Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Teaching and learning in a secondary school: conflict between theory and practice
    Carlin, Paul C. ( 1987)
    The purpose of the study was to investigate the ways in which students of differing abilities use their prior knowledge to select, modify and extend the information provided in classrooms to obtain high marks. The study was conducted at a Year 9 level in a Catholic Regional College by observing a series of lessons in Mathematics and History. Student attitudes to the lessons and the ways in which they used the information provided were determined by questionnaire and interview. Prior and post-teaching content knowledge were measured using teacher constructed tests. The findings of the study revealed that for a significant number of students, there was a considerable overlap between student prior knowledge of the topic and the information provided in the lessons. They also demonstrated that the level of knowledge and understanding of the criteria for high marks by students in the top group was very little different from those in the bottom group. These findings seem to support the findings of earlier studies of White and Baird, and others, that the nature of much learning in schools is primarily instrumental i.e. task-directed, limited to responding to teacher cues and attempting to give correct answers to teacher questions. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the conditions under which learning takes place and seeks to give some explanation concerning the effects of these on the teaching-learning process in a secondary school.