method was applied with middle school students. In the second study, the framework of Quality Talk and the principles of dialogic teaching were employed with senior school students to encourage their interactions and their questioning skills. In each study, intervention classes were able to be compared with non-intervention classes, and students in both studies also participated through online discussion. Classroom interactions were recorded and coded. In Study 1, it was found that the use of the Paideia method occasioned increased volume and complexity of student responding especially on measures of student-to- student interaction. The complexity of these interactions increased significantly for students in the mid-level and high socioeconomic intervention classes but less so for the students in low socioeconomic classes. Differences between intervention and non- intervention students for classes in the mid-level to high socioeconomic classes achieved statistical significance but not for the low socioeconomic classes. Study 2 investigated the framework Quality Talk and principles of dialogic teaching in assisting students to use question-asking strategies, such as authentic questions, uptake questions, high-level questions, intertextual questions and affective response questions and within a classroom environment that encouraged trust and respect. Results showed students increased their use of authentic questions, uptake questions and high-level questions. In turn, the use of these questions appeared to stimulate more complex dialogue, more reasoning words, dialogic spells (a stretch of discourse starting with a student question and followed subsequently, thought not necessarily immediately, by at least two more student questions) and elaborated explanations (a statement or claim that is based on at least 2 reasons). Further, there was a significant change in writing with students in the intervention classes demonstrating increased writing with a critical analytical stance compared with the writing of students in the non-intervention class. The data from Study 2 showed the effect of a recurring pattern of teaching practice. Analyses revealed that productive student interactions became relatively disrupted through teachers joining into group discussions and immediately asking procedural or managerial questions. When teachers listened to student-to-student interchanges for several minutes before speaking, however, such disruption effects were not evident. It was also found many teachers inconsistently applied dialogic teaching methods but, using different types of feedback to students, appeared to have a positive influence on students’ ability to talk and write with a critical analytical stance. When student discussions were held in groups online rather than in face-to-face groups their use of uptake and high-level questions increased, as did their dialogic spells. Results indicate that interventions to increase dialogic discussion can be effective with secondary students, can transfer from spoken to written work, and can be generated in an online environment. The study’s findings also have implications for professional development for teachers in the use of classroom discussions.
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ItemTeachers’ perspectives of ‘effective’ leadership in schools( 2013)This study sought to understand ‘effective’ leadership from the perspective of teachers and then develop dimensions from these findings to evaluate the effectiveness of leaders within secondary school settings. To develop leadership capacity in schools there is a need to understand what teachers perceive to be ‘effective’ leadership as well as what teachers perceive to be both the factors that either encourage or act as barriers to the development of leadership capacity. Most of the leadership research has focused on primary schools whereas this study relates to secondary schools, where there is a different structure of leadership – particularly including Heads of Faculty as middle leaders. The dominant research paradigm for this research was qualitative (teacher interviews and observations of staff faculty meetings) although quantitative methods (teacher questionnaires on trust and organisational learning, student questionnaires, and achievement data from NCEA results) were also used. The participants in this study were 18 teachers from three different secondary schools in Canterbury, New Zealand. It was found that secondary teachers wanted acknowledgement and recognition for their efforts and they wanted to know that their leaders listened to, valued and understood their contributions. ‘Effective’ leaders were found to be strong in interpersonal skills as transformational leaders and were identified by trust, respect, effective communication, leading by example, and being supportive. Successful schools that had greater success in creating classroom conditions that students experienced positively were found to be the schools that also had higher organisational learning scores and higher relational trust scores.
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ItemBeing a school councillor in a government secondary college in Victoria, Australia: constructions of role and meaning( 2006)While the responsibilities and functions of school councils in government secondary schools in Victoria are set down in legislation, there is still considerable scope for councillors - principals, staff, parents, students and community members - to apply their own understandings, interests and skills to their participation in this form of governance. This study focused on how individual school councillors interpret the part they play in school governance, in terms of the roles they construct for themselves and the meanings that they develop through enacting those roles. The ultimate purpose of the research was the development of a middle-range grounded theory about how they construct their roles and meanings. In this qualitative research, data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with a total of thirty-four school councillors, including all membership categories, in four secondary colleges in the metropolitan area of Melbourne. Respondens discussed their beliefs about school governance, their motivations and aims as councillors, their interpretation of their councils' work, some of their experiences, and meaningful outcomes. Data were analysed according to the principles of developing grounded theory, and, through the processes of open and axial coding, diagramming and comparison and testing of data, five themes and six components were identified as common to all respondents' constructions of roles and meaning as councillors. These components – The Big Vision, Coherence of Values, Meaning within the Biographical Trajectory, Social Relationships, Capacity, and Agency within the School Council Structure – form, in order, three pairs relating to dimensions of thinking, feeling and doing. The component which emerged as particularly dominant in the construction of role and meaning as a councillor was found to vary among individuals.
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ItemAn examination of how Australian art gallery educators perceive their role: two case studies( 2003)This study investigates six art educators working in two Australian art galleries at the turn of the millennium. The study examines how they perceive their role as reflected in the beliefs they hold, the type of lessons they present, and the kind of techniques they use to teach secondary school students in a gallery environment. The study also explores the influencing factors and institutional processes that have acted to inculcate existing attitudes and practices or to instigate change. Research in the area of gallery education indicates that whereas gallery educators twenty years ago felt obliged to analyse and explain artworks for viewers, gallery educators today see the viewer as an active agent in the construction of meaning. This implies that gallery educators seek to empower students by encouraging them to interpret artworks. This notion is based on the premise that knowledge is socially constructed, determined by the individual's respective background and experiences. The six case study subjects explain their roles as complex and demanding. Each offers a different account of the strategies they use to 'engage' students and to involve them in the process of interpretation. All utilise a 'floortalk' approach but with considerable variation. Different approaches such as drama, humour, stories and questioning are used by the teachers. However, the key link between all six case subjects is that they perceive their key role as being to 'engage' students and to stimulate them to actively construct meaning for themselves. In Bourdieu's terms this involves a process of providing students with "cultural capital', namely the kind of knowledge pertaining to the field of art education, its language, content, logic and aesthetic "grammar'. Such art language is needed for students to think, act and talk in relation to the social orthodoxies and heterodoxies established by the field. It was therefore these objectives and the strategies each case subject used to achieve them that are the focus of this study.
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ItemFinancial literacy and competency( 1993)This study attempts to identify and prioritise the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will equip secondary school students to become financially literate and financially competent in their future personal money management. A theoretical profile of financial literacy and competency is developed in light of relevant literature, a selective review of curriculum documents and textbooks, and a context analysis. The profile forms the basis for a questionnaire survey in which bank managers, financial counsellors and investment advisors were asked to rate the importance of sixty-nine items. Based on the perspectives of the financial practitioners completing the survey, thirty-eight items were identified as having a strong or very strong claim to be included in financial literacy and competency education. Items involving skills and attitudes were seen to be more important than those focused on knowledge. Highest priority was given to those items centred on an informed and responsible use of credit. In addition, high priority was attached to items related to realistic consumer spending, contracts, financial advice, saving, consumer ethics, consumer protection laws and budgeting.
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ItemExperiential learning programs in Australian secondary schools( 2010)Experiential programs in special environments are common in Australian education, notably in independent secondary schools. Without overt reference to research, they claim the special features of their program lead to personal development. The study sought to discover the underlying theoretical elements common to experiential learning programs, and by extension, sought to identify the elements of the experiential learning that might be incorporated into mainstream learning. Adopting a constructivist interpretive framework drawn from the work of Dewey, Vygotsky, and Bruner, the study examined six Australian independent school experiential learning programs offered to Year 9 students at dedicated, discrete settings ranging from wilderness to the inner city. The methodology employed in the research design was qualitative, drawing on Argyris and Schon’s notion of theory of action as an overarching framework in the documentation of six case-study programs. A preliminary probe into a single experiential program and an Australia-wide survey of school-based experiential learning provided a base of reference for the main study, which focused on 41 teaching practitioners as the primary informants on the programs. Data sources consisted of public documentation on programs, ethnographic interviews, questionnaire responses and researcher observations. Charmazian grounded theory method and Argyris and Schon’s ladder of interference were used as the primary tools for data analysis. The study found challenging setting, constructed social interaction, tolerance of risk, and reflection to be the essential design components that enable personal learning, and these thus form the model of experiential learning that emerges from analysis of the data. Together with the learner and cognitive dissonance, the spatiotemporal setting of the experience is identified as the defining characteristic and third component of experiential learning transactions. Specific properties of each learning setting interact with learners in ways that afford specific learning opportunities. Individual student status and collective social structures in remote experiential settings that rupture contact with the home community are profoundly altered through the experience. Risk emerges as an indispensible property of novel learning experiences. Reflection, both facilitated and unfacilitated, is the mechanism by which experiential learning is stored in episodic memory and informs the process of knowledge creation. The theoretical model of experiential learning derived from the programs studied describes the essential differences between experiential and mainstream learning. This model offers a basic design template for the development of experiential learning programs in other settings to meet the particular learning needs of Year 9 students in mainstream schools. Finally, these programs provided evidence of close parallels with traditional initiation rites, suggesting that they serve an important socialisation function for adolescents.
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ItemThe impact of school leadership upon the successful integration of ICT across the curriculum in secondary schools( 2009)The question addressed in this study was “To what extent does the nature of school leadership influence the successful integration of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) across the curriculum?” I was led to my research questions through my passion for ICT and my commitment to and concerns about its usage in all areas of learning at the secondary school level. Furthermore, through my experiences as an Information Technology teacher and more significantly as a Technology Coordinator and a board member of the Victorian Information Technology Teachers’ Association, I have come to understand that ICT is more likely to be embraced and effectively implemented across several key learning areas if school leaders are willing to invest time, money and other resources into schooling educators about how to utilise ICT tools in their classrooms. A vital element of this investment is the nature of the support offered staff in learning about useful and new technologies and the way in which professional development is presented in this area. The study was significant because currently The Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) is the mandated curriculum for all Victorian secondary schools, and ICT is a fundamental component of the Interdisciplinary Learning Strand that “…identifies a range of knowledge, skills and behaviours which cross disciplinary boundaries and are essential to ensuring students are prepared as active learners and problem-solvers for success at school and beyond” (VCAA, 2006). This suggests that ICT is a domain that is critical in all learning areas so that students are equipped to face the global environment which they encounter on a daily basis and which is rapidly expanding and permeating all facets of life. The methodology employed in this research was primarily qualitative, as I looked to present an interpreted understanding of a school culture in which ICT is not fully integrated across the curriculum, and to then effect change in that culture and curriculum by fostering the knowledge of school leaders in ICT. To this end, I hoped to more deeply inform the participants of the obstacles to ICT integration, and how these obstacles can be overcome, by engaging in dialogue with them about my analysis of observed and documented events. The outcomes suggested that ICT integration requires a whole school approach, guided by far-sighted leadership that is not afraid to investigate and enhance critical elements such as provision of targeted professional development for educators in the use of ICT tools and resources, is creative with budgets and overall models effective ICT use.