AARE Conference Paper Abstracts - 2004

ISSN 1324-9339

[Paper] indicates a hypertext link to the relevant paper. The symbol ® indicates that the full paper was refereed.

A

ABB04283   [Paper]
Subjects and objects in higher degrees: The view from within

Colleen Abbott, Education Consultant and James Brown, Melbourne Grammar School

This paper will give two voices from within a Masters thesis; the researcher, and "the researched". In this case, both speakers are participants within The Ithaka Project : the different purposes emerge from their different work settings. So what issues arise from this kind of participant-observer dichotomy? In what ways do the conversations which form the data for the thesis feed into the growth of the project? Does the consciousness of being " researched" affect the ways in which such discussion can be conducted?

ACH04769 [Paper]
Integrating agent-based models with quantitive and qualitative research methods

Edwin Achorn, Monash University

This paper will describe a mixed methodology that combines Agent-Based models of human behaviour with quantitative and qualitative Research methods. A decision matrix for selection of a research method for Education Studies will be presented.

The methodology of social and behavioural research has undergone dramatic changes over the last 50 years. For most of the 20th century, social and behavioural research has been dominated by quantitative methods which relied heavily on objective measures and numbers.

Researchers dissatisfied with this dominant methodology have developed qualitative research methods to study humans in a natural setting. Research studies using this method analyse words not numbers to give a complex, holistic picture based on the narrative information from the study. As a result of the discussions and controversies between the two camps a mixed methodology has evolved as a way of using the strengths of both approaches.

Agent-based modelling is a new way of doing science that has developed form the concepts and techniques of complexity theory. It involves the study of many actors and their interactions. The models start with simple rules of learning and assumptions but will display complex behaviours. This tool is compatible with quantitative and qualitative research methods.

AIN04151   [Paper]
Leadership for inclusion: Overcoming barriers to progress

Mel Ainscow, Manchester University and Stephen Ball, Ivy Bank Business and Enterprise College

The improvement of urban schools is one of the major challenges facing practitioners and policy-makers. Issues related to poverty create particular difficulties in this respect. In England, the emphasis on market-led improvement strategies has tended to add to these challenges, not least in encouraging the use of strategies for "Oraising standards" (as measured by aggregate test and examination results) that can result in the marginalisation or, indeed, exclusion of some groups of learners. However, there are schools that have succeeded in increasing and sustaining attainment levels over time, whilst at the same time developing positive strategies for responding to student diversity. This paper examines what has happened in one such school in order to learn more about factors that are associated with its success. In particular, the paper will examine in detail the leadership practices that have been used to move the school forward. In developing an account of these developments, use was made of the "Timeline of Change", a research technique that analyses how individuals within a school perceive their experience of a particular change over a period of time. Photographs were also used to promote discussion and reflection amongst leaders in the school.

AIN04760   [Paper]
What do we know about student motivation and engagement?

Mary Ainley, University of Melbourne

Most educators believe motivation is necessary for effective learning. Most know there are many sources of student motivation, and just about everyone wants students to be more motivated and engaged. One common perspective in research on student motivation is to identify student qualities that are conducive to engagement with learning. Investigations focus on what students bring to their learning by way of goals, values or purposes. Sometimes these variables are viewed as trait-like dispositions that apply across situations. Sometimes they are treated as variables that are context specific. A second general approach starts with the proposition that learning conditions are critical. Certain types of schooling experiences promote motivation and engagement. From this perspective what is needed is more careful attention to designing and implementing conditions that maximize the opportunity for lively, challenging learning experiences. However, at the same time there are features of classrooms, peer groups, the tasks, and teachers that are known to trigger negative moods and anxiety, or values incompatible with learning. The result is boredom, disengagement, disruptive tactics and dropping out.

In this presentation we will review the major findings on student motivation and engagement, highlighting the trends that are guiding contemporary research.

ALE04373   [Paper]
Some reflections on time as a phenomenon within school

Eva Alerby, Lule University of Technology, Sweden

'What time is it?', 'When are we going to have a break?' These questions are probably recognised by most people who are working in the school. The questions demonstrate clearly how time controls a large part of the everyday life of the school. Time is linked to one of the most basic questions of philosophy, and several philosophers in the course of history have discussed questions concerning time. The present paper tries to elucidate time as a phenomenon, and especially to focus on the school's relation to time. To provide a historical background, the paper begins with a short retrospective survey of what certain philosophers have thought and written on the subject of time. Does time exist in itself? Or does time exist only through people's experience of it ? We can pause to reflect on the thesis that time, considered from one perspective, exists through people's being-in-the-world and through their experience of the same. Within different organisations, for example the school, time must be regarded as being under strict chronological control. This time-control influences, of course, the experience of time within the school, and the subject experience of time can be called 'subjective time', or rather - lived time.

ALL04561   [Paper]
Making sense of difference? Teaching identities in postmodern contexts

Andrea Allard and Ninetta Santoro, Deakin University

How do teachers make sense of ethnic and classed differences? Frequently students from non- mainstream cultures and of lower socio-economic status are constructed in the literature and through practice as 'deficit' and consequently become marginalised. A range of short-term, 'quick fix' policy and curriculum approaches have aimed to address the 'problems' of those 'othered' from the mainstream due to their perceived difference. These have had little effect on improving educational results for students of specific ethnic and/or class backgrounds whose outcomes remain below the national average.

Postructural theories offer opportunities to think about how teachers are positioned within discourses of identity. Our research (and others') suggests the need for teachers to interrogate their assumptions about class and culture and how these are played out in their pedagogical relationships with students.

In this paper we report on a small research project that investigates the professional practices and personal beliefs of teachers. Empirical data from this study will build knowledge about how difference is constructed and diversity is 'taken up' by teachers as they engage with secondary students who have Language Backgrounds Other Than English and who are economically disadvantaged.

AMO04812   [Paper]
Examining non-dominant cultural perspectives in pedagogical practice

Wendy Amosa and James Ladwig, The University of Newcastle

While the Quality teaching framework and recent syllabus reform efforts in NSW assert the importance of valuing non-dominant cultural knowledges and values in pedagogical practice, there has been little empirical examination of the ways in which non-dominant cultural perspectives are integrated in students' learning experiences and the implications for such perspectives on students' learning outcomes. The SIPA research study draws on data from classroom observations and assessment tasks to address three questions in relation to these issues. First, in what ways are non-dominant cultural knowledges legitimised in students' classroom and assessment experiences? Second, what factors influence students' engagement with non-dominant cultural knowledge? Third, to what extent are students' learning outcomes affected by the inclusion of non-dominant cultural knowledge in pedagogy? Recent debates focused on questions such as these have been informed primarily by theoretical assumptions rather than empirical findings. By examining these theoretical assumptions in light of the NSW curriculum context, this paper will outline the framework through which the SIPA research study may inform current understandings of the practices and practicalities of pedagogies that value non-dominant cultural perspectives.

AND041062   [Paper]
A responsive evaluation into a small group approach to the supervision of BEd (Hons) students

Raelene Anderson, University of Wollongong

This paper discusses the findings of a project that developed as a result of an 'Open Forum on Supervision' at the University of Wollongong (September 2002), where the discussion centred on the need to explore different forms of doctoral supervision. An important element of research supervision however that appears to be significantly overlooked within the current research is the supervision of the research student at the undergraduate honours level. This highlights the need for appropriate measures to assist in developing alternatives to the traditional approach to supervision that focuses on ensuring the needs of novice undergraduate research students are met. With this in mind, this project set out to conduct a responsive evaluation into the efficacy of developing a small group approach to the supervision of undergraduate education honours students. Four academic staff and four honours students from the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong were involved in the inquiry with data collected throughout the use of semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and journal entries based on observations. Findings highlighted that these beginning research students were provided with an optimal supervisory experience underpinned by a balance of support, encouragement, autonomy, and flexibility.

AND04761   [Paper]
Adolescent engagement with problem solving tasks: The role of learning strategies and positive emotions

Michelle Andrews, University of Melbourne

In recent years there has been a marked increase in teaching materials that promote the development of self-motivated students. Research indicates that problem-based learning tasks enhance student interest, motivation and engagement. Relatively few studies have investigated the learning processes that occur as students engage with learning tasks. This paper examines student engagement with real-world problems. More than 150 Year 7-10 students from a Melbourne high school completed a problem solving task using an interactive computer program. The program recorded student interest, learning strategies, emotions and responses as they accessed a variety of resources. Both the problems and resources were designed to challenge students to use effective problem solving skills. The findings indicate that there are a number of distinct learning strategies and positive emotions associated with problem solving. Implications for creating learning environments that support the development of effective learners will be discussed.

ANG04520   [Paper]
The role of strategic research in producing knowledge to address issues and needs

Teresa Angelico, Catholic Education Commission of Victoria

This paper outlines strategic research initiatives undertaken by the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria's (CECV). The potential of research in highlighting areas of importance to CECV and in achieving broader policy outcomes is also considered.

The CECV is a policy making body responsible for 489 Catholic primary, secondary and special schools representing over 180,000 student enrolments in Victoria. A number of research projects have been undertaken in partnership with researchers to provide a knowledge base to form the basis of solutions to issues and needs.

Strategic research initiatives include: The Affordability of Catholic Schools by Students from Catholic Families (Centre for the Economics of Education and Training, Monash University - ACER); The Welfare Needs of Victorian Catholic Schools (Youth Research Centre, University of Melbourne); and The Contribution of Catholic Schools to the Community and the Economy (Centre for Strategic Economics Studies, Victoria University). These research studies provide evidence to support the CECV campaign to increase the level of funding provided by the Victorian State Government to Catholic schools.

ARC04763   [Paper]
Learning as a means to achieve social goals: A motivational analysis

Jennifer Archer, University of Newcastle

Seven high school mathematics teachers and seven high school English teachers participated in the study. Each was interviewed before and after observation of two lessons. The interviewer asked open-ended questions about students' motivation to learn. In the post-lesson interviews, teachers were asked to comment on what had happened during the lesson. Achievement goal theory was used to interpret the data. The study demonstrated the intensely social nature of classrooms. Insufficient attention has been paid by proponents of achievement goal theory to the way in which essentially social goals are achieved by engaging in academic work. Many students do the work set for them to obtain socially focused goals that have not been delineated by achievement goal theory (for example, 'I work because my friends are working', 'I work to please my teacher', 'I don't do my work because my friends aren't doing the work'). In addition, some students do not have a consciously adopted goal. They do their work because it is the behaviour expected of them. They have not made a decision to adopt one goal or another. An expanded achievement goal theory that incorporates additional socially-driven goals will provide greater understanding of students' motivation to learn.

ARN04242   [Paper]
Empathic Intelligence: The phenomenon of effective pedagogy

Roslyn Arnold, University of Tasmania

The phenomenon of learning defies easy explanation, but when people attune to each other something significant can happen in the space between them. 'Empathic Intelligence' attempts to articulate aspects of the intersubjective and intra-subjective phenomena of pedagogy. It articulates some aspects of the practice of educators committed to understanding the qualitative and sometimes ineffable aspects of their professional work. An empathically intelligent educator is able to create a dynamic between thinking and feeling, in a context which is perceived as caring. They demonstrate a number of qualities, attributes, predispositions and abilities, in particular those which are demonstrated through enthusiasm, capacity to engage others, expertise and empathy. At its best, empathically intelligent pedagogy can be transformative. It can mobilise tacit abilities, create affirming emotional templates for learning and support the development of higher-order cognitive abilities.

So how does all this happen? This paper will outline some of the theoretical antecedents and principles informing empathic intelligence, including recent brain-mind research. The nature of empathy, enthusiasm, expertise and capacity to engage, along with the function of intelligent caring and respect for individual dignity, will be elaborated.

ASK04370   [Paper]
Investigating the complex, dynamic and transactional nature of child-care students' and university access students' knowledge about learning

Helen Askell-Williams and Michael Lawson, Flinders University

In this paper we propose that a tension exists between theories that tend to ascribe a disposition, or type, to any individual (such as a "deep" learner, or "mastery" oriented student) and the variable influence of contexts upon students' mental models about learning. If learning really is acquired in situation and applied in context, then we would predict differences in the manifestations of students' knowledge according to changes in contexts.

We conducted focussed interviews with child-care students and university access students about their knowledge about learning. Employing NUD*IST software and common-theme matrices to interrogate participants' responses, our analysis suggests that students' knowledge about learning is extensive and dynamic across context and time, even within the same course of instruction. By the students' accounts, poles of contemporary theoretical dichotomies (such as surface-deep, or mastery-performance) seem to operate in transaction according to specific contextual imperatives.

We propose that dichotomous or stepwise hierarchical characterisations are liable to under-represent the complexity and multi-dimensional nature of students' mental models about learning. To address this issue, we introduce the technique of creating profiles of students' knowledge across multiple learning-related variables in order to provide more precise information that can inform the design of instructional interventions intended to enhance students' knowledge about learning.

ATH04437   [Paper]
Childrens' responses to interest items

James Athanasou, University of Technology, Sydney

The purpose of this report is to provide some data on the interest of school pupils. Year 3 and 4 pupils (N=149) responded to a 30 item general interest questionnaire based on the hexagonal interest and personality typology of Holland. Responses were analysed using a Rasch model of item responding based on partial credit scoring. item response analysis was used to locate the five questions that comprise each of the six scales. Scales and items conformed partly to the measurement model but all six scales were characterised by low separability (0 to 0.33). It was considered that children's interests did not conform to an adult typology but may be idiosyncratic and gender-based.

ATW04817    [Paper]  ®
Injustice and international academic activities

William Atweh, Queensland University of Technology

International contacts between educators from around the world continue to escalate with the increasing ease of travel and communication and the globalisation of educational concerns and issues. Social justice concerns about such contacts are important considerations to avoid exploitation and colonialisation of less affluent nations. This paper discusses the concept of "injustice" as developed by Young (1990) and concerns raised by academics in an international research project on unjust practices and outcomes of some international activities. Finally, by means of achieving this, it attempts to give voice to educators from less industrialised countries whose voices are not often heard in Australian conferences.

AUL04670   [Paper]  ®
A middle approach to literacy in a minority Indigenous Australian language context

Glenn Auld, University of Ballarat

Kunib-dji live in Maningrida, a remote community in the Northern Territory and speak Ndj-bbana as their preferred language of communication. Kunib-dji are one of many groups of Indigenous Australian languages who speak a minority language. Very little has been documented about the social practices of literacy with speakers of such languages, particularly with the texts that mediate these languages. Knowing about the beliefs and attitudes towards enacted by these speakers towards these texts is useful for understanding the process of learning of minority and majority languages. This paper presents a middle approach to literacy as distinct form top-down and bottom-up approaches, that has emerged from the minority Indigenous Australian language context in Maningrida. The proposed middle approach to literacy incorporates non-indigenous intervention in Indigenous social practices and technological transform of Indigenous texts. The methodological aspects of such intervention and transformation together with the implications of a middle approach to literacy are presented in this paper. Throughout the paper references are made to Kunib-dji children's access to digital Ndj-bbana texts and their engagement with these texts in a home environment.

B

BAR04474   [Paper]  ®
Evolvement of students' goals and academic self-concept: A multidimensional and hierarchical conceptualisation

Katrina Barker, Martin Dowson and Dennis McInerney, University of Western Sydney

The purpose of this study is to examine the potential multidimensional and hierarchical structure of student's motivational goals and academic self-concept (SC). Specifically, this paper tests the ability of first- and second-order measurement models comprising achievement motivation variables (mastery, performance & social goals) and academic self-concept variables (English and math self-concept) to fit data collected over two years from 1 515 Australian High School students. The study also tests whether the second-order model fits equally well across sex groups. Results of the first-order Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) demonstrate that the motivation items drawn from the General Achievement Goal Orientation Scale (GAGOS), and the self-concept items drawn from the Academic Self Description Questionnaire II (ASDQ II), appropriately measure their target constructs. The higher-order CFA results provided support for an hierarchical representation of goals and self-concept, with goodness-of-fit indices for Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2) ranging from .86 to .92. This model fitted the data equally well for males (with goodness-of-fit indices for T1 and T2 ranging from .83 to .92) and females (with goodness-of-fit indices for T1 and T2 ranging from .85 to .92). Thus, the study provides a measurement framework, which is largely sex-invariant, and within which the interaction of multiple achievement goal orientations and academic self-concept variables may be examined.

BAR04684   [Paper]   ®
The use of Positioning Theory in studying student participation in collaborative learning activities

Mary Barnes, University of Melbourne

A study of collaborative learning in senior mathematics classrooms used Positioning Theory as the principal analytical tool. Small groups of students were videotaped while working collaboratively on open-ended mathematical tasks. Analysis of the interactions among students during these discussions centred on identifying the different ways in which students were positioned at various times during each interaction, and a range of positions available to students during collaborative work was identified. A study of these positions helped in developing a better understanding of factors that may promote or inhibit effective collaboration at this level.

BAR04704   [Paper]   ®
An exploration of perspectives on sexuality education theory, policy and practice on the Gold Coast of Queensland

Elizabeth Barber, University of Queensland

This paper aims to explore contemporary theories of sexuality education, policies that guide the development and instruction of sexuality education and reviews of programs that are used Queensland. Historically, sexuality education in Queensland has often focused on the biology of growth and development and the morality of sexual relationships. For more than a decade, there has been significant criticism of this type of approach from Australian and international researchers. It is also acknowledged that sexual health is much more wide-ranging than sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancy. It is necessary, then, to assess where sexuality education is currently positioned in relation to theory, policy and practice to ensure future research is relevant and accessible, thus effective at improving educational as well as public health outcomes. Recommendations are then given for continuing to examine the position of education research in this critical and at times criticised curriculum area.

BAS04433  [Paper]  ®
Towards a conceptual model for Online group work - Addressing graduate skills development in Online courses

Colin Baskin, James Cook University and Michelle Barker and Peter Woods, Griffith University

In moving towards what Lemke (1996) terms the 'interactive learning paradigm', higher education has adopted two key principles consistent with group learning technologies:

• Learning is always mediated by and occurs through language (Falk 1997; Gee 1997), and;
• Learning is distributed across a range of other people, sites, objects, technologies and time (Gee 1997).

A third and relatively recent principle to emerge on the higher education scene that seems to 'contradict' accepted views of group learning technologies is that:

• Many universities now choose to offer 'learning resources' online.

This paper examines whether Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are 'robust' enough to support, sustain and address industry, employer and government calls for greater attention to group skills development in university graduates. Data features an examination of respondent feedback (n=171) in an 'ICT-rich' group work setting, and the subsequent ratings of group skills development over a 13 week period. This discussion offers an account of learner outcomes by adopting Kirkpatrick's (1996) four levels of evaluation of learning as a classification scheme for determining learner satisfaction (Level One), the effectiveness of learning transfer (Level Two), its impact on practice (Level Three) and the appropriation of learning behaviours by participants (Level Four). The contrasting patterns of ICT use between female and male users in the data are discussed in relation to building social presence and producing social categories online. Differences reported here indicate that ICT group work is moving forward, but opportunities to challenge rather than reproduce existing learning relations and differences, remain largely unresolved.

BAS04434   [Paper]
Scoping social presence and social context: Cues to support knowledge construction in an ICT rich environment

Colin Baskin, James Cook University, Michelle Barker and Peter Woods, Griffith University

The purpose of this paper is to capture and bracket the learning experiences of 164 first year students as they make the transition from a conventional face-to-face setting to an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enhanced learning environment. Where this kind of learner transition was once considered novel and worthy of 'examination' in its own right, it is now a commonplace experience (albeit non-trivial) and has taken its place at the table of the change-management (and various other literatures). The aim of this paper is to refocus the 'New Learning Technologies' discussion on aspects of learning, in particular to critically examine social presence in the face-to-face and online learning environment and how this is linked to processes of knowledge construction. In this context, the 'Lonely Planet Guide' is identified for its high social presence attributes - its social context and origin; its mode of communication and how it stimulates knowledge construction through interactivity.

Dimensions of social presence are defined and examined, and indices are assigned to both face-to-face as well as online learning episodes for purposes of comparison. Three dimensions of social presence-social context, communication, and interactivity-emerged as important elements in the processes of knowledge construction in both an ICT and face-to-face setting. Findings indicate an increase in the level of online interaction occurs with an improved level of social presence, a phenomenon most exhibited by female participants. While comparisons between face-to-face and ICT supported learning episodes can be used to inform all aspects of our teaching, the paper concludes that knowledge construction in an ICT setting can be enhanced by considering learner characteristics, by selecting the appropriate ICT-mediated communication medium, and by applying appropriate instructional elements to course design.

BAT04165   [Paper]
Developing capabilities and the management of trust: Where administration went wrong

Richard Bates, Deakin University

Sen and Nussbaum have suggested that one of the major sources of inequality lies in the unequal opportunity to develop certain fundamental capabilities. While restrictions in the development of such capabilities lie broadly across many social institutions, education has a fundamental role to play in their fostering. However, in many societies schools and teachers are regarded with increasing suspicion by governments leading to the imposition of elaborate systems of accountability over both what is to be taught, how it is to be taught and to whom. As O'Neill (2002) points out this new culture of accountability 'seeks ever more perfect administrative control of institutional and professional life' (p46). It seems unlikely that the capabilities sought by Sen and Nussbaum can be developed within the context of mistrust engendered by these new forms of accountability. This paper examines some of the contradictions between these new forms of accountability and the aspiration of schools and teachers to develop capabilities in their pupils.

BAY04170   [Paper]  ®
Family and community factors encouraging study resilience among Tasmanian Year 10 rural high school students: An exploration of social capital

Hazel Baynes, University of Tasmania

The research investigates family and community factors that encourage Tasmanian rural students to continue with education/training beyond the compulsory years of schooling. Rural post-compulsory education participation has attracted research interest for decades. The continuing under-representation of the rural population in higher education and the fact that the degree of rurality of a region still impacts on the post-compulsory educational aspirations of its residents, so on participation, remain as challenges. Previous research indicates the importance of family and community factors. The research reported here utilises the concept of social capital developed by Bourdieu (1986) and used in educational research by Coleman (1988). Using qualitative methods and a grounded theory approach, several indicators of the level of social capital held by rural students, their families and local communities are examined to determine their usefulness in understanding variations in the nature, amount and quality of encouragement to pursue educational aspirations these students receive. Preliminary findings suggest the students sampled formed into four natural categories based on whether or not they had a clear goal for their future/career, extent of their consultation with others about their career options/choice, extent of encouragement received from others and whether or not their post-Year 10 path had been a smooth one.

BEA04599   [Paper]  ®
Examining and developing emotional epistemologies: A foundational issue for leadership preparation programmes

Brenda Beatty, Monash University and Christine Brew, La Trobe University

School leadership preparation programs increasingly endorse the ideal of building authentic professional learning communities without adequately providing graduates with the emotional preparedness to create them. This research explores the utility of using an emotional epistemologies theoretical framework to address some of the most powerful and elusive complexities of leadership work. The experience of a deepened emotional epistemology has transformational implications for emotionally resilient and authentically relational school leadership (Beatty, 2002b). Beatty's (2002a) theoretical framework considers four stances: Emotional Silence, Emotional Absolutism, Emotional Relativism and Resilient Emotional Relativism. Aspiring and practising leaders engaged with the framework in the form of written responses, focus group discussions and illustrative role-play. Reported on are the participants' sense of the verisimilitude of the framework's ideas and the resonance for them of the illustrative data excerpts from Beatty's (2002a) study, as well as the expected impact of the entire experience upon their leadership practice. The framework holds utility for effectively entering what Boler (1999) calls a 'pedagogy of discomfort'. It provides a premise for breaking the emotional /silence/, challenging the normative 'feeling rules' of a dominant /emotional absolutism/ and entering an /emotionally relative/ stance in connection with professional peers.

BEC04310   [Paper]
Evaluation research in Health and Human Development

Lori Beckett, University of Technology, Sydney

This paper reports on the evaluation research for the pilot study, Health and Human Development: Better Outcomes for Boys. It aimed for a close-up look at teachers, boys and girls, and their work in the pilot study. Fieldwork included attending professional development workshops for participating teachers, and case-study research in six schools. This included informal talks with principals, review of school materials, classroom observations, and interviews with teachers, girls and boys. The twin foci 'trialling the revised study design and addressing boys' enrolments and subject choices' are on the cutting edge of debates about inclusive curriculum, gender equity and productive pedagogies. In reporting some of the findings, it is acknowledged that the evaluation research was only the beginning of on-going monitoring and evaluation of Health and Human Development.

BEL04053   [Paper]
Neuroscience: The public agenda and misconceptions in education

Mark Beltz, Monash University

The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly we wish to examine the extent to which neuroscience as a discipline has become incorporated into the public agenda as a result of increased awareness regarding the care and education of newborns through to the age of about three. This research is relatively recent, and is contrasted with the prevailing wisdom of some fifteen years ago. We then wish to explore the links between education and neuroscience, pointing out where there are regions that are theoretically undernourished. Secondly, we wish to examine some of the neuroscience literature written for educators, illustrating that in many instances such accounts lack in substantive content, and that important neuroscientific concepts are misrepresented. The reasons for this are briefly explored. We also wish to give some consideration to what neuroscientific accounts written for educators should look like. These issues are prefaced as a work in progress to the much broader research aim of exploring notions of learning in educational contexts and in neural systems, ultimately with a view to establishing communication between these two paradigms.

BER04768   [Paper]
Outcomes-based education and the death of knowledge

Richard Berlach, University of Notre Dame Australia

In a far off time, in the confederacy of Oz, teaching and learning coexisted in an artistically symbiotic relationship. Then the experts came along. No, not experts in educational theory, but experts in the art of Isims - scientific rationalism, reductionism, Fordism, Taylorism, sophism, and above all, obscurantism. They took their Isims and applied them to the art of education, and lo and behold, outcomes-based education was born. The Isimistic parents cooed and gloated over their cleverly conceived offspring. In fact, the Isimites within one state of the confederacy hailed this birth as a watershed in education, a paradigm shift of monumental significance, and the dawning a brave new era. "Let us devise a Curriculum Framework" they shouted with glee. The teachers, however, hanged their heads in despondency, knowing that a dark beast of mammoth proportions and with great destructive powers had been created.

BER04978   [Paper]
Teachers' perceptions of their roles and their students' roles in the formative assessment process

Rita Berry, Hong Kong Institute of Education

It is widely accepted that assessment has a link with learning. One key factor in the link is formative assessment. Formative assessment is generally defined as taking place during a course with the express purpose of improving pupil learning. However, there is still considerable disagreement over the roles of teachers and pupils in this process (Torrance & Pryor 1998, p.8). It is therefore very important to understand how teachers perceive their roles and their pupils' roles in the formative assessment events. This paper will report on an investigation into teachers' perceptions of their roles and their pupils' roles in the formative assessment process. The investigation, which involved over 1000 teachers from 35 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, invited teachers to show their views by completing a questionnaire. To supplement the data collected from the questionnaire survey, a sample number of teachers were interviewed. Discussion will be focused on a comparison of the findings with the current literature, leading to some implications for the roles of teachers and pupils in the formative assessment process.

BES04625   [Paper]  ®
Developing an instrument to assess the number sense of young children

Kim Beswick, Tracey Muir and Alistair McIntosh, University of Tasmania

This paper reports on an initial Australian trial of one module, relating to Counting, of an instrument developed in collaboration with a team at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). The instrument consists of four modules assessing various aspects of number sense and applicable to children across grades one to three. The results of the trial revealed some interesting insights into the number sense of the children involved as well as raising a number of possibilities regarding the further enhancement and potential usefulness of the instrument. There appears to be merit in developing English versions applicable in the Australian context, of the remaining three modules.

BEV04269 [Paper]
Learning derived from 'knowledge makes the difference'

Sue Beveridge and Diane Wasson, NSW Department of Education and Training, Susan Groundwater-Smith, University of Sydney and Stephen Kemmis, Charles Sturt University

This paper presents the learning from the Priority Action Schools Program (PASP) as expressed through the meta-evaluation Knowledge Makes the Difference. The PASP, a $16 million program jointly supported by the NSW Department of Education and Training the the NSW Teachers' Federation was designed to provide intensive support to 74 primary, central and high schools with concentrations of students from low socio-economic backgrounds over the 2003 school year. All schools participating in the program face issues in relation to low student achievement, behaviour management and attendance as well as serving communities facing significant hardship. The key tenets of the program were founded upon principles of building individual and school capacity and evolving local and appropriate solutions that recognised specific contexts. The program was designed to enhance professional learning of both the individual teachers and the schools themselves by engagement in mentoring, reflection and professional dialogue that was documented through school learning portfolios. Support was offered through a designated PASP team, academic partnerships and critical friends. The most significant feature of the program was the insistence that it be a knowledge based program that would make learning explicit and develop learnings about what happens in classrooms and schools as well as what occurs in systems as complex and diverse as the NSW DET.

BHA04803   [Paper]
PBL Approach: A model for integrated curriculum

Madhumita Bhattacharya, Bill MacIntyre, Sue Ryan and Lindsay Brears, Massey University

This paper describes the process of developing a generic model for integration across the curriculum. Authors have introduced PBL approach in order to design the course work for the integrated curriculum in Science and Technology Education in the Teacher Education Program. In this research the authors have envisaged a conceptual framework for implementation of integrated curriculum. The PBL approach has been implemented in a teacher education course for both online and on-campus students. This is a work -in-progress, evaluation, implementation and follow-up study related the present model of curriculum integration will be presented at the conference.

BIC041025   [Paper]
The pedagogy of literacy: Providing pre-service and practising primary teachers with professional learning in the area of literacy

Michelle Bickley, Deakin University

Students literacy standards have over the last two decades been identified as an area of educational policy focus. For example, a focus on identifying individual students literacy needs and assisting teachers to effectively address these needs is evident in The Victorian Curriculum Standards Framework (CSF I and CSF II) and the current Victorian Curriculum Reform project. As a regional literacy consultant and a part-time tertiary educator  I am actively involved in supporting the teaching and learning of both pre-service and practising teachers in the area of literacy. This experience has given rise to a simple yet highly effective model of literacy pedagogy which is outlined in this paper.

Specifically, I will discuss three areas on which this literacy pedagogy rests - the development of consistent and informed beliefs and understandings about how primary students acquire literacy skills; developing strategies to support the processes of decoding and encoding meaning and an emphasis on teaching a range of literacies in a contextualised manner. Most importantly I will discuss how my dual roles of department consultant and tertiary educator have highlighted this literacy pedagogy as applicable and highly effective for teachers at a range of career stages. n conclusion I suggest the implications this has for the ways in which government agencies can continue to support the development and growth of both teachers and students literacy skills.

BIS041052 [Paper]  ®
Stories from within: Leadership, learning and lives in a high-poverty school

Pam Bishop, University of Tasmania

This paper draws on the experiences of a principal in a 'high-poverty' Tasmanian primary school. As an autoethnography, it relies on `lived experience' for much of the subsequent views and claims offered. However, the reflections also suggest that theory, research and practice provide a sturdy evidence base for informing leadership and learning in a high-poverty school setting. Relevant literature is canvassed together with a selection of insights into the workings of a high-poverty school to show both impressive and troubling 'performances' by key stakeholders.

Although, at its core, this account is an optimistic one, attention is directed to the substantial challenges associated with providing a first-class education to all of the students in the public education system. Depictions of events are provided which point to the additionally complex circumstances within which high-poverty schools exist. Some of these cameos underscore the extraordinary capacities and/or potential of teachers, parents and students. Others underline how the pernicious effects of poverty can rob individuals of a sense of agency. Still others show a level of ignorance and fear amongst a minority of educators which threatens to keep students from high-poverty circumstances 'in their place'.

Together, these portraits suggest that much within high-poverty schools deserves to be acclaimed. However, in what also appears, it is evident that some events are buttressed by defensive or exclusive standpoints on the part of adults, in particular. In what follows, the case is put for those within the Academy, Department of Education central offices, and the teaching profession to better support those connected with high-poverty schools-especially the students.

BLA04213   [Paper]
Selection and the production of normalised principal identities

Jill Blackmore and Karin Barty, Deakin University

Media reports and studies have drawn attention to various components of a principal's work - long hours, increased expectations of parents, the complexity of the job, pressure of increased accountability- that have made it unattractive for teachers who might otherwise be interested in educational leadership. Also influential in the decline in interest in school principalship, and barely reported, is the detrimental effect of the selection process on the numbers of teachers applying for principal positions. Research in South Australia and Victoria shows the extent to which merit selection processes have become formulaic and how some principal aspirants, unable or unwilling to fit into the models, fail to advance in systems that favour certain applicants. It is not only the prospect of 'sleepless nights, heart attacks, and sudden death accountabilities' that has reduced the numbers of people applying for top educational administration positions but frustration with a selection process that seems to have lost merit.

BLA04350   [Paper]  ®
The role of critical imagination in research with young people

Derek Bland, Queensland University of Technology

The postmodern world of difference and uncertainty invites people to dream and to "imagine the unimaginable" (O'Farrell, 1999, p. 15) to maximise choices and freedoms, particularly within the otherwise constraining systems of education. Various forms of imagination can be applied to ways of working with disadvantaged high school students as researchers, helping them to reconnect their lifeworlds with the education systems to which they are subject. The SARUA (Student Action Research for University Access) project is presented here as an example of such activity in which a disciplined and critical imagination can help to empower young people. The critical theory of Jurgens Habermas provides a framework for empowering research with young people, such as in the SARUA project, and it too can be strengthened through the "art of imagining" (Grundy, 1996) to increase its relevance to students living in postmodern times.

BLA04519   [Paper]  ®
Rethinking reflective journals in Teacher Education

Mindy Blaise, Shelley Dole, Gloria Latham, Karen Malone, Julie Faulkner, and Josephine Lang, RMIT University

Schooling in the 21st century must embrace the need for learners to be interdisciplinary, navigate change and diversity, to learn as they go, solve problems, collaborate and be flexible and creative. That is, the curriculum must reflect the notion of New Learning (ACDE, 2001). The renewed Bachelor of Education (BEd) program was designed to promote preservice teacher knowledge through provision of opportunities for critical self-reflection in terms of alignment of personal values and beliefs with the concept of New Learning. One of the innovations within the program includes the use of shared journal across courses within the program. This paper describes the design of the Bachelor of Education program within one university in Australia and how its philosophical underpinnings fit with the concept of New Learning, and how the reality of implementing and using shared journals within the program to promote preservice teacher critical reflection has challenged staff to rethink their own values and beliefs about their role in the development of a critically reflective practitioner.

BLA04540   [Paper]  ®
The heterosexual matrix exposed: Critically examining how gender influences research

Mindy Blaise, RMIT University

This paper examines how gender influenced data collection and analysis while carrying out a 6-month qualitative and feminist poststructuralist study of gender in an urban kindergarten classroom, located in the US. Through reflexivity, the author became conscious of the heterosexual matrix and how it influenced her research relationships while collecting data as a participant observer in an early childhood classroom. By critically re-examining her research practices, the author questions and problematizes the centrality of gender and how gender discourses regulate research relationships. The paper concludes by raising questions about the significance of the heterosexual matrix and the role of the researcher.

BLI04282   [Paper]
Action research and curriculum review: Sounds good, but does it work?

Alan Bliss and Mark Coleman, Melbourne Grammar School

Increasingly schools encourage the use of action research methods within the context of professional review programs. In what ways can the detailed exploration of pedagogy which is enabled by action research assist in the larger scale purpose of curriculum review? In what ways might departments work both as individuals and as teams? What kinds of issues - personal and professional, pedagogical and managerial, philosophical and practical - are raised through the process of lesson study? What kinds of outcomes might be expected?

BOE041018   [Paper]  ®
Entering Research: Collapsing the personal, teacher, researcher identity

Gisela Boetker, University of Melbourne

This paper is an exhibition. It is an exhibition of my visions of my research seen through poetry and writings. These visions are more a random collage than an ordered account, they are a confrontation of the three strands of my identity: personal, teacher and researcher. Some appear lucid and explicable while others are more ethereal, entangled. The broad theme that links these visions is my connection to education. This connection, as seen through the visions, can be at once, historical, hopeful or perplexed in nature.

I am currently enrolled in a research masters in education. My thesis will engage with the field of art education, with a specific emphasis on learning through the language of art. This article is autoethnographic in style. Autoethnography recognises "the researcher's own experience as a topic of investigation in its own right." (Ellis etal, p733) It is through the telling of my own researcher's story that I hope readers will, "feel the moral dilemmas, think with [my] story instead of about it, join actively in the decision points that define [the] autoethnographic project, and consider how their own lives can be made a story worth telling. (ibid p735). This article is an opportunity for me to chart these journeys of the 'mind's eye', it is a looking back.

BOT04815   [Paper]  ®
Opening the Doors to Greatness: Public conversations in middle years pedagogy

Kim Keamy and Christine Bottrell, La Trobe University

There exist different, and sometimes conflicting, understandings of what good teaching and learning may be. Just who this may be 'good' for is also contentious. Yet in this example of a funded education program there is an expectation that the different voices involved not only collaborate but, also work to bring about change. Our contribution as to how this reconciliation is to be achieved is to provide research and a workable framework in which systematic inquiry can interact with the lived experiences of the multiple publics in the Beechworth Cluster of Schools. Through programs such as Schools for Innovations and Excellence, the competing publics Fraser (2003) refers to are meant to make decisions reflecting 'good', but for too long these decisions have been informed by uncontested opinion and stereotypical misunderstandings that surround school communities.

This paper describes the collaborative methodology and mutual respect that underpin research undertaken into the middle years of school as part of the Schools for Innovations and Excellence initiative in the Beechworth Cluster of Schools in North East Victoria. The research records the voices that have informed and continue to contribute to the public good within the Cluster.

Specific insights into teaching and learning within the Cluster have been gained as a consequence of this research which has been positively embraced and regularly consulted for future decision-making. Innovations within the Beechworth Cluster recognise the uniqueness of particular settings within a context of collective action.

BOU04849   [Paper]  ®
Attrition, completion and completion times of PhD candidates

Sid Bourke, Allyson Holbrook, Terence Lovat and Peter Farley, University of Newcastle

Attrition rates and time to completion of PhD candidates has internationally become a concern of governments, universities and the candidates themselves. Suggestions that attrition is too high and, for those candidates who do complete, enrolment times are too long were investigated. Two separate datasets were used, one based initially on all 1195 PhD enrolments between 1988 and 1999 recorded at one Australian university, the other based on 601 candidates submitting PhD theses during 2001-2003 at six Australian universities. Two measures of enrolment time were used; total elapsed time from first enrolment, and candidacy time in equivalent full-time semesters. It was found that 51% of 698 candidates who had the opportunity to be enrolled for at least four years successfully completed a PhD and that, after six years, 70% had successfully completed. For the one university included in both datasets, average candidacy time increased from 7.4 semesters for the first dataset to 7.9 semesters for the second, with marked differences between Broad Fields of Study. The median elapsed time was 4.4 years. A range of candidate, candidature, discipline and institution variables in multiple regression analyses including the six universities explained 39% of variation in elapsed time and 22% in candidacy time.

BOW04052   [Paper]
Sound evidence for what works in vocational education and training: How we undertook a systematic review of research about skill development for mature age workers

Tom Karmel, Kaye Bowman and Sarah Hayman, National Centre for Vocational Education Research

During 2004 NCVER undertook for the first time a systematic review of research. This model of secondary research has been used in the health sciences for many years and more recently has been applied overseas to research in social sciences (including education). A systematic review identifies all available research and evaluates it systematically and transparently to establish the strength of evidence about a topical policy question. Judgments are made according to explicit research inclusion and quality criteria.

The question identified by policy makers for our review was "what evidence is there that skill development activities improve the attachment of mature age workers to the labour market?" This paper describes the process and outcomes of this first systematic review of educational research in Australia, and lessons learnt regarding the application of the systematic review model to other questions about vocational education and training policy.

BOY04081   [Paper]  ®
Putting rural into pre-service teacher education

Colin Boylan, Charles Sturt University

A number of recent Australian federal and state government reports, studies and reviews have addressed the issue of the preparation of teachers for rural appointments.

Collectively these inquiries have indicated that the preparation of teachers for rural school appointments requires specific attention being devoted to the exploration of a range of social, cultural, geographical, historical, political, and service access issues that define the difference in working and living in rural contexts compared to other locations.

The ARC Linkages Project, Rural Teacher Education Project (RTEP) (Green, et al, 2002), which is a collaborative project between Charles Sturt University, the University of New England and the New South Wales Department of Education and Training seeks to identify successful practices for building rural teacher and community capacity, and appropriately preparing and retaining teachers for rural schools within New South Wales.

As part of this ARC project, an examination of the current 'state of the art' in preparing pre-service teachers for a rural appointment was undertaken. A profile of the rural education focus contained within the respective primary and secondary pre-service teacher education courses for each Faculty of Education within New South Wales was developed through close examination of their public course documentation available in their respective university handbooks.

This presentation will explore the recommendations from the policy and research documents that informed this analysis for rural teacher education preparation, as well as reporting on the current state of rural pre-service preparation in New South Wales universities.

BRA04048   [Paper]  ®
Values-led principalship - myths and realities

Christopher Branson, St Francis College and Gayle Spry, Australian Catholic University

This paper draws on doctoral research that investigated the issue of values-led principalship. It reports upon a study conducted with principals of Catholic secondary schools in Brisbane. The paper focuses on the participating principals' perception of the values that underpin their educational leadership behaviour and asks how these values were formed. This research confirmed the claim in the literature that personal values are largely a subliminal component of the Self and addresses the issue of helping principals to gain self-knowledge of their personal values in preparation for values-led principalship. This study developed and tested a 'tool' for helping principals to comprehend the relationship between their educational leadership behaviours and their personal values. While principals in this study appreciated the opportunity to demystify their educational leadership behaviours, they were less interested in reviewing the appropriateness of their personal values. Moreover, for these principals, knowledge of their personal values and the relationship of these to their educational leadership behaviours did not lead to behavioural change.

BRE04326   [Paper]  ®
New forms of creative representation and exploration within doctoral research: Implications for students and supervisors

Laura Brearley, RMIT University

The problematisation of representation in research is central to an academic debate which has emerged from ethnographic and phenomenological perspectives, as well as from the field of educational research. Challenging the voice of the omniscient academic observer disturbs the very basis of epistemological and methodological assumptions about research. Creative forms of representation can transform the sensuous and the intellectual into one aesthetic continuum. This paper is about the creation of new forms of exploration and expression. Its purpose is to stimulate critical reflection and debate about alternative academic discourses. This research challenges the traditional paradigm of densely referenced text and the use of a passive, 'neutral' researcher's voice.

In this presentation, I will describe and theorise my doctoral research, in which I represented data through poetry, songs, mandalas and multi-media tracks in order to:

• Reflect the original richness and complexity of the data
• Invite new levels of engagement that are both cognitive and emotional, and
• Provide multiple prisms through which to explore experience.

The presentation and the paper will invite engagement at a range of levels. It will theorise representational issues in research and explore implications of epistemological exploration within a doctoral context.

BRE04706   [Paper]  ®
Measuring students' sense of connectedness with school

Christine Brew, La Trobe University, Brenda Beatty, Monash University and Anthony Watt, Victoria University

The current emphasis on performance outcomes in schools has threatened to eclipse the importance of social connectedness as an antecedent to student success. Presented is an instrument designed to measure student sense of connectedness with school based on relevant dimensions provided in the literature: student sense of belonging, engagement, expected learning, and trust. Drawing on data from over 3,000 US students from six high schools, exploratory factor analysis yielded six latent factors based on 31 of 46 original items: students' sense of belonging with peers; teacher support; fairness and safety; academic engagement; engagement in the broader community; and relatedness of self with school. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded acceptable preliminary fit measures. Preliminary path analyses suggest that students' sense of relatedness with school mediates their relative propensity toward academic engagement, with the other factors antecedent. Schools seeking to obtain reliable measures of students' sense of connectedness with school will find the instrument a valuable resource for prioritizing their efforts.

BRE04971   [Paper]  ®
Becoming a researcher: An arts-based aesthetic approach

Laura Brearley, RMIT University

The experience of post-graduate research involves engagement, struggle and growth. There are many roles that can be played within it, such as apprentice, fieldworker, pilgrim and pioneer. Different degrees of complexity, depth and autonomy are revealed in these roles.

The journey of post-graduate research is a quest to become. I t involves actions and places, helpers and hinderers. At times, there is uncertainty, danger and fear. There are things to embrace and to resist. There are many choices to be made.

Post-graduate research can be both a frightening and transformative experience. It brings with it the potential to paralyse and to liberate us. It can, at times, be so overwhelming, it renders us silent. Sometimes, it can help us find our deepest and most powerful voice.

These are some of the findings emerging from a current research project, which is exploring the personal and emotional experiences of becoming a researcher. We have been working on this project for about nine months now. As our project has evolved, we have also become interested in the ways in which our different perspectives and methodological approaches can be woven together to create a multi-layered perspective of the phenomenon we are researching.

When we conducted a focus group with the research participants, we presented our findings through these three different lenses. From the feedback from the participants, and from own experience as presenters, we realised we had created a multi-layered tapestry of perspectives which acknowledged multiple realities and which reflected and illuminated the rich texture of the original data.

In this paper, I will consciously use two different voices. One is the academic voice, underpinned by theoretical perspectives. I will also include an analysis of the data using an aesthetic approach. I invite you to be awake to what different responses may be stirred in you when you engage with the different voices. I'll begin with some conceptual exploration, move to the aesthetic analysis, and then conclude with a brief overview of the implications for research supervisors.

My hope is that there will be something interesting for you in the different voices. In that way, you can be welcomed into the community of practice that we have co-created as a group of three researchers, and which also includes the doctoral students who made this research possible.

BRO04090   [Paper]  ®
Engaging students in a variety of classroom talk formats that afford knowing and doing in school mathematics

Ray Brown and Elizabeth Hirst, Griffith University

Classroom talk is regarded as essential in engaging and developing student understandings in the domain of mathematics. The process of classroom talk, however, may occur in quite different ways. In this paper we analyse two forms of classroom talk - replacement and interweaving. These provide a heuristic for considering how teachers might develop a repertoire of practices that they may deploy to afford student learning. In an analysis of student talk in a Year 7 classroom we found that replacement and interweaving can facilitate learning. We conclude that teachers should use classroom talk formats reflectively and intentionally in their classrooms to afford students a range of opportunities to develop their mathematical thinking.

BRO041006   [Paper]  ®
Exploring the notion of 'pedagogical space' through students' writings about a classroom community of practice

Ray Brown, Griffith University

A classroom community of practice has been described in terms of the shared resources and practices used by its participants. One such resource is the organization of pedagogical spaces within the classroom. In an extensive study that employed detailed analyses of video/audio-taped participant interactions, teacher/student journal entries, student-seating patterns and questionnaires, a major interest was in finding student descriptions that assist educators to recognise spaces within the classroom community that facilitate learning. This paper explores written descriptions provided by self-described high and average-ability students as they participated in a primary mathematics classroom over one semester. Student descriptions are analysed in accordance with conditions identified as being conducive to establishing pedagogic spaces such as the nature of participants' interactions, discursive practices employed, the collective nature of learning, and teacher promoted practices. Implications are drawn regarding the efficacy of the notion of 'pedagogical space' for researching learning in the domain of mathematics.

BRO04491   [Paper]  ®
Seduction and betrayal revisited: Ethical dilemmas of insider research

Jill Brown, Monash University

Newkirk (1996) warns that the research practices which are part of a qualitative approach to research may result in data collection becoming "an act of seduction" ending in betrayal as participants are reconstructed in the final text to meet the agenda of the researcher. The potential for seduction and betrayal is increased when the researcher is an insider to the participant community. When the researcher is recognised as a member of the participant community there are advantages in terms of access to rich data. There are also ethical issues as participants share experiences and understandings in ways that would be denied to an outsider. When these friendly conversations are reconstructed and interpreted as research data, the "person becomes portrait" (Stronarch & MacLure 1997) in ways that may not sit well with their sense of self. This paper explores the ways in which these issues were resolved (and not resolved) in a study of English as a second language (ESL) teacher identity in which the researcher was positioned as a long-standing member of the ESL teacher community.

BRO04948   [Paper]  ®
Pre-service teachers' perceptions of the reconceptualized School Experience 1 in the Bachelor of Teaching Program

Natalie Brown and Anne-Marie Havlat Lancaster, University of Tasmania

This paper presents an evaluation of an innovation to the School Experience program introduced to the UTAS Bachelor of Teaching in 2002. School Experience 1 represents the first formal contact between pre-service teacher and school. It performs two important functions: to introduce pre-service teachers to the school setting and the work of practitioners and; to make early and explicit theory into practice connections. This innovation provided early, supported entry into schools and involved placing teams of pre-service teachers (Professional Learning Teams) into a small number of schools. Reduction in number of schools aimed to facilitate better communication between University staff and schools hence developing shared understandings and increasing the ability for University staff and colleague teachers to work with pre-service teachers on orientation to the profession and in making authentic theory-practice connections. Feedback was received through anonymous web-based surveys and analysed for themes grounded in the data. The concept of early entry for orientation was overwhelmingly supported by the pre-service teachers, however issues of program structure and supervision were raised as concerns. The majority of pre-service teachers responding to the survey believed links were made between the practicum and the Professional Studies and Curriculum strands of the degree.

BRO04970   [Paper]  ®
Slipping through the cracks and living to tell one tale

Barbara Brook, Victoria University

In Framer Framed, Trinh Minh-ha celebrates the way that as boundaries dissolve interesting things begin to 'slip through the cracks' (1992:248). The work I have been doing for some time with the idea of composite narratives tries to insert an edge of uncertainty into the places where boundaries meet and allow some of those interesting things to emerge. 'Interesting' in this context carries with it some of the ambivalences of the clichT: may you live in interesting times. Deliberately opening up a crack can lead to standing on the edge of a chasm.

By 'composite narrative' I refer to a process whereby a group linked by some common, if only temporary, identity or purpose share stories and analysis with each other and with one or more researchers. Ideally, in waves of movement, coming together, retreating for reflection, compiling and revising, a narrative builds which has some resonance for all the participants. This process has affiliations with memory work as pioneered by Frigga Haug(1987) and adapted by researchers like Bronwyn Davies (1997), some elements shared with action research, in its refusal of an ultimate endpoint or Truth and commitment to meaningful change, and a close affinity with some areas of narrative inquiry and writing connected with the work of Ricoeur (eg. Richardson, 2000). It occupies, therefore, a place within those strongly emergent trends in educational research, influenced by feminist methodology and its engagements with some aspects of poststructuralist analysis, which attempt to convey the complexity and nuances of educational experience.

While we recognise this as a growing force within some areas of educational research, the overwhelming majority of work on postgraduate supervision and postgraduate research student experience has been highly instrumental. Some notable exceptions in Australia are the work of Lee and Green (1995), Lee and Williams (1999), Bartlett and Mercer(2001), and articles such as Aspland's (1999) which use terms such as 'methodological pastiche' or bricolage to describe their use of what comes to hand rather than the application of a single preconceived template. These researchers share a commitment to the importance of feelings (including their own), of ambivalence, and, above all, of attending to the voices of their participants.

BRY04255   [Paper]  ®
'School' in Japanese children's lives depicted in manga

Mio Bryce, Macquarie University

Reflecting upon the increased borderlessness of today's society, which is ever expanding through information technologies and commercialisation, the positioning and role of the 'school' in children's lives has changed significantly. A knowledge explosion has occurred, generating innumerable, readily accessible sources of information, even for children. Morals, disciplines and religious values have become increasingly blurred. In such a situation, what do children seek, and find, in 'school'?

This paper discusses the positioning of the 'school' in Japanese children's lives as opposed to their family life, through the media of manga (Japanese cartoons, including animations). Manga, the combined art form of verbal and visual representation, is a powerful, flexible and fertile apparatus used to directly and freely respond to and/or annunciate social phenomena. 'School' has chosen as a popular and significant location of numerous manga, particularly since 1970, yet its commercial success has ironically paralleled the disappearance of children's free time and space, .... their childhood.

Acknowledging that Japan's situation is characterised by a unique locality such as its weak recognition of 'individuality', this analysis endeavours to provide some indication for the role and value of the 'school' in children's lives in the wider, post-modern society.

BUC04762   [Paper]
Affective engagement: A person-centred approach to understanding the structure of subjective learning experiences

Sarah Buckley, Galit Hasen and Mary Ainley, The University of Melbourne

Accounts of students' learning have increasingly emphasised the role of affective engagement in achievement settings. Although most studies have focused on negative emotional experiences such as anxiety, more recent studies have investigated the role of positive emotions. This study examines the structure of students' subjective learning experiences in relation to individual interest profiles. We measured two components of affect: activation as positive arousal that indicates engagement, and valence as an evaluative quality of the students' experience. Senior secondary students (females, N=162) completed measures of individual interests, curiosity and prior knowledge, read three social issues texts and then answered some questions relating to the texts. Each text was divided into three sections and at the end of each section students completed separate activation and valence measures. Three individual interest profiles were generated using cluster analysis, and dynamic patterns of activation were tracked for each group. Our findings using individual interest profiles illustrate the interactive engagement processes between students and specific tasks. Additionally, students reported a wide range of emotions, both positive and negative, indicating the broad and content-specific nature of students' emotional experiences while engaged in academic tasks.

BUL04563   [Paper]   ®
Outfielders: An unknown quantity in secondary school science

Jan Bulman and Allan Harrison, Central Queensland university

Three government reports have noted ongoing shortages of secondary teachers of science, particularly in rural and remote regions. The extent of these shortages is masked by the employment of teachers out-of-field. This study focuses on two beginning primary trained teachers making the transition to secondary science. Compounding the usual difficulties of beginning teachers, these teachers are teaching in multiple disciplines, beyond the level for which they were trained. Additionally the range of subjects and year levels they teach works against the development of pedagogical Content Knowledge in any particular area. A significant finding was that the very qualities of previous career experiences and personal attributes that led to the employment of these outfielders mitigates against their receiving the support they need. A hypothetical quantifying of the extent to whioch outfielders might be teaching in Australian schools has been made by applying United states statistics to the Queensland student population.

BUR04976   [Paper]  ®
Locating historical understandings of Japanese and Western resistance in education

Bruce Burnett, Queensland University of Technology

The aim of this paper is to question traditional neomarxist western understandings of student resistance within the context of postwar Japanese student resistance. The paper traces the lineage of several theoretical contributions that ultimately led to the now iconic positioning of resistance produced by the Birmingham School in the 1980s. The paper argues that the most influential understandings of western educational resistance during the 1970s and 1980s were premised on notions of an informal, disorganized and apolitical understanding of agency. By tracing the development of postwar Japanese educational resistance (1948 to 1975) this paper questions the ability of such western theories of resistance to embrace forms of collectivity inherent within the Japanese context. At the heart of the paper is therefore the central question of how applicable were historical sets of neomarxist understandings of resistance to cultural, theoretical and ideological forms of 'counter-hegemony' removed from Western settings.

BUT04823   [Paper]  ®
Giving due consideration to shame: The significance of emotion to adult educational experience

Steven Butcher, Swinburne University of Technology and Monash University

This paper speculates on the extent to which the emotional experience of shame is integral to adult educational experience. In considering whether shame may be significant in terms of both the decision to resume and continue study as an adult, it emphasizes the place of emotion within the formation of adult educational identities. In contemplating the role that shame may play in terms of both the resumption and continuation of study it links social experience to identity construction and discusses the place of human agency within this process. After Jenkins (1996), it understands identity to be the product of a simultaneous and ongoing synthesis of both internal and external definitions of self and in focusing on the extent to which shame may be integral to identity, argues that the attribution of shame is constitutive of this dialectic. The paper also attempts to show that theoretical perspectives on shame have the potential to provide significant insights into the ontology of adult education particularly given the limited emphasis on shame's contribution to educational experience within the literature.

C

CAL04901   [Paper]  ®
The Successful School: A genuine trend or statistical artifice?

Rosemary Callingham and Heather Mays, University of New England

Schools are increasingly being expected to make improvements based on data about students' learning outcomes. Such an expectation implies that principals, teachers and key personnel within systems can read and act upon the data available. There is evidence, however, that many people have poor understanding of statistical information, and that many factors inside and outside the school have an effect on students' outcomes. This study considers one primary school's data from statewide testing programs. Trends across time are considered as a basis for making judgments about the school's performance in improving students' learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy.

CAM04116   [Paper]
Towards a framework for exploring children's analytical thinking and creativity in technology

Coral Campbell and Alistair Webster, Deakin University and Beverley Jane, Monash University

Technology education provides children with opportunities to be creative as they engage in problem solving and make products that address human needs. When thinking creatively children generate new ideas through remote associations and brainstorming and this type of thinking is enhanced when attention is allowed to wander in a relaxed and uncompetitive environment. Research shows that the two mental states (generative and nongenerative/analytical) cannot exist simultaneously (Howard-Jones 2002). It follows that at some point in the technological process a child's generative mental state needs to give way to a nongenerative, analytical state so that the child can focus on analysing information. This paper outlines the design of a research project that aims to investigate the impact of analytical thinking on creativity in the context of technology education. Particular attention will be given to the role of the teacher in enhancing children's creativity when required and critical thinking when needed. One question to be addressed is what can teachers do during the teaching sessions to ensure that analytical thinking does not hinder creativity during the investigation and design phases?

CAN04980 [Paper]   ®
Discrepancies between the "ideal" and "passable" doctorate: Supervisor thinking on doctoral standards

Robert Cantwell and Jill Scevak, University of Newcastle

Dimicolo (2003) recently made note of two paradoxical findings in the literature on doctoral assessment: that there is little cross-institutional agreement as to what actually constitutes a doctorate, and very few submitted doctorates fail to achieve the award. We argue that a major explanation of the paradox may lie in the implicit understandings of supervisors. We begin with the conceptions of the doctorate and the doctoral process expressed by supervisors through interview. We then address the issue of defining "doctoral level" through the application of the SOLO Taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982). Additionally, we draw on the work of Shaw (cited in Powell & McCaulay (2002) to flesh out within the SOLO framework attributes that discriminate doctoral from non-doctoral levels of outcome. Our analysis of the interview data indicated an implicit awareness on the part of supervisors, regardless of discipline, of the desired modality of thinking underlying doctoral research (which we define as a Formal-2 modality) and of the need for explicit coherence within the thesis (defined by us as a "relational" outcome within mode). We see our analysis as providing a useful insight into the development of an explicit understanding of what constitutes a "doctoral level" of outcome.

CAR04142   [Paper]  ®
Developing school leaders with the commitment and capacity to pursue the common good

Paul Carlin and Helga Neidhart, Australian Catholic University

In an era of relentless global change and threats of terrorism, communities are struggling with issues related to the public good such as democracy, human rights, equitable distribution of wealth and resources, and a sense of meaning and security. Many writers from various fields argue that education (and therefore schools) must be in the frontline of responding to these opportunities and challenges. As a consequence, more is being asked of schools by all the key stakeholders: governments, employers, universities, parents and communities. These demands are being made at a time when successive research reports are confirming that an increasing number of senior leaders in schools, especially women, are reconsidering their decisions on career progression. This paper reports on the implications of a major study undertaken in Catholic primary and secondary schools in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania (VSAT). It also outlines a Leadership Framework which has been developed to enable the development of leaders with the capacity and commitment to guide schools through these challenging times.

CAR04746   [Paper]  ®
Are the complexities of professional practice supported by university policy?

Lorelei Carpenter and Patricia Johnson, Griffith University

Many university degree programs require some form of professional accreditation through industry experience therefore it is desirable that the administration and delivery of these university programs reflect and support industry standards and needs. In practice, however, industry standards are frequently sacrificed in the current consumer-based university culture where the individual rights and needs of students are protected by university policies that take precedence over industry and professional requirements.

In this paper we locate and examine the tensions that exist between the political agenda of the university and the development of professionalism of pre-service teachers and nurses. It questions how well university policies support and reflect the professional standards and requirements of both teaching and nursing in their teacher and nurse education programs. We use a case study of one university in Queensland and the way in which this institution negotiates the challenges and dilemmas that it faces in applying policy to the requirements of industry placement during pre-service programs of teachers and nurses. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate debate and raise awareness of the ever-increasing complexities of professional practice and the need to reflect this in academic policy.

CAS04215   [Paper]
Using an action research model to bring about school improvement through PE and school sport

Crichton Casbon and Lucy Walters, The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA)

The paper describes an innovative curriculum development project in England that aims to improve the quality of PE and sport in schools and use them strategically to bring about whole school improvement. Outcomes include improvements in pupils' self-esteem, attitudes to learning, behaviour, attendance and achievements in PE and across the curriculum.

To achieve these outcomes, schools have followed an action research approach. This approach is different from that previously used by most schools in England. The paper will describe this action research process. This includes setting objectives, selecting appropriate strategies for improvement, identifying signs of success and selecting appropriate information collection strategies for monitoring progress and informing development.

The paper examines how the innovative use of this action research model has brought about significant improvements to aspects of schooling. The project has had an impact on the National Strategy for PE and Sport in England, influencing the continuing professional development programme, the monitoring and evaluation of PE and sport in schools and curriculum innovation. Therefore the paper will be of interest to those who wish to explore:

• the impact of curriculum development
• the contribution of action research to school improvement.

CAS04216   [Paper]
The English approach to collecting information on the quality of PE and school sport in English schools and its impact on young people and whole school improvement.

Crichton Casbon and Lucy Walters, The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) .

The paper describes the aims and strands of the national PE and sport strategy in England that began in April 2003. This innovative strategy is designed to improve the quality of pupils' outcomes in PE and sport, and the impact on pupils' achievements, attendance, behaviour, attitudes to learning, and healthy active lifestyles. It is delivered through a new and emerging infrastructure and creative approaches to implementing PE and sport curriculum.

The paper describes how monitoring and evaluation processes have been implemented and used to guide the development of the strategy in order to increase its impact on young people, schools and sports clubs. This will include a description of the annual collection of information and the coordination of the work of researchers. It describes how information from the monitoring and impact evaluation is used at local, regional and national levels to inform priorities for improvement and action.

The paper examines early results of monitoring and evaluation and how the information has been used to change policy and action. Therefore, the interest in the paper will be:

• an analysis of an important curriculum reform
• as a contribution to the evaluation of the impact of curriculum reform in this field

CAV04443   [Paper]  ®
Investigating principal leadership of pedagogic renewal using Rasch and LISREL analyses

Rob Cavanagh, Neil MacNeill, Steffan Silcox, Peter Reynolds, and Joseph Romanoski, Curtin University of Technology

School principal leadership of pedagogic renewal was conceptualised to include five behaviours: engaging teachers; expressing expectations of teacher instruction; sharing curriculum decision-making; developing a sense of common purpose; and effecting school renewal. Rating scale data on teacher observations of principal behaviours was analysed using Rasch and structural equation modeling techniques. Rasch analyses of data showed the items were eliciting data on a dominant trait. LISREL was applied to test the factorial structure of a five-element model and also the postulated relationships between variables within the model. The prevalence of pertinent leadership behaviours was revealed and the associations between these behaviours were examined. The empirical results of the investigation are discussed in terms of school leadership, pedagogical practise and school renewal.

CAV04445   [Paper]  ®
Information and communication technology learning in the classroom: The influence of students, the class-group, teachers and the home

Rob Cavanagh, Peter Reynolds and Joseph Romanoski, Curtin University of Technology

A model of classroom information and communication technology (ICT) classroom learning culture inclusive of the influence of the individual student, the class-group, the teacher and the home ICT environment was conceptualised. Data from a survey of 439 primary and secondary students were analysed using Rasch and structural equation modeling techniques. The Rasch analysis results showed students generally expressed confidence in their capacity to use ICT in their learning, but were less certain about the extent to which this learning was supported by teachers and parents. The structural equation modeling analysis showed that attributes of the individual student were more influential those of the class-group and of the teacher for effective ICT learning. The home ICT environment was shown to mediate the influence of individual student ICT learning behaviours on the development of positive attitudes towards the use of ICT at school. The empirical findings of the study are discussed with regard to the expectations of ICT learning as articulated in the local curriculum. This discussion draws attention to particular aspects of ICT learning and ICT curriculum implementation that could be viewed with concern in terms of the traditional roles of teachers and schools in enabling curriculum realisation.

CAV04446   [Paper]  ®
Development of a Rasch model scale to measure teacher observations of how principals lead the school pedagogy

Rob Cavanagh, Peter Reynolds, Neil MacNeill and Joseph Romanoski, Curtin University of Technology

Pedagogic leadership was defined as the leadership of teaching and learning that is exercised within a socio-political context. It was conceptualised to comprise five dimensions: developing a shared sense of educational purpose; improving teacher pedagogic practise; developing school culture; engaging staff; and committing to mission realisation. A Likert scale survey was administered to 208 teachers in 25 Western Australian schools to collect ordinal data on their observations of the principal's behaviours. Rasch model rating scale analysis was used to calibrate leadership behaviour (items) and individual teacher observations (persons) on the same interval-level scale. Examination of item 'difficulties' showed common and uncommon principal behaviours. The report explains the theoretical orientation of the study, describes how the data were analysed, and profiles the pedagogic leadership behaviours of principals as observed by teachers.

CHA04013   [Paper]
Goal orientations, study strategies and achievement of Hong Kong teacher education students

Kwok-wai Chan, Man-tak Leung and Po-yin Lai, Hong Kong Institute of Education

This study examined the interrelationship among achievement goals, study strategies and achievement of 473 students in a Hong Kong tertiary institution by means of questionnaire survey. Correlational analyses showed that performance goal was significantly and positively related to both surface and deep strategies while learning goal was significantly and positively related to deep strategy but negatively related to surface strategy. However there was no significant relation between achievement and goals or achievement and study strategies held by the sample. The results validated the applicability of an adapted instrument developed in western countries to measure achievement goal orientations in the Hong Kong context. It also gave support to the western findings that students who hold learning goals usually adopt a deep approach of study while students who are performance goal orientated tend to be shallow in study approach. Nevertheless, it was interesting to find that achievement was not significantly related to either the goals or study strategies held by students in the sample. The results were in contrast to the usual assumption that students who are performance goal oriented and adopt shallow approach in study would score low in academic achievement. Further investigation would be necessary to verify the effects of these variables on achievement of students.

CHA04056   [Paper]
Why test the Arts? The Western Australian experience

Sian Chapman, Department of Education and Training WA, and Julian Fraillon, Australian Council for Educational Research

Comprehensive system assessment of the arts has only occurred twice before in the world; once in Western Australia in 1996 and again the following year in the USA.

Now in 2003 / 2004 Monitoring Standards in Education (MSE) as part of the Department of Education and Training is again undertaking systemic assessment of the Arts. Considering the inherent difficulties in assessing a learning area that is primarily practical and performance based why do we persist?

Collecting information about the educational standards of students at Years 3, 7 and 10 sends a strong message to educators and the community about current performance and good practice in the Arts. Using a variety of innovative performance tasks MSE tests the art forms of dance, drama, media, music and visual arts. Using a Rasch measurement model to analyse the data, achievement scales are produced calibrating item/task difficulty with person ability. Mean student achievement is reported by year group. Sub-group achievement is reported according to gender, aboriginality and language background.

The benefits of this program are manyfold. School release materials allow schools to test their own cohorts and compare individual students to the state wide results. Teachers participating in the marking of the random sample gain invaluable professional development and the system is provided with valuable information to inform curriculum planning and standard setting.

CHA04669   [Paper]
Disrupting Heteronormativity: What about the girls?

Emma Charlton, The University of Queensland

Currently in Australia a number of trends are interrelating to create an important moment in which the disruption of heterosexism, homophobia and anti-lesbianism can take place in schools. Through a combination of the rise in profile of sexuality and same-sex-attracted communities, the greater interest in issues of sexuality and schooling, and the interest in boys' education, some spaces are being presented in schools to address and disrupt heterosexism and homophobia. However, with the displacement of girls from the educational agenda as a result of the 'What about the boys?' discourse, spaces seldom exist to challenge anti-lesbianism and misogynist cultures in schools in the same ways that they do in relation to homophobia and hegemonic masculinities. This lack of space for challenging anti-lesbianism in schools was evident at a conference held in June 2001 that sought to raise awareness around issues of sexuality, schooling and homophobia, heterosexism and anti-lesbianism in schools. Whilst, the conference was successful on a number of levels, the emancipatory potential of this conference was undermined by a series of historical practices that denied difference and presented obstacles to the disruption of heterosexism and anti-lesbianism.

CHA04818   [Paper]
'Girl Power': The schooling and popular culture nexus

Claire Charles Monash University

This study explores representations of sexualities, power and identity in school girls' lives. The research participants attend a prestigious independent girls' college in Melbourne, which aims to prepare its students for tertiary education and the professional workforce. This model of female 'power' requires a particular 'feminine' appearance, enforced through a school dress code, which extends to hair, face and accessories. The code differs significantly from some popular cultural representations of 'feminine' appearance. Popular music artists such as Madonna wear tight clothing, which accentuates body shape and reveals skin, excessive makeup, and tousled hair. Camera work frequently emphasises the eyes, lips and breasts. These images promote an active sexuality, a form of power that departs significantly from the model of female power promoted by the participants' school. Research participants will discuss and write about their experiences of negotiating these models of feminine power in their own lives. Previous explorations of normative heterosexuality note a common idea that women who appear sexually 'provocative' are down-playing any 'real' power they might have, such as intellectual ability, and rendering themselves vulnerable to male sexuality (Weedon, Fine, Albury). Theoretical strategies for the detection and destabilisation of normative heterosexuality (Foucault, Butler) will illuminate this exploration. It is expected that the study will provide a rich insight into the complex meaning of different models of 'feminine power' in a school characterised by aspirations towards 'mainstream cultural power' (Albury 2002).

CHE04032   [Paper]
Investigating problem solving with computer-supported collaborative learning

Wing Sum Cheung, Seng Tan, and David Hung, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

In this study, we investigated group problem solving behaviour of twelve graduate students using Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). The problems were ill-structured design problems about the critique on the design of multimedia educational software. The students were asked to participate in an asynchronous online discussion which involved the following tasks: identifying design problems, discussing the design problems, developing solutions, and discussing the suggested solutions. The software program Knowledge Community, a CSCL that allows scaffolded online discussions, was used. Results indicated that the graduate students participated significantly more in identifying design problems than in discussing the design problem; they also participated more in identifying solutions more than discussing the suggested solutions. Implications about scaffolding ill-structured design problems can be drawn from the results of this study.

CHI04732   [Paper]
The use of Bernstein's framework in mapping school culture and the resultant development of the curriculum

Robyn Chien and John Wallace, Curtin University of Technology

This paper uses Bernstein's pedagogic code as a starting point for a framework used to collect and analyse data about school culture and the impact that culture has on curriculum. Four main concepts from this framework are described including, "classification, framing, recognition rules and realisation rules". The overall "classification" of the case study school and the values of "framing" pertinent to the "instructional discourse" for the two units observed are transferred to the mapping tool developed for this study. Propositional statements about the culture of a school and the styles of teaching suitable within that culture are then suggested. It is felt that the use of parts of this framework in teacher education could help to assist in raising the awareness of teachers to the importance of the culture of the school they are in and the development of different styles of curricula. It is also felt that a heightened awareness of the school culture and teachers' "realisation rules" in the classroom would be of benefit when teachers are dealing with students from different backgrounds and may help to reduce the incidence of misinterpretations.

CHO04938   [Paper]  ®
The comparison of instructors' perceptions on higher technological and vocational education reform between University of Science and Technology and Institute of Technology in Central Taiwan, The Republic of China

Frances Feng-Mei Choi, Hung Kuang University

The Ministry of Education (MOE) of Taiwan indicated that higher technological and vocational education (HTVE) reforms have been actively implemented since 1996. The results of HTVE reforms were to promote former 70 Junior Colleges (JC) to 20 Universities of Science and Technology (UST), and 50 Institutes of Technology (IT) in Taiwan. The purpose of this study was to analyze the difference in perceptions of HTVE reforms, between UST and IT instructors in central Taiwan. A questionnaire, which covers six demographic areas, was distributed to instructors at 9 campuses and achieved a 66.3% return rate. The demographics indicated that the faculty with doctoral degrees in USTs out number those at ITs' two to one. One third of the faculty in IT must perform some administrative work, while only one fifth of UST faculty must do so. Faculty both UST and IT felt unsure whether or not they were well prepared for technological changes in education that may occur during the next five years. Most IT faculty provided a positive response to the quality of students, as compared to that of UST faculty. The survey provided important information on the reforms' impact, and the related side effects of it.

CHU04864   [Paper]
The convergence and divergence effects of globalisation on Singapore education system

Catherine Chua, University of Queensland

As reported in The Straits Times, the Singapore's leading English newspaper, the study of literature is steadily losing popularity and fast becoming a dying subject in Singapore schools. My goal in this paper is to examine the effects of globalisation on the education system in Singapore. I draw on what I have called the concept of "elimination" process, which highlights that certain subjects in Singapore schools are receiving much recognition while other subjects are facing the possibility of being removed from the school curriculum. It is argued that this global economy enables the expansion of new entities largely due to a homogenisation effect specifically in the scientific arenas. Yet at the same time, it facilitates the elimination process especially for humanities subjects such as English literature. In this regard, the concept of globalisation epitomizes both divergence and convergence effects. The main theme discussed is the Singaporean government's responses to this global economy. I examine the government's initiatives and education policies that are implemented in response to this change, and explore how this shift in emphasis has affected the choice of subjects among students. It seeks to establish the relationship between globalisation process and the current changes that are undertaking the Singapore schools.

CLA04233   [Paper]
Using digital online content in authentic curriculum P-10 contexts: What do teachers have to say?

Olivia Clarke, The Le@rning Federation

Lack of easily accessible quality digital content has been identified as one reason for little sustained take-up of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in schools (MCEETYA, 2003). The Le@rning Federation (TLF), an initiative of the Australian Government, the Australian states and territories and New Zealand has been charged with filling this void. TLF online content in the form of multimedia interactive learning objects, purpose-built for curriculum priority areas for P-10 students, are currently being released in stages. Trials and implementation reviews exploring teachers' experiences using the materials in authentic classroom contexts are underway.

This paper presents early findings from a number of reviews undertaken across Australia and New Zealand in 2004 in which participating teachers explain how they integrate the new Science, Mathematics and Numeracy and Literacy resources into existing curricula and their views about the contribution of the materials to teaching and learning. Qualitative and quantitative responses collected online from teachers in several education jurisdiction reviews have provided opportunities for meta-analysis. To date, teachers indicate that the new materials are highly engaging for students and relevant to their curriculum frameworks. However, challenges relating to accessing the materials and professional learning needs of teachers are also apparent.

CLA04478   [Paper]  ®
The impact of preservice teachers on the mathematics achievement and attitudes of elementary students at a Colorado school

Julie Clark, Flinders University

A range of factors has impinged on the provision of teacher education programs in the US over the last decade. Largely emanating from governmental demands for increased accountability, they have included the setting of standards for student achievement, proof of program impact, and state and national testing. These legislative reforms and school district concerns initiated changes in field experience at a western USA university, which adhered to a professional development school philosophy. During the final student teaching experience, preservice teachers were asked to teach mathematics to a small group of students for a 3-month period. The preservice teachers took control of every aspect of the groups' mathematics instruction. Elementary student participants were selected on the basis of pre-tests given to the entire school population. The impact on elementary student achievement and attitudes, and preservice teacher development of pedagogical knowledge and understanding was investigated as part of this study. This paper focuses on the impact on elementary students. Data analysis revealed significant achievement gains for all of the elementary students, as well as positive changes in attitudes towards mathematics.

CLA04891   [Paper]
Researching the language for explanations in mathematics teaching and learning

Philip Clarkson, Australian Catholic University

The role of language is now taken as a crucial aspect in the learning of mathematics. Although some still believe that mathematics classrooms can be regarded as language free zones, this is not what the research tells us. The change is being acknowledged in curriculum documents to an increasing degree. However there are particular areas of language that are crucial for deep mathematical learning that are still under acknowledged in these documents, and in mathematics teaching. One such area of language is that needed for good mathematical explanations. One aspect of this area of learning is the set of logical connectives. Although some attention is given to these aspects of language in the English curriculum, this is not adequate for mathematics learning. Some vocabulary takes on different meanings in a mathematical context compared to when used in everyday language. This is also true for at least some logical connectives. As well it is clear that assuming that students can and will bridge across define subject areas is fraught with disappointments. This paper explores the predominance of this aspect of language in school mathematics explanations, and the need for purposeful teaching.

COL04154   [Paper]  ®
The mediation of teacher education

David Cole, University of Tasmania

The way in which teachers are educated is under pressure from a number of sources such as: governmental requirements for teachers in schools, the social perception of 'education workers for children', the competitive pitches of academics theorising about how teachers should learn their trade, and the economic needs of business development. This paper is the first part of a four stage process based at the University of Tasmania, which seeks to explore these forces, and to undertake research using a group of in-service BEd student teachers who have attended a summer school at the university and demonstrated learning through use of a University of Tasmania CD Rom. I shall use this preliminary paper and examination of argumentation to map the terrain that will be probed in the research and to provide a path to understanding as to how the mediation of teacher education is happening in contemporary Australian society.

COL04295   [Paper]
Teachers as policy producers in classrooms

Eloise Cole, Monash University

Every day, teachers read and interpret policy in the context of their own classrooms and schools. This paper takes the 'reading' and 'interpretation' one step further by considering the role of teachers as policy producers in the context of their practice. It begins by exploring how policy is defined and how it evolves through the text it represents. It then looks at how teachers participate in policy text production and their struggle for control over the representation and meaning of policy. In addressing these issues the paper draws on the engagement with policy by teachers at a suburban Melbourne school. It examines how these teachers have a different analysis of the same text and how this produces different teacher practice in the same school. The work of Bourdieu and Foucault are utilised in this analysis to explain these different engagements with the same policy text. In brief, the paper acknowledges that policy is concerned with power relations including the interactions among policy actors. It sets out to explore how key concepts of policy gain currency which can be traded and negotiated between policy actors for the benefit of some and not others.

COL04348   [Paper]
Science, literacy and the really important link for early learning

Marj Colvill, University of Tasmania

It is accepted practice in many parts of the Western World that when young children engage in early reading they are doing so using four resources or roles (Luke and Freebody (1990.) These four roles or resources are identified as code breaker, text participant, text user and text analyst.

When beginning readers first recognise and tackle text in any meaningful way they are, initially working in the code breaker role. They are trying to work out what it is that text, as it is presented, is saying or perhaps more accurately, what it is going to do. They are looking for familiar patterns of letters, words, clauses, sentences and text structures. They are observing the written, two dimensional text and from their observations, making an inference that particular sequences of letters, words or sentences will perform in a particular way. The ability to observe, infer and predict combine to enable the student to "risk take" in a new setting where familiarity is less obvious but where conventions are adhered to.

This research explores the link between basic science process skills and early literacy skills and looks to using experiences in science to enhance early literacy outcomes. It has significant implications for early childhood curriculum experiences.

CON04456   [Paper]  ®
Employing the processes of Critical Discourse Analysis inside narrative inquiry

Jennifer Connelly, Hong Institute of Education

This paper reports on research techniques adopted and adapted from Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA) inside a narrative inquiry that took as its significant cue - words, statements, inferences, innuendo and philosophical concepts from the retellings of a white woman teacher's life in an Indigenous context. Aspects examined in the narrative were as follows;

1. language that demonstrated the frames of reference out of which the teachers operated,
2. power and resistance - between teachers, students and community,
3. truth/knowledge - discourses and material practices that conveyed what these teachers held as 'truths' and in turn informed the 'knowledges' from which they operated,
4. the self/selves - subjectivities that the teachers projected.

Employing deconstructive tools from recent scholarship on CDA (T.Van Dijk, Fairclough, and Wodak) the analysis engages both a micro view (zooming in) and a macro view (zooming out). Whilst the former is fine grained and the latter is an attempt to take account of broader social and cultural influences, the researcher remains sceptical about the findings they offer. Is the analytical framework culturally sensitive? What could such an analysis miss?

CON04837 [Paper]   ®
Models of teaching and learning from Darwin to East Timor

Lorraine Connell, Charles Darwin University

I have commenced teaching the Creative Arts at the Catholic Teachers College, Baucau, in East Timor. The Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) course has been accredited by the Australian Catholic University and Dance and Drama is taught in semester 1 with Music being taught in Semester 2 of first year. There are currently fifty three students in the first year of the course. My teaching in Baucau is recognised as part of my lecturing load at Charles Darwin University where I am employed as a lecturer and coordinator. This unique arrangement allows me to come to Baucau for an intensive two weeks at the beginning of each semester, leave behind readings and assessment tasks to be completed and return for one week towards the end of the semester to revise and finalise assessment. My lecturing at CDU is planned around these times. It is a unique teaching and learning experience for my students and me.

As a lecturer I have attempted to teach in a variety of modes to assist students with their teaching and learning. Intensives, one day a week for six weeks and online work have all helped extend the teaching and learning process for students and the teacher.

Through this paper I intend to share these experiences and the opportunities for different models of teaching and learning.

COR04663   [Paper]
Building the framework for educational change through interdisciplinary design learning: Case studies from the Faculty of the Built Environment, University of NSW

Linda Corkery, Ann Quinlan, Jane Castle and Nancy Marshall, University of New South Wales

In meeting the expectations of communities, industry and national government, universities are not only required to demonstrate their capacity to produce and disseminate knowledge but also to facilitate the application of this knowledge for social benefit. The professional disciplines in the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of New South Wales, with their emphasis on practical knowledge and interdisciplinary modes of inquiry, are well placed to contribute to this prospect and demonstrate Ernest Boyer's model for the scholarships of integration and application.

This paper describes three innovative educational experiences undertaken in the Faculty. These projects focus on design learning and interactions with students from four disciplines: architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture and industrial design. They illustrate how productive social knowledge can be generated through collaborative interactions between the university, students in educational settings, government and its agencies, industry and community. In that process, new possibilities for teaching and learning have evolved, along with opportunities for raising awareness of social issues and instituting positive change.

In presenting these case studies, this paper seeks to demonstrate the synergistic potential between universities and communities to provide unique teaching and learning opportunities and innovative solutions to benefit community.

COR04940   [Paper]  ®
Changes to the Australian Public Service: Some deleterious effects upon political accountability and VET policy formation and implementation

Ian Cornford, University of Technology, Sydney

The introduction of contracts for senior managers in the Australian public service, in both state and federal spheres, in place of permanency has substantially changed the nature of the Westminster system of government in the direction of a politicised public service, as in the American system. Only recently through a series of political incidents has this politicisation of the Australian public service become more widely acknowledged and reported in the popular media. The fact that there is no longer a public service that offers independent and fearless advice to government ministers has already resulted in major problems in Vocational Education and Training (VET) policy formation and implementation in Australia. Drawing upon historical, political analysis and policy analysis approaches, this paper critically examines the changes to the Westminster system and the impact that these changes have had upon the development and management of VET policy in Australia. This paper briefly traces the changes to the Australian public service, driven by economic rationalism and centred upon politicisation and privatisation, that have had deleterious effects upon accountability and good governance, before considering the problems and issues in VET policy adversely affecting efforts to educate a more highly skilled and internationally competitive workforce.

COR04942   [Paper]  ®
Cognitive and metacognitive strategies as a basis for effective lifelong learning: How far have we progressed?

Ian Cornford, University of Technology, Sydney

Cognitive and metacognitive strategies appear truly generic skills through their ability to foster effective learning in an era where the two constants are continuing change and growth in bodies of knowledge. Yet the literature on lifelong learning has rarely acknowledged the importance of these skills as a vital foundation in a less than surface way, while policy at Australian federal government level seems generally to be rooted in superficial rhetoric. Interestingly, however, more serious attention has been given to effective learning strategies in earlier Vocational Education and Training (VET) documents, probably because VET attracts many less academically able students. After briefly outlining the importance of cognitive and metacognitive strategies as a basis for effective lifelong learning, this paper examines the changes that have occurred concerning adoption of cognitive and metacognitive skills as a basis for effective lifelong learning at school and post-compulsory education levels over approximately the last seven years. It is concluded that, while there is evidence of the effectiveness of the teaching of learning-to-learn approaches, policy makers in Australia appear to have little real understanding of the needs for effective policy and do not recognise curriculum and teaching revolutions that need to occur for the ideal of effective lifelong learning to be realised.

COX04545   [Paper]
A fair and equal education for all? Is egalitarianism alive, and well, in schools?

Peter Cox, La Trobe University

In this research project I examined whether differences in participation in grade 12 subjects, in choice of subject combinations, and in performance was affected by student gender and differences in socio-economic background. One of Australia's largest senior secondary (grades 11 and 12) schools was the setting for the study. At the grade 12 level students are able to select from a wide range of subjects. As a consequence of this, the proportions of male and female students in each subject are generally neither equal nor of matching ability profiles. To compare sub-groups more fairly and allow for variations in ability levels this study used a separate measure of students' academic ability. Findings from the first two stages of this project will be reported. The first stage involved a quantitative investigation of subject participation, subject combinations and performance over three years involving 2500 students, focusing particularly on the mathematics and science subjects. The second stage involved an anonymous survey, administered to approximately 800 grade 12 students in 2003, examining student beliefs and attitudes toward subjects, and their reasons for subject choicesThis presentation will highlight the major findings from the project focusing on the gender and socio-economic differences in subject access, subject performance and beliefs and attitudes toward subjects.

CRA04031   [Paper]  ®
'Right' versus 'wrong' and 'right' versus 'right': Understanding ethical dilemmas faced by educational leaders

Neil Cranston, Lisa Ehrich and Megan Kimber, Queensland University of Technology

In recent years the conduct of leaders, in an ethical sense, in many professions and types of organisations has captured public attention. In particular, educational leaders are often faced with ethical dilemmas in the daily course of their work as they are required to make complex decisions in the best interests of their students and their schools. This is understandable given the complex challenges and competing forces that beset leadership which is clearly a values-based activity (Walker & Shakotko, 1999). There is little doubt that, given the rapidly changing social, economic and political context in which schools now operate, the moral and ethical dimensions of leadership continue as important topics for exploration.

This paper reports the findings of recent research into the ethical dilemmas faced by a number of heads of non-government schools in Australia. These dilemmas centred broadly around making critical decisions, usually about staff and students, where a number of competing forces impacted on the decision itself, with the potential to lead to significant implications for individuals as well as for the school more generally. The paper uses a model developed by the authors, as an analytical framework to assist in better understanding the dynamics of the ethical dilemmas, and the forces at play as the school heads endeavoured to resolve the dilemmas. The model, when applied to the ethical dilemmas identified by the school leaders, provides a useful way for explicating the processes involved in identifying and resolving such dilemmas. The paper suggests that school leaders in all types of settings should be able to use the model as a reflective tool to understand more fully the forces impacting upon, and the dimensions characterising, the ethical decision-making process.

CRA04084   [Paper]
Teachers' talk: The perceptions of Queensland secondary teachers about adolescents with learning difficulties

Julie Crawford, James Cook University

This presentation examines the findings of a 2004 statewide secondary teacher survey of teachers' perceptions of adolescents with learning difficulties in their classroom and school. Students with learning difficulties were defined as " those who have short or long term difficulties in literacy, numeracy and learning how to learn [Education Queensland, 1996]. The on line survey of teachers employed in state, Catholic and independent schools also canvassed views on actual levels of support and school practices which were occurring for adolescents with leaning difficulties in Queensland secondary schools. The survey also included considerable demographic data which has allowed for teacher and sector profiles to be created. The results of the survey have been interpreted in two complementary ways. The qualitative data examined issues relating to school governance and its relationship with provisions made for students with learning difficulties. The quantitative data, based on Likert scale responses on attitudes towards students with learning difficulties, was subjected to analysis using the Rasch model for rating scale data [Andrich,1988; Bond and Fox, 2001]. The results reveal interesting interactions between teacher, system variables.

CRO04237   [Paper]  ®
Committed teachers, passionate teachers: The dimension of passion associated with teacher commitment and engagement

Leanne Crosswell and Bob Elliott, Queensland University of Technology

Teacher commitment has been identified as one of the most critical factors for the future success of education and schools (Huberman, 1993). Teacher commitment is closely connected to teachers' work performance and their ability to innovate and to integrate new ideas into their own practice, absenteeism, staff turnover, as well as having an important influence on students' achievement in, and attitudes toward school (Firestone, 1996; Graham, 1996; Louis, 1998; Nias, 1981; Tsui & Cheng, 1999). The traditional view of teacher commitment considers it to refer to external referents. However, there is a growing body of literature that draws a strong connection between teacher commitment and the very intimate element of passion for the work of teaching (Day, 2004; Elliott & Crosswell, 2001; Fried, 1995). This paper first discusses the traditional view of teacher commitment and then uses the findings from an Australian study to investigate the idea that an individuals' personal passion for teaching is central to their on-going commitment to, and engagement with the profession.

CRO04254   [Paper]
Second language teacher education: Sociocultural directions for the future

Russell Cross and Margaret Gearon, Monash University

This paper reviews the field of second language teacher education and identifies a need for future research to include a sociocultural perspective on issues affecting teacher preparation. Schulz (1999) laments that progress in the field of second language teacher education as a whole has been surprisingly small, adding it is still "long on rhetoric, opinions, and traditional dogma, and short on empirical research that attempts to verify those opinions or traditional practice"(pp.516-517). First providing a survey of the field with a particular emphasis on developments that have influenced second language teacher education in Australia, the paper then outlines the nature of a Vygotskian sociocultural framework for analysis. It concludes by describing one possibility of how such a framework might be applied to issues affecting second language teacher education.

CUM04508   [Paper]
Working doctoral students: Challenges and opportunities

Jim Cumming, Australian National University and Kevin Ryland, Deakin University

Doctoral education is traditionally conceptualised in policies and practices about young, full-time students with no work or related commitments. However, nowadays, doctoral candidates constitute a diverse population working in various institutional, community and industry sites. This paper will report on initial work conducted as part of an ARC Linkage Project in which three postgraduate student associations are involved as industry partners - viz. CAPA, ANU PARSA and DUSA. The main objective of the paper is to identify and explore some of the issues identified by two researchers who are working collaboratively in this project to investigate the contemporary experiences of full and part-time doctoral students.

CUN04435   [Paper]  ®
School-research partnerships: A model for health promotion intervention programs in school settings

Everarda Cunningham, Swinburne University of Technology

The intervention literature frequently suggests that effective research in health promotion programs is more likely to occur when researchers are cognizant of and responsive to the nature and needs of the host environment. This paper initially outlines the policies, responsibilities, needs and resources of the Victorian school system in the area of affective education. The Bright Ideas program (Brandon and Cunningham, 1999a, 1999b), a program that is embedded within the framework of rational emotive education and teaches optimistic thinking skills, was developed and implemented for students in 5th- and 6th- grade in Victorian primary schools in response to identified school needs. The expectation that school-based personnel take a more proactive role in the emotional education of all students, together with issues of cost effectiveness, resulted in a model in which classroom teachers and school psychologists jointly implemented the program. The findings from various studies that support the efficacy of the program and its method of implementation in increasing the coping resources of young people are then reported. Results support the feasibility of implementing school based low-cost programs that address the emotional health of young people when the program intervention goals are congruent with the goals of system.

CUN04724   [Paper]  ®
Engaging and empowering students with Learning Difficulties

Nola Firth and Everarda Cunningham, Swinburne University of Technology

Sense of personal control and connectedness have been cited as key components of effective coping by successful adults who have Learning Difficulties (LD). Despite this, students who have Learning Difficulties are known to be at risk of learned helplessness, passive learning style, low self-regulation, and social exclusion. This paper describes the development and implementation of a 12-hour professional development program to assist Middle Years teachers and schools to address these issues. The program is entitled Engaging and Empowering Students with Learning Difficulties. Unique features of the program are inclusion of views of adults and students who have learning difficulties as well as referral to research-based teaching strategies to develop the key resources of perceived control and sense of connection. While preliminary anecdotal feedback about the program from teachers and regional network personnel has been very positive, future longitudinal studies involving qualitative and quantitative methods are now required to determine the efficacy of the program in the longer term.

D

DAL041032   [Paper]
Positioning international students for success at university: Evaluation of a peer mentoring program

John Daley, University of Wollongong

This paper focuses on the evaluation of a Peer Mentoring Program conducted for international students at a regional university. The aim of this program is to assist overseas students' adjustment to life and study in their Australian university setting. This paper will describe the rationale and implementation of the program. Using an open inquiry approach to evaluation in the framework of action research, this paper will report on students' perspectives of and experiences in this program, as documented through interviews and participant observations. Collaborative processes undertaken for this inquiry included a web-based reflective journal. This journal provided a key venue for critical reflection upon data and frameworks for data analysis and interpretation, and sharing of these reflections with identified stakeholders as works-in-progress. Specifically, findings will detail students' views on what they found to be helpful from the mentoring program; the program's assistance with their spoken and written English as university students across different learning situations; what they most valued about the program; and recommendations for future directions.

DAR04636 [Paper]   ®
Linking Worlds: A study of educational leadership in remote Indigenous community school settings

Tony d'Arbon and Jack Frawley, Australian Catholic University, and Dot Morrison and Nick Richardson, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education

For many years there has been a call for research institutions to deliver on the key elements of what has recently been referred to as the Indigenous Research Reform Agenda. Underlying this call is the active participation of Aboriginal communities in the design, implementation, dissemination and evaluation of research. This requires specific action by research institutions to support the adoption of collaborative and participatory approaches. This paper outlines the ways in which the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE) and the Australian Catholic University (ACU) attempted to answer this call as they planned for an Australian Research Council Linkage Projects grant on educational leadership.

DAV04854   [Paper]
The relationship between teacher efficacy and higher order instructional emphasis

Brian Davies, NSW Department of Education and Training

This study investigated the relationship between teacher efficacy and the emphasis that teachers place on higher order thinking in their teaching programs in the subject areas of history and science in Year 7 to Year 10. To investigate that relationship the study researched the level of that emphasis, whether the emphasis changed through Year 7 to Year 10 and with the nature of the class, and, the extent that any variance in emphasis on higher order thinking was explained by teacher efficacy. The study used both quantitative and qualitative methods. In the first stage of the study a questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of 35 NSW government high and central schools. The questionnaire included instructional emphasis scales constructed through reference to the literature on higher order thinking and to syllabus objectives and outcomes. Teacher efficacy was measured using the Gibson and Dembo Teacher Efficacy Scale. In the second stage of the study, interviews were conducted with teachers. A multiple linear regression analysis was undertaken of data from the questionnaires. Comments by subjects from the interviews were analysed to confirm and add meaning to the answers to the research questions. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between teacher efficacy and higher order instructional emphasis in history and science in Year 7 to Year 10.

DEN04844   [Paper]
Is it time for a new approach to the teaching of Business Studies in regional Australia?

Dell Dennis, University of Notre Dame

The Kimberley Region of Western Australia is one of the fastest growing non urban regions in Australia. Business is thriving and new start ups, especially in the small business and indigenous business sectors are evident. The University of Notre Dame - Australia, Broome Campus has provided courses in business studies at both Degree and VET level for some years, and although the take up rate fluctuates, the completion rates are low, in particular at Degree level. Even with allowance for normal drop out rate and making substantial adjustment to the Degree course outline in response to student feedback, completion rates have not increased. With these concerns to mind, this paper explores the idea that because the region has unique characteristics and variables, the traditional approach to teaching business studies may not best serve potential business studies enrolees needs. It also explores key factors which could be considered if a 'regional' approach to business studies is to be developed.

DES04342   [Paper]
Teaching for empathy, compassion, meaning and connectedness to create communities of greater social harmony and cohesion: Rediscovering the spiritual dimension in education

Marian de Souza, Australian Catholic University

The growing numbers of adolescents that appear to be suffering from some form of mental illness, most commonly depression, has been attested to by recent statistics (for instance, Mission Australia 2002 Youth Survey). Some of the responses to this situation have articulated the importance of responding to the physical, emotional, intellectual, social and cultural needs of young adolescents and to help them develop skills of resilience (START School Transition and Resilience Training, Department of Education and Training, Victoria 2003)

This paper will draw on existing literature to argue that spirituality is an innate element of being which therefore should have an essential role in the learning process. It will explore the relational nature of spirituality and discuss the implications such an understanding may have for the development of school environments and educational programs where teaching for resilience and connectedness; empathy, compassion and meaning may be promoted. This may lead to a more accessible and well-balanced learning process which may reduce chances of students becoming isolated and alienated and increase their chances of becoming productive and affirmed community members who will work towards greater social harmony and cohesion.

DEV04054   [Paper]
Getting it out there: Exploring creative ways to present research

Peter de Vries, University of Technology, Sydney

This paper examines how educational research can be presented in a creative way through alternative modes of representation such as the short story. The rationale behind such representation is that there are many stakeholders involved in education who do not normally engage with educational research due to the way it is written and presented (i.e., in academic journals), therefore alternative modes of presentation may encourage stakeholders to engage with research if it is presented in a more user-friendly way. This will be illustrated in the way research about male primary school teacher attrition was presented as a short story titled Leaving Teaching. The presentation will focus on the way two audiences, teachers and pre-service teachers, engaged with the text and reflected on the impact of male teacher attrition in schools today.

DEV04108   [Paper]  ®
Leaving Teaching

Peter de Vries, University of Technology, Sydney

The majority of this paper consists of a short story titled "Leaving Teaching". The story is a distillation of the experiences of three male primary school music teachers who left the profession, one of which was myself. In combining our experiences into the short story a rich, thick description has been created that explains what factors may impact on male teacher attrition, specifically in the primary school. The short story mode is one of the artistic modes of presenting educational research that emerged in the 1990s. It has the potential to allow audiences to view teaching in new ways, as well as engage audiences who might not normally read more traditional representations of educational research (i.e., articles in refereed academic journals).

DEW04472   [Paper]  ®
"...take your kids on the best journey ...": The development of a professional identity in a beginning teacher

Duncan Dewar, University of Ballarat

This project investigates questions arising from experiences identified by a beginning teacher as important for their teaching practice during the first six months of full time employment as a teacher in a Victorian state secondary school, and examines their views about those experiences. It is designed to present an insight into the decisions and dilemmas that might be faced by a beginning teacher making the transition from university student to professional teacher especially as the literature identifies the first year, and in particular the beginning months, of teaching as critical to the development of a professional identity as a teacher. This research adopts an interpretivist case study approach to explore views of one beginning secondary school teacher on a variety of experiences in her everyday world of teachers. Bounded by the environment of the school and the wider social context, the beginning teacher in this study identified various tensions and recounted how they made sense of them as they negotiated a professional identity and practice within and between systemic requirements and personal biography. The study found that, for this teacher, the interweaving of their personal story and their professional experience and understandings was central to their negotiating their situation as a beginning teacher. A substantial part of this negotiation was not just the newness of their situation; it was also having to deal with the tensions arising from the hidden curriculum and the hidden pedagogies of the school setting in which they found themselves.

DIX04259   [Paper]  ®
An evaluation of the Fiji Education Support Program (FESP)

Robert Dixon and Kathryn Dixon, Curtin University of Technology

The Fiji Education Support Program, (FESP) is an initiative of AusAid and is managed by ACIL. The program has been jointly implemented by the Department of Education and Training, Western Australia, (DETWA) and Curtin University of Technology (CUT). An initial group of nine senior executives, including the CEO from the Ministry of Education in Fiji, and representatives from Lautoka Teachers College, undertook a study tour of the Western Australian education system in semester one 2004. The aim of the program was for participants to develop an understanding of the Primary, Secondary and TAFE sector in Western Australia, to form partnerships, strengthen leadership and to build the capacity to reform policy and strategic direction for the improvement and delivery of education in Fiji. This study is an evaluation of the program, the perceptions of participants and the conclusions they reached for prioritising policy in their own country as a result of their experiences.

DOC04324   [Paper]   ®
'As I got to learn it got fun': Children's reflections on their first year at school

Bob Perry and Sue Dockett, University of Western Sydney

There has been a great deal of recent interest in children's voices in research about starting school. This paper describes one strategy used by the Starting School Research Project to engage children as research partners in discussions about starting school.

Children from three Kindergarten (first year of school) classes were asked to reflect on how they had changed over their first year of school by thinking about what they were like when they started school, and comparing that to what they were like at the end of the school year. They were encouraged to draw representations of themselves at each of these times and to add a brief comment. The data on which this paper is based consists of the reflective drawings and comments from 52 children. Analysis of these indicate that children have a clear view of themselves within the context of school and distinct notions of the ways in which they have changed. Much of their focus is directed towards dispositions-such as having friends and how they feel about school-and to their increasing school-based knowledge. Implications for practice are drawn from the children's perspectives of their first year at school.

DOE04570   [Paper]
Heteroglossia: A space for developing critical language awareness

Brenton Doecke, Alex Kostogriz, Jill Brown and Claire Charles, Monash University

This paper reports on research into the challenges of implementing a critical writing pedagogy within a teacher education program in Australia. Participants in this study are student teachers enrolled in a compulsory subject that requires them to develop a knowledge of the role of language and literacy across the secondary school curriculum and to show personal proficiency in literacy (according to government specifications of graduate outcomes for teacher education programs). To gain an understanding of how language has shaped their lives, students write a narrative about their early literacy experiences - a task which they find very challenging, especially in comparison with the formal writing of other university subjects. Rather than reminiscing about their childhood, they are encouraged to juxtapose voices from the past and present, and to combine a range of texts within their writing. They thereby create a heteroglossic text (Bahktin) that stretches their repertoires as language users and enables them to develop a socially critical awareness of language and literacy, including the literacy practices in which they engage as university students. The narratives raise questions about the extent to which tertiary students are able to formulate a critical language awareness that will subsequently inform their professional practice as secondary teachers.

DOE04598   [Paper]
Developing portfolio assessment in English and Mathematics: Contrasting perspectives on the implementation of professional teaching standards

Brenton Doecke, Alan Bishop, Barbara Clarke and Nike Prince, Monash University

Professional standards are typically the product of the deliberations of small groups of teachers who are recognised experts in their field (Petrosky, 'Insiders and Outsiders', English in Australia, July, 1998). This has been the procedure followed by the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers and the Australian Association for the Teaching of English in collaboration with the Australian Literacy Educators' Association in developing subject specific professional standards on behalf of members. However, as products of specific discursive communities, these standards remain open to critique. Are such standards inclusive or do they exclude significant numbers of teachers? Do they promote reflection and professional renewal? In significant respects, the validity of these standards still needs to be tested, especially with respect to the way teachers who were not involved in formulating the standards interpret and apply them to their own teaching. The paper draws on research over the past two years, when a number of Mathematics and English Literacy teachers showed how they interpreted and applied the standards by preparing portfolios. Those portfolios were then assessed by teachers who originally participated in formulating the professional standards. We report on the experiences of those teachers who prepared portfolios, as well as the viewpoints of those teachers who assessed them.

DOH04077   [Paper]  ®
Managing potentials: Cultural differencing in a site of global/local education

Catherine Doherty, Queensland University of Technology

Internationalised online education offers a valuable window for research into the cultural processes of globalisation. This paper reports preliminary findings of a doctoral project about cultural difference in an online MBA unit with an internationalised student group. The case study was conducted as a critical ethnography (Carspecken 1996) adapted to virtual settings (Hine 2000). The study was also informed by a critical realist frame (Bhaskar 2002) which recognises the ontological level of potentials that can shape events, in addition to the empirical (that which is observable) and the actual (that which occurred). Cultural difference has typically been associated with negative potentials in pedagogical settings, in particular, the risks/problems of exclusion, disadvantage, and cultural offence. In emerging discourses of internationalisation, however, cultural difference is often constructed as potentially beneficial, enriching the mutual exchange of new insights.

In this case study, the negative potential of intercultural offence and the positive potential of cultural difference as a vicarious asset for the curriculum were influential in shaping how the text/interaction were designed and conducted. This paper will report in summary a variety of ways in which processes of cultural differencing realised both negative and positive potentials in the case study unit.

DOW041019   [Paper]  ®
Is your training program adding value to your client's results? A case study approach

Hayden Downing and Patrick Griffin, University of Melbourne, and D Humunicki and Z Maric, CSM Knowledge

This paper addresses the issue of how to evaluate whether a training program adds value to an organisation's results. Structured analysis was used to combine Shuttlebeam's CIPP model of evaluation and Kirkpatrick's model of product evaluation. The CIPP model connects a) the context, b) inputs, c) processes, and d) products of a system while the Kirkpatrick model provides four levels of outputs from a training program: reactions, learning achieved, improved behaviour of the trainees, and the improved results achieved by the organisation concerned. Data flow techniques were used to create a logic model (context diagram) of the four components of the CIPP model. This model was 'exploded' to show the main processes of the training system. Physical models show the interfaces between processes and people. The use of the model was applied to a case study in which an RTO provided training to staff from a client organisation. Possible limitations and benefits were considered.

DOW04620   [Paper]  ®
Application of learner-centred principles to post-secondary education

Hayden Downing, University of Melbourne and J Tisdall, La Trobe University

This paper reflects upon the change of emphasis in education away from the need for students to demonstrate their recall of information set out in a syllabus, towards learner-centred education in which the students create their own knowledge.

Two case studies involving post-secondary (TAFE) students are presented, to illustrate three learner-centred psychological principles, namely construction of knowledge, thinking about thinking, and social influences on learning.

One case study showed how a computer program involving a graphical user interface enabled students to construct knowledge about binary numbers and Boolean logic by designing circuit diagrams.

The other case study involving a course in statistics, showed how students thought about their own thinking to overcome an emotional block to their progress. This case study also showed how students were able to work together in applying statistical principles to a survey of the bases upon which people selected clothes.

The change from teacher-centred to learner-centred education has altered the role of teachers from transmitting information, to providing students with suitable scaffolds which not only challenge the students but, at the same time, provide sufficient support to enable the students to succeed.

DOY04960   [Paper]
The heart of the matter

Ochre Doyle, University of Technology, Sydney

Ochre is a UTS postgraduate student in Masters of Indigenous Social Policy. Often working informally Ochre is committed to creating options in Indigenous community education. This presentation aims to inspire educators and researchers working in the field of Indigenous education to revisit aspects of our shared history and focus how we can work together to remove the external constraints that still bonsai the flourishing of Indigenous led research and education.

DWY04514   [Paper]
Computer based learning in a primary school: Early childhood vs. primary year levels

Joanne Dwyer, University of Technology, Sydney

With increasing expectations that all students and teachers are actively involved in computer based learning within a primary school, it is expected that appropriate environments are set up to support the varying needs and potential of the different groups within the school context. However, in case-studies of primary schools done as part of the e.ffects project, our research indicated that the environments being established within a school are often inequitable, favouring the later primary year levels over the early school years. This paper will present illustrative evidence from the case-studies and will discuss some observed differences in approaches between the early and later primary program in terms of early childhood philosophies which underpin the K-2 year levels.

DYE04765   [Paper]
Preparing students for a world which is global in its outlook and influences: The rhetoric, reality and response

Julie Dyer, Deakin University

The imperative for schools and teachers to understand a global perspective has been reiterated in Victoria recently with the release of the Victorian Curriculum Reform Consultation Paper (2004). According to this paper the purposes of schooling are to prepare students for a world which is global in outlook and influences. Global education has become a focus for teaching within SOSE in schools. According to Singh (1998) however, there still remains a lack of global perspective in formal and enacted curriculum processes.

Whilst the rhetoric of Global education has come to prominence in curriculum policy at State and local levels we need to query whether policies such as the Victorian CSF have a global education framework and how these policies are preparing students for a 'global' world. The translation of this rhetoric into classroom practice is problematic for three specific reasons as this paper explores.

First, the paper explores the contested constructions and politicisation of global education within Australia. Second, the paper investigates how global education is implemented in schools. Further, how we evaluate what it means to teach with a global focus and identify the attributes of a teacher of global education is examined. Third, the paper suggests ways in which global education frameworks can be translated into classroom practice.

DYS04390   [Paper]  ®
Time for 'transformism' in Australian teacher education: Evolution to a 'worldview'

Michael Dyson, Monash University

This paper presents an alternative way of perceiving both formal schooling and teacher education within Australia. It calls into question the current mismatch between the thinking and the practice of education and suggests a workable alternative based on the learner being the centre of education. The learner, through thinking, acting and increased consciousness learns how to make choices and learns how to become personally responsible for their own being and learning. As the result of an extensive study into teacher education and the implementation of an internship, a new model of teacher education is suggested. This model, known as the 'Transformism' model involves the evolution of student teachers from a 'me view' perception to a 'worldview' perception. This model is not about training people to be teachers but is about the education of teachers through the adoption of adult learning practices and the incorporation of choice theory. This paper proposes that within Australia there is a need for a new form of educational politics and practice. This would involve a super consciousness where people come together in community; share their beliefs and knowledge, their likes and dislikes, their differences and their similarities in openness and with hope for an improved and better world.

E

EAR04330   [Paper]  ®
Linking leadership, school effectiveness and staff professional development: The case study of a school in Uganda

Jaya Earnest, Curtin University of Technology

To date, only a few studies of school improvement, school renewal, learning environment and action research have been undertaken in Uganda and none have been at the early childhood level. The present study evaluates one early childhood institution's attempt to improve the school effectiveness and classroom-learning environment that teachers create, through positive leadership and on-going professional development.z

This longitudinal study implemented over four years, involved the investigation of factors that influenced school effectiveness, teacher professional development and students' outcomes in an early childhood institution in Uganda, including the development of child-centred learning environments. The reported research is my personal reflective journey and experience when I was principal of the early childhood institution for four years. The study made use of action research methodology with a framework of school effectiveness and school improvement. Uganda's rapidly expanding education system and largely teacher-centred mode of delivery makes this study timely because the study provides potentially significant insights into how a school improvement program can provide a sustainable means of professional development.

EDW04168   [Paper]   ®
Teacher education and problem based learning: Exploring the issues and benefits

Susan Edwards and Marie Hammer, Monash University

Problem Based Learning has been used with increasing frequency in Higher Education settings since it was first conceived by Barrows and Tamblyn during the 1980's. Since this time PBL has been used in medical, engineering and education faculties to support pre-service students in the acquisition of skills and content relevant to their professions, This paper explores pre-service teachers' perceptions of a unit of study conducted using the PBL approach. The paper explores the frustrations they experienced in participating in the unit as well as noting the perceived benefits for the students. The paper indicates that the students' frustrations should be acknowledged and steps taken to alleviate these in order to support students working within a PBL scenario. Opportunity for further research in this area is also described.

EDW04583 [Paper]  ®
A nexus of relations of power in students as researchers approaches

Jan Edwards, University of South Australia

This paper draws on research from my PhD study that examined the subjectivities of poor and working class young women and girls and Australian government Mutual Obligations policies. Previous accounts of research approaches involving young people acting as researchers often fail to raise issues of power outside of relations within the research group itself. In the approach developed for my PhD study, young people as researchers were invited to examine a topic of social-political importance, therefore, power was central to the conceptualisation of my approach. In this paper, I adopt a Foucaultian notion of power and offer my conceptualisation as a 'nexus of relations of power in students as researchers approaches'. In so doing I describe and discuss the complex, intersections between these forms of power.

EVA04264   [Paper]
Risky doctorates?

Terry Evans, Deakin University

This paper arises from work being undertaken by the presenter with Erica McWilliam, Peter Taylor and Alan Lawson. It also draws on lengthy experience in the management of doctoral studies. The management of doctoral studies in Australian universities is increasingly becoming configured as the management and minimisation the risks of undesirable outcomes that may adversely affect the universities. This paper considers some implications of this trend in the context of the nature of riskiness in research and, therefore, research education, and also in terms of theories of risk and risk society.

EVA04911 [Paper]
Early PhD Australian PhD Theses

Terry Evans and Karen Tregenza, Deakin University

The first PhDs in Australia were awarded in the late 1940s and 1950s. This paper reports on some research conducted by the authors which involved reviewing early PhD theses from The University of Melbourne, University of Queensland and The University of Sydney. The paper discusses the topics and features of these early PhDs and considers these in terms of the evolution of PhDs in Australian universities. The presentation will include photographic images of a selection of early theses to illustrat their form, layout and substance.

F

FAI04792   [Paper]
Supporting students as developing readers and writers

Gavin Fairbairn, Liverpool Hope University College

In this paper I want to talk about supporting students as developing academic authors. However, I shall begin by saying a little in a more general way, about support for students as individuals, arguing that however strange it sounds, it is best to offer such support in a group. Next I shall argue for my belief that developing as a writer inevitably involves developing better skills as a reader.

Though we might expect that once they leave school most students will be competent readers, in fact most of them still have a long way to go. For example, most can benefit from help in developing approaches to reading that allow them to make the best possible use of the reading they undertake; even more importantly, most can benefit, also, from learning to read their own work better.

Finally, and making use of everything I have already said, I will argue that shared 'live editing' of texts is the best way of helping anyone - both students and people like us, to develop their writing skills. I will explain why I believe this and briefly describe one way of going about it.

FAI04793   [Paper]
Developing academic storytelling

Gavin Fairbairn, Liverpool Hope University College

Many academics (in some disciplines at least it seems most) seem to take a pride in making their work difficult to the point at which it seems almost devoid of meaning, rather than on communicating their ideas. They write in dense, difficult to decipher prose, surrounding themselves with an aura of intellectual prowess and erudition, choosing their words carefully, using big ones where small ones would do, and difficult words where possible, rather than where necessary. As a result many journals are full to the brim of pseudo intellectual gibberish, and academics whose bread and butter depends upon publishing in such journals often end up embracing the myth that such writing is not only what is required, but also that it is actually worthwhile.

I shall argue that the time has come for those who believe that communication is what matters in academic writing, to speak out against self important and elitist style that is currently fashionable. In its place I shall argue that we should substitute a storytelling approach, illustrating what I mean by use of examples drawn from academic authors in a wide range of fields who manage to communicate easily and elegantly, whatever their topic.

FAN04091   [Paper]
Psychological contract and organizational fairness: Their impact on teachers attitudinal outcomes and teaching performances

Aidong Zhang and Yongqing Fang, Nanyang Technological University

Psychological contracts are playing an increasing role in the contemporary employment relationships and have become a much-researched topic in management literature. However, studies on psychological contract in school context are still rare. This project intended to address this deficiency.

First, it assessed the state of teachers' psychological contract, including their perceived school's obligations (explicit or implicit promises) and perceived school fulfillment of these promises. Then the extent of perceived psychological contract fulfillment (over-fulfillment or under-fulfillment) was evaluated. Next, the impact of these fulfillment discrepancies was probed. Two categories of consequence variables were examined, including attitudinal factors (e.g., organizational fairness, supervisor satisfaction, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment) and teaching performance.

One hundred and sixty-four teachers in primary and middle schools of Singapore responded to a questionnaire survey. The results showed that psychological contract fulfilment predicted organization fairness (b=.475, p<.001), which, in turn, predicted supervision satisfaction (b=.519, p<.001) and job satisfaction (b=.591, p<.001). In addition, organizational commitment was predicted by job satisfaction (b=.567, p<.001) and organizational fairness (b=.593, p<.001). Finally, teaching performance was predicted by organizational commitment (b=.417, p<.001).

The results suggested important directions for managerial efforts in meeting the challenges in improving teaching performance. Among the factors, proper handling of the psychological contract with teachers should take a high priority by school administration. In the case where a psychological contract cannot be fully fulfilled due to various internal and external constrains, much effort was needed in communicating with the teaching staff and seeking their understanding and support.

FAR04593 [Paper]
Place, space, and the problem of who knows what, in global knowledge economies

Leslie Farrell, Monash University

A curious feature of both public and academic debates around knowledge economies is how rarely education research is called on to help understand the production and diffusion of 'working knowledge'. As educational researchers, we, too, seem to struggle to get a grip on what is really meant by 'knowledge' when it is paired with 'global economy' or what contribution we might make to the debate. This paper draws on original case studies of knowledge production and diffusion in Australian workplaces integrated into global knowledge economies, and on case studies conducted in other disciplinary fields. It starts from the position that global knowledge production is like other social phenomena in that it is produced, moment by moment, in the micro-processes of people's everyday lives. It calls on Soja's work on place to begin develop a framework for understanding the ways that workers in local workplaces are embedded in a hierarchy of spatial scales from local to global, and Castells work on space to explore the way local workplaces are integrated into technologically mediated global workspaces. These frameworks raise possibilities for understanding what people do when they make and use knowledge at work, but they raise challenging methodological issues for researchers.

FAR04928   [Paper]
Working through ICTs in hybrid learning spaces

Lesley Farrell and Bernard Holkner, Monash University

This paper is concerned with the ways that learning and teaching are conceptualised in a local site of a global corporation. Our study focuses on 3 people who constitute a work group, one located in Melbourne and two located at the Sydney office. The group constructs its role as the mediation of highly technical knowledge across and between local and global networks of communication within and external to the organisation. PaceSetters is a global company concerned with the design, development and support of health technology products. It operates with a network of distribution and marketing facilities spanning all continents. In this work, we focus on the metaphors people use to construct themselves as learners, teachers and knowledge producers, individually and in intersecting communities of practice. We pay attention to specific problems in the integration of ICTs into these new learning spaces and to the ways in which conflicts are played out in new workplace learning contexts.

FER04656   [Paper]  ®
The design of an on-line classroom simulation to enhance the decision making skills of beginning teachers

Brian Ferry, University of Wollongong

This paper describes the design of a simulation in teacher education. The simulation allows the user to take on the role of the teacher of a simulated Kindergarten classroom (children whose ages range from 5 to 6 years). As the simulation runs, the user is required to make many decisions about structuring the lesson, classroom management, and responses to individual students. The user can monitor and track the progress of three targeted students throughout the course of the simulation. Embedded tools serve as a "decision assistant" and a "thinking space" are used at decisive points in order to plan and justify new decisions, and to reflect upon the consequences of previous decisions. Other supports include links to: textbooks; syllabus documents; in-service materials; sample artefacts collected from schools and classrooms; and other annotated on-line teaching resources. The initial prototype of the simulation will be presented at the conference.

FIE04560   [Paper]  ®
Productive Pedagogies and discipline: The challenge of aligning teaching and behaviour management

Barry Fields, University of Southern Queensland

Queensland has led the way in recent years in policy development and school reform. The Productive Pedagogies construct (Gore, Griffiths & Ladwig, 2001) has been particularly powerful and influential in defining what schools should be aiming to achieve in teaching and learning. Interestingly, the Productive Pedagogies has as much to say about behaviour management as to does about teaching. This paper explores (1) the direction given to teachers, through the Productive Pedagogies, about their role in the classroom and how they should approach the task of teaching and managing student behaviour and (2) the difficulties that many teachers are experiencing in aligning their approach to behaviour management with current views about teaching and learning. As the paradigm shift in teaching and learning gradually moves from instrumentalist to constructivist views on teaching, learning and behaviour and from teacher direction to student self-direction, traditional managerial views of behaviour management are at risk of being seen as out of step with the direction that schools are being encouraged to head in. Where this incompatibility exists students are sent mixed messages about the education process and the extent to which teachers really belief that the goals of self-direction of learning and self-regulation of behaviour are legitimate.

FIT041031   [Paper]
The ebb and flow of classroom literacy

Phil Fitzsimmons, University of Wollongong

This interactive session explores how teachers might bring together practices and contexts involved in literacy in coherent, effective and engaging classroom programs. This paper examines the importance of articulating underlying beliefs and values about literacy, how it is learned and how it might be best taught. The ebb and flow of classroom life is discussed in the context of classroom organization and instructional cycles that allow for focus on goals at hand while accommodating children's own experiences as key resources for classroom learning. Based on a Social Model of Reading and Writing (Harris, McKenzie, Fitzsimmons & Turbill, 2001, 2003), this presentation will discuss a range of actual classroom examples from middle and upper Primary years, to demonstrate and exemplify effective classroom practices. These practices will be further discussed and workshopped as classroom activities, along with guiding principles for teachers to explore in their own classrooms.

FIT04868   [Paper]  ®
Profiling teachers' integration of ICT into professional practice

Noeline Fitzallen, University of Tasmania

The increasing availability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) presents teachers with exciting opportunities to transform pedagogical practices. The demand on teachers to integrate ICT into their teaching and learning programs is high and places additional pressures on teachers in an already challenging profession. First and foremost, teachers have to increase their own ICT skills and then have to change elements of their practice to utilise ICT with their students. This report describes a part of a study that focuses on the outcomes of ICT professional development completed by teaching staff at a suburban high school. The case of one particular teacher demonstrates that the acquisition of ICT skills does not necessarily translate to the adoption of transformative pedagogical practices, and may not influence teachers' attitudes and perceptions of student use of ICT. The study trialled a modified profiling instrument for providing information about professional practice and informing professional development needs. The profiling instrument played a significant role in providing an extensive picture of teaching practice by triangulating data collected from a teacher portfolio. The results suggest there is a need to explore other methods of measuring the integration of ICT. Implications of this study include suggestions for designing future professional development programs.

FLA04900   [Paper]
Developing Activity Theory for the learning of International students in Australia

Rick Flavell, Taylor's College

International students are an important and growing part of the Australian educational landscape both at secondary and tertiary level. These students engage in a variety of learning activities. This paper combines two studies of international students; one of post-graduate students writing an essay; the other of final year secondary students solving a mathematics problem. A version of Activity Theory is used to combine these micro level activities with the macro issues involved for international students studying in Australia, including assessment, institutional, cultural and social factors. Two aspects are highlighted. First, an iterative application of Engestrom's(1997) model of Activity Theory suggests that a minor modification of the theory may be constructive in educational contexts. Second, such an approach clarifies a number of systemic tensions arising from international students studying in Australia.

FOR041047   [Paper]  ®
Listening in the mathematics working relationship of two high-school students

Patricia Forster, Edith Cowan University

This paper presents an inquiry into listening by two senior (Year 11) high-school students, as they worked together, one-to-one. It is based on classroom observations and audio-recordings of the students' conversations over ten lessons. Listening is inferred for repeated patterns of interaction. Paired listening acts where the students evidenced shared understanding, or disagreed, or where one student sought to understand the other are described. Inquiry indicated the latter type of listening was prevalent. Learning outcomes associated with the different modes of listening and implications for teaching practice are identified.

FOR04246   [Paper]
The use of new technologies amongst minors at the Balearic Islands: Reflections and considerations

Ruben Comas Forgas, Universitat des Islas Baleares, Mallorca, Spain

This paper is based on a qualitative research study carried out by the Department of Education at Balearic Islands University during the year 2004. The paper focuses on the way minors of the Balearic Islands use new technologies (either static and mobile technologies): what they use internet for; where do they connect to the internet from; the use of mobile phone; the way they interact on cyberspace with other internet-surfers; dangers and risks perceived by them. The results presented will be the basis of a second phase of the research based on quantitative methods that is due to start by the end of 2004.

FOR04374   [Paper]
Peer bullying

Arne Forsman, Lules University of Technology

Conventions of Human Rights, School Law, Curriculums, Occupational Safety and Health Act provide students safe learning conditions in school. However, between 6 - 15 percent of students in the Swedish compulsory school are involved in peer bullying, as victims or perpetrators or both and severe shortcomings in methods to act against these disparities are exposed. Figures differ due to different definitions of bullying and investigation methods. Within this paper I will illuminate and discuss the schools' action plans against bullying. Municipalities', school districts' and local schools' action plans to prevent and take measures against peer bullying lack quality and are unsatisfactorily implemented in the schools' daily life. Deficiences in registration of cases of bullying and uncertainities about the concept are frequent. Insufficient knowledge in theories about the nature and underlying mechanisms of bullying are other explanations of schools' failure to handle peer violations professionally. Further accounts are lack of civil courage to interfere, victims' difficulties to make their voices heard and plead their causes. Increased media attention and anti-bullying organisations'work have created great awareness of bullying. Effects of stronger legislation, competence education for school leaders and staff, new, specific courses about bullying in teacher education are little evaluated.

FOR04866   [Paper]  ®
Teachers and computer use for secondary mathematics teaching: Encouraging and inhibiting factors

Helen Forgasz, Monash University

Included in contemporary mathematics curricula is the expectation that mathematics teachers will use technology - computers and calculators - in their classrooms. It is widely believed in educational circles and in society at large that students' learning will be enhanced by engaging with these technologies. For children to use computers for mathematics learning, their teachers must want and be enabled to do so. In this paper, the factors identified as encouraging or inhibiting computer use in secondary mathematics classrooms are reported. Data were gathered from a large sample of Victorian teachers, surveyed twice over a three-year period. The sets of encouraging and discouraging factors were similar - that is, the presence or absence of particular factors appears to make a difference. It was disturbing to note that the identified factors differed little from those reported over a decade ago. They were also consistent with those identified by teachers elsewhere in the world and across various discipline areas. The findings send strong messages to those empowered to make a difference. Whether overcoming the inhibitors will result in greater use of computers for mathematics learning and whether computer use will make a difference to students' learning are issues still requiring evidential support.

FOR04964   [Paper]
The NSW DET's Quality Teaching Framework and the realities of a special education classroom

Leanna Formosa and Rose Dixon, University of Wollongong

In May 2003, the NSW Department of Education and Training introduced the Quality Teaching Framework to NSW public schools for discussion and possible implementation. Principals and teachers were encouraged to use the framework for the twofold purpose of improving both teaching practice and student learning. While versions of the framework have been successfully used in USA and Australia, there is a paucity of research which reports on its merit, worth, or value for teachers of children with moderate intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study is to explore the degree of congruence and/or "fit" between the Quality Teaching Framework and the ebb and flow of the day to day realities which a teacher of a class of moderately intellectually disabled children has to deal with. The study was located within the naturalistic paradigm of inquiry, and employed a case-study methodology. Data was collected through qualitative methods including on-going, semi-structured interviews with the teacher, classroom observations recorded as field notes and document analysis. The study provides insights into the value (or otherwise) of the NSW DET's Quality Teaching Framework for teachers of the moderately intellectually disabled especially from the perspective of the classroom teacher dealing with the day to day realities of teaching these children.

FRE041066   [Paper]
Instructional visibility: Principals facilitating in an age of accountability

Beverley Freedman York University

Globally, education faces competing interests and competing agendas:standards-based education, teacher testing, high-stakes assessments, and increasing parental expectations as well as decentralization, distributed leadership, and the development of learning teams. These competing interests and agendas, in turn, lead to competing policies that set up tensions in which schools and school systems must operate. The resulting pressures on school-based administrators and staff are enormous and have led to the reframing of the role of principal. In Ontario Canada, the accountability agenda highlighted the principal's role of instructional facilitator assisting teachers to be more effective with their teaching/learning practice. This resulted in the creation of Ministry of Education training for principals in strategies that facilitate instructional leadership. The training was and is viewed as one way of ensuring the effective implementation of Ministry curriculum initiatives, focused on increasing student achievement in math and reading, in grades one through three. The paper will explore current tensions experienced by Ontario principals, research-informed aspects of instructional leadership that were grounded in the resource package, the collaborative process used in its development and roll-out, and resulting feedback. In addition, selected training materials from the package will be shared with participants in the session.

FUN04606   [Paper]  ®
Developing and sustaining education programs that matter for remote communities

Robert Funnell, Griffith University and Tracy Tully, Charleville State High School

Much has been made about the sustainability of youth and other educational policy beyond the initial period of government program funding. Problems of sustainability are most at issue in country towns and districts which are "rural and remote", or distant from coastal cities and regional towns. In this paper we argue that problems of keeping policy and programs alive should be seen in the conditions in which they have to be conceived and set in place. Included here are: the social conditions in which a policy and ways to implement it are accepted as a 'common wisdom'; and, the match or mismatch they have with the economic and social conditions across urban and rural locations. Brief case studies, based on demographic information about three rural towns, are then used to document difficulties for policy implementation that matters for people in a rural and remote community. Much of the analysis is based on Sher and Sher's (1994) reference to making policy "as if rural people and communities really mattered". This is revisited to examine the different relations between the three rural transition programs and the towns they serve.

G

GAL041026   [Paper]
From Dr Seuss to Pokemon. A case study of three ten-year old boys' alternate literacy interests

Chloe Gallagher, University of Wollongong

Since the mid nineties escalating media attention has placed boys on centre stage for under achieving, focusing on their comparatively low results vis-a-vis girls. The New South Wales Department of Education and Training routinely reports statistics to support the perception that boys' are not achieving as well as they should. This problem is not unique to Australia. Most western democracies report similar concerns. While there is evidence of a gendered literacy gap, there seems to be a paucity of research pertaining to boys' interests and motivations. Especially with respect to the multiplicity of literacies. At a time when both boys and girls need to become highly, critically literate individuals it seems that their interest in effective use of traditional book-based literacy and media are declining. This paper explores the nature of boys' out-of-school literacy engagements and motivations. Ultimately, the study aims to analyse the degree of congruence between boys' out-of-school engagement(s) with alternate literacies, and the in school literacy curriculum they experience. Specifically, this paper explores the alternate literacy interests of three 10-year old boys. While small in scope, it provides insights, into these boys' literacy practices and interests, their families' contribution to these practices and the school literacy curriculum they experience.

GAL041082   [Paper]
A new story for quality teaching and teacher learning: Talking across conceptual and contextual boundaries

Elizabeth Murphy and Trevor Gale, Monash University

Quality teaching and teacher learning are centre stage on the current Australian schooling agenda. In the mix is a preoccupation with issues of professional standards and accountability, although there is some recognition of new times ushered in by rapidly changing economic, social and cultural conditions. Conversations in policy documents that champion these matters are informed by various discourses of human, social and cultural capital. However proposals to address these issues require that attention also be paid to the twin realities of power/knowledge positions and stances that enable practitioners to address future challenges. In short, border crossing approaches that link conceptual and contextual fields are required to assist learners to ask questions of themselves and others in order to build capacities to deal with new futures. Learners positioned in this way build capacities to shape new narratives that promote the development of new citizens and new social fields.

GAR04590   [Paper]  ®
Researching practice as a teacher educator

Dawn Garbett, Auckland College of Education

This is a paper of two halves. In it, I outline student teachers' responses to the introduction of a new collaborative assessment task intended to foster motivation and increase understanding in teaching and learning subject content knowledge in science. The rationale for implementing the new assessment strategy is considered. The research reported includes a pilot study carried out in 2003 and preliminary findings from a questionnaire to ascertain background information about students' subject confidence and competence in 2004.

The second aspect of the paper highlights how self-study has been invaluable in reframing my own pedagogical beliefs and has been the impetus for introducing changes to the assessment strategy in this teacher education programme. Ultimately, self-study in teacher education practices seeks to improve the education that our graduates provide for the students in their classrooms. The tensions that the new strategy creates for the lecturing staff are discussed. In scaffolding the students to be more actively engaged in teaching and learning with their peers, the lecturers' role may need to be re-examined.

GEO041041   [Paper]  ®
Pre-service early childhood teachers' effectiveness in facilitating children's learning of concepts in multiple contexts: Self efficacy and teacher preparedness

Deborah Geoghegan and Noel Geoghegan, University of Southern Queensland

The Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood) at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) focuses on pedagogy that emphasizes children's ability to recognize concepts in multiple contexts. While pre-service teachers at USQ are assessed in many ways to determine their ability to create and facilitate high quality learning appropriate to syllabus requirements and children's needs, a detailed assessment of pre-service teacher's success in implementing learning experiences that facilitate children's capacity to recognize concepts in multiple contexts does not typically occur. There is very little research that addresses the extent to which pre-service teachers understand this pedagogical paradigm or implement it in a critical way. Without research-based evidence providers of pre-service teaching programs are unable to make strategic decisions in terms of course improvements, course content and structure of professional experience tasks. The research reported in this paper will provide information crucial to improving undergraduate early childhood pre-service teaching programs and graduate effectiveness. Pre-service teacher's feelings of preparedness, confidence to achieve teaching goals, related student motivation and the impact of self efficacy on praxis will be developed in this paper.

GIL04619   [Paper]
Up the country or down in the city? Working with curriculum and young people's imagined Australias

Judith Gill and Sue Howard, University of South Australia

Data drawn from our ongoing study of the ways in which upper primary school students think about Australia have provided a rich source of information about their current attitudes to themselves, to Australia and the wider world. While those who live outside the major cities avidly share in contemporary versions of the bush idyll familiar from early twentieth century literature and art, the young city dwellers, while also convinced of the positive features of their lives in this country, prefer to rationalise their privileged position against the 'others' who live in strife torn countries amid the constant danger of war and repression. Having established that the concept of Australia varies markedly between young people who live 'in the country' as opposed to the majority of urban dwellers, in this paper we propose that significant features of their schooling experience do little to counteract these divided views. Following Nussbaum (1996), Abovitz (2002), Feinberg (1996), the paper urges a reassessment of the need for a newstyle civics education and for a new pedagogy involving elements from history and social science in order to generate more appropriate recognition in young people of the place of Australia and Australians in the increasingly globalising world.

GOD04313   [Paper]
The use of linguistic space by boys and girls in secondary small group-discussions: Whose talk dominates?

Sally Godinho, The University of Melbourne

Research evidence indicates that in many instances girls are better equipped to meet the verbal reasoning requirements and general literacy demands of school curricula because their social lives revolve around verbal discussion and communication. By contrast, boys' socialization experiences are more likely to revolve around play. Thus boys are often less inclined to communicate and explore their feelings and ideas through talk, and appear less competent in verbal reasoning skills. This paper, which is a work in progress, discusses the preliminary findings of a research project funded by an Early Researcher Grant from the University of Melbourne to explore gender differences in the ways that boys and girls in a range of secondary classrooms engage in small-group discussions. The study builds on an earlier research project in primary schools that showed while boys dominated the talk, girls offered more reflective and considered responses to discussion questions. The research also revealed that specific strategies used by teachers to engage students in discussion influenced the boys' level of engagement. Video-clips from small-group discussions, teacher interviews and student interviews will be used to support the presentation of the study's emergent findings.

GOO04319   [Paper]
Teachers' use of technology in secondary school mathematics classrooms

Merrilyn Goos and Anne Bennison, The University of Queensland

For some time, education researchers and curriculum authorities have claimed that mathematics learning will be transformed by the availability of technological resources such as computers and graphics calculators. These tools can foster mathematical conjecturing, justification, and generalisation by enabling fast, accurate computation, collection and analysis of real world data, and exploration of multiple representations. As every Australian State and Territory has now developed secondary school mathematics syllabuses and assessment regimes that mandate the use of computers and/or graphics calculators, research is needed to examine the nature and extent of teachers' actual use of these technologies and identify factors that support or inhibit effective integration of technology into mathematics classroom practice. This paper reports on a state wide survey of Queensland secondary school mathematics teachers that formed part of a larger project investigating pedagogical practices and beliefs related to use of technology in mathematics education. We explore relationships between teachers' use of computers and graphics calculators and a range of factors that may influence uptake and implementation, including: school characteristics, teacher qualifications and experience, previous experience and confidence in using technology, beliefs about the role of technology in mathematics learning, access to hardware, software and teaching materials, and professional development opportunities.

GOR04696     [Paper]
The Brave and the Bold: researching the professional lives of early career teachers
Imagine if ... the impact of quality teaching on the socialisation of early career teachers

Cheryl Williams, Jennifer Gore and Sharon Cooper, The University of Newcastle

This paper discusses theoretical and empirical foundations for a focus on pedagogy during teacher induction. Our research project for exploring this possibility, with the working title of 'the impact of quality teaching on the socialisation of early career teachers' is outlined. This study follows a group of teachers who received strong grounding in 'productive pedagogy' during their teacher education program. During this first year of employment as teachers, NSW public schools have adopted a version of productive pedagogy, 'Quality teaching', as a long term strategic priority. Through observations and semi-structured interviews, the study will explore the potential impact of Quality teaching, as a framework both in teacher education and in schools, particularly during the process of induction to professional practice. Our research reveals that while there is a neglect of pedagogy during their induction period, a substantive understanding of quality teaching has assisted a small group of early career teachers to sustain what they have learnt about 'teaching better' as they begin their teaching practice in schools.

GOR04814   [Paper]
Professional learning, pedagogical improvement, and the circulation of power

Jennifer Gore and James Ladwig, The University of Newcastle and Bruce King, University of Wisconsin

In this paper we outline key theoretical concerns relating to the professional learning interests of the SIPA study. In particular, we draw on the release of the NSW model of pedagogy, Quality Teaching, as an opportunity to examine issues of power in professional learning and school reform agendas. In this context, we explore such issues as (1) the operation of the Quality Teaching framework as a regime of truth, (2) discourses surrounding schools' implementation of the Quality Teaching framework, and (3) the circulation of power as teachers engage with the Quality Teaching framework. Working hypotheses are posited and some preliminary data are analysed in relation to these questions.

We also consider implications of this specific case (Quality Teaching and SIPA) for teacher professional learning in general. In so doing, we offer some preliminary ideas on how commonly accepted principles of professional development both produce and constrain teacher learning and impact on the accomplishment of reform goals including, in this case, the substantial goals for pedagogical improvement that underpin the Quality Teaching framework.

GOU04389    [Paper]
Transnational curriculum inquiry: Building postcolonialist constituencies and solidarities

Noel Gough and Evelyn Johnson, Deakin University

This paper explores theoretical and practical possibilities for transnational curriculum inquiry, with particular reference to building international and intercultural solidarities in postcolonialist curriculum work predicated on shared responsibilities rather than shared identities. We argue that building such solidarities requires critical rearticulations of the languages in which curriculum work is performed and represented, so that curriculum studies within a global knowledge economy does not merely assimilate national (local) curriculum discourses and practices into an imperial (global) archive. We draw on the initial stages of our research on internationalisation, inclusivity and innovative knowledge work one aspect of which focuses on the possibilities of performing inclusive knowledge work in transnational virtual spaces. This research includes studies of the formation of new (and, we hope, more inclusive) transnational scholarly communities and constituencies, and of strategies to improve modes of intercultural communication that facilitate transnational knowledge work. Our discussion of these arguments and issues will be situated, in part, in the practicalities of establishing Transnational Curriculum Inquiry (TCI), an electronic open-access journal that is both a site for transnational scholarly conversations and a site for inquiry into the ways that electronic publishing procedures produce opportunities and/or constraints for inclusive knowledge work and postcolonialist curriculum inquiry.

GRA04338   [Paper]
Excavating processes of legitimised exclusion through a Foucaultian genealogy

Linda Graham, University of Wollongong

This paper will be focusing on the process by which Education Queensland determines the legitimate beneficiaries of 'special needs' funding, provision of resources and compassionate pedagogy through an explicit identification system or 'Ascertainment' process.

'Need' that does not meet the criteria for ascertainment, such as a learning disability or difficulty, is then 'appraised' for the less intensive, and less costly process of learning support. Interestingly, in neither process is there a mention of support for one particular, albeit large group of children identified by Education Queensland as 'behaviourally disordered'. Instead, the emphasis is on 'management' and support is reserved for the teacher or 'case manager'.

Through the retrieval and analysis of Education Queensland documents, procedures and policy this genealogical 'excavation' aims to elucidate the apparent differences of nuance in the perception and subsequent treatment of children who display certain characteristics. Those children described as "behaviourally disordered" through their discursive categorisation, by way of their possession of 'attentional problems', 'restlessness', or 'distractibility', represent the educational population that I contend is not benefiting from the tenets of 'inclusivity', that is, inclusivity as perceived by Education Queensland. In turn, this process functions as a 'discursive, dividing practice', which serves to legitimise the exclusion of these children from the opportunities that are ostensibly provided by inclusive education.

GRA04388   [Paper]  ®
The positioning of practitioners in Vocational Education and Training research

Lauri Grace, Deakin University

What is the status and role of research in VET reform? How are the views of practitioners positioned in VET research and reform? What access do VET practitioners have to research that empowers them to critique current policy and practice? This paper explores these questions drawing on literature and also on my experience as a VET practitioner and researcher. The national VET research strategy supports a substantial research effort to inform policy and practice. However, in a complex and unstable VET environment, funded research focuses on implementation, rather than critique, of current directions. I argue that the complexity of the VET system gives rise to new research problems, and that VET practitioners have knowledge and insight to offer in exploring these problems. But I question the extent to which current VET consultation and research processes incorporate the views of practitioners. I illustrate these issues by providing a brief overview of my PhD research project (a work in progress), which explores the proposition that the language form typically used in official national VET texts is representative of, and constructive in, unequal power relationships.

GRA04628   [Paper]
The male primary teacher: A threatened species?

Pat Grant, University of South Australia

Current concerns as expressed by politicians and the media about the lack of male teachers in primary schools today can be understood historically as a continuing concern of governments and the profession back to the time of colonial settlement in Australia. This paper is an historical investigation of how in one Australian state, South Australia, the primary teaching profession came to be dominated by females. This qualitative historical study is informed by Michel Foucault's genealogical work. Data includes official documents and oral histories about teacher recruitment and teacher education over the 168 years of education in South Australia. Analysis of the discourses and practices in these accounts will help to show how the subject (the primary teacher) has been shaped and produced as a result of particular historical practices.

GRE041038   [Paper]
Redefining the urban-rural divide

Mike Grenfell, Charles Darwin University

How do practising teachers and educators enrolled in a Master of Education program view the urban-rural divide in Australia and elsewhere? Using postings to a Discussion Board this paper looks at teacher's awareness of social justice and equity issues as they affect educational provision in the rustbelt areas of the cities and amongst communities in rural and remote areas of Australia. After situating themselves on the divide, participants then engage in memory work and relate two stories of city or country life which are subsequently deconstructed by other members of the group. The paper seeks to identify changes in beliefs and understandings during the period spent on-line; and how teachers and educators believe the issues identified can be addressed.

GRE04828   [Paper]  ®
Teacher Research: The benefits and the pitfalls

Robyn Gregson, University of Western Sydney

Teacher-research has been proposed as a productive method for teachers to gain professional development while exploring issues in their classroom. This example of teacher-research, using an action research framework, presents a self-reflective study of a teacher working with Year 8 science students to help them improve their ability to write about their understanding of science. While the students' writing was the primary focus of the study, as part of a doctoral thesis, what became apparent were the changes in role that the teacher had throughout the study. There were shifts from being a classroom teacher to a teacher-researcher and back again with ramifications for all participants as a result of these changes.

The findings from this study confirm that teacher-research is often messy with the outcomes of the research not always immediately obvious due the nature of the projects, and that the data and responses to them must be collected, collated and reviewed on top of the teacher's normal teaching duties. Overall the findings of this study demonstrate how complex and yet how powerful teacher-research is in the classroom and highlight the need for teachers to be aware of the potential that researching their own pedagogy has in influencing student learning and motivation, pedagogy and assessment practices.

GRO041042   [Paper]
Using activity theory in researching young children's use of calculators

Susie Groves and Joyce Dale, Deakin University

Constructivist and socio-cultural perspectives in mathematics education highlight the crucial role that activity plays in mathematical development and learning. Activity theory provides a socio-cultural lens to help analyse human behaviour, including that which occurs in classrooms. It provides a framework for co-ordinating constructivist and socio-cultural perspectives in mathematics learning. In this paper, we adopt Cole and Engeström's (1993) model of activity theory to examine the mediation offered by the calculator as a tool for creating and supporting learning processes of young children in the social environment of their classroom. By adopting this framework, data on young children's learning outcomes in number, when given free access to calculators, can be examined not only in terms of the mediating role of the calculator, but also within the broader context of the classroom community, the teachers' beliefs and intentions, and the classroom norms and the division of labour. Use of this model in a post hoc situation suggests that activity theory can play a significant role in the planning of future classroom research.

GRU04228   [Paper]
Autophenomenography? Alternative uses of autographically based research

Maree Gruppetta, University of Western Sydney

There has been an increase in autobiographical based research techniques recently, particularly those involving personal narratives. Autoethnography is usually the term of choice for studies connecting the personal to the cultural (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). However, other forms of autobiographical research are open to investigation. For instance, if one were to study a phenomenon rather than a 'cultural place' it would be autophenomenographical rather than autoethnographical. The use of the author as subject establishes researcher bias unequivocally. The author as first participant in a study becomes not only the key informant of their own experience but also extends empathy to the experiences of the other participants, increasing the in-depth nature of the study. This paper examines alternative uses of autobiographical study, passing beyond the basic necessity of establishing a researcher's bias.

GUL04449   [Paper]
Race against space: Educational policy change and race in the inner city

Kalervo Gulson, Macquarie University

In this paper I explore the intersection of space, place, race and educational policy change in cities. I propose a framework for a spatial approach to educational policy analysis that explicitly links space, policy and discourse. This framework is applied to a study of educational policy change in inner Sydney and London. Data was generated from interviews, relevant policy documents, photographs and field observations.

The Building the Future policy initiative in Sydney and the Excellence in Cities partnership program in London are seen as elements of transnational policy making that both address, and exacerbate, tensions between disadvantaged populations, and processes of urban renewal. As such, this paper emphasises the relationship between urban renewal and education in neo-liberal states, and reveals valuable insights into the role of place and race in schooling. Place, imbued with race and class discourses, is positioned as an enabling and disabling device in the construction of student aspiration and achievement in inner city schooling.

H

HAC04774   [Paper]
The formation of inexperienced Religious Education teachers during a period of curriculum change

Chris Hackett, University of Notre Dame Australia

A longitudinal qualitative study was conducted in Catholic schools of Perth and its environs. From 1998 to 1999, newly appointed secondary Religious Education teachers were participants in the study. In the first interview they were asked to comment on their experiences of implementing a new draft RE program in Catholic schools in Western Australia. What emerged were insights into the nature and depth of formation these teachers experienced as they introduced the new Units of Work.

Teachers new to the teaching of Religious Education (RE) were surveyed and interviewed, and re-interviewed eighteen months later. The teachers were invited to relate their experiences and perceptions of implementing the curriculum materials, the advised teaching approaches and understandings of the theological and pedagogical principles underlying the new Units. In the second interview, teachers were invited to reflect upon their professional and personal growth.

Using qualitative analysis techniques such as NUD*IST, findings emerged about the importance of the teachers own personal, spiritual and faith formation during this period. Teachers felt passionate about why they were teaching RE and implemented the Units with enthusiasm. They were initially optimistic about the future of their RE teaching but were then confronted with challenges to their personal, spiritual and faith formation. Most teachers continued to look forward to teaching RE, while some were relieved when they had the opportunity to discontinue. These findings suggest that there is a need to consider how these teachers can be professionally and personally supported as they face the crisis of 'sustainability or exhaustion' in their RE teaching lives.

HAJ04140   [Paper]
Bringing teachers to centre stage: Relating to teachers' concerns of mathematics education in primary schools

Hajah Zaitun Haji Taha, Universiti Brunei Darussalam

Placing the focus upon teachers serves to highlight the current scene in the classroom and bring our teachers to the centre stage. Pupils learning outcomes, both cognitive and affective, are the yardsticks used to measure the effectiveness of the curriculum and the teachers teaching. Of the various outcome measures, the one that is of greatest interest is the result of the public examinations. The non-government schools in Brunei Darussalam often show better results in these examinations compared to the government schools and because of this, the teachers in non-government schools are often cited as "better teachers" compared to government schools by the Ministry of Education. This research investigated the concerns in mathematics education of teachers, from government and non - government schools. The areas investigated are factors affecting teachers' concerns of students' learning and achievement in mathematics; teachers' teaching skills; teachers' content knowledge; facilities and mathematics syllabus; demands of teaching and teachers' job satisfaction.

HAL04850   [Paper]
Authentic assessment and productive pedagogies in pre-service teacher education

Janice Hall, University of Western Sydney

The core business of teaching is pedagogy and yet learning without engagement is fruitless. If learning is to be relevant and therefore durable, then assessment must be real and authentic. Thus, grappling with the tensions between accountability, economic rationalism and authentic assessment in the University setting is challenging and ongoing.

The University of Western Sydney offers a one year Graduate Entry Bachelor of Teaching in both Primary and Secondary. Within these courses there is a core pedagogy subject within which there are two items of assessment: Peer Teaching and Portfolios. Both have been running for 5 years now with longitudinal and qualitative data to support the outcomes. Both are conducted in the context of the attributes of a desirable graduate for the profession of teaching.

This paper will therefore outline the processes used and the pedagogical implications for teaching and learning in pre-service teacher education. It will report on the outcomes of the research with specific reference to anecdotes, questionnaires, feedback sheets and journal data. Teacher narratives will also be documented as they describe 'authentic' and 'real' in their perceptions of the assessment.

HAN04102   [Paper]
Group work in schools: The role of self construal in motivational processes in friendship and acquaintance groups

JosT Hanham and John McCormick, University of New South Wales

Knowledge of the relationships between cognitive and motivational processes in school group learning contexts, is limited. This study tested a theoretical framework describing relationships argued to be salient to students' motivation to learn in friendship and acquaintance groups in secondary school settings. The sample consisted of 188 students from two independent schools in the Sydney Metropolitan area. Analysis was carried out using exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis to identify key predictors and moderation effects. Results suggested that self-efficacy for group work, self-interdependence and self-independence are important cognitive factors related to students' tendencies to cooperate with their classmates in both friendship and acquaintance groups. This research may provide researchers with a deeper understanding of cognitive factors that may influence student motivation in group learning environments in schools.

HAN04209   [Paper]
Power-sharing in science classrooms: Utilising CDA for research in science education

Mary Hanrahan, Queensland University of Technology

In this paper I begin by proposing a cross-disciplinary model for enhancing access to science literacy for a diverse range of students at the junior secondary school. My goal is to present a new discourse-oriented perspective on the problem of overwhelming alienation from science, which, as indicated in major national reports, still tends to persist at this level in spite of "science for all" policies in most countries. The model has resulted from research in 30 science classrooms, in the majority of which a diverse range of students were engaging with science and had positive attitudes towards their science class. I then illustrate the model, using critical discourse analysis (CDA) and excerpts from a science lesson for special needs Year 9 students in a low socioeconomic status area. Underpinned by sociolinguistic and sociological theories, CDA is a particularly useful tool for identifying subtle relational, representational, and identificational aspects of social practice - precisely those I am proposing as most significant for causing or preventing alienation for young science students.

HAR04257   [Paper]  ®
Teachers' new roles in school-based communities of practice

Elizabeth Hartnell-Young, University of Melbourne

School classrooms can be conceptualised as bounded communities of practice made up of teachers and students working together to learn and build knowledge. The widespread use of computers enables these communities to create knowledge, cross boundaries and build up intellectual capital. This paper, based on an in-depth qualitative study of thirty-two teachers in Victorian state schools, offers a model of four teachers' roles that reflects the current situation, and suggests ways in which these roles might develop to enhance knowledge building. It argues that safe, knowledgeable communities within boundaries, together with active boundary-crossing, can provide the conditions for knowledge building at classroom, school and system levels.

HAR04291   [Paper]
"Lifting the veil": Researching teachers' work in a Middle Eastern Sheikhocracy

Barbara Harold, Zayed University

Researchers who are familiar with educational research cultures in Australasian universities experience many 'taken for granted' commonalities in the research process. These may include common understandings about ethical practices and procedures, institutional practices, entry to the field, language use and methodology.

This paper discusses the experiences of a veteran researcher moving from such an established 'community of practice' to a region and environment with a different language, way of life and education system where the research culture was in an early stage of development. The researcher was involved in small-scale university projects, Ministry of Education contract research and the introduction of research methodology to school supervisors, and the expectation was for results that would assist reform in the public system. The research journey varied from smooth and calm to problematic, contested and negotiated. The familiar became strange and the researcher had to take a fresh look at her perspectives on issues relating to research ethics, language, culture, and methodology and, indeed, on research paradigms, leading ultimately to the discovery of a new community of practice. The research experiences are discussed and evaluated from a standpoint of current research paradigms and cross-cultural perspectives.

HAR04359   [Paper]  ®
Field/ing Learning

Ian Hardy, Charles Sturt University

This paper details how Pierre Bourdieu's notion of fields may be used to understand and explain specific manifestations of ongoing teacher learning. This is done by referring to the learning occurring during a specific cross-school ongoing teacher learning initiative in south-east Queensland. The paper argues that the interplay between specific fields is responsible for why particular types of learning occur at specific sites. Such learning is presented as the product of a complex interplay between and among ongoing teacher learning as policy, research and schooling. This paper draws upon a larger study into ongoing teacher learning. On the basis of empirical evidence presented, the paper concludes with a brief summary of the implications for ongoing teacher learning in the current era of considerable educational reform.

HAR04442 [Paper]  ®
Understanding what principals value about leadership, teaching and learning: A philosophical approach

Melinda Harris, Rob Cavanagh, Peter Reynolds and Geoffrey Giddings, Curtin University of Technology

Contemporary views of educational leadership are increasingly focussed on two aspects of the role of school principals - the affective qualities of school leaders and the attention given to pedagogy within the school. Moral and ethical values are seen as important considerations in the leadership role and in the training of school leaders. Understanding the nature of principal value systems including the processes by which particular values develop is an important area of leadership theorising and empirical research. One way forward in this field is to apply a philosophical approach in which value systems are considered as a manifestation of educational philosophy. With regard to leading pedagogy, effective leadership of teacher instruction and student learning is also contingent on the philosophical orientation of the principal. That is, the influence of the principal on the school's pedagogy is dependent on how strongly the principal values this dimension of the leadership role. The authors contend there is a need to investigate exercise of pedagogic leadership within schools from the perspective of philosophic inquiry - to ask questions about the ontology, epistemology and methodology applied by principals as leaders of teaching and learning in the school.

HAR04513   [Paper]
'It was great, just not what I had expected': Online learning projects in action

Susan Harriman, University of Technology, Sydney

This paper reports on a study of existing online learning projects implemented in four NSW schools. The purported benefits of online learning were explored through in-depth case studies of the selected projects, allowing the researcher to be part of the class for the duration of each project. A multi-method approach was taken to gain insights into the learning occurring from a variety of views, especially that of students. Results of the study are presented, providing a window onto the ebb and flow of learning events as each project unfolded and highlighting the learning achievements of students. The sometimes differing perspectives of students, teachers and project designers suggest implications for sustainable project development and implementation.

HAR04766   [Paper]
Key Learning Area (KLA) versus the single subject: How has the introduction of Human Society and Its Environment (HSIE) impacted on the work of History teachers in NSW?

Catherine Harris, Deakin University

The inclusion of history within the newly formed Human Society and Its Environment (HSIE) Key learning Area (KLA) in the early 1990s has had widespread implications fro the work of history teachers in New South Wales (NSW). This paper examines the way in which the re-organisation of subject matter knowledge at a macro level has impacted on the work of history teachers at a micro level.

Specifically, this paper addresses the ways in which the institutionalisation (or lack thereof) of the HSIE KLA has changed the ways in which history teachers plan for and enact syllabus change. The paper suggests that the HSIE KLA staff room structure (which forces certain patterns of interaction) is at odds with a continued reliance on single subject (rather than KLA) syllabuses and that this has hampered history teachers enactment of history syllabuses over the last decade. The ramifications of this for the teaching, learning and assessment of history in K-12 schools is subsequently examined.

HAR04829   [Paper]  ®
Do children's perceptions of themselves, their teachers, and school accord with teachers' ratings of their adjustment to school?

Linda Harrison, Charles Sturt University

This paper examines child and teacher reports of school adjustment. Of interest is the match, or mismatch, between children's perceptions of themselves and their feelings about school, and the classroom teachers' ratings of their school-related problem behaviours and competencies. The effects of child gender and age of starting school were also considered. Data included children's self-rated cognitive and physical abilities and acceptance by peers, school liking and avoidance and feelings about their teachers, and descriptions of what they liked about school. Teachers provided ratings of children's adjustment problems (acting out, shy/anxious, learning difficulties) and competencies (task orientation, frustration tolerance, confidence in class, peer social skills). Analyses showed little effect of age, but a significant effect of gender. Girls were more positive about school, and teachers rated boys as having more problems of adjustment. Comparative analyses of relations between child- and teacher-reported adjustment also showed gender differences. Boys who liked school and their teachers had better learning and social strengths, and fewer behaviour problems. Girls who said they enjoyed schoolwork activities had higher ratings on school competencies. Counter-intuitively, perceived social acceptance by peers and enjoyment of social play (for girls) were negatively correlated with teachers' ratings of school adjustment.

HAR041027   [Paper]
Voices in the book, meaning beyond the text: The importance of relationships among texts for understanding reading and related instruction

Pauline Harris and Barbra McKenzie, University of Wollongong

This paper explores ways in which children's picture books form networks of relationships and their implications for readers and classroom teachers. It does so within a conceptual framework that identifies a number of ways in which texts network with other texts. It uses this framework as a means for nurturing and documenting preservice teachers' understandings of how children's picture books work especially picture books that they deemed to be too difficult and confronting for children. This paper records the journey that our pre-service teachers undertook as they came to interact with these texts in a more meaningful way. We join them as they move from an initial resistance with children's picture books that push the boundaries of convention, to a position where they become advocates for using these texts in the classroom. Implications for how we understand reading are discussed, and applications to classroom practice are explored.

HAR041029   [Paper]
Children in search of their place and voice as literacy learners at school

Pauline Harris, University of Wollongong

How do children find their place as readers and writers in their classrooms? A place where they can give voice to their ideas and bring to the fore their resources that they continue to accumulate across their home, school and community settings? These questions form the focus of this paper, as it explores observational and interview data of children's literacy experiences and teachers' classroom practices in the early school years. This exploration is framed by a Social Model of Reading and Writing (Harris, McKenzie, Fitzsimmons & Turbill, 2001 & 2003) that takes stock of practices involved in literacy and the contexts in which literacy is used. Classroom examples are included to highlight key issues, exemplary practices, and further implications for classroom teachers in building on children's diverse experiences.

HAS04103   [Paper]
I just felt so guilty: The emotional dimension of supporting problematic preservice teachers

Wendy Hastings, Charles Sturt University

Research in the field of emotions is relation in teaching is quite new, but as yet there is still a silence in the literature in relation to the emotional dimension of teacher education and particularly with respect to the role of school (or centre)-based teacher educators. This paper reports the initial findings from a study conducted as part of a doctoral program. The focus of the study is the emotional dimension of the practicum for school-based teacher educators as they support preservice teacher colleagues. The qualitative study explores the emotional impact of problematic preservice teachers on the "wellbeing" of several co-operating teachers. The case study reveals the role played by 'emotional intelligence' in teachers' ability to cope with the stresses associated with such problematic situations. Further, the study investigates teachers' sense of 'agency' and the perceptions of support provided - or not provided - by schools or centre-based colleagues and the host university. The paper highlights issues currently under-represented in the literature, as well as posits possible strategies for supporting school-based colleagues, as they address the needs of problematic students, while undertaking a very valuable role in the education of preservice teachers.

HAT04399 [Paper]
Buddhism as a resource for reconciliation pedagogies

Robert Hattam, University of South Australia

In 'unsettling times', reconciliation processes have the potential to strengthen the fragile network of relationships that holds Australian society together. Reconciliation is understood here to be a psycho-social and pedagogical intervention that aims to heal the effects of traumatic events that produce guilt, anxiety, resentment and injustice that persist and distort individual and national well-being. Unfortunately, neither the pedagogical potential of reconciliation processes has yet to be adequately elaborated, nor have we really begun to draw on 'reconciliation' as a resource for developing pedagogical approaches. Such an examination needs to elucidate habits of mind that foster reconciliation, a vocabulary for reconciliation, an understanding of the dynamics of reconciling practices, and a map of the socio-cultural geography of reconciliation spaces. In this paper I will be proposing that Buddhism offers a range of conceptual resources and practices that might be useful in the development of reconciliation pedagogies. The paper will especially focus on socially-engaged Buddhism, understood as a new social movement evolving out of the translation of Buddhism into the 'West' under the conditions of globalisation.

HAW04481   [Paper]
Psychometric properties of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale for Australian adolescent girls: Clarification of multidimensionality and perfectionist typologies

Colleen Hawkins and Kenneth Sinclair, University of Sydney and Helen Watt, University of Michigan

The psychometric properties of the 'Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale' (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990) are investigated, to determine its usefulness as a measurement of perfectionism with Australian secondary school girls, and to find empirical support for the existence of both healthy and unhealthy types of perfectionist students. Participants were 409 female mixed-ability students from Years 7, 8, 10 and 11 in two private secondary schools in Sydney, Australia. Factor analyses yielded four rather than the six factors theorized by Frost et al. Cluster analysis indicated a distinct typology of healthy perfectionists, unhealthy perfectionists and non-perfectionists. Healthy perfectionists were characterised by higher levels on Organisation, while unhealthy perfectionists scored higher on the Parental Expectations & Criticism and Concern over Mistakes & Doubts dimensions of perfectionism. Both types of perfectionists scored high on Personal Standards.

HAY04358   [Paper]
Using a game sense approach for improving fundamental motor skills

John Haynes, Brad Austin and Judy Miller, University of New England

Children in a rural city in northern NSW were measured for efficiency level in the performance of five fundamental motor skills. Children (average age: 11 years) were assessed using the NSW Get Skilled Get Active skill checklist (2000). Based on the recommendation that 240-600 minutes of instructional time is required to master one skill, (NSW Get Skilled Get Active 2000: 79) a 'needs based' selection process was instigated to take one skill and provide remedial intervention using a games sense approach. Soccer was the sport of choice of the students and therefore the kick was the priority skill for this group to improve. The pre-test scores revealed zero students at the mastery level for the kick and one student was at the near mastery level. The games sense approach was selected, to maintain high motivation and to test the efficacy of this approach. More specifically, the children were involved in two lessons of 45 minutes for six weeks (540 minutes), which focused on the skills associated with soccer. Post test results showed various improvements in the level of mastery performance of the kick. Implication of this research include the teaching strategies employed to increase fundamental motor skill proficiency.

HAY04510   [Paper]
Whole school change that spreads and lasts: A technology of resilience for schools working within adverse conditions

Debra Hayes, University of Technology, Sydney

This paper addresses an enduring issue in educational research and practice: How to achieve whole school change focussed on learning in communities experiencing high levels of social dislocation, educational disadvantage and student disengagement from learning. By focussing on these conditions, I am highlighting the particular challenges of stabilising and sustaining whole school change in these communities. I outline an approach to reform that is framed by an understanding of schools and how they operate from within. This approach differs from reform efforts generally that seek to replicate external successful reform efforts. Rather than grappling with the question of how to transplant or bring particular reforms to scale, the question I focus on is how to bring a focus on teaching and learning to scale within schools that share certain discourses of schooling - forms, practices and structures. These discourses constitute certain technologies - the means and possibilities for change. Significantly, technologies of change are constituted by schooling discourses; they are determined by the nature of schooling; and, they produce certain types of effects that we recognise as schools. I argue that by identifying, naming and describing schooling discourses it is possible to work within and against the technologies they produce to amplify, mediate, validate and subvert certain effects of schooling. This is illustrated through a description of a technology of resilience that is supporting some schools working within adverse conditions to prioritise learning and teaching as their central activity.

HAY04515   [Paper]
Forms of professional learning mediated by the integration of ICT

Debra Hayes, University of Technology, Sydney

The integration of ICT places pressure on teachers to develop and broaden their repertoire of pedagogical practice. We observed a number of different approaches to providing support to teachers for this purpose in the case study schools. This support ranged from a single 'expert' teacher who had accumulated all responsibility for teaching ICT skills to both students and colleagues, through to a committee composed of a cross section of school leaders and teachers, and supported by external consultants. The longitudinal nature of this study allowed us to trace the development of these forms of professional learning over an extended period of time, and to describe how they were influenced by other background issues, such as leadership; and contextual variations, such as changes in personnel. This paper describes how sustained professional learning opportunities, which develop teachers' ICT skills alongside their pedagogical understandings, may afford enhanced learning opportunities for students through ICT.

HEC04918   [Paper]
Running a project in Indigenous Education

Robyn Heckenberg La Trobe University

This paper discusses an innovative enterprise learning project with Indigenous children. The project, run through a NSW regional High School, addressed a series of complex issues ranging from attendance and retention; numeracy and literacy; and self-esteem and citizenship. There were some very positive outcomes. The project's success depended on local community support, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. The local council provided man power and mentors. Mentors also came from the Indigenous community and mainstream, prominent community organizations. Local business, the Department of Education, the Police Service and resident groups also became stakeholders. Research notions relating to underachievement being based on inheritance factors are critically examined, as well as the possible implications of this philosophy upon the attitudes of teachers. An evaluation of outcomes of the project will be given the greatest weight. Strategies for running a project with Indigenous participants were formulated and acted upon as they arose during the life-cycle of the project. The project was acknowledged to be culturally appropriate. The presentation of the research findings, within the definitions of Indigenous research, are based on the theories of Linda Tuhiwai Smith as well as the grounded theory procedures of Strauss and Corbin.

HEC04959   [Paper]
"I'm doing this for my grandmother Lovie"

Robyn Heckenberg, Monash University

This paper examines the variety of policies related to Aboriginal protection and inclusion/exclusion from education that have been used to control and mould Indigenous populations in Australia. Historically this has effected opportunities for Indigenous Australians. Has the mission school and the apprenticeship schemes of the first half of the twentieth century been replaced by other systems that still do not meet the social and educational needs of Indigenous Australians? The paper shall pose questions on the responsibilities of Indigenous teachers and researchers in all sectors of education to maintain an active role in positive change whilst outlining some of the challenges we face in mainstream education.

HEI04728   [Paper]  ®
Enhancing mental computation teaching and learning in year 3

Ann Heirdsfield, Queensland University of Technology

The purpose of the study was to develop and investigate the effectiveness of a short instructional program to enhance mental computation strategies (addition and subtraction) in two classes of Year 3 students (approximately 8 years of age). Outcomes of the project were aimed at benefiting both the teachers and the students. The short instructional program made use of two models (100 board and empty number line) to support students' development of mental strategies. Pre-instruction and post-instruction interviews were conducted to monitor students' progress.

HEL04093   [Paper]
Indigenous students' experiences of Vocational Education and Training in Schools programs: Insights for developing good practice

Sue Helme, University of Melbourne and Angela Hill, James Cook University

A comparatively large number of Indigenous students participate in Vocational Education and Training in Schools (VETiS) programs, yet relatively little is known of their experiences or the longer-term outcomes of their participation. This paper draws on data from two national studies: a survey of 20,000 young people and their experience of vocational learning, and a qualitative study of VETiS in 21 schools in diverse settings, which included interviews with 118 Indigenous VETiS students and 160 school staff and other stakeholders. It provides a rare insight into the way in which VETiS is experienced by Indigenous students, and of the role VETiS plays in addressing their educational needs and vocational aspirations. Students' views of VETiS, including their reasons for enrolling, what they valued about it, and their critique of VETiS subjects are summarised. While much of the interview data supports previous research on the need to support Indigenous students systematically in education settings, successful engagement in VETiS is demonstrated to require broader system and school support. The research provides valuable feedback for policy makers, VETiS coordinators, teachers and others concerned with developing good practice in VETiS and making VETiS more accessible to and supportive of Indigenous students.

HEM04322   [Paper]  ®
Factors related to academic publishing productivity

Brian Hemmings, Peter Rushbrook and Erica Smith, Charles Sturt University

This paper reports on factors that are related to academic publishing output. Academics from a large Australian regional university were surveyed and data from 143 staff members were used in bivariate and multivariate analyses. The results of these analyses showed that certain factors were significantly correlated with publishing output and that four factors, namely, confidence in writing refereed works, academic level, academic qualification, and external teaching load proportion, comprised the best set of predictors for such output. Moreover, this set of predictors collectively accounted for 28 per cent of the variance in the dependent measure. The implications of this study for current higher educational practice and future research are discussed.

HIC04158   [Paper]  ®
What is effective Physical Education teaching and can it be promoted with generalist trained elementary school teachers?

Clive Hickson and Graham Fishburne, University of Alberta, Canada

Classroom research has been able to determine effective teaching practices that result in positive learning outcomes (Borich, 1996). However, research has demonstrated that teachers in a physical education environment often regard their lessons to be successful when children are busy, happy, and good (Placek, 1983) and that student learning is of a low priority (Hickson & Fishburne, 2002). This research study was conducted to gain an understanding of how effective physical education teaching practices can be developed in elementary school teachers. Three volunteer elementary teachers participated in a teacher development program. The program was introduced as an intervention program utilizing a single-case, multiple baseline research design. Student behavioural data, pre- and post-intervention, in physical education classes were recorded and analyzed through duration recording methods. Attitudinal data were also collected through teacher and student interviews. Results indicated that the teacher development program changed teaching behaviours. After the introduction of the intervention program, student behavioural data indicated an increase student engagement rates and a decrease in those behaviours contributing to non-engaged time. Both teachers and students indicated that teaching had become more productive, that learning became of a greater importance, and that time for activity increased during lessons.

HIL04531   [Paper]
Using action learning as a methodology to research teachers' work and learning

Robyn Hill, Monash University

Teachers in the Training and Further Education sector have been subjected to the same raft of changes that have affected workers in all environments. Global, technological and socio-cultural changes have directly contributed to the casualisation and sessionalisation of staff employment, and this in turn has had a major impact on the ways in which staff are able to access and engage in learning in their workplaces. While researchers and policy makers have forecast multiple new roles that TAFE teachers should and might grow into, teachers themselves have struggled to locate their practice within these changing educational frameworks. Negotiating realistic learning spaces in times of organisational change is imperative if teachers are to successfully move into new paradigms of vocational teaching practice. In redefining of the way employees work, these changes have caused workers to become more individually competitive, requiring them to focus on developing their knowledge capacity in order to undertake flexible, portfolio based work. As a result teachers have lost many of the networks within which they traditionally worked, learned, and developed the norms and values that guided their practice as part of a professional group. This paper explores the use of Action Learning, and the way it acts as a sociocultural model of learning and development, and as a research methodology. While the traditions of Action Learning rest in the field of management and organisational development, it can be demonstrated that 'the public good' can be supported through the provision of 'learning spaces' that enable teachers to more proactively negotiate their learning and work in times of change.

HIL04993   [Paper]
Assessing assessment in teacher education coursework

Gaell Hildebrand, Monash University

In this paper I analyse the pedagogic spaces provided by three teacher education coursework subjects to demonstrate the assessment for learning paradigm in action for new teachers. I interrogate the assessment practices in terms of the quality of the tasks as exemplar models and their educative role - i.e. their consequential validity. The three subjects Assessing Learning, Communication Learning, and Assessment, and Professional Issue - enact a spectrum of practices including formative, criterion-referenced, portfolio, peer, and performance assessment along with aspects of problem-based learning. Each task has explicit criteria with associated scoring rubrics that attempt to transparently articulate the desired capabilities and competencies for new teachers. The data analysed includes subject documentation (e.g. guides, web-based resources, workshop activities) and written feedback from four cohorts, totally 660 students. Emergent strengths include: the value of the criteria in establishing challenging benchmarks; the agency the tasks possess as pedagogical tools that construct learning about assessment; and the constructive tactics used to minimise plagiarism opportunities. Concerns raised include: the complexities involved in creating authentic simulations; the ambiguities and tensions that emerge when being assessed whilst learning; and finding manageable spaces to reflect on the professional learning that such assessment experiences afford.

HO041067   [Paper]
Using "Focused Word Recognition Method" to teach a student with reading difficulties in Hong Kong

Fuk Chuen Ho, Hong Kong Institute of Education

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of "Focused Word Recognition Method" in teaching a student with reading difficulties in Hong Kong. "Focused Word Recognition Method" is considered as a structured and systematic instruction for word identification. The Chinese characters are grouped for instruction by making use of their phonological, orthographic or semantic features. The participant in this study was an 11-year-old student in the Intensive Remedial Teaching Programme in Primary Schools (IRTP). He had difficulties in reading and writing Chinese characters. The stimulus materials of this study were five lists of Chinese characters. Each list consisted of characters with similar orthographic features. This training programme lasted for four weeks. Comparison of the results of pre-tests and post-tests showed that the student made significant improvement in the performances of dictation, reading aloud and fill-in the blanks activities.

HOA04340   [Paper]  ®
Culturally sensitive Human Resource Development in the multicultural workplace: "Western" and "Confucian heritage" experiences

Lyn Hoare, University of Melbourne

This research investigated the extent to which experiential pedagogies are appropriate for use with multicultural groups by testing an assumption that a dissonance exists between the perception of methodological efficacy assumed by "Western" adult education methods, and the perceptions of learning program participants of "Asian"/Confucian background. Data relating to the research question was collected through a process of interpersonal interviews with adult educators working in Melbourne, Australia and from focus groups involving people of Confucian background who have participated in workplace based development. The responses of the two groups were compared and contrasted. The research found that significant difference of perception exists between the two groups. The research identifies opportunities to render training programs more culturally inclusive through adaptations to program structure, processes, attention to learning styles, the level of interpersonal interactivity and the training environment. The research proposes that we are often unaware that our accepted notions and most ethically based intentions are blinkered by our subconscious cultural socialisation. The implications of these findings are significant for those who have the responsibility to design, implement and coordinate workplace education and training. The research concludes with suggestions for changes in practice and recommendations for future research.

HOB04734   [Paper]
Keeping the conversation going: Using a web-environment to support teachers' action learning

Garry Hoban and Tony Herrington, University of Wollongong

Action learning involves a small group (6-8 people) who meet regularly to share reflections and discuss ideas that they try out in practice. Key to the process of action learning is the sharing of personally relevant issues or problems in relation to the action being attempted. In this 12-month study, a small group of secondary teachers from different subject areas met regularly to share teaching strategies to improve the quality of teaching for their year 7 students. In schools, however, it is difficult for teachers from different faculties to find time to share ideas on a regular basis.

In this study a web environment was designed to support the sharing of teaching strategies which also included a discussion space to provide feedback on the strategies attempted. The web environment not only became a growing repository of teaching strategies but also documented feedback and reflection. This presentation will discuss outcomes of the professional learning process and in particular describe the strengths and weaknesses of using the web-based environment to support action learning. Possibilities for additional technology to enhance professional learning will be discussed as well as ideas for broadening the project to a whole school basis.

HOC041059   [Paper]
A journey in engagement between University, community and environment - Iramoo Sustainable Living Precinct

Colin Hocking, Victoria University

For the past seven years, a sustainable living centre called Iramoo has been under development and consolidation at VU St Albans campus, on the Outer West of Melbourne. The goal of Iramoo is "Vibrant, Sustainable Diversity in the West". Iramoo has explored how University and community can come into partnership and engagement, via association with land and common purposes in seeking sustainable futures. Issues encountered include: What are the purposes of University facilities? How do Universities and communities view the common environment we share? What are the potentials and limitations of using environment, futures and celebration of culture and a sense of belonging to evoke engagement? What is involved in overcoming the divides between disciplines, sectors and management levels in universities in pursuit of community engagement? How this fits with several newly unfolding actions at VU will be examined. These include the VU Community Engagement Strategy, the newly formed Institute for Sustainable Living Precinct, which is intended to address issues of engagement with community and environment.

HOL04678    [Paper]
An investigation of inconsistencies in PhD examination decisions

Allyson Holbrook, Sid Bourke, Terry Lovat and Kerry Dally, University of Newcastle

The process of PhD examination in Australia across academic disciplines requires that the PhD thesis be assessed by two or three external examiners who make a recommendation on the thesis and write detailed supporting comments. The recommendation at one end of the spectrum is to pass the thesis outright, the other end is a terminating fail. However most examiner recommendations fall in the middle (71%) and range from inviting minor corrections through to requiring revision and resubmission. These recommendations are then usually adjudicated by a committee, which can in some cases differ substantially from one or more of the examiner recommendations. The disparities in adjudication prompt concerns about the visibility of the examination process. This paper draws on a sub-sample of reports on 400 candidates where such disparities between examiner recommendation and institution decision are evident and then explores the texts of the reports to attempt to identify what may have triggered the discrepancy. Situations where the examiners gave a lower recommendation than the committee were compared to those where the committee recommendation was lower than that of the examiners. From this analysis it could be determined that specific instructional emphases and qualities in the examiner comments appeared to influence the outcome.

HOL04863   [Paper]
Analysis of asynchronous online discussion using the SOLO taxonomy

Kathryn Holmes, University of Newcastle

The online learning environment provides the opportunity for remote groups of students to interact with instructors and each other. Most web based learning platforms facilitate asynchronous online discussions between participants. These discussion forums are designed to replicate the face to face tutorial setting and provide a medium for the expression and development of student ideas. In this paper, an online discussion between twenty-eight teachers retraining in the field of mathematics will be analysed using the SOLO taxonomy. The analysis will focus on the capacity of web based learning environments to foster deep learning through the careful design of discussion tasks.

HOL04922   [Paper]  ®
Examiner reflections on the Fine Art Higher Degree examination process

Allyson Holbrook, Kerry Dally, Anne Graham and Miranda Lawry, University of Newcastle

Because higher degrees in Fine Art are a relatively recent phenomenon, this field provides a rare opportunity to study research training and assessment objectives virtually from the outset. The findings reported in this paper draw on the interview phase (N =15) of a study that explores examination processes and assessment objectives in Fine Art in Australia. The findings reported in this paper explore examiner encounters with Fine Art RHD examination procedures and are divided into four themes loosely based on the interview questions relating to examination processes. The first section of this paper encompasses examiner responses to institutional guidelines, the second examiner selection, the third explores the roles examiners assume and the fourth, the nature and forms of engagement with other participants in the examination. These themes have been explored in recent studies into doctoral examination in traditional disciplines which have been conducted primarily in the United Kingdom. The examiners perceived that their role was an evolving one and that examiners need to demonstrate flexibility in order to cope with the variations in institutional requirements and to demonstrate empathy with candidates. They valued achieving understanding, whether that understanding be of the student's work or the processes necessary to reach a judgement about it.

HOO04125   [Paper]
Changing perceptions of knowledge: Evaluation of an innovative program for pre-service secondary teachers

Neil Hooley and Rod Moore, Victoria University of Technology

Pre-service programs for secondary teachers have traditionally involved method subjects, where participants are inducted into the curriculum practices of two disciplinary or subject areas. In 2003, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, enrolled a small group of fourteen pre-service teachers into an innovative Graduate Diploma of Secondary Education that directly challenged these program assumptions. Method subjects were collapsed into an integrated study of the theory, skills and practices of classroom work and connections were drawn between all enrolled subjects or knowledge. Another key feature of the program involved all pre-service teachers being placed at the one school for their partnership experience, including classroom teaching and a requirement to undertake an applied curriculum project negotiated as being important for the school. Mentor teachers from the school presented a series of evening tutorials on issues such as systemic requirements, curriculum innovation, school organization. This approach to Site-Based Teacher Education builds on a DEST-funded project conducted by Victoria University some years previously. The paper describes the evaluation of the program including suggested curriculum changes and the resources required. It also provides some advice for the establishment of similar site-based work that attempts to break the mould of traditional thinking on separated knowledge in teacher education.

HOW04184   [Paper]  ®
Transition from primary to secondary school: Possibilities and paradoxes

Sue Howard and Bruce Johnson, University of South Australia

This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative research project carried out in New South Wales. The research participants were 'resilient' final year primary school and first year high school students who, through semi-structured interviews, discussed either their expectations or experiences of transition from primary to secondary school. Some important findings regarding transition challenges are presented and the children's (and their parents') responses to these issues are discussed. The question is posed: how ethical and feasible is it to introduce major school reform in the early years of high school when the voices of those who stand to be most affected by it are strongly in favour of the status quo?

HUD04076   [Paper]  ®
From generic to specific mentoring: A five-factor model for developing primary teaching practices

Peter Hudson, Queensland University of Technology

Mentoring is an avenue for developing teaching practices, and preservice education appears to hold the key for changing practice towards inclusions of education reform. However, primary teachers are more likely not to be experts in all primary subject areas and this is the crux of the mentoring problem. Mentoring in primary schools is largely generic and so will require further initiatives from universities and school-based mentors to more effectively guide preservice primary teachers in specific subject areas. A previous study on specific mentoring (Hudson, Skamp, & Brooks, 2004) had identified a correlated five-factor model (i.e., personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, and feedback). This paper presents these five factors as scaffolding for specific subject mentoring in primary teaching, namely: personal attributes that the mentor needs to exhibit for constructive dialogue; system requirements that focus on key curriculum directives; competent pedagogical knowledge for articulating effective practices; modelling effective teaching practices; and, feedback for the purposes of self-reflection in order to improve practices. Further research on specific mentoring may assist in developing professional practices, ultimately for the betterment of public education.

HUI04220 [Paper]
Attitudes towards research: The case of curriculum leaders in Hong Kong

Sammy King-fai Hui, The Hong Kong Institute of Education

Exploring teachers' attitudes towards research is always interesting. With the Education and Manpower Bureau's policy of introducing the position of Primary School Master/Mistress (Curriculum Development) to local Hong Kong primary schools, to understand the beliefs these curriculum leaders hold onto research - as a means to help schools to reflect upon their strengths and to decide how best to bring about reform in curriculum becomes significant. A survey of 209 PSM(CD)s suggested although people in general favour research in their work, there still reservations. A five-factor model indicated that, on the one hand, the majority of the respondents perceived themselves having ability to do research, valued research for professional development and providing solutions to teaching and learning deficiencies, and found the action research course that they participated useful. On the other hand, they preferred courses focussed on improving their teaching competencies to an action research course. It was shown that while demonstrated research experience and qualification of higher degrees revealed no significant difference in research attitudes, these factors associated positively with their commitment to school, self-efficacy and an internal locus of control. The work contributes to the understanding of how PSM(CD)s feel towards supporting doing and facilitating research for curriculum development in schools.

HUX04881   [Paper]
Teaching coping skills: Implications for practice

Linda Huxley, E Freeman and Erica Frydenberg, University of Melbourne

During the last decade there has been a call for schools to become more active in students' social and emotional education. Given that teachers are significant adults in young people's lives, teachers are often in the best position to deliver a coping skills program. This study considered the impact of implementing a coping program on both the teacher and students. Year 9 (N=29) students participated in The Best of Coping program. Both quantitative and qualitative data (including the teacher's reflective journal) are reported. Changes in coping behaviours for both teacher and students were noted. The study highlights the importance of the teachers' role in implementing social and emotional programs. Findings are discussed in terms of the relationship between the teacher and students. Ideas relating to the implementation of school-based coping skills programs are detailed.

HYD04476   [Paper]
Attending to the felt sense and giving way to conversation: Two characteristics that may lead to a conscious spirituality in children in Australian Catholic primary schools.

Brendan Hyde, Australian Catholic University

This paper describes and reports on some findings of a larger PhD research study into the characteristics of children's spirituality in Australian Catholic primary schools. It uses hermeneutic phenomenology, drawing particularly on van Manen's (1990) notion of lifeworld existentials in reflecting on conversation and observation of small groups of students from Year 3 and Year 5 in three Catholic primary schools, one from an inner city location, one from a suburban location, and one from a rural location. The four lifeworld existentials are lived time (temporality), lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality) and lived human relation (relationality). The findings presented here suggest that for the children involved in this study, aspects of their spirituality may be expressed through the characteristics described in this paper as attending to the felt sense and giving way to conversation. These have particular implications for education, and especially for religious education, in addressing the spiritual dimension of learning in the primary classroom context.

I

ING04396   [Paper]
The effects of structural and process features of professional development programs on teachers' knowledge, practice and efficacy

Lawrence Ingvarson, Australian Council for Educational Research

This paper reports on the findings of the evaluation studies described in the earlier papers. This study indicates that the most effective programs, in terms of reported impact, had profiles consistent with research on effective professional development. They were rated highly by teachers across all five opportunity to learn measures in the conceptual model. They provided opportunities for teachers to focus on what students were to learn and how to deal with the problems students may have in learning that subject matter. They focused on research-based knowledge about student learning of content. They included opportunities for teachers to examine student work collaboratively - and in relation to standards for what the students in question should know and be able to do. They led teachers to actively reflect on their practice and compare it with high standards for professional practice. They engaged them in identifying what they needed to learn, and in planning the learning experiences that would help them meet those needs. They provided time for teachers to test new teaching methods and to receive follow-up support and coaching in their classrooms as they faced problems of implementing changes. They included activities that led teachers to deprivatise their practice and gain feedback about their teaching from colleagues.

ING04675   [Paper]
The Future Teachers Project

Lawrence Ingvarson and Adrian Beavis, Australian Council for Educational Research, and Ruth Newton, Victorian Institute of Teaching

This paper reports on research conducted for the Victorian Institute of Teaching as part of its Future Teachers Project. One of the main purposes of the VIT Project is to develop new guidelines for the accreditation of teacher education courses; guidelines that would reflect the changing demands of schools and teachers' work. The brief for this research project involved designing an instrument for surveying the perceptions of stakeholders (beginning teachers and their employers) about the effectiveness of current teacher education models in Victoria. The survey was administered in March 2004 to all registered teachers in Victoria who were beginning their second year of teaching. A similar survey was developed and administered to all school principals about their perceptions of the preparedness of beginning teachers in 2003. The survey instrument was designed to enable relationships between structural and process features of teacher education programs and outcomes to be examined. This paper reports on the findings of the surveys and the changes that stakeholders believe should be made to teacher education programs to better prepare future teachers.

IZA04855   [Paper]
Implications for sound practice in assessment for learning

John Izard RMIT University and Peter Jeffery Professional Resources Services

To provide effective learning opportunities for all pupils we need assessment strategies that will be teacher-friendly and that encourage learning. Teacher-friendly assessment strategies are those that are helpful in identifying what has to be taught. Encouraging learning requires teaching strategies that use the assessment information to ensure students learn what they currently do not know. Izard (2004) has discussed teacher-friendly assessment strategies but warns that problems may arise in the choice of test items for tests for assessment for learning purposes. This paper considers theoretical and practical requirements for using assessment for teaching and learning, and reviews the use of a published test series to meet these requirements in a local primary school.

IZA04877   [Paper]
Gathering evidence for learning

John Izard, RMIT University

How do we decide whether students have learned? Learning involves changes in knowledge, skills and the sophistication of the strategies employed by the learners. How do we gather the relevant evidence of learning? To measure these changes we need at least two relevant measures, one prior to a particular stage of learning and a later assessment documenting a higher level of achievement. This paper looks at the requirements for using such assessment for teaching and learning and addresses threats to the validity of assessments to evaluate progress.

IZA04905   [Paper]
Impediments to sound use of formative assessment (and actions we should take to improve assessment for learning)

John Izard, RMIT University

This paper presents practical and technical requirements for using assessment for teaching and learning and discusses impediments to the sound use of formative assessment. These impediments relate to both assessment and teaching as well as educational management. Assessment and teaching impediments include the procedures used to develop valid assessments of progress, inappropriate scoring procedures and methods of interpreting the resulting data, and the procedures used to facilitate learning. The management impediments include the focus on normative assessment, and failure to provide assessment instruments sampling the range of student achievement, to communicate relevant useful information to teachers, to evaluate added value in appropriate ways, and to ignore generally the actions teachers need to take. The paper provides suggested action to improve assessment for learning.

IZA04951   [Paper]  ®
Automated educational/academic skills screening: Using technology to avoid or minimise effects of more formal assessment

John Izard and Elspeth McKay, RMIT University

The focus of this study is the provision of enhanced opportunities for returning to study or vocational training for adolescents and young adults (aged from about 15 to 25 years) after experiencing a mental health episode, and the monitoring of their educational progress during rehabilitation. Both the young people and their support workers need to establish current educational / academic performance in order to make sensible choices about future study or employment. But formal assessment techniques are associated with high levels of anxiety: it was vital to devise another way of collecting this information. This project provides an innovative use of information communications technology (ICT) services to assess the educational achievement level of this at-risk learner group. The paper reports on the design, development, implementation and evaluation of the pilot system for assessing young peoples' potential to participate in appropriate educational programmes.

J

JAN04113   [Paper]
Grandparents supporting children's thinking in technology

Beverley Jane and Jill Robbins, Monash University

Increasingly Australian grandparents are assuming an active and significant role in the lives of young children. Shared experiences and interactions are potentially mutually beneficial, enjoyable and educational in nature. In particular, through everyday, spontaneous cooperative activities, many grandparents are fulfilling an important function in supporting the technology thinking and learning of their grandchildren. This paper, informed by sociocultural theory reports on a pilot project that sought to foreground the important, robust and mutually enjoyable, cooperative learning and co-construction that is occurring through these informal interactions, and highlights the significance of these interactions in relation to children's emerging skills, dispositions and understandings in technology. In turn, implications of these factors for teachers working in technology education in early childhood and primary school classrooms

JEF04006   [Paper]
Research for knowledge or research for policy

Anne Jefferson, University of Ottawa

This paper reflects on the changing pressure on education research in terms of the "so what?" question. The so what question has always been of importance but the audience asking the question has shifted. This is evident, for example, in the funding made available to granting agencies in Canada and in the review of academic performance of professors. The grant securing prestige sought by universities and their administrators has placed different stressors on research within education. In many ways, a claim could be made that research for knowledge is and oftentimes has been replaced with research for policy. Now, research for policy is a plus given the practical field of education. However, this research is undertaken for financial gain and academic professorial life longevity. These two gains do not necessarily leave the field of education more enabled as a result of the research leading to the gains.

JOH04059 [Paper]
Quality teaching in Mathematics K - 6: Perspectives on classroom-based research and teacher professional learning in PSFP primary schools

Kerry Johnson and Gordon Cupitt, NSW Priority Schools Funding Program

This paper describes classroom-based research undertaken by consultants and teachers in primary schools on the NSW Priority Schools Funding Program (PSFP). The research involved developing and evaluating approaches to enhance effective implementation of the Working Mathematically strand in the Mathematics K - 6 syllabus (NSW DET 2003).

The paper revisits the Co-operative Problem Solving framework (Johnson 2002), which focused on providing students with modeled questions linked to the five Working Mathematically processes. Further, it explores connections between this model and the Quality Teaching in NSW Public Schools discussion paper (NSW DET 2003).

As a result of this work a number of key considerations for teacher professional learning in mathematics have emerged:

• building teacher confidence in and understanding about the nature of mathematical investigations
• identifying and describing "good" pedagogy to support student learning of mathematical processes
• the importance of reflective language in the teaching and learning of mathematics
• the role of the educational consultant in supporting teacher professional learning

The paper provides recommendations that will assist consultants and teachers to focus classroom practice on improved student learning in mathematics. It has particular significance for educators working to narrow the achievement gap for students in targeted equity groups.

JOH04182   [Paper]
Real Kids, Real Classrooms, Real Learning: An action research approach to enhancing engagement in learning for secondary school students from low SES school communities

Therese Weir, Mary-Lou O'Brien and Kerry Johnson, NSW Priority Schools Funding Program

This paper draws on current professional learning research in the Real Kids, Real Classrooms, Real Learning Project. The project promotes a whole school focus on student engagement within the framework of the Quality Teaching in NSW Public Schools initiative. It involves teachers and students in Priority Schools Funding Program (PSFP) secondary schools, regional, state consultancy teams, and parents and community members. These research partnerships are investigating ways that teachers can identify, describe, implement and evaluate school and classroom practices that enhance engagement and participation in schooling for students from low SES backgrounds.

In this paper we consider the implications in focusing teachers' attention on all aspects of student engagement, from collaborative planning of classroom activities to evaluating rich tasks through the collection of authentic assessment data. Here student engagement is not narrowly defined as on-task behaviour, but has a wider sense that students feel that school and education is "for them". The theoretical underpinnings of the research are that student engagement is a pivotal element in classroom pedagogies, both determining and illuminating the quality and effect of student learning outcomes. This paper will support educators to respond to the big ideas on engaging secondary school students from targeted equity groups.

JOH04392   [Paper]  ®
Technological disadvantage of the Digital Age

Nicola Johnson, Deakin University

Debates continue about the relative benefits, costs and risks of the diffusion of computer-based technologies throughout society and schooling. One area that has received considerable attention is gender equity. Early work on gender and computers focused on differences between male and female access and use (e.g. Martin & Murchie-Beyma, 1992; Sofia, 1993; Kirkman, 1993; Nelson and Cooper, 1997; Morritt, 1997), with concerns focused on the potential for girls to be disadvantaged. In some respects, it is arguable that problems of gender equity in schools with respect to computers have been overcome. For example, in a small study I conducted in two New Zealand senior primary schools in 2003, I found that both boys and girls were motivated to use computers and appeared to have equal opportunities to access computers in the classroom. The students in my study expressed a belief in the importance of using computers, and this belief can also be discerned from educational policy and media coverage.

In this paper I argue that, although gender by itself no longer appears to be a source of disadvantage in terms of access to and use of computers in schools, many questions about technology, schooling and power relations still remain unanswered. I present two alternative viewpoints on the new digital age. First, I explore Melanie Stewart Millar's (1998) analysis of digital discourse as one which reproduces the power of white, middle-class, educated, well-paid males, and excludes anything else it considers 'Other'. Second, I review arguments that the digital age has provided sites for the transcendence of traditional hierarchies and inequalities (e.g. Spender, 1995). I conclude that, despite the discrepancies between these two viewpoints, both concur that technological disadvantage will exacerbate any existing inequality that might result from intersections of identity categories, such as, gender, ethnicity, age, and socio-economic status.

JOH04585   [Paper]
Researching with children: Children's perceptions of their place(s) in primary schools

Kaye Johnson, Woodville Primary School

Research on and about children has a long history. More recently, however, those researching children's lives have questioned the positioning of children as incompetent participants and the consequent exclusion of children's perceptions. There is an increasing focus on conducting research with children. In this project, primary school aged children in years 4 and 5 were invited to record, visually, the places of their own everyday school experiences. They constructed a set of photographs using the school's digital cameras and created artworks of places within their school. Their spatial knowledge and understanding of their school was revealed through conversations where they commented on their photographs and artworks.

This project was based on a commitment to enable the research process to become transparent to the participants; to enable them to investigate issues they define as central to their lives at school; to facilitate their data collection; and to include them in the analysis of that data. It was research with children who eagerly volunteered to become investigators and recorders of their everyday experience and who relished the opportunity to contribute to current debates about the place of children in primary schools. This paper will share some of the children's insights into their place(s) in one Adelaide primary school, including toilets and other taboo areas; significant icons; and names for these places.

JOL04453   [Paper]
Arriving at interdisciplinarity

Lesley Jolly, Merrilyn Goos and Trisch Short, The University of Queensland and Angela Coco, Southern Cross University

There are many ways in which members of academic disciplines may work together from the occasional provision of particular expertise, to the pooling of intellectual resources that can produce a new kind of knowledge in the context of complex social problems and situations. The terms applied to such co-operative and collaborative work include cross-disciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, but it is rare to see a considered discussion of which one best applies to a given study. Some studies even invoke such terms without definition. In this paper we attempt to provide models of these varieties of interdisciplinarity and describe how in our projects they have produced different results for different audiences. In doing so we pay special attention to the ways in which research may be said to be in the interests of the public good.

JOL04455  [Paper]
Problematising risk, problematising practice

Lesley Jolly and Mohammad Gholam, The University of Queensland and Angela Coco, Southern Cross University

Students who are at risk or placed at risk due to poverty, race, ethnicity, language or other factors are rarely well served by their schools. It has been suggested that a first step towards correcting the problem would be to reframe the whole concept of 'risk' as generated by a significant mismatch between student circumstances and needs and the capacity or willingness of the school to accept and respond to them. The next step would be to build on student strengths rather than focussing on remediation and then to address the quality of the entirety of the school experience. This paper draws on an interdisciplinary case study of a primary school using a whole-of-school approach to significantly improve children's numeracy and literacy performance in benchmark tests. While many of this school's strategies indeed focussed on individual student characteristics, it also introduced disciplinary and other programs to improve the school culture. However, life circumstances outside school, at home or in the community, also contribute to student risk and we consider how realistic it is to expect schools to address that aspect of risk. An ecological approach to risk will require the involvement of schools, families, communities and a range of specialist knowledges.

JON04484   [Paper]  ®
Reading aloud, silent reading and "booktalk" in upper primary school classes: Teachers' reading programs, motivations and objectives

Tammy Jones and Robin Wills, University of Tasmania

This case study of four upper primary school teachers sought to discover their motivations and objectives for their decision to implement a combination of three literacy practices: reading aloud to students, providing dedicated silent reading time and engaging students in "booktalk".

Results indicated that the teachers' own love of reading, as well as their understanding that well-developed reading skills had an important influence on the future success of their students were recognised as salient motivating factors in each of the teachers' programs. Teachers also had a naive theoretical understanding of the attitude influence model that framed this study.

This study provides support for the implementation of reading programs in which these three practices are linked and it emphasises the power of teacher modelling as a vital component of pedagogical practice. The teachers' accounts provide access to their emotional commitment to their work, and their stories suggest that they implicitly understand the crucial importance of student motivation to any educational endeavour.

JON04499   [Paper]
Creativity, imagination and digital technology

Anthony Jones, The University of Melbourne

JSchool curricula and teachers have traditionally suggested that creativity is only possible in subjects such as art, music, drama and dance. However, the digital technology now available to schools can offer users opportunities to be creative in different ways and in other subject areas. Using ideas from recently published UK reports on creativity and creative thinking, grade 1 and 2 students in three classes used pencil and paper to draw houses and people, and then used a computer software package to draw other items. The software package allowed students to draw free-hand, to use built-in graphics features including colour for lines and fill, and to use text. No attempt was made to compare products from the two media forms for creativity. Children who displayed certain characteristics of creativity in their pencil and paper drawings were asked about both their pencil and computer drawings. The tentative results reinforce the belief that creativity is in the child rather than the medium, but that some children respond to a particular medium and demonstrate behaviours not seen in other contexts.

JOS04623   [Paper]  ®
Masakhane: Drumming up an effective music curriculum for pre-service teacher education

Dawn Joseph, Deakin University

The introduction of African indigenous music to a generalist primary teacher education course transcended both cultural differences and personal inadequacies of students. It provided a cohesive bond for promoting the learning of music that is aptly represented by the African concept of masakhane (building together). This research demonstrated the effectiveness of Africa music for promoting cross-cultural music education, thereby providing a worthy model for implementation in other teacher education programs. According to findings from a questionnaire survey and interviews, students reported they were able to more effectively engage with, know, create, perform, teach and experience music through African rather than just the Western music. This experience provided students with new musical knowledge, understandings and skills as well as giving them insights into another musical tradition and culture. Students also perceived Indigenous African music as a source of motivation, interest and enjoyment, thereby promoting their creativity and musical learning. As global citizens, we need to embrace diversity and change not only in our immediate teaching contexts but also in broader educational policy. This curriculum clearly enhanced the effectiveness of music within a teacher education course and by extension has the potential to contribute to a greater professional and public good in education.

K

KAC041065   [Paper]
Examining the impact of qualitative data analysis software upon the analysis process

Daniel Kaczynski, University of West Florida

The dramatic growth in the use of qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) in the qualitative methodological design process is stimulating changes in how researchers view analysis. Qualitative researchers are progressively expanding the adoption of QDAS, as a tool, in the interpretation and analysis stages. This growing application of QDAS has been cited as a major contribution to the rigor and credibility of qualitative research. But there has been little systematic discussion of the different QDAS functions relevant to educational research. Moreover, software use has also raised concerns that the tools increasingly drive methodological practices. Qualitative data collection, analysis, and reporting require consistent, diligent attention in order to ensure a rigorous study. Most qualitative researchers agree that a steadfast focus on a studies purpose and a consistent adherence to a prescribed conceptual framework are critical to a rigorous study. Fewer researchers agree, however, on the appropriate use of QDAS in this process. As each new generation of qualitative software increasingly alters research methods, there is a need for continuing education of researchers in this dynamic process, and continued critique of methodological innovations. How researchers respond to this challenge will significantly influence our conceptualisation of the future of qualitative research.

KAJ04082   [Paper]
Local-based curriculum development: A case study of Watsamankit Elementary School, Thailand

Boonreang Kajornsin, Pranee Potisook, Pikun Ekwarangkoon and Warunee Lapanachokdee, Kasetsart University

According to the National Education Act of 1999, schools have to develop their own curricula which are appropriated with their own community. The community members should participate in developing local curriculum as well as teaching learning process. At this transition period, the teachers and schools face a lot of problems. They don't know how to get start to develop their own curriculum with the participation of community members. Teacher lack of self confidence in student-centered teaching and authentic assessment.

Boonreang Kajornsin and others (Kajornsin et al., 2001; Kajornsin et al., 2002a; Kajornsin et al., 2002b) conduct a participatory action research about developing local-based curriculum at Watsamankit elementary school, Ratchaburi province, Thailand. The objectives of this research were: 1) To develop a local curriculum appropriate to the community and school contexts through collaboration with school and community members. 2) To implement local curriculum in school that would move from teacher-centered learning to student-centered learning. The teachers would learn how to use an integrated learning approach, authentic assessment and rubric assessment. Community members would participate in developing local curriculum and the learning-teaching process. Students would have an experience on authentic learning and authentic assessment. 3) To follow up, evaluate, revise and implement the curriculum in a second semester.

The research results revealed that:

1. Watsamankit School developed a local-based curriculum, "A Systemic Approach to Integrated Agriculture".
2. Community members and local organizations became involved in developing, implementing, and evaluating curriculum. They were also involved in teaching and learning process.
3. The impact of implementing local curriculum revealed that students gained more knowledge about integrated agriculture. They developed more desirable behaviors, skills and attitudes.

Most students enjoyed the learning activities. School administrators, teachers and district supervisors thought that the local curriculum had positive impacts on the school, students, teachers and community. The schools and the communities had closer relationships. Students could apply their knowledge to help their parents' jobs. Their working habits were improved. Students had a closer relationship with their parents. Teachers gained more understanding about student-centered learning, integrated learning approach, authentic assessment and rubric assessment. Teachers had a closer relationship with their students. They had better relationships with parents and community members. Community members were willing and proud to participate in the teaching-learning process. They had a closer relationship with the school and teachers. They felt more academic value for their descendants.

KAM04695   [Paper]
The Disembodied Apprentice: Reflections on a doctoral exchange

Annelies Kamp, Deakin University

This presentation explores my experience as a full-time on-campus doctoral candidate involved in an international postgraduate exchange. My doctoral work, concerned with the use of networks as a policy mechanism to understand and manage risk for young people, is being completed within an ARC Linkage Project. As such, my doctoral journey is undertaken collaboratively with an industry partner and alongside a community of academics. This stands in contrast to the more common experience of the part-time off-campus Education doctoral candidate largely isolated from an academic community and interacting, to a greater or lesser extent, with only a principal and/or associate supervisor. Lave and Wenger's (1991) theory of legitimate peripheral participation explores the nature of situated learning, moving the focus from the observation and imitation that occurs between the master/apprenticeship to the learning that occurs within the community of which the master forms a part and in which learning occurs as access to practice. The idea of communities of practice is further developed by Wenger (1999) to include both questions of practice, including meaning, community, learning, boundaries and locality and questions of identity including identity in practice, participation, modes of belonging, identification and negotiability. My doctoral process as a disembodied experience of situated learning within a community of practice was highlighted by the opportunity to witness aspects of the academic apprenticeship of higher degree students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That comparative experience provides new understandings about the distinctive model of research training that constitutes my academic apprenticeship within Australian higher education.

KAR041081   [Paper]
Bourdieu's social theory and sustainability: What is 'environmental capital'?

Justin Karol and Trevor Gale, Monash University

Drawing on the social theory of Bourdieu, this paper introduces the concept of 'environmental capital', which is theorised as particular ways of understanding and relating with the world's environment, and with the potential to inform a habitus of sustainability. The extent to which such capital relates to and is convertible with other capitals is also theorised. In particular, it is argued that environmental capital is undervalued in the current schooling 'stakes' and that its revaluing requires pedagogical work on the habitus of teachers and, by extension, students, in order to transform their dispositions in more environmentally sustainable ways. The cultural field upon which this paper concentrates is the education of pre-service teachers, with the intent to influence their future pedagogic work by demonstrating the value of sustainable pedagogic actions. It is argued that educators and education practices need to be informed by a habitus of sustainability and, similarly, that if students are denied access to environmental capital from the very first years of schooling, the collective habitus required to create a sustainable world may never eventuate.

KEA04236   [Paper]  ®
"I don't understand this gibberish!": Charting, through teacher research, parallel teacher/student progress toward long-term learner success

Jan Claes, George P Vanier Junior High School and Stephen Keast, Monash University

One teacher's action research formed the basis of a two-year collaborative action research project for a group of teachers with common concerns. The initial teacher researcher mentored the new group of action researchers. She was surprised by the common critical incidents that generated identical ah-ha moments in the teachers, in spite of widely-varying personalities and classroom realities. Two frameworks were developed, one mapping the process of teacher change and the other the process of student change. What emerged was that the student change echoed the teacher change and that emerging enthusiasm in one was paralleled by emerging enthusiasm in the other. This paper then reports on the development of the parallel teacher/student change framework and the results of the first year of this project.

KEE04857   [Paper]  ®
Principal's stress: Tensions between the requirements of the disability discrimination legislation and the governance of inclusion in schools

Mary Keeffe, Queensland University of Technology

This paper examines qualitative perspectives that principals in schools have of the disability discrimination legislation. Perspectives from in-depth interviews with six school principals and two focus groups of twenty-eight principals describe attitudes toward the disability discrimination legislation, particularly as these attitudes relate to the governance of inclusion.

The study found that a reduced level of knowledge of the disability discrimination legislation and vague, ineffectual inclusive education policies contributed to leadership problems in the governance of inclusion. A combination of such factors increased stressful, reactive decision-making responses from principals particularly when complex school situations related to students with disabilities and challenging behaviours. The study proposed that collaborative decision-making to create shared understandings about disability issues was more effective in creating inclusive school cultures than the imposed requirements of the disability discrimination legislation.

KEL04458   [Paper]
Parents' views on kindergarten scheduling and educational provision in Tasmania

Margot Boardman, University of Tasmania, Michael Kelly, University of Tasmania

In Tasmania, as in other states of Australia, there has been a marked shift toward the provision of full-day kindergarten attendance for four and five year old children. A number of reasons have been highlighted to account for these changes although societal and familial changes are common. It is acknowledged that these changes have been made to cater for the changing needs of families as they attempt to juggle work commitments, childcare arrangements and a busier family life in general. However, in the literature parents are often not given a voice in regard to these issues. This paper reports on two sections of a study that aimed to determine parents' perceptions (n = 332) of full-day and half-day kindergarten attendance in Tasmanian government schools. More specifically, the paper examines parents' responses to differing scheduling options and possible improvements to the kindergarten program in general. Overall, parents expressed high levels of satisfaction with the government kindergarten system and the programs offered within it. In relation to the notion of scheduling kindergarten classes for half-days in term one and full-days in terms two and three, 54% of parents indicated that this was a good idea.

KER041061    [Paper]
Women primary principals in Independent schools: Creativity and inspiration

Noella Kershaw and Evelyn Johnson, Deakin University

The purpose of my research is to reinvigorate educational leadership through improved understandings of women primary principals in Independent schools, thereby rethinking the current directions. By 'reinvigorate' I mean investigate what serves as inspiration for current women primary leaders and explore how this might be better used to generate the kinds of educational change that lead to more dynamic primary school leadership. These 'improved understandings' are expected to suggest a reconceptualizing of primary school leadership by, what I coin 'response-ability'. By 'response-ability' I mean to expose untapped potentials in primary leadership performance so that the leader utilizes the full range of their knowledge, skills and values.

There are acknowledged gaps in the primary school Independent sector concerning women in leadership both theory and practice and in this instance the Victorian context. Considerable research surrounds educational leadership [Peter Hill (2003), Neil Cranston (2001), Frances Townsend (1999),Helen Telford.(1996) and Caldwell & Spinks (1992)]. In particular Jill Blackmore's, (1999) research analysed a number of projects focusing on women secondary principals. As a critique of leadership her research exposed the gendered influences reinforced through culture, values and language

However there has been limited research into women in primary leadership and the implications for the Independent sector. In summary this research aims to understand women in primary educational leadership and investigate the significance of their untapped knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. Furthermore to propose what may constitute 'Response-able' leadership that could serve to highlight ethical principles, authenticity and creativity.

KER04657   [Paper]  ®
From classroom reality to virtual classroom: The role of teacher-created scripts in the development of classroom simulation technology

Lisa Kervin and Brian Cambourne, University of Wollongong

This paper describes a specific kind of teacher narrative (the teacher created script) to support the design of a classroom simulation to be used in pre-service teacher education. We intend to share our experiences in exploring and developing the kind of narrative text which can be developed from a large reservoir of ethnographically generated data collected from the teachers and classrooms we have closely observed and documented over the last two decades. In particular, we explore the role which the se narratives play within the development of the kind of simulation we ultimately produced. Reflection has long been acknowledged as a useful process for teachers to engage with. Also, the notion of formalising such reflections through writing has been a cknowledged as a way to share, refine and articulate teaching practice. As stated by Barth (2001:66) "...with written words come the innermost secrets of schools". This prototype simulation allows the user to adopt the role of a Kindergarten teacher using a daily literacy teaching episode called "days of the week". The user is asked to make decisions about the organization and implementation of this recurring teaching episode. The range of options that occur in this episode stem from the teacher-created script we developed from our own research to shape this virtual classroom.

KID04997   [Paper]
Reducing maths-anxiety: The effectiveness of an online anxiety survey

Lisa Uusimaki and Gillian Kidman, Queensland University of Technology

Large numbers of primary preservice student teachers' experience maths-anxiety and negative beliefs when entering teacher education courses. This study investigated the reduction of maths-anxiety in sixteen self-identified maths-anxious preservice student teachers. These students were engaged in the development of their mathematical repertoires within the context of a supportive computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. The design of the Intervention Program used in the study was informed by a theoretical framework derived from the literature in the fields of learning environments, novel open-ended mathematical activities, computer supported collaborative learning, community of learners and negative beliefs about learning and teaching mathematics. A focus for this study will be findings from the online anxiety survey that allowed participants to self-monitor their feelings as they engaged with the various mathematical activities. The findings suggest that a significant decrease in participant maths-anxiety occurred as they became aware of their emotional state and feelings in relation to each mathematical activity.

KIG04231   [Paper]
The development of a literacy of pedagogy for preservice teacher education students

Julie Kiggins and Brian Cambourne, University of Wollongong

In this paper we will report and discuss our decision to develop a framework for preservice teachers that gave them a literacy for talking about and discussing teaching and classroom practice. The development of this framework was motivated by experiences coordinating the alternative teacher education program known as the Knowledge Building Community Program at the University of Wollongong over the last five years. A question we had to address in this program was: "How can we help preservice teachers, in their very first School Based Learning experience, understand and get control over such complex things as creating and maintaining classroom settings that support effective teaching and learning"? While there are proven frameworks based on the "Productive Pedagogy" model available for experienced teachers, our experience was that pre-service teacher education students lacked the background knowledge and experiences to use such models effectively, (at least until their final year of study). We therefore decided to develop and trial a framework based on a theory of behaviour settings pioneered by Roger Barker (1968, 1978). Barker's theory of behaviour settings proved to be sufficiently robust and enabled the major stakeholders i.e. preservice teachers, mentor teachers, and University facilitators to describe, discuss, and talk about classroom practice and experience without trivialising the complexity of the primary classroom.

KIG04789   [Paper]  ®
The teaching of narratives

Mutuota Kigotho, Macquarie University

This paper presents a case for the use of narrative as an instructional tool. Available literature on the narrative and reviewed within the last thirty years seems to suggest that narrative might be a significant tool of instruction. Given the variety of uses that researchers in narrative have explored so far, the paper suggests that the narrative has the potential to influence the school system and that the public might be better served by enhancing and encouraging students and teachers to continue the practice of using narrative in teaching and learning especially in the lower secondary school.

KIL04172   [Paper]  ®
Leadership for rural school community partnerships

Sue Kilpatrick and Susan Johns, University of Tasmania

This paper presents a model for examining effective leadership for rural school community partnerships, derived from Australian research supported by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. The research team investigated effective school community partnerships in five different Australian rural locations. Four government and one independent school featured in the study. Partnership effectiveness was confirmed by seeking advice from a range of experts including State, Commonwealth, independent school and Catholic education authorities, as well as rural education professionals. The particular focus of the study was on the community outcomes of such partnerships.

The model is consistent with, but further develops, earlier partnership models. It uses the leadership process, rather than the leader, as the unit of analysis. The model outlines a five-stage process of partnership development: trigger, initiation, development, maintenance and sustainability. While the stages of the process appear to be consistent across study sites, the way in which the model is implemented differs according to context, with factors such as the level of maturity of the school community partnership influencing the process. The flexibility of the model, in terms of better understanding the contextualised nature of educational leadership, suggests it has broader application beyond rural school community partnerships.

KIL04329   [Paper]  ®
Who are the children whose behaviour is of concern to schools?

Peter Kilpatrick, Department of Education, Tasmania

In 2002 and 2003 the Esk District in Tasmania undertook a project to examine the characteristics of students whose attitude to education or behaviour was deemed by their schools to be of serious concern. In 2002 data was collected from schools with students grouped into four categories, Aggressive Violent, Aggressive Contained, Disaffected and Not Understanding Consequences. As the project advanced the boundaries between these categories became blurred and it eventually appeared that there was a single group of students and how they acted depended on a number of factors including literacy levels and socio-economic factors. For 2003 schools were asked simply to provide 3 or 4 key words to describe the behaviours (The analysis of the 2003 data is incomplete at the time of writing this paper). This project uses data provided by the schools as well as systemic data on student attainment in literacy and numeracy, suspensions from school, attendance and socio-economic data pertaining to the schools to generate data on students who exhibit problematic behaviours. This data collection is now in the second year of collection and there are many differences between the two sets of data which will require further longitudinal study to clarify. This data is being used to give direction to the selection and funding of special projects within the district to address the needs of these students.

KLE04357   [Paper]  ®
Remaking the teacher and redesigning preservice teacher education in/for uncertain times

Mary Klein, James Cook University

Times are changing, but structurally and pedagogically teacher education looks very much as it did decades ago. While there has been some tinkering around the edges, some innovative use of ICTs and other technologies to enhance student learning, teacher education itself and policy documents such as Australia's Teachers: Australia's Future (Department of Education, Science and Training, DEST, 2003) endure as bastions of outmoded humanist assumptions about learners and learning-to-teach that, at the very moments they speak of transformation, in operation preclude significant change. New and uncertain times demand newly conceived teaching/learning interactional patterns in universities (and schools) that, in recognising their constitutive force, nurture not only the construction of intellectual knowledge but also innovative ways-of-being a lifelong learner (teacher) living with (in)difference, diversity and uncertainty.

KLE04897   [Paper]
Developing standards for leaders in Victorian Catholic Schools

Lawrence Ingvarson and Elizabeth Kleinhenz, Australian Council for Educational Research and Anne McDonald, Commission of Catholic Education

In 2003-4, the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria undertook a project to develop standards for school leadership. A specific aim of the project was to provide a "bridge" to leadership that would encourage teachers to undertake leadership tasks and to consider moving into formal positions of leadership. This paper reports on the experiences and challenges of developing standards that matched this purpose. It also reviews school leadership standards that have been developed in Australia and overseas over the past decade. A comparison is drawn between standards for teachers and standards for leaders in schools, making the point that, whereas teaching standards are specific to the profession of teaching, leadership extends across many areas and occupations. In accordance with contemporary understandings of distributed leadership, the CECV standards were designed as a generic articulation of what leaders know and do rather than descriptions of school principals' responsibilities. The standards were developed to provide a framework for the assessment of leadership performance and to suggest tasks that teachers may undertake to gain leadership experience. The paper discusses the major challenge of identifying these tasks and articulating them in standards for leaders, within the various areas of the daily work of schools.

KO04201   [Paper]
The interface between teacher act and the improvement of students' learning

Po Yuk Ko, Hong Kong Institute of Education

Drawing on the empirical data of the Learning Study projects conducted in primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong since 2000, this paper discusses the relationship between teacher act and the improvement of students' learning. This paper argues that students' perception of the object of learning depends on how they experience the pattern of variation created by the teacher during the teaching act. "What varies" and "what remains invariant" both matter. Thus teaching should be a conscious structuring act, where teachers actively construct the learning experiences for the students so that they can experience appropriate variations in the object of learning, in order to bring about the intended discernment and learning.

KOE04870   [Paper]  ®
The positioning of international education and international students: Multiple discourses and discursive practices

Norma Koehne, Monash University

International education can be positioned within a number of discourses. This paper will look at the way it is positioned within the discourse of power and knowledge within the western academy. In particular, it is interested in the ways international students are positioned within this discourse, and how it impacts on their construction of their storylines about self. Postmodern and poststructuralist ways of talking about discourse are used to uncover the complexity of international education, particularly Foucault's ideas about knowledge and power, the possibility of deconstructing taken-for-granted assumptions in discourses, and the multiplicity of ways subjects are positioned within discourse and in narratives about self. These open up spaces for different ways of thinking about international education.

KOM04157   [Paper]
Doing it in the courts: Opening research to public scrutiny

Linda Komesaroff, Deakin University

This paper analyses the positioning of researchers and their research by the courts in legal complaints brought against educational authorities. Over the past decade at least eleven formal complaints related to deaf children's access to native sign language in education have been lodged with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

This ongoing legal action has brought a pedagogical debate over educational policy into the courts. The most recent case to reach the Federal Court of Australia was taken by the families of two deaf children against a state educational authority, allegedly for failing to provide the children with an adequate education. The complainants called for teachers fluent in Auslan (Australian Sign Language) or interpreters to be employed alongside mainstream teachers.

As a researcher in this field, I have acted as an expert witness in eight of these cases, tendered my thesis as evidence, and been cross-examined in the Federal Court. Court transcripts from the two most recent cases provide the data for an analysis of the way in which legal counsel position researchers (as 'advocates', having vested interests, representing lobby groups) and interpret their research to support the legal arguments being made.

KOO04010   [Paper]
Conceptualising the research strategies: A personal configuration of positioning educational research

Marianne Sham, Hong Kong Institute of Education

The paper reflects on a research journey which comprises of thirteen papers presented in local and international conferences over the last five years. The researcher on the one hand moved along a self journey of studying a doctoral degree; while on the other hand, worked collaboratively with a group of teachers and principals to investigate curriculum issues and problems. Meaning-making and the ways of engaging research participants in the collaborative research journey were put in the forefront of the researcher's epistemological and ontological positioning, and methodological considerations during and beyond the research journey of doctoral studies. In this paper, the traditional relationships between the researcher and the research "subjects", between the research methods and the outcomes, between the research purposes and the research significance are thoroughly examined and contested in the light of ethics in education and research.

Very often, researchers are positioned to the crossroad of "publish or perish" as higher education institutions demand academics to present papers in conferences and journals for scholarly output. This paper presents a set of values which may help explain how efforts have been made to overcome the either-or debate between public goods and private interests. The paper concludes by adopting a personal configuration of positioning educational research in a disillusioned but interdependent world of change.

KOS04610   [Paper]
Rethinking the spatiality of literacy practices in multicultural conditions

Alexander Kostogriz, Monash University

The last two decades have witnessed a resurgence of interest in exploring the spatial contours of sociocultural life. The renewed interest in the category of space reflects, to some extent, an attempt to delineate a more multifaceted approach to the studies of sociocultural practices in conditions when the processes of globalization - transnational economic and cultural-semiotic flows - have challenged and changed the ways people use and perceive spaces and locations. While the "spatial turn" (Soja, 2000) in cultural studies has directed our attention to how spatial arrangements operate as a constitutive dimension of social activity, the implications of these studies for research in education and for pedagogical practices still remains largely underutilized. Even though spatial issues have been an important topic in empirical research into learning, space has been predominantly conceived of as a set of variables or as a static and neutral context in which pedagogical processes unfold. Moving beyond the limitations of the "space-as-container" ontology (Gotham, 2003), this paper offers a Bakhtinian dialogical perspective on the use if cultural-semiotic spaces, in particular with regard to the production of new transcultural meanings and hybrid literacy practices that are a result of interactions between differences. From this perspective, rather than being neutral and static, cultural-semiotic space is constructed in the constant process of change given the struggle between centrifugal and centripetal forces that operate on the level of spatial and textual politics; that is, between the processes of cultural and textual uniformization and local fragmentation. Given the dialogical nature of space and its relation to the cultural identities of migrant and minority students and their literacy practices, I argue for rethinking literacy education in multicultural classrooms. This task becomes more urgent in the current educational era of standards, accountability and classroom pedagogies; an era that is neither attuned to the particularities of students' intertextual practices, nor the emergent transcultural places in which they live.

KOU04335   [Paper]  ®
A study of students' perceptions of science classroom learning environment and teacher-student interaction in Jammu: A cultural perspective.

Rekha Koul and Darrell Fisher, Curtin University of Technology

This paper is a part of a larger study to investigate student-teacher interactions and science classroom learning environments in Jammu, India The present study reports on the research findings on associations between students cultural background and their perceptions of their teacher interaction and classroom learning environment, as measured by a standardised test. A sample of 1,021 students from 31 classes in seven co-educational private schools completed a survey including the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI), What is Happening in This Class (WIHIC) and a question relating to the cultural background. Statistical analysis shows that the Kashmiri group of students perceived their classrooms and teacher interaction more positively than those from the other cultural groups identified in the study.

L

LAD04811   [Paper]
Modelling pedagogy in Australian school reform

James Ladwig, The University of Newcastle

In the past decade there have been several well publicised school reform initiatives in Australia designed to improve the quality of what happens in classroom, as a means of improving student learning outcomes. While there remains heated public debate about the implications of these initiatives, there is wide consensus about the importance of pedagogy and the need to focus on classroom practices as the core business of teachers. Central to these developments has been an attempt to develop models of pedagogy for both research and professional development purposes. This paper provides an empirical overview and assessment of the development of the Productive Pedagogy model used in Queensland and the NSW Quality Teaching model, a summary of their immediate origins. Included in this paper will be an analysis of the limitations of prior Australian research using these models and an outline of how the current research (SIPA) will address some of these limits.

LAI04196   [Paper]
Teachers' perceptions of teaching Sex Education in Hong Kong pre-schools: A pilot study

Yuk-ching, Eva Lai, Hong Kong Institute of Education

In Hong Kong, once a British colony, 'sex' has traditionally been viewed as taboo, and as such, seldom talked about or openly discussed in public. Schools have therefore not implemented sex education. Mass media further challenges the moral standards and values of teenagers by distributing sexual material which is distorted in nature. All these factors contribute to an increase in sexual promiscuity, sex related crime and incest, of which some victims are young children. Since the first few years of a person's life are the most important in the formation of their value and behaviours (Opper, 1996), the foundation of sex education should begin early.

The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the Hong Kong teachers' perceptions of teaching sex education in pre-schools. One kindergarten and one childcare center were selected for this study. Two pre-school heads and six teachers were interviewed. The findings indicated that almost all of the teachers did not have confidence in teaching sex education in their pre-schools, because they had inadequate knowledge and skills. Interestingly, the findings also showed that some unmarried teachers felt embarrassed to implement sex education. Nevertheless, they were willing to take up the responsibilities of teaching sex education if they had sufficient training.

LAK04460   [Paper]
Significant influencers and early adolescents: A literature review

Stephen Lake and Christine Eastwood, Queensland University of Technology

While developing their identity, early adolescent boys wonder who they are and who they might become. They are building on the past and shaping their future. Friends and parents are usually with the boys, and other adults are potentially important influencers as the boys become young men. Parents who guide and direct, set limits and appropriately discipline their teenage children play a positive part in the development of their adolescents and it appears that parental support and monitoring is associated with higher identity achievement in adolescents. The influence of extended adult networks, particularly grandparents and teachers, is considered along with the influence of non-parental adults on 'at-risk' young people. Beyond peers and the immediate and extended family, adolescent young people indicate the importance of other adults, primarily for mentoring, guidance and support. Research in this field has only in the last decade begun to identify the possible effects of these supportive relationships on early adolescents' development.

LAM04049   [Paper]
Focus group interviews: Music teachers' perspectives on promoting creativity in young children

Wai Man Stella Lam, The Hong Kong Institute of Education

This paper will present the findings of a research project whose major objective was to investigate how teachers think and behave about using a new approach in music education centered on promoting creativity in young children.. Focus group interviews were conducted with 30 participants from 2 local kindergarten with nearly equal socio-economic status. These interviews were transcribed and video-recorded for later analysis. The interview questions covered five main topics on the theme "Early Childhood Teachers' Promoting of Creative Music Education for Young Children" and included: definition of musical creativity, observable characteristics of creative kindergarten teachers in music, types of teaching strategies/activities that stimulate musical learning, social interactions and problem solving and characteristics of musically creative kindergarten children.

Preliminary analysis of the findings revealed different views and perspectives concerning musical creativity. Observable characteristics of creative kindergarten teachers in music included flexibility, and willingness to try different methods to encourage enjoyment in children. A creative musical classroom should provide access to musical instruments, integrate music elements into the daily curriculum and provide free play experiences. Music teachers should apply teaching techniques that make use of demonstration and encourage problem-solving skills. Musically creative children express themselves readily are willing to take risks.

LAM04571   [Paper]
Learning and Affect in the Research Higher Degree

Rolene Lamm

The present study explores the student experience of learning within the doctoral process and its emotional concomitants. This work is informed by a multi disciplinary framework comprising educational, scientific, neurological, biological and psychological work which recognises the interdependence of mind and body, the interplay of emotions and consciousness and the close connection between affect and cognition .In general, higher degree research study was found to be significant, meaningful and transformative, with strong emotional overtones. Research students were found to experience a range of heightened emotions in relation to the research learning process as well as within the supervisory interaction. As students progress through the study, continually changing, yet extreme emotional states identified included enthusiasm, excitement, anxiety and depression. A number reported anxiety, trauma, self doubt, and academic insecurity regarding their sense of intellectual prowess. This paper discusses learning and affect in doctoral candidature and the supervisory implications.

LAM04575   [Paper]
Nurture or challenge in research higher degree supervision

Rolene Lamm

This paper discusses the findings of a multidisciplinary quantitative and qualitative investigation which explores features of the supervisory relationship which impact on doctoral students' learning, their personal and professional growth as well as on the efficient completion of their theses.

The fact that the strongest needs expressed by students in this study were for elements of facilitation and challenge suggests that students want a substantial amount from the interpersonal supervisory relationship. It emphasises the centrality of the personal interaction as part of the learning and growth process, creating an environment safe enough to allow for intellectual confrontation, rigour, challenge, and criticism as well as the possibility for dialectic and exploration. Additionally, within the supervisory interaction is the need for nurture to ensure adequate encouragement, motivation and personal support for research students to keep up the momentum towards constant progress.

The simultaneous supervisory provision of facilitation and challenge may impose a degree of supervisor role strain. Supervisory implications will be discussed.

LAM04859   [Paper]
Factors affecting student retention in Australia

Stephen Lamb, University of Melbourne and Chris Bain, Queensland Department of Education and the Arts

This paper examines the main drivers of current trends in retention rates across Australian States and Territories. Factors contributing to retention, identified in an extensive literature review and interviews with school and policy staff, were used to develop conceptual models of retention in Australia, the first based on state differences in retention and the second on individual decision-making. Data on apparent retention rates for 2002 and data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth were employed to model retention. The results suggest that a national strategy for increasing retention should aim at reducing differences between student groups and communities within States and Territories. In the long term, this will also reduce the gaps between the States and Territories. Modelling of factors affecting retention between student groups within States and Territories highlights the impact of successful learning on retention, including both the direct effects on individual plans and the indirect effects of peer impact and family aspirations. The focus in policies aimed at promoting higher levels of retention needs to be on creating the conditions for effective learning and personal growth that underpin quality retention is the strength of programs, depth of experiences and quality of learning provided in schools.

LAN04280   [Paper]
The Ithaka Project: Where are we travelling?

Julie Landvogt, University of Melbourne

What does curiosity mean in Year 2? How does critical thinking develop in Year 8, and is there overlap between what we mean by this in science and in history? What does "open mindedness" look like on Wednesday period 2?

These questions have guided the first phase of The Ithaka Project, a project supported at this stage largely by MLC and MGS within the context of professional learning programs. Using the ideas of Intellectual Character and thinking dispositions (Ritchhart, 2001) as a starting point, teachers have developed investigative projects to:

1. Explore the meaning of the proposed "thinking dispositions" in relation to daily practice and classroom culture
2. Develop a common language with which to reflect on teaching and learning
3. Review and refine curriculum in terms of big picture goals as well as the detail of unit structure, and the relationship between assessment, learning and curriculum statements
4. Link with professional recognition schemes and higher degrees

More than 40 teachers are involved, guided by a review panel representing schools and tertiary institutions. In addition to projects, there have been reading groups, theoretical discussions, a newsletter, and meetings throughout the year for the presentation and discussion of work in progress.

LAN04284   [Paper]
From the outside towards the inside: Partnerships and pitfalls

Julie Landvogt and Sally Godhino, University of Melbourne and Gaell Hildebrand, Monash University

As a conclusion to the symposium, this paper will draw together two strands of the findings of this project to date: The realities of practitioner research, and the ways it might be most effectively structured to be practical, rigorous and relevant to daily practice; Tentative findings about the thinking dispositions proposals, and questions with which to move forward.

LAS04710   [Paper]
Educating teachers in child protection: Lessons from research

Louise Laskey, Deakin University

This paper examines research about child protection preparation of teachers. Such research indicates that the nature of the training required to "do the public good" would differ markedly from that which is currently on offer in most teacher education courses. Whilst teachers have the potential to operate as frontline respondents in combating child abuse, the limitations of their training create a situation in which they are "worried, lacking in confidence and stressed about their ability to comply with mandatory reporting legislation" (Bluett, 2002). The consequences to the community are substantial: not only are there disincentives for teachers to participate in child protection roles and the increased likelihood of poor quality reporting, but children subjected to abuse may be unable to access protective services via the school system. The paper distills the findings of recent studies to identify design parameters for effective teacher preparation in child protection. The paper concludes that a program informed by research has the potential to produce enhanced outcomes for children, teachers and the broader community.

LAT04963   [Paper]  ®
The virtual classroom as a pedagogical space in preservice teacher education

Gloria Latham, Julie Faulkner, Shelley Dole, Mindy Blaise, Karen Malone and Josephine Lang, RMIT University

In preservice teacher education programs, professional practice is typically an integral part, offering a partnership between schools and universities and a space for preservice teachers to experience and experiment with theory into practice. Professional practice sites are generally familiar environments to both direct post Year 12 and mature age preservice teachers. Yet sometimes, professional practice sites, as places where information and communication technologies have changed the way we think and learn, provide little stimulus for reflecting on teaching and learning for the 21st Century. The creation of a virtual classroom in a virtual school was conceived as a means to provide a space for preservice teachers to observe, question, and challenge established schooling practices. In this paper, the virtual classroom is described and analysed.

LAU04260   [Paper]
A tertiary curriculum for sustainability

Alexander Lautensach, University of Auckland

Current educational practice in the mainstream worldwide is not fulfilling its potentially pivotal role in counteracting the environmental crisis. Tertiary education has even been accused of contributing more to the problems than to their solutions. The shortfall is caused by the transmission of harmful or counterproductive values, beliefs and attitudes and by the failure to elicit more productive learning outcomes. In this paper I summarise pertinent findings of my recently completed doctoral thesis. The first part presents the case for educational reform by outlining the manifestations of educational shortfall at the tertiary level. In the second part I propose the main agenda and general aims of a comprehensive curriculum reform to address those problems. They include re-defining progress as achieving sustainability, replacing anthropocentric values with ecocentric values, remedying skill gaps, re-orienting education towards the future, eliminating parochialism from education systems and empowering the learner to take action.

LAW04351   [Paper]
Identifying quality in teacher-education students' mental models of self-regulation processes in learning

Michael Lawson and Helen Askell-Williams, Flinders University

Teacher education students' mental models of learning are of major functional importance. It is from these models that the students will generate many of the teaching plans and actions that will be used in lessons with their own students. Several streams of research have raised doubts about the degree of development of these models. At a general level, researchers have questioned whether the student-teachers' models were adequate to generate productive connections between their teaching actions and the learning processes of their students. In more specific analyses, the student teachers' vocabulary related to learning has been found to be relatively imprecise, suggesting the availability of limited analytic frameworks. Other research has reported wide variation in the quality of the student-teachers' explanations of how learning is supported through activities such as class discussions. In this study we investigate pre-service teachers' knowledge about processes of self-regulation in learning. This knowledge is of interest because it forms part of the central core of learners' and teachers' models of learning. We describe the models of self-regulation processes, present analyses of dimensions of quality of these models and report on the students' technical vocabulary about processes of self-regulation.

LE04720   [Paper]
Language from the street: An ethnographic study of street kids' English in Vietnam

Mark Le, La Trobe University

Interactionalist theory in Second Language Acquisition research emphasises the importance of environmental factors as being fundamental determiners in learner competence in L2 learning. A growing body of research enquiry into the role of interaction is yielding evidence that participation in interaction amongst learners holds a broader role in the learning process. How do environmental factors contribute to second language acquisition? Street kids' who vend postcards to tourists on the streets of Vietnam are involved in authentic communicative interaction on a day-to-day basis. This paper will investigate a group of children operating in a seemingly unstructured environment exhibiting signs of competent and active learning techniques from the so-called 'unskilled' and 'uneducated' children. In these findings I will attempt to demonstrate that these children not only have to negotiate the language meanings of words (semantics), structure (syntax), but of the language use itself, sociolinguistic competence such as how to address tourists, requesting information, complimenting and politeness, managing communication breakdown, negotiating prices, effective sales pitches to use, and to whom to pitch it to? How do they negotiate these cross-cultural discourse rules?

LE04798   [Paper]
A contrastive study of on-line communicative functions between undergraduate and postgraduate students

Thao Le & Quynh Le University of Tasmania

This paper is based on a contrastive study conducted with on-campus and off-campus students in a university context with a focus on communicative functions. The main aim of the study was to examine the nature of undergraduate and postgraduate students' communication in teaching and learning in terms of three communicative functions: procedural, social, and cognitive. It attempted to identify the underlying reasons why students wanted to communicate with their lecturer via email communication. The data analysis of undergraduate students indicates the predominance of procedural functions in their communication and strongly reinforces the assumption that students were mainly concerned about academic procedure and conformity. This is against the view held by many academics in different levels of education that communication in teaching and learning should be fundamentally a meaning making process and teaching is to facilitate the minds of learners to make sense of knowledge. However, the communication of on-line postgraduate students shows a balance of three clusters of functions. This phenomenon can be explained in terms of curriculum control and interpersonal relationship in an academic discourse.

LE04799   [Paper]
Intercultural health metaphors

Quynh Le & Thao Le, University of Tasmania

Metaphors reveal a great deal about our perception, judgment and value. They could be considered as the significant scaffolding surrounding serious efforts at developing comprehensive descriptions, explanations and predictions of phenomena, events, and conceptualisation. Metaphors can generate insights about how things are perceived in reality. A metaphor indirectly or implicitly indicates our perception and attitudes, particularly in relation to the social values. If a hospital is perceived metaphorically as a home, this metaphor brings with its positive features held by the metaphor users such as warmth, care, security, kindness etc. On the contrary, if a hospital is perceived as a clinical factory, it reveals negative images and feelings such as cutting the flesh, indifferent, fear, cool blood etc. A study based on narrative research methodology of Vietnamese migrants' perception of health concepts in an intercultural discourse was conducted. It attempted to understand the cultural meaning that Vietnamese migrants used to interpret and value health concepts and issues in terms of their Vietnamese metaphors applied to the Australian context.

LEE04483   [Paper]
An analysis of students' writing at a university in Japan: How do native speakers write differently from international students?

Nagiko Lee, Ritsumeikan University and La Trobe University

Declining numbers of local students, together with a trend of globalization in tertiary education, has encouraged universities in Japan to accept a larger number of students from overseas. Universities are now facing a challenge of providing academic support to such international students. The present study has been conducted in such an academic climate. It has compared linguistic features found in opinion essays written by Japanese-as-a-second-language (JSL) students and native speaking students at a university in Japan. Data were collected from 58 JSL students and 36 Japanese students enrolled at the same year-level of the same university. They were asked to write a short essay in response to a prompt soliciting their opinions. The collected essays have been analysed to answer the question, "How do native speakers write differently from JSL students?" One of the differences has been found in the way they present thematic development by using such grammatical constructions as relative clauses and cleft sentences. Such constructions, serving as cohesive devices in discourse, have received little attention in JSL textbooks. Incorporating lessons on such cohesive features is suggested.

LEI04965 [Paper]   ®
Methodological insights from children's accounts of everyday practices in school

Ann Farrell, Susan Danby, Michele Leiminer and Kathy Powell, Queensland University of Technology

The sociology of childhood framework is generating new approaches to researching children as competent informants of their own everyday experience. Seeing children as competent research participants contrasts much educational research that sees children as developing and seeking to attain competence and provides valuable methodological insights of home and school. Participants were children aged 7-12 years enrolled in two Brisbane schools. This paper investigates children's own accounts of their everyday practices in two Brisbane schools. It provides accounts of how children, themselves, make sense of their everyday lives and how they feel about making decisions or having decisions made for them. The paper demonstrates that negotiating various forms of adult-determined regulation and control is an important and necessary part of children's everyday lives. So too, it shows that some forms of adult regulation are more acceptable to children than others and that finding social spaces outside adult regulation is an important part of their everyday lives.

LEM04966   [Paper]
Teaching, learning, reflection and metacognition in our classroom

Narelle Lemon, University of Melbourne

What do educators believe effective teaching and learning are? In such a complicated and intricate issue, many opinions can be given with varied definitions. You can often hear comments about teaching colleagues such as "he is such a great teacher, he gets along with the students so well, I think he prefers to hang out with the kids rather than teach". Then there are the comments about fellow teaching staff such as "the results she gets from the students is fantastic, she really engages them". Is an effective teacher someone who has a great rapport with the students, or someone who engages the students, or a combination of both? Or is it something else totally? In our role as teachers we learn, teach and use reflective and metacognitive processes. It is a relationship that could be described as complicated, where each element has an important role, yet they can affect each other in varying ways. A relationship where more than one element is present, yet if all are present there is an exceptional and ideal working relationship for the educator. As teachers, when guiding our students through these processes, we also learn from them, through our own reflection and metacognitive steps. The cycle intertwines with each other and is ongoing. This presentation looks at the relationship between teaching, learning, reflection and metacognition in the classroom.

LEU04733 [Paper]
Development of an objective humour appreciation assessment scale

Ben Leung, Monash University

A Sense of Humour (SOH) is considered a highly desirable human characteristic. It has attracted scholarly enquiry in many disciplines including communication, education, linguistics, literature, medicine, philosophy and psychology for centuries. Attempts have been made by researchers, although more in the field of psychology, to develop a reliable instrument to assess one's sense of humour. As a result, a number of Sense of Humour (SOH) psychometric measurement scales have emerged. On the other hand, these scales tend to measure more on people's attitudes towards humour and their perceptions of themselves through self reports. Reliable and rigorous as they may be, there arise questions of objectivity. It is under such circumstances that I embarked on a exploratory research study to develop an additional measurement scale that would objectively assess people's appreciation of three types of visual and written humour namely aggression, sex, and double meaning. In this paper presentation, I will give a brief review of current measures of Sense of Humour. Then, I will detail the process of developing the above objective measurement scale and report on the reliability and validity analyses of it. Finally, I will discuss some implications and applications of this measurement scale in the educational context.

LEU04744 [Paper]
Humour, personality and social adjustment: A preliminary report on a correlation study

Ben Leung, Monash University

This research is a correlation study in investigating the relations between humour appreciation, sense of humour, personality, and social adjustment of adults in Victoria, Australia. Although there is some literature related to sense of humour, personality, and social adjustment, empirical studies have been scant. Likewise, there has been no study studying Australian adults. It is under these circumstances that I have embarked on this research study to examine links between sense of humour and humour appreciation across age, sex, culture, personality traits, and social adjustment. In conducting this study, I had developed an objective humour appreciation scale that was used in conjunction with existing validated measures of sense of humour, personality traits, psychological well-being, and social adjustment. These measures formed the basis of a research survey. The survey was then pilot-tested and data were subsequently collected and analysed principally by analyses of variance, factor analysis and correlational techniques. In this paper presentation, I will give an overview of the background of the study. Then, I will discuss the preliminary results that are originated from the statistical analyses. Finally, I will highlight some implications of this study in the educational context.

LEV04355   [Paper]
Internationalisation in secondary schools: Sharing private stories

Annabelle Leve, Monash University

I initially began my research because I was angry about how I was treated as a teacher practitioner. I wanted to talk about issues and concerns that seemed to conflict with the agendas of other members of my school's community.

My research interest is the result of my work with international fee paying students in a public secondary college. The teachers' stories I heard, and those I had to tell, were spoken in private, or not at all. Racism, discrimination and parochialism sometimes underscored these tales but were hidden behind the public rhetoric of multiculturalism, cultural diversity, internationalisation and globalisation. Yet marketisation appeared the imperative, and this took precedence over the school's stated objectives of introducing diversity into the school community.

What are the stories being told in the staffrooms and around the photocopiers? How can we hear them in order to formalise their contribution to crucial and ongoing debates over this aspect of internationalisation in our schools?

LI04177 [Paper]
Expectations of curriculum leaders in primary schools: Issues and implications

Wai-shing Li, The Hong Kong Institute of Education

Teachers play a key role in curriculum development and reform. One of the major targets of the present curriculum reform in Hong Kong schools is to strengthen and empower local primary school teachers to become change agents. To facilitate the local teachers to become curriculum change agents and action researchers, the Education and Manpower Bureau of Hong Kong has been recruiting experienced teachers for the position of Primary School Master/Mistress (Curriculum Development) (PSMCD) as curriculum leaders for initiating curriculum reforms and to develop local teachers to participate in action research in the local schools. To better equip the PSM(CD)s, a course specifically designed to train them was conducted. This is a study with 200 PSM(CD)s of their expectations and understanding of competence and knowledge needed to perform their duties of curriculum leadership. How much of their expectations have been met in their training? What problems have these curriculum leaders encountered? The results are enlightening for the course provider as well as teacher educators and school curriculum reformers. With a better understanding about the problems they encountered in schools, the education authorities concerned can then provide necessary and appropriate support for these curriculum leaders. Significant implications for school curriculum reforms are drawn.

LI04385   [Paper]
Evaluating the quality of learning: An experience from a language enrichment programme

Benjamin Li and Jennie Wong, Hong Kong Institute of Education

The switch of the teaching medium of junior secondary classes in Hong Kong from English (EMI) to Chinese (CMI) in 1998 has met strong opposition from parents for fear of possible decline in the learners' level of English proficiency due to reduction in exposure. To make up for this and to smoothen the transition from CMI to EMI in senior secondary level, a 3-year English Enrichment Programme (EEP) was piloted in selected schools starting 2001. An evaluation project assessing the effectiveness of the EEP was also launched in the same year. This paper reports the preliminary findings from the evaluation project on how well the students learnt in the EEP.

In the evaluation, emphasis has been given to analysing the extent to which three conditions necessary for optimal L2 learning were present in the students' learning process in the EEP. These conditions include comprehensible exposure and input, opportunities for L2 use with feedback, and motivation. The paper reports the process and findings of this evaluation. It was found that the three conditions did exist in the learning process, yet the quality of the provision of these conditions was doubtful. Recommendations will be offered on how the design and implementation of the EEP could be improved to ensure quality provision of the conditions so as to improve the effect of learning.

LIA04383   [Paper]
The World News Network: An invitation to participate

Ania Lian, University of Queensland

This paper begins with a brief introduction of the concept of the World News Network (WNN), an Internet-based information channel, created in order to engage academia and the world outside academia in a dialogue designed to challenge the parties involved in exploring the constructs in terms of which they act, and interpret actions. The extent to which this objective can be achieved depends on a number of factors. This paper discusses the structure of the WNN channels in relation to this objective. Following Luke (2004), the motivation behind the proposed structures is to create "some actual dissociation from one's available explanatory texts and discourses, a denaturalisation and discomfort, and making the familiar strange". The aim is to give rise to conditions which generate questioning of the concepts which, prior to the dialogue, seemed unambiguous and obvious. In order to create such a dialogic environment, it will be argued, its structures must be allowed to evolve together with the demands of the dialogic communication. This paper illustrates some ideas for such an organic platform which, unlike most educational systems, does not only seek to "manage communication", but is itself an object of this act management.

LIM04139   [Paper]
Computer assisted reading instruction of English as a Foreign Language

Kang-Mi Lim, University of Sydney

This study examined the impact of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) on Korean TAFE college students in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading classroom in terms of their perceptions of learning effectiveness, interest, motivation and their performance. This study compared CALL and traditional reading classes over one semester by testing student's reading performance and attitudes. A group of 80 first year English majors students were divided evenly into 2 classes. Both groups were taught by the same teacher and covered the same topic in their weekly two-hour reading lesson. A reading comprehension and vocabulary test was given at the beginning and the end of the semester to measure the students' performance. A written survey was also administered at the end of the semester. Classroom observations and group interviews supplement the data obtained from the surveys. There were no differences in students' performance on measures of reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge administered at the beginning and end of the semester. However, most students in the CALL class showed positive responses. Participants perceived their learning environment offered ample opportunities for collaboration and mutual support, as well as for exposure to, and interaction with, a variety of interesting, enjoyable and useful materials and tasks. Learners showed persistence and positive attitudes as they took on autonomous roles in the learning process. Consequently their motivation, appeared to be sustained and enhanced.

LIM04218   [Paper]
Patterns of communication in science and mathematic lessons in primary schools

See Kin Hai and Lim Siew Bee, Universiti Brunei Darussalam

This study attempted to investigate the relative effectiveness of interaction analysis feedback on the verbal behaviour of teachers teaching mathematics and science in primary five classes of six randomly selected primary schools in Brunei-Muara District. It also attempted to investigate the effects of the feedback system on pupils' attitude towards mathematics and science and their academic achievement in mathematics and science.

The sample used for the study consisted of 12 primary school teachers teaching mathematics and science subjects. These twelve teachers were pre-selected and were divided into feedback (experimental) and non-feedback (control) groups. Six teachers from the three schools were selected as the experimental group and the other six teachers from the other three schools were picked as the control group. One hundred and fifty-two pupils of average ability from the six schools were involved.

To examine the extent to which the feedback analysis system was effective, a modified Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS) was used to record classroom communications and the results provided as the feedback to the experimental group. Results showed that the feedback groups accepted pupils' feelings more, praised pupils more, used student ideas and initiated more pupils talk in the classroom. Effects of the feedback were encouraging with higher academic achievement and more favourable attitudes after teachers were given feedback.

LIN04457   [Paper]  ®
Parental needs and expectations of school-home communication in a child's preparatory year of school

Karen Lindner, University of Melbourne

Parental involvement has been consistently recognised as an influential factor in a child's education. Communication between school and home has become an important component in facilitating positive relationships between schools and families. While there has been significant research on the expectations of parents in this area prior to and during school transition, there is a lack of research into parental expectations of communication following the commencement of school.

This study investigated the needs and expectations of parents of preparatory students, about school-home communication. Data were collected using questionnaires and interviews and descriptive analyses were used to explore parental views about the type of information provided and the methods of communication. Results indicated that all parents considered information about their child's academic and personal/social development to be essential, and other information about the school was also considered important. The frequency of access to different methods of communication did not necessarily reflect parent perceptions of their usefulness. The study noted variations in responses between parents with different family circumstances.

The results demonstrate the diversity of parental needs and expectations of school-home communication: it is recommended that schools provide a wide variety of information to parents using a range of methods.

LIU04363   [Paper]
Project-based learning and students' motivation: The Singapore context

Woon Chia Liu, Shanti Divaharan, Jarina Peer, Choon Lang Quek, Michael Williams and Angela Wong, Nanyang Technological University

Project work (PW) initiative was introduced by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, to provide students with the opportunities to foster collaborative learning skills, to improve both oral and written communication, to practise creative and critical thinking skills, and to develop self-directed inquiry and life-long learning skills (Ministry of Education, 1999). Although PW has been introduced for a few years, not much research has been done in the Singapore context, especially in terms of its effect on students' motivation. To fill the empirical gap, this study will look at the extent in which PW promotes students' intrinsic motivation, as well as satisfies students' needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness. Specifically, data will be collected from about 200 Secondary 2 students with the use of a modified version of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI, McAuley, Duncan & Tammen, 1989) to assess students' interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, perceived choice and relatedness in the PW context and in their normal science lessons. Comparisons will then be made to establish whether there is any significant difference in terms of the students' experiences in the two different contexts.

LLO04021   [Paper]  ®
Looking for shadows: The cultural myths of the computer in the classroom

Margaret Lloyd, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will draw its findings from a recent study (Lloyd, 2003) which sought to identify the cultural myths of the computer in the classroom through a case study of computer education in Queensland state schools from 1983 to 1997. This was a period marked by its consecutive, discrete, high-profile and politically-motivated projects to put computers in classrooms. The emergent myths were categorised within their source metanarratives and were also positioned within a critical cultural framework. The term "computer education" is given to mean any curricular or classroom-based use of computers. This study addressed a hitherto neglected area of educational research by looking beyond the rhetoric and highlighting where policy decisions have been made on the basis of mythic assumptions.

The identification of the cultural myth(s) in this study was essentially a process of looking for shadows. Finding the twenty-seven pervasive myths which initiated and sustained the systemic policies, infrastructure programs and curricular decisions of the period under review involved rigorous processes of deconstruction, reconstruction, analysis and synthesis. The data sources were contemporary policy documents, Hansard entries, press releases and media statements, correspondence and interviews with stakeholders while the methodology employed was an adaptation of Descriptive Interpretational Analysis (Tesch, 1990).

LLO04263   [Paper]  ®
Unravelling an archive: Historicising 'doctorate'

Eluned Lloyd, Queensland University of Technology

Questions concerning the validity of the doctoral qualification in a post-modern millennium have propelled the concept 'doctorate' into the centre of hot debate and rigorous political and academic scrutiny. Unravelling the doctorate as it has been written in the past and bringing these stories into a present, offers the opportunity for re-thinking the concept doctorate and re-figuring process. This paper focuses on the creation of an education historiography that allows what has been known a 'history' or 'the past' into a 'spacious present' for re-examining what a doctorate may be.

LO04199 [Paper]
The development of Learning Study in Hong Kong as a powerful tool for teachers' professional learning and factors that lead to its success

Mun Ling Lo, Hong Kong Institute of Education

[ Note: You may experience an Adobe problem loading this paper. Click OK to the error messages.]

This paper describes the development of Learning Study in Hong Kong and analyses the factors that lead to the success and ready acceptance of Learning Study by the school community in Hong Kong. The paper first describes how Lesson Study, as described by Stigler and Hiebert, was brought into the Hong Kong context through a three year project in 2000. It was then further developed and renamed Learning Study to differentiate it from the Japanese Lesson Study. The potential of Learning Study as a powerful tool for teachers' professional development was quickly recognized. Two subsequent projects led to the adoption of Learning Study by over 100 primary and secondary schools in a matter of four years. The success of Learning Study in Hong Kong will be analysed under the following factors: methodology, partnership with higher education institutions, positioning, reform context and culture, and dissemination strategy. Its contributions to pre-service education, teachers' continuing development, research and development in education, and also to improving the status of the profession as a whole are also discussed.

LO04202   [Paper]
Teachers as learners: Learning within and across schools

Priscilla Lo, Hong Kong Institute of Education

This paper will use case studies to illustrate one of the key benefits of Learning Study; that the knowledge produced becomes public, first within the confines of the school in which the Learning Study is conducted, and then much more widely across schools as part of the dissemination process. Dissemination is a key part of the participating teachers' professional learning, as they reflect and prepare a presentation on the results of the study. Each teacher's personal professional development contributes to a collective knowledge base. One key feature of that knowledge base is how the action learning process contributed to an awareness on the part of the teachers of what is crucial in teaching the chosen topic - the critical features that have to be attended to in order to achieve the object of learning. A second feature of the knowledge base relates to the teachers' understanding of the pre-conceptions that students bring to the chosen topic and how these changed as a result of engaging in the study. More importantly, the paper will describe how the teachers interact with this knowledge base: learning from it, building on it, and contributing to it.

LOV041000   [Paper]  ®
Power discourse in PhD examination reports: A cross-disciplinary analysis

Melissa Monfries and Terence Lovat, University of Newcastle

The conceptual convergence of the Habermasian paradigm for "ways of knowing" and social cognitive approaches to power relations was used to analyse PhD examination reports. Previous analyses revealed that even when PhDs were given the highest evaluations, they were frequently accompanied by negative remarks. It is argued that examiners' epistemological beliefs obstruct the emancipation of knowledge and are representative of a conservative academic culture which protects its extant structures. Research in social psychology has demonstrated that people in positions of power are motivated to maintain their high power base. The combination of these philosophical and psychological tenets guided the analysis of the discourse used in examination reports of PhDs. The study examined 23 reports and showed that while there was evidence of the three hierarchies of power (examiner as expert, examiner as partner and examiner as learner/listener) in the discourse, it was dominated by negative comments and largely indicative of the examiner perceiving his role as that of expert. This was interpreted in light of the literature suggesting those in power are reluctant to relinquish their high power base.

LOW04847 [Paper]   ®
Pokemon Odyssey: The role of journey in new technology game playing

Tom Lowrie, Susan Clancy and Melanie Bowman, Charles Sturt University

New Technologies have provided us with the opportunity to consider the role of the journey in fantasy contexts in ways that go beyond traditional notions of passage and journey. This paper, which is part of a larger study, draws on sociological, mythological and fantasy literature about the role journey plays in real contexts and fantasy worlds in order to make sense of the idea of a journey in game-playing situations. This investigation examines how one enthusiastic young player of the technology-based Pokemon fantasy game relates to the journey process and in particular the manner in which maps as artefacts are used to successfully complete the journey.

LU04700   [Paper]
Editorial peer review in education: Mapping the field

Yanping Lu, The University of Newcastle

The quality of educational research is often a subject of contention; however, the methods for judging research quality have rarely been investigated systematically and thoroughly. Educational research is subject to a number of different quality control mechanisms, including peer review. This paper reports on one phase of a project that examines judgments about research quality and contribution in Education and the Natural Sciences. The first section of the paper is devoted to a review of the literature about the editorial peer review process in English language journals in Education and related fields for the period 1970-2004. The second section maps the editorial policies of over 600 education journals organized by three categories: journal type and orientation (e.g., field, readership), journal characteristics (e.g., the range of requirements) and journal ownership (e.g., association, commercial publishers). Many studies have shown the lack of visibility in the process of peer review and raised concerns about its legitimacy as a quality assurance instrument. Given the number and range of journals in Education, a mapping exercise is crucial to identify the predominant editorial practices in this field. This paper compares and evaluates policies prior to the next phase of the investigation which involves the analysis of referee text.

LYN04292   [Paper]  ®
Change happens: Acceptance of "impermanence" and "flow" in teachers' professional reflections on technology and change

Richard Johnson and Julianne Lynch, Deakin University

For several years the authors of this paper have monitored the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in primary and secondary schools. In this paper they report on their work in progress, focusing particularly on data collected via teacher interviews in 2003. It is a 'good news' story that celebrates a shift in the way school teachers approach ICT, and that shows that teachers are a lot more comfortable with ICT than the authors have previously observed. The authors argue that a significant transition has occurred in the hardware, software and 'warmware', the people and how they can work with the hardware and software as part of their pedagogy. Existing research tends to construct change as something that has to be planned, prepared for and managed (eg. Fullan, 1997), and as something that teachers often resist (eg. Cuban, 1993; Grunberg & Summers, 1992; Hodas, 1998). This paper is distinctive in drawing on Eastern approaches to understanding change. Through an examination of the concepts of "impermanence" and "flow," and how they apply to ICT, schools and teachers' work, we seek to demystify change: Change happens, has happened and will continue to happen. We conclude that teachers' increased familiarity with, and increasingly relaxed approach to, ICT has led to a shift in their attentions, such that they are less concerned with obtaining and mastering particular software and hardware, and more concerned with pedagogy and student learning.

LYN04923 [Paper]
What is the good of public schooling? 'Living the Values' at Southvale Primary School

Susan Barford and Andrew Kohne, Southvale Primary School and Julianne Lynch, Deakin University

Debates about the purpose of schooling date back to Ancient Greece and Plato's Republic, and can be tracked through to Dewey's Democracy and Education in the Twentieth Century, and to current debates in Australia about the goals of schooling, who decides, and who pays. The purpose of public education continues to be constructed, contested and reconstructed in policy, in the media, and through practices in school communities. Most commentators stress the importance of striking a balance between extrinsic and intrinsic values of schooling and between individual (private) and societal (public) gains. In Australia in 2004, one prominent area of debate has been the place of values education in our public schools. This paper tells the story of one school community's struggle to find its purpose and to implement school-wide changes in line with five values: Honesty, Caring, Respect, Self-responsibility and Tolerance. We describe how the values at Southvale Primary School were derived, how they now inform communication and relationships at the school, and how these values are beginning to inform pedagogy and curriculum. Our paper raises important questions about the purpose of schooling, the role of values education, and about who has a legitimate voice in these debates.

M

MA04318    [Paper]
How enriching is the English Enrichment Programme?

Anne Ma and Winnie Wong, Hong Kong Institute of Education

This paper reports the interim findings of a longitudinal study which aims at exploring the effectiveness of a 3-year English Enrichment Programme, on top of the regular English curriculum, in exposing secondary students to more subject-specific English while they learn their content subjects in the mother tongue. The study was carried out in response to the Hong Kong government's decision to firmly promote mother tongue teaching in her post-colonial era after 1997. To evaluate the effectiveness of this programme on students' learning of English, in-depth study with selected schools was done and different research tools including questionnaires, lesson observations, interviews and language proficiency tests were used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. It is found that the increased exposure to English may have had a positive effect upon students' perception of learning English, if not on actual performance. A closer look at the cases, however sheds light upon the intricate interplay between factors leading to the different degrees of perception about the effectiveness of the programme. These factors include: the willingness of the school to pool resources and efforts in making the most of the programme, the language competence of students, and the teaching focus and methods in class. Recommendations on the way forward will be discussed.

MAC04222    [Paper]
What counts as ICT Integration? A new theoretical framework for levels of technology integration

Ron MacDonald, University of South Australia

Successful integration of technology is a key goal of recent large investments in technology infrastructure in Western education systems. Conditions affecting successful integration in the classroom are in need of further elucidation. An extensive study was conceived to investigate modes of professional development, teachers? perceptions of formal and informal leaders, teacher attitudes regarding ICTs and the level of technology integration. A 152-item questionnaire was developed and used to gather data from a School District in Nova Scotia, Canada where 750 out of a potential 996 grade three to twelve teachers and administrators responded. Statistical analysis from this data was then used to guide the researcher to focus upon two Elementary, two Junior and two Senior high schools. At these six schools 71 teachers and administrators were interviewed and/or observed. The top ten technology integrators in the school district also participated in observations and interviews. The data show evidence of complex relationships between the components of professional development, leadership, teacher attitudes and the level of technology integration in the classroom. The data analysis required the development of a new theoretical framework for level of technology integration. This new framework includes levels of student-centredness, student-collaboration as well as levels of cognitive engagement.

MAC04641   [Paper]  ®
Socratic teaching, the law and professional identity

Rod Maclean, Deakin University

This paper uses criticial discourse analysis of interactions between law students and their lecturer to show how 'Socratic' teaching is used as a powerful technique to shape student identities. Data from a moot or simulated court in taxation law is analysed to show how students position themselves and are positioned as legal professionals. The paper argues that one student's poor performance in the moot can be interpreted as resistance to attempts to influence her to adopt an uncongenial speaking position. This example supports the view that the difficulty law students have in learning to 'think like a lawyer' results not from a failure of skill but from the problems they have in assuming the speaking position of a legal professional. It is suggested that educators should consider helping students come to terms with the fragmented and contradictory subject positions associated with professionalisation.

MAD041053    [Paper]
Barriers to study and their solutions

John Hall, Deakin University and Helen Madden-Hallett, Victoria University

This paper will discuss an autarchic learning system pertaining to higher education, particularly with application to business education. It is believed that one's teaching method is informed by one's theoretical principals of how learning occurs. The focus in this paper is on overcoming barriers to study by utilising methods that incidentally achieve self regulated and highly motivated learners. These methods are threefold, firstly; the clear use of nomenclature and its attendant conceptual understanding. The importance of this method is appreciated more fully when it is known that non-comprehension of a word or symbol is largely responsible for students leaving a course of study. Secondly, gradient learning which is similar to scaffolding and thirdly the provision of mass for the learner thereby providing balance between the doing of an action and significance of the idea behind that same action. The latter is akin to experiential learning. Of particular note are the physiological reactions in learners, which indicate precise comprehension difficulties and the methods of resolving each of these reactions which heretofore had not been recognized and therefore not resolved. The pedagogy used in a conventional university setting will be detailed and contrasted with this autarchic learning system. The mode of research is exploratory in nature and is presented as a case study. Findings strongly indicate students become far more able as learners when they have the knowledge of the types of learning barriers, they are coached to recognise the barrier when it occurs and apply the appropriate remedy as researched in this paper. These findings are of interest to educators, students, and industry as all sectors face significant social and financial losses because individuals are unable to duplicate instructions, maintain currency and plan tactically and strategically. This autarchic learning system provides the community and industry with a viable well educated population.

MAH04273    [Paper]  ®
Teaching, learning and assessment: The road to democracy

Lawry Mahon, Victoria University of Technology

Through this paper I will elaborate on and compare current teaching, learning and assessment philosophies and place them into one of three separate categories. The categories are:

• Behavioural approaches to learning
• Cognitive approaches to learning and
• Humanistic approaches to learning

I will offer ideas that have the opportunity to redirect much teaching practice towards an outcome for society that is different to current general practice. While much current practice sees daily and weekly planning as occupying much of its energy, and controlling disaffected children in classrooms that are becoming meaningless to them, I wish to demonstrate that there are alternatives that empower children to become good "decision makers", and that when the three overriding theories that have shaped education for the past hundred years are compared at the "practice" level, different practice becomes possible. I will demonstrate that much current teaching and learning adheres to conservative behavioural philosophies. I will also demonstrate that while behaviourism is still currently the strongest direction taken in Australian classrooms, society on the whole has demanded much more from its citizens than can ever be achieved by merely "response to stimuli" interactions amongst and between people.

MAH04721     [Paper]   ®
Strengthening the nexus between teaching and learning through increased attention to feedback to students: A research-led teaching approach

Mary Jane Mahony and A Poulos, University of Sydney

Feedback to students is a crucial aspect of the teaching-learning experience (Rowntree 1987; Ramsden1992). An on-going course evaluation program, the Student Course Evaluation Questionnaire (SCEQ) at the University of Sydney annually provides data on how students perceive their course experience. Reports from the SCEQ and other university quality assurance activities have prompted a Faculty-led action research approach to improvement of teaching-learning at the Faculty of Health Sciences. In this paper we report on the specific case of feedback to students and the Faculty's approach within this framework, including consideration of relevant literature, focus groups with students and a workshop with experienced university teachers in the Faculty. Dimensions of feedback are considered, including what students say about the feedback they receive, what staff say about the feedback they provide, and how the two are aligned. A specific strategy to achieve alignment, the use of grade descriptors, is discussed. The studies and practice here are positioned in the environment of the health professions' expectation of evidence-based practice and the University of Sydney's expectation of research-led teaching.

MAR04155     [Paper]   ®
Conceptual structures and Studies of Society and Environment: Shifting sands or is the beach bare?

Colin Marsh, Curtin University of Technology

Social Studies has been a contested area for over a century. Typically the focus has been on inter-disciplinary or multi-disciplinary approaches at the primary school level and separate subjects including history and the social sciences at secondary school level.

Social studies has had, and is having, an identity crisis (Ross, 2001). There is a need for a subject that addresses the real problems of the 21st Century society, and in particular a social justice perspective with opportunities for students to think and act responsibly. Yet, no clear consensus of how this might be achieved has emerged.

The initiative in Australia in the early 1990's to create a new school subject, "Studies of Society and Environment" (SOSE) was either commendable and worthwhile or shortsighted and pragmatically sterile, depending upon your point of view. What is needed is debate about the conceptual structure. Research studies are needed urgently to examine the impact upon schools, teachers and students. Does SOSE have an integrity of its own? Can it be justified as a worthy reconceptualisation of the field?

These questions and related issues are examined in this paper, in an attempt to discover where the "shifting sands" are heading and to see if there is anything "left on the beach" to develop and refine.

MAR04820 [Paper]   ®
The social and economic security of international students in Australia: A study of 200 student cases

Ana Deumert, Simon Marginson, Chris Nyland, Gaby Ramia and Erlenawati Sawir, Monash University

Polanyi (1944) noted that measures to improve social and economic security have a hostile but interdependent relationship with the market. These measures check the untrammeled forces of supply and demand, while also sustaining the social and economic reproduction of the market. A case in point is the global market in international education. The social and economic security of students is essential to the successful functioning of the market and relative security is instrumental in Australia's comparative advantage. Because international students have moved out of their nation of citizenship there is potential for slippage in rights and protections, and for variations in security between different student cases and locations. The paper reports on 200 semi-structured research interviews (2003-2004) with international students on-shore in Australia, at nine universities. The interviews cover financial problems, housing, health, language, work, academic problems, dealings with authorities, racism and discrimination, etc. These data enable us to describe and analyse the regime of international student security, in which the crucial roles are played by universities and informal networks; but university pastoral care has limits (especially when the problem originates within the university itself); and there are gaps in the overlap between government, university and informal networks.

MAR04956     [Paper]   ®
The preservation and maintenance of the knowledge of Indigenous peoples and local communities: The role of education

Zane Ma Rhea, Monash University

Research by Ma Rhea and Langton has found that education plays an important role in the preservation and maintenance of Indigenous peoples' and local communities' knowledge (Composite Report on Article 8j of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, UNEP (2003)). This paper raises issues surrounding the terms 'Indigenous' and 'local community'. It then analyses the evidence for the existence of Indigenous and traditional knowledge and the reliability of documentation of traditional knowledge in education curricula. Finally, the paper considers the role of adult and western-based education in the protection of Indigenous and traditional knowledge within the globalised market economy.

MAR04969     [Paper]   ®
Being research student - Becoming researcher

Elaine Martin, Victoria University

The good thing about an 'open door policy' is you never know who will wander in. The visit that introduces the issue addressed in this paper occurred shortly after I began my current job as Director of Graduate Research Studies. A woman in her mid thirties entered, unannounced, and declared she had just completed her Ph.D and needed to talk to somebody about it. At first, it seemed a success story. She had completed on time and was going overseas to work as a research assistant with a government agency. Five minutes in, however, I got what she was really saying. She was saying that what she felt most was a sense of loss, not a sense of growth or achievement and she needed to tell someone about this. She had gone into the Ph.D with a fascination for the topic area, a love of writing and a self-confidence to speak her mind. She had now emerged, three and a half years later, transformed. Her writing style she now described as terse and tedious; 'subject-verb-object-period sentences'. She had a strong understanding of the limitations of existing research and as a consequence a paranoia of doing anything but the safest work herself. Finally, she often found herself thinking 'so what' about the area she had once been so committed to.

This is a terrible story, at many levels, but the reason I raise it here is because it was the first time I realised how little we know and attend to the lived experience of our research students. When I talked to this student's former supervisor he was unaware of her trauma. For him she was a success, quick to learn and adapt, willing and obedient.

This pilot study is a small step towards understanding more about the lived experience of being a research student and becoming a researcher and towards helping me and other supervisors be more aware of this significant but uncharted territory. In the contemporary research-training environment there is a good deal of emphasis on completion rates (Holdaway, 1994); and a flurry of 'how to get through it efficiently' texts (see, for instance, Zuber-Skerrit, 1998). Genuine attempts to examine and articulate the complexity, subtlety and depth of this meaningful (meaning-full) learning experience are still rare, though there are some notable exceptions (see, for instance, Johnson et al., 2000).

MAR04975     [Paper]   ®
Accelerated Learning: Pedagogical issues in the design of the Yachad Accelerated Education and Work Readiness Project

Zane Ma Rhea, Monash University

This paper describes the pedagogical considerations underpinning a new education initiative in Australia, the Yachad Accelerated Education and Work Readiness project. This is a project in its pilot phase which seeks to improve the academic achievement levels of the lowest 25% of students in selected schools in Cape York, the East Kimberley and Shepparton. All of these schools face problems in achieving successful education outcomes for their students. This paper examines pedagogy in view of the context of teaching and learning in remote and rural schools in Australia, considers the lifeways of students in the selected schools, and discusses pedagogical considerations which arise when using accelerated learning principles in this environment.

MAS04631     [Paper]
Confronting the place of non-Indigenous educators in 'postcolonial' higher education: Which way for Indigenous educational practices and the public good?

John Maskell, Australian Catholic University

This paper examines the place of non-Indigenous educators working in Indigenous higher education environments. Based on a qualitative study using narrative inquiry as a method, the research seeks perspectives of knowing actions and meaning of the non-Indigenous educator. This research begins to trace the learning trajectory that occurs for non-Indigenous educators in cross-cultural settings.

The non-Indigenous educator is representative of the dominant culture in institutional and discipline-specific knowledge(s). However in community-based learning environments it is the Indigenous 'learners' that oft bring respected knowledge to the learning environment. How are non-Indigenous lecturers to engage pedagogically with the learners in the postcolonial environment? What relevance has this learning and teaching from life experience for the public good? What role can non-Indigenous educators provide to support Indigenous higher education? These recurring contestations of knowledge may situate non-Indigenous educators in particular ways within institutions.

From the above questions arise dilemmas and tensions that relate to the role of educators culturally 'outside' the Indigenous higher education environment. This paper will explore actions and meanings of the individual engaging 'community-based knowledges' such as occurs in Indigenous higher education institutions.

MAT04320     [Paper]
Class assessment: Can students be relied on?

Nuraihan Mat Daud and Nor Lide Abu Kassim, International Islamic University Malaysia

One of the educational objectives is to produce students who are critical of their own performance. This can be achieved if they are allowed a more active role in the evaluation process. This study examines the practicality of having students as one of the assessors. The study was conducted at the International Islamic University Malaysia. Marks given by three categories of assessors namely teacher, self and peer were compared to see whether there were any significant differences among them.

Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were used in collecting data. All assessors used the same assessment profile. The quantitative data was analyzed using many-faceted Rasch measuremnt model. The study shows that there were significant differences in the rating given by the three assessors. Different level of severity/leniency was also observed when different tasks were analyzed. The findings also indicate that there were significant differences in the difficulty level of the criteria used.

The qualitative data revealed that students had reservation about having to assess themselves. However, the quantitative data shows that the rating given by them was quite consistent.

MAT04402 [Paper]
Did Buddha laugh? Zen, humour and pedagogy

Julie Matthews, The University of the Sunshine Coast and Robert Hattam, University of South Australia

In academic and popularist text, Western interest in Zen pivots around its 'new age' spiritual appeal. Captured in titles like 'Zen and the art of X' or 'the Zen of Y', these texts explore the self-realisation necessary to relieve individuals of their often worrisome and frequently unwholesome 'selves'. Research and discussion of humour in education has been mainly concerned with its ability promote learner attention, motivation, comprehension and retention, or to facilitate positive teaching and learning relationships and environments (Powell and Anderson , 1985). Zen is introduced in terms of a 'healing deconstruction' (Loy 1996) that is radically anti-essentialising, in ways that have yet to be properly accounted for by poststructuralism. As well, Zen focuses on existential concerns and is interested in embodiment as knowledge, as uses impermanence, suffering and death as resources for technologies of self. As a philosophical/psychological tradition, Zen offers a form of praxis for living a life in which humour is understood to be one of its significant resources. Humour provides a space for serious contemplation on issues that are often repressed or silenced. Taking the comedic dimensions of Zen teaching as a focal point, this paper explores humour as pedagogy. It highlights practices such as the strategic use of paradox, irony, incongruity, unconventionality and distancing; the dissolution of dualisms; and the deployment of radical scepticism in Zen teachings, to argue for a more encompassing consideration of the pedagogic dimensions of humour.

MAU04227     [Paper]   ®
Developing life and employability: Towards a theory of adult and community education

Jill Sanguinetti and David Maunders, Victoria University and Peter Waterhouse, Workplace Learning Initiatives

The research described in this report is an investigation into the role and significance of 'generic skills' development in the context of the pedagogies that are common in ACE practice and that foster and develop generic skills amongst ACE learners. The research employed participant action research through which 23 adult and community educators recorded and reflected on their professional practice over a period of twelve weeks. The data they submitted was categorised using grounded analysis and initial findings fed back to the participants. A framework of four dimensions of ACE pedagogy was constructed:

The teacher

The teaching

The plACE and,

The curriculum.

Approaches or practices were identified which we have arranged into five categories of pedagogical principles:

Focus on people and communities

Continuous learning for work and life

Building learning on and within real-life contexts

Sharing power - empowering people & communities

Many roads to learning

The outcomes of this research also suggest the need for a form of teacher training and professional development that attends to the personal, professional and pedagogical development of the teachers themselves. This action research project demonstrates how such professional development programs could be carried out.

MAW04115     [Paper]   ®
Factors affecting children's learning in technology

Brent Mawson, Auckland College of Education

This paper reports the findings of a three-year case study of children's learning in technology education. Twenty children were tracked through their first three years of primary school, with data collection from both the formal school technology units and a range of targeted tasks being used to identify the children's progression in technological literacy. The learning in technology at the end of the three years is detailed and the four key factors which had the greatest impact on the children's learning are identified and the significance of each is explored. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for primary technology educators.

MAX041043     [Paper]   ®
Valuing practice: The place of practical legal research in academic life

Kay Maxwell, University of Wollongong and Julie Pastellas, Queensland University of Technology

Practical legal training has traditionally been the poor relation of the legal education family. Along with the similarly placed clinical legal education, it is a latecomer to formal legal education and its academic value is regarded with some reservation by those involved in more mainstream areas of academia. These reservations are not entirely unfounded. While few could deny the value of practical legal training in terms of teaching and contribution to the legal community, it is in the contribution to research and scholarship that practical legal training may be seen to be less successful. Few academics who teach in practical legal training go on to conduct research into it, external funding opportunities in this area are quite limited and such research as is conducted is not perceived to have a high academic value.

This paper draws on a research project conducted by the writers to explore the climate influencing research in practical legal training and the standards by which its research successes are measured. The paper relies on interview data obtained from PLT academics to ascertain obstacles to research in PLT and to postulate how positive outcomes for valuing practical legal training research might be achieved.

MAY041063   [Paper]
Public and private research funding in the US: Implications for university-based researchers

Diane Mayer, University of California at Berkeley

This paper critically analyses the current US context in relation to the conference theme. US education research is supported from a range of public and private sources. The establishment of the federal Institute of Education Sciences has highlighted the inability of the education research community to provide large-scale rigorous studies from which generalizations can be made in order to support education policy decisions. This organization aims to support the identification and implementation of educational practices supported by rigorous evidence. "The Institute of Education Sciences reflects the intent of the President and Congress to advance the field of education research, making it more rigorous in support of evidence-based education." Amongst other things, large grants have been awarded to support the Education Resources Information Center and the What Works Clearinghouse in order to highlight effective and replicable approaches aimed at improving student outcomes aligned with the objectives of No Child Left Behind. A range of other funding opportunities for university-based researchers are also examined, including philanthropic support. In conclusion, the outlined features of the context for education research funding support in the US are analyzed and implications drawn for university-based and 'independent' research aimed at educating for the public good.

MCA04419 [Paper]
Impact of courses for university teachers

Jan McArthur and Shirley Earl, Napier University, Vivien Edwards, University of Edinburgh.

Research into the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education at Napier University, Edinburgh has produced results that appear to challenge accepted thought on the impact of such courses on university teachers. A comparison of the teaching, learning and assessment strategies of academic staff who have successfully completed the PgCert and those who have not, suggests some differences in attitudes and strategies adopted, but not the very marked differences perhaps expected, or found by other researchers (eg. Gibbs and Coffey, 2004). Both groups espoused many aspects of accepted good practice such as student focus, use of a variety of teaching methods and provision of a variety of learning opportunities. Similarly attitudes to the purpose of assessment and the range of assessment techniques were also less contrasted than anticipated.

This session will explore the implications of the research for the continuing development of such postgraduate programmes and the implications of public policy initiatives such as moves to require registration/accreditation and/or training for all higher education teachers. The need to extend and debate our research in the current climate of policy change and external and internal questioning of academic skill will be considered.

MCC04134     [Paper]
Choice of schooling: A qualitative view

Angela McCarthy, University of Notre Dame Australia

The issue of choice of schooling in Australia has remained important since the arrival of the first European settlers in 1788. More recently the issue has been influenced by the increase in Federal funding in the private sector that has had the effect of extending the family's ability to makes choices about education. There have been a variety of community reactions to such choices and so quality research into this particular issue is of prime importance if balance is to be maintained in the debate. This paper presents the results of a qualitative research study where grounded theory was used to discover the meaning behind the choices that families make about education. Their underlying concern, the process of decision-making, and the overall focus of their actions are all theoretically presented. Grounded theory methodology provided a rigorous framework for the analysis of the data collected from families in both metropolitan and country areas and from government and non-government schools. The resultant theory will offer an interesting background to the public/private debate and to the relevant merits of each as education is increasingly perceived as a purchasable commodity.

MCC04270     [Paper]
Learning about professional learning: Case studies of schools at work in NSW

Norman McCulla and Josephine Gereige-Hinson, NSW Department of Education and Training

The extent of the human and financial resources that teachers have access to for their professional development, and the extent to which they have the capacity to determine when, how and with whom learning takes place, are key factors in determining the quality of professional learning that results.

The NSW Department of Education and Training is the largest employer of teachers in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2004 it introduced a four-year, $144 million program supporting teacher professional learning and a new policy framework for the area in response to needs teachers and research have identified.

This paper tells the stories of how 12 schools in a variety of locations throughout the state are going about interpreting the policy framework, the changes it is making to their practice, the implications the schools see for the immediate future of their professional learning programs, and the policy and research implications that arise.

MCC04697     [Paper]
Learning to teach: Narratives from early career teachers

Ann McCormack, Jennifer Gore and Kaye Thomas, University of Newcastle

The transition from preservice teacher education to practice in the workplace brings about a shift in role orientation and an epistemological move from knowing about teaching through formal study to knowing how to teach by confronting the daily challenges of the school and classroom (Feiman-Nemser, 2000). Becoming a teacher therefore requires not only the development of a professional identity but the construction of professional knowledge and practice. Studies examining the professional growth of beginning teachers during their initial teacher education course and the early days of teaching have recognised the uniqueness of each graduate, however, some common themes have emerged. This paper details a longitudinal study that tracked a sample group of 16 early career teachers through their first year of teaching. The teachers were encouraged to write about their experiences in journals and were interviewed along with a nominated mentor/support person in an attempt to provide a clearer understanding of how early career teachers achieve control of their own teaching and professional growth. This paper will make use of qualitative data to discuss their experiences and professional growth with the view to informing and strengthening teacher inservice support programs..

MCC04909     [Paper]
Exploring the culture of mentoring in one NSW primary school

Caron McCloughan, Brian Cambourne and Julie Kiggins, University of Wollongong

There is both anecdotal and statistical data, indicating that a significant number of beginning and experienced teachers in NSW are finding the complexities of teaching in today's primary classrooms more difficult. The NSW DET has acknowledged this and developed policies, which seek to incorporate mentoring as part of a major professional development strategy for on-going professional growth of teachers. While the concept of mentoring is not new, the range of interpretations of what it might 'mean' and 'look like' seems to be wide and varied. Given the interest in a system-wide introduction of mentoring, it was considered timely to explore the various interpretations and/or practices of mentoring within a NSW primary school. In this paper I will report the results of an observational case study that examined the range of perceptions and attitudes a group of classroom teachers from a Sydney primary school had about mentoring. The findings for this study not only have the potential to inform policies and practices of mentoring in other schools but they may also assist in addressing some of the major concerns classroom teachers have about mentoring in relation to the current state of their professional development needs.

MCD04888     [Paper]   ®
Supporting Indigenous students as "smart, not good" knowers and learners: The practices of two teachers

Helen McDonald, James Cook University

Issues of identity construction can be especially significant for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adolescents in Australian schools as they seek to find a place in a society in which they may not feel valued or represented. However, the concept of Indigenous identity is complex and contested as is the relationship between Indigenous identity and school success. This paper draws on qualitative research in a small urban secondary school. It details the practices of two remarkable teachers as they work to support the diverse identities of their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in ways which also allow the students to take on identities as knowers and learners in their classrooms. Their understanding of the students' identities involved them in seeing the students in multiple ways, constantly moving between the individual interests and needs of the student, their family connections and contemporary Indigenous life. Their practices in supporting Indigenous students as knowers and learners were based on recognising the complex interactions between race, history, school structures and peer relationships. Through their practices, they intentionally rejected the reproductive tendencies of schooling and created spaces where Indigenous youth could challenge "commonsense" about themselves.

MCG04352     [Paper]
What is research?

Margaret Lett, Health and Community Projects Consultant and Jacqueline McGilp, Education and Community Projects Consultant

Often what the community advertises as projects and program evaluations in tender documents are, in fact, research initiatives. However, does the academic call this research or, questionably, does such work count on the research quantum?

The Integrated Service Delivery Project (ISDP), which received both Australian and State Government (Vic) funding and support in 2003, is used to illustrate a project versus research debate. The contribution of projects to:

• Research design and application to other areas;
• Improvement of practice;
• Rural development; and
• Government policy debate and direction

is an acceptable and acknowledged means to "move forward" the research agenda and platform.

In this presentation attention is given to some of the methods our research team has used to address ISDP. Further foci include:

• consent;
• reliability and validity;
• data analysis; and
• cycles of advancement.

A question of importance is, "Can researchers contribute more to the wider community project initiatives?"

MCG04353     [Paper]
Community research?

Jacqueline McGilp, Education and Community Projects Consultant and Margaret Lett, Health and Community Projects Consultant

"Community Research" focuses on the need for research skills and a wide knowledge of research methodology, procedures and processes when working within the wider community. Topics to be covered in this presentation include:

• The amount of work available for independent practitioners and the benefit of independence when tendering (as opposed to a large university research structure and processes);
• The benefits of working as a small team in the community with attention to control over practice, accountability to the employer, instead of multiple masters, and the ability to engage with wide professional networks;
• The research team within a multi-disciplined, cohesive approach; and the ability to call upon, and knowledge of, the wide experiences of team members;
• Contributions of individual researchers with skills including technological, interpersonal and writing skills and voluntary community affiliation; and
• Examples of community research projects gaining recognition from government departments, local councils and community and service organizations.

MCG04974     [Paper]
Teachers' experiences of the HSC English syllabus in NSW

Kelli McGraw, University of Sydney

This presentation will explore the ways in which the stage 6 (years 11 and 12) English syllabus in NSW has been shaped by particular beliefs about literature teaching and learning, and how teachers in two Sydney high schools have experienced its implementation. A series of questions will be addressed, such as: What are some of the ways in which practitioners have thought, and are now thinking about the nature of the subject 'English' in the senior years? What impact do the theoretical assumptions behind this syllabus have on student learning? Can the aims of the new curriculum be realised within the utilitarian, competitive ethos of the senior years? The presenter will reflect on the research data collected from two Sydney high schools. Material from teacher interviews and classroom observations will be introduced as a way of exemplifying some of the practical challenges for teaching that have arisen since the implementation of the syllabus in 1999.

MCI04044     [Paper]
Schools reinventing themselves for young adolescents

Peter McInerney, Flinders University, and John Smyth, Texas State University.

There is alarming evidence that schooling is not working for many young adolescents-most notably those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Although many factors are invoked to explain the alienation and disengagement of young adolescents, research suggests that there is a mismatch between the organisation and curriculum of the middle years of schooling and the intellectual, social and emotional needs of young people (Smyth, Hattam et al, 2000). In particular there is a lack of understanding of adolescent identity and the issues that affect them as people. Drawing on a three year ARC Discovery project, this paper describes the ways in which a number of schools are engaging with and against policy discourse to reinvent themselves as more inclusive and learner-centred organisations that take seriously the issues and concerns of young people. Narratives portraits of teachers and school leadership personnel will shed light on the cultural and structural elements of school reform in the middle years.

MCK04884     [Paper]
Reflections on researching when you don1t own the question

Barbra McKenzie, University of Wollongong

Research students from various disciplines often become a part of an already established research study. Research question, methodology and data collection and analysis procedures have already been decided in order that the requirements of Grant Committees are met. How difficult is it then for the research student to assume ownership of the project? This was my experience as a PhD student working on a SPIRT or APA(I) grant. My struggles to make this research my own and some of the solutions that I found will be identified and discussed.

MCK04892     [Paper]   ®
Implementing professional development experiences into classroom practice: Teachers articulate their process

Barbra McKenzie, University of Wollongong

The importance of ongoing professional development opportunities for classroom teachers has been well documented (Ramsay, 2000; Vinson, 2001; Nelson, 2003). This study focussed upon how five teachers from a Catholic Diocese translated their literacy based professional development experiences into the reality of their individual classroom practice. In research supported by an APA(I) grant, teacher respondents articulated and discussed the logic structures that sustained this process. A range of data, including videotape, interviews, classroom artefacts and flowcharts were collected and analysed using a Grounded Theory methodology. Some of the results are presented and discussed in this paper.

MCK041030     [Paper]
Building on children's literacy resources in early grade classrooms

Barbra McKenzie, University of Wollongong

This practical and interactive session will demonstrate and discuss how early grade teachers may effectively build on the diverse resources that children bring to their classrooms. Opening the classroom door to home and community texts will be seen to be an important part of recognising and capitalising on children's expertise. Doing so will further be seen to provide critical stepping stones for learning about texts and literacy practices that are important to children's current and later school success. Framed by a Social Model of Reading and Writing (Harris, McKenzie, Fitzsimmons & Turbill, 2001 & 2003), an inclusive approach that accounts for literacy as multi-faceted practices will be explored and applied to early grade classrooms.

MCL041054     [Paper]   ®
Developing expertise and intrapersonal practitioner reflection in a web environment

Catherine McLoughlin, Carolyn Broadbent and Maureen Boyle, Australian Catholic Unviersity

Web-based learning has been extensively described and analysed to demonstrate its potential for supporting and enriching the learning experience. Online learning communities are emerging as sites for building and sustaining communities of practice and for fostering reflective conversation. An analytical framework incorporating several phases of knowledge building is applied to a corpus of online discussions to reveal the emergence of meta-reflection and professional identity among preservice teachers.

MCL04414     [Paper]
Taking issues of culture and diversity into account in the education of future physicians

Anna MacLeod, University of South Australia

It is well recognized that members of historically marginalized communities have received inadequate health care for a variety of reasons (Institute of Medicine, 2003). Despite an increased awareness of the issues facing members of these populations, health disparities persist (Health Canada, 2002).

Medical schools are in a position to contribute to the reduction of health disparities of historically marginalized populations through physician education. Government initiatives, such as "Social Accountability: A Vision for Canadian Medical Schools" (Health Canada, 2001), have called for medical education curricula to be developed which educate for physicians who are competent in offering culturally appropriate care.

To this end, certain educational initiatives and interventions have been developed within the institution of medicine (Wear, 2003). However, these responses have been, in many cases, piecemeal and incidental, often taking the form of "a half day workshop in sexuality" or "Gender Day", for example, rather than thoughtful and thorough inclusion in undergraduate medical school curricula (Taylor, 2003). This research, through a feminist-poststructuralist gaze, explores the current status of issues of culture and diversity in both formal and informal medical education curricula.

MCW04267     [Paper]   ®
On being accountable: Risk-consciousness and the doctoral supervisor

Erica McWilliam, Queensland University of Technology

This paper analyses the imperative to greater accountability for doctoral supervisors as the effect of a regime of truth (Foucault, 1980) that we call risk management. It draws on new sociological theorising of risk to argue that risk management works as a moral climate that offers academics new ways of being properly professional by being more risk-conscious. Risk-conscious academics are increasingly on guard against student failure, declining standards and waste of resources. Thus they come to regulate themselves and their students in ways that are closely aligned to the ethos of the post-millennial university as a risk-conscious organisation. The paper considers the implications of this greater accountability for doctoral supervisors.

MEA04979     [Paper]   ®
Conflating religious principles with emotional intelligence

Daphne Meadmore, Queensland University of Technology

From a discourse analysis of promotional materials that include prospectuses, advertisements and school publications, this paper considers the 'value-addedness' of emotional literacy that some schools in Australia purport to offer as they position themselves at the apex of the market of education. Attesting to the importance of obtaining positional advantage, ideas of building self-esteem as emotional intelligence are being conflated with religious principles to produce the 'whole' child with market edge. This paper draws on a recent research study of 'elite' Australian schools and traces discursive shifts that re-form and link formerly 'unpopular' ideas about religion with those of contemporary understandings of spirituality as emotional intelligence. Some schools go further to offer emotional literacy as part of their pedagogy. Questions are raised in the paper about issues of fabrication in performativity-inspired marketing materials that promise to build subjective identities with a spiritual dimension that translates into successful and prosperous schooling outcomes and life chances.

MEI04366     [Paper]
Managing longitudinal research: An account of six years of the Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Study

Marian Meiers, Australian Council for Educational Research

The ACER Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Study (LLANS) is a seven-year longitudinal study following the growth in literacy and numeracy of a single cohort of students across the years of primary school. A longitudinal design was chosen as the most appropriate means of identifying patterns of growth in student achievement. In cross-sectional studies different students are assessed at a particular point in schooling, and this data is sometimes used to infer developmental patterns. A longitudinal design makes it possible to investigate growth by following the same cohort of students across the years of schooling, in order to identify the development in what students know and can do.

Ten students were randomly selected from class lists provided at the beginning of the 1999 school year by 100 randomly selected schools, creating a total national sample of 1000 students. During the course of the study many students have transferred to other schools, and some are no longer participating in the study, for a variety of reasons. Over 200 schools are now involved, many with a single student who has transferred from another school. By the end of 2003, 720 students remained on the LLANS database. This paper will explore some of the issues in managing longitudinal research, and report on some key findings from the study.

MEL04087     [Paper]
Child Panic and the media: Representations of schools, teaching practice and child protection legislation in the Australian press

Lise Mellor and Judyth Sachs, The University of Sydney

This paper explores the manner in which the Australian press media has a role in shaping public consciousness regarding risk of harm to children. Our analysis of national press reportage during 2003 reveals two consistent narratives which, antagonistically intersect and perpetuate social anxiety around issues of child protection and teaching practice in schools.

MEN041078     [Paper]
Algebra is the consequence of precisely formulatable cognitive mechanisms

Brenda Menzel, Murrayville Community College

Deliberation about teaching algebra must include early algebraic thinking and the kinds of activity that might prepare young students to think and operate algebraically. The Victorian Board of Studies (BOS, Victoria) has emphasised that students' thinking needs to be the centre of mathematics instruction and that appropriate pedagogy and curriculum content needs to stress reasoning and strategies. This emphasis is evident from the CSF Strand "Reasoning and Strategies Levels 1-6" (BOS, 2002), and the "Annotated Work Samples" (BOS, 2001). I draw on examples of my students' thinking as they develop arithmetic and algebraic understanding as a natural extension of their analysis of their sensory-motor experiences. This paper interprets the work of Lakoff & Nunez (2000) in specifically pedagogical terms. Lakoff and Nunez purport that "Metaphors are an essential part of mathematical thought, not just auxiliary mechanisms used for visualization or ease of understanding" (Lakoff & Nunez, p.6). In this paper I suggest that students need to be encouraged to make connections between their everyday experiences and the abstract even if the links seem obscure.

MIL04122     [Paper]
Confronting the limits of success in education: The case for a Bourdieuian research methodology

Carmen Mills and Trevor Gale, Monash University

The injustices of 'allowing certain people to succeed, based not upon merit but upon the cultural experiences, the social ties and the economic resources they have access to, often remains unacknowledged in the broader society' (Wacquant, 1998, p. 216). Cognisant of this, we argue that education requires researchers' renewed examination and explanation of its involvement in the construction of social and economic differences. Specifically, we make the case for researchers to consider the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu, outlining what we understand by a Bourdieuian methodology, which is informed by socially critical and post-structural understandings of the world. From our perspective, such methodology attempts to dig beneath surface appearances, asking how social systems really work, and how ideology or history conceals the processes that oppress and control people, in order to reveal the nature of oppressive mechanisms (Harvey, 1990). By asking 'whose interests are being served and how' (Tripp, 1998, p. 37) in the social arrangements we find, Bourdieu can help us to 'work towards a more just social order' (Lenzo, 1995, p. 17) in which the subordinated may become 'empowered to take control of their lives and change the conditions which have caused their oppression' (Beder, 1991, p. 4).

MIL04400     [Paper]
Critical spirituality as a resource for fostering critical pedagogy

Ivana Milojevic, The University of Queensland

Our present historical moment is marked by, on one hand, rising scepticism, questioning and secularism (due to modern science and postmodern philosophy) and, on the other, rise in religious fervour, fanaticism and dogma (as a response to the previous and also threats from globalisation and multiculturalism). Critical spirituality is a concept that aims to transcend these two poles, by incorporating both the rational and empirical with the somatic, the meditative (Bussey, 2000) and the devotional. This concept acknowledges the reality that humans are spiritual beings but asserts that wider knowledge and understanding of various spiritual traditions and their contemporary developments are crucial in our times. Implications of this concept for critical pedagogy are numerous. As Parker Palmer (1998) argues the spiritual is always present in all (including public) education, whether it is acknowledged or not. Thus critical spirituality approaches crucially correspond with the main aims of critical pedagogy fostering of critical thinking skills, questioning of the hegemonic discourses, development of critical consciousness, transformation of society (and self), and so on. My presentation will focus on discussing critical spirituality as fostered by Neo-Humanism, Buddhism and within New Age movement(s) and the implications of these understandings on the current educational theory and praxis.

MIL04667     [Paper]   ®
RASCH application to an amalgamated striking instrument: Strike Two!

Judith Miller, University of New England

Fundamental motor skills research in Australia has been prevalent in the past decade. Primary school-aged children were assessed across a range of fundamental motor skills. A high failure rate was a consistent result. Most instruments employed were 'ceiling types' and therefore a high failure rate left little information about the majority of students. Therefore, an amalgamated process instrument for the strike was constructed to provide a broader spectrum of performance information. Because the instrument was elicited from a range of sources, the validity was questionable. RASCH analysis was used to test the degree to which the ten components of the 'amalgamated striking instrument' measured an underlying construct. Rasch analysis was applied to the performances of 6-7 year old children (n=17). Poor fit statistics resulted, however, when a larger group (n=161) of older students (6-9 years) were assessed, the fit statistics were acceptable. The components (items) of the strike were consistent, the performances (cases) were more divergent developmentally, specifically for the larger, older group. Specific detail of the changes in item and case reliability will be explored in view of the theoretical underpinnings of the instrument. It is suggested that this process can be applied to other fundamental motor skills.

MOC04272     [Paper]
Developing transformative teacher professionalism

Nicole Mockler, University of Sydney and Loreto Normanhurst

Drawing upon the work of a small cluster of knowledge building schools, this paper will focus upon 'New professional learning as a means of developing transformative teacher professionalism'. It will explore issues of teacher professional identity and the ways in which this is contributed to by teacher responsiveness to the changing and demanding educational environments in which they find themselves. The paper will make links to the expectations being generated by the newly established NSW Institute of Teachers and the congruence of these to the broader, international discourse on transformative teacher professionalism.

MOC04604     [Paper]
Architects, travel agents and bus drivers: Images of teacher professional identity

Nicole Mockler, University of Sydney

This paper will report on the initial phase of a study into the formation and development of teacher professional identity. The first part of the paper will offer an analysis of various representations of teachers within educational and broader social discourses, while the second part will present an analysis of preliminary data collected from secondary school teachers in relation to the construction of their own professional identities. The paper will conclude with some observations about the interplay of individual, school and societal factors in the development of teacher professional identity.

MOK04933 [Paper]
The development of measurement scales on self-learning of secondary students

Magdalena Mok, Yin Cheong Cheng, Phillip Moore and Kerry Kennedy, The Hong Kong Institute of Education

This report is concerned with the development of measurement scales for self-learning of secondary students. Self-learning refers to a process whereby the learner participates actively in the act of learning, including planning, goal setting, progress monitoring, selecting learning strategies and controlling the learning environment. The capacity for self-learning has been accorded high priority in recent years by major education systems, particularly those in the Asia Pacific region. This study is motivated by the lack of measurement tool available for the study of self-learning in countries where Chinese is the main medium of instruction, including China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The sample comprised 398 secondary students from Hong Kong secondary schools and a comparable sample of 200 secondary students from Macau. Questionnaires with Likert items were administered to the students during class-time. Scales included students' goal setting, academic motivation, self-efficacy, information processing strategies, monitoring and management of learning resources. Rasch modelling and confirmatory factor analysis were used to establish construct validity of these scales. Differences across males and females, grade levels, and regions were reported in the paper.

MOO04173     [Paper]   ®
Researching at a regional university: Doing the public good or institutional expectations?

Teresa Moore, Central Queensland University

Professional knowledge and personal philosophies intersect in the highly politicised context called the academic workplace. Circulating within this context are institutional discourses constructing the 'good academic' that correspond to certain institutional expectations and performances. The 'good academic' performs in a workplace environment that can be described as a greedy institution (Franzway, 2001) where the pressure to perform is shaped by such entities as the workplace culture, internal procedures and external policies. In this paper I explore what it means to do research in contemporary times in a specific regional academic site. I focus on two themes: firstly I look at the contextual nature of the changing academic workplace and secondly I highlight what is regarded as legitimate research in this workplace. I conclude by illustrating that only specific kinds of research are regarded as legitimate or 'good research' and that this is reinforcing stereotypical images around who is seen as the 'good academic'. Therefore I argue that the notion of doing the public good is shaped by local institutional expectations.

MOO04174     [Paper]   ®
Working scientifically: Positioning research into inquiry based practice for pre-service teachers

Teresa Moore, Central Queensland University

Dominant discourses promote the notion of lifelong learning that fits snugly into the creation of on-going professional development for beginning and experienced teachers. In this paper I present a case study highlighting the process of confidence building and critically reflect on whether this is enough for beginning teachers, opening the avenue for researching our own practices and establishing an on-going market for professional development. One of the aims of this research project was to establish a baseline for further research and professional development for beginning teachers, thus positioning the researcher in an on-going relationship with potential respondents.

Data presented focuses on the experiences of one cohort of pre-service primary teachers who elected to do an inquiry-based course to supplement their pedagogical knowledge for teaching science at the primary level. This cohort had limited knowledge of science concepts and processes but realised that they would be expected to teach science as a Key Learning Area in Queensland schools. During that time many students moved from being nervous to being motivated to teach science. Many of these pre-service teachers saw the teaching of science could be an inquiry-based process emphasising working scientifically, rather than regurgitating a standard body of facts or conclusions.

MOO04323     [Paper]   ®
Floating and sinking feelings in Middle School

Teresa Moore and Allan Harrison, Central Queensland University

Why do corks always float, lead sinkers sink but clothes pegs both float and sink? This inquiry unit explored these questions and is suitable for upper primary and lower secondary students. The unit comprised sequenced activities culminating in the students making and explaining a working Cartesian Diver. The learning aim was to develop a causal explanation for floating in which students understood floating in terms of balanced forces. The research aim was to document student understandings of balanced forces. Data came from classroom observations and a discourse analysis of the Cartesian Diver activity. The unit explored prior knowledge of floating and sinking, introduced new phenomena demonstrating balanced/unbalanced forces and emphasised 'working scientifically. The study found that a range of alternative conceptions survived alongside a set of scientifically acceptable explanations in different students. This indicates the presence of multiple subjectivities, deep-seated informal alternative discourses and some formal scientific discourses. Students can develop relational explanations for abstract phenomena but need time and guidance.

MOR04509     [Paper]   ®
"I know it's important but I'd rather teach something else!": An investigation into generalist teachers' perceptions of physical education in the primary school curriculum

Philip Morgan and Sid Bourke, University of Newcastle

The benefits of regular physical education (PE) for primary school children have been reinforced in the literature over a number of years. Unfortunately, many primary school teachers feel they lack the confidence, training and time to teach PE effectively and subsequently may avoid teaching PE altogether. A key aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between generalist teachers' curriculum preferences in the primary school and the relative value they place on PE compared to other key learning areas (KLAs) of the NSW primary curriculum. Data were collected from 485 pre-service (2nd, 3rd & 4th Year) and in-service generalist primary teachers. Results suggested that most cohorts considered PE to be a relatively valuable KLA but indicated they would prefer to teach other KLAs to PE. Insufficient time was the most commonly cited impediment to the delivery of PE programs. Significant relationships were established between some PE attitudinal variables for some cohorts and interesting findings emerged upon post hoc analysis of cohort differences, particularly regarding in-service teachers. These findings will be discussed with specific recommendations made for preservice education and ideas for the professional development of generalist primary teachers.

MOS04153     [Paper]   ®
"Noticing" and professional learning

Julianne Moss and Julie White, University of Melbourne

One of the most difficult issues faced in school university partnerships is the legitimacy of the collaborative relationship. Getting invited in as a university partner and staying on to support teacher knowledge is challenging. Through an account of a case study set in one large secondary school located in the Western Metropolitan region, we disentangle the importance of seldom considered barriers that impact on professional learning. Shaping our understanding through a theoretical model where the movement between identity, beliefs and decision and action is identified as 'noticing' (Mason 2002)we describe the potential of the model in developing a 'pedagogy of hope' (hooks 2003. Noticing, working at the elusive intersections of observation and construction, permits non-linear connections. A 'pedagogy of hope' works for a sustainable learning community for students, teachers and school leaders.

MOY04602     [Paper]
Just how far have we come? A retrospective on girls' education and an analysis of the present situation

Kathryn Moyle, Department of Education and Children's Services (SA) and Judith Gill, University of South Australia

Using data drawn from recollection and research into girls' schooling in the early 1980s this paper reprises the themes which guided action for gender equity in schooling. The focus is on girls' schools and the ways in which they sought to counter hegemonic male dominance in the relations of schooling. The paper presents a picture of teachers and students in girls' schools working across a range of fronts, united in a commitment to the furtherance of better outcomes for girls. Analysis of this work reveals different levels of success for girls and their teachers in terms of the realisation of girls' educational potentials. The argument put forward in the paper concerns the ways in which moves for greater equity in schooling outcomes for girls became vertaken through the 1990s by mainstream equity intiatives which themselves worked to disguise fundamental class differences in educational experience and achievement. Finally the paper offers an analysis of the ways in which the early debates around gender and education have been transformed by more recent developments in government policy and schooling practices such that their original liberatory intent has been marginalised and/or rendered powerless.

MUL04587     [Paper]   ®
Organising identities in post-compulsory education: A topological perspective

Dianne Mulcahy, University of Melbourne

The roles and expectations of managers in the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector are changing under dynamically complex conditions. The adoption of a more 'open' national training market as a government policy initiative has led to significant changes within VET providers and significant challenges for VET managers. Drawing on topological approaches to the study of organisational change, this paper explores modes of organising education in post-compulsory education. It promotes a theoretical and empirical imperative to look keenly to hybrid spaces to challenge established modes of coordinating and governing education organizations. Essentially interrogatory, these spaces open up the possibility of the negotiation of identity across differences of private and public education. Using case data from a national, empirical research project, the argument is made that VET organisations are located in a complicated nexus between public policy, corporate strategy, and educational practice. As the central node in this nexus, strategy offers ways of securing identities and spatialities that are specially valued in VET. More broadly, spaces exist that provide the terrain for elaborating new organizational identities. 'Co-operatives', networks and partnerships constitute some of these. Possibilities of change lie in the contradictions of identity and spatiality within established modes of coordinating post-compulsory education as well as in site-specific constructions of spatiality, identity and organization.

MUL04848     [Paper]   ®
A preliminary model of successful school leadership

Bill Mulford and Susan Johns, University of Tasmania

A preliminary model for examining successful school leadership, derived from the Tasmanian part of the International Successful School Leadership project, is presented. Success is defined by a combination of factors, including the reputation of the school within the Department of Education and with other school Principals, the reputation of the current Principal, and State and national recognition of success in terms of outcomes for students, including outcomes for students at risk.

The interactive and sequential model presented is set within a context that includes community and system understandings and requirements. It first focuses on the Principal's values which link to individual and school capacity and the development of a school vision. The context and principal's values represent the 'why' and the individual and school capacity and vision the 'how' of successful leadership. The model progresses to the 'what' or outcomes of successful leadership, which include teaching and learning, a range of student outcomes, and community social capital. These three foci are linked by evidenced-based monitoring and critical reflection, which could lead to change and/or transformation of the why, how and/or what. This model is consistent with, but develops with greater complexity, other recent overviews and models of successful educational leadership.

MUN04498     [Paper]
A sense of wonder: Student engagement in low SES school communities

Geoff Munns, University of Western Sydney

This paper reports on research into student engagement undertaken in the Fair Go Project. It discusses a theoretical and pedagogical framework developed in the project that directs teachers' attention to significant changes they can make within their classrooms in order to encourage both short and long term student engagement with education.

MUR04286     [Paper]   ®
Enhancing learners' generic skills through Problem-Based Learning

Rosalind Murray-Harvey, David Curtis, Phillip Slee and Georgina Cattley, Flinders University

Claims made for the value of PBL as an effective method for professional education programs draw on constructivist principles of teaching and learning to achieve essential content knowledge, higher order thinking skills and a team approach to problem-solving through the interdisciplinary, student-directed study of relevant professional problems.

These essential outcomes of PBL (knowledge, higher order thinking, problem solving, and effective team skills) are also regarded more generally across higher education as desirable qualities of graduates. The evidence that these qualities are in fact, fostered through PBL is growing but the broader implications (such as the wider impact or more far-reaching effects) of the PBL approach have yet to be examined.

This paper addresses the relationship between PBL and graduate qualities in two ways. First, it reports on a study of teacher education students' assessment of their learning through PBL over time, across four areas of skill development: knowledge building; group processes; problem solving; and, interpersonal effectiveness. Second, the paper examines these specific outcomes in terms of the more broadly defined qualities expected of Australian university graduates.

MUR04985     [Paper]   ®
Perspectives of "Big School": Kindergarten children's response to The Pictorial Measure of School Stress

Elizabeth Murray and Linda Harrison, Charles Sturt University

This paper describes the development, administration, and scoring of the Pictorial Measure of School Stress (PMSS). This instrument was designed to describe individual differences in kindergarten children's feelings about everyday school situations and their coping strategies for dealing with these. The PMSS uses a semi-structured interview to present specific school scenarios, including in-class routines such as talking in front of the class/doing schoolwork, out-of-class events such as lining up/going to the toilet alone/buying lunch at the canteen, and scenarios involving peers such as joining in with group play/being pushed by other children. Children are asked how they feel, why they feel that way, whether they would tell the teacher about their feelings, and what might happen next. Following initial analysis of children's positive and negative responses to these questions, interpretive methods were used to identify underlying themes. Positive responses to school were explained by children's enjoyment of learning, warm relationships with peers and the teacher, and understanding and meeting the expectations of school. Negative responses were associated with a dislike of school activities, peer rejection, separation anxiety, and conflicted relationships with the teacher.

MYL04577     [Paper]    
The journey to a criterion-referenced assessment university: Part I

Aliisa Mylonas, Halima Goss, and Karen Whelan, Queensland University of Technology

In September 2003, the University Academic Board of the Queensland University of Technology endorsed a new assessment policy. Most significantly, the policy stated that "the fundamental approach to assessment... will be criterion-referencing". These few words served as a catalyst to review and critique existing assessment practices across the university, while, at the same time, (re)consider current teaching and learning approaches. The year 2004 was deemed one of "consciousness-raising" with the implementation of criterion-referenced assessment expected in strategic first year units. To assist in this process, Teaching and Learning Support Services trialed a range of strategies in response to academics' requests for support. This paper highlights the shared journey to date, focusing on strategies implemented, lessons learned, major accomplishments and recommendations offered to support QUT's academics in the transition to a criterion-referenced university.

N

NAI04371     [Paper]
Teaching English as a foreign language in Chinese tertiary education: Which direction?

Guo Naizhao, Inversity of Tasmania

Recently the Chinese Ministry of Education urged innovative development of the tertiary teaching English as a foreign language in China.

The paper first confirms the achievements China has gained. Tertiary students' English proficiency has greatly been improved since it opened its door to the outside world and began its epoch-making economic reform in the 1980s. However, based on the data analysis conducted recently, the indication is that most tertiary students are weak in speaking and listening and their standards fall far short of meeting the needs generated from the country's rapid developments in the economy, science and technology, and from increasing contact with other countries. There are some factors that need to be taken into account, such as teaching goals, teaching mode, teaching methods etc. This paper presents a critical review of current literature on how to improve the tertiary teaching English as a foreign language in China and examines social and cultural factors which interfere with the implementation of innovative ideas in the current tertiary educational discourse.

NAI04930     [Paper]
Developing English learners' autonomy in teaching English as a foreign language in Chinese tertiary education: Why and how?

Guo Naizhao, University of Tasmania and Yanling Zhang, Shanxi University of Finance and Economics

With China's opening to the outside world, the demand for English has expanded dramatically. However, English teaching strategies in tertiary education cannot satisfactorily meet such a demand to improve students' English proficiency. This paper analyses the major hindering factors in developing such proficiency. It reviews theories surrounding learners' autonomy and considers the implications for use of the Chinese English Teaching Syllabus Standard in Tertiary Education in the Chinese tertiary context. The experimental study was mainly conducted for 2 years in Shanxi University of Finance and Economics. It focused on how to develop English learners' autonomy and initiative in order to make learners become more autonomous and more proficient in their English learning. Results show that students' interest in English learning was aroused and their autonomy was improved through the application of graded teaching, training students' learning skills, co-operative language learning and an assessment of portfolio to teaching English as a foreign language in Chinese tertiary education.

NAJ04448     [Paper]
The effect of academic strategy use on L2 learning: A classroom study

Robyn Najar, Flinders University

The purpose of this presentation is to highlight the importance of academic strategy use in the L2 classroom context. To appreciate the complexity of learning in second language classrooms an understanding of the interaction between language proficiency and academic strategy use needs to be considered. This is done by reporting the findings of a study on the use of academic strategies by L2 learners. To determine the relationship of cognitive academic learning strategy use in L2 proficiency and task performance, 205 freshman students at a Japanese university participated in the study. The relationship was explored in the following two questions. First, what is the effect of cognitive learning strategy use on task performance in the L2, and second, which of the learning strategies used lead to more successful task performance? By articulating the learning strategies used by successful L2 learners, we gain insight into the juxtaposition between what are language specific needs as opposed to cognitive learning issues. In this study significant relationships between cognitive learning strategy use and task performance have been observed. These relationships remind us that the L2 learning process is complex, and that a number of variables are involved, including but not limited to L2 proficiency.

NAS04480     [Paper]   ®
Developing maths-confidence in sixteen maths-anxious preservice student teachers

Lisa Uusimaki and Rod Nason, Queensland University of Technology

Large numbers of primary preservice student teachers' in Australia lack confidence in their own mathematical abilities and skills when entering teacher education courses. This study investigated the development of maths-confidence in sixteen self-identified maths-anxious preservice student teachers. These students were engaged in the development of their mathematical repertoires within the context of a supportive computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. The design of the Intervention Program used in the study was informed by a theoretical framework derived from the literature in the fields of learning environments, novel open-ended mathematical activities, computer supported collaborative learning, community of learners and negative beliefs about learning. The findings from this study indicate that the continuous support from their group members via the computer-mediated Knowledge Forum community, and the support they received from the researcher and facilitator within the non-intimidating workshop environments was crucial in the development of maths-confidence in these preservice student teachers.

NAS04549     [Paper]   ®
Growth of teacher knowledge: The promise of CSCL

Matt McDougall, Rod Nason and Campbell McRobbie Queensland University of Technology

To ensure that universities meet the needs of their learners more completely, teaching and learning strategies should be adopted to make educational provision more flexible. This study investigated how a lesson-planning task within the context of a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment facilitated the growth of teacher knowledge, specifically the subject-matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge about the teaching of ratios and fractions. This study used a CSCL environment called Knowledge Forum(r) with a cohort of preservice teachers collaborating in a lesson planning task. The social interaction within the computer-mediated community in this study contributed to the growth of teacher knowledge by providing a new social context for learning that prompted students to articulate their ideas and make ideas visible for peer inspection. Through peer-to-peer interactions like asking questions, requesting clarification, revising interpretations, or elaborating ideas, the students learnt both the limits and utility of different models to explain mathematical notions. These on-line social interactions supported knowledge integration by helping to broaden students' initial repertoire of instructional representations and mathematical constructs, demonstrating personal utility for particular ideas, and encouraging students to refine their understanding of mathematics.

NEM04361     [Paper]
The 'Hero's Journey': Personal resonance as response to narrative

Phil Fitzsimmons and Kori Nemme, University of Wollongong

This paper discuses an investigation into the claim made by Joseph Campbell (1949, 1988), that all narratives across all cultures and time have a similar underlying structure which he termed the 'Hero's Journey'. Recognised as a leading authority in the field of anthropology, Campbell asserts that this 'journey' represents the basic ideal of the human psyche and that there is a natural resonance with it.

Using one year six class and their teacher as a case study, this paper details the investigation into Campbell's claim and describes the relationship between using the 'Hero's Journey' (Campbell, 1988) as shared reading experience and personal resonance as response to narrative.

Using observation, collection of artistic and written response to the text and a series of informal and semi-structured interviews, the data gathered clearly indicated a high sense of personal and meaningful connections made by the students as well as a set of unexpected outcomes. While an understanding of the archetypal pattern of the 'Hero's Journey' arose, students reflected on questions of identity, recognized their personal narrative and also related these points to other relevant sources. This reflection motivated a cohesion of thoughts and emotions that also effected the learning environment and the nature of relationships and interactions among class members.

The findings of this project have implications for the implementation of the 'Hero's Journey' as a reader response tool for learning narrative on a meaningful and personal level, and the development of a personal development program incorporating the use of narrative.

NG04203     [Paper]
Learning Study: A case study of teaching "Expressive Drawing" in Visual Arts

Heung Sang Ng, Hong Kong Institute of Education

This paper presents a case study of how four teachers in one school adopted Learning Study in teaching Visual Arts in Hong Kong. The teachers found that the students at the primary level had difficulties expressing feelings through shapes. In 2003, they used the Learning Study approach to analyse teaching of this difficult topic. Each teacher taught the lesson and observed the lesson of the other three. A discussion, using student feedback, was held immediately after each lesson, aimed at improving the next one. A post-test was conducted to discover what students had learned. The result was good yet there were still many problems. In 2004, the same teachers taught the same topic with revision based on the outcomes of their previous lessons. There was more focus on using artists' artworks and students' expression of human figures. This paper will analyse materials and interviews from the Learning Studies to look at how to improve teachers' teaching of drawing. As drawing is central in children's art and the findings of this paper could be useful for other teachers in teaching visual arts.

NGU04600     [Paper]
Family and student influences on withdrawal from rural Vietnam

Cuc Nguyen and Patrick Griffin, The University of Melbourne

This paper sets out to investigate the extent to which gender, family's characteristics, attitudes, students' behaviour and achievement interacted with each other and influenced students' withdrawal in rural mountainous areas in Vietnam. Five hundred and fifty nine students and their parents responded to the questionnaires. Education officers and teachers and a small group of parents and students were involved in semi-structured interviews. A hypothetical model was developed to address the relationships between gender, family characteristics, attitudes, achievement and withdrawal. Some single variables involved in the model, such as family wealth, parents' and students' attitudes towards schooling were constructed using Item Response Theory. Structural equation modelling was employed to analyse the data collected through questionnaires to test the potential causal relationships between variables.

The fieldwork was conducted in two mountainous communes in Luc Ngan district, Bac Giang province. Data obtained from questionnaires completed by students and their parents were used to identify potential causal relationships between factors in influencing withdrawal from lower secondary education.

It was found that parents' occupation educational status, parents' attitudes, family wealth, students' academic achievement, and gender were important factors associated with students' withdrawal in Thanh Hai and Quy Son. Except for students' academic achievement which has only direct effect on students' withdrawal, these factors influenced on students' withdrawal both directly and indirectly. The influence of parents' occupation educational status on students' withdrawal was mainly mediated via parents' attitudes and family wealth. The influence of family wealth on students' withdrawal was mediated through parents' attitudes and students' academic achievement. The influence of parents' attitudes on students' withdrawal was mediated through students' academic achievement. The influence of gender on students' withdrawal was mediated through parents' attitudes and students' behaviour.

NGU04603     [Paper]
Developing and validating primary school teacher standards in Vietnam

Patrick Griffin, Shelley Gillis and Cuc Nguyen, University of Melbourne

This paper reports on the findings of a World Bank funded study in which the University of Melbourne was commissioned to develop and validate a set of competency profiles and assessment strategies for primary school educators in Vietnam. Through extensive consultation, 14 draft competency profiles were developed within three broad strands: Personality and Ideology, Knowledge and Pedagogical Skills. Each competency profile comprised a set of performance criteria and indicators to judge the quality of performance of teachers. Standardised assessment procedures for gathering evidence of teacher performance were also developed, including portfolio methods, interview, observations and third party reports. The draft profiles and accompanying assessment procedures were then trialed with a sample of 2180 teachers from 10 provinces in Vietnam. Item Response Modelling was then used to evaluate the psychometric properties of the profiles as well as to identify developmental levels of competency for each of the 14 profiles. The data collected demonstrated the validity, accuracy and reliability of the measures. In the next stage of the project, the validated profiles and assessment rocedures will be used to assess a further 25,000 teachers. The outcomes of the study will have direct implications for identifying professional development needs, as well as formulating policies in teacher awards and promotion in Vietnam's primary educational system.

NIC04839     [Paper]
Busy doing nothing: Exploring the merits of inactivity within the context of an activity oriented challenge based wilderness therapy program

Val Nicholls, University of Woolongong

The terms Adventure and Wilderness therapy generally conjure up images of personal growth through challenge, adventure and skill acquisition. Acknowledged but less explored is the potential for personal growth and enhanced well-being from experiences of quietude and silence that nestle within the overall context of activity. Whether the bliss of a quiet sit on a mountain peak, the frozen 'stuckness' of indecision or the fallow silence preceding eruption, field experience indicates that moments of stillness often served as a potent repository for thoughts, feelings and emotions as well as a force for insight, understanding and personal growth. This paper reports on an ongoing doctoral research study exploring participants relationships with stillness within a challenge based wilderness therapy program. Details are presented about the research objectives, grounded theory methodology and the use of stimulated recall and photo-elicitation techniques. The paper discusses emerging themes and concludes with a number of questions salient to the practice and planning of therapeutic wilderness and adventure programs.

NOB04404 [Paper]   ®
Using critical reflection to prepare practitioners for pedagogical work with infants and toddlers

Karen Noble, Kym Macfarlane and Jenny Cartmel, Griffith University

This paper examines an early childhood care and education practitioner preparation program set in the School of Human Services at Griffith University in Queensland. Within this program traditional methods of teaching reflective practice have been employed in an effort to develop this skill in prospective graduates. The authors critique this process arguing that it limits the ability of practitioners to effectively engage in the reflective process as it tends to be based on isolated experiences that do not create space for a dialogic relationship. Moreover, it is argued that there is an urgency with respect to the development of critically reflective practitioners to work with young children particularly infants and toddlers in light of recent policy changes. Strategies are developed to move prospective practitioners from practice/ self-reflection to critical reflection and implications for practitioner educators are discussed.

NOR04915 [Paper]   ®
Using Lego to integrate mathematics and science in an outcomes based syllabus

Stephen Norton, Queensland University of Technology

Integrated learning has been put forward by curriculum documents as a means to add meaning and context to mathematics and science learning. However, few models of practice exist to guide teachers' in implementing this process. This paper examines an educational researcher's and a practicing teacher's challenge to use student construction of Lego artefacts as a tool for the learning of mathematics and science concepts through technology practice. It was found that the activities afforded opportunities for students to demonstrate numerous outcomes, that explicit scaffolding was needed by some students and that some students achieved at outcome levels beyond those expected of their Year. The findings have implications for the use of activity in the teaching of mathematics and science where syllabus documents demand specific outcomes.

NYL04045     [Paper]   ®
Three-year-olds and musical ability: Early impressions

Berenice Nyland and Jill Ferris, RMIT University, and Jan Deans, University of Melbourne

This paper examines children's musical experiences in a music session with a skilled musician. Ideas on the significance of content (Barrett, 1993) and context (Brice-Heath, 2003) are explored by describing the music sessions. A range of observational data is used to interpret the children's encounters with the musical material. The children's level of awareness and competence is explained by describing the material the children are interacting with, the skill level of the musician and the wholistic approach taken to the music sessions. The sessions are multi-sensory and there is an underlying philosophy that means the group times are used to explore complex ideas as well as encourage the development and practice of skills and examination of concepts. The children engage on both a practical level and an intuitive level. Four topics are discussed in the paper; one, teacher's expectations of young children's competence, two, implications for early childhood programs, three, the music session and four, the role of the skilled artist (musician) in the program. Discussion is premised on the concept of intent participation (Rogoff, 2003). The research focus is on the formal music group and further directions will examine how young children generalise music knowledge and experience across contexts.

O

OBR04743 [Paper]
Professional Learning and changing teacher attitudes: The role of technology-based approaches and resources

Jim O'Brien and Tony van der Kuyl, The University of Edinburgh

This paper will explore the development of a national website for the national educational priorities declared by Scotland's recently re-established Parliament. The national priorities and the new Framework for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) are an attempt to provide a coherent approach to educational development with appropriate professional assistance to teachers. While the website is used as a vehicle for the dissemination of school quantitative data on a national basis, a major focus of this work has been to attempt to influence teacher Professional Learning and Development in a range of domains especially through exemplification of best practice in teaching and learning. A range of resources (including international examples) involving multimedia have been developed or gathered together on the website many with associated professional learning activities. The website development builds on a successful series of technology-based professional learning CDRoms for Scottish teachers on professional areas such as "Dealing with Disruption" and literacy and numeracy. The presentation will be illustrated with examples of leading edge work from the website.

ODO04341     [Paper]
New paradigms and new opportunities: Post-structuralist research and Australian gender equity policy analysis

Denis O'Donovan, Curtin University of Technology

In this paper, I draw on the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard and Michel Foucault to examine strategies for feminist and pro-feminist scholars to impact on mainstream gender equity policy (GEP) for Australian schools. Research-based understandings of gender in schools have been on the defensive for a decade, as foci on "plain speaking" coalesce with popular and governmental attention on the educational problems of boys. However, researchers can reassert themselves in the policy field by "find[ing] ways to insert equity into new, popular priorities" (Marshall, 2000), for example, by exploring the potential to "sell" feminist and pro-feminist gender programs to schools in an environment of devolved decision-making. These opportunities can be accessed by feminist and pro-feminist interventionists viewing the policy field through a "politics of discourse," where power is transitory and connected to dominant currents of knowledge; and by mapping policy proposals on the Lyotardian notion of the "micronarrative," where localised, temporal understandings of gender take precedence over the generalized narratives pursued by mainstream GEP interventionists. I consider the positioning of research-based understandings of gender in both the 2003 report on the first stage of the Boys' Lighthouse Project, and the current national policy, arguing that feminist and pro-feminist readings of gender in Australian schools are "doing the public good" by acknowledging the complexity and uncertainty of gendered identity for school-age children in contemporary Australia.

OHA04931     [Paper]
Using the College: Building the capacity in post-graduate teacher education

Christine O'Hanlon, University of East Anglia

A focus on intellectual capacity building today has global resonance. There is an emphasis on building capacity through individual and institutional innovation. There is a global need for new kinds of educational professionals who study local situations with reference to global, national, trans-national and international trends with a view to producing and sustaining educators who can deal with the demands of the coming decades. Producing and sustaining researchers who can identify a set of issues which will lead to the development of new strategies and ideas in education is the present challenge for higher education. This can only be achieved through the widening of discourse in post-graduate degree courses from the traditional one-to-one supervisor role to one of collegial groups. There is a value in individual supervision, but on its' own it can only provide an impoverished intellectual environment. A much wider discourse involving like-minded students will enable the emergence of innovative and