Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses
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ItemThe Curious Child: Engaging very young audiences in the arts( 2020)While artists and producers are showing increasing interest in developing artistic works for very young children, there is much uncertainty about how to write and perform for this audience. Policy and research in this field remain overwhelmingly focused on school-aged children and youth, and accessible examples of practice are all but non-existent. Focusing on participant-observations of integrated arts performances for children aged birth to eighteen months, this research aims to contributes to a better understanding of the ways in which artists can support very young children’s engagement in these works. To achieve this aim, I have designed and undertaken a study that explores the field both broadly and intimately (Stake, 1981), and which balances the “gazing in” at my own experience with iterant “gazing out” towards literature and data (Tedlock, 2005). A progressive focusing research strategy (Patton, 2002; Stake, 1981) was followed, through which varying levels of breadth and intimacy were deemed appropriate at different times. This involved undertaking a field mapping study; reviewing theory and research from the fields of engagement, sociology of childhood, early childhood education, arts education, art and aesthetics, and child development; engaging in self-study; and identifying and more closely examining exemplary teaching-artist practices. Through a combination of reflective narrative and analytic discussion, I demonstrate how teaching-artists can best support very young children’s engagement by focusing their practices on interactions, environment, learning and development, the image of the child, and art and aesthetics.
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ItemTeachers' storytelling techniques and comprehension of narratives in Singaporean preschool children( 2004)There is growing body of evidence supporting the many connections between competent comprehension of narratives and the effective use of storytelling strategies. This study d?fines the cluster of concepts related to storytelling and narrative comprehension in young children and synthesizes the research on the role of storytelling in children's language development, in this case, the development of narrative comprehension. A critical review on storytelling beliefs and practices of preschool teachers in Singapore revealed that the espoused theories of the benefits of effective storytelling have not been distinguished from their own practices in the classrooms. This is due to a set of mitigating circumstances. The study notes the teachers' changing attitudes towards the use of more engaging storytelling techniques as emerging evidence suggest that a more engaging storytelling approach facilitates children's perspective taking and later abstract thought. This research also notes that there is a need for an inclusion of a more comprehensive storytelling course in the present Early Childhood training programme, thus identifying implications for understanding preschool teachers' development as storytellers. This study provides direction for further research in children's responses to storytelling.
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ItemChildren's perceptions of changes in families( 1991)The three studies reported in this thesis take as their subjects over one thousand "ordinary primary school children" from state primary schols in the western region of Melbourne. The sample has not been drawn using methods such as newspaper requests (Burns, 1980), from Parents without Partners groups (Kurdek and Siesky, 1978), from university towns (Franz and Mell, 1981) or through court records (Hess and Camara, 1979; Dunlop and Burns, 1988). The western region of Melbourne is socioeconomically and ethnically diverse and predicted to grow faster than most other areas of Melbourne in the next decades. In essence, these children are that future. Certainly, their perceptions of families and of changes in families will help to shape their own futures. Children have much to say about families as has been noted in studies by Ochiltree and Amato (1985) and Goodnow and Burns (1985). Children in Studies 1 and 2 in this thesis wrote eloquently and often with passion about families generally and about family changes specifically. Previous studies (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981; Silcock and Sadler, 1980; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980; Riach, 1983; Ochiltree and Amato (1985) and Cooper (1986) have looked at children's perceptions of families. Some, like Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, (1981) and Cooper (1986) have drawn attention to gender differences; others, like Silcock and Sadler, (1980), to techniques employed in the collection of data. In addition, Selman and his colleagues (1979, 1980, 1986) have focussed on children's developing understanding of social relations. Selman's stages of development of social understanding, like those of Hoffman (1983) for empathy development are based on Piagetian stages of cognitive development. The present studies are an attempt to draw together around a single theme, children's perceptions of families, the impact of a range of techniques for data collection (as Silcock and Sadler, (1980) have suggested is appropriate) and consideration of age/stage differences as defined by Selman et al. Additionally, gender differences are investigated as suggested by Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg -Halton, (1981). In Study 1, a group of forty Grade 5/6 children completed a questionnaire, Children's Perceptions of Changes in Families. Subsequently, this group of forty was divided into a target and a control group. The target group of children took part in an eight week videotape/discussion program with family matters as content while the control group continued with general classroom activities. At the completion of this, children were presented with the responses they had prepared previously to the questionnaire and invited to change these in any way they considered appropriate. Analysis revealed that elaboration occurred in the responses of children in both target and control groups. Statistical analysis revealed very little in the way of differences between the responses made by those children who had taken part in the videotape/discussion program and those who had not. Coming out of this study, however, were gender differences and tendencies for children to describe parents in stereotypic roles which are reminescent of other larger studies (Goodnow and Burns, 1985; Cooper, 1986; Ochiltree and Amato, 1985). Girls, for example, expressed far more interest than boys in the experience of caring for a new baby; boys referred more than did girls to the fights likely to ensue should a new child come into the family. Father's movement from the children's home to live elsewhere was considered unhappy because of his loss as a playmate; in mother's case, it was her inability to continue caring for the children which was noted. Such patterns were revealed in the content analysis of the children's responses to the questionnaire. The children in this first study served as a window into the other studies reported in this thesis in that the researcher spent considerable time speaking with both groups through their two completions of the questionnaire and with the target group during the videotape/discussion program. In addition, statements made by these forty children were used as the basis of Study 3. In Studies 2 and 3, children prepared written responses to the tasks set them. In Study 3, 1118 Grade 3/4 and Grade 5/6 children drawn from twelve state primary schools in the western region of Melbourne were read statements by their teacher and invited, on one occasion, to indicate their thoughts about each statement and, on another, to indicate their feelings. The phrases from which children were invited to select in indicating their responses were based on the definition of problem and expression of feelings components of the Interpersonal Negotiation Strategies Model (Selman et al., 1986b) and were representative of levels of complexity of thought and feeling described in the model. Girls' marked superiority over boys in their choice of feeling responses representing higher levels of complexity was the most significant finding in this study. This finding coupled with findings from Study 2 that girls made significantly more references than boys in their descriptions of families to emotional aspects of families makes gender differences a powerful finding in the studies presented in the thesis. The emotional aspects of families to which girls referred significantly more often than boys in responses to the question, "What is a Family?" were love, care, sharing/belonging, understanding problems/talking. In contrast, boys and younger children (Grade 3/4) referred significantly more often than girls and older children (Grade 5/6) to family structure. The finding that older children made significantly more references than did the younger children to many aspects of families is not surprising and likely to be due to their general experience and superior verbal ability (Jacklin and Maccoby, 1983). The gender differences in the content analysis was reinforced in coding undertaken of children's responses according to levels based on Bruss-Saunders' levels (1978) of social understanding of parent-child relationships. Here, the descriptions written by Grade 5/6 girls were coded as representing highest levels of complexity and the descriptions written by Grade 3/4 boys as representing lowest levels of complexity. In the studies, levels of complexity of children's responses are considered according to theories of cognitive development. In addition, the influence of contextual factors on the thoughts and feelings children express about families are discussed. Questions about the relationship between these two are raised with regard to the capacity children acquire for coping in their present and future families.
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ItemTeaching children to use metalanguage : what they say they know( 2002)What should be explicitly taught to primary school children in writing has been hotly debated over a number of decades in Australia. At the heart of this debate are questions of how much knowledge about their language children can learn and how much is really useful in order to use language effectively. This study, a case study from one Year Six classroom, proposes that teaching students some overt knowledge of their language, and developing a metalanguage in the Systemic Functional Grammar tradition with which to define this knowledge, is possible and assists children to write more successfully. The study analysed the students' progress in writing texts across factual and fictional genres as well as tracking the reflections students made on their own knowledge. The students not only identified how they had been able to improve their writing, but express satisfaction in possessing such knowledge about language.
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ItemPerceptions of writing tasks and the quality of written pieces in a senior primary classroom( 1992)This integrated study explores teachers' and children's perceptions of classroom writing tasks and the quality of children's writing in a Grade Five/Six classroom. In particular, it focuses on the children's perceptions of the processes involved in writing specific genres: narratives; reports; poetry; descriptions; and arguments, and their judgements of their own and others' pieces. These perceptions are then considered in the context of the instructional strategies used by the researcher and the teacher. Instructional strategies include: the use of models as demonstrations of writer options; the use of direct audiences of peers; and the production and use of lists of criteria (or scales) of quality. Central to the study is the development and use of a shared language within the community of writers in order to define writing tasks more clearly and to provide guidance for the judgement of written products. The research adopts an interpretative case study approach and was designed to change as well as to study the particular situation. All Grade Five/Six children were included in the study although, in the analysis, reference is made to six case histories in order to illuminate particular patterns and relationships. The changes in children's perceptions of writing tasks and outcomes has implications for teachers, not only for what they teach, but also, how they teach.
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ItemMultidimensional thinking( 2008)Thinking permeates our lives. Yet it remains mostly invisible and difficult to describe what we mean by it. This thesis clarifies the main schools of thought on thinking in education and proposes a framework which accurately describes the experience of thinking. As educators, our understanding of thinking influences not only the way we teach it but also how we assess and evaluate it. A disparate definition of thinking means disparate outcomes both in the context of education and the wider society. This thesis provides a clearer way forward by describing thinking as Multidimensional, consisting of three dimensions (critical, creative and positive affective) and one meta-dimension (metacognitive thinking). Extracts from idea centred dialogues will be analysed to illustrate Multidimensional thinking. The Community of Inquiry will be proposed as the ideal environment for the development of Multidimensional thinking because it makes thinking visible. Understanding thinking as Multidimensional is just as complex as conceiving of thinking in a critical thinking framework but it is far more accurate in describing the experience of thinking. The Multidimensional thinking framework encourages changes in teacher pedagogy and the thinking oriented curriculum.
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ItemPatterns of musical development : a study of children's composing and compositions( 1995)The study aimed to investigate the nature of musical development for preschool and primary aged children. In the domain of music education, many developmental perspectives currently influence teaching theory and practice. These range from notions of development as orderly, sequential and similar for each child, to those conceptions of development characterised by the individual differences of children. The present study set out to review such theories through the observation and analysis of the musical composition procedures and products of twenty seven children, aged between three and eleven years, and drawn from three different educational and musical contexts. In addition, the researcher aimed to identify those factors which could be considered significant for musical development. As the project developed, broad developmental patterns were identified. Development appears to be dominated by a singular, dramatic advance at around six and seven years of age where developing self consciousness and intentional behaviour, together with an accumulated body of basic musical skills and understanding, enable basic musical engagement. Prior to this period musical engagement appears to be subservient to the predominantly egocentric perspective of children. Subsequent to seven years of age, development was observed to become increasingly individual and inconsistent. Factors emerging as significant concern, the impact of developing self-world relations on music making, the increasing tendency, with development, to utilise conscious modes of cognition with the relative neglect of intuitive modes of operation, and, finally, evidence provided by a sample of musically naive students, points to the importance of indirect and informal musical experience for the development of musical ability, suggesting the need for educators to look beyond formal instructional methods if students are to achieve optimal musical development.
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ItemThe parent-child mother goose program : a case study of a family-centred early intervention literacy initiative( 2006)Research related to early childhood education and development indicates the importance of the quality of social services provided to children in the early years. The Parent-Child Mother Goose study looks at the effectiveness of an early childhood program as a preventative intervention for children with additional needs through action research. The study was conducted over two cycles during 2005. It uncovers the characteristics of the Mother Goose Program; the role of the professional; and the effects of the intervention on parents and children. The study also introduces some of the most important concepts in early childhood education which include: Parent-Focused Programs, Family-Centred Practice, Inclusive Practice, and Retention in Early Intervention. Last the research examines the gaps in the Parent-Child Mother Goose Program and discusses issues such as: Concept Clarity, Cultural Competence, Access and Participation, Follow ups and Feedback, Fathers in the Early Years and Evaluation in Early Childhood Programs. The research addresses each issue separately and provides future recommendations for early childhood professionals in the context of a small scale study. The research concludes that the Parent-Child Mother Goose Program is an affective preventative intervention for parents and children who are committed to consistent participation.
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ItemProblem solving in paediatric medicine : an analysis of student and consultant diagnostic skills( 1983)A study was undertaken to examine the similarities among and differences between the process of problem solving by undergraduate medical students and experienced consultants in the area of paediatric medicine. To approximate the clinical situation, a naturalistic study was carried out. Patients were chosen from those attending a consultant medical outpatient department of a teaching hospital and selected because of their relatively common paediatric problems. A videotape recording was made of the patient- student/consultant encounter to facilitate subsequent analysis. The students/consultants were also asked to complete a prescribed protocol detailing their hypotheses or diagnoses at various stages of the interview and after completion of the examination. Their judgement as to how they had learned these skills in problem solving was also sought. Both students and consultants used a hypothetico-deductive method of problem solving, generating multiple hypotheses early within the patient encounter. However students, in contrast with the consultants, considered a greater number of hypotheses but did not, carry out an efficient inquiry strategy. They often arrived at an incorrect final diagnosis, despite having earlier considered the correct diagnosis. The experienced consultant on the other hand raised fewer. hypotheses, was more selective in his subsequent hypothesis testing and arrived at the final correct diagnosis. The consultants also seemed more understanding of the importance of the child within his family, which was particularly relevant in the assessment of the child with biopsycho-social symptoms. All students when reflecting on how they had learnt their problem solving skills, Included formal learning in their response. In contrast the experienced consultants all cited Independent learning. The observation of an appropriate clinical model was reported equally by both students and consultants. Discussion centres around these findings with additional consideration being given as to whether problem solving skills may be learnt.