Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemTowards a model for colleague support : matching support to needs and contexts( 1999)This thesis explores the issue of colleague support in schools observed in five case site schools over several years. The study sought to ascertain how colleagues perceive, rate, utilise and value colleague support and the effect of colleague support across a school culture. The research study is predominantly qualitative using participant observation and interviews, over several years. The interviews are based on an earlier pilot study (conducted in 1995-96) and a later survey of each of the five case site schools that make up this research study. The thesis outlines how colleagues describe, value, and utilise colleague support and proposes a typology of support based in grounded theory. This typology asserts that schools have definable `colleague-shape; based in characteristics and protocols of support that have an increasing degree of school-wide consciousness. The typology, and emerging protocols, it is hoped, have both a descriptive and diagnostic facility and an adaptive utility. This thesis concludes with a chapter on adaptive facility proposing suggestions, arising from this study, that might increase a school's conscious awareness and use of colleague support.
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ItemThe value of library advisory committees( 1996)The study reported in this thesis investigated the value of Victorian university library advisory committees to committee members, with particular reference to their liaison function. A review of the literature gave some indication of their value. It also indicated that their liaison function was wide ranging and successful to varying degrees. However, the literature focused on these aspects from the point of view of librarians. There is a paucity of literature that articulated the views of non-librarian committee members, or investigated the value of library advisory committees from their perspective. It was the aim of the present study to redress this imbalance and investigate the value of library advisory committees, thus highlighting their benefits and disadvantages, for both librarians and non-librarians alike. The methodology used in the study was a survey using a self-administered questionnaire. The sample consisted of all members of all library advisory committees in four major Victorian universities. In addition to closed questions, the questionnaire used many open questions in order to draw out members' attitudes to and perceptions of their committee. The results of the survey indicated that on many aspects of committee operations and functions, committee members have parallel views regardless of whether they are librarians or non-librarians; consequently a profile of the typical committee member emerged. These results suggested that committees are functioning successfully and are valuable to their members, particularly as a means of liaison. However, it was notable that, in relation to policy issues, the views and priorities of librarians and non-librarians differed significantly. Unlike librarians, non-librarians were more likely to be of the opinion that their committee should offer more opportunity for policy input and involvement. The present study also revealed that more work needs to be done to determine the value of library advisory committee for students.
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ItemThe impact of the zone based professional development program, "Skill review and professional development", on knowledge, understanding and practice within selected school communities( 1995)While engaged in documenting a retrospective account of a zone based professional development program, Skill Review and Professional Development, which aimed to support school communities in the implementation of skill review and professional development according to the Tripartite Agreement on School Development Planning, I reflected on a statement by Harwayne (1992): 'We take courses. We attend workshops. We read books, We get lots of information. But the really important information comes later on. It comes when we take that seed information back to our classrooms, when we experiment and innovate and invent, when we make it our own. The story really is 'to be continued' (p.337 ). This reflection led to the following questions which drove my investigation: # has the 'seed information' collected during the program been taken back to the school level?; # have school communities been able to 'experiment', 'innovate' and 'invent' in order to make skill review and professional development their own?; and, # in what areas has the zone based professional development program, Skill Review and Professional Development, impacted at the school level? The information gathered to discover the answers to these questions was qualitative in nature and comes from those involved directly with the delivery and implementation of the program. The information draws on what happened at the zone level and what is now happening at the school level. The gathered data took the form of words: written and anecdotal; record and document observations; and transcripts of discussions and interviews, as words captured the spirit of the happenings. The writings of Joyce and Showers (1987), Joyce and Weil (1992), Fullan and Stiegelbauer (1991), Hargreaves (1992), Fullan (1993), Johnson (1993), Guskey (1994) and others have helped make sense of the impact of this program at the school level.
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ItemThe politics of curriculum( 1999)This thesis seeks to document the development, establishment and subsequent demise of Victoria's first independent regulatory body of senior secondary curriculum and assessment, the Victorian Institute of Secondary Education. Analysis of the origins of VISE helps reveal the implicit social conflicts at work within the senior secondary curriculum. The thesis investigates the response of policy makers to the shift in senior secondary education from an 'elite' system to a 'mass' system in light of this conflict. The thesis argues that these responses in general, and VISE's in particular, while significantly expanding school control over the curriculum and pedagogical autonomy, failed to moderate social patterns of success and failure by not challenging the implicit rationale behind the curriculum hierarchy - the needs of the university for selection - and by failing to base curriculum policy on a wider understanding of the origins of such patterns.
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ItemThe learning needs of non-English-speaking-background student nurses( 1998)This thesis has investigated the learning needs of non-English-speaking-background (NESB) students in a tertiary nursing course and whether they are being met. It has reviewed literature predominently from Australia, Britain and the USA. Whilst there are similarites it has been recognised that all situations are not the same so the literature has been used appropritely to establish the theoretical framework for the study and in the support of the research findings. Qualitative methodology has been used focusing on observation, survey, and interview methods from two groups studied, ie., NESB students and academics. The findings from the two groups researched, are expressed as results; from students who have analysed that their learning as affected by predominently academic factors, such as reading and writing for assessments and professional documentation, and on a minor level by language and cultural expectations in relation to teaching/learning. Academic findings support students responses but also identify some professional nursing issues such as expectations of students as affecting the learning needs of these students. The recommendations of this thesis are to provide better academic support for NESB students and to effect greater academic and university awareness of the learning needs of NESB students.
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ItemLearning to live over again : the resettlement stories of refugees from the former Yugoslavia( 1999)This thesis followed the resettlement in Australia, specifically Victoria, of three refugee families from the former Yugoslavia. The three families arrived here in 1995, and have made a new life for themselves. The settlement process was the key issue under examination, as the assumption was that if new arrivals can find a sense of belonging, then this is of benefit to themselves and the Australian community. The examination of this process focussed on the role of education, and coming to the conclusion as to which factors have helped them and which factors have been more difficult to contend with. In-depth, case study interviews were conducted, with an emphasis on a limited number of open-ended questions, so as to maximise the families' conclusions about their situation after discussion. Specifically the key research questions concerned: firstly, key information about the biography of the families; secondly, the circumstances of their move out of the former Yugoslavia; thirdly, what happened when they arrived in Australia - with respect to key services, such as education. The thesis findings illustrate that refugees need to be assisted in their grieving process before a satisfactory sense of belonging can be achieved. This sense of belonging is necessary in order to make adequate progress in a new culture.
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ItemCompassionate leadership in schools( 1997)This thesis explores two concepts - compassion and leadership - and their relationship to success in suburban schools of an Australian city. Compassion is a concept - an over-arching value - that is, for most people, not immediately associated with leadership. Compassion involves more than sentimental pity for another. It also involves passionate action directed towards the relief of suffering by another. Increasingly, leadership of many organisations is being seen in far more complex terms than personality or a particular situation. The important role that the values an individual brings to their organisation, and the connection of those values to success, is emerging. Compassion is a key value that is thought to be underpinning much successful leadership. The literature underpinning both compassion and leadership are reviewed. The purpose of this study is to find out what it is that principals do in exercising compassion in schools, how that compassion affects success in the school and what life influences may have caused a principal to develop compassion. Compassionate leadership by principals is studied through the development of a model which connects eleven elements of compassion - celebrative, passionately active, justice-making, benevolently loving, creative, non-elitist, networking, transpersonal, pain relieving, transcendent and fun-filled - with the four leadership frames of Bolman and Deal (1991) - the structural, human resource, political and symbolic. A questionnaire developed from this framework provides a quantitative method to find out about compassionate leadership, in particular, how those compassion elements are influenced by the four leadership frames. This quantitative approach augments a qualitative approach which involved eighteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews concerning compassion on the part of the principal during a critical incident in the life of the school. The qualitative approach of Miles and Huberman (1994) is used to better understand the interview transcripts. The quantitative and qualitative data are then synthesised. The compassionate leadership model suggested has strong statistical support that shows the relative contribution of each leadership frame to each compassion element. For example, it is shown that the celebrative element of compassion is contributed to most by the symbolic and political leadership frames and that two of the principals in the study showed clear evidence of acting in both political and symbolic ways when celebrating the lives of dead students. This may be helpful in guiding leaders to improve their compassionate stance. The relative contribution of each element in the model to compassion is suggested, with the four most important compassion elements identified as: transpersonal, pain relieving, passionately active and benevolently loving. Success in each of the schools studied is shown to have been influenced by compassionate action on the part of the principal and a number of compassion-developing influences in the lives of the principals studied are identified, such as key adults, early personal struggle and service to others at an early age. It is recommended that the compassionate leadership model be used by leaders, in conjunction with context-rich qualitative data for specific individuals, to reflect upon, and self-appraise, their own behaviour. The model can also be used as part of course work preparation of potential leaders. Recommendations for future studies include seeking student views on compassionate leadership, investigating gender differences more closely, and finding out about compassionate leadership in other cultural contexts.
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ItemTransforming policy into practice : the implementation of the Curriculum and Standards Framework in primary schools in Victoria( 1997)This thesis examines individual school use of a newly introduced curriculum policy, the Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF). Its purpose was to explore how a central policy impacted on individual schools and the processes that occurred within the school to transform CSF policy into classroom practice. It examines the way knowledge relating to CSF policy and other knowledge was transferred and used within schools and the factors that affected this process. The context in which this innovation occurred was examined before considering the determinants and outcomes of policy use. Recent knowledge utilisation theory in the area of policy innovation was used to refine ideas further. It was argued that a major determinant of CSF use was the characteristics of the CSF itself. From this a tentative three level conceptual model for CSF policy use was constructed. Variation in. use, it was reasoned, depended on local capacity to utilise curriculum knowledge. These arguments formed the basis of the research questions. A multiple case study approach was used to determine both the general pattern for CSF use and variations in use. An exploratory approach, gaining data from many sources within each of the sites over time, was utilised. Analysis of the data showed that the conceptual model was appropriate and a single factor, defined as "culture of change", accounted for most of the variation between sites. This factor was a conglomerate of sub-factors concerning structures, knowledge, processes and capabilities within individual school sites. In line with other similar studies, the thesis demonstrated the importance of local factors in policy use. The thesis goes further than other studies of this type by identifying the particular structures, practices and expertise that resulted in informed curriculum policy implementation through effective knowledge utilisation. In particular, the study demonstrated the importance of intensive structured professional interaction to maximise knowledge utilisation.
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ItemImproved student learning and leadership in self-managed schools( 1998)This thesis examines improved student learning and leadership in schools under conditions of decentralisation, in a study designated the Learning Outcomes Project. In 1993, in the State of Victoria, Australia, a set of initiatives called Schools of the Future was introduced into government schools. The operation of the school system was changed from a relatively centralised system to one where much of the decision making about operations was decentralised to the school site. The impact on teachers, principals and schools has been considerable. Changes have occurred to teachers' working conditions and the accountability functions of schools through School Charters, Annual Reports and the introduction of Curriculum and Standards Frameworks (CSF) in eight Key Learning Areas (KLA). The Cooperative Research Project, a joint venture of the Victorian Secondary Principals' Association, the Victorian Primary Principals' Association, the Victorian Department of Education and The University of Melbourne, conducted a series of investigations into the processes and outcomes of Schools of the Future, including this study. The Learning Outcomes Project sought to investigate links from the reforms associated with decentralisation in school systems to improved student learning. This is a critical and vital area for research where little concrete evidence is available to support the benefits of decentralisation in relation to improved student learning. Previous studies have found the benefits of decentralisation to be mainly operational and managerial. A qualitative methodology was adopted to seek evidence of improved student learning in schools and explore leadership function under the conditions of decentralisation. Four schools that claimed improved student learning agreed to be part of the study. A conceptual framework was developed that allowed actions at school level be traced through the reforms to improved student learning. The leadership dimensions and strategies suited to schools under conditions of decentralisation were studied with the aid of a conceptual model, using a new model of educational leadership. Causal links from the reforms of decentralisation to improved student learning were mapped. This study reinforces the difficulties of making causal links. The findings indicate that improved student learning under conditions of decentralisation is evident in certain circumstances where clearly defined pathways are established from the reforms to improved student learning. It was shown that direct pathways to student learning were consistently and directly evident from Curriculum- CSF Implementation and Professional Development in all schools and were developing from Monitoring, Assessment and Reporting. The causal maps defined pathways which could be used by schools to monitor improved student learning in Schools of the Future. Leadership suited to decentralised systems was shown to require strong and balanced leadership across the six dimensional model used in this study. It was further shown that leadership dimensions that were not strong in the principal needed to be evident in other leaders for effective curriculum implementation to occur. Useful trends which may be relevant to other schools were found in this study. However, due to the favourable conditions in which this study was conducted across a small number of schools, further research is necessary to validate these findings and caution may be needed if using the findings in other settings.