Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses
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ItemCatholic higher education in Victoria : a survey based upon the careers of matriculation students, 1950 to 1955( 1966)The survey was based upon a complete census of the students from Victorian Catholic schools who presented for Matriculation between 1950 and 1958, and followed their careers until the end of 1964. The-first part compared the results of the Catholic and of the other schools in Victoria taken together. At Matriculation level, the students from the Catholic schools performed at least as satisfactorily as the students from the other schools. This was,due, however, to the boys rather than the girls, whose results were less satisfactory, than those of the other girls. At university level, the Catholic results in the first year examinations, as far as the limited data permit one to judge, appeared to be below the level of the other students; but when all years were taken into account; there was no significant difference in overall performance of the Catholic and other students. The second part of the survey studied the factors that determined the success or failure of the Catholic schools, and comparisons were made solely between Catholic schools. There was no significant difference between the results of Catholic boy and girl students in their best three subjects in a single presentation for Matriculation, nor between their pass-rates in the first or first three years in the university. The unmatched teaching institutes showed significant differences within each sex division in the Matriculation, but practically none in the first year and in the first three years in the university. The significant differences even at Matriculation, however, tended to disappear, when the institutes were matched on other circumstances influencing achievement. Finally, individual schools showed significant differences in Matriculation results within each sex division, but these tended to disappear in the first and first three years' university results. Significant differences between the results of those presenting for the first time and those for the second time, in favour of the latter, were frequently observed at Matriculation level but scarcely at all in the university. Among the other circumstances influencing achievement, at Matriculation level, socio-economic status was significant for boys' schools, in favour of the higher levels, but not for girls' schools. Size of Matriculation class was significant for boys' schools, in favour of larger classes (20 or more, compared with 10 to 19), but not for the corresponding larger classes in girls' schools (10 or more, compared with 1 to 9). Locality (metropolitan, urban, rural) was not significant for boys' schools, but it was for the girls', in favour of the metropolitan compared with the urban schools. Practically no significance was found in accommodation (boarding compared with day schools, or in educational classification (A and B class schools). At university level, the only circumstance that proved significant was size of class, in favour of schools with larger Matriculation classes among the boys (20 or more, compared with 10 to 19), and with smaller classes among the girls (1 to 9, compared with 10 to 19). On the whole, over the triennia, the standard of results for both male and female schools appeared to be improving significantly.
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ItemThe teaching of history in state-supported elementary schools in Victoria, 1852-1954( 1965)The major concern of this thesis, then, is to trace and account for the introduction of History as a subject in 1886, to show its development in an initial period of transition as the implications of the new subject were explored, to follow it through the years of the "New Education" to the time when it became an established and accepted subject, changing little, to examine a period of exciting rediscovery and revision in the early 1930's, and finally, after another twenty years of relative but deceptive calm,to describe the changes which led to the introduction of Social Studies at the expense of History, Geography and Civics in 1954.
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ItemThe effect of evolutionary thought upon selected English and American philosophers who influenced educational thought, 1850-1916( 1963)This thesis has a twofold aim. First, I wish to show that the theory of evolution, especially in its Darwinian form, influenced the development of the philosophies of Herbert Spencer in England, and C.S.Peirce, William James and John Dewey in America. Secondly, I wish to examine critically those portions of these particular philosophies that have been of importance to education. It will be seen that one of these aims is essentially historical, while the other is philosophical. As these two aspects of the task are apt to become confused, they have been treated in separate chapters. The basic chapter is the first, for in it the connection between science and other disciplines is investigated. In some of the later chapters it will be shown that thinkers such as Spencer and Dewey pre-supposed that such connections exist. Chapter one is thus devoted to the discussion of key terms such as "scientific laws", "theory of evolution" and "mechanism", whilst Chapter two deals with Herbert Spencer and his place in the history of education, and Chapter three contains a critical examination of Spencer's ideas in the light of points raised in the first chapter. There is a similar arrangement in the chapters on the pragmatists. The period 1850 to 1916 was chosen for investigation because these two dates mark the years of publication of Herbert Spencer's "Social Statics" and John Dewey's "Democracy and Education" respectively. During the intervening years the theory of evolution had remarkable influence on many facets of intellectual life, and it would be surprising to find that education remained unaffected.
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