Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses
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ItemInstitutional influences on approaches to teaching within a flexible university : a cultural historical investigation( 2010)This study investigated the teaching approaches of two business academics located within an Australian university developing its flexible teaching and learning practices over the past twenty years. The interview subjects are highly regarded educators with formative backgrounds in on-campus or off-campus distance teaching. Each has had a long professional relationship with the researcher in her centrally situated position's as an educational developer within the institution. A review of the student learning literature pertaining to teaching and learning approaches in the higher education sector over the last thirty years, shows that "teaching approaches" can influence "student learning approaches"(Ramsden, Paul 2003) and outcomes, (Biggs, J. 2003; Lizzio, Alf, Wilson, Keithia & Simons, Roland 2002) however "institutional influences" upon teaching approaches seems to be substantially overlooked. (Kernber & Kwan 2000) The academics were invited to participate in this study agreeing to retrospectively review and discuss their teaching in three progressive phases of their working history. They were invited to consider their teaching approach using the Approach to Teaching Inventory (Trigwell, Prosser et. al. 2005) in order to reflect upon their personal positioning (Harre September 2004), institutional practice and societal rhetoric in relation to an academic life in various periods of their teaching history. Discursive analysis has been undertaken of the resulting conversations guided by Cultural Historical Analysis Theory, (Vygotsky 1978, Engestrom 1987). This investigation reveals profound institutional influences on the approaches of teachers to their work. Influences on academic life have usually been studied independent of the Higher education teaching and learning literature. This study points to an urgent need to integrate these research interests to inform understanding of material transformative activity for policy makers in higher education.
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ItemCase studies in learning area leadership in Catholic secondary schools in Melbourne, Australia( 2010)Learning Area Leaders (LALs) are leaders who have responsibility for the operation of learning areas (subject departments) in their schools. The leadership role of LALs was investigated in three Victorian Catholic Secondary Schools using case study methodology. Interviews were conducted in each school between the Principal, the curriculum coordinator, LALs and teachers. The leadership role of the LALs, particularly as their involvement in improving educational outcomes in their learning area, was explored through interviews and examination of range of documents to produce a rich description of each case. It was clear that the leadership of the LALs was, in each of the three schools, considered essential to the achievement of good student learning outcomes. In one of the three schools where the leadership role of the LALs was enhanced there was significant improvement in VCE results. The findings from each of the cases were then analysed according to a framework describing the leadership roles of LALs which was developed by White (Merriam, 19982002). The findings were consistent with White's framework. Consistent with other literature were issues to do with inadequate preparation for the role (Adey, 2000;. Deece, 2003; Dinham, Brennan, Collier, Deece, & Mulford, 2000; Earley & Fletcher- Campbell, 1989), lack of time to effectively carry out the role (Brown & Rutherford, 1999; Deece, 2003; Dinham, 2007; Earley & Fletcher-Campbell, 1989)and difficulties with staff management and role ambiguity (Adey, 2000; Dinham, 2007; Glover & Miller, 1999b; White, 2002). In considering the work of LALs in relation to context what emerged was the necessity for the Senior Management Team to facilitate LAL leadership by enlisting them as partners in developing strategic approaches to teaching and learning, creating structures which enable the LALs to interact with the staff in the learning areas and removing barriers in the school which might inhibit the LALs from the effective exercise of their leadership.
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ItemDeveloping Thai students' writing skills through genre-based teaching( 2010)This study reports on an investigation using the genre-based approach to teaching writing, and how it affected students' control over key features of the Discussion Genre. The research explored students' attitudes towards learning to write with this approach and conveyed the application of new pedagogy to teaching writing. The study was conducted in a classroom of thirty nine students during eight two-hour weekly sessions. The participants were third-year English major students in a four-year Bachelor of Arts program in a university in Thailand. The research method was an in-depth case study of the effectiveness of the genre-based approach in improving English as a Foreign Language [EFL] students' writing proficiency. Two cycles designed for teaching and learning the Discussion Genre were fashioned closely after the Disadvantaged Schools Project (DSP) model (e.g. Callaghan & Rothery, 1989), as implemented in various Australian schools. Three key research participants' written texts were analyzed by the researcher/ teacher using specific elements of the systemic functional grammar (SFG) framework (e.g. Butt et al., 2003). Self-assessment questionnaires sought students' views about their own learning experiences and writing proficiency. Semi-structured interviews and students' diaries were used to explore the students' experience of learning to write in English, and to explore students' attitudes to writing in English. A teacher's journal provided information about the ways in which students were involved in and responsive to the new teaching approach. The text analysis revealed that, as a result of the intervention, students gained control over key features of the Discussion Genre, and showed positive attitudes towards this approach, although the students' grammatical knowledge had not significantly improved, probably in part because the research was undertaken over a short period of time. Finally, the application of the genre-based approach is a significantly promising approach for teaching English in EFL contexts.
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ItemGirls' participation in science subjects in secondary schools in Kenya( 2010)This research aims at uncovering girls' participation in sciences in Kenya at secondary schools so as to provide a comprehensive picture that has been previously overlooked when researching under-representation of females and girls in science and science related careers. The study will help the government of Kenya through the Ministry of Education find out the causes of girls' participation in science and how to help them improve in science performance which is anticipated to improve the lifestyle of the girl-child in Kenya. A qualitative inquiry with case study aspects method was employed for this study with a descriptive case study design. Stratified purposeful sampling was used and data were collected through open-ended survey questionnaires using two groups of participants from State House Girls High School in Kenya. The findings of this research show that an assumption that girls hate science is unfounded. In fact there are a range of complex attitudinal factors and influences present. As this research was based in one single school, it would be of value to focus similar future research on multiple sites and external beyond this year group to track pathways from school into higher education careers.
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ItemMusical composition and ICT: children, computers and new musical ideas( 2010)An investigation into children composing music with computers demonstrated complex and unconventional uses of rhythm, harmony and melodic structure, as well as approaches to the compositional process that indicated that the children’s musical perceptions and understandings were very different to those of adults and to those represented in the literature. Using qualitative methodological approaches with roots firmly attached to the ideas of post positivist paradigms the study presents a narrative account of events and actions. It makes strong connections to the Ecological Approach to Visual Perception as present by James Gibson by investigating the all-important relationship that exists between the child and the computer. The human/computer relationship is also significantly important in the actual analysis of the children’s works; the compositions were analysed using the same software with which they were composed. This allowed for a deep investigation of compositional processes that went beyond analysis of music as an expression of sound. The seven participants, aged between ten and twelve years, produced 261 compositions over the period of a school year. Analysis of these compositions produced a typology of compositional approaches based on play; which is examined in detail. In addition to this typology, significant compositional features that include extreme rhythmic, harmonic and tonal dissonances were identified, these features are also presented. The process of data collection and analysis revealed an inexorable link between the children’s actions and the act of play. The centrality of play is identified as significantly important to the compositions and the compositional approaches. Through the consideration of the role of play, the notion of metaphor (in language, music and play itself) and the importance of the electronic environment, the thesis asks educators and researchers to consider alternatives to the application of adult western cultural perspectives to what is an expression of childhood.
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ItemThe drama of boys: an ethnographic study and performance( 2010)This thesis, entitled The Drama of Boys – an ethnographic study and performance examines boys’ participation in drama at a coeducational government school in inner Melbourne, Australia. An educational ethnography, it focuses on the ways in which the boys participated in the drama classes at years seven, eight, eleven and twelve and how this related to the work of the drama teachers and the female students. It is also an account of the processes undertaken by the researcher to create an ethnographic performance (a play based on research data) derived from the findings related to boys’ participation in the Drama programme at the school. The researcher investigated what characterised boys’ participation in drama at the school and the factors that influenced this. The sources of ethnographic data were observations of the drama classes, interviews with staff and students and an analysis of school documentation and other relevant artefacts. There appeared to be a direct relationship between ‘boy-friendly’ curriculum approaches operating in the Drama programme and the positive and productive participation of boys in the drama classes. The Drama classrooms were found to be sites where the male students negotiated a complex range of private and public personas and roles associated with their masculinity. The expression of masculine identity by the male drama students affirmed and contested some of the hegemonic masculinities operating elsewhere in their school. The students and their drama teachers asserted that the range of masculinities the male students ‘performed’ in Drama appeared to be broader than those they expressed and experienced in other aspects of their school life including those that had a positive impact on their schooling. The data revealed that the pedagogical approach of the drama teachers correlated with contemporary understandings of ‘boy-friendly’ teaching strategies and this enhanced the boys’ participation in the subject. Some of the student participants identified what they deemed to be the positive attributes of the Drama programme in relation to the enhanced participation of boys in the classes. The thesis also maps, analyses and evaluates the processes undertaken by the researcher to transform ethnographic data into an ethnodramatic script. He found that he had to address ethical and procedural difficulties when writing and presenting the ethnodramatic script. However working as an ethnodramatist enhanced his role as an ethnographic researcher and was a useful adjunct to the Drama programme in the school. An unexpected outcome was that the ethnodramatic project fostered the boys’ participation in the drama classes. It was discovered that ethnographic performance can be a useful method and form with which to report on ethnographic research findings and an effective way to share research data with drama teachers and their students. The researcher found that the collaborative and consultative processes he established with the participants enhanced his work as an ethnodramatist including the development of the play script and presenting it as a readers’ theatre performance.
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ItemEmployability skills in the world of welfare to work: an application of item response theory to criterion referenced testing( 2010)This study extends the research on generic employability skills by developing a valid and reliable assessment of employability skills for jobseekers engaged in vocational rehabilitation. Literature on key competencies and generic employability skills in the broader context of the Australian work force is reviewed and the Employability Skills Framework (ACCI & BCA, 2002) is integrated with the Choose Get Keep model of employability from the field of vocational rehabilitation (Farley, Little, Bolton, Chunn, 1988) to construct a developmental model of vocational rehabilitation. A probabilistic model of competency assessment (Griffin, 1995; 2004) was used in conjunction with the partial credit Rasch model (Rasch, 1960; Masters, 1982) and criterion - referenced assessment (Glaser, 1960; Glaser, 1981) to develop an assessment of employability skills for vocational rehabilitation. The SOLO taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982) was used to develop interpretable performance indicators for each item. The expertise of vocational rehabilitation professionals was used to identify the personal attributes and elements from the eight employability skills outlined in the Employability Skills Framework to develop items for an assessment of employability skills for vocational rehabilitation. A pilot study in which 20 jobseekers were assessed was used to review and refine the assessment instrument. The modified instrument was trialed by 28 volunteer assessors on 73 volunteer jobseeker participants from urban and regional Victoria. The results of the study demonstrate that it is possible to identify and assess personal attributes and elements of the eight employability skills for vocational rehabilitation and that they form a uni-dimensional construct which fits the parameters of the partial credit Rasch model (Master, 1982). A final version of the assessment made up of 22 employability scale items was named the Jobseeker Assessment of Employability Skills (JAES). The JAES was found to have good internal consistency and a high level of person and item separation reliability. Construct validity was demonstrated by confirming that the employability skills scale fitted the uni-dimensional Rasch measurement model and that the items formed a line of increasing intensity measuring a single construct. Estimates of individual jobseeker‟s employability skills were calculated both in logits and in a more easily interpreted scale with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100 termed the Emp. 500. In addition a feedback form was developed for the purpose of providing individual feedback to jobseekers to assist with further skill development. Implications of the approach taken and the use and further development of the scale are discussed.
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ItemMeaning and potential of test response time and certainty data: teaching perspective( 2010)Computerised testing is becoming a major component of and an increasingly preferable method of assessment. The potential of the vast information generated during a test to increase the precision of evaluation and to extend the utility of a test for test design, teaching and learning are in the focus of current scientific discourse. This study contributes to the discussion by investigating the meaning of response time and certainty data from a teaching perspective. The study also explores the utility of response time measurements to deliver information about certainty, thus capitalising on the benefit of unobtrusiveness of the measurements. The study utilised a quasi-experimental design, with the data collected from computerised tests in basic mathematics skills administered to tertiary students as part of their curriculum in a University setting. With the focus on the potential of response time to inform teaching, the study examined: (a) how response time could reveal the difference in cognitive load between test items; (b) how response time could reflect solution strategies; (c) how response time could be used to detect cognitive progress and to monitor the impact of teaching on a student cohort across a semester; (d) what meaning is conveyed by different combinations of response time and certainty; and (e) whether there is a relationship between response time and certainty and then whether response time can be used as a proxy for certainty. The research adopted a data-driven approach based on the use of quantitative data analysis to identify a phenomenon and prompt its exploration through qualitative methods of interviews and discussions with test takers and teaching experts who then provided further interpretation of the phenomenon. The study found that response time and certainty data deliver the information about underlying cognitive phenomena that are not captured by traditional accuracy statistics. The study established that response time measurements can assist in the following education processes: (a) designing parallel test items; (b) evaluating difference in cognitive load; c) estimating prevalence of mental solution strategy over written strategy; and (d) monitoring the impact of teaching on specific cohort subgroups across a semester. The study established the relationship between response time and certainty which indicates that response time data can be used instead of certainty for assessing group readiness for new learning. Additionally, the study determined the format for presenting the data that was perceived as the most meaningful by a teacher. The findings of the study are especially valuable for enhancing the pedagogical practice of Assessment For Learning which stands in the centre of current education assessment reform. Practical implementation of the findings in education testing software can facilitate a change in teaching practice by providing the means for ongoing monitoring of cognitive dynamics of a student cohort to further enhance the teaching and learning process.
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ItemThe evolution of the OSCA-OSCE-Clinical Examination of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons( 2010)The overall question this research aimed to address was how and why the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) of The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) evolved. A literature review and introduction are presented as a background to the evolution of the Objective Structured Clinical Assessment (OSCA)-OSCE-Clinical Examination of RACS. A brief history of surgery and training, an outline of the functions of RACS and a description of evolution from the apprenticeship model to formal surgical training programs is given. A background to the purpose of assessment within RACS, and formative and summative assessments precedes a description of the Part 1 Examination of RACS. By 1985 it was realised that not all objectives of basic surgical training of the RACS could be assessed in the Part 1 Examination using Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs); hence the introduction of an OSCE Clinical Examination, to assess clinical skills such as history taking, examination of patients, procedural skills and communication skills. A description of the Part 2 exit examination and the relation of RACS to universities and government are given. To undertake clinical examinations, clear definitions of clinical competence are required, and the differences between knowledge, the application of knowledge, competence and performance are considered and elucidated. These form the background to the clinical examination as a competency assessment, as opposed to a performance assessment in actual clinical practice. Then follows a detailed analysis of some important components of any examination process including: clear definition of the purpose of the assessment; blueprinting for type and content of assessment; reliability; validity; educational impact or consequential validity; cost; and feasibility and acceptability. Reliability of different clinical examination types is considered in detail, and an outline of definitions and the method of determining reliability described. Factors affecting reliability include: length of testing time; number of testing samples; number of examiners; standardised patient performance; and variation of examinees across testing stations (inter-case variability or content specificity). Validity is examined to ensure an examination is actually testing what it is intended to test. Face and content validity, alignment between the curriculum, the references and the examination, and consequential validity (the effect of the examination on learning) are highlighted as important validity components. Then follows an evaluation of rating scales for OSCE exams, using check lists or global assessments, assessor training, and methods to determine standards and pass marks for the examination. This includes relative and absolute standards, Angoff’s judgemental method, and the importance of examiner selection, standard setting meetings, and the determination of the standard. The overall question this research aimed to address was how and why the OSCE clinical examination of RACS evolved. To answer this, the mechanics of the RACS OSCE examination process were assessed. Twenty one problem areas were identified, analysed and evaluated, and the OSCE clinical examination was assessed against the known background literature on reliability, validity, educational impact, accessibility, cost, blueprinting, alignment of curriculum and resources and examinations, utility of a data base, standard setting, rating scales and global competency versus check list scores. Seven RACS-OSCE examinations were analysed in detail to elucidate the extent to which the RACS-OSCE matches the benchmark expectations in the areas outlined above. Some of the major problems identified with the original RACS-OSCE examination included: inappropriate inclusion of written questions; inability to rate overall or global performance as opposed to check list rating; lack of electronic data base questions and reliance on hardcopy exams; lack of statistical analysis of the examination; lack of consistent nomenclature; and lack of alignment of curriculum, resources and references and examination questions. It was also determined that: examiner recruitment and examination logistics required review; the role of the Clinical Committee which administers the OSCE, needed refining; reading lists needed updating; and the clinical examination needed to reflect the nine competencies of RACS recently introduced. These problems were addressed leading to changes in the practice and evaluation of the examination process by: introduction of competency scores for global assessment in the areas of counselling, procedure, examination and history taking; consistent clinical nomenclature was introduced; the 20 station (12 assessed, 8 written) examination was replaced with a 16 assessed station examination and the written questions were discontinued; the role of the administering Clinical Committee was defined in detail; the process of new question and station creation was clarified, including essential documentation for each station; recruitment and recognition of clinical examiners was instituted; the logistics of running the examination were refined; an electronic Clinical Committee data base was established; and statistical analysis of performance of the examination was undertaken. The overall reliability of the OSCE clinical examination of RACS in multiple examinations is of the order of 0.60-0.73, which is a modest level only. Removal of written questions and increasing observed clinical stations from 12 to 16 has not altered this reliability level. The most important factor affecting reliability is sample size; to deal with the major problem of content specificity or inter-case variability. This suggests an increased number of observed stations (perhaps up to 20) will be required to increase the reliability of the RACS Clinical OSCE. Differences in reliability and geographic centres have been demonstrated, suggesting that this is related to the examiners, which raises the issues of examiner performance and training. The content validity of the OSCE is good as evidenced by: the fact that surgical experts are creating, reviewing and revising the content of the OSCE exam; the use of blueprinting, and quality control by the Clinical Committee; and examination stations are statistically analysed for correlation and reliability. Evidence was found that assessment drives learning in the consequential validity analysis of the examination. The examination was found to have good face validity and authenticity. The OSCE was found to be feasible and acceptable. Standard setting still requires further development for the RACS-OSCE Clinical Examination and it is recommended a modified Angoff method be utilised. Overall, this thesis details the modification and evolution of the RACS-OSCE clinical examination over a sixteen year period, demonstrating it is robust, reliable, and valid.
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ItemInvestigating the effect of item-context on students’ performance on mathematics items( 2010)The current research in mathematics education recommends to measure how well students are able to apply their knowledge and mathematical skills and use them to solve problems in a real-life context but an increasing body of research has been ambivalent about the effects of contextualising mathematical tasks on students’ performance. Thus, the present piece of research aims to investigate the effect of an alteration of item-context on students’ performance, if any, on mathematics items. Items with the same mathematical core whilst varying in objective figurative context are used in this study. The study will also examine to what extent the nature of demand of the item-context may affect students’ performance. A mixed method approach is used due to the character of the research aims. In this study significant differences were not been found in students’ performance when they solved items across altered contexts; but evidence indicated that students’ performance on items required the second-order use of context may be more influenced by the alteration of context. The results of this research give some insight into how the second-order use of context may influence students’ performance on mathematics items. This outcome enhances the understanding of contextualised mathematical assessment and provides a foundation for future research into contextualised mathematical tasks.
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