Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Influences on engineering education in Australia
    Zorbas, Nicholas ( 1976)
    This thesis is concerned with the identification and examination of the various types of influences on professional engineering education in Australia. It commences with a study of what a professional person in general, and a professional engineer in particular, should be, and describes the functions and characteristics of such a person. This is followed by an examination of curriculum design, and how the curricula of professional courses are controlled by professional societies. The various influences on engineering curricula are then considered in detail in four broad categories, namely historical influences, formal influences, informal influences, and societal influences within each of these categories, various tapes of influences are identified, and their method of application, and relative effectiveness, discussed. Apart from the chapters on terminology and historical influences, which have been researched from existing publications, the content of the thesis is original, and, as far as can be ascertained, is the first attempt to examine the subject of Australian engineering education in a sociological context.
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    Statistics of public expenditure on education in Australia : requirements for the formation of national policy
    Segall, Patsy (1942-) ( 1976)
    In Australia's federal system the provision of educational services is the responsibility of the state governments. However, the federal government has also acquired responsibilities for. education. Since the second world war, the state governments have been dependent on the federal government for a large proportion of the funds needed to discharge their responsibilities. More directly, the federal government has greatly extended the scope of its activities in education, mainly through the use of specific. purpose grants to the states. By 1970 these grants affected all levels of education in the states. To be effective, national 'educational policies should take account of differences between the states as well as of 'national needs. Necessary information includes national statistics which are compiled on the same basis for each of . the states. The coverage and quality of national educational statistics has improved considerably, but there are still deficiencies. In particular, the statistics of public expenditure on education do not provide an adequate account of the states individually, or of national trends. Unpublished records of the Australian Bureau of Statistics provide the basis for a set of figures of public expenditure on education which are both more comprehensive and more detailed than those published. Analysis of these figures for the period 1963-64 to 1973-74 shows large differences in the patterns of educational expenditure in each of the states. Nationally there have been considerable changes in the composition of total public outlay on education, the rapid growth of the tertiary sector outside universities being particularly noteworthy. Official statistics of this kind are needed to make possible an effective assessment of the priorities and directions of Australian education.
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    An investigation of some educational implications of Holland's theory of vocational choice
    Elliott, Russell Henry ( 1976)
    The project set out to investigate the value of Holland's Vocational Preference Inventory (V.P.I.) as a measure of tertiary course/student compatibility and whether this compatibility had a bearing on subsequent course achievement. The sample consisted of 230 first year students at the Gordon Institute of Technology - a vocationally oriented College of Advanced Education. In addition to the course guidance investigation, a number of aspects of Holland's theory of vocational choice were examined. These included a test of Holland's proposed hexagonal pattern of relationships between the six personality types used in the interpretation of V.P.I. scores. Also, Holland's theory predicts, in relation to educational behaviour, that the choice of, stability in, satisfaction with and achievement into a field of study depend upon the degree of congruence between students and their educational environment. With a questionnaire measure of satisfaction and G.P.A. as an academic achievement measure, these predictions were tested. The results of a multiple discriminant analysis of scale scores on the V.P.I. indicated that meaningful distinctions between the course groups in the sample could be made on the- basis of scores on three significant discriminant functions. A series of planned contrasts carried out using a multivariance analysis also yielded significant results - again indicating that distinctions could be made between the course groups -using scores on the V.P.I. The values for the mean intercorrelations between scale scores for the sample showed that Holland's hexagonal ordering of the personality types was consistent with the results for this sample. As regards the congruence and satisfaction prediction, no significant differences were found on the satisfaction measures between those students who were congruent with their course and those who were not. Similar non-significant differences were found for the congruence/incongruence and academic achievement results. In both cases, however, satisfaction and achievement scores were higher for those who were congruent i.e. the differences were in the predicted direction. In -summary, the project found the V.P.I. to be able to discriminate between students in different courses and thus to offer possibilities for course guidance, and weak but not significant support for Holland's predictions relating to the effect of congruence of students and courses on educational behaviour.