Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemUsing new media in the drama classroom(University of Melbourne, 2007)This study explores the ways in which primary school drama students engage with new media technologies in the drama classroom. Specifically this study investigates a multi-media project combining live role- based performance and digital role-based performance. The research addresses whether the drama classroom can operate effectively within a digital framework. In particular the study seeks to clarify whether the virtual world and the real world of the drama classroom can come together to produce new dramatic works. Using an action research approach, I draw on my teaching of nine weeks of drama in an all girls K-12 school in Melbourne, Australia. The data was collected through observing and facilitating the drama workshops, conducting interviews with both student and teacher participants and collecting digital discussion forum reflections. A review of the related literature focuses on the current state of drama education and the ways in which drama educators are adapting to the technological changes in their curricula. In the drama classes the girls were challenged to create improvisations and stories from new media pretexts and stimuli. In their dramas the girls also addressed the ways in which new technologies were present in their everyday lives and how these technologies could be used in the drama classroom. This study addresses the possibilities of building a digitally viable drama classroom that still enables students to learn and express themselves through dramatic form. The findings of this study indicate the importance of drama education to connect young people to their real life technological experiences and also the importance of giving young people physically active opportunities that they do not find in their highly mediated world.
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ItemLanguage and thinking in action: how one primary teacher supports her students to enact and articulate their thinking( 2007)This study investigated how one teacher facilitates dialogue with and between primary-aged students, to assist their thinking, at a time when the introduction of a new curriculum in Victoria is placing explicit demands on teachers to meet rigorous standards in students' thinking. Its aim was to identify exploratory (Mercer 2002) or dialogic interactions (Wells 1999) in the context of problem-based or inquiry learning, so that educators will better understand how language-based techniques and prompts promote students' thinking and learning. A review of the current and relevant literature revealed that classroom-based research focusing on the relationship between language, thinking and learning as theorised by Lev Vygotsky and Michael Halliday, emphasises the important role of the teacher in challenging and extending students' thinking. A qualitative case study of the language generated by the teacher working mainly with a small group of her students was undertaken and discourse analytic techniques were applied to the data. The main findings of the study relate to (i) the teacher's use of some dialogic techniques that supported students' thinking and learning and (ii) alternatively the teacher's under-exploitation of teachable moments to fully promote students' thinking and learning using exploratory language.
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ItemPerceptions of students and young working adults on their experience learning the English language: case studies in Singapore( 2007)The standard of English in Singapore has been a recurring issue of debate for the last 30 years. This study seeks to understand the language situation in Singapore through the perceptions of six students and young working adults describing their experience learning English in Singapore. The study proposes another perspective to examining the language situation - the language situation is a phenomenon. Two factors are integral in this phenomenon: the distinctive development in the English language worldwide with the appearance of the English variants, the New Englishes, at the macrolevel and the acquisition of English in the multilingual society of Singapore at the microlevel. This study set out to explore this using a phenomenological approach. It involved in-depth interviews with participants who would have been affected by language instruction and policy decisions of the last 20 years. These interviews provide participants' "lived" experiences. While the study looked at how English was acquired in a multilingual setting, Singlish, or Singapore English, was referred to consistently by the participants as a language used frequently in informal settings. Findings indicate that Singlish, which is often considered as the poorer form of these variations, is regarded as a language of its own with contributions from the variety of languages which represent the major ethnic groups in Singapore. Singlish has also been seen as an identity marker.
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ItemInvestigating the factors that influence the payment of participants in health research and evaluation( 2007)This thesis investigated the factors that influence the payment of participants in health research and evaluation. Although research regarding the payment of participants has been explored previously, few studies provide an Australian perspective on current payment practices, or discuss the basis on which decisions to pay, or not pay, participants are made. A mixed-method approach was used to gather data from researchers, evaluators, human research ethics committee representatives, and other health-organisation representatives. A series of ten face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were held to explore personal and organisational opinions and current payment practices. Guidelines and protocols identified during the interviews were later collected and reviewed. To gather data from a larger sample, seek additional information and confirm the interview findings, an on-line survey was then developed and disseminated to 128 health researchers and evaluators across Australia. Findings revealed that payment of participants appears to be a common practice in Australian health research and evaluations. Decisions to pay, or not pay, were often influenced by multiple factors such as: budgets; the nature of the study; the type of participants required for the study; the organisation conducting and/or funding the study; past experiences and practices; and the amount of inconvenience (time and money) to participants. Variations in payment practices were also identified, as were views about which population groups were more 'appropriate' or 'deserving'. Similar to some prior studies the need for more comprehensive guidelines for payment was identified. However, it was suggested that future guidelines should take into account various types of health research, and be relevant to both the evaluation and research professions. Unique to this study were differences found between attitudes and practices of respondents involved in health research with those involved in health service/program evaluation. Further investigations into other possible differences between these two groups were suggested. In conclusion, a series of recommendations were made concerning: a) What would constitute reasonable monetary payments or non-monetary incentives for different population groups; b) The conduct of more research that focuses on consumer-perspectives about different payment practices; and c) Research that presents evidence to support, or dispel, beliefs that payment of participants is coercive, damages voluntary consent and exposes participants to unnecessary risk.