Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemLearning literacy : a case study of the development of English literacy skills in two adult ESL students( 1997)This minor thesis reports on the findings of a study done of two adult international students of English as a Second Language. The study attempts to outline the issue of difficulties experienced by these students while learning to write in English in preparation for tertiary studies in Australia. The main aim of the study was to attempt to illustrate that international students need to be instructed by their teachers in how to write in the genre required for tertiary study. An attempt was made to measure the language level of the two students to determine how thoroughly prepared they were in the genre they were mainly required to write in their tertiary study. For these two students, this genre was business report writing. It was realised that although the two students had received practice in responding to General English writing tasks, they had not been taught how to write business reports. This conclusion was drawn through the study in which qualitative techniques of research and text analysis were used. Firstly, the students were given a series of reading and writing tasks to perform to determine their levels of English at the start of the study. At the end of the study there was a similar set of tasks for the students to perform. Secondly, the students and two of their teachers were interviewed. The students tried to reveal their perception of what their English Language intensive courses had taught them. The teachers who had taught these students attempted, through their responses to the interview questions, to outline the objectives of the courses they had delivered Thirdly, the students' attempt at writing report genres in their tertiary study was commented upon. At the end a short business report was selected as the target text and this was analysed. Systemic functional grammar was drawn upon to analyse the target text. The analysis of this model text was used to compare the analyses of the responses of the students to business report writing tasks. A summary of the findings is presented in this thesis and comparisons made in order to come to a conclusion that there does exist a need for overseas students intending to go on to further tertiary study to be taught explicitly through deconstruction of model texts by the teacher. The genre of the model text has to be directly related to the tertiary course of study that the students are going to follow. The students need to be provided with close guidance by their teachers, and constant practice of the genre is required.
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ItemAn evaluation of the Australian Paediatric Review Training Program in Victoria( 1999)The Australian Paediatric Review Training Program (APRTP) is a continuing medical education program in paediatric and adolescent health for general practitioners. The educational structure of the APRTP includes a pre-meeting quiz, attendance at a meeting, a post-meeting quiz and quiz feedback, with completion of the post-meeting quiz optional. This evaluation of the APRTP in Victoria was undertaken two and a half years after the commencement of the Program, as a pilot for a national evaluation of the Program. A "critical multiplist" approach was used in evaluating the APRTP in Victoria, combining data from a number of different evaluation methodologies - participant meeting evaluation, pre and post meeting quiz analysis, one-to-one semi-structured interviews and a participant survey. The interviews and participant survey were informed by the development of a program theory for the APRTP, based on the literature on continuing medical education and behaviour change theories. As the Medical Educator in the Program my role includes designing the Program process, developing the educational objectives and material for each of the meetings, and coding and interpreting evaluation data from the meeting and quizzes. This role expanded to include all aspects of the evaluation of the Program apart from the analysis of quiz and survey data which was undertaken by the external consultant statistician employed by the Program. There were good response rates to the various evaluation instruments (69%-82%). The evaluation results confirmed the process, components and educational activities described in the program theory and further strengthened the program theory. Overall, the data gathered confirmed that participants were positive about the value of the Program and its various components, reinforcing that the structure of the Program should be maintained. The evaluation also identified areas of the Program which require change - the meeting format (meeting group size and more effective small group work), meeting delivery (appropriate selection and adequate briefing of resource people to ensure relevance for general practice), administrative problems (more reliable mailout), and access to the Program (distance education, more venues etc). The evaluation results identified that sessions within a meeting were valued differently by participants and had differing impact. The extent of changes identified varied from meeting to meeting and knowledge acquisition was more likely to occur than identification of a change in practice, which is consistent with the literature. While the evaluation gathered evidence that change was most likely when new clinical knowledge or information about new clinical approaches was presented, the actual content and delivery of the material were also important in influencing change. The evaluation also highlighted that the Program does not assess actual physician performance and therefore does not identify whether changes due to Program participation are translated into actual clinical practice.
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ItemThe implementation of the English language framework P-10: a case study( 1994)The following case study examined and evaluated a teacher's perception of the influence of the implementation of an externally mandated innovation, the English Language Framework P-10, in a Victorian outer metropolitan primary school in order to determine the factors that fostered/hindered implementation within that particular context. To assist in this analysis and to verify its results, a comparison was made between this innovation's implementation and the successful implementation of Integrated Curriculum. The purposes of the study were to 1. evaluate the implementation of the Framework by the teacher in the study; 2. analyse the factors which affected this implementation; and 3. determine the subsequent implications for the implementation of future innovations in the same context. Because the findings of the study were context dependent, large generalisations about aspects of the change process were not expected to emerge from the study's conclusions. Rather, the study sought to provide an understanding of change within this particular context. For such reasons, a case study approach based on the axioms of the 'naturalistic paradigm' were employed. This mode required that the design 'emerge' as the study progressed. Each subsequent phase of data collection was therefore based on the salient elements which emerged through interviews, observations and/or document analysis. The study's conclusions find that the largest hindrances to the implementation of the Framework arose from its failure to address the teacher's specific needs; its lack of clarity due to diffuse goals and vague means of implementation; and a lack of external support in the form of materials, consultants and professional development courses. The implications of the study question the feasibility of externally mandated innovations which fail to address a particular school's situation and suggest that a combination of individual and institutional development which supports change initiated and enacted at the local level would be the most beneficial for this study's site and others like it.