Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemAccountability and professionalism in education reflected in community opinions on teacher assessment( 1985)This study takes place at a time when there is a widely-canvassed philosophy which states that the degree of accountability required by individuals in the community will come only through their more direct personal involvement in all stages of the education process. Accountability, (the visible attempts to demonstrate responsibility for a process), is said to be the concern of everybody connected with education, either as parents, taxpayers, employers or teachers and not, as in the past, restricted to the occasional external measures of performance carried out by Education Department hierarchy. We now need to know whether the education community expects a different type of accountability, if teacher assessment still forms a major part of that accountability requirement and whether teachers are still accorded the same professional status as they were. Until our knowledge in this area is improved, we will not understand whether the changes that are occurring in the Victorian education system are the result of a demand for change by the community, or political/economic expediency, or a belief that people should become involved in functions that were once considered government responsibilities. Thus this study arises from the need to understand whether changes in education are reflecting the expectations of education communities. As education communities will have a multitude of expectations, this study concentrates mainly on their expectations in respect of teacher assessment. Accountability is a demonstrable responsibility to the public through a variety of measures. Historically, assessment of teacher performance has been one of the main measures of the quality of a teacher's contribution to education, so concentration on this issue will provide much needed information on perception of accountability today. Teacher assessment is that process of gauging the quality of a teacher's performance. This process has three major functions: (a) to measure the comparative ability of teachers for promotion; (b) to maintain standards of teaching and (c) to provide a measure of accountability to the public as an indication of competency and money well spent. This case study examines the opinions of a small sample of members of state high school communities to the issue of teacher assessment and, through their opinions, provides an insight into their perceptions of professionalism and accountability in education. The sample is of five nominated persons of the education communities in each of six state high schools in the Western Metropolitan Region of the Victorian Education Department. Several happenings in Victorian education over the last five years indicate that this study is of vital importance. Firstly there has been a gradual decline in the proportion of students attending state post-primary schools. Secondly, there has been far greater involvement expected of local communities in the policy-formulation and organization of schooling with a resulting 'democratization' of processes in education. Thirdly,' there has been a gradual withdrawal of many forms of external control over secondary school teachers either through teacher assessment, student external examinations or centrally-imposed courses of study. As these happenings involve redefining the functions of state education and the teacher's role in these functions, it seems logical that a corresponding redefining of professionalism and accountability is also taking place within the community. If a shift in definition of these key concepts is not taking place within school communities, it would seem impossible for state education authorities to justify the profound changes they are demanding.
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ItemA comparison of levels of job satisfaction among Victorian high school teachers in declared disadvantaged and undeclared schools( 1981)This study involved an investigation of job satisfaction among Victorian high school teachers in three declared disadvantaged and three undeclared schools in the Northern Metropolitan Region. The feasibility of the topic was determined by a pilot study undertaken at Upfield high school in 1978. The Region was selected because it had the most declared schools in the state. Pairs of declared and undeclared schools were selected primarily on the basis of their geographical proximity to one another. They were not statistically matched in any way. Questionnaires were distributed to all teaching staff in these six schools. A total of 164 usable questionnaires were returned. Questions were designed firstly, to describe the sample population and secondly, to gauge levels of teacher job satisfaction. The perceived relationship between job satisfaction and Supplementary Grants funding provided under the Disadvantaged Schools Program was investigated by non-parametric testing using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). No statistically significant difference was identified in levels of job satisfaction between teachers in declared and undeclared schools. It is likely that individual teachers will have varying levels of job satisfaction and this was confirmed by the research. The argument that teachers can be categorised into groups who are satisfied and dissatisfied tended to be refuted.
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ItemTeacher and student interpretation of the teachers' role in terms of satisfaction and effectiveness( 1983)The degrees of satisfaction and effectiveness attained by thirty six (36) teachers in three (3) randomly selected high schools from the Geelong region of Victoria in relation to fifty (60) role-related items were investigated in this study. Data were sought from teachers and from students by questionnaire, and covered seven (7) categories of the teaching act that incorporated the fifty role-related items. The seven categories were "Classroom Practice", "Everyday Duties", "Creative Aspects", "Attitudes to Teaching", "Relationships", "Professional and Private Image" and "School Environment". One hundred and eighty-six (186) students from the respective schools were asked to report on a five (5) point Likert scale their perceptions of their teacher's effectiveness. The scale ranged from "Very Ineffective" (-2) to "Very Effective" (2). Correlations and comparisons were elicited in relation to gender (male and female teachers) and student-teacher responses. The major findings report a uniformity of response for male and female teachers for degrees of satisfaction and effectiveness attained, with particularly high means of response occurring in the categories of "Classroom Practice", some elements of "Creative Aspects", and in the items of self-esteem located within the "Professional and Private image" category. Significant differences in gender response occurred in relation to the items "Classroom Atmosphere", "Volume of Work", "Happiness with Job", "Teacher of Culture", "Relationships with Peers", "School's Physical Structure" and "School's Administrative Structure". In every case, the female response was significantly more representative of dissatisfaction and ineffectiveness than was the male response. An overall teacher response ranked according to mean scores identified major satisfiers and consequent causes of effectiveness as residing in the functions of "Interesting Lessons", "Classroom Atmosphere", "Knowledge of Subject" and "Sense of Fairness" for example. Major dissatisfiers and causes of ineffectiveness were identified in relation to "Volume of Work", "Routine Duties", "Media Representation of Role",and "Access to Promotion", by way of illustration. The two categories most favourable to satisfaction and effectiveness attained were "Classroom Practice" and "Attitudes to Teaching", whilst "School Environment" and "Everyday Duties" occurred at the opposite extreme of the scale. Some discrepancies were recorded between student and teacher interpretation of the questionnaire. Students identified teacher empathy to their needs, such as "Helping Students' Academic Growth" or "Sympathetic to Students' Needs" as being less pronounced and consequently less effective than the teachers perceived themselves to be. (In the above case, student means were 0.17 and 0.20 respectively, in comparison to teacher means of 1.14 and 0.89 respectively.) It was suggested that such discrepancies occur either through teachers exaggerating their sense of effectiveness in relation to particular aspects of their role, or students misinterpreting the role of the teacher in areas which students feel necessitate the appropriate empathetic attitude. Ultimately, the twenty most commonly reported items accounting for teacher effectiveness were extracted and ranked according to the correlated means accruing from the "actual" versus the "ideal" items of the teacher's role. These findings suggest that elements of satisfaction and effectiveness as they occur in the teaching role are subjectively reported and often misinterpreted in terms of satisfaction or effectiveness attained. The findings also suggest that factors extrinsic to the school situation, such as media presentation of the teachers' role, are as much a cause of dissatisfaction and ineffectiveness as are the intrinsic elements of the school's administrative structure or the attitudes of students to the teacher, for example. It may be inferred that a satisfied and effective teacher is one capable of utilizing his talents in the classroom situation, whilst maintaining his self-esteem and integrity in the face of such conflicting and continuous demands upon his role.
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ItemSchool teacher in Victoria: the biography of Arthur John Hicks( 1981)Arthur John Hicks was born in 1893 and died in 1970. He was a full-time teacher in the service of the Education Department of Victoria for fifty years, from 1908 until 1958. He started his service as a Junior Teacher, but by 1958 had been training student teachers himself for a number of years. In the course of his fifty years' teaching, Arthur Hicks developed a positive response to the major events of the time, and to the ideas of the educational reformers. Both he and his wife became deeply involved in the activities of the rural communities in which they lived. Such a relationship was more difficult to achieve in the suburbs of Melbourne and Geelong. In the course of his career in country schools Hicks also attempted to increase community awareness of Victoria's education system. He also proved, as early as the 1920's, that it was possible to implement the new "child-centred activity" methods in rural schools. The school at which he had most success in this regard was Bright Higher Elementary School. It is reasonable to suggest that Arthur Hicks, despite the outbreak of the Second World War, never lost his optimistic belief that education could do much to improve human nature. It is equally reasonable to suggest that that optimism was under pressure by the mid-50's, when, for the first time, he was administering a large inner-city school, which had specific problems because of its migrant intake. While Hicks. was ageing, Australian society was undergoing quite radical change. Nevertheless, he had reached the top of his profession, whereas fifty years before he had been labelled as not showing "much promise". Although he was a very ordinary person in many ways, his life demonstrates what can be achieved through commitment to a task.