AARE
Australian Association for Research in Education

  AARE Conference 1994 - Abstracts  

Compiler and Editor: Peter L. Jeffery.

Note: This file is very large. It takes some time to load. You will be notified when it has completed loading.

The 1994 AARE Abstracts have been converted to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to allow better utilisation of the internet's power as a medium of communication. This means that you can search all the abstracts by tapping [CTRL][F] and searching for any words you choose.

Most of the abstracts below have a link "Paper" to the relevant paper. Not all papers were presented, and some were not submitted for publication. Some papers were submitted without an abstract. If you can't find the paper you seek, try the alphabetical list.

Please note: Due to difficulties experienced by some users we have had to change the actual name of the paper files. Where the paper code/name was of the form "abcde94.123" the file name is now "abcde94123.txt". We have retained the paper code for the index. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Doug Absalom, University of Newcastle

Mixing methodologies in ESL-Practice meets theory

Keywords: ESL; language learning.

Because of the availability of a number of differing methods in teaching second languages, practising teachers have, over the past decade or so, adopted an eclectic approach, combining processes which past experience has shown to be successful with more radical strategies which they believe can do little harm to language learners.

This paper looks at two such combinations in an area of learning English as a Second Language (ESL) with a view to identifying the types of problem that might arise from arbitrary combinations in a program. The first section examines the introduction of a sustained period of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) into an intensive immersion program for a group of ESL learners during the December- January period in 1993/4, while the second examines the addition of a translation process onto a similar immersion program for an individual student during the second half of 1993. Specific language features of students, along with their results in University examinations, are used as indicators of the relative merits of each of the combined methods.

Antoinette Ackermann and Sandi Plummer, University of Canberra

Examination into the use, place and efficacy of group work in university courses

Keywords: group work; higher education.

Group work is a central part of courses in Health Education/Community Counselling; and group projects are an assessable component of some units. As part of the dynamic ongoing process of unit/course evaluation and self-reflexive praxis, the researchers sought to clarify tensions concerning co-operative learning methods (based on non-competitive rationales) and the competitive academic environment.

Questions addressed were: What is/are the learning needs which unit convenors believe that they are meeting when they include group projects as assessable components of a unit? Are there other teaching or administrative reasons why unit convenors set group projects as assessable components of their units? What student needs have been met by group projects? How have the students experienced the organisation of the group projects? Do students believe that the expected learning outcomes of the group project were presented clearly and effectively? How have the purposes of including the group projects as assessable components of the units been reconciled with the "typical individualistic" environment of the University?

The action research approach used is consistent with the co- operative/consultative nature of "appropriate" group experiences. The researchers were mindful of a number of dilemmas in using this approach, including ensuring every voice is given an equitable hearing; guarding against bias in expression; recognising objective suggestions for change from subjective reports; and recognising and valuing of subjective experiences (convenors and students) and at the same time evaluating these experiences in a way which allows values (notions of appropriate and inappropriate practices) to be placed on specific uses of group projects.

Di Adams and Coralie McCormack, University of Canberra

A change in the "whether"?: The introduction of an evaluation service for university lecturers

Keywords: evaluation of teaching; quality assurance.

In 1994, a new service to gather student feedback on teaching and units was offered by a new Centre (The Centre for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching and Scholarship) of the fairly new University of Canberra (1990). The service was used by approximately 10% of the staff and over 3,000 student questionnaires were processed. A subsequent evaluation process was undertaken to ascertain the perceived usefulness of the service and its relevance to academics at the University of Canberra. The investigation team surveyed all staff who used the service, and met with student groups and faculties to provide opportunities to comment on the scheme, to raise concerns, and to seek further information on the purpose, structure, administration and processing of the questionnaires.

The overall perception seemed to be that it was "a good thing" to have the service. However, there was a variety of concerns expressed, and some mixed reactions from both staff and students. This paper will describe the themes which emerged, the perceived tension between institutional quality assurance measures and individual needs for feedback, and the strategies employed in an attempt to embed the service into a culture of critical reflection and self-evaluation for the university lecturers at the University of Canberra.

John Ainley, Australian Council for Educational Research, and Michael Sheret, Australian International Development Assistance Bureau

Changes in mathematics achievement over the high school years

Keywords: mathematics achievement; mathematics education.

One of the important developments in the way achievement is used in studies of school and individual influences on learning has been the use of achievement growth rather than a static achievement score as an outcome. As part of a longitudinal study of students' progress through the later years of high school, mathematics achievement was assessed in Year 9 (in 1987) and Year 12 (in 1990). In both Year levels students completed a modified version of the Progressive Achievement Test in Mathematics 3A. This test measures generalised mathematical performance rather than achievement specific to students' current studies. Scores at both levels were available for over 1,000 students from 22 schools. In addition, as part of the study, students provided information about their attitudes to school, self-rated achievement, type of course, approaches to learning and social background. The schools constituted a representative sample of non- selective government high schools in New South Wales.

Over the period from Year 9 to Year 12 most students improved their scores on the mathematics test. The average gain was just under half a standard deviation but there were differences between the types of mathematics course studied, gender and school attended. There was no significant association between gain score and social background. The paper reports on a series of analyses which examined the extent to which differences in the growth in mathematics achievement were associated with type of course, gender, social background, self-rated achievement and school attended.

ALFRI94.178

Irlande Alfred, National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia

Innovation in collaborative processes

Keywords: collaboration; literacy education.

Some of the issues that educators and researchers face to-day are the type of educational research that is in demand by policy makers and by practitioners, the research culture as it is evolving to-day, and the changes in the educational environment.

One of the goals of the Australian Language and Literacy Policy as set out in the White Paper is to establish a network of research in literacy across the country. The NLLIA Literacy Research Networks have developed strategies for setting up such a network and for ensuring better communication and collaboration between researchers and teachers. However, some of the following ingredients should be included in a paradigm of collaboration in education so that theory and practice can mesh and give rise to innovation in all aspects of literacy education: priority given to the recognition of teachers as potential researchers; a commitment to a balance between experimental research and research that addresses questions that are relevant to the practitioners and learners; and a belief that collaboration is the way to approach the literacy issues of to-day.

This paper will address these three points and report on an innovative model for making research-based knowledge accessible to practitioners whilst involving them in a professional development process to provide them with a strong scholarly basis for practice. The role of teachers in the research and the critical role that professional associations can play in this complex educational environment are also examined.

Andrea Allard, Maxine Cooper and Rosalind Hurworth, University of Melbourne

"Why are we kicking up and they are not?" Teacher education students' constructions of femininity and masculinity

Keywords: gender issues; teachers' beliefs.

This paper reports on a longitudinal study (currently in its third year) which is providing important information regarding teacher education students' beliefs and understandings concerning gender. Ways in which these constructions of gender inform the students' curriculum experiences and teaching performance in primary schools are a major focus of the study, as is staff professional development in relation to gender issues.

This Australian Research Council funded study has produced a large body of data including: annual questionnaire results, transcripts of student interviews, work samples, journal entries, and researchers' observation notes. While all students in the study completed the annual questionnaire, interviews were carried out with approximately 20 students who volunteered each year.

Additionally, individual interviews with all staff teaching in core subjects each year were completed to ascertain their background and understandings of gender issues, how they implement gender issues through the teacher education program, and in what ways they think the BEd (Primary) course can be improved in considering gender issues.

Findings from the data are being interpreted using concepts from feminist poststructural theory as a means to understand the various positions of students and staff. In this paper, we explore how particular students construct their own understandings of "appropriate" masculinity and femininity. We consider the implications such constructions have on and for feminist educators working for curriculum change.

Nola Alloway, James Cook University of North Queensland

Challenging gender: Teachers' efforts to work with young children

Keywords: gender issues; early childhood education.

Early childhood education has been largely ignored in national efforts to address issues of gender. Early childhood educators have had little guidance as to how they might begin to work with children to achieve more emancipatory understandings of what it might mean to live as an embodied female or male in our society.

In a DEET-funded project, a number of teachers in 10 sites throughout Queensland and New South Wales participated in an action research study, Addressing the Construction of Gender in the Preschool to Grade 3 Years. This paper reports on the work of these teachers, the issues they addressed, the strategies they adopted, and their reports of success in working with children in the 4 to 8 years age range.

The paper also asserts the need for early childhood education to move from the margins to the centre of research and international dialogue on gender.

Annemarie Møller Andersen and Helene Sørensen, Royal Danish School of Educational Studies, Denmark

Science education development in the Folkeskole

Keywords: science education; curriculum development.

The first part of the paper will introduce the "Folkeskole", the Danish school system for pupils aged 6 to 16. There will be a special emphasis on school science and teacher education.

The second part will deal with development projects in schools and research supported by the Innovation Council of the Folkeskole previous to a new Act of Education and new curriculum guides.

The last part of the paper will focus on a new interdisciplinary science subject called "nature/technique", which emphasises pupils' own experiments, investigations and explorations related to biology, chemistry, geography and physics. The curriculum provides a framework for the choice of teaching content from four central areas of knowledge and skills: "the near surroundings", "the distant surroundings", "Man's interactions with nature", and "thinking and working methods".

Darcy Anderson, Richard Walker and Cathrine Neilsen, University of Sydney

Student essay writing-task conceptions, approaches, quality of outcomes

Keywords: essay writing; SOLO.

This project aimed to examine the relationships between student conceptions of, approaches to and quality of outcomes in an essay writing task in a core undergraduate course in educational psychology. Two different but related strands of research provided the theoretical rationale for this project. The first was from recent research from a phenomenographic perspective in which detailed examination is made of interview data intended to provide a description of the learning process from the perspective of the learner. The other strand is from the Neo-Piagetian perspective of Biggs and Collis who developed the SOLO taxonomy as a tool to assess levels of thinking in terms of the structural complexity of student responses to tasks.

Following the completion of a major essay task, a sample of 18 students were interviewed (for about 30 minutes) on their conceptions of the task and their approaches to it. Categories of conceptions of the task were developed following examination of the interview transcripts by two of the researchers, along with other information gleaned from the interviews. The essays were then rated by two researchers on the structural complexity of the essays using the SOLO taxonomy as a framework. The grades for each of the essays as determined by the markers of the assignments were also obtained. Relationships amongst student conceptions of the particular task, their perceptions of their own essays, their conceptions of essay writing in other contexts and the quality of outcomes on the SOLO ratings and the markers' grades were investigated.

ANDED94.433

Damon Anderson, Monash University

Private versus public vocational colleges: A case study in comparative educational research

Keywords: vocational education; TAFE.

This paper reports on the major findings of a recent comparative study of private and public vocational education and training (VET) colleges in Australia. The study examined the nature, role and significance of private VET providers from an intersectoral perspective and in the context of the emerging training market. As such, the study constitutes the first attempt to explore and chart the terrain of the private vocational education and training sector, a dimension of post- school provision hitherto neglected by educational researchers in Australia. It is also the first study to undertake a systematic comparison of institutional providers of off-the-job training in the public and private sectors.

Based primarily on six in-depth case studies, the study provides an insight into the structure, culture and educational activities of TAFE colleges and their private sector analogues, commercial colleges. The study sheds light on the changing roles and relationships of public and private VET providers and discusses some of the key policy issues and implications arising from the shift to market-based VET provision.

In the course of reporting on the design and conduct of the study, the paper examines a number of conceptual and methodological problems which arise when undertaking comparative studies of public and private sector provision of post-school education and training. The paper highlights the need for further investigation of post-school VET provision and for new methodologies for comparative intersectoral research.

ANGUL94.182

Lawrence Angus and Lynton Brown, Monash University

Living in schools of the future

Keywords: educational policy; school management.

The paper will report work in progress in a series of case studies of Victorian secondary schools that are being conducted in order to document and interpret institutionalised, changing or contested educational practices, and, most importantly, the influence of the policy of Schools of the Future on institutionalised practices.

The purpose of the case studies is to examine in detail the social processes of construction, negotiation and interpretation occurring at the school level as a result of changing systemic policy. Sites have been selected not as typical or representative, but simply as locations in which educational practice and policy are constructed and enacted. The dynamic nature of these processes will be the focus of the paper.

Jennifer Archer and Jill Scevak, University of Newcastle

The relationship between tertiary students' motivation to learn and a tertiary subject's characteristics: Perspectives from two complementary approaches

Keywords: motivation; tertiary education.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of changes in a subject's characteristics (e.g. resubmission of the major assignment after feedback from lecturers, the right to work co-operatively, choice of assignment topics, and the provision of a booklet for writing good assignments) on first-year tertiary students' motivation to learn.

Approximately 270 students completed a motivation questionnaire assessing perception of mastery and performance achievement climates before changes to the subject (end of Semester 1) and again at the end of the year (end of Semester 2). In addition, a sample of students (60) were interviewed. The questionnaire results showed increasing levels of mastery climate perception, a weaker performance climate perception and increased enjoyment of the subject. The interview findings reflected the mastery orientation and provide a better understanding of how changes to a subject's characteristics may influence students' motivation to learn. Implications for the design of tertiary courses are discussed.

Charles Arcodia, Queensland University of Technology

Confucian perspectives on educational policy and practice

Keywords: Confucian philosophy; Asian Studies.

Confucian philosophy and its perspectives on education have a substantial contribution to make to educational theory, policy and practice. It is of particular relevance as Asian Studies emerges as a national educational priority in response to Federal and State initiatives in curriculum development. Its pertinence is also evident as educational systems in Australia adopt an eighth Key Competency, that of Cultural Understanding.

This paper reports on the first stage of a three-year study which investigates Confucian philosophy and its influences on contemporary educational discourse. The study seeks to contribute to the development of cultural literacy and an intellectual preparedness cultivated through the acquisition of knowledge, experience and understanding of one of Asia's contemporary philosophies.

Confucius spoke constantly of a unifying principle which gave meaning and guidance to human interaction. This unifying principle was jen, transliterated by a variety of scholars as "benevolence", "magnanimity", "virtue", "compassion", "human-heartedness". The purpose of the paper is to focus on this key tenet of Confucian philosophy and to draw some implications for educational theory and practice. The paper contributes to the process of making more accessible one of the most influential philosophies of the East and assists in opening up channels for future discourse between educational theorists from both the East and West.

Charles Arcodia and Tom Cooper, Queensland University of Technology

Student perceptions of an inner-city secondary school

Keywords: student perceptions; effective teaching/learning.

The Teaching for Effective Learning in Senior Schooling (TELSS) project is a three-year collaborative study conducted by the Queensland University of Technology and Kelvin Grove State High School. The project was funded by the Australian Research Council and has, as its aim, to review and renew teaching and learning in the senior school whilst determining how the needs of students can best be served given the changing nature of Australian society.

A number of studies are being conducted within the school. The purpose of the paper is to report the key issues which emerged when the school's student population was surveyed. The focus of the questionnaire was to canvass opinion on a broad range of concerns which affected their experience of schooling and to analyse these data to provide insight into student perceptions of effective teaching and learning. The questionnaire is the first phase of a two-part survey which addresses the following issues: demographics, home environment, ethnicity, employment, teacher effectiveness, vocational education, subject choice, study habits and discipline.

The data suggest a number of conclusions which have implications for effective teaching and learning in the senior school. These include autonomy in learning, vocational relevance, career counselling, responsiveness to diverse learning styles and a multiplicity of teaching strategies.

Julie Arthur and Bob Bingham, Australian Catholic University (Queensland)

All at sea: A dissonance model for teacher inservice

Keywords: action research; parent-teacher partnerships.

The involvement of parents in schools has been shown to have significant effects on student achievement. Catholic schools have a defined policy related to the importance of parent-teacher partnerships across all levels of schooling. However the practices of parent involvement often fall short of the rhetoric. Trends in research have identified teachers as the key to parental involvement. Against this background a pilot project was instituted with a cohort of K-12 teachers from Catholic schools in a coastal Australian town. The teachers (N=16) were involved in twilight seminars, collaborative reflection through collegial groups, and the implementation of action research projects related to parent-teacher partnership.

An initial survey of teacher beliefs and practices was complemented by interviews with participant teachers and analysis of personal journals. Ongoing research indicates that teachers have concerns about the decline in parent participation as children progress through schools. Of particular concern at the secondary level was the delay in reporting student achievement to parents. Differences have been identified between the beliefs teachers espoused about the importance of parental involvement and the practices in their schools.

The paper presents a description of the pilot inservice project and the action research process. The researchers report their perceptions of the efficacy of the project and discuss the expected outcomes for teachers, parents and administrators. This paper also reports on preliminary findings related to participant perceptions of the action research process and on teacher understandings of the nature of parent- teacher partnerships.

Julie Arthur and Bob Bingham, Australian Catholic University (Queensland); Peter Ireland, Colleen McQueen, Paul Martin, and Danny

Rankin, Classroom Teachers, K-12 Inservice Project

PANEL DISCUSSION: "You didn't tell us what to do!": Teacher perceptions of action research

Keywords: action research; parent-teacher partnerships.

The traditional expert delivery model of inservice with teachers has been shown to have some limitations for long-term understanding and professional growth. As an alternative, a facilitated action research inservice model offers the opportunity for teachers to identify areas of interest and their associated individual professional development needs. Such a program has been implemented throughout 1994 by Australian Catholic University personnel with a cohort of teachers (K-12) from six Catholic schools in a provincial town.

The format of the session includes an introduction to the project with brief presentations from teachers interspersed with audience participation and interaction. The session allows the teachers from the K-12 Inservice Project to outline their areas of focus and report on their experiences in the project. Areas of focus include academic motivation (Senior Secondary College), pastoral care (Junior Secondary College), personal development and sexuality (Primary School), and parent-teacher partnership (K-12).

To promote the exchange of ideas between teachers and Conference delegates some processes used in the project will be modelled.

Michael Arthur, University of Newcastle; Nancy Butterfield, New South Wales Department of School Education; and David McKinnon, Charles Sturt University-Bathurst

Case applications in a professional development program for communication partners: Reported changes in participant skills, knowledge and concerns

Keywords: communication; disability.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 16, Communication processes in students with severe intellectual disability: Issues and practices.

Brian R. Astill, University of Adelaide

Humanised statistics: Social values in a senior secondary school milieu

Keywords: statistics; social values.

This paper reports on a preliminary study which examined the social values of a Christian high school with a diverse student intake. Ninety final-year students, 45 parents, and 17 teachers were involved in the investigation.

To permit comparison with other research findings, the survey instruments administered to each participant included an internationally established Values Questionnaire (Schwartz, 1992), and a brief socio-demographic survey. Responses were processed using Cluster, Dimensional, Factor and Smallest Space analysis, as well as more commonplace statistical techniques.

The results suggest that the usage of quite complex statistical procedures can provide valuable insights into otherwise incomprehensible data, without the researcher needing high levels of knowledge of the underlying mathematical theory to enable understanding.

Bill Atweh, Robert Bleicher, Clare Christensen and Colin Lankshear, Queensland University of Technology

Successful school subject literacies within the context of disadvantage

Keywords: disadvantage; literacy.

Research into literacy and school subject performance focuses overwhelmingly on identifying and addressing risk factors associated with under-achievement. Strenuous efforts are devoted to diagnosing the "causes" of literacy failure that is pattered by ethnicity, social class, gender and other variables. This paper explores the possibility that equal or even greater insights into and potential benefit for school attainment may be achieved by investigating instances of successful school literacies practices within context officially designated as "disadvantaged".

It is a preliminary report which deals with six case studies comprising clusters built around successful students in English, science, physics, home economics, mathematics and economics at a secondary school in Brisbane. Each of the clusters consists of a student identified by their teacher as highly competent in the literacy of a given subject, one of their teachers and one of the students' caregivers. Interviews with all cluster members, classroom observations and journal-keeping by students are the main data collection techniques employed. The aim of the study is to develop contextualised theories to explain phenomena of success in disadvantaged settings and to identify social and pedagogical factors associated with success. This paper will report the findings of the present study, and comment on how they compare with those international studies of scholastic success in contexts of disadvantage.

Robert Austin, University of Newcastle

Freire, Fref and literacy texts in Chile, 1964-1970

Keywords: adult literacy; Chile.

As with the period of the UNESCO-backed literacy campaign in Cuba before it, the period 1964-1970 in Chile is arguably one of the great watersheds in twentieth century history of education. Responding to popular literacy debates reaching back to the latter decades of the 19th century, the Fref Montalva administration sponsored a literacy campaign which transformed the relationship between subject, text and society. The links between the ideological subtext of the literacy campaign and the popular rejection of "democratic" capitalism in Chile were not insignificant. Indeed, there remain influences in global educational discourse today of the Freire/Fref period.

This paper analyses the social and cultural context of the period, and locates literacy within that context. Inter alia, it argues that the centrality accorded the early work of Freire in the Chilean literacy process has tended to marginalise the significant contribution of co- workers (for instance, no English edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed carries reference to its Chilean editor Marcela Gajardo); and that there remain unresolved contradictions between the stage of Freirian theoretical development applicable, and the textual representations of that theory.

Nado Aveling and Diana Frylinck, Murdoch University

Interactive video: Teaching/learning at a distance

Keywords: interactive teaching strategies; videoconferencing.

At a previous AARE conference we reported our preliminary findings on the use of videoconferencing in a distance education course offered by Murdoch University. Since then we have used videoconferencing in a second unit and explored in more depth issues raised by the first program.

Literature on the topic and our own experiences suggest traditional teaching methods are often not suited to videoconferencing and new teaching strategies have to be adopted. In this paper we report on some of the strategies we have trialled for use specifically in videoconferencing. These strategies and practical guidelines for videoconferencing are integral parts of a handbook, presently in press, which will be available to Murdoch staff and others who want to use this innovative technology most effectively. This paper will appeal to those who are keen to adopt videoconferencing but are concerned by the lack of pedagogical research into teaching strategies suited to the medium.

Paul L. Ayres, University of Western Sydney Nepean

Asian/Australian perceptions of Asian success in mathematics

Keywords: Asian attributes; cross-cultural issues.

Over the last 15 years many studies have been completed which have compared students in the USA with similar students in Asia on various mathematical tasks. In most cases the Americans have performed poorly compared with their Asian counterparts (notably Japanese and Chinese). Several theories have been forwarded to explain these international differences. Many focus on differences in cultural values towards education. The following study explores this cultural theme further by looking at Australian/Asian perceptions about Asian success in mathematics.

Three groups of students were interviewed: 59 Australian-born girls in Year 12 attending a private Sydney school, 20 Asian-born (mainly ethnic-Chinese) girls in Years 10-12 attending a private Sydney school, and 32 trainee teachers (both sexes) at the University of Western Sydney, Nepean. Subjects were asked to rank particular attributes to explain why Asians might excel in mathematics. These included ability, age, effort, pressure from parents, teaching at school, rewards for success, and luck.

Both groups of Australian-born subjects agreed on the two main attributes: hard work and pressure from parents, which suggests that these beliefs may be widespread. However, Asian-born students ranked hard work and the quality of teaching as their main two attributes. Pressure from parents was ranked much lower. Although it is of no surprise to hear that the work ethic is perceived as important for Asian success in mathematics, a more significant result may be that Asians have different values about teaching.

Richard G. Bagnall, Griffith University

Educational research in a postmodernity of resignation: A cautionary corrective to utopian resistance

Keywords: postmodernity; research methodology.

The paper develops from the premise that our several and collective realities may be taken as being and becoming increasingly postmodern in nature. Postmodernity is seen as culture that is self-consciously informed by an understanding of: the interpretative nature of human perception; the contextualisation and fragmentation of belief, meaning and being; and the de-differentiated and generalised nature of contemporary communication.

Two opposing currents of postmodernity are recognised: one of resistance and one of resignation. Analytical attention to date in educational research has tended to focus on the former. As a counter to that utopianism, the present work seeks to elucidate the nature of educational research in a postmodernity of resignation.

It is suggested that such research would be characterised by its immediacy, ephemerality, superficiality, fragmentation, changeability, non-progressiveness, anti-intellectualism, crude instrumentalism, and marketisation. Educational research as a vocation would be suffused with uncertainty, insecurity, demoralisation, and self-interest.

In traditional modernist conceptions of alternative research approaches, a postmodernity of resignation is seen as favouring idiographic over nomothetic, inter- or multi-disciplinary over disciplinary, eclectic over traditional, political over apolitical, and objectifying over participative research. In other respects, there are contradictory indications within it, particularly with respect to whether the research would tend to be grounded or paradigmatic, hermeneutic or empirical-analytic, historicist or universalist, qualitative or quantitative, and action-based or descriptive.

Robert G. Baker, Curtin University of Technology

Academic staff perceptions of teaching and learning in a university

Keywords: tertiary education; university teaching.

This paper reports the findings which have emerged from a survey of 368 academics who represent 42% of the full-time staff at a major university. The questionnaire was very comprehensive, containing almost 200 items. Some of the main issues addressed were the relationship between teaching and research, publications, staff selection/induction/promotion and student learning, and the value placed on teaching and learning by various groups or levels within the university.

Results revealed large differences in the perceived value placed on teaching and research by university administration, school/department, and individual academic staff. Of interest was the significant difference between the perceptions of academic staff who had a teaching qualification and those who did not. Indeed, significant differences in perception were apparent across professional and teaching qualifications, gender, teaching service, academic position and status, and faculty affiliation.

These findings have wide implication for academic staff development programs and the actions of universities responding to recent moves towards quality assurance and the advancement of quality teaching and learning in universities.

Ian L. Ball, Deakin University, and Rosemary Jones, Consultant Researcher

Capturing employers' perceptions of the benefits of teacher placements in industry to facilitate education-industry linkages

Keywords: education-industry partnerships; professional development.

This study reports the perceptions held by industry personnel concerning the long-term placements of experienced teachers in their organisations. Staff from 55 organisations participating in the Teacher Release to Industry Program (TRIP) were surveyed using a methodology found useful by BP (UK). The benefits of TRIP to the organisation and its impact on the organisation were ranked in priority order as were the perceived benefits for schools and the impact of the program on schools. The 34 respondents also commented about the program from their experiences with the teachers. Subsequently a subset of nine employers were interviewed about the perceived benefits of having teachers on long-term placements in their organisations. In selecting organisations a balance of large and small enterprises and medium-size industry were included.

Of particular interest were the results of the benefits analysis of the value added by participating in partnership programs. It was evident that participating organisations strongly valued the access that TRIP has provided to different resources, the expertise and fresh perspectives of the teachers involved.

An analysis of the qualitative data showed that the Program was achieving objectives in three areas: enabling business and industry better to meet the needs of education, increasing the productivity of the organisation, and providing relevant professional development for teachers. These analyses also reveal the importance of unintended outcomes in education-industry partnerships and that each partner has the possibility of increasing the potential for becoming "a learning organisation".

Deidre H. Barron, Deakin University

Children's perceptions of environment through an ecofeminist, poststructuralist lens

Keywords: environmental education; gender issues.

Weedon argues from a feminist poststructuralist perspective that the construction of men and women as opposites in a superior and inferior relationship is manifested in hegemonic discourses. Davies adds that through these discourses the hegemonic social order is maintained as individuals learn to take up femaleness or maleness as if it were an essential element of their personal and social selves. What these feminist poststructuralist theorists overlook is that one of the many subject positions available to women and men is their humanness. That is, within the social process individuals not only learn to take up gender-appropriate roles but human-appropriate roles.

In this paper I deconstruct the hegemonic discourse of environmentalism revealing how it has been based on the notion of "culture" as masculine, "nature" as feminine. I argue that discourses that present this notion as "truth" work to maintain the current social order of male over female, culture over nature. I am also interested in exploring the ways in which these discourses can be challenged, thereby offering an alternative to the "male" versus "female", "culture" versus "nature" dualisms.

This deconstruction of current environmental discourses takes place within the context of my analysis of children's responses to hearing environmental stories. I examine the relation between the discourses made available through the stories and the children's interpretation based on their understandings of everyday life. This is combined with the current understanding generated by feminist poststructural analysis of children's perception of gender to generate an understanding of how perceptions of nature and perceptions of self are interrelated.

Neil Baumgart and Alison Elliott, University of Western Sydney Nepean

Asia across the curriculum: Student perspectives

Keywords: Asia; cross-cultural issues.

One of three programs of the Asia Education Foundation (AEF) is the Magnet Schools Program. Under this program, approximately 10 schools in each State and Territory have been identified to initiate teaching and learning about Asian countries and their people "across the curriculum".

As part of the evaluation of the AEF programs, questionnaires were given to a sample of students in 16 Magnet Schools, including both primary (N=316) and secondary (N=323) students, in all States and Territories. This paper reports on the perceptions of these students on a range of issues: geographic, historical, cultural, social, economic and political. An analysis of the data provides a description of students' current knowledge and understanding of Asian countries and allows inferences about factors related to the growth of inter-cultural understanding. Based on these findings, the paper draws implications for curriculum and for teaching and learning about Asia in Australian schools.

Mike Baynham, Dominique Beck, Katherine Gordon, Alison Lee and Caroline San Miguel, University of Technology, Sydney

Constructing a discourse position: Quoting, referring and attribution in academic writing

Keywords: writing skills; academic writing.

Becoming proficient in academic writing can be theorised as entry/apprenticeship in the ways with words of a discourse community. It follows from this perspective that the writing conventions which students learn will be specific in many ways to their discipline area/discourse community. As Batholomae puts it, "The student has to appropriate (or be appropriated by) a specialised discourse" (Bartholomae, 1985:134).

One set of conventions that the student must acquire are those for quoting and referring to the work of others, primarily published academic sources. Acquiring these conventions can be seen as one of the ways that the student learns to take up a discourse position in text. This paper will report on a study of quoting and referring practices in three undergraduate discipline areas: information studies, humanities and nursing. Through a variety of methods (text analytic and critical ethnographic) the study investigates the role of quoting and referring practices as student writers learn to construct an appropriate discursive position within the text.

Neil E. BTchervaise and Annigje Tarte, University of Sydney, and Michael Tarte, Ibex Consulting

Contesting the culture: The effect of implementation of Total Quality Management in a NSW independent school

Keywords: school management; school culture.

The management of education, of teaching and learning, and of administration, at all levels in an educational institution ultimately determines how well the students can learn. This project examines an attempt to implement one particular approach, Total Quality Management, to the management of teaching, learning and administration in a New South Wales independent secondary school. It traces the program from its genesis to its untimely conclusion, suggests reasons for the lack of success of the program, and provides suggestions for alternative implementation strategies to improve the likelihood of uptake of the program at senior executive level.

BECKL94.479

Lori Beckett, ACSSO, and Jane Kenway, Deakin University

PANEL DISCUSSION: Power plays: Developing strategies for boys

Keywords: gender issues; boys' education.

This presentation intends to generate some discussion and academic argument about the focus on boys, and the policy directions at the State and national levels. It revolves around the debate that has been happening in New South Wales this last twelve months, Minister Chadwick's response, the work of the National Advisory Committee for the Education of Girls, and the establishment of the MCEETYA Gender Equity Task Force and Expert Reference Group.

The session will be formatted like a Four Corners program taped in the studio. The chair will introduce the topic, provide an historical overview, and raise the question about what it means for gender equity. She will then call on speakers to make a contribution and, throughout, the audience is invited to actively participate and offer some critical feedback.

Warren Johnson, the Executive Officer of the Parents and Citizens Federation, will summarise parents' concerns about boys in relation to their concerns about girls. Joan Lamaire, the Women's Co-ordinator with the New South Wales Teachers' Federation, will give an indication of parents' concerns. Nola Alloway, from James Cook University, will provide a response, drawing on her research into early childhood and the social construction of gender. Julie Lewis, Education Writer for the Sydney Morning Herald, will comment on the media's role in generating public debate. Stephen O'Doherty, MP, and Chair of the New South Wales Government Advisory Committee on Gender Equity, will report on his advice and recommendations to Minister Chadwick. Jane Kenway, from Deakin University, will comment on the theoretical perspectives that are brought to bear on theorising about gender in education. Van Davy, New South Wales Manager of Targetted Programs, and Lyn Martinez, Principal Policy Officer in the Queensland Gender Equity Unit, will both speak on the emerging pressures on gender equity policy and systems' responses to those pressures.

The identified issues will include educating for equality and gender justice, masculinities and gender relations, youth culture, behaviour management, and established initiatives in girls' education. It is hoped that there will be a fruitful exchange between the different stakeholders, and that people will have an opportunity to voice their concerns and furnish their suggestions to accommodate boys in gender equity initiatives. An informed academic debate will benefit everyone, and give policy-makers an indication of just what the education community expects.

BELLG94.186

Garry Bell, Southern Cross University

Language and conceptualisation: A study of some mathematical terms

Keywords: conceptual development; cross-cultural issues.

Differences in culture, education, parental support for schooling, and innate ability have all been cited as factors contributing to the discrepancy between East Asian and American, and Australian students in demonstrated mathematics achievement. Another factor which has emerged as significant is the base-10 language structures of Asian number naming grammars. It has been established, for example, that Korean and Vietnamese 5-year-olds have base 10 conceptual structures for two-digit numbers that can facilitate addition and subtraction. The conceptual structures of native-English-speaking children, on the other hand, predispose them towards the more limiting strategy of operating in units of one.

It may be that other linguistic forms similarly facilitate mathematical conceptualisation. The Japanese word for area "menseki" includes the word for multiply-an operation which is often used to find area. The major Asian fraction names (except for Indonesian) usually name the denominator first, (two-thirds in Japanese is "three parts, take two") which is probably conceptually the first step in fraction construction.

This study reports on a pilot study of Korean and Australian Year 9 students' conceptual constructions for some mathematical terms. Students were asked to select a word from a list ("sharp", "balanced", "compact") and write it next to only one geometrical term ("square", "cylinder", "trapezium"). In another task, students were asked to rate a series of eight inadequate definitions from best to worst. While there were noticeable similarities, interesting differences have emerged.

Richard G. Berlach, Edith Cowan University

Processes of self-concept integration in student teachers

Keywords: self-concept; expert/novice.

Considerable research evidence has been amassed to suggest that individuals integrate a concept of themselves by utilising any one of a number of processes. The current research investigated two such processes, namely self-enhancement and self-verification, and indicated their significance for the way in which student teachers integrated a concept of themselves as professionals.

The design took the form of providing feedback to second-year teacher education students who took part in responding to a series of classroom-related vignettes, and then examining their responses against the criteria for self-enhancement and self-verification established from the literature. The integration processes favoured were designated as the dependent variables, with independent variables consisting of status (expert/novice), age (mature-age/school leaver), type of feedback presented (favourable/ unfavourable), and performance on school-based teaching practice. Data were analysed using Analysis of Variance and findings are discussed. Implications for preservice teacher education courses are considered.

BERRM94.190

Michael M. Berrell, University of Tasmania, and Russell J. Smith, University of Southern Queensland

Strange bedfellows: An adaptation of the Analytic Hierarchy Process as a nexus between logical positivism and interpretive understanding in educational research

Keywords: research methodology; structured hierarchies.

This paper examines an adaptation of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), originally developed by Thomas Saaty, as a method of participatory research. In essence, the methodology provides a nexus between purely logical positivist approaches and phenomenological perspectives to educational research. It is well suited to research settings where complex issues are involved.

The adaptation results in a dynamic and innovative research methodology which combines aspects of the foundations of cognitive science, the matrices of arithmetic and interpretive understanding to provide insights into research problems that could not be achieved by using mutually exclusive frameworks. The process utilises both iterative and reflexive stages.

The findings of a recent project using the adaptation of the AHP in a university setting will be presented. Problems encountered during this project will also be identified. As well, the steps taken to solve those problems are described.

Alex Beveridge, University of Newcastle

Student and supervisor expectations of field experience in a social welfare setting

Keywords: supervision; field placement.

The purpose of this study was to inquire into the expectations about field placement of a Social Welfare Studies student and Field Education Supervisor. The study attempted to identify the explicit and implicit expectations of the principal actors in this complex educational process and context.

Scant attention has been paid to student expectation and satisfaction with field placement. Whilst there is extensive literature on field placement in a general context, most of it is from the point of view of field educators, and to some degree agency supervisors.

This paper describes a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews undertaken with a Social Welfare student and Agency supervisor in the context of an Acute Psychiatric field placement setting. Individual constructs surrounding the student's and supervisor's expectations are elaborated and grounded in relation to previously collected research literature.

BEVEA94.492

Alex Beveridge, Mira Gordon, Phillip J. Moore and Lorna K.S. Chan, University of Newcastle

Surface motives and strategic learning in post-secondary students

Keywords: motivation; strategic learning.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 22, Motivation, strategic learning and school achievement-II.

Alan J. Bishop and Christine R. Brew, Monash University

Provision for NESB students in the mathematics classrooms of Victorian schools

Keywords: mathematics education; ESL students.

The task of teaching secondary-level mathematics in classrooms containing large numbers of non-English speaking background (NESB) students with different first languages has long been recognised to be a difficult one for any mathematics teacher. In this paper, we report on a range of strategies that have been adopted by schools that reflect various pedagogical perspectives.

Apart from some specific exceptions, the dominant ideology is that the study of mathematics is essentially language-free, or at least this belief lurks not far from the surface. In relation to the work of ESL support staff, they are likely to be involved in some way in mathematics and science teaching but more so in science, and the most common way they work with students is either in a team teaching mode or in a support capacity. Additionally, since the recent massive education budget cuts in Victoria, best practice schools which were interviewed state that specific programs have been either diminished or dismantled entirely. The highest priority for support is with new arrivals, and support at VCE level has consequently declined.

Alan J. Bishop, Monash University

Towards better regional collaboration in mathematics education

Keywords: electronic networking; mathematics education.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 18, Developing the educational collaboratory.

Fred Bishop and M. A. (Ken) Clements, University of Newcastle

Predictions of gender differences in performance of Years 5 and 6 children on pencil-and-paper mathematics items

Keywords: gender issues; mathematics education.

Sixteen items were chosen from the 1992 and 1993 Newcastle Permanent Primary School Mathematics Competition tests which are taken by school children in Years 5 and 6. Five of the items were such that males gave a statistically significantly higher proportion of correct answers than females; six of the items were such that the proportions of males and females who gave correct answers were virtually identical; and five of the items were such that females gave a statistically significantly higher proportion of correct answers than males. The 16 items were randomly sequenced and shown to 60 educators-20 practising primary teachers, 20 trainee primary teachers, and 20 tertiary mathematics educators. Each educator was asked to select questions on which they would have expected (a) boys to have done significantly better than girls; (b) girls to have done significantly better than boys; and (c) girls and boys to have performed at about the same level. Results of the analyses are discussed in the paper.

Jill Blackmore, Deakin University

What are the possibilities of a post-masculinist institutional politics in an era of self-governance?

Keywords: educational administration; gender issues.

This paper considers the current paradox of women being positioned as the emotional managers/leaders of education systems increasingly oriented towards privatisation and marketisation-systems which emphasise individual choice over community. It also looks to consider the strategic possibilities of how women in leadership can work in different ways in the context of shifts towards self-governance and self-regulation in education, the merging of the global and the local, the changing nature of educational work, and emerging foci in management literature and practice (managing diversity, ethics of care, "post-modern", etc.). It considers how and what feminisms have largely contributed to feminist work in educational administration, why and with what effect. It also focuses upon how feminists must think strategically about their relationship with the State, men and each other, of how difference is conceptualised. It suggests that, for a post-masculinist politics to emerge, masculinity itself must first be made problematic.

The paper draws on three related ARC research projects which consider the positionality of women. The theoretical framework draws from recent post-structuralist work in educational feminist and organisational theory which utilises notions of discourse and culture, but which also strives for a sound materialist understanding of the conditions under which particular discourses come to be more powerful than others, e.g., Hennessey. It will address issues such as the possibilities for a post-masculinist politics (as framed by Anna Yeatman's and Wendy Brown's political analyses) in an era in which Equal Opportunity policy makers confront new relationships between the individual, the State and education.

Robert E. Bleicher, Queensland University of Technology

High school students as apprentices in university research laboratories

Keywords: science learning; workplace learning.

This study was designed to explore the learning potential for high school students working as apprentices in university solid state physics laboratories, as part of a summer science program. It examined the communication between scientists and students and how this supported or constrained learning.

Videotaped laboratory instructional events and student public presentations of what they were learning in their laboratories were submitted to an interactional sociolinguistic analysis. Frequency tables compare concept coverage in the laboratory to the presentation. Discourse analytic maps illustrate connections between talk in laboratory to talk in presentations. Students experienced the uncertainty of future directions of experimentation, the daily need to collect data, the frustration and urgency of repairing equipment, both the ups and downs of everyday life in the laboratory. Presentations were directly tied to what was learned in laboratory. From laboratory experiences, students took up particular vocabulary, a way of talking about it, and ways of representing it (particular charts, graphs, overhead transparencies).

Examination of the learning opportunities made possible for high school students in authentic research settings reveals the range of skills they are capable of in resource rich learning environments. This has implications for future secondary science education curricular reform.

Douglas Blomberg, National Institute for Christian Education

A teacher-researcher focus for inservice award courses

Keywords: teacher as researcher; inservice education.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 4, Transforming the practice of teaching through research partnership.

Janette Bobis and Robyn Cusworth, University of Sydney

Teacher education: an agent of change for attitudes towards mathematics and science/technology

Keywords: mathematics teaching; science/technology.

This paper reports on the initial phases of a longitudinal investigation of the attitudes of preservice primary teachers toward mathematics and science/technology and toward the teaching of these subjects.

Four aspects of the project distinguish it from previous investigations of preservice teachers' attitudes toward mathematics and science. First, the project takes the perspective that preservice education can have more than a superficial and short-lived impact on the attitudes of beginning teachers (Denscombe, 1980; Martinez, 1992). Instead, it suggests that preservice programs have the potential to change not only their existing attitudes toward mathematics and science, but their attitude toward teaching practices. Secondly, research concerned with attitude toward mathematics and science has traditionally been reported in the literature separately. This investigation raises issues common to both disciplines and allows insights to be gained from a comparison of the two. Thirdly, the study identifies the importance of calculators and computers in influencing attitude toward mathematics and science. Previous investigations have not considered the impact of technology on the attitudes of preservice teachers. Technological changes in the curriculum will invariably be accompanied by changes in attitude toward mathematics and science and toward the teaching of these subjects. Lastly, multiple data gathering techniques provide a more holistic perspective on the change process, allowing the researchers to focus on the underlying reasons for attitudinal shifts. While traditional quantitative and qualitative techniques provide the basis, the actual change process was monitored via reflective journals.

Observational data collected during practice teaching provides evidence of attitudinal changes transferring to classroom practice.

Sandra Bochner, Macquarie University

Evaluation of a CD-ROM tutorial on writing skills for first-year students

Keywords: writing skills; program evaluation.

Over recent years, many academic staff have become concerned about the difficulties experienced by first-year students in essay writing. These problems are encountered by students who performed well at university entrance examinations, as well as those who performed poorly, and can probably be traced back to the very different essay writing skills needed at secondary school, compared with those required for university study. Most students are able to write descriptive prose, but are not accustomed to assembling information from a variety of sources, synthesising ideas, developing arguments and writing in a scholarly style. It was in recognition of these problems that an application was made for a CAUT Teaching and Development Grant to design a CD-ROM Tutorial on writing skills for use by first-year students. The proposed Tutorial would be located in the University Library and would provide an optional source of help for students needing help with essay writing.

The CD-ROM Writing Skills Tutorial comprises a Reference Book on essay writing, an example of a well-written essay together with copies of earlier drafts, working notes and collected reference material, and a tutorial which can function as a guide for students using the CD-ROM. It can be used flexibly, with the student following the set path of the tutorial or browsing through items of specific interest.

An evaluation study to compare the effectiveness of the CD-ROM Tutorial with a more traditional writing skills tutorial will be conducted in Semester 2, 1994. Results will be reported here.

Ted Booth, University of Wollongong

Evaluation of an access and equity program on secondary students' post-secondary choices

Keywords: access and equity; post-secondary choices.

The Secondary School Link Program at the University of Wollongong is an outreach program initially funded by DEET (1989) and mainstreamed in 1992 within the University's Equity and Access Program. Link's central school-based work is through small group-based conversations between university and TAFE student role models with Year 10 and 12 students. Role models are selected from the six DEET-identified equity groups with representation from all faculties and the Illawarra Institute of TAFE. After training, the role models work in teams of four in visits to the 32 targeted schools. All Year 10 students participate in the 40 to 90 minute sessions.

The paper briefly reports on the changing national equity context and the rationale and institutional evolution of the Wollongong program. Evaluation of the program's effectiveness has been an integral component of the program's activities. Data drawn from surveys of students and careers advisers as well as role model diaries provide a range of data that demonstrate the program's effectiveness. External survey sources from a 1993 university-wide study explore student perceptions of factors which encourage and discourage tertiary participation and the impact of the current program on their choice patterns. A longitudinal study of UAC data charts the enrolment patterns from three schools which have participated in the program since 1989. The benefits to the professional and personal development of the university and TAFE role models as an unintended outcome of the program will also be discussed.

Ted Booth, Neil Hall and Wilma Vialle, University of Wollongong

The role of research and inquiry in undergraduate teacher education

Keywords: research methodology; reflective teaching.

In this paper, we argue that a compulsory unit on research methods and inquiry skills is critical for the development of reflective teachers. Given the accelerating rate of change and reform in school curricula and in teacher education programs, it is imperative that universities respond by offering courses that increase the likelihood that graduates will become reflective teachers, critical consumers of research, and individuals capable of conducting their own inquiry- based professional development.

The paper has resulted from developments within the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong concerning the roles of research and inquiry methods in preservice teacher education, and is in part concerned with the placement of such a subject within the Bachelor of Education program. The origins of the debate, the activities of an internal working party, a literature review, a grid of research/inquiry skills and knowledge, data gathered from stakeholders, short-term developments and possible future changes are presented and discussed.

Gillian Boulton-Lewis, Queensland University of Technology

The SOLO Taxonomy as a means of shaping and evaluating quality in tertiary learning

Keywords: higher education; quality teaching and learning.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 9, Quality, students and learning in tertiary settings.

Sid Bourke and Max Smith, University of Newcastle

Quality of teachers' professional lives: teacher stress, workload and satisfaction

Keywords: teacher stress; teacher satisfaction.

With the greater personal and professional demands made on teachers in recent years, it is reasonable to expect that the ways in which teachers viewed their responsibilities might have been affected. In common with all Australian teachers, demands increased on teachers employed by the New South Wales Department of School Education throughout the 1980's; however, from the Scott Report in 1990 through 1992 to the present, the rate of change accelerated rapidly. Expectations of teachers have changed most markedly in the areas of accountability and assessment.

This paper considers secondary teacher stress, workload and satisfaction in the Hunter region of New South Wales and compares self-reported levels of stress, workload and satisfaction in 1989 and 1992. Four measures of stress are employed: stress arising from students and conditions, time pressure, administrative conflict, and lack of rewards and recognition; four measures of workload: administration, teaching, managing resources, and assessment of students; and three measures of satisfaction: workload and conditions, relationships with students, and relationships with administration and senior staff. It is suggested that any changes in perceived levels of stress, workload and satisfaction may be related to overall changes in the social and professional context of teachers in the region.

Jennifer M. Bowes, University of Sydney

Knowledge about work and work procedures: Lessons from unpaid work at home and at school

Keywords: conceptual development; social cognition.

Children's ideas about paid work, particularly their understanding of who does particular jobs, and the monetary and status rewards of different occupations, has been the main focus of research on children's knowledge about work. School programs on work have also concentrated on the world of paid work, and on category rather than social knowledge. Relatively neglected, the field of unpaid work at home and at school provides a context for much early learning about the distinctions to be made between work tasks and the social rules associated with work.

The paper will draw together literature on children's developing understanding of work at home and at school, and will discuss children's perceived interconnections between these work contexts and the world of paid work. It will be argued that children's social cognition about work is more advanced in contexts in which they have had experience, and that this knowledge, particularly their knowledge about the social rules of work, can be built upon in teaching children about the world of paid work.

BRANJ94.405

Jillian Brannock, Ross Brooker, Leonie Daws, Lisa Ehrich, Brigid Limerick and Georgia Smeal, Queensland University of Technology

Partnerships in action research as a process for developing gender knowledge

Keywords: action research; gender issues.

The ideal of developing true partnerships between insiders and outsiders in action research projects has often not been realised in practice. One reason for this gap between rhetoric and reality is that insufficient effort is put into developing a process in which such partnerships can occur. This paper will report on an action research process that brought together university academics and school-based personnel to develop professional development modules that teachers could draw upon to assist with implementing practices that most contribute to the equality of outcomes for boys and girls in years 7- 10.

The collaborative nature of the development process for the federally- funded project (conducted in two States) was particularly fruitful for fostering professional development, developing gender knowledge, working within teacher culture, identifying and responding to resistance, changing practices and understandings, and responding to particular school contexts.

BRANJ94.406

Jillian Brannock, Ross Brooker, Leonie Daws, Wendy Patton and Georgia Smeal, Queensland University of Technology

Young people's attitudes to sexual violence: The story of a project

Keywords: peer research; sexual violence.

The SVAYA Project (Sexual Violence and Youth Attitudes), funded by the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme, is currently investigating the perception and attitudes of young people to sexual violence. The project has employed a research model which recognises that research "on youth" should translate into research "with youth". To this end, the university-based authors have worked collaboratively with a team of young people who are co-researchers. Data collection instruments consist of interviews, questionnaires, and a survey of youth agencies in all States.

This paper will report on the peer research paradigm employed, and the data revealed by the project in its final stages. It will focus on methodological and ethical issues implicit in the research, and the patterns of perception and understanding revealed by young people in the interviews and questionnaires.

BRENM94.288

Marie Brennan, University of Central Queensland

A gendered critique of current foci on school planning in Australian educational reform

Keywords: educational administration; gender issues.

This paper considers the current trend towards an emphasis on planning in moves towards greater devolution and tighter central accountability in school-based responsibilities. School plans and associated indicators of achievement of the outcomes of these plans are now the primary focus of steering State school systems. The paper considers the underlying assumptions about change, reform and action embedded in these approaches to school planning through an examination of the policies and administrative regulations of State education departments in Australia related to the organisation of school strategic, annual, performance improvement plans.

The paper argues that the model of planning underlying these reform efforts is seriously flawed both in its attempt to steer action, and its potential to realise even its own limited goals. It suggests that the narrow conception of planning as a steering and accountability mechanism draws on both theoretical and commonsense understandings of leadership which have relied on a (now discredited) separation of public and private spheres in which male leaders have been able to practise abstracted forms of leadership by relying on the largely unseen work of women workers, paid and unpaid. New forms of masculinity are seen as being endorsed as the new norm for educational leadership, forms which are potentially inimical to the field of education and to many of its practitioners, whether women or men. The analysis draws strongly on recent critical organisational theory and feminist postmodern theorising of democracy to reconstruct a different approach to school-level planning and accountability.

BRENM94.493

Marie Brennan, University of Central Queensland

Practising globalisation: Methodological and analytic relations in a multi-country study

Keywords: cultural politics; research methodology.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 23, Cultural politics and educational research methodology.

Margaret Bride, Deakin University

Issues in the evaluation of the delivery of career education programs in selected Victorian secondary schools

Keywords: program evaluation; career education.

Quantitative methods of evaluation were used to test the hypothesis that student outcomes, in this case vocational maturity, were not affected by whether or not the career education program was delivered as an integrated part of the general curriculum.

An initial survey, sent to all post-primary schools in two educational regions of Victoria, was used to identify 10 schools with an integrated approach to delivery of career education programs and 10 schools where the program was not integrated. The Career Development Inventory-Australia (CDI-A) was administered to a selected group of Year 11 students in each of the 20 schools, totalling 400 students. The results showed a differential in student outcomes in the cognitive aspects but not in terms of the attitudinal aspects of career development between the two types of delivery.

Research issues to be addressed in the paper are: the challenges of conducting research across a school system which has decentralised much of its decision-making to the school level; the difficulties of obtaining a suitable sample of students in the later years of secondary schooling when pressure on student time is great; and the use of a well-researched and standardised test in program evaluation.

Issues relating to career education programs which will be addressed are: which students benefit by an integrated approach to the delivery of career education and in what aspects of career development they benefit; and the interaction between gender and type of program delivery.

BROOR94.362

Ross Brooker and David Smith, Queensland University of Technology

Assessing tertiary students in an education faculty: Perceptions and practices

Keyword: assessment practices; academic staff development.

This paper reports on the process and outcomes of an action research project focused on the assessment practices of university lecturers in an education faculty. The project specifically explored lecturers' understandings and applications of criteria and standards of performance in literature-based assignments and the extent to which assessment practices were explained to, and understood by, students. Data were collected from interviews with 22 lecturers and 130 students and by examination of subject outlines.

The study indicated that there was relatively high agreement between lecturers and students that the literature-based assessment items were beneficial to learning and reflected unit objectives. There were, however, marked discrepancies in the perceptions of lecturers and students regarding the extent to which the purposes of assessment and assessment criteria and standards were made clear to students. Similarly, although most lecturers stressed the importance of formative feedback, a relatively high proportion of students reported that the assessment feedback provided was only moderately helpful or not helpful at all. Many of the students suggested modifications to assessment procedures.

The paper presentation will include two case studies, one illustrating an instance where there was strong agreement between the perceptions of lecturers and students, and the other where there was disagreement. The next stage of the project is to conduct a workshop to share the findings with participating lecturers with a view to improving assessment practices.

The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the study for tertiary educators.

Ian Brown, University of Wollongong

The role of policy implementation and its effect on policy outcomes

Keywords: educational policy.

Over the past twenty years public policy analysis has identified the emergence of a new subfield: the role of policy implementation and its effect on policy outcomes. This paper explores this important new field in relation to educational policy.

In this era of obvious change and reform in education, it is important for educationalists to stimulate or modify educational policy and enter the policy arena equally with other influential bodies. It is the belief of the presenter that to be efficient and enter into influencing, then it is critical to understand the policy process- implementation, in particular.

The presentation will outline the progress of a higher degree study which describes the implementation process of a Commonwealth policy (Education and the Arts) as it was implemented at the State level. This presentation will be of interest to educationalists concerned with educational policy development and implementation in an intergovernmental setting.

Merle Bruce and Lorna K.S. Chan, University of Newcastle

Effects of strategy instruction in reading on upper primary students' attributional beliefs, strategic learning and reading achievement

Keywords: motivation; strategic learning.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 22, Motivation, strategic learning and school achievement-I.

Clarrie Burke, Queensland University of Technology; Ken Jarman, Kippa-Ring State School; and Letitia Whitmore, Queensland University of Technology

Disruptive and anti-social behaviour in primary schooling: Foci for professional development and community education

Keywords: classroom management; professional development.

This paper provides a broad base of information concerning the occurrence of disruptive and anti-social behaviour in the primary schools of the Redcliffe School Support Centre area in South-East Queensland. It presents a basis for critical understanding of, and strategies for managing, such behaviour in a co-ordinated, supportive school environment. The study provides a focus from which future policy, professional development and community education programs seeking to improve behaviour management may be initiated.

Through a reflective analysis of, and commentary on, key issues arising from teachers' perceptions of the incidence of disruptive and anti-social behaviour, the study raises important questions that heighten awareness of the problems and issues involved.

BURNJ94.328

Jen Burnley, University of Wollongong

Children as evaluators: A challenge to Michael Fullan's approach to educational innovation and change

Keywords: curriculum evaluation; curriculum change.

Although the literature on action research and reflective practice in schools includes students as stakeholders, very little research relies heavily on the students themselves as key informants. In a recently concluded study in a New South Wales high school, students were involved in evaluating an innovative, interdisciplinary core subject at the school, namely Global Education. Not only did the students help to evaluate the course, but they also helped to redesign segments of the course. Students, parents, other teachers, an outside researcher and the author were all involved in evaluating four main areas of the course: the goals, course structure, teaching strategies, and the perceived value and appropriateness of the course compared with the respondents' views of "traditional" social science approaches for Years 7-10.

The study analysed responses over a 10-year period, a far longer period than most research into curriculum innovation. It explored two interlinking areas of inquiry. The first evaluated the actual processes of reflection and action carried out in the project. The second explored the students' attitudes towards introducing Global Education into the curriculum. It is significant that the innovation was initiated from within the school rather than from outside. It is the contention of the author that many of the concerns raised by Michael Fullan regarding curriculum change have not taken into account matters relating to internally initiated curriculum development as distinct from externally directed change. This raises a number of methodological questions for researchers who are using Fullan's model of change as their guide.

Robin Burns, Rolene Lamm and Ramon Lewis, La Trobe University

The education of educational researchers: student and supervisor perspectives

Keywords: educational researchers; supervision.

Higher degree students are researchers-in-training, yet little is known about the processes of undertaking a higher degree outside the sciences, especially in professional areas like education, where the majority of students are mature age, with considerable work experience. In particular, it could be predicted that with more individualised choice of topic, larger numbers of part-time students, and greater demographic and experiential similarity between students and supervisors, issues related to the supervisory relationship would have a significant impact on the success of undertaking a higher degree.

The research reported here is the result of a study in a professional School combining the use of questionnaire, interview and focus group. It investigated student perceptions of the process of undertaking a higher degree in education, and student and supervisor perspectives on what is involved, what the task means, and the difficulties encountered. Both research students, and those undertaking the minor thesis in coursework degrees, were included. While students sought a collegial relationship, and positive feedback, supervisors showed little knowledge of student concerns. Only a minority saw their role as inducting students into a research culture. A model of supervision is developed, and the implications, especially for the induction of educators into the research process, are considered.

Jude Butcher, Australian Catholic University (NSW)

Toward a theory of teacher development in the management domain

Keywords: teacher development; management.

A grounded theory of teacher development from novice toward expertise in the management domain has been constructed to provide a research- based conceptual framework for teacher educators. This framework is to assist teacher educators in both understanding the nature of teacher development in this domain and planning teacher education components to facilitate such development. An overview of the theory is presented.

A major focus in the paper is on transitions in development and on factors influencing that development. Extensive phase cross-sectional and longitudinal data which show transitions in development are presented. Case studies of student teachers who were in a transition period of their development are then used to provide further understanding of the nature of transition and how transition toward expertise can be facilitated.

Jude Butcher, Australian Catholic University (NSW), and Michael Bailey, University of Sydney

Conceptual space and the measurement of cognitive structure

Keywords: cognition; conceptual maps.

Investigations of cognitive processes and structures are receiving increasing emphasis in the study of teacher thinking. This paper describes the application of some graph-theoretical methods to the investigation and mapping of conceptual structures in the area of classroom management practices produced by teacher education students and experienced teachers. The advantages of the graph-theoretic approach include the ability to accept different types of conceptual structure rather than requiring response using a structure imposed by the researcher.

This more open-ended procedure brings problems in establishing measures comparable across different kinds of structure. A method for dealing with these problems is described.

Nancy Butterfield, NSW Department of School Education; David McKinnon, Charles Sturt University-Bathurst; and Michael Arthur, University of Newcastle

Learning to communicate: Investigating the developmental model in students with severe intellectual disability

Keywords: communication; disability.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 16, Communication processes in students with severe intellectual disability: Issues and practices.

Glenda Campbell-Evans and Carmel Maloney, Edith Cowan University

Learning to teach: A snapshot of second-year education students

Keywords: beginning teaching; teachers' knowledge.

The process of learning to teach has traditionally taken place in training institutions where students undertake a standard teacher education course that aims to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes relevant for the task of teaching. This learning provides a foundation that integrates with the practice component of the training. The degree of success of this integration has long been a contentious issue for teacher educators and students alike. Where and how do students' knowledge and skill of teaching develop? More specifically, this research addresses two questions: what knowledge of content and pedagogy is demonstrated through students' classroom practice, and what do their actions in the classroom tell us about their understanding of teaching?

This research focuses on a sample of second-year Faculty of Education students completing a three-year Bachelor of Arts (Education) course. Data were collected from observation of the students in the classroom, written feedback about the specifics of the lesson, and individual and group interviews focused on general issues related to the practice. An interview schedule guided the interviews which were taped and transcribed verbatim. Issues emerging from the preliminary analysis include evidence of students' limited pedagogical content knowledge, reliance on teacher guidance and input, and preoccupation with personal survival. These findings have implications for teacher educators concerned with the nature of preservice teacher education courses.

Robert Cantwell and Peter Beamish, University of Newcastle

Executive strategy control in secondary and tertiary populations: Contrasting understandings of self-regulation

Keywords: metacognition; child development.

One hundred and two tertiary students and 152 secondary students completed the Strategic Flexibility Questionnaire (Cantwell, 1991, 1994). Factor analysis of the responses of the tertiary students revealed three identifiable predispositions towards the executive management of strategic decisions: adaptive executive control, marked by a reported willingness to mindfully plan and orchestrate strategy choices in processing; inflexible executive control, marked by a reported predisposition towards the mindless application of known strategic algorithms and routines; and ambivalent executive control, marked by a loss of control over strategic planning and implementation. For these students, adaptiveness was associated with better performance in academic learning, while both inflexibility and ambivalence were associated with markedly less successful learning outcomes.

Factor analysis of the responses of the secondary students revealed a less clear-cut executive management profile. The most theoretically and empirically consistent interpretation of the factor structure was one where adaptiveness remained as an identifiable predisposition, but where ambivalence and inflexibility coalesced into a single factor labelled maladaptive executive control.

The lack of differentiation between the inflexible and ambivalent elements of maladaptive executive control are discussed in terms of possible developmental differences in the quality of metacognitive reflections between the middle high school and university years. Performance data for the secondary students was in the process of collection at the time of writing.

Teresa B. Carlson, University of Queensland

Expectations of physical education and their effect on student attitudes toward the subject

Keywords: physical education; student attitudes.

This paper reports an investigation of secondary students' attitudes toward physical education, and identification of the variables that contribute to the formation of these attitudes. An attitude survey was given to 150 Year 8 and 9 students at two schools. The survey results were then used as a screening device to select 36 participants, who held varying attitudes toward physical education. Data were collected by: (a) conducting two group interviews with each of the student participants; (b) conducting stimulated recall sessions and individual interviews; and (c) observing and videotaping classes. The data were coded and analysed to identify differences and similarities between students who held varying attitudes toward physical education.

Aspects of cultural, societal, and school contexts were found to be the major influences on student attitudes toward physical education. Factors within each of the three contexts interacted and influenced student expectations of physical education class-expectations which led many students to believe that physical education was not a "real" subject. This belief contributed to student attitudes toward physical education. A model was designed to explain how the various factors contributed to student attitudes toward physical education. Although designed specifically for the physical education setting, the model could be used and adapted for other subject areas (particularly specialist subjects), and for expectations of, and attitudes toward, school itself.

Annemaree Carroll and Peta Odgers, University of Western Australia

An alternative explanation of the at-risk behaviours of adolescents: Goals, reputations, and coping strategies

Keywords: adolescent behaviour; self-regulation.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 19, Adolescents taking control of their lives: Western Australian research.

Annemaree Carroll and Peta Odgers, University of Western Australia

Assessing reputation: Development of the Reputation Enhancement Questionnaire

Keywords: reputation enhancement; adolescent attitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to detail the instrumentation development and subsequent findings of two separate yet related research projects on reputation enhancement theory. The first of these projects involves a population of delinquent, at-risk, and not at-risk adolescent males, while the second project focuses on adolescent substance users, ex-users, and non-users. Both of these projects commenced with focus group studies to ascertain the type of vocabulary, and the issues, themes, and attitudes of adolescents in relation to reputation enhancement. The findings of these focus groups assisted in the initial construction of the Reputation Enhancement Questionnaire.

Detailed analyses of the results attained from both projects has led to the refinement of this questionnaire which will be discussed in detail, with particular reference to the reliability and validity of the scales. The congruence co-efficiency data will also be examined in order to determine the durability of the questionnaire across different data sets.

Jean Carroll, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Working with a mathsphobic teacher trainee

Keywords: mathematics teaching.

Student teachers' negative attitudes towards mathematics and the inadequacy of their mathematical performance have been a concern of mathematics educators for many years, both in Australia and overseas. The discipline review of teacher education in mathematics and science (1989:18) reported that a significant number of students entering early childhood preservice teacher education admitted that they had difficulties with mathematics. The review cites concerns identified in research about the inadequacy of the mathematical backgrounds of students, describing their mathematical knowledge as superficial, and also identified consistent reports of primary preservice teacher education students entering programs with feelings of fear and anxiety and negative attitudes towards mathematics. Concerns about teacher trainees' poor performance in mathematics are not new. Ellerton and Clements (1989) in describing primary teachers' preparation around 1900 state "that many students were not far ahead of their students from a mathematical point of view".

This paper resulted from concerns about these issues. In an attempt to understand the interaction of cognitive and affective factors in mathematics learning, this paper presents a case study of one preservice early childhood/primary teacher education student's experiences of learning mathematics in primary school, secondary school and at university. A range of methods including interviews, a questionnaire, tests and a journal were used to gather information. It was found that social factors had a considerable influence on the subject's mathematics learning and the nature of her beliefs about mathematics were also limiting. The study highlights issues which are of concern to all teachers and teacher educators.

Patricia Cartwright, University of Ballarat

Critical literacy, language and gender

Keywords: critical literacy; gender issues.

This paper will explore the proposition that writing pedagogy can be used to investigate the relationship between literacy and social structure and between curriculum and critical pedagogy. The aim is to consider the importance of language in the construction and maintenance of social power and control, and to discuss the development of a critical literacy that is grounded pedagogically in a politics of difference and which goes on to directly introduce those knowledges, discourses, texts and genres necessary for academic success and sociocultural power.

The research on which this paper is based has been taking place in an enabling, or bridging, program, the objectives of which are to provide students with those skills that would enable them to participate successfully in tertiary study. Essential though these skills are, they do not necessarily address the construction and maintenance of the dominant discourses in society, which marginalise certain individuals, and perpetuate social inequality. Students are engaged in the construction and critique of varying texts, as well as critical journal writing in which they investigate and contest varying issues in society and education. Texts from journal writing are analysed using feminist poststructuralist analysis as an interpretive framework. This analysis allows an examination and interrogation of the conflicting, partial and contradictory discourses present in journal writing, together with a focus on relations of power and the multiple subjectivities that are available to individuals in society. The findings of this research will have application to the development of pedagogies for the exploration and implementation of critical literacy in general, and for adult continuing education in particular.

Yola Center, Macquarie University

An evaluation of Reading Recovery

Keywords: Reading Recovery; program evaluation.

An evaluation of the effectiveness of the Reading Recovery Program was undertaken in 10 primary schools in New South Wales. Children, selected by their teachers as low progress readers in Year 1, were randomly allocated to either Reading Recovery or to a control condition in which they received only the resource support typically provided to at-risk readers. Low progress readers from five matched schools where Reading Recovery was not in operation were used as a comparison group in order to test the spill-over effects of Reading Recovery. All children in the three groups were pre-tested, post- tested after 15 weeks (the average discontinuation period for Reading Recovery children), after 30 weeks to assess short-term maintenance effects, and after 12 months to determine medium-term effectiveness.

Results indicated that at short-term evaluation, the Reading Recovery group were superior to control students on all tests measuring reading achievement, but not on two out of three tests which measured metalinguistic skills. There were no significant differences between control and comparison students. At medium-term evaluation there were no longer any differences between the Reading Recovery and control children on seven out of the eight measures used. However, because of selective attenuation of the control group, these results must be treated with caution. Single-case analysis suggested that, twelve months after discontinuation, about 35% of the Reading Recovery students appeared to have benefited directly from the Program and about 35% had not been "recovered". The remaining 30% would probably have improved without such an intensive intervention, since a similar percentage of control and comparison students had also reached average reading levels by this stage without individualised assistance. Implications for Reading Recovery implementation in NSW schools are also discussed.

Felicia Chadwick, University of Newcastle

Developing classroom music programs for intellectually homogeneous groupings of students of differential musical ability in selective secondary school settings: Implications for teaching practice in music education

Keywords: music education; gifted education.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 24, Music education practice.

Paul Chandler, University of New South Wales

Human mental processes

Keywords: instructional design; cognition.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 5, Some mental processes and their consequences for designing teaching materials.

Clive Chappell, University of Technology Sydney

Vocational education and training-A modernist project

Keywords: vocational education; training.

The past decade has witnessed unprecedented changes in the social, political and economic contexts in which work is organised in post- industrial societies. We now exist in a social environment redolent with contradictions. More people than ever are involved in paid work while more people than ever are unemployed or under-employed. Those of us in paid work are working harder while those of us without work are unemployed for longer. The less work there is, the more education appears to be focused on developing the skills and abilities needed to participate in work. Vocational education and training is being asked to become more general while general education is being asked to become more vocational. Future work is said to need a more flexible workforce while at the same time industries and enterprises are being asked to develop national standardised work descriptions.

Given these contradictions, it is not surprising that there is a great deal of confusion and antagonism among those practitioners who are being asked to implement changes to post-compulsory education and training. School and TAFE teachers, workplace and industry trainers, university lecturers and other Human Resource Development personnel are being asked to implement major changes to education and training in a policy environment which is itself in a state of flux, giving off mixed and in some cases contradictory signals. The paper suggests that in this environment all education practitioners must re-examine the taken-for-granted world views which have influenced the development of their particular sector of education.

This paper argues that vocational education and training is a project firmly embedded within the modernist paradigm. It explores how this genealogy has influenced the theory and practice of vocational education and training and finally questions the appropriateness of modernism as an explanatory paradigm in the present debate.

David Chawszczewski, Oglethorpe University, Georgia, USA

Further investigations into classroom tasks

Keywords: assessment practices; content analysis.

For better or ill, classroom regimes of assessment provide windows into the interactions and experiences of the classroom, and with them the school, in much the way that actual observation does. Indeed, these tasks provide opportunities for students and their parents to see into the thinking of teachers, just as the students' responses allow teachers to see into the thinking of students and, by extension, their home lives. Assessment also provides the foundation, more generally, for the ways in which members of this triad are held accountable for their part in the school experience.

For several years, The Center on Restructuring has been gathering data through a variety of means in order to describe and discuss the nature of change in schools, and the resulting impact on educative substance. Among the data collected to this end are two primary resources- teachers' descriptions of the tasks and the students' responses to those assignments-that reveal insights about the nature and use of tasks in classrooms.

One part of the effort to analyse these texts involved the training of teachers in the local community to score each group on a variety of scales or rubrics designed to provide empirical renderings of the value of the texts that could be employed across schools, grade levels, curricula, and aims. Yet the reductionism inherent in this process, while yielding an analysis of one type, deters questioning the texts on other levels. It is my intent here to report on a continuing investigation of these artefacts that employs an alternative view of these texts, namely the use of a phenomenological content analysis. By employing this approach, I aim to uncover further themes as they might exist in these particular glimpses into teachers' lived experience, while at the same time providing some description of the tasks themselves.

David Chawszczewski, Oglethorpe University, Georgia, USA

The dialectic and teacher supervision

Keywords: supervision; phenomenology.

As Tabachnik and Zeichner (1991) have discussed, the notion of reflection, particularly in the context of student teacher supervision, has been developed in a variety of often disparate manners, with only moderate agreement as to the most valuable approaches and outcomes. On the one hand, it is generally seen as a tool for professional development. On the other, it is seen as a platform for investigating the social constructs of the classroom and teaching. While the use of a reflective frame has been generally agreed upon, and these are worthy aims, the psychological and subjective context in which novice teachers function has been largely ignored, and yet may play the most important role in the development of reflective teachers.

This paper investigates the theoretical relationship between reflective student teacher supervision and constructivist philosophy in an effort to co-ordinate the pedagogical, social, and psychological potentials for reflection. Building upon a foundation established by Dewey, the paper argues for a blending of constructivist and phenomenological approaches to supervision, and highlights the conception of the dialectic, as re-defined by Riegel (1973). When framed within the context of the constructivist approach to teacher education, as outlined by Fosnot (1989), such an approach has the potential to bring about professional development by creating the basis for any inquiry-oriented path to consideration of social and pedagogical issues in light of the individual development of novice teachers, especially given their relationship to themselves. The ultimate aim of the inquiry, then, is to provide a sound philosophical basis for directing new research and thinking into the phenomenon of student teachers' conceptions of the meanings of their peculiar predicament.

Wing S. Cheung, University of Wollongong

Analysing instructional events in educational software packages

Keywords: computer-assisted learning; program evaluation.

Computer technology is part of the learning environment of students. Sometimes educational software packages are used to provide instruction for them to learn. As a result, the quality of the packages is very important. Usually the content and the instruction are equally important for a good educational software package.

Jonassen and Harris (1990) suggest five primary instructional events: prepare the learner, present information, clarify ideas, provide practice, and assess learning. These may be used as guidelines to evaluate the instructional aspects of the chosen software packages.

In this paper, I will evaluate five educational software packages according to the five primary instructional events. I believe this paper will suggest one approach to evaluating the quality of instruction and stimulate teachers to choose good quality educational software packages. The discussion of the findings will also provide input for educational software development.

CHIAT94.349

Chia Teck Chee, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Common misconceptions about frictional force among preservice physics teachers

Keywords: physics education; conceptual learning.

It is not uncommon that preservice physics teachers possess some common misconceptions in physics even though they have completed, at the very minimum, first-year university physics. Frictional force is one of the topics in which many have misconceptions.

In this study, we found that common misconceptions concerning the force of friction involve particularly the direction of the frictional force. Based on the misconceptions, we developed appropriate demonstrations and learning activities to highlight the inconsistency of the misconceptions. These misconceptions may be correct in one situation but incorrect in other situations (differentiation). We also designed meaningful learning experiences in order for student- teachers to link the experiences to the scientific conceptions (conceptual bridging). During the lessons, the conceptual change learning strategy was adopted and the lessons were conducted through the prediction-demonstrations/activities-explanations approach. About three weeks later, a post-test was administered and the results indicated that almost all of the trainees had overcome their misconceptions.

In this report, we include also the analysis of the improvement of performance on each item and the improvement of individual performance in the post-test.

Mohan Chinnappan, Queensland University of Technology

Construction of problem space: The effect of instruction on knowledge generation

Keywords: knowledge generation; problem-solving.

In a study of geometry problem-solving, Lawson and Chinnappan (1994) identified five major categories of processing events that are involved in the solution attempt: Identification, Management, Generation, Self-assessment and Error. Analysis of students' think- aloud protocols for these events revealed that on the more difficult problems, the high-achieving students activated a significantly greater number of Identification, Management and Generation events than their low-achieving peers. This suggests that instruction that would enhance the activation of these three events could improve students' efforts at solving problems.

This is an investigation of the effect of instruction that aims to promote the production of information on the activation of Identification, Management, and Generation processing events. The instruction highlighted the importance of identifying given information, analysing the problem for clues and using these clues to retrieve related information from memory. The experiment was designed to test the prediction that the treatment group would invoke a significantly greater proportion of the above three events than the control group. Comparison of the percentage of the process categories activated before and after exposure to the instruction revealed that the treatment had a significant effect on activation of the Generation event. Subjects in the treatment group also showed significant improvement in the solution outcome.

The above set of results is interpreted within the framework of problem space (Newell & Simon, 1972), and implications for classroom instruction are discussed.

Krystyna Cholowski and Lorna Chan, University of Newcastle

Nursing diagnosis as clinical problem-solving: Factors that influence performance

Keywords: problem-solving; nursing education.

Current research into student learning and problem-solving has linked motivational constructs and prior content knowledge with the quality of learning outcomes. In the present study these relationships are examined in the context of a group of second-year nursing students.

This paper reports on an empirical study investigating the relationships between nursing students' motivational orientation, structure and accessibility of their content knowledge, and the quality of their logical reasoning with the accuracy and quality of nursing diagnoses made in a simulated clinical problem-solving task. One hundred and thirty-eight preservice nursing students completed the Study Process Questionnaire (Biggs, 1987) and the Causal Attribution Scale (Chan, 1994) prior to receiving four lectures on "Predisposing and Precipitating Factors in Mental Health". Post-tests of content knowledge and the clinical problem-solving task provided measures of structure and accessibility of content knowledge, quality of logical reasoning, and the quality and accuracy of nursing diagnosis.

Results from the path analysis linked motivational constructs with measures of prior content knowledge and the quality of logical reasoning in predicting the accuracy and quality of nursing diagnoses. A major finding in the study was the important role of the amount and structuring of prior content knowledge, in conjunction with the quality of reasoning, as predictors of success in clinical problem- solving in nursing. Implications of these findings for nursing instruction are discussed.

John A. Clarke and Barry C. Hart, Queensland University of Technology

The relationship between students' approaches to learning and their perceptions of what helps and hinders their learning

Keywords: learning processes; learning environment.

This multi-method paper examines the relationship between tertiary students' self-reported deep, surface and achieving approaches to learning and their perceptions of those classroom-based activities and lecturer/tutor behaviours that they claim help or hinder their learning.

Nine hundred and eighty-four students from 10 Schools in five Faculties at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia, completed the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ), a 42-item forced-choice Likert scale inventory that can be used to classify respondents as having a predominantly deep, surface or achieving approach to learning, and the Perceptions of Learning Environments Questionnaire (PLEQ), a semi-structured but open-ended questionnaire designed to gather students' views about what helps or hinders their learning and why. The findings are related to existing research, including a variety of beliefs of how students go about learning, and their implications for tertiary teaching and the construction of learning environments which facilitate the development of meaningful approaches to learning by students are discussed.

John A. Clarke, Queensland University of Technology

Students' views of their learning environments and their implications for quality in tertiary teaching

Keywords: higher education; quality teaching and learning.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 9, Quality, students and learning in tertiary settings.

M. A. (Ken) Clements, University of Newcastle, and Nerida F. Ellerton, Edith Cowan University

Who owns the curricula of Australia's schools?

Keywords: curriculum development; national curriculum.

The authors have only recently completed a book on attempts to develop a national curriculum in Australia. In this paper they will discuss the issue of curriculum ownership, which is one of the major themes in their book. They will argue: (a) that the nationally developed, outcomes-based curriculum profiles are derived from neo-behaviourist principles which, for at least some curriculum areas, are not in accord with findings of research; (b) that the State, Territory, and Federal Ministers of Education, and Directors of Curriculum, do not own the curricula of schools; (c) that in any proposed changes to curriculum, all major stakeholders should be involved at all stages of the curriculum development process, including the policy formation stage; (d) that the consultative processes adopted, over the period 1988-1993, in the national curriculum development exercise were inadequate; and (d) the model for the national curriculum development exercise in Australia was the now discredited United Kingdom national curriculum.

Margaret Clyde, University of Melbourne

The relationship between role perceptions and leadership attitudes and practice in child care centres

Keywords: early childhood; role perceptions.

Preliminary investigations carried out by Rodd and Clyde (1992) on a sample of Victorian child care directors indicate that Australian caregivers do not respond positively to the traditional descriptions which characterise leadership. This may be due to the fact that the role of child care director is a female role whereas the leadership profiles have been developed from a male-oriented perspective and may not be perceived as appropriate for women. Kinney (1992) has developed a list of characteristics that better describe female leadership behaviour: these descriptors have been incorporated into a new protocol trialled on 50 directors of child care centres in Victoria. In addition each director has been interviewed to ascertain their perceptions of the leadership role and the skills necessary to fulfil this role.

Preliminary results indicate that child care directors have a concept of leadership and the skills involved in leadership which reflect the kind of centre they operate in (public or private) and their length of experience in the child care field.

These results have strong ramifications for the kinds of training, both preservice and inservice, offered to leaders in the child care field, and the need to develop innovatory techniques in order to assist directors to "marry" their perceptions of the kinds of skills needed to implement their role.

Barry Cocklin and Jane Mitchell, Charles Sturt University; and Jenny Gurtner, Temora Public School

The "voice" of rural, women teachers

Keywords: rural teachers; gender issues.

What are the connections that teachers make between their biographies and (1) the reasons why they became teachers; (2) their current perspectives on education and schooling; and (3) their classroom practice?

Drawing on the biographies of three women working in a rural school, this research explores the extent to which gender and rural location are dimensions that impact upon these women's careers, teaching knowledge and teaching practice. Through a series of in-depth interviews, this research considers the way in which these teachers construct and interpret their own careers and practices and how their lives as teachers both constitute and are constituted by the social and cultural context in which they are located