Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Accountability and professionalism in education reflected in community opinions on teacher assessment
    Willis, Raymond W. G ( 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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    A comparison of levels of job satisfaction among Victorian high school teachers in declared disadvantaged and undeclared schools
    Steer, Winton Albert ( 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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    A contract with education : Alice Hoy, 1893-1976
    Meabank, Julann Honorah ( 1988)
    This is a biographical approach to the personal and intellectual development of Alice Hoy, a development which in turn shaped her contribution to teacher education in Victoria. The period I have covered does not go beyond Hoy's retirement from the Education Department and is concerned with her professional life during that time. Her work as a committee woman on various educational boards and councils is not included. Hoy was a pupil at the private University High School in the first decade of this century; in her first degree, a BA at Melbourne University, her major study was History which she continued with her MA, and later study of Law confirmed a natural tendency towards logical argument and gave her an LLB. After taking her Dip.Ed., Hoy became a teacher with the Education Department at the old University Practising School, and from there was invited to do Method lecturing at the School of Education at the University of Melbourne. Her early contribution to teacher education was made through her lectures at the School of Education and at the Melbourne Teachers' College as well as through the practical work at UHS, while her textbook on civics was used widely in schools. Her appointment is the first Principal of the Secondary Teachers' Training Centre was the high 'point of her career. She began the Centre, which became the Secondary Teachers' College, in 1950, and remained Principal until her retirement at the beginning of 1958.
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    The triple-I model of continuing development in school communities
    Waters, Wendy Patricia ( 1984)
    The Triple-I Model of Professional Development was first aired in the James Report (England, 1972) and developed by the Research Unit of the School of Education, Bristol University, under the direction of Dr. Ray Bolam. This Pilot Study- is an initiative of the Catholic Education Office of Victoria. The research project is an illuminative study of the Triple-I Model of Continuing Development Programmes of fourteen Catholic Parish Primary Schools, over a period of two years. It is assumed in this model of continuing development that schools are groups of people engaged in an educational enterprise. Positive outcomes have resulted in the development and sharing of personal resources within these school communities. Within this context, the teacher moves more surely through the INITIATION, INDUCTION and IN-SERVICE (Triple-I) phases of personal and professional development. This report concludes with recommendations and suggests further research, particularly in the area of resource processes for school principals.
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    Teacher stress in day special schools for intellectually disabled students
    Walters, Monica A ( 1987)
    The purpose of this study was three-fold to identify a) the sources of teacher stress b) the extent of teacher stress and c) the perceived health problems related to stress among 111 teachers in Victorian Day Special schools for intellectually disabled students. A confidential self report questionnaire based on the design context and measures of that used by Dr Rosemarie Otto was administered to teachers in six schools five of which were located in the Melbourne Metropolitan Area and one in a country town. Implicit to the design of the study was the assumption that teachers can provide reliable reports of their perceptions as to the sources of stress related to their work. The definition of stress used in this study was an alteration of physical and psychological homeostasis resulting from aspects of the teacher's job which are perceived as threats to the individual's well being and self esteem because they a) do not meet his/her needs or expectations or b) make demands which are beyond his/her resources to cope. There were four general findings. A significantly smaller percentage of teachers in Special schools perceive their job as 'highly stressful' (12/) when compared with the findings of Otto's studies of High Technical and Primary school teachers which consistently found more than 337. The major stressors for the Special Education teachers in this study were 1) disturbed and anti-social student behaviour 2) time and work-load pressures 3) problems related to the dual roles of work and home 4) negative community attitudes towards teachers and intellectually disabled students 5) a perceived alienation from the Ministry of Education and 6) aspects related to school administrative structures and staff tensions. The most commonly reported symptoms and medical conditions experienced (respiratory and throat) were closely aligned with those found by Otto. A small group (approximately 12/) of the Special educators perceived many aspects of teaching stressful and that these stresses occurred frequently The perceptions of this small group of teachers accounted for between a third and a half of all teacher reports of stress. Some aspects of being a Special Education teacher stress most teachers and should be alleviated Some teachers are stressed by most aspects of teaching and may well be advised to reconsider their vocation.
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    Teacher and student interpretation of the teachers' role in terms of satisfaction and effectiveness
    Sarros, James C (1951-) ( 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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    The history of the development of specialist teaching training programmes for teachers of migrant children, 1947-1973
    Todd, Brian Martin ( 1983)
    Information concerning the development of specialist teacher training programmes for teachers of migrant children is fragmentary, being scattered through some 130 published and unpublished documents. The aim of this thesis has been to present, with some degree of order and continuity, that information in a single volume. The resulting compilation is largely descriptive, though some analysis and interpretation could not be avoided. To supplement and to substantiate some of the data collated from the numerous documents, the experiences of a number of teachers who have taught significant proportions of migrant children between 1947 and 1973 have been related. Some of these experiences were gathered by means of a questionnaire which was completed by teachers who had responded to advertisements placed by the writer in The Sun (August 4, 1983) and The Age (August 15, 1983). The advertisements are included as Appendix A.1, and the questionnaire as Appendix A.2. Other experiences were gathered by means of personal interviews with a number of teachers. A full list of all persons from whom information was gathered appears as Appendix A.3. The paper concentrates on the development of specialist teacher training programmes within the Federal and State education systems, with only brief mention of developments within the Catholic education system. Such concentration is not intended to reflect a view that efforts made by the Catholic Church towards the problems of migrant children are insignificant. Indeed, the Catholic schools bore a very substantial share of the influx of migrant children and faced immense educational difficulties as a result, yet they succeeded in making as good a job as possible under the circumstances. Because the history of developments within the Catholic education system is a considerable area on its own, and because much material in that area has already been documented by Carmel O'Dwyer (Responses of Government and Catholic Educational Authorities to the influx of migrants, 1950-1960, with special reference to the experience of a selected group of schools conducted by the Victorian Sisters of Mercy),1 Michael Elliot (Migrant Education in Fitzroy, 1965-1975),2 and Denis Moore (The initial response to the migrant presence in four inner suburban Christian Brothers' schools as revealed in the inspectors' reports and other available sources),3 those developments are not included in this history. The population elements to which the discussion refers to as 'migrants' are those people from 'non-English speaking' origin, excluding Aboriginals. 1. Unpublished Master of Education Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1977. 2. Unpublished Master of Education Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1977. 3. Unpublished Master of Education Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1981. The introductory chapter briefly outlines the Federal Government's immediate steps to provide some training for teachers of adult migrants, and serves to highlight the official indifference outlined by Chapters II, III and IV, to the needs of training for teachers of migrant children until the late sixties when short in-service training courses were introduced. Chapter V traces the history of these short courses. Chapter VI presents the development of in-service teacher training under the Child Migrant Education Programme, the development of some tertiary courses leading to awards, and the development of pre-service courses, all of which take place in the emerging notion of 'multiculturalism'. The initial assumption levelled at teachers of migrant children was that no special training in migrant education was necessary because no special effort was necessary to teach migrant children. If teachers were kindly and understanding, and approached the problem with good sense, migrant children in their care would be rapidly assimilated. Requests for specialist help were made as early as 1954, but a general lack of appreciation of the problem by administrators ensured that these requests were unheeded. The contents of the Haines Report and the Dovey Report in the late fifties vindicated the belief that teachers of migrants did not require special training. The Dovey Report in particular lulled disquiet about the problems of migrant school children, for the four years immediately following its release witnessed only a few ad hoc and unco-ordinated attempts to draw attention to the need for teacher training. By the mid-sixties, however, a number of changes in educational thought were responsible for some new developments in migrant education. It became a public issue, and a number of surveys highlighted its needs. The result was the introduction in Victoria in 1968 of some short in-service teacher training courses. The inadequacies of these courses were soon felt. A survey conducted in New South Wales in 1969 prompted the Commonwealth Government to assume responsibility for the development, management and financial control of child migrant education. Financial assistance was provided to cover the cost of special training courses for teachers, in the method of teaching English as a foreign language. These four-week courses were introduced in 1970. At the same time, and in the setting of a developing notion of multicultural education, the first specialized teacher training course in migrant education to be offered by an Australian tertiary institution was developed. This course led to the award of the Diploma of Migrant Teaching, and commenced at Armidale Teachers' College in 1973. By the end of 1973, some other tertiary institutions were developing graduate and pre-service courses. The history of the development of specialist teacher training programmes obviously does not end in 1973. That year was chosen as the cut-off date for this history for two reasons. Firstly it was, as stated previously, the year in which the first specialized course was offered by an Australian tertiary institution. Secondly, by 1973 the stage was set, in terms of an awareness of the urgent need for pre-service and in-service teacher training,, for the developments that were to take place from 1973 to the present time.4 4. Cf. L. Sislov, Conceptions of Bilingual Education; the contexts in which conceptions emerge and certain practical pedagogical initiations emerging therefrom in Australia and other countries. Unpublished Master of Education Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1982, Chapters 9 and 10.
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    An ethnographic analysis and survey of specific attitudes of physical education teachers
    Gilbert, Keith ( 1984)
    Stage One utilizes an ethnographic approach by researching four teachers of physical education who graduated from Melbourne University in 1960, 1965, 1970 and 1975. Case studies were written on the four subjects. The teachers differed in their attitudes towards students with the more experienced teachers who were married and had children displaying a more caring and concerned disposition towards their pupils. It was evident that throughout his career a physical education teacher will display varying degrees of enthusiasm for his work, with the experienced teachers in this study being more enthusiastic. In addition they did not rely on strong disciplinary methods and had gradually moved away from a basic survival and control tendency which was a characteristic of the less experienced teacher. Generally, the more experienced teacher had greater job satisfaction than his less experienced counterpart. Ideas, principles, and hypotheses were generated from the ethnographic work in stage one and were used to formulate the traditional research attempted in stage two of this study. Thirty-six teachers of physical education from Education Department Secondary Schools within Victoria responded to the survey (85 percent response vote) which sought information concerning teacher attitudes, teacher enthusiasm and teacher reactions to particular issues central to their function as teachers of physical education. Data from the questionnaires was computed by the use of the Statistical Package for Social Science (Nie et al 1975). Analysis of the questionnaires involved the following statistics; mean, standard deviation, percentage, t-test and Pearson r correlation coefficients. The results revealed that the experienced physical education teacher who is married and has children will display a different set of attitudes towards the children whom he teaches than the less experienced, unmarried teacher of physical education. The enthusiasm level of teachers of physical education for their work varied greatly throughout their career. However, all teachers of physical education appear to follow the same pattern of changes in levels of enthusiasm, with subjects showing increased enthusiasm in early and late years of teaching and a drop in the level off enthusiasm in mid-career. This drop in the level of enthusiasm in mid-career seems due mainly to an increased emphasis by the teacher to his personal and family commitments.
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    Involvement and influence in decision-making as factors affecting job-satisfaction: a case-study involving selected secondary school teachers
    Gaffney, Michael ( 1983)
    This thesis, using a case-study approach, aimed to investigate a number of questions concerned with the relationship between participation in decision-making and job-satisfaction of secondary school teachers. Decisional influence and involvement were seen as two important dimensions of participation: (i) involvement, which may be perceived through frequency of consultation and/or attendance at meetings, and (ii) influence, which requires an appraisal by the teacher of his role in affecting the decisional outcome. Job-satisfaction was viewed both as a global concept and as a multidimensional concept. Particular aspects of a teacher's job, which were capable of measurement in terms of job-satisfaction and participation in decision-making, were selected and correlated with perceived overall job-satisfaction. These aspects were then grouped under the following criteria: Curriculum Planning and Adaptation; Classroom Management; Arrangement of the School Instructional Program; and General School Organisation. Some key questions emerged and were applied over each of the above criteria. (i) Are teachers who are more involved in decision-making likely to display higher levels of satisfaction? (ii) Are teachers who are able to exert higher levels of decisional influence likely to display higher degrees of satisfaction? Further through considering that the desire to participate in decisions may not be uniform, an approach based on the decisional discrepancy model of Belasco and Alutto enabled these additional questions to be investigated over each particular criterion: (i) Are teachers who are satisfied with their perceived level of decisional involvement likely to display a higher degree of satisfaction? (ii) How does a teacher's satisfaction with his perceived level of decisional influence relate to his degree of satisfaction with a particular criterion? From these questions developed a series of hypotheses which were subsequently tested for statistical significance. Although using a sample size of only thirty teachers did restrict the possibility of making any definite statements, results seemed to indicate that merely increasing the level of involvement or the level of influence in decisions is not a panacea for enhancing satisfaction for all criteria. Further the degree of satisfaction perceived with the levels of decisional involvement and/or influence did not seem to affect the level of criterion satisfaction in all cases. The results of this thesis are discussed in Chapter 6 in terms of their implications for administrators regarding models of organisational structure which may facilitate and increase the effectiveness of decision-making processes. Through taking into account (i) the levels of decisional involvement and influence, and (ii) the degree of satisfaction perceived with those levels of participation, possible outcomes resulting from adjusting teachers' levels of participation may be predicted and viewed in terms of their effects on the satisfaction levels of teachers.
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    Uses made of students' writing: implications in terms of language and learning
    Cosgriff, Russell Owen ( 1980)
    Students in our schools do a great deal of writing - writing has always been regarded highly in our educational system. We, as teachers, are responsible for giving our students most of the writing that they do and, because of this, we need to answer some pertinent questions: e.g. Do we know why we give our students the writing? Are we aware of where writing fits in the overall learning process of our students? Is what we are actually doing in the classroom with respect to our students' writing the same as what we think we are doing? This study is concerned with questions such as these in order to determine what is current practice, and to critically discuss such practice in terms of its impact on the learning success of students. The relationship between thought and language is intricate, but there is evidence that these have different genetic roots and develop differently; at certain stages, their curves of development meet. Word meanings may be. viewed as the overlap of thought and speech, and it is through word meanings that there is transition from thought to words. Written language requires a higher level of abstraction than spoken language. There is a reliance on formal meanings of words, and more words are needed than with speech, due to the absence of a communicating partner whose knowledge of the current subject can be pre-supposed. The communication is meant for a person who is not present or who may even be imaginary; motives for written language differ from those for spoken language. Different types of language can be discerned. James Britton categorized language as being transactional, expressive or poetic, where the purpose of the language differs in each case. Language closest to the students' everyday speech is expressive, yet there is evidence the predominant language demanded of secondary school students is transactional, and this demand increases as the student moves up the school. If language plays, a central role in students' learning, what are the consequences of this? There is also evidence that, as the student moves through the secondary school, the teacher is seen increasingly as almost the sole audience for the writing. What impact does this have? What then, are the uses made of students' writing? Why do teachers set it? How do they mark it? What uses are made of it by teachers after they have marked it and handed it back? Two research reports are considered in detail which focus on such issues in order to determine what is happening across the curriculum at about middle secondary school level. The first, by Douglas Barnes and Denis Shemilt, made use of an open questionnaire. Factor analysis was employed to establish patterns. Replies were seen as falling on a dimension which was called the Transmission-Interpretation dimension. The researchers further hypothesized by extrapolating from teachers' attitudes to writing in order to reconstruct their attitudes to knowledge and learning. The second research report resulted from a survey conducted by the present writer. A closed questionnaire was circulated to teachers of middle secondary level in twelve schools and the replies were factor analyzed. Two factors were discussed in detail; for both factors, there was evidence that patterns in responses closely matched the pattern obtained by the Barnes-Shemilt study. Having obtained some knowledge of language types expected or demanded, audiences provided for students' writing and the uses made of the written work, the implications in terms of language and learning are discussed.