1997 AARE Conference, Brisbane

Compiler and Editor: Peter L. Jeffery.

Note:This file is very large. You will be notified when it has loaded,

The 1997 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 not presented, and some were not submitted for publication.

Note:

Keynote Speeches

Abstracts

ABOLM262

School vision and department heads

Mahmood Abolghasemi, John McCormick, and Bob Conners, The University of New South Wales

In spite of increasing attention to the role of principals in relation to school vision, the role of department heads in relation to school vision is not clearly understood. This paper highlights the importance of the role of department heads in this regard. A survey research instrument was developed and administered to a sample of 293 participants from 28 high schools, selected at random in Sydney. Factor analysis and multiple regression were used for data analysis. The findings of the study provided strong evidence that support of teachers for the principal's vision is strongly associated with the views of department heads. As well, the results suggested that the principal's visionary behaviour as perceived by teachers is associated with teachers' support for the principal's vision. Finally, the results suggest that stronger structural coupling is associated with increased teachers' support for the principal's vision for the school.

Students' mathematics achievement in Australian over time: A Rasch Analysis

Tilahun Afrassa and John Keeves, The Flinders University of South Australia

This paper aims to analyse and scale mathematics data over time by applying the Rasch model using the QUEST (Adams and Khoo, 1993) computer program. The mathematics achievement of the students is brought to a common scale. This common scale is independent of both the samples of students

tested and the samples of items employed. The scale is used to examine the changes in mathematics achievement of students in Australia over time.

Conclusions are drawn as to the robustness of the common scale and the changes of students' mathematics achievement over time in Australia.

Bilingual literacies interacting: A longitudinal case study through primary schooling

Marina Aidman, University of Melbourne

This paper will report a longitudinal case study that examined the development of early bilingual literacy. While there is a considerable body of case studies of early bilingualism (Leopold, 1939-1949; Taeschner 1983; Dopke 1992; Saunders 1988; Fantini 1985), longitudinal research on bi-literacy has been scarce. The significance of this study relies on its aim to find support for the additive bilingualism hypothesis (Cummins, 1984; 1996) in the context of bi-literacy development. A simultaneously bilingual female child was observed over a period of almost five years (from the pre-school through mid-primary years) while receiving mainstream schooling in English and being simultaneously immersed in a minority language (Russion) in her home life. An exhaustive collection including every written text produced by the child in either of her two languages over this five year period, was analysed. The texts were generated both in the school and in familial contexts. Her classroom peers' written texts were sampled for comparative analysis. A detailed analysis of the texts was then conducted by using the systemic functional methodology (Halliday, 1994). It was hypothesised that simultaneous bi-literacy development in the child would have no detrimental effect on her English literacy learning, and possibly would benefit her English language development. One noticeable advantage expected would be the child's competency in one other language, including ability to read and write in tht language. The child's potential ability to move between the two literacies was viewed as advantageous. It was hoped that by tracing her progress in bi-literacy learning, some support for the hypothesis of the interdependence of bilinguals' languages development (Cummins, 1984, 1996) would be found. On the basis of the additive model of bilingual development (Lambert, 1975) and the Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) principle (Cummins, 1981, 1984, 1991), schematic structures and grammar in one of the bilingual's languages were expected to transcend across to her second language. The findings in fact provided ample evidence that language development in one of the bilingual's languages tends to actively support the development in the other. In particular, the results show that certain text types emerged in the child's English writing that were not explicitly taught in English and even some genres not typically found in elementary student writing. These genres had no prior explicit support in English, but had been all scaffolded in the minority language, thus indicating that aspects of schematic structures and grammar mastered in one language can be carried across to a second language and stimulate the emergence of new written genres in it. The results thus tend to support the argument that scaffolding in one of the bilingual's language may have consequences for development in the other. Importantly, these findings add specific support to the hypothesis of the interdependence of bilinguals' languages development (Cummins, 1984, 1996), in the area of written genre learning. It therefore seems possible, on the basis of these findings, to delineate more effective methods of promoting truly balanced multiple literacies, from the very onset of the child's writing development. For example, methods which allow children tro move freely between literate behaviours in both languages seem to hold promise for more effective literacy development . These methods would have a potential to enhance language programs for minority students, as well as early immersion programs for majority background students.

Software evaluation - a pedagogic solution

Sivakumar Alagumalai and Jonathan Anderson, The Flinders University of South Australia, and V Mala, Ministry of Education, Singapore

Numerous methods have been advanced in educational software evaluation. They range from evaluating the technical aspects of software to examining their pedagogic strengths. This study reviews some of the advances made in educational software evaluation and highlights shortcomings of technical-based and content-based evaluations. It then attempts to provide a practical solution for software evaluation using sound pedagogic principles through teacher-collaboration via a networked-database. The paper illustrates this with a working example of an 'expert-pedagogic' database for storing pertinent details of selected sections of educational software and how it is to be used in teaching/instruction and is currently being researched and tested at the School of Education. Details of setting-up and maintaining such a tool and implications for teachers/educators of IT, specifically with educational software, are given. Teacher collaboration and the Internet-based databases are also discussed.

Let's save the trees - Online testing to the rescue

Sivakumar Alagumalai and Jonathan Anderson, The Flinders University of South Australia

Traditionally, the process of much research commences with a survey/test done on paper and culminates into transforming the data from the hard-copies to a digital form on the computer before any statistical analysis can be attempted. This can be a huge undertaking, especially if numerous test instruments are used so as to understand or answer a comprehensive research question. At the end of the study, the 'used' hard-copies are destroyed or 'recycled'. This can be both an expensive and time-consuming activity. This paper examines an approach and trial of online testing, and also highlights advantages online testing has over traditional methods of data collection. Technical details of setting-up an online test are discussed.

ALLEJ374

My vision is blurred: Teachers and change

Jennifer Allen, University of Newcastle.

This paper will provide an account of one teacher's work. This account will detail the dilemma faced by teachers when personal ideology and tvisiont are pursued in the everyday lives of teachers' work. One teacher's story is told using critical ethnography and an archaeological approach to reconstruct a discourse of teachers' work and teachers' thinking. This reconstruction embraces the need for critique within this teacher's individual and collective context giving an account of the aporias that emerged. The place of critical reflection is also noted as integral to teachers' work within a context that marginalises individual ideology. Ideology and 'vision' within the everyday lives of teachers has been marginalised within discourses explaining teacher thinking, and through this account of one teacher's story the significance of moving beyond normative theory is featured. This shift is necessary to understand teacher critical reflection as a way to embrace personal vision and ideology, giving teachers a 'voice' for their aspirations and beliefs. The paper will challenge discourses surrounding conceptions of teacher thinking. The contention is that these discourses are deficient in providing explanations of individual and collective decision making within a context that requires increased flexibility but at the same time devalues teachers' work.

AMARV367

Policy implementation of non-formal education in Lao PDR

Varadune Amarathithada, University of Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 22, Reworking education in postcolonial conditions: Local and global contexts for change.

ANDET056

The quest for professional development in postmodern times

Therese Anderson, The University of Melbourne

This paper draws on the experiences of a novice researcher in her quest for an appropriate research design for a doctoral project that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative aspects. The focus of the study is the impact of professional development processes on the personal and professional lives of registered nurses who work on a casual/part-time basis in Melbourne metropolitan hospitals and health care agencies. Casualisation and contract work are features of the post-industrial labour market. A random sample of one thousand registered nurses have been surveyed for the quantitative arm of the study. The qualitative aspect examines the experiences of twenty casual/part-time nurses who are concurrently engaged in continuing professional education. It is evident within nursing, that, all too often, professional development is viewed, constructed and implemented from a modernist perspective. Given that the nature of nursing work and education has undergone substantive change in recent years, new approaches to professional development are required. Situating professional development within a postmodern context has the potential to enhance nurses' professional lives. Thus a feature of the research is understanding and interpreting educational processes from a postmodern perspective. Of particular importance in any contemporary research are the vexing issues of legitimation and representation. A postmodern perspective focuses on these because it problematises the search for accuracy and authenticity of data and the way(s) that the research subject's view is presented. The pitfalls and possibilities of using a postmodern framework for educational research and a summary of work in progress are discussed.

ANDRD299

Analysing praxis: Studying the self in action

Ms Dorothy Andrews, University of Queensland

This paper will report on the outcomes of methods for studying the praxis of self through the perceptions of others and through the use of a reflective journal. More than often we cannot `see' what we know, and through reflection through deliberation with other(s) we learn to know what we know and know what we need to improve practice. We also learn to know through reflective writing. The methods reported on recount two phases of research used in the study. One phase, recalls the action in role in an organisation by the action researcher designing action derived from reflective practice. An important component of reflective practice is the individual's perceptions of the people in the context(the researcher) and the people in the context perceptions of the action (the researched). However reflective practice is more than this, it is also reflection on the researcher's practice.

Therefore, the researcher, in reflecting on own practice, will research `self' in order to improve action - self development. This is the second phase of research reported on in the study.

Through different lens: The study of anti racism and racism in new times

Ruth Arber, Monash University

Racism has been a central construct throughout the formation of post colonial Australia. During the last 20 years a series of legal, political and educational approaches have been adopted to confront this. Events show that these concepts have not fully realised their lofty aspirations, have serious theoretical limitations and most seriously, share many of the same understandings which underpin the racist elements about which they are concerned.

Recent British, American and Australian theorists suggest that anti racism be researched through a different approach informed by post structural, post colonial and feminist literatures. This paper analyses key studies centred within these literatures of racism and anti racism discourse and practice, to understand how these theories could best be used to critically examine various practical, conceptual / theoretical and political approaches to Australian anti racist education. The paper concludes that Australian studies of racism and anti racism studies must broaden the way they understand and analyse the conception, effects and dispersal of racial constructs in contemporary societies. The development of a more systematic and coherent approach to anti racism studies calls for us to gaze through different lens: Culture, public discourse, everyday activities and the formation of us and other in body, time and space.

The effectiveness of enabling programs for university entrance

Robert Cantwell, Jennifer Archer, and Sid Bourke, University of Newcastle

The effectiveness of enabling or bridging programs as a necessary precursor to undergraduate university education requires sustantiation for a wider range of tertiary students. There are many variables likely to affect the academic success of mature-age students who enter university through enabling programs: age, gender, educational and occupational history, family circumstances, ability, self-confidence, achievement goals, and approaches to self-regulation of academic behaviour. Two cohorts of students who completed a one-year enabling program were traced into their undergraduate studies, and comparisons were made of their academic success with other students who were enrolled in the same subjects. Gathering data on background variables, measures of ability, and psychological constructs has produced a particularly rich array of variables with which to explore the academic progress of mature-age students in undergraduate courses. As two levels of data exist (the individual and the course), the models developed are being analysed using the multilevel analysis program MLn.

Problem-solving and mathematical processing

Lynette Arnold, Flinders University of South Australia

My research focuses on an interactive multimedia (IMM) program's effect on children's development and understanding of spatial skills - namely rotation, symmetry and visual perception; and compares the effects of IMM and traditional media on the student's problem-solving and processing skills.

Method - 54 Year 7 girls were divided into four groups - 1. IMM with teacher interaction; 2. IMM without teacher interaction; 3. traditional media with teacher interaction; and 4. traditional media without teacher interaction. All students undertook a pre-test, preliminary activities, tower building task, series of rotational tasks, post-test and a questionnaire. Selected students were interviewed to ascertain their impressions of the media and their performance.

Initial results showed no significant difference in student's problem solving performance, however significant differences in the patterns of student processing and problem solving were found between groups. A significant difference is also evident in the types of interaction students participated in. In my thesis I explore the issues of technological and conceptual interactivity and my results highlight the need for multimedia developers to attend to both aspects of interactivity when designing educational products. The results also have implications for teachers and the implementation of such products within a learning environment.

ASPLT200

Struggling within supervisory relationships: Stories from Asian women

Tania Aspland, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 19, Supervision of postgraduate research in education.

ASPLT434

Conversing about research partnerships: Multiple ways of 'seeing'

Tania Aspland, Ian Macpherson, Ross Brooker, Bob Elliott and others.

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 1, Partnerships in educational action research: Voices of participants.

ATWEB433

SYMPOSIUM 1: Partnerships in Educational Action Research: Voices of participants

Presenters: Bill Atweh, Tania Aspland and Julie Davis and others, Queensland University of Technology

This session presents learnings arising from three action research projects associated with PARAPET, a network of action researchers and projects centred around the Queensland University of Technology. The three projects reported here represent partnerships between university researchers and school teachers, parents and school students respectively. This session will discuss the possibilities of and difficulties that may be encountered from such partnerships. Multiple voices from participants will be heard during the session. Learnings about action research will be developed.

PAPER 1:

ASPLT434

Conversing about research partnerships: Multiple ways of 'seeing'

Tania Aspland, Ian Macpherson, Ross Brooker, Bob Elliott and others.

During the past five years we have been working as partners with teachers and principals exploring the nature of curriculum leadership in differing school sites. We have shaped the nature of our research in a way that is investigative as well as developmental for participants. We have tried to position our research subjects within our various projects so that we engage in critical collaborative research as we pursue the study of phenomena of mutual interest. It is our hope that all stakehoders within our projects will benefits from our joint efforts. In this sense, our projects highlight that research and staff development can be one and the same enterprise, and that it can be practical and emancipatory for all participants if it is a partnership model. Writing about such a process is easier than doing it. This presentation is designed to listen to the different ways of 'seeing' how such a process is realised in action. Through conducting a conversation with teachers and university lecturers who participated in the study we will highlight a number of stories about research partnerships. We will be asking each participant to share with the wider audience the nature of the partnership as they experienced it, teachers and university academics joining together to present multiple perspectives of differing research partnerships. A reactor who will be an integral part of the conversation will present a summary of the conversations with a view to identifying key propositions that might form the basis of further enquiry.

PAPER 2:

DAVIJ435

Parents as Partners for Educational Change

Julie Davis, Queensland University of Technology

Parents are an under-recognised resource for change in schools. This presentation examines constraints to parent participation in school decision-making and discusses some of the difficulties encountered when parents seek to become facilitators of change. An outline of benefits and opportunities that can arise when parents, teachers, administrators and the wider community engage in respectful, collegial, and shared decision-making processes will also be presented.

PAPER 3:

ATWEB436

Student as Partners: Possibilities and Problems in Action Research

Alison Cobb, Louise Dornan, Bill Atweh, Queensland University of Technology

Recent national and state agendas for school change include calls for collaboration between different stakeholders in education. Students are not often considered as partners in proposed collaborations. Further, action research models have often been presented as effective means of nurturing such collaboration in the investigation of contextual, site specific considerations. This paper reports on an ongoing collaborative research between high school students, their teachers, university staff and community organisations toward increasing the access of under-represented groups to higher education. In the five years of its life, students from at least fifteen schools have taken part in the project. Specific cultural, social and gender groups were involved in investigating particular equity issues influencing access to university. in these, Aboriginal, Torres Strait islander, Samoan, ethnic, non English Speaking background, low socio-economic, rural, urban, single sex and mix sex groups of students were represented. This session will discuss dilemmas of collaboration with students and potentials for the employment of students as action researchers both for the students benefit and for enabling negotiating school change. The paper identifies some conditions that may assist the success of such partnerships and will include voices of the students themselves.

ATWEB442

Transition into teaching: Women's experiences in making mathematics more inclusive

Bill Atweh, Pam Harris, Lisa Garrett, Gabrielle Pitman, Janette Sitton, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 14, Transition into teaching: Voices of women primary teachers of mathematics and science.

ATHAJ077

Student and teacher judgements of subject interest: an idiographic analysis

James Athanasou, University of Technology, Sydney

The purpose of this study was to investigate a variety of individual and situational factors which act as antecedents and concomitants of interest in a vocational education subject. These included factors relating to the course, ability, difficulty, relevance or importance of the subject, the quality of teaching, student effort, vocational interests and/or demographic factors. The study employed an idiographic design with a lens model analysis of each person's judgements to determine the individual policies that students and teachers used in making their decision of how much someone was interested in a subject. Subjects (20 students, 17 teachers) from technical and further education were presented with 115 judgement tasks containing 19 cues. The multiple correlation of these 19 cues with actual interest was 0.846. Correlations of judgements with actual interest varied from 0.033 to 0.606 for students and 0.217 to 0.601 for teachers. Cognitive control over judgements ranged from 0.64 to .99 for students and 0.60 to 0.96 for teachers. Knowledge of the environment varied from -0.03 to 0.85 for students whereas for teachers it ranged from 0.30 to 0.80. The relative beta weights for teachers and students showed that they differed in the extent to which they placed their emphasis on specific cues. Vocational interests were rated more importantly than subject specific factors. Results of this study also confirmed a large variation in both student and teacher perceptions of subject interest. These individual differences in judgement ability have an impact not only for teacher reactions to students but also affect the ways in which students determine their own interest for learning.

Assessing and producing the 'child-student'. The enactment of double incumbrance in the classroom

Helena Austin and Peter Freebody, Griffith University

This paper documents the conflation of the categories 'student' and 'child' in a literature classroom. It argues that the assessment of the students as successful in school rests upon increasingly problematic adult theories of 'the child'. The classroom talk and students' writing from a literature unit is an upper primary classroom is examined within the theoretical framework of Ethnomethodology using the analytic devices of category analysis and conversation analysis. The paper documents the relevance to the participants in this classroom of the students' membership of the category 'child', such that their assessable student products, both in talk and in writing, are interpreted as bychildren, and reflexively, are used by the teacher as measures of the individual's appropriate 'maturity'. The extent to which a student is assessed as appropriately enacting a particular version of the child has profound consequences for school success. The dual relevance in this context of these interactants as once students and children has consequences for the nature of the classroom interaction. It is clear that the prevailing version of the child undermines the apparent educational goals of the classroom. There are implications for teachers and researchers in confronting and questioning both the definition of the child upon which pedagogical practices are based, and the relevance and utility of the 'child-student's' dual incumbrance.

AYREP279

HSC English in New South Wales: Facts, perceptions and TER scaling myths

Paul Ayres and Wayne Sawyer, University of Western Sydney and Robyn Wigham, Loretto School, Kirribilli

Enrolment patterns of the four English courses offered in the New South Wales High School Certificate over the past 10 years and the scaling of marks for each subject are examined in this study. In particular, an analysis is made of the differences which exist between the scaled marks which are recorded on the High School Certificate and those used in the calculation of their Tertiary Entry Rank (TER). For the most demanding course (2-Unit Related), the HSC marks have been perceived by many to be artificially low compared to other subjects. In contrast, the scaled marks used for the TER have traditionally been high, reflecting the particular population of students who attempt this course. However, as the TER marks are not made available to the public, a number of myths and misconceptions have developed over the years leading to a decline in the number of students attempting the more demanding English Courses. In 1996, an attempt to address this situation was made by introducing a common component to two of the English Courses. The result of this action are analysed, as are the recommendations made by the McGaw Report.

Understanding the design and use of computer software in higher education in terms of academics' educational conceptions and beliefs

John Bain, Gillian Lueckenhausen and Colleen Mills, Griffith University, and Carmel McNaught, La Trobe University

Understanding the influence of information technology on student learning cannot be accomplished without reference to the epistemological and educational assumptions of the academic teachers who design and use computer-facilitated learning (CFL) programs.The focus of the paper will be the first stage of an ARC project (Study 1) in which thirty-six technology-based CAUT projects from a number of disciplines were examined. This study was based on archive material only (the initial application and final report for each project). Projects were sorted into self-forming categories in each of which the educational presumptions and practices were similar. Categories were then compared and refined so as to reveal their major sources of similarity and difference. The resulting framework is one in which the use educational technology in higher education can be understood in terms of several key qualitative "dimensions" which reflect academics' beliefs about the role of the expert teacher, the nature and ownership of knowledge, the control of learning and the nature of the learning process. This paper will describe these findings in detail and include reference to Study 2, currently underway, in which archive material is augmented by detailed interviews with academic staff and with comments from students.

Varying the focus of reflective journals and the nature of reflective dialogue during a teacher education practicum

John Bain and Colleen Mills, Griffith University, Roy Ballantyne and Jan Packer, Queensland Unviersity of Technology

This paper investigates the use of reflective journals to facilitate student learning during a teacher education practicum. Thirty-five student teachers undertaking a one-year Graduate Diploma of Education submitted weekly journal entries during their eleven-week practicum and were interviewed at several stages about their educational beliefs and practices. Students were randomly assigned to four intervention conditions which varied the type of journalling strategy (experiential or cognitive) and the nature of reflective dialogue based on journal entries (supervised dialogue or self-reflection). The evidence reported here includes the content and quality of students' reflections, the effects of the intervention conditions, and students' perceptions of the value of journalling. Although there was some evidence that students found it easier to write an experiential than a cognitive journal, there were no overall differences in the quality of reflection achieved under the two conditions. Students in the self-reflection condition attained a higher level of written reflection than those receiving supervised dialogue, suggesting that the benefits of oral reflection may not carry over into the written domain. The impact of written feedback, however, was significant and needs to be further explored. Students generally were positive about the value of journalling in learning to teach.

BAKEB345

Cutting off the king's head? Foucauldian power and educational research

Bernadette Baker, University of Queensland

Power is a relatively recent concept for grounding socio-histocial analyses. Michel Foucault identified several theories of power which have been used since the 18th century philosophies, including contractual and repressive power. In the mid-1970's, Foucault posited a new analytics of power which sought to "cut off the King's head" in political theory and to identify power-as-effects rather than power-as-property. Educational research in the past has utilised both contractual and repressive theories of power and has more recently turned to Foucault's analytics in an effort to move beyond the impasses that structural conceptions of power have reached. This paper questions whether Foucault's analytics and particulary his application to education has enabled the giving up of "sovereign" or structural power that it was dedicated to. By analysing what is implicitly and explicitly required to make Foucault's conception of power to work I draw out the ruptures that Foucault's analytics have provided and the continuities that his theory of power have been unable to avoid. The analysis and the questions are grounded in examples from my own educational research on the history of childhood and schooling which utilised Foucauldian power in its theoretical framing.

Private industrial and enterprise training and education in the Hunter Region 1900-1990

Ray Barker and Allyson Holbrook, The University of Newcastle

In the current climate of debate concerning the provision for skills development and training in Australian industry, one of the most serious gaps in our knowledge is our almost complete ignorance of the history of private provision of enterprise and industrial training; its nature, role and significance in industrial development. This paper provides an essential first step towards identifying the above through an historical analysis of patterns of provision in one major industrial area - the Hunter - between 1900 and 1990. Private industry and enterprise training embraces on-the-job knowledge transmission through to private coaching organisations, consultants and in-house training programs. This study maps the field of training provision, identifies significant and unbreachable gaps in the data and identifies factors that contribute to the relative mix of public and private provision. It explores and extends the categorisation of education and training.

BARNJ228

Researching teachers' constructions of policy priorities

Jenny Barnett, University of South Australia

Policy priorities in schools of the 1990s are multiple and sometimes conflict both with each other and with local community priorities. Affirmative policy for marginalised groups may conflict with mainstream values embedded in curriculum and assessment policies, while policy supporting universal educational norms may conflict with policy endorsing social justice. Teachers are consequently involved in constructing and enacting their own localised version of policy priorities.

This paper discusses practicalities and issues in researching five teachers' constructions of policy priorities in a rural secondary school serving a socio-economically disadvantaged community. In the context of overarching priorities for equitable access, improving students' attainment levels and effectively managing classroom behaviour, the study focused on three policy priorities in developing a new junior secondary science program. These priorities were: writing student outcome statements in accordance with the National Profile for Science, developing students' literacy skills in science, and incorporating Aboriginal perspectives in the science curriculum. Research methods included analysis of teachers' recorded planning meetings, classroom observation, analysis of classroom artefacts, collaborative reflection between researcher and teachers, semi-structured interviews, and teacher diaries. Each method generated different kinds of insights and different kinds of research concerns.

Using standards to improve quality: The construction and application of academic standards

Rees Barrett, Secondary Education Authority , Western Australia

The paper will describe current research on ways in which policy makers, curriculum writers, teachers and students make sense of academic standards. The use of standards as policy levers for the achievement of alignment has become an integral part of what Gee et al (1996) describe as 'new capitalism .The drive for standards-led reform coming from business and industry has spawned a standards industry in its own right. In the enthusiasm for reform there is a tendency to view the standards as absolute, unproblematic. The intent of this study is not to challenge the importance of standards in the reform process but to highlight their complexity and problematic nature. Education standards are socially constructed and as such are value-laden, internal to the user and contestable. Piloting by the WA Secondary Education Authority of a new approach to course design, using outcomes as symbols for the construction of a community of assessment practice, affords an opportunity to increase understanding of the nature of academic standards. This innovation is a response to the new context of post-compulsory education: the move to a K-12 curriculum framework based on outcomes, increased alignment of schools and the workplace, and a strong push for citizenship education.

They have to offer the top subjects: A rural school and its curriculum

Pamela Bartholomaeus, Deakin University

An important question to examine when researching the educational credentials achieved by rural students is the curriculum available to these students, and sought by them, in their rural secondary schools. These questions are vital if the issue of provision of an adequate education available for all is to be addressed. Decisions about the curriculum choices accessible to rural students, and the ways this curriculum is made available, are difficult for many rural schools, particularly for smaller schools.This paper will discuss the curriculum offered at a secondary school in rural South Australia. It will also explore some of the ways in which curriculum decisions are made, and consider some of these issues which concern members of the school community.

BATER515

SYMPOSIUM 2: Standards and guidelines in initial teacher education

Presenters: Richard Bates, Deakin University, Kym Adey, University of South Australia and Barbara Preston

The Project was commissioned by the Federal Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Employment, Dr David Kemp. This followed the recommendations emerging from the Chalk Circle Report on Teacher Education. The Project sought written responses to draft standards and guidelines for initial teacher education. The Advisory Committee also conducted national hearings to further expand stakeholder views. The final Report has focused on a framework for quality assurance. It has not sought to over regulate but rather to provide a basis for both rigour and diversity. The Report details organisational standards and qualities for the conduct of initial teacher education courses, program standards and qualities, and graduate qualities. It also proposes a national implementation procedure for the application and moderation of the standards and guidelines. More particularly it proposes that these procedures should be conducted by the professional stakeholders as a form of national quality assurance. The Report also proposes a mechanism for the maintenance, and dissemination, of exemplars of best practice in course design and delivery.

BATUA405

Cognitive strategies and comparison of decimal numbers

Annette Baturo, Tom Cooper and Shelley Dole, Queensland University of Technology

Research in USA, France and Israel (e.g., Resnick et al., 1989; Sackur-Grisvard, 1985) identified four cognitive strategies that children use when comparing decimal numbers with the same whole-numbers: expert (proficient), whole-number (non-proficient) in which the longer number is selected as the larger, fraction (non-proficient) in which the longer fractional part is selected as the smaller number, and zero (semi-proficient) in which the number with zero/s immediately after the decimal point is selected as the smaller in value.

This paper reports on a series of studies which explored Australian children's cognitive strategies on an expanded set of decimal-number comparisons. These studies showed that Australian children exhibited low usage of the zero and fraction strategies and employed three strategies not previously identified, namely, a proficient renaming strategy, a proficient benchmarking strategy and a non-proficient zero-ignored strategy.

This paper gives special attention to the latest study where decimal-number comparison strategy use is related to children's knowledge of decimal-number concepts and principles. As would be expected, the predominant use of the whole-number strategy reflected limited decimal-number knowledge. However, relationships for other strategy use were more complex.

BAYNM351

Numeracy as social practice: Researching the numeracy practices of young unemployed

Betty Johnston, Sheilagh Kelly, Mike Baynham, Kerry Barlow, and Genee Marks, University of Technology, Sydney

Over the past years many thousands of young unemployed people have been referred to numeracy and literacy programs run by TAFE, Community Colleges, Skillshare Centres and a range of other providers. A causal link is often made between their poor literacy and numeracy skills and their unemployment status. This paper will report on a study that investigated the numeracy practices of unemployed young people in a range of contexts both urban and rural. We explore the sites and practices in which numeracy plays a role in the lives of young unemployed: the juggling of paid and unpaid work and government benefits, their interests/hobbies/sports, their family and social networks.

Through an analysis of numeracy as social practice in a range of sites and cases, we build up a rich account of the imbrication of numeracy practices with other forms of social practice, counteracting constructions of the young unemployed in terms of a "lack" of numeracy skills. In addition, we show how, in the context of trends towards the casualization of work, the boundaries between unemployment and work become less stable.

'Lovely literature': Teacher subjectivity and curriculum change

Catherine Beavis, Deakin University

In this climate of new times, new managerialism, dwindling resources and assessment driven measures of efficiency, curriculum change is too often constructed as produced in policy documents and implemented in classrooms through the surveillance mechanisms of centrally monitored assessment. Yet curriculum change entails more than a reorganisation of the subject and mandated teaching and assessment practices. This paper takes the introduction of a new final year subject, VCE Literature, as an example of the ways in which curriculum change entails not just a reformulation of the subject, but also teachers' reconstruction of the subject and themselves as teachers of it. Based on a three year study of nine teacher's experience of the new course, the paper explores ways in which teachers were already positioned and constructed within existing discourses pertaining to the teaching of Literature, and how the introduction of the 'new' discourse of critical theory threatened old discourses and positionings, and challenged them to reconstruct their vision of the subject and their teaching selves. The paper considers the mutually constitutive relationship between curriculum change and teacher subjectivity, and explores the role of 'passion, pleasure and desire' in supporting or inhibiting curriculum change.

SYMPOSIUM 3:Sexualities and the intellectual work of gender reform

Presenters: Lori Beckett, Maria Parlotta-Chiarolli, TheUniversity of Sydney, Wayne Martino, Murdoch University, Gill Clarke, University of Southampton and Debbie Epstein, University of London

This symposium considers sexuality for teachers, girls and boys, and different groups of girls and boys, particularly the ways it impacts on their schooling and social experiences. Using material from a variety of ethnographic studies in Australia and the UK, all the papers take up teachers' and students' interests and experience, nut that is only the beginning. The 'cognitive goals' of gender work were perused in the tasks of the analysis: learning about the real lived experience of heterosexism and homophobia, sharing in the experience, and critically examining the existing culture and knowledge which sustain particular gender regimes.

PAPER 1:

PARLM357

'Listen to Girls': The impact of homophobia in girls and young women's lives

Maria Parlotta-Chiarolli, The University of Sydney

Based on girls' and women's writing and artwork submitted for a forthcoming publication on girls and young women in Australia, this paper will explore the negative impact of homophobia in the lives of culturally diverse girls and young women today. The paper will address this issue in two ways: by discussing the experiences of lesbian and bisexual girls and young women both in and outside schools; and by discussing the impact of homophobia on heterosexual girls and young women particularly as it affects gay, lesbian and bisexual family members and friends.

Thus, the paper will highlight two areas for further educational policy and practice: the need to address girls and homophobia as it has often been overlooked or considered less significant than the need to address boys and homophobia; and the implications of homophobia on girls in schools eith gay, lesbian and bisexual family memnbers and friends.

PAPER 2:

Addressing homophobia in schools

Wayne Martino, Murdoch University

In this paper attention will be drawn to the ways in which sexuality is deployed within heterosexist regimes of practice in which adolescent boys enact a particularly oppressive form of masculinity. By drawing on interview data with a group of adolescent boys at a particular middle class school in Perth Western Australia, the role of homophobia as a mechanism ffor policing hegemonic forms of masculinity and enforcing compulsory heeterosexuality will be emphasised. This will form the basis for arguing that attempts must be made to address such forms of violence in schools. The implications of this research for addressing homophobia in schools will be signalled within an overall framework of helping students and teachers to understand the extent to which sexuality is imbricated in the production of valorised models of hegemonic masculinity.

PAPER 3:

Differences that matter and indifference in education

Gill Clarke, University of Southampton

This paper explores how lesbian physical education teachers and students construct and maintain their identities within the English educative system. It is argued that these identities must be understood within their specific corporeal and cultural contexts. In illustrating how these women's lives and experiences have been silenced and erased, attention is drawn towards New Right discourses on homosexuality and in particular legislation in Britain which has sought to prohibit in schools the acceptability of homosexuality. Qualitative data generated from interviews and questionnaires with wite able bodied lesbian physical education teachers and students are used to demonstrate how these women have felt compelled to conceal their lesbian edentities and have employed strategies to resist heterosexual control and regulation. Finally it argues that our task is to understand and make difference(s) not only visible but also to recognise that difference is a civil rights issue, which requires a change in laws to reflect and acknowledge all ourrealities. In doing so it is claimed we need to (re)pursue the goal of social justice, eliminate the priveliging of hegemonic heterosexual identities and thereby create a landscape that allows us to define our lives.

PAPER 4:

Teaching sexualities

Debbie Epstein, University of London

This paper reports on work for the book entitled 'Schooling Sexualities', coauthored with Richard Johnson. It turns the spotlight on to lesbian and gay teachers. In it, we argue that the apparently ever-increasing surveillance of teachers and schools is partly to do with anxieties produced by the seductiveness of the best teaching. In turn, the paper points to the ways that the best teaching is constricted by the punitive surveillance of schools teachers and sexualities. Any exploration of the stories of lesbian and gay teachers will involve narratives of constraint and punishment, but our central story in this paper is much more positive. It concerns the reactions of a class of primary school children when their teacher came out to them, the steps they took to protect him and their sophisticated analyses of the ways they (and he) had to negotiate homophobia as a fact of every day life.

BECKL424

Boys concern parents: Lobbying for gender reform

Lori Beckett, University of Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 25, Addressing boys' education: Framing debates, implementing strategies and formulating policies.

SYMPOSIUM 4: Teaching Learning Consortium - a new development in the professional preparation of teachers.

Presenters: Margie Beck, Peter Gahan, Jan Glazier, Peter Howard, Wendy Moran,

Management Committee, and others for the Teaching Learning Consortium, Australian Catholic University

General: During 1997 Australian Catholic University in co-operation with Parramatta Diocese Catholic Education Office, implemented a pilotprogram which focussed on establishing a model for teacher education students to learn about teaching and learning in the workplace environment of school. Twocohorts involving 40 Year 2 Bachelor of Education [Primary] and 20 GraduateDiploma of Education [Secondary] students across nine primary and four highschools were involved in the pilot. The program took place during Autumnsemester and Autumn/Spring semesters respectively.

PART 1: Development and nature of the Teaching/Learning Consortium

The symposium traces the development of the program during 1996 highlighting some of the negotiating processes between the university staff, students and the education system involved. Changes to the conceptualisation of the venture during the planning stage of development are presented in light of new understandings about the roles of the consortium and the different stakeholders involved in it.

PART 2:From expectations to outcomes

The symposium addresses the stated expectations of those involved at the beginning of the program and compares these to the outcomes identified at the program's conclusion.

The purposes of the consortium include:

• promoting enquiry into teaching and learning in both school and University;
• facilitating link between theory and practice in education;
• enhancing relationships among teachers, teacher educators and beginning teachers;
• increasing the opportunity for structured reflective practice in school and University.

The emerging roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders and the reflective nature of the participants' learning are identified and explored through an analysis of journal entries and other data. The emphasis on collaborative work in schools and new forms of professional learning is highlighted. Stakeholders' perceptions of the implementation of the initiative are presented in this section of the symposium.

PART 3: Benefits, challenges and issues

Finally, the symposium addresses questions related to changes in the roles of university and school staff, students' professional learning in schools and enriching learning environments for teachers and their students are considered. Structural aspects of the program are considered, such as student assessment and workload, and school practices are discussed. In this analysis the benefits of the teaching learning consortium are presented. Implications for the future of such a collaborative venture are raised.

Visual imagery for environmental concept formation

Iris Bergmann, Southern Cross University

This paper discusses how the exploration of environmental issues with creative photographic work develops the conceptual understanding of these issues. The link between the aesthetic and cognitive domains which incites cognitive growth will be presented. The findings of this study indicate that the aesthetic involvement addresses the emotional factor as a dimension that impacts on psychological well-being. Furthermore, learning with visual media requires a deepened understanding of the medium itself, not only on the technical, but also on the conceptual level, in order to be able to deploy it most effectively for cognitive development.

For this study, nineteen participants worked individually on an environmental topic of their choice with photographic images over a period of ten weeks. They used their own photographs as a resource base for further image-manipulating procedures in a variety of experimental ways. The participants were interviewed at the beginning and on completion of their aesthetic work.

The aesthetic involvement led to the development of multiple perspectives, to a relationship with the topic, to a realisation of and coming to grips with the complexities and ambiguities of environmental issues, to a questioning, strengthening and/or clarifying of the initial position. A positive, constructive dimension in the aesthetic domain evolved which spread over to the cognitive domain. This was remarkable since the participants initially conceptualised environmental issues as issues of pollution, destruction, degradation and death. It was found that the construction of photographic narratives can be deployed as an agent for change towards ecological sustainability, at least in the cognitive domain.

BERTD190

Early childhood teachers' work histories: Graduates 1991-5

Donna Berthelsen, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 16, Early childhood teachers working in new times: Reports on research undertaken in the 1990's.

BIBBM179

Impotence and the driven snow: ethical quandaries in supervising research students in an imperfect society.

Martin Bibby, University of New South Wales

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 19, Supervision of postgraduate research in education.

BIGUC445

Enrolling computers in schooling

Chris Bigum, Central Queensland University

Computer technology is commonly accorded a range of socially and educationally beneficial roles in classrooms. Who assigns these roles and how they are assigned are seldom scrutinised, yet those who assign the roles secure an authority to speak on behalf of both the technology and its users, establishing educational contexts for the technology from the classroom to the level of national policy. Actor-network theory, developed by Latour (1991), Callon (1986) and others draws attention to the processes by which technologies and their users are spoken for. It is a radical view which trangresses the human-non-human boundary and treats humans and non-humans as simple, equivalent elements in chains. For Latour, each actor, human or non-human is invested with a 'will' with which to make 'other elements dependent upon itself and translate their will into a language of its own' (Callon and Latour 1981: 286). To speak of the "will" of computers and their peripherals in education may appear on the surface bizarre even mischievous, yet this approach to the sociology of technology offers useful alternative accounts of the workings of social power embedded in the officially sanctioned meanings and purposes

of computer technology in schools.

BIGUC478

The leviathan and the network

Chris Bigum, Central Queensland University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 7, Towards a theoretical framework for researching computers in educational administration: Foucault, Bourdieu and Latour.

Performativity, self management and self managing schools

Jill Blackmore, Louise Laskey, and John Hodgens, Deakin University, and Chris Bigum, University of Central Queensland

The shift to self governance in organisational life as typified in self managing schools has also reconstituted the self and the modes of control and resistance in schools. A central feature of post modern organisations is the emphasis on performativity (Lyotard 1984). Self managing schools in the context of the market exemplify the ways in which the focus of organisational life has shifted outwardly, emphasising outcomes and performance which can be judged in comparison to other schools ( eg. school charters, standardised testing etc) and inwardly through the internalisation by individuals of organisational norms and values imparted through a range of disciplinary technologies eg. performance management. This paper will use the work of Lyotard (1984) The Postmodern Condition on performativity, Rose (1989) Governing of the Soul and Casey (1995) Work Self and Society to explore the ways in which the corporatisation and privatisation of education penetrate into teachers'work and sense of professional identity. The paper draws from two small ARC projects : Learning to Change and Mediating Change.

BLACJ495

SYMPOSIUM 5: Women and higher education: gendered performances in an era of uncertainty and difference

Presenters: Jill Blackmore, Deakin University, Judyth Sachs, University of Sydney, Carmen Luke, University of Queensland, and Denise Kirkpatrick, University of Technology, Sydney

This symposium addresses the changing nature of academic work in higher education in Australia and Asia. Feminist work on women in leadership has tended to concentrate upon the 'glass ceiling' as a universalising discourse impeding women's access to leadership rather than the context of educational work in the restructured university. In so doing, it has ignored critical elements of how women construct their work identity around performativity and self management in the context of radical and

rapid organisational change and how this differs across cultural contexts. The papers include:

• Women academic's work identity and the psychic economy of restructured universities
• Cultural difference and glass ceiling politics
• Women's research as performance: Performing what?
• Interview as therapy / research.

PAPER 1:

Women academic's work identity and the psychic economy of restructured universities

Jill Blackmore, Deakin University and Judyth Sachs, University of Sydney

Education has been restructured to more closely fit national economic imperatives. This paper examines how organisational theory has sought to channel a range of energies, intellectual and emotional, towards organisational ends--the human relations movement of the 1940s, to human resource management of 1980s and management by 'stress' in the 1990s. The paper explores Roper's (1994) notion that organisations have psychic economies--a concept which goes beyond the individualised psychological concept of stress or management concept of corporate culture which treats negative emotions (anger fear etc ) particularly manifest in times of radical and rapid change. More negative emotions are treated as psychological pathologies and something to be ignored. In turn, these emotions tap into the gendered construction of emotion and work identity formation. The paper raises issues of alienation and belonging, and how universities, paradoxically, in seeking to exploit the very passions that academics bring to their work are producing psychic economies through a range of disciplinary technologies (eg. performance management) which inhibit not facilitate productivity. In particular, it focuses upon how the psychic economy impacts on decisions by academic women about their commitment to and possibilities for academic careers. The paper draws from a Large ARC on Women, Educational Restructuring and Leadership which has undertaken cross sectoral studies in schools, universities and TAFEs.

PAPER 2:

LUKEC497

Cultural diffierence and glass ceiling politics

Carmen Luke, University of Queensland

This presentation reports on part of a larger study on women in higher education management in Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Here a case of 10 women in the Singapore tertiary education sector is presented. The overall aim of the study is to insert 'cultural difference' into debates about glass ceiling politics. Data is presented that shows how the complex layering of postcolonial history, cultural structures, values and practices, state legislation of 'family values', and the demographic/geographic conditions of Singapore mediate and shape Singaporean gender politics and women's career aspirations and opportunities.

PAPER 3:

KIRKD498

Women's research as performance: Performing what?

Denise Kirkpatrick, University of Technology Sydney

This paper explores what it means to be a woman researcher in a post-Dawkins univesity. How do women construct themselves as researchers and the research act, in a university context which has clear

performance expectations regarding the form and function of research? How do they respond to the surveillance mechanisms imposed by the higher education system? Universities can be seen as places of performance: the performance of teaching, administration and research . For many women who do not know the 'code', the university is a place of unrehearsed, unpractised research performance. What is the reality of women as researchers (with less cultural and symbolic capital) in the changing university setting? Lyotard's (1984) noton of performativity will be used as a schematising framework to explore the research experiences of two groups of women academics.

PAPER 4:

SACHJ499

Interview as therapy: For whom?

Judyth Sachs, University of Sydney, and Jill Blackmore, Deakin University

While there is recognition that researchers can neither be the objective impartial observers nor become fully immersed in the culture of the organisations in which they undertake research, for feminist academics doing qualitative research in educational organisations undergoing radical restructuring, and in particular in universities, the sites of their own work identity and educational practice, the relationship between the participants in the interview process is complex. This paper explores the personal, professional and political relationships underpinning the 'conversational' interview process when feminist researchers interview female academics. It highlights the blurring of the boundaries between the interviewers and interviewees stories, and how in the context of radical restructuring, interviews take on a therapeutic aspect for all participants. The paper draws from a Large ARC on Women, Educational Restructuring and Leadership which has undertaken cross sectoral studies in schools, universities and TAFEs.

Women academic's work identity and the psychic economy of restructured universities

Jill Blackmore, Deakin University and Judyth Sachs, University of Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 5, Women and higher education: Gendered performances in an era of uncertainty and difference.

Theoretical frameworks for the practicum

Dianne Bloomfield, University of New England

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 28, Towards collaboration in the practicum - issues of power and ownership.

BOGIS368

School curriculum and the construction of Fijian identity: A composite reality

Samuela Bogitini, University of Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 22, Reworking education in postcolonial conditions: Local and global contexts for change.

BOULG378

Cognitive load, sequencing and the transition from arithmetic to algebra

Gillian Boulton-Lewis, Tom Cooper, Bill Atweh, Hitendra Pillay, Lyn Wilss and Sue Mutch, Queensland University of Technology

The research literature on learning algebra has stressed the link between arithmetic and algebra, identified a gap in this transition, and proposed a pre-algebra level. This paper discusses this transition from arithmetic to algebra from a cognitive perspective. It reports on the first two years of a longitudinal study in which 51 students were interviewed during Years 7 and 8 and their knowledge of algebra categorised. It proposes a two-path model for the transition from arithmetic to pre-algebra to algebra and discusses students' understanding of the relevant knowledge. Results show that the developmental sequence for the students appears to fit well with the model. Although concrete representations of algebra were a major component of teaching, the students were reluctant to use them, preferring mental approaches and this is probably due to difficulties with cognitive load.

Do teaching practices matter? Analyses of senior secondary mathematics, English and social science lessons

Max Smith and Sid Bourke, The University of Newcastle

This paper continues the reporting of data from a study of 70 Year 11 classrooms. Reporting thus far has been mainly concerned with teacher stress, workload and satisfaction, and student achievement and affective outcomes. Multilevel analyses have been undertaken with students at level 1, teacher/class information at level 2, and schools at level 3. This paper focuses on the observations made rather than on teacher and student data. Outcomes of interest are teacher engagement, student time-on-task and student enthusiasm. Mathematics, English and social science lessons are analysed separately. Lesson observations were as follows. First minute-by-minute records were made of the delivery system being used by the teacher, the level of teacher engagement and the proportion of students on task. Secondly, lesson segments were identified and recorded as parts of lessons having distinct purposes with their associated instructional and managerial teaching behaviours. Thirdly, whole-lesson summaries of teacher and student behaviours were recorded. Finally, individual teacher and student information was obtained. This unusual four-level classification of teaching and learning in the senior school is intended to tease out any interesting relationships which may have been obscured by previous analyses using data classified into the more common student, teacher/class and school multilevel hierarchy.

The impact of system based teacher development programs on the role of teachers and administrators in Catholic schools in the Parramatta Diocese 1990-1997-preliminary findings

Tony Bracken, Australian Catholic University

Over the last two decades lay educators have increasingly been replacing the religious orders in the leadership and staffing of catholic schools. Support for these lay educators' personal, spiritual and religious development was recognised as a priority by the Parramatta Catholic Education Office which initiated staff 'spiritual formation' programs in 1990. Since then different programs have evolved (spiritual formation, religious education and leadership development) involving hundreds of participants and a significant expenditure of financial and human resources by the CEO, Parramatta. Teacher spirituality is acknowledged as a priority area for professional development and, arguably, is the ultimate basis by which teachers are empowered to pursue the mission of catholic education. This research investigates the impact of these programs, from the perceptions of a sample of participants, on their working roles as teachers and administrators in catholic schools in the Parramatta Diocese. Preliminary findings suggest there are identifiable indicators (though subtle) of the effects of a program as perceived by participants and that other influences need acknowledgement. What is becoming evident is participants perceived link between personal development and the flow on effect in the professional role.

Outcomes without profiles. curriculum planning in New South Wales

Laurence Brady, University of Technology, Sydney

Following the recommendations of the report Focusing on Learning: Report of The Review of Outcomes and Profiles in NSW Schooling [1995] the state minister for education in NSW abandoned any further development of the state profiles in September 1995. The report however did acknowledge and support the value of outcomes in providing a clearer focus for teaching and learning. This paper reports a survey of teachers from a stratified proportional sample of 48 schools in six non-contiguous districts for schooling in New South Wales on how teachers are currently using outcomes to plan for and direct teaching in the absence of the state profiles. Data indicated that teachers are guided in their planning by outcomes yet state them differentially according to key learning area; that stated outcomes are short term and specified more in relation to skills than knowledge or values; that teachers are not strongly influenced by the previous state profiles in stating outcomes; and that teaching experience and school type are significant predictor variables.

Teaching for success: Literacy outcomes in Year 2 Tasmanian classrooms

John Braithwaite, University of Tasmania

This paper presents some of the findings of a two year study that examined literacy processes and outcomes in a sample of Year 2 classrooms. The findings reported explore the teaching practices used in successful classrooms and relate these findings to contemporary research on literacy teaching.

The passive voice of authority

Elizabeth Bredberg, Queensland University of Technology

Developments in methods of educational research that have taken place during the past few decades are often associated with changes in perceptions of education and of the role of educational professionals. The ensuing shift from a strictly quantitative paradigm to one that also includes a variety of qualitative methods has, however, been seldom matched by changes in the style with which research is reported. Despite the acknowledgment, within many qualitative methodologies, of the significance of the investigator's perspective and the personal involvement, most educational research continues to be reported in a style that suppresses the authorial voice. In an attempt to gain an understanding of the persistence of this stylistic practice, I examine its characteristic techniques and its relation to academic writing in other disciplines. My investigation then extends itself into other cultural settings, both contemporary and historical, in which suppression of personal identity has functioned as a symbol of authority, and speculate on the implications of this practice in modern society. I conclude with some suggestions about ways in which research reporting might be made more stylistically consistent with the philosophical substrata that underlie current methodologies.

BRENM268

Pursuing radical school reform against tough odds

Marie Brennan and Lew Zipin

Undertaking radical school reform is difficult in these times of conservative "rationalism": pro-active approaches to establishing new norms (Fraser, 1989) for schools and social relations seem impossible when schools struggle to comply with accountability and managerial frameworks and reduced funding. Even for those who seek radical social change, severe compromises often seem inevitable, to the extent that central functions and practices of schooling remain untouched. What are the prospects, then, for

more radical reforms? How might they be envisioned as more than abstract idealism and build instead on possibilities in the present?

In this paper we suggest four necessary elements of a reform agenda for school curriculum and organisation that both recognise current inequalities and seeks to transform them. These are:

1. reflection on the normative processes of the institution of schooling by students, teachers and parents
2. working to provide cultural capitals for success in dominant social terms among those groups which have traditionally not won the contests of school and career
3. simultaneously developing critical capacities to challenge and change dominant norms and practices of education
4. building democratic communities -- in ways that value differences -- in classroom, staff and broader school practices.

Fraser, N, 1989, Unruly Practices (Uni of Minnesota Press)

BRENM453

SYMPOSIUM 6: Professional doctorates in new times for the Australian University

Presenters:Marie Brennan, Central Queensland University, Bill Green, Deakin University and Alison Lee, University of Technology, Sydney

The phenomenon of the professional doctorate has increased from a starting trickle in 1991 to a situation where 28 Universities currently offer them in almost the full range of disciplines in universities (Jongeling 1996; Maxwell & Shanahan 1996). Research on the new doctorate to date has tended to be basic/descriptive in orientation, focusing either on analysing contexts and debates in the development of the award and its sponsoring policy initiatives or providing description of approaches taken, particularly the balance between coursework and research. This symposium problematises current and planned practice in professional doctorates, following research undertaken across three universities (CQU, Deakin, UTS) into pedagogy, policy and the place of professional practice in the professional doctorates. The three foci make it possible to reconceputalise the task and significance of the professional doctorate in higher education.

PAPER 1:

BRENM454

The challenges of changing professionalism for the development of the professional doctorate

Marie Brennan, Central Queensland University

There is a considerable body of historical work on the development of professions (Collins, 1979; Larson, 1977 , Popkewitz & Simola, 1996 ), and the term is used to describe the confluence of expertise, legitimated through qualification and a community of practice. The introduction of the professional doctorate can be seen as an important strategy by the university sector to alter its expertise and authority structures in relation to the professions, at a time when those relations have been made problematic.

The gatekeeping role over information and knowledge has until recently been largely organised through the universities. However, new global information technologies have now challenged the nexus of professional licensing and qualifications --a nexus which has been kept relatively stable for the past century. This shift in potential control over knowledge has significant implications, this paper argues, for university work, especially in relation to postgraduate research work in the context of professional doctorates.

PAPER 2:

GREEB455

Theorising the professional doctorate: Representation, practice and the curriculum problem in postgraduate education

Bill Green, Deakin University

This paper explores what counts as the object of the professional doctorate, ie 'professional practice' and how it is represented in and by the curriculum, with specific reference to research on three disciplines: nursing, engineering and education. Such a concern has been called 'the representation problem' (Lundgren 1991) and described subsequently as the 'curriculum problem'. To date, however, little explicit attention has been given to matters of theory in professional doctorate circles (see Green and Lee, 1996); rather, attention has been on policy- and market-driven program development, following changes in the constitution and focus of Australian universities and new emphasis on accountability, efficiency and productivity in postgraduate education. While in their rationales, professional doctorates seem to have in common the improvement of professional practice, as yet an adequate account of what might be understood as professional practice is lacking, as is an understanding of the changes already occurring for professions themselves. Attention to researching matters of curriculum and pedagogy, in the specific instance of the professional doctorate, provides for more adequate theoretical accounts and theorised understandings of key notions such as in this instance 'professionalism' and 'practice'. This paper begins to address these matters with respect to the professional doctorate in Australia.

PAPER 3:

LEEA456

Supervision pedagogy as co-production

Alison Lee, University of Technology, Sydney

Pedagogy has for long been the absent presence in debates on postgraduate work, and the professional doctorate is no exception. Research on postgraduate supervision as pedagogy is currently underway, focusing on the PhD (Lee, Green and Johnson 1997). The professional doctorate constitutes a further problematic in this field, given that the knowledge base for pedagogic practices is of a particular hybrid nature. That is, the focus on the teaching of research that is oriented to the workplace, as occurs in the professional doctorate, makes quite different demands of postgraduate pedagogy (Lee and Green, 1995). This paper draws on recent research into academic literacy and co-production in tertiary study in academic literacy work, as well as on current research on the development of the professional doctorate in the disciplines of Engineering, Education and Nursing. It presents a case for thinking about the development of the professional doctoral pedagogy as a pedagogy of 'co-production'.

BRENM454

The challenges of changing professionalism for the development of the professional doctorate

Marie Brennan, Central Queensland University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 6, Professional doctorates in new times for the Australian University.

BRENM476

SYMPOSIUM 7: Towards a theoretical framework for researching computers in educational administration: Foucault, Bourdieu and Latour

Presenters: Marie Brennan, Chris Bigum and Lindy Isdale, Central Queensland University

The three papers represent an ongoing conversation on the development of appropriate ways of theorising the role of computers in educaitonal administration. Drawing on major social theoretical concerns with power, globalisation, and practice, all three papers use as a starting point the interaction between technologies and humans as shaping one another in an active network of power relations. The papers each take a different approach in exploring the potential contribution of major theoretical works to research on computers in educationl adminstration settings specifically and in general. The work of Foucault, Bourdieu and Latour form the core of these theoretical developments.

PAPER 1:

BRENM477

Exploring explanations for the networked educative state

Marie Brennan, Central Queensland University

A recent upsurge of interest in theorising technology has not been accompanied by contributions from the field of eduational adminstration, where work reliant on the new information technologies has become daily more central in defining that work and relations with state education systems and other schools. This paper brings together key social theorists to extend the work of Bigum and Green (1995) in their invitation to explore "Managing Machines". A practice-oriented approach, drawing in particular on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and the school of Actor Network Theory (ANT), using Bruno Latour as its 'spokesperson, is developed, with productive interaction with Foucault's notion of power as productive rather than repressive contributing to the framework. Particular critical incidents drawn from school- and system-based research are used to develop key theoretical issues for educational administrative practice and theorising about new technologies. A more appropriate sociology of schooling technology is able to address the ways in which administrators and technologies are interacting to create new forms of practice, articulated differently with other practices, including old forms of educational administrative practice.

PAPER 2:

BIGUC478

The leviathan and the network

Chris Bigum, Central Queensland University

This paper reports an actor-network account of the implementation and use of a school management system in a school. It offers a detailed exploration of the assembling of human and non-human actants into a stable network. Rather than relying on pre-existing categories as a basis for explanation, actor-network theory requires the researcher to explore the origins and uses of categories in the development of sociotechnical systems. Rather than relying upon a human-centric view of the processes associated with system implementation, actor-network theory employs a radical principle of symmetry which trangresses the human-non-human boundary and treats humans and non-humans as simple, equivalent elements in chains. For Latour, each actor, human or non-human is invested with a 'will' with which to make 'other elements dependent upon itself and translate their will into a language of its own'.

This study identifies the complexities and difficulties in implementing computer-based adminisitrative systems in government schools across a state.

PAPER 3:

ISDAL479

Theorising new work practices in educational administration: The case of School Management System (SMS) in Queensland

Lindy Isdale, Central Queensland University

Since the 1980s, as global politics has become increasingly manifest in school policy, the work of school administrative staff has become increasingly technologised. The new computerised School Management System (SMS), introduced into Queensland schools in 1996, is not an adjunct to existing administrative practices but requires new administrative attentions and practices to be developed in school offices. These changes have received little attention from researchers to date but, nevertheless, are of far more significance to our understandings of schools as workplaces than are the more frequent generalised studies of corporatisation and globalism.

This paper draws on aspects of a larger study of school administrations and SMS, looking specifically at the initial stages of its introduction and the newly emerging work practices and relations which arise out of workers' associations with the new technology. The paper investigates the use of Latour's Actor Network Theory, Foucault's concept of power/knowledge and post-fordist work theory to explore the translations which occur between large policy networks and the local school SMS project as workers and technology seek to enrol one another in their respective interests. The study is then able to specify concrete associations and new work practices, thereby building new ways to interrogate the broader globalisation literature and that of educational administration.

BRENM477

Exploring explanations for the networked educative state

Marie Brennan, Central Queensland University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 7, Towards a theoretical framework for researching computers in educational administration: Foucault, Bourdieu and Latour.

BREWC529

What about the boys? Significant others in mathematics education and interactions between cultural background and gender

Christine Brew, Monash University

This paper is part of a much larger project about attitudes towards mathematics learning of year 7 and year 9 students. Previously we have reported differences in self perceptions and the influence of significant others by gender (Brew, Pearn, Leder and Bishop, 1996) and cultural background (Bishop, Leder, Brew, and Pearn, 1997). Here we present the interactions that emerged between these two variables that show greater differences in self perceptions concerning mathematics learning between Anglo and non-Anglo background boys compared to Anglo and non-Anglo background girls. In the climate of "What about the boys?" subtle but consistent interactions suggest that non-Anglo background boys are the most confident in their mathematical studies and feel the most supported by their teacher, mother and father. Teacher ratings of achievement were consistent with these self-perceptions, as non-Anglo background boys were the highest achievers and the Anglo background boys clearly the lowest. Peer influence emerged as the strongest factor for the girls, where non-Anglo girls appear to perceive the greatest conflict.

Changes in higher education: Perceptions of academics

Carolyn Broadbent, Australian Catholic University

Changing perceptions of the role of universities and ongoing change within the higher education sector have impacted significantly on the work practices of academics and the level of satisfaction experienced while working. As universities encounter increasingly competitive and turbulent environments, academics are constantly challenged to respond to change through the adoption of new strategies and reassessment of individual goals. This paper explores the impact of change on academics at the Australian Catholic University. Unlike mergers which had seen the creation of multi-campus institutions in the one state, the formation of the Australian Catholic University brought together Catholic institutes spanning across the three states of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, and the A.C.T. Through an analysis of interview responses gathered from academics across the eight campuses of the University, this paper provides insights into the nature of academics' perceptions of change within the Australian Catholic University, the manner in which they conceptualise those changes and the way in which such change influences their vision for the growth and development of the institution in the future.

BROOR072

SYMPOSIUM 8: Issues in qualitative research

Chairperson: Susan Groundwater-Smith, Educational Research and Development Services

Discussants: David Kirk, The University of Queensland, and Sue Johnston, University of Canberra

Participants: Ross Brooker, Ian Macpherson and Colin Lankshear, Queensland University of Technology, Jim Butler, The University of Queensland and Felicity Haynes, The University of Western Australia

Overview: Issues related to research methodology in education are currently under-represented in Australian conferences and writing. This symposium, focused on a number of central issues in qualitative research, is intended to initiate and stimulate ongoing debate and discussion for research in the Australian context. It focuses on issues related to purposes of research, relationships in research, and research outcomes. The symposium is designed such that five speakers will each make a short presentation which is to followed by reactions from two discussants. This will be followed by audience interaction with the presenters, discussants and each other. The symposium will be facilitated and summed up by the chairperson.

PAPER 1:

Discovering reality or constructing reality through qualitative research

Jim Butler, The University of Queensland

This paper will address specific issues in the general problem of meaning making in the interpretive qualitative research paradigm. It will be a discussion derived from my personal practical knowledge of participating in such research. It will centre around three questions that I have found in my journey: the metaphysical question of the oneness of Being and therefore each single instance being implicitly revelatory of Being; the role of the Ladder of Inference in research methods; and finally, is it endemic to qualitative research to reveal changed perspectives?

PAPER 2

The moral consequences of what we construct through qualitative research

Colin Lankshear, Queensland University of Technology

By its very nature, qualitative research generates a wide range of issues concerning moral consequences of the research act. While some of these issues apply in common to non-qualitative research approaches, others are more or less distinctive to qualitative research, and others again take on distinctive forms or aspects within qualitative inquiry. This paper will emphasise dimensions and types of moral consequences that are more or less distinctively associated with qualitative research. It will draw on a concept of morality framed in terms of rights and obligations relating to matters of human good and harm. Moral consequences will be explored from "front end", "back end" and "within research" perspectives. Consequences of "commission" and "omission" will be identified, with reference to research processes as well as research products. Rights and obligations impinging on human good and harm will be explored in relation to "the researched", "the researcher's craft", "the consumers of research", "the wider community/common good", "the researcher's colleagues/ community", and "the researcher her/himself".

PAPER 3:

The relationship between knowledge, purpose and qualitative research design

Felicity Haynes, The University of Western Australia

Qualitative research is distinguished from quantitative research not simply because one contains values and the other doesn't; not simply because one is subjective and the other objective, or because one is based on opinion and the other on facts. Even some ethnographic and phenomenological research may be excluded from a qualitative conceptual frame on the grounds that it pretends to offer fixed and value-neutral meanings. Because the epistemology of qualitative research presumes a search for meanings rather than truth, it is driven by human purposes which have constrained what count as salient features.

Poststructuralists and critical theorists alike have persuaded most people that descriptive empirical frames which deny purpose are rendering values invisible rather than evading them. Even hermeneuticists can present research as though the meanings were fixed. This paper will present several research examples from education, including case studies, surveys and interviews to show how different renderings of human purposes and interests shape the style of research method chosen.

PAPER 4:

Interpreting qualitative data and report writing: profiling the researcher or the research?

Ross Brooker and Ian Macpherson, Queensland University of Technology

Authors such as Linclon and Guba (1985), Merriam (1989), and Miles and Huberman (1984) point out that qualitative research is to make a difference then it must contain well-grounded, thick, and rich descriptions. Simmt (1997) in a recent paper reminds us that although these same authors suggest how this can be achieved, "it is an unusual text that manages to preserve the complexity and integrity of the event or phenomenon the researcher is attempting to understand using qualitative data." Often the outcomes of the research are reported as abstract rules and generalisations which "... do not have a face, nor a repertoire of actions" (Kessels and Korthagen, 1996, p. 21). The research outcomes too often say more about the persons who interpret the data and write up the research than the research itself. The process becomes a "hermenuetic of self-indulgence" (Smith, 1997). The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the researcher in interpreting and reporting qualitative research.

PAPER 5:

Who has the authority to speak about practice and how does it influence educational inquiry?

Jennifer Gore, University of Newcastle

While philosophical scholarship and empirical research are frequently presented as discrete activities, I argue that both are essential to a project such as developing a theory of pedagogy. Functions and limits of philosophical work are outlined as background to my argument for systematic data gathering about power's operation in pedagogy. For too long, now, pedagogical theorists have neglected systematic observations of the very phenomena they are attempting to understand. Drawing upon work which is primarily philosophical in character from both radical pedagogy and Foucauldian literature, an empirical study is outlined. Examples are presented which demonstrate the benefits to be gained from employing both types of intellectual activity.

BROOR072

BROOR97a.072

SYMPOSIUM 8: Issues in qualitative research

Chairperson: Susan Groundwater-Smith, Educational Research and Development Services

Discussants: David Kirk, The University of Queensland, and Sue Johnston, University of Canberra

Participants: Ross Brooker, Ian Macpherson and Colin Lankshear, Queensland University of Technology, Jim Butler, The University of Queensland and Felicity Haynes, The University of Western Australia

Overview: Issues related to research methodology in education are currently underrepresented in Australian conferences and writing. This symposium, focused on a number of central issues in qualitative research, is intended to initiate and stimulate ongoing debate and discussion for research in the Australian context. It focuses on issues related to purposes of research, relationships in research, and research outcomes. The symposium is designed such that five speakers will each make a short presentation which is to followed by reactions from two discussants. This will be followed by audience interaction with the presenters, discussants and each other. The symposium will be facilitated and summed up by the chairperson.

PAPER 1:

Discovering reality or constructing reality through qualitative research

Jim Butler, The University of Queensland

This paper will address specific issues in the general problem of meaning making in the interpretive qualitative research paradigm. It will be a discussion derived from my personal practical knowledge of participating in such research. It will centre around three questions that I have found in my journey: the metaphysical question of the oneness of Being and therefore each single instance being implicitly revelatory of Being; the role of the Ladder of Inference in research methods; and finally, is it endemic to qualitative research to reveal changed perspectives?

PAPER 2:

The moral consequences of what we construct through qualitative research

Colin Lankshear, Queensland University of Technology

By its very nature, qualitative research generates a wide range of issues concerning moral consequences of the research act. While some of these issues apply in common to non-qualitative research approaches, others are more or less distinctive to qualitative research, and others again take on distinctive forms or aspects within qualitative inquiry. This paper will emphasise dimensions and types of moral consequences that are more or less distinctively associated with qualitative research. It will draw on a concept of morality framed in terms of rights and obligations relating to matters of human good and harm. Moral consequences will be explored from "front end", "back end" and "within research" perspectives. Consequences of "commission" and "omission" will be identified, with reference to research processes as well as research products. Rights and obligations impinging on human good and harm will be explored in relation to "the researched", "the researcher's craft", "the consumers of research", "the wider community/common good", "the researcher's colleagues/ community", and "the researcher her/himself".

PAPER 3:

The relationship between knowledge, purpose and qualitative research design

Felicity Haynes, The University of Western Australia

Qualitative research is distinguished from quantitative research not simply because one contains values and the other doesn't; not simply because one is subjective and the other objective, or because one is based on opinion and the other on facts. Even some ethnographic and phenomenological research may be excluded from a qualitative conceptual frame on the grounds that it pretends to offer fixed and value-neutral meanings. Because the epistemology of qualitative research presumes a search for meanings rather than truth, it is driven by human purposes which have constrained what count as salient features. Poststructuralists and critical theorists alike have persuaded most people that descriptive empirical frames which deny purpose are rendering values invisible rather than evading them. Even hermeneuticists can present research as though the meanings were fixed. This paper will present several research examples from education, including case studies, surveys and interviews to show how different renderings of human purposes and interests shape the style of research method chosen.

PAPER 4:

Interpreting qualitative data and report writing: profiling the researcher or the research?

Ross Brooker and Ian Macpherson, Queensland University of Technology

Authors such as Linclon and Guba (1985), Merriam (1989), and Miles and Huberman (1984) point out that qualitative research is to make a difference then it must contain well-grounded, thick, and rich descriptions. Simmt (1997) in a recent paper reminds us that although these same authors suggest how this can be achieved, "it is an unusual text that manages to preserve the complexity and integrity of the event or phenomenon the researcher is attempting to understand using qualitative data." Often the outcomes of the research are reported as abstract rules and generalisations which "... do not have a face, nor a repertoire of actions" (Kessels and Korthagen, 1996, p. 21). The research outcomes too often say more about the persons who interpret the data and write up the research than the research itself. The process becomes a "hermenuetic of self-indulgence" (Smith, 1997). The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the researcher in interpreting and reporting qualitative research.

PAPER 5:

Who has the authority to speak about practice and how does it influence educational inquiry?

Jennifer Gore, University of Newcastle

While philosophical scholarship and empirical research are frequently presented as discrete activities, I argue that both are essential to a project such as developing a theory of pedagogy. Functions and limits of philosophical work are outlined as background to my argument for systematic data gathering about power's operation in pedagogy. For too long, now, pedagogical theorists have neglected systematic observations of the very phenomena they are attempting to understand. Drawing upon work which is primarily philosophical in character from both radical pedagogy and Foucauldian literature, an empirical study is outlined. Examples are presented which demonstrate the benefits to be gained from employing both types of intellectual activity.

BROWG513

"Worlds Apart": Documenting differences in secondary reading skills in New South Wales

Gail Brown, University of Western Sydney

This paper reports pereliminary analyses of data on oral reading fluency and written comprehension skills of students in years 7 and 8 in high schools in the Sydney metropolitan area. Data was collected to determine pre-existing skill levels in whole classes as part of a doctoral research program in Reading Comprejension. All year 8 students were required to orally read six passages and complete written answers to a range of questions. Three narrative passages were read and English classroom teachers agreed that these were grade appropriate. Factual passages were selected from typical textbooks used in three content areas, History, Geography and Science.

For a smaller group of year 7 students, four passages were orally read. Two narrative passages were selected by classroom teachers from novels or other classroom resources in each school as being of grade appropraite difficulty. Two passages were selected from the E.L.L.A. Test trialed in term 1 at selected high schools across New South Wales. Selected audio tapes support data and provide clear evidence of the ranges in student reading ability. Relationships between oral and written performance, and a normative measure in year 8, will be reported.

Implications of this data, in terms of classroom instruction and possible interventions to support student learning across this wide range of skills will be discussed. The efficacy of interventions, implemented during terms 2 and 3 in selected classes are reported. This apper documents, using current curriculum materials and assessment measures, the daunting task facing secondary classroom teachers every day as they attempt to provide effective programs and improved outcomes for all students in their classrooms.

BROWG514

Verbal protocols in reading: Standardising administration and future research

Gail Brown, University of Western Sydney

Overviewing historical and recent studies in verbal protocols suggests that this methodology has been used for a variety of purposes and predominantly with particular readiers, namely competent readers who more than likely are adults. The place of verbal protocols within existing theories of reading nad reading acquisition is discussed. Issues in the administration of verbal protocols, not address to date in literature or current research, are examined.

Valid and reliable conclusions can only emerge as a result of adopting a scientific approach and a systematic research program for researching the many unanswered questions concerning verbal protocols. To this end, one detailed and standardised procedure for eliciting verbal protocols during reading abilities, is reported. One narrative text reported in recent research (Kucan and Beck, 1996) is used to elist thinking aloud from eight students selected from two classes. From this limited sample, tentative conclusions are drawn abour the relationships between verbal protocols and other measures of reading performance, including a normative measure and two curriculum based measures, one oral and one written.

Directions for future research in a range of text, reader and instructinal variables are outlined. Empirical research studies may, in the future, validate that verbal protocols can provide insight into critical issues in the reading process and for theories of reading.

BROWJ388

PAPER ONE

Ms Rosemary A Viete, Faculty of Education, Monash University

Increasing numbers of applicants from a range of language backgrounds are seeking places in Australian universities as local and international students. Their proficiency in English varies considerably, as do the varieties of English they use. While proficiency in English is not the only factor affecting academic performance in English medium education, it is important. Universities have established policies regarding English proficiency requirements for international students. They are much less clear and consistent about proficiency requirements for local applicants to courses conducted in Australia and how these requirements are related to educational access and equity.

This paper discusses this relation, focussing on two strategies used in various postgraduate education courses to assess English equitably. Drawing on a research study, it argues that equitable outcomes for the entire educational community depend as much on suitable assessment procedures as they do on suitable support for students and staff involved in both selection and teaching or learning. It discusses the features that make an assessment procedure 'suitable', and explores ways in which we can ensure that those who wish to learn a new discourse are not permanently excluded from the only context in which they can learn it.

PAPER TWO

Talking to TESOL teachers: unstructured interviews and teacher

understandings

Ms. Jill BROWN Institutional Affiliation: Monash University, Faculty of Education

The work of ESL teachers is informed by understandings of the function of language and the nature of language learning. These beliefs, which underpin teachers' pedagogy and classroom practice, are often inexplicit and unexamined. It is largely unclear what understandings ESL teachers draw upon in their work in the classroom. Attempts to uncover this knowledge base that draw on traditional research methodology, such as questionnaires and structured interviews, may both restrict and restructure teacher understandings.

This paper considers the way in which a number of interviews, ranging from a more traditional, prompted approach to an unstructured 'participant as story-teller' approach, worked towards the uncovering of TESL teachers' unreconstructed understandings.

RELATIONSHIP TO THE CONFERENCE THEME: The expertise of classroom teachers is much undervalued. There is a need to develop research practices which support practising teachers in articulating their understandings of the work they do.

BROWJ389

Talking to TESOL teachers: Unstructured interviews and teacher understandings

Jill Brown, Monash University

The work of ESL teachers is informed by understandings of the function of language and the nature of language learning. These beliefs, which underpin teachers' pedagogy and classroom practice, are often inexplicit and unexamined. It is largely unclear what understandings ESL teachers draw upon in their work in the classroom. Attempts to uncover this knowledge base that draw on traditional research methodology, such as questionnaires and structured interviews, may both restrict and restructure teacher understandings.

This paper considers the way in which a number of interviews, ranging from a more traditional, prompted approach to an unstructured 'participant as story-teller' approach, worked towards the uncovering of TESL teachers' unreconstructed understandings.

Contested realities: Identity, PETE and models of understanding

Leanne Brown, University of Ballarat

The 'I Can Be This' project investigated how students expectations, experiences and involvement in physical education teacher education impacted upon and shaped identity development. A key feature of the project was the focus on the interplay between student socilisation within the 'Identity Playground' and PETE. This session will present an overview of this interplay, models developed as a result of the project, contested realities of PETE and the student social world, and the 'Rules of Membership' which frame and support identity development in PETE.

BROWR347

"Where do you people get your ideas from?". Negotiating zones of collaborative learning within an upper primary classroom

Raymond Brown, The University of Queensland

Collective Argumentation is a discourse genre within the social language of schooling, designed to involve children in negotiating the development of conceptual knowledge through the use of a key word structure. The key word structure utilises the strategies of representing, comparing, explaining, justifying, agreeing and validating to guide children's activity at the small-group and whole-class level and to scaffold the emergence of children's thought from the everyday and personal to the more sophisticated and communal understandings associated with disciplinary communities of practice. This paper explores the nature of small-group and whole-group interaction within a year 7 classroom which employs Collective Argumentation as a tool of learning. Particular attention is paid to the orientations towards learning that children develop, the interaction of collaborative goals of learning with individual children's needs to please or dominate, the type of discourse structures used by children at the small-group and whole-class level, and the quality of specific learning outcomes. The teacher's role within such a classroom and issues related to authority and educational values are discussed in the light of a sociocultural understanding of teaching and development

BROWR383

Journeys from participating on the periphery to peripheral participation in a collaborative primary classroom

R A J Brown and Peter Renshaw, The University of Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 26, Communities of learners: Researching resistance and exclusion in the collaborative classroom.

BROWT451

Establishing a new rhetoric for authentic assessment

Tom Browne, Anglican Church Grammar School Brisbane

This paper examines the findings of one of three case studies researched whilst employing the sprot education in physical education program (SEPEP). I wished to understand, appreciate and report on how teachers assessed student outcomes in sport education. I intended this investigation to result in the development of explanations of the many issues facing assessment in physical education. Qualitative research methods were employed in a multiple site case study. Illumination is provided through description and interpretation of the teacher's world and the context of assessment in sport education. Key comments by the principal, senior teachers and physical education teachers are highlighted. Analysis employing Choi's (1992) dimensions of the curriculum is intended to provide specific, concrete and identifiable patterns of teachers' assessment under sport education.

BRYCJ247

Assessment of the Mayer Key Competencies

Jennifer Bryce and Doug McCurry, Australian Council for Educational Research

This paper discusses the outcomes of a project which explored school-based assessment and reporting of the Mayer Key Competencies. In 1996, a trial was undertaken in ten secondary schools across four states of Australia, focusing on Year 11. The project was based on two important assumptions: that teachers can make global judgements of their students' performance on the Key Competencies without setting special tasks, and that teachers' assessments of these competencies are general rather than subject specific.

The project produced overall levels of performance for individual students from a range of different teachers' global impression judgements. The exercise was seen to be cost efficient in that participating teachers had minimal introduction to the Key Competencies and only brief training in the assessment procedure. Most teachers took about ten minutes to assess each student on the eight Key Competencies.

Some significant outcomes that will be discussed are:

1. teachers were able to make judgements on the basis of their knowledge of students without undertaking new or different tasks;
2. levels of agreement between teachers were higher than expected and ranged well over an 8-point scale;
3. teachers found the task easier than they had expected.

The relationship between significant others' positive and negative statements and self-talk, self-concepts, and self-esteem

Paul C Burnett, Queensland University of Technology

This paper reports on a study conducted with 269 primary school children in grades 3 to 7. These children completed self-report questionnaires measuring (1) the frequency of positive and negative statements made by mother, father, teacher, and peers, (2) positive and negative self-talk, (3) academic self-concepts, (4) social relations self-concepts, and (5) self-esteem. Class teachers also completed the Behavioural Indicators of Self-Esteem (BIOS) scale for each child. Structural equation modelling was used to describe the relationships between these variables and the results will be presented.

Who's developing who in school physical education? An analysis of developmental discourses

Lisette Burrows, University of Otago, New Zealand

In this paper I critically examine the nature and function of developmental discourses in school physical education. Current legitimations for the inclusion of physical education as a subject in the school curriculum tend to centre around its instrumental value in contributing to physical, social, emotional and psychological dimensions of children's development. Underpinning such claims are common sense and professional understandings about the "nature" of children and a legacy of ideas about how children "develop." Recent work by critical psychologists and some poststructuralist writers has critiqued the notions of child development informing physical education policy and professional activities. Drawing on insights from poststructuralist theory, I will consider both the challenges and implications a critique of "developmentalism" presents for physical educators in schools.

BURTJ189

Teaching dilemmas and workplace relations

Judith Burton, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 16, Early childhood teachers working in new times: Reports on research undertaken in the 1990's.

Social and cultural transformation through participative learning

Jude Butcher, Valda Dickinson, Phil Glendenning, Peter Hancock, Fay Hickson, and Joanne Trevaglia, Australian Catholic University

Social and cultural education is of increasing importance in today's society, particularly considering the social justice issues which need to addressed both here and overseas. This area of education is concerned with the social and cultural transformation of participants. The programs involve participants in field or immersion experiences in different cultural contexts, require them to critically analyse social issues and identify ways in which they can be agents of social and cultural change.

The programs challenge participants' personal and social assumptions, develop them personally and culturally and provide them with skills they need for social and organisation analysis and for their roles as change agents and as advocates in the social arena. This paper presents a conceptual framework for social and cultural education and discusses issues related to its implementation. Case studies of this approach are drawn from programs offered by participants both here and overseas.

Qualitative data gathering in two school settings: A reflection on processes and problems in exploring student perceptions of technological design experience

Lyndon Butcher, The University of Newcastle

The author's professional interests in the classroom activities of design and technology led him to undertake a qualitative study that was structured to maximise researcher involvement with two year ten class groups in two separate schools over a full school year. Some of the 'myths' 'rituals' and 'realities' pertaining to the NSW secondary school subject of design and technology are uncovered from the 'lived experience' of students involved in school based design activities. This subject recently emerged in response to the identification of technology and applied studies as a key learning area essential for all students.

This working paper reflects on the observational and interview data gathering techniques that were employed to explore the design experiences of students working in a classroom context. The author renders his research processes visible by documenting and discussing the methodological issues pertaining to the study. These issues include his selection of participants, his role as a researcher, and the evolving nature of the research questions throughout the research process.

The techniques employed in collecting and recording field observations and open interviews are portrayed problematically. The processes represent an uneasy transformation that begins with descriptive observations and transcribed conversations (open interviews). These comprise field text which is analysed and eventually results in a research report. The author was faced with a variety of ways of analysing the data ranging form ongoing analytical comment to the use of NUD*IST qualitative data analysis software. Case study examples of some preliminary analyses are reported in conjunction with a review of the relevant methodological literature.

Discovering reality or constructing reality through qualitative research

Jim Butler, The University of Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 8, Issues in qualitative research.

Assessing student performance via the Internet

Rosemary Callingham, Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development, Tasmania, Patrick Griffin, University of Melbourne

With increased access by students to the internet, together with greater monitoring of student learning outcomes, there is interest in using the internet to deliver assessment and monitoring programs. The Year 9 Numeracy Assessment and Monitoring Program ran in all Tasmanian government high (Years 7-10) and district high (Years K-10) schools in 19 The testing package included a performance assessment task, and it was decided to use this task as the basis for an internet trial. Three teachers in different schools agreed to complete this task via the internet with one class of students. One class consisted of a high ability year 9 group in a large suburban high school; one was a heterogeneous year 9 group in a rural district high school; one was a group of low ability year 11 students in a senior secondary college. Teachers and students involved had varying degrees of sophistication with computer use.

Student results on the task were compared with those of similar groups of students that completed the task using conventional tools. A number of teacher and student interviews, and observations of students at work on the task, added valuable qualitative data. This paper reports on the advantages and difficulties associated with using the internet for assessment of a performance task.

CAMPJ349

Effective teaching for students with differing approaches to learning

Jennifer Campbell and David Smith, Queensland University of Technology

Secondary students were surveyed to investigate their beliefs about teaching and learning, their approaches to learning, and perceptions of their actual and preferred classroom environment. Students from each class, with differing approaches to learning, were interviewed, as were their teachers.

Quantitative analysis of the survey data indicated that students with deep approaches to learning viewed their actual classroom environment as being more student centred, and had a greater preference for such individualised classrooms, than did students with surface approaches. Qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed that differences in perception of the same classroom by students with differing approaches to learning were somewhat modified by particular teaching strategies. When teachers reported constructivist strategies, but also relied on transmission, students with preferences for deep approaches recognised the potential of the constructivist elements of the class, while students with surface approaches did not, emphasising instead transmission and reproduction. However, when teachers focused on both actively engaging students, and creating a supportive environment, students with deep and surface approaches both focussed on student centred aspects of the class. In contrast, when traditional expository teaching methods were used, students with deep and surface approaches both focused on transmission and reproduction.

The adjustment behaviours of mature-aged women returning to formal study

Robert Cantwell and Wendy Mulhearn, University of Newcastle

Seven mature-aged women from the University of Newcastle's enabling course (Open Foundation Certificate) participated in the study. Measures of Approach to Learning (Biggs,1987) and Causal Attributions (Chan, 1994) were taken in the first and last weeks of the semester. Two focus groups were also held at the beginning and end of semester. Data revealed a general decline in deeper learning and increase in surface learning in conjunction with a shift from personal control to self-blame for failure attributions. These changes were reflected in the qualitative data, where the women revealed negative feelings about time management, about a perceived competitive assessment regime, and a sense of alienation from aspects of the learning environment (particularly feelings of inadequacy and anxiety, as well as a fear of possible humiliation, in lectures). Additionally, the women reported lowered self-efficacy sentiments and perceived lack of family support as major reasons for a general feeling of loss of coping. The data is seen as consistent with prior research into women's experiences in adult education (e.g. Ancis & Phillips, 1996). Recommendations for change are outlined.

Problem-based methodology in leadership development: Interventions to improve dilemma management

Carol Cardno, UNITEC Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

New Zealand principals are currently performing a role considerably expanded by the reform of education administration to include a new and demanding set of expectations related to school self-management. In this context of devolved accountability for managing all school operations, principals are challenged by the need to resolve recurring, complex problems which have the characteristics of classic leadership dilemmas: value and goal tensions between achieving what is best for the organisation and maintaining positive collegial relationships. If effectiveness is viewed as the ability to solve complex problems so that they remain solved, then the question of how school leaders can develop skills to achieve this must be asked. In an attempt to answer this question, this paper outlines a curriculum for dilemma management which uses a problem-based approach with senior management teams in schools to examine and alter practice. Principals and others in key leadership positions can learn about the sources of problems and discover how their own theories of practice might constrain effective resolution. Consultant intervention is designed to teach participants skills which enable them to reason and act productively rather than defensively when confronted with dilemmas Two case studies of such interventions are briefly described, and the potential and pitfalls associated with applying problem-based methodology in school-based leadership development interventions are identified.

The use of teaching metaphors in preservice education

Teresa Carlson, The University of Queensland

While the use of personal teaching metaphors has been the subject of considerable research at the teacher level (Dickmeyer, 1989; Munby, 1986; Provenzo, McCloskey, Kottkamp and Cohn, 1989), there has been limited study in the use of this method at the preservice stage (Bullough, 1991). This paper explores the benefits of introducing teaching metaphors to students enrolled in a teacher education course. Fifty teaching metaphors were analysed to reveal how the participants perceived their role in the teaching process. What these metaphors can tell us about their creators and how teacher educators may be able to benefit from this knowledge is discussed. Further, some of the potential problems arising from using this method are outlined.

CARRA316

Pre-service teachers' acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability: The Queensland scene

Annemaree Carroll, Ann Jobling and Kath Tait, University of Southern Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 13, Pre-service teachers' acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability: Educational implications in new times.

CARTL071

Can You Really Do That On The Net?.....On-line Professional Development

Ms Lyn Carter, School of Education, Australian Catholic University

The influence of the new technologies are being felt at all levels of the educational enterprise from the increasing use of individual laptops to the introduction of classroom-based, networked computers providing ready access for both students and teachers to the world wide web. Children well versed in the use of CD-Roms and other games software from the front of the home computer, bring to the classroom a new visual literacy with which teachers will need to contend. In the tertiary arena, the scramble is on to gain custom for the virtual university particularly with the development and delivery of post-graduate courses. Given the notion of the adult professional as a "generative lifelong learner" (Fullan,1993 and others), it is hardly surprising that in some quarters, the Internet is seen as a possible solution to providing cost-efficient teacher professional development. This paper, as part of a larger study on the electronic mediation of in-service teacher education, reviews some of the recent educational literature discussing on-line professional growth opportunities. It describes categories of offerings, gleaned from the Internet, which arguably could be viewed as being able to contribute to the professional development of teachers. An assessment of the congruence between the rise of the Internet and the imperative of continuing professional development of teachers shows the availability of some promising research directions, as we seemingly relentlessly move towards the implementation of virtual educational communities.

School based induction and mentoring of beginning teachers: Preliminary findings from case study research

Mark Carter, NSW Department of School Education

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 18, Sustaining teachers' professional development: Exploring action learning and mentoring to maintain workplace learning.

CARUG088

Conducting classroom based primary school English research

Greta Caruso, The University of Melbourne

Classroom based research is increasingly popular and is increasingly regarded as capable of yielding rich insights into behaviour and learning (Nunan, 1992; Richards and Lockhart, 1994). However classroom based research also brings with it a set of problems one of which is the ethical concerns centred around issues of trust, demands of the subjects time and equity. A central methodological/ethical question in such classroom based research is often: What constitutes a fair exchange between the researcher and the subjects? This ethical question guided the current researcher in her examination of how two teachers implemented the English Key Learning Area of Victoria Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF-English) in the primary school at grades 5 and 6. In this paper discussion will be made of two crucial points in the relationship between the researcher and the teachers who had volunteered to be subjects.

Initially an ethnographic methodology was adopted, then, on the request of the subjects, the research became interventionist and action research was used as the methodological approach. In order to move through changes in the research paradogms the researcher ws forced to modify, develop and even invent methodological approaches which, simultaneously satisfied first, the teachers; second, the expectation of rigorous research; and third, a set of personal ethical standards. The researcher negotiated and renegotiated what the teachers were offered in exchange for their participation in the research. An effective if slightly unorthodox researcher/subject research exchange was found. This paper provides one model of a classroom researcher/subject relationship which was found to satisfy each of the three demands.

CASST053

Taking account of identities: A challenge for the pedagogical process in physical education teacher education (PETE)

Tania Cassidy, Faculty of Education, Deakin University

In the pedagogical process "[h]ow one teaches is...inseparable from what is being taught and, crucially, how one learns" (Lusted, 1986, p.3). In this paper I illustrate how an increased understanding of the identities of the learner and teacher educator provide an insight into how both parties engage the content of a PETE unit. This has implications for understanding students' responses to a socially critical curriculum in PETE.

Measuring benefits of workplace training

Ralph Catts, Central Queensland University

Working with Food Processing Firms, the author is in the process of developing and evaluating measures that indicate support for the retention of competencies, the impact of training on productivity, and the readiness of staff for further workplace learning. These are outcomes from workplace competency based training that extend the information about the return to the firms and the staff from expenditure on training. These instruments are required so that firms can monitor the changes that occur when systematic training plans are introduced.

This paper will outline the progress made in a project which has been commissioned to run from May 1997 to January 1998. Results to be reported are expected to include substantial evidence of content validity.

Drawing from literature on retention of competency (Baldwin and Ford, 1988; Foxon, 1993), measures expected to be correlated with retention of competency under include "organisational climate", "training design and delivery", and "learner commitment". Productivity measures currently collected by firms will be investigated to confirm accuracy. The literature on learning organisations (Senge, 1990) and Key Competencies (Mayer, 1992) are the sources of concepts for scales to measure "learning readiness" at individual and organisational levels.

If it can be shown that the measurement instruments demonstrate sound characteristics, they will provide a basis for the evaluation of the effectiveness of a variety of workplace learning systems, and thus provide insights of relevance both to the immediate concerns of firms, and to the broader policy issues related to fostering Life Long Learning.

Use of theatre to develop learning for young people

Christina Chaib, University of Jonkoping, Sweden

This paper deals with amateur theater as a method to increase and develop the learning setting for young people. Their interest and participation in theater productions are the focus of my investigation.

The educational process, I believe, will not be limited, in the future, to formal education and training, but also may include leisure and pastime activities as well. I have interviewed 30 young students about the amateur theater process. The paper shows the means and activities which seems to be important to the students. As shown in this research, by taking on a part and a character, and by maintaining enthusiasm in the dramatical narration, young actors develop competencies in a variety of areas of major importance for the pedagogical issues of education.The focus of my paper will be oriented towards the experiences gained by young Swedish students playing amateur theater. According to their reports, playing amateur theater constitutes a collectively shared educational experience. My paper will address the role of aesthetics activities in future education. A core question of my address will focus on whether an aesthetical creation affect or not actors=B4 experiences of the world surrounding them, and does such a perspective develop pupils enhanced understanding of society?

Computer-based education is the answer ! - But what were the questions asked for the future of technology in schooling?

Mohamed Chaib and Ann-Katrin Svensson, University of Jonkoping, Sweden

This paper intends to discuss the state of the art of computer based education in Sweden. Reporting the results of an ongoing research project, at pre- and comprehensive schools, we will address the central roles played by the teachers involved in our studies. In our paper we will be reviewing the social representations articulated by the teachers in their conceptions of what Information Technology based Learning really is about. Moreover, we will focus our intervention towards the cooperative and social interactions occuring among students in computer based learning processes. From the empirical evidences gathered in our project, we will try to sketch some possible scenarios for the future of computer based education. We will particularly discuss some of the actions, we believe, should be taken in order to enhance teacher=B4s preparedness towards the roles they are expected to play in this important educational issue.

CHANA537

Teachers' perceptions of their roles in Singapore

Agnes Chang, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

One of the factors affecting students' academic outcomes is their teachers' enthusiasm for and commitment to their vocation. Singapore has done well international competitions like the TIMMS Study. Do the Singapore teachers play a significant role in facilitating these academic successes?

A survey was conducted to find out Secondary teachers' perceptions of their roles. Altogether 88 teachers participated in the survey. The instrument used to collect data is a published questionnaire of 35 items called the " Educational Attitude Inventory". The responeses were very positive though some respondents did express their reservation about some classroom practices.

Development of attributional beliefs and strategic knowledge in Years 5 to 9: A longitudinal analysis

Lorna Kim Sang Chan and Phillip Moore, The University of Newcastle

This paper reports on a three-year longitudinal study of students' attributional beliefs and strategic knowledge in school learning. Two cohorts of primary (N=355) and high school students (N=710) were followed through for three years from Years 5 to 7 and 7 to 9, respectively. Data were collected each year on students' attributional beliefs regarding the reasons for their school success and failure, their knowledge and reported use of learning strategies, and academic achievement. Intervention programs were implemented in six Year 6 and seven Year 8 English classes in the second year of the longitudinal project. The intervention aimed to promote strategic learning in students through

combining the teaching of learning strategies with attempts at changing students' attributional beliefs. In the third year of the project, the intervention continued in three Year 7 and three Year 9 English classes as well as in three Year 7 and one Year 9 Mathematics classes. This paper focuses on the causal influences of prior measures of attributional beliefs, strategic knowledge and achievement on measures taken in the following year. Results of the differential patterns of causal influences of these measures for intervention and non- intervention students are reported and implications for instruction are discussed.

Same or different?: A comparison of the beliefs Australian and Chinese university students hold about learning

Phoebe Chan, Monash University

Various explanations have been proposed to account for the differences in academic performance and achievements of diferent students, especially students of different nationalities or ethnicities. The influence of personal attributes (such as students' educational aspirations and goals, and time in study-related activities) and familial factors (such as parental expectations and involvement) have been investigated and found to be associated with different practices and outcomes. However, argument can be advanced that cultural values and beliefs are the underpinnings of these ideas and practices which lead to different performance and achievements. There is not, however, much empirical research on cultural beliefs or comparisons of the beliefs that different students hold about learning.

This paper reports on a study that explores the learning beliefs and practices of university students from a Chinese and a Western culture. The questionnaire constructed for the study has eighty-one items to elicit beliefs about learning. Around 300 undergraduate students studying in Hong Kong and Australia completed the questionnaire. Some of the participants were also interviewed. Analysis and comparisons of the resulting data from the two groups of students are presented in this paper.

CHONS323

The sound of music - Fostering oral and listening skills in Singapore pre-school children through an integrated music and language arts programme

Sylvia Chong and Linda Gan, National Institute of Education, Singapore

From their earliest years children appear instinctively "wired" for sound and rhythm and naturally respond to music, songs, nursery rhymes and word play. Apart from providing endless pleasure, such activities play an importnat role in children's language and literacy development, hence the special place afforded to them in early childhood programmes.

In the bilingual setting in Singapore such activities play an even more prominent role, as the task of becoming literate in English and one other language is a challenge all children face from pre-school

upwards. Local curriculum planners at this crucial stage of schooling, have recognised the importance of designing preschool language arts programmes, rich in oral and expressive activities, which will not only help young children develop their command of spoken English, but also motivate them in acquiring and using English which might not be spoken in the course of their daily interactions in the home environment. Such programmes incorporate the usual medley of rhymes, songs, stories, language games and role play. Music, however, is usually introduced as a separate subject, in terms of time allocation and resource material.

This paper will discuss some of the developmental milestones in music and language development. In doing so it focuses on a one year preschool project funded by the National Institute of Education in Singapore, which investigates the integration of language and music activities and the role played in enhancing young children's speaking and listening skills in English.

A review on studies of computer anxiety in the 90's

Siew Lian Chua, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

This paper reviewed studies of computer anxiety published in the 90's. The review focused on three main areas:
(a) the nature of computer anxiety,

(b) the existence of computer anxiety, and
(c) the relationships between computer anxiety and its three correlates, namely, gender, age and computer experience.

The review was conducted using two methods, vote-count method and meta-analysis. Review on the nature of computer anxiety yielded five statements:
(a) computer anxiety is a fear towards computers when users use the computer, or when they consider the possibility of computer use;
(b) computer anxiety is a kind of `state anxiety' which can be changed;
(c) computer anxiety is measurable in multiple dimensions;
(d) computer anxiety is perceived differently by people from different countries; and
(e) computer anxiety causes computer user avoidance.

The review had also confirmed that computer anxiety still exists in the 90's despite the fact that the computer has been widely used. Finally, empirical studies on computer anxiety indicated that (a) the relationships between computer anxiety and gender remain inconclusive; (b) computer anxiety is not directly related to age; and (c) the more computer experience individuals are exposed to, the less they exhibit computer anxiety.

Self-regulated learning in tertiary students

Stefanie Chye, Mike Bailey, Ian Smith and Richard Walker, The University of Sydney

Attempts to address academic achievement deficits have resulted in decades of dedicated research, which document the significant implications that self-regulation has for learning and academic achievement. It is therefore a consequence of previous enquiries, that the present study attempts to advance this emerging area of scholarship. The purpose of this research is twofold. It seeks to examine the way academic learning may be linked to the social environment, by taking into account the role of culture in self-regulated academic learning. The Australian and Singaporean contexts are examined explicitly on this account. In addition, some of the main components of self-regulation and the interaction of these important variables in the learning context are analysed. More specifically, this study seeks to investigate the role of motivational variables, goal orientations, and beliefs about learning in influencing tertiary students' cognitive engagement, learning strategies and academic performance. For the purposes mentioned, a self-report questionnaire will be administered to all participants who will be obtained from three groups: (1) Australian students, (2) Singaporean students and (3) Singaporean students studying in Australia (overseas students). Results of this study are forthcoming and will be presented at the conference.

The emergence of meaning in classroom research

David Clarke, The University of Melbourne

At the heart of contemporary classroom research is the question of whose accounts of classroom activity are priveleged for the purpose of understanding learning processes in such settings. Classroom reserch has been greatly assisted by the emergence of a varieyt of technologies to support both data collection and analysis. This paper contrasts the techniques and the assumptions by which interpretations and meanings are constructed by contemporary classroom researchers. Specifically, comparison is made between two approaches to classroom research: "Validity by consensus" in which transcripts of classroom dialogue and activity are analysed by several researchers and consensus as to the "meaning" of an episode is sought through the synthesis of the many interpretations; and, "Complementary accounts" in which researchers interpret the documented interaction from several distinct theoretical perspectives, and the goal is diversity rather than consensus, where each interpretation is accorded parity of status, together with the student's reconstruction of the episode, prompted by the video record of classroom events. In the first approach, the matter to be interpreted is the text of transcribed classroom dialogue and activity, while in the second, analysis is undertaken of integrated data sets combining videotape, dialogue transcripts, and video-stimulated reconstructive interviews.

Differences that matter and indifference in education

Gill Clarke, University of Southampton

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 3, Sexualities and the intellectual work of gender reform.

CLARJ332

"I doubt that collaborative skills can be taught to 40 to 50 year old people. If they haven't acquired them by that age, they are never going to"

A/Prof John A Clarke and A/Prof Brigid Limerick, School of Learning and Development, Queensland University of Technology

The move toward self-managing schools and the constancy of change in schools pose new and challenging problems for educational leaders and those charged with preparing them. This paper grows out of work in the first year of an innovative Doctor of Education program at the Queensland University of Technology which, consistent with the philosophy of professional doctoral programs, focuses on the enhancement of professional practice. The program differs from the standard lockstep coursework + thesis model by using a problem-based learning approach underpinned by postmodern imperatives and attempts to develop, along with the content and research skills necessary for successful higher degree studies, the processual skills necessary for the students to accept and work with multiple realities and to manage diversity in their workplace. This paper therefore focuses upon the "collaborative skills" or competencies necessary for self-managing schools and the issues raised by both students and lecturers in the development of such skills. The core question under examination here is whether such skills demand a totally new mind set for New Times.

CLARP180

Reasons why beginning mathematical students swap languages and their teachers' reactions

A/Prof Philip Clarkson, Australian Catholic University

Papers presented at previous AARE conferences have presented data which shows that Vietnamese and Arabic students studying in Melbourne and Sydney primary schools swap languages when they are completing mathematical problems. This paper will present new data which explore the students' reasons as to why they use this strategy. These reasons seem to coalesse around themes such as; difficulty at the reading stage and hence a swap is an attempt to clarify meaning; an attempt to deal with a conceptual mathematical difficulty; a checking process of making sure of the answer; a preference to complete calculations in one of the languages which in turn may relate to who and how these skills were taught; an emotional response to cope with anxiety, anger or uncertainty; or inadequacy in language skills during later stages of the solving process. Some comments will also be made on teachers' responses to these data which ranges from total surprise to students swapping languages in mathematics sessions, through to this being a most natural strategy for such people to employ.

The rural school as a `learning community': Sifting the rhetoric to locate the reality

Barry Cocklin, Charles Sturt University

Deriving from the works of such as Senge (1990) within the business community, the notion of schools as learning communities has `emerged' upon the educational agenda for Australian schools. As it has done so, various commentators have urged a `filtering' of the concept as it is applied to the educational context so as to ensure that the benefits reflect the particular, and perhaps idiosyncratic, nature of schooling as distinct from the profit-centred approach of business. While this represents the `rhetoric' of the debate, we need more insight into the lived reality of schools which enables us to illustrate and reflect upon those aspects which contribute towards the development of `learning communities'. For consideration here are those aspects of the notion which advocate `ownership' of learning as an emancipatory process directed towards the `interests' of the community, rather than those of the wider systemic educational organisation, and the political `interests' underpinning much of current reform agendas. This paper will present an examination of a case study of a rural NSW school, held by its `community' to be a `learning community', in an exploration of the `reality' and diversity of attitudes, beliefs, teaching and learning, context and content, and relationships.

COLQD183

SYMPOSIUM 9: Education in new times: Researching health promoting and full service schools

Chairperson: Derek Colquhoun, Deakin University

Participants: Dev Mukherjee, Australian Centre for Equity through Education, and Louise Rowling, University of Sydney

Overview:
This symposium will be the first opportunity for those from the Australian Health Promoting Schools Association, the Australian Association for Research in Education and The Centre for Equity Through Education to discuss their common interest - changing schools within changing contexts. The concepts of the Health Promoting School and the Full Service School have many areas of overlap including a state, national, regional and international history and advocacy and the foregrounding of the concepts of 'community', 'participation', 'supportive environment', 'diversity' and 'service'. However until this conference there has been no opportunity to relate the implications of the development of the two initiatives to a broader corporate managerialist and behaviourist context within which they are emerging. This symposium will address the background, research activities and priorities and challenges of both initiatives and will build on reserach already undertaken across Australia.

PAPER 1:

COLQD311

The Health Promoting School as a rupturing discourse?

Derek Colquhoun, Deakin University

Depending on source and interpretation, the concept of the Health Promoting School has a history of about ten years. It is actively being promoted by the World Health Organisation and because of this the concept is popular in Europe, North America, and Australia and the Western Pacific Region.

In common with other projects that have emanated from the New Public Health movement (eg healthy cities, healthy workplaces), the Health Promoting Schools project is based on a settings approach which identifies schools as a place where students spend a large amount of time in their formative years. It is a place where they supposedly can be exposed to healthy practices and develop health enhancing skills and knowledge. Health in this instance is considered in its broadest form as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing.

In this presentation I will use examples from official guidelines and policy documents to portray the concept of the health promoting school as an emerging, 'rupturing' discourse which supports the processes of governmentality, regulation and surveillance: processes which support the normalising of the behaviours of schools and school populations.

PAPER 2:

Full Service Schools

Dev Mukherjee, Australian Centre for Equity through Education

'Full service' may be the best term to convey the idea of schools as sites for access to a range of education, health and community services. Like that of Health Promoting Schools, the idea of Full Service Schools is not new and there are many interpretations. The Australian Centre for Equity through Education has been promoting the idea of Full Service Schools based on a set of guiding principles which bring together three significant reform movements: interagency collaboration, school reform and community development.

Throughout Australia and overseas there are many examples of Full Service School developments. In this presentation, through analysis of some of these examples I will illustrate how a set of principles can assist schools or community groups to develop a framework for the implementation and evaluation of site based collaborative reform and development.

PAPER 3:

ROWLL475

Health Promoting Schools in Australia: the present and the future

Louise Rowling, University of Sydney

The health promoting school movement as a settings approach to health in schools, had its origins in Europe in the late 1980's. It arose out of comprehensive school health programs, and was extended by concepts from the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. This latter document states that health is affected by where people live, work and play. The Charter is underpinned by the principles of equity and participation.

The health promoting schools approach to health issues in schools adopted this year by the peak health research body, the National Health and Medical Research Council, is framed around three interdependent areas: curriculum, teaching and learning; school organisation, ethos and environment; and school partnerships and services.

This approach to health in schools is built upon education and health research and reproduces many of the current themes and debates in educational arenas. These issues along with a fuller explanation of the framework will be the focus of this paper.

COLQD311

The Health Promoting School as a rupturing discourse?

Derek Colquhoun, Deakin University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 9, Education in new times: researching health promoting and full service schools.

The problem of 'background' in researching the student subject

Barbara Comber, University of South Australia

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 15, New times for literacy, pedagogy and young people: Research challenges.

CORMP224

SYMPOSIUM 10: Authentic assessment in middle schooling: Research and curriculum development through university/school research circles

Participants: Phil Cormack, Bruce Johnson, Judy Peters, and David Williams, University of South Australia

Overview:

The National Middle Schooling Project is a project of national significance which was established in a climate of collaborative investigation into Middle Schooling philosophy and practice. At the end of 1996 the Project established a research circle which involved four university colleagues working with teachers in six schools from around Australia to explore the implications for teaching and learning of authentic assessment. One outcome of this circles' work was a set of curriculum materials for use in

Australian schools.

In this paper university colleagues from the Authentic Assessment Research Circle will report on various aspects of the collaborative research and curriculum development they undertook with school colleagues during 19 In particular, presenters will focus on questions and challenges associated

with making assessment "authentic" in the middle years, the significance of context intricacies in the development of educational projects and schools, and the tensions experienced by academics when they work with schools.

PAPER 1:

Making assessment 'authentic': Questions and challenges for middle years research and practice

Phil Cormack, University of South Australia

This presentation will consider the ways in which authenticity is constructed in materials written for teachers about authentic assessment in the middle years. The concept of authentic assessment provides some real possibilities for teachers working with adolescents through allowing greater variety and innovation in curriculum and teaching. However there are also important questions to be raised, particularly for teachers in diverse communities, about who the assessment is authentic for and about what counts for authenticity. The implications of these issues for research in middle schools are considered.

PAPER 2:

JOHNB226

Academics working with schools: Resolving the tensions

Bruce Johnson and Judy Peters, University of South Australia

The Authentic Assessment Research Circle had "partnership" between university and school colleagues as a core objective. In recent years there has been a growing emphasis on schools and universities working in partnership in areas such as the practicum, school reform, curriculum development and the professional development of teachers and teacher educators. Inherent in the concept of partnership is the notion of a relationship in which there is a reciprocal exchange of expertise and benefits to both partners, but the reality of partnerships can produce a range of tensions for both school and academic colleagues.

This paper will report on the experiences of academic colleagues while working with schools in the Authentic Assessment Research Circle. In particular it will focus on the tensions which arose from the diverse expectations of the schools, the particular project, the university and the academics themselves, and how these were resolved.

PAPER 3:

WILLD227

School research projects and context intricacies

David Williams, University of South Australia

Project management is an organisational approach to a defined purpose and to the accomplishment of specific achievements. Invariably, however, schools settings are complex environments which impact upon the progress towards and achievement of the specified goals.

Research in or about schools is rarely simple or straightforward. Clear evidence exists to indicate that the contextual intricacies of interactions between school-based projects and the wider school environment significantly influence the 'reality' of the research project. Even tightly-focussed school-based projects are seldom able to be quarantined from cultural factors in the wider school context, especially when the project implies the possibility of changes in the school culture. Yet the outcomes of a project usually do include expectations that change will occur or that something will be created; that different practices will develop; that different organisational structures and operations will eventuate. Therefore, undertaking educational projects in school settings presents researchers with the inevitable challenge of pursuing the specific project goals while at the same time negotiating the delicate and sensitive interface with the wider school culture. This paper draws upon recent experiences to examine and report on the significance of context intricacies in the development of educational projects in school settings.

What can history offer literacy research in new times?

Phil Cormack, University of South Australia

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 15, New times for literacy, pedagogy and young people: Research challenges.

COUCJ520

A comparative review of intervention strategies

Judy Couchman, University of Southern Queensland

The provision of generic essay and study skills to assist tretiary education students has been met by various levels of acceptance and official endorsement. A review of the practices that are subsumed under the summary heading of Tertiary Education Student Induction Skills has identified that several strategies are worthy of further consideration.

This paper provides the initial outlining of several strategies that have been implemented at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). The features of these strategies have been identified by the students who have been involved in trials at USQ. Interpretation, analysis and evaluation of the nominated features and the trials will be the substance of the conference presentation. The view that there are highly practical and effective strategies available will be represented.

Supplemental instruction: Peer monitoring and student productivity

Judy Couchman, University of Southern Queensland

During Semester One, 1997, a pilot implementation of Supplemental Instruction was completed in the Faculty of Commerce at USQ. The results, in both quantitative and qualitative terms have endorsed early Supplemental Instruction intervention success.

This paper will review the methods and the outcomes and will consider pertinent educational, financial and other benefits. Another similarly useful strategy, viz. the Student Productivity Initiative will also be reviewed as a compementary strategy that has demonstrated substantial benefits - particularly in gaining employment upon graduation.

Teaching primary school technology: coming to terms with the challenge

Judith Cousins, Edith Cowan University

The introduction and implementation of a new learning area, Technology and Enterprise, in the K-12 curriculum, has raised some concerns among teachers in Western Australia. This paper will present the results of recent research focused on challenges facing teachers in the implementation of this learning area, with particular emphasis on the 'Design, make, appraise' strand.

A simple survey, completed by 120 respondents, was used to gain some initial insights into practicing and pre-service teachers' concerns related to aspects of implementation of Technology and Enterprise, such as safety, materials, equipment and classroom organisation. These results were used to prepare a more focused questionnaire.

The questionnaire was completed by forty practicing teachers and the results indicated a lack of knowledge of the learning area, lack of familiarity with the learning area statement and student outcomes and concern that little or no professional development had been offered to teachers to assist them in gaining understanding of how to include Technology and Enterprise into an already crowded curriculum.

The study was completed through interviewing four exemplary teachers in the field. Selection of these teachers was based on their work in the Technology and Enterprise learning area, as they were advisory teachers, school leaders, and prominent in the development of a newly formed Primary Technology Association. The in-depth interviews provided opportunities for these teachers to explain how they approached this learning area, strategies they used in their teaching and how they viewed the challenges facing teachers in the implementation process.

The three-pronged data collection method allowed the reseacher to gain an understanding of the state of Technology and Enterprise in the primary school arena in Western Australia and to formulate a number of recommendations.

Teachers coping with change: Is a flexible workforce the answer?

Trudy Cowley, University of Tasmania and Di Stow, Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development

In these 'new times' of education, teachers are being asked to cope with and implement increasing change and innovation in their professional lives and so are having to become more flexible in their teaching role. Teachers are being asked to accommodate change at a seemingly increasing rate; for example, to teach across curriculum areas, to adapt to new teaching situations, to be innovators, to be up-to-date with current policies, and to broaden their teaching repertoire.

In the midst of all this change, Tasmania has introduced a transfer policy which requires teachers' contracts in a school to be reviewed every three or five years. Upon review, teachers can be either transferred, extended or reassigned. Relocation/transfer can be a significant challenge to teachers and administrators and can promote a flexible teaching workforce.

This paper will consider how teachers cope with the introduction and implementation of a transfer policy and how this policy aids in engendering a flexible workforce of teachers for the future.

CRAVR151

SYMPOSIUM 11: To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement

Participants: Rhonda Craven, Ray Debus and Murray Print, University of Sydney, Herbert Marsh, Alexander Yeung, Andrew Martin, Roselyn Dixon and Lawrence Roche, University of Western Sydney, Frances Laimui Lee, Renae Low and Putai Jin, University of New South Wales

Overview:

Self-concept theory, instrument development, and classroom practice are inextricably intertwined. Current advances suggest the time is now ripe for both researchers and teachers to forge new understandings beyond the dustbowl of previous research and, in the process help more students maximise their full potential. We examine new understandings of:

• the measurement, structure, and stability of young children's self-concepts;
• techniques to enhance academic self-concept and the related constructs of self-attributions and academic achievement;
• the effects of different programs on the self-concepts of Gifted and Talented primary students; and
• recent developments in self-concept theory and measurement.

PAPER 1:

The measurement of physical self-concept

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

A positive self-concept is valued as a desirable outcome in many disciplines such as sport, health, educational, developmental, clinical, and social psychology. Self-concept and related variables are frequently posited as mediating or facilitating the attainment of other desired outcomes such as exercise adherence or health-related physical fitness. Researchers with a major focus on other constructs are often interested in how their constructs or interventions are related to self-concept. In this presentation a construct validation approach to the measurement of physical self-concept is described. Various theoretical models of the structure of self-concept are presented along with a brief historical overview of self-concept and physical self-concept research. The major focus is on research leading to the development of the Physical Self Description Questionnaire (PSDQ) including ongoing research involving elite athletes from the Australian Institute of Sport and Westfields Sport High School and from non-elite high school settings and the Australian Outward Bound.

PAPER 2:

Factorial validity of a Chinese version of the Self Description Questionnaire (SDQII)

Alexander Yeung, University of Western Sydney, Frances Laimui Lee, Renae Low and Putai Jin, University of New South Wales

This study examined the factor structure of a Chinese version of the verbal, math, academic and general self-concept scales of the Self Description Questionnaire (SDQII) administered to 494 high school students in China. Item scale correlations and reliability coefficients were good.

Confirmatory factor analysis showed that verbal and math self-concepts were positively correlated with academic self-concept, and with general self-concept, although smaller in size; but they were negatively correlated with each other. When Chinese and math achievement scores were included in the model, Chinese achievement correlated more highly with verbal than with math self-concept and math achievement correlated highly with math self-concept but not with verbal self-concept. Both achievement scores correlated more highly with academic than general self-concept. The results support the validity of the translated version of the SDQII and also the multidimensionality of self-concept.

PAPER 3:

The lability of psychological ratings: The chameleon effect in global self-esteem

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

An implicit assumption underlying Global Self-Esteem (GSE) scales (e.g., Rosenberg, 1979), is that GSE is a content-free, global measure of self-worth. In contrast, the chameleon effect occurs when the nature of GSE responses is altered by the content of other items in the survey. In three different studies GSE items were embedded within a broadly based multidimensional self-concept instrument or within domain-specific instruments focusing on academic, artistic, or physical self-concept. In each study, responses to GSE items embedded among items focusing on a specific self-concept domain (academic, artistic, or physical) were more highly related to that domain than GSE items from a broadly based self-concept instrument. Confirmatory factor analysis models demonstrated that the same GSE items embedded in different instruments measured distinct factors. The results have theoretical implications for how individuals form GSE perceptions and practical limitations for the interpretation of GSE responses in correlational and experimental studies.

PAPER 4:

MARSH155

New times, new techniques for examining the separation of the competency and affective components of self-concept: A developmental perspective

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

Recently researchers have questioned whether there are additional subcomponents within specific domains of self-concept that change with age. In this paper we summarise the findings of two studies to identify whether competency and affective subcomponents of academic self-concept can be differentiated and to test whether their relation varies developmentally. Study 1 examined data from the SDQI normative archive. The results of Study 1 provide clear evidence for the separation of the competency and affective components of Reading, Mathematics, and School self-concept. Consistent with other research, there was clear evidence for the increasing differentiation of the academic self-concept facets over these preadolescent ages. More specifically, correlations between Reading and Mathematics self-concept (for both competency and affective components) decreased steadily with age. In apparent contrast to this general trend of increasing differentiation with age, the correlations between the competency and affective subcomponents within the same academic self-concept domain remained surprisingly stable over age. In Study 2 we extend these analyses in a multi-cohort-multi-occasion design in which children from each of three age cohorts each complete the SDQI on three occasions during one school year.

PAPER 5:

CRAVR156

The structure, stability and measurement of young children's self-concepts: Advances in new times

Rhonda Craven, University of Sydney and Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

For older children, there have been considerable advances in self-concept theory, measurement and intervention design. However, these advances have not been fully applied to research with young children. In particular, psychometrically strong instruments have not been developed for young children and the factorial structure of self-concept is not well understood for this age group. A new, individual administration procedure for assessing multiple dimensions of self-concept for young children 5-8 years of age was the basis of this study. We expanded this application in a multi-cohort-multi-occasion study. Reliability, stability, factor structure, and the distinctiveness of the SDQ factors improved with age and from one year to the next, but small gender differences were reasonably stable over age. Consistent with the proposal that children's self-perceptions grow more realistic with age, T1 teacher ratings were more highly correlated with student ratings at T2 than T1 and contributed to the prediction of T2 self-concept beyond effects mediated by T1 self-concepts. The results support and expand the surprisingly good support for the multidimensionality of self-concept responses for very young children using this new measurement procedure.

PAPER 6:

YEUNA157

Gender differences in the development of English and Math constructs: Longitudinal models of academic self-concept and achievement

Alexander Yeung and Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

Gender differences in the development of English and math constructs (academic self-concept, academic affect, school grades, standardised test scores, and coursework selection) were examined using three waves of data from the large (N = 24 599) nationally representative NELS88 database of the U.S.A. Academic self-concept and academic affects had significant effects on subsequent school grades, standardised test scores and coursework selection, and these effects were domain specific in that English self-concept had positive effects on subsequent verbal outcomes and math had positive effects on subsequent math outcomes. Girls had higher scores for English constructs and math school grades, but lower math self-concept and affect. In contrast to the gender stereotypic model, relations between prior English and math constructs and subsequent English and math constructs were similar for boys and girls, and no evidence of gender differences in the development of either construct was found.

PAPER 7:

MARTA158

Self-handicapping and level and stability of self-concept

Andrew Martin, University of Western Sydney

The present study investigated the relationship between self-concept and protective/enhancing manoeuvring in an academic context. Specifically, the relationship between both level and stability of self-concept and self-handicapping behaviour was examined in two academic domains amongst a sample of First Year Education students. Self-handicapping refers to behaviour in which an individual engages that can operate as a perceived obstacle to success. This is done largely to negotiate scenarios that pose the possibility of failure and for which there is now an available excuse (in the form of the obstacle) that deflects cause away from the individual's ability and onto something less affectively threatening. Self-handicapping may also operate to serve self-enhancing purposes: success in the face of adversity is seen to be more impressive. The study explored main effects of self-concept level and stability related to self-handicapping behaviour as well as the interaction between the two. Results are discussed in the context of self-worth motivation theory.

PAPER 8:

CRAVR159

New techniques for enhancing children's academic self-concepts in educational settings: Advances in new times.

Rhonda Craven and Ray Debus, University of Sydney

Recent advances in self-concept theory and measurement provide a new basis for the design of powerful intervention programs that can systematically target self-concept and related facets to overcome the limitations of earlier research. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of an intervention to enhance academic self-concept and the related constructs of self-attributions and academic achievement. The self-concept enhancement intervention was a combination of internally focused feedback and attributional feedback targeted at reading, mathematics or a combination of reading and mathematics self-concept. One class from each of the 8 participating schools was randomly assigned to be an experimental diffusion control group and did not receive either the teacher-mediated or researcher-mediated intervention. This control group was incorporated in the research design to test for possible diffusion effects of the teacher-mediated intervention to nontarget participants in the within-class control group. The findings provide support for: (a) the effectiveness of the intervention as a means to enhance self-concept particularly for treatments mediated by researchers, and mediated by teachers in single academic domains, and (b) the importance of including multiple dimensions of self-concept in intervention studies.

PAPER 9:

Testing the internal/external frame of reference model of self-concept with Chinese high school students in talented and nontalented classes

Frances Laimui Lee, Putai Jin and Renae Low, University of New South Wales, and Alexander Yeung, University of Western Sydney

This study examined the internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model (Marsh, 1986) with Chinese students in talented (N = 160) and average-ability (N = 335) classes. Confirmatory factor analyses showed support for the I/E model for students placed in talented and in average-ability classes. Path coefficients leading from Chinese achievement score to verbal self-concept and from math achievement score to math self-concept were positive and significant whereas paths relating nonmatching domains were negative, although the sizes of the effects differed across the two groups. The results support the multidimensionality and content specificity of academic self-concept.

PAPER 10:

New times, new programs for gifted and talented students: Impact on self-concept, achievement and motivation

Rhonda Craven and Murray Print, University of Sydney, and Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

Recent research based on social comparison theory has predicted that participation in specialised Gifted and Talented (G&T) programs will lead to declines in academic self-concept. This is problematic for the education of G&T students in that: a positive self-concept is valued as a desirable educational goal, arguments for the formation of special G&T classes are often based on their assumed positive effects on self-concept, and self-concept is frequently postulated as a mediating variable that facilitates the attainment of other desirable outcomes. In this paper the longitudinal effects of three types of programs for G&T primary students on students' self-concepts, academic achievement and motivational orientation are compared. Students who experienced a specialised program had lower: academic self-concepts in all facets measured, nonacademic self-concepts in all but one facet measured, and motivational orientation for 4 of 7 facets measured. No significant differences were present for academic achievement scores. The findings suggest that G&T students who experience specialised programs may experience a decrease in academic self-concept and motivational orientation in comparison to G&T students in other programs and this decline is not associated with significant increases in academic achievement scores.

PAPER 11:

Meta-analysis of research comparing children with and without disabilities on multiple dimensions of self-concept

Roselyn Dixon, University of Western Sydney

This paper will present the preliminary results of a meta-analysis of research comparing children with and without disabilities on multiple dimensions of self-concept. Meta-analysis is a technique that can overcome difficulties in previous research with people with special needs. These difficulties include small group sample size of children with disabilites, lack of control groups, and poor conceptualisations of self-concept.

The theoretical background for the meta-analysis came from a review by Marsh and Johnstone (1992). The meta-analysis examined how differences in self-concept differed as a function of:

1. age,
2. the nature and severity of the disability,
3. the component of self-concept (e.g. social, physical, academic or general) and its relation to disability, and
4. the nature of the educational setting.

Implications of the findings will be discussed with reference to policy formation and factors to integration, and the processes involved in the formation of self-concept, its maintenance and change.

PAPER 12:

ROCHL163

The mirror has many faces: The development of multiple dimensions of confusion and competence among preservice teachers

Lawrence Roche, University of Western Sydney

Advances in self-concept research have been pursued vigorously with students in a variety of settings. However, research on teacher self-concept typically follows an out-moded, globalised teacher "self efficacy" paradigm, despite an apparent dependence of students' learning outcomes on their teachers' self-concepts across a diverse range of curriculum areas. This study investigates the development of teaching self-concept in different curriculum domains and different teaching skill domains for preservice teachers over a three-year teacher education degree program. Selected profiles indicating relative "confusion" and "competence" across different domains (based on representative cases) are illustrated graphically. The stability of different profiles over time is also explored statistically. In order to assess whether self-concepts in the different domains become more or less differentiated as the students progress, confirmatory factor analysis is used to compare correlations among the multiple domains over time. Results reinforce the importance of taking a multidimensional approach to the study of teaching self-concept.

CRAVR156

The structure, stability and measurement of young children's self-concepts: Advances in new times

Rhonda Craven, University of Sydney and Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in selfl-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

Teaching the teachers Indigenous Australian Studies: A national priority!

Rhonda G Craven, University of Sydney

Reconciliation between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians is a critical goal of the Commonwealth Government by the year 2001. Long term reconciliation cannot be achieved and maintained without effective teacher education so that all Australian students can be taught Indigenous Australian Studies appropriately. It is a national disgrace that despite Government reports over a period of 20 years only a few Australian universities have recently introduced core Indigenous Australian Studies as a component of their curricula. To address some of these problems the University of New South Wales has had carriage of a Project of National Significance funded by DEET. This project has produced a framework statement that provides guidelines to assist universities to develop core Indigenous Studies subjects that meet the needs of their Indigenous communities, a sample model of a core studies approach that has been trialed successfully, sample lecture/tutorial notes based on the example model, guidelines for using appropriate terminology, and four teacher-oriented professional development videotapes. This paper provides an overview of the `Teaching the Teachers' project and the example resources produced to support universities to develop core Indigenous Australian Studies subjects in consultation with university indigenous communities.

CRAVR159

New techniques for enhancing children's academic self-concepts in educational settings: Advances in new times

Rhonda Craven and Ray Debus, University of Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

CRAVR161

New times, new programs for gifted and talented students: Impact on self-concept, achievement and motivation

Rhonda Craven and Murray Print, University of Sydney, and Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

SYMPOSIUM

CRAVR151

To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement

Dr Rhonda Craven, Dr Murray Print, and Dr Ray Debus, University of Sydney, Prof Herb Marsh, Roselyn Dixon, Lawrence Roche, Alexander Yeung, and Andrew Martin, University of Western Sydney, Frances Laimui Lee, Renae Low and Putai Jin, University of New South Wales

Overview

Self-concept theory, instrument development, and classroom practice are inextricably intertwined. Current advances suggest the time is now ripe for both researchers and teachers to forge new understandings beyond the dustbowl of previous research and, in the process help more students maximise their full potential. We examine new understandings of:

• the measurement, structure, and stability of young children's self-concepts;
• techniques to enhance academic self-concept and the related constructs of self-attributions and academic achievement;
• the effects of different programs on the self-concepts of Gifted and Talented primary students; and
• recent developments in self-concept theory and measurement.

PAPER 1:

MARSH152

The measurement of physical self-concept

Prof Herb Marsh, University of Western Sydney

Focusing on distance learners: Investigating tutors' and students' perceptions of learning and study needs

Marianne Cronin, Edith Cowan University

This paper reports on an action research project at Edith Cowan University, which explores the difficulties some distance students experience in understanding and meeting the academic expectations of tertiary study. Students were surveyed to obtain information about their confidence in academic study, if, and where they had sought help with their skills, and the nature of their perceived difficulties.

In addition, academic staff were questioned about their perceptions of students' study problems. A checklist of problem areas was compiled and was given to another sample of academic staff who rated each item for importance in the context of developing study skills material for distance learners. Eight broad areas of concern in academic study were also identified and ranked.

The results indicated that more than half of the students sampled lacked confidence in their study skills. Few students sought assistance. The most common issues raised by students were related to assignment writing, time management and effective reading. Academic staff identified 37 key study issues. Rank ordering of the broad areas showed assignment writing, becoming independent learners, effective research and time management as the most important aspects for inclusion in study skills materials.

Further research is planned to clarify and elaborate the issues raised, both in relation to Edith Cowan University students and in the wider context of tertiary distance study. A range of possible study support strategies will be investigated, developed and implemented.

Religious education in new times

Robert Crotty, University of South Australia

Australia and other western countries have witnessed the development of a polyethnic society with its multifaith concomitant. The same development has given rise in the western world to theories of religious pluralism, the rationale for accepting all extant religious traditions as equally valid.

Invariably such theoretical frameworks have included a broad definition of "religion", often claiming that in some sense all rational adults are "religious".

This cultural change has repercussions for educational curriculum. Religion has traditionally been seen as the responsibilty of family and religious institution, but not of the state. As a result any attempt on the part of the state to involve itself in religious education has been greeted with suspicion. This stand may need to be revised.

Religious educational curricula have been divided into an objective *teaching about religion* curriculum which endeavours to educate young people in the phenomenon of religion without any suggestion of indoctrination and a religious instruction whose purpose is religious enculturation. Usually the two curricula have operated in isolation.

This paper critiques a curriculum of each type from the point of view of the new cultural developments and proposes a way forward in consonance with religious pluralism.

SYMPOSIUM 12: Social justice: Illumination of meanings in educational practice

Presenters: Frank Crowther, Tony Rossi, Di Mayer, Peter Olsen, John McMaster, and Jon Austin, University of Southern Queensland

Symposium presenters will outline the results of research at U.S.Q into the meanings of social justice in four educational settings:

• school-based policy making - student and community perceptions of the influence of a School Advisory Council on socially just practices
• teacher networking - manifestations of social justice in different forms of school-based networking
• school-community relationships in a small, rural setting - the role of the principal in creating socially just school practice
• curriculum development in an 'intentional' independent school - the impact of "social vision" on teachers' professional practices.

Research findings will be discussed in the context of theoretical conceptualisations of social justice as these pertain to both traditional and postmodern scholarship.

CRUMS011

New times in the UK? Educational policy outcomes from the 1997 election

Stephen Crump, University of Sydney

During a recent stay working at the Centre for Policy Studies at King's College London I had the opportunity to examine close at hand and in depth the education policies of all the major parties contesting the 1997 election in the UK. This paper will outline key differences and similarities between the competing political manifestos. More importantly, it will provide a commentary on their reception and on their potential now that the government has been decided. The extent to which these policies might foreshadow educational developments in Australia will be addressed. Finally, the implications for educational policy research in what may or may not be a "new time" will be drawn out for discussion.

Centralisation and devolution through corporate managerialism in american and Australian universities

Jan Currie and Lesley Vidovich, Murdoch University

Commentators in Australia and the United States have observed that the shift in power in universities from academic departments to administration has been accompanied by a number of changes, leading to 'corporate managerialism'. As a result, managers make the most important decisions and make them quickly. These managers also restructure their institutions to mould them into streamlined operations which allow only a few people in the whole organisation the information base to make decisions. At the same time, these managers devolve administrative tasks to divisions and departments where Executive Deans have increasing power. The result is that academics have a lot less control over their institutions. This paper narrates the views of 253 academics interviewed in six American and Australian universities from 1994-1997 about how these changes have affected their universities. It explores how various forms of managerialism are applied in these universities and how academics try to resist them. It also comments on how some universities have managed to maintain forms of democratic decision-making at certain levels but have lost consultative mechanisms about major changes. It concludes by discussing why participatory forms of democracy are important in universities and suggests ways of increasing them.

The observer observed, the researcher researched: The reflexive nature of phenomena

Susan Danby, Queensland University of Technology

This paper explores how one researcher, observing and video-recording young children in their natural everyday play situations, found some children also observing her. The preschool aged children tried to identify the relevant category to which she belonged, asking such questions as, "Are you a mummy?" or "Are you a teacher?" They also tried to establish the researcher's category by asking her to do certain things e.g. to arbitrate in their disputes. In addition, during some videoed sequences, they appear to orient to the researcher as observer, making her a player in their scene. This paper presents instances of young children observing the researcher while the researcher is observing (and videorecording) their play interactions. It uses video data obtained from these interactions to explicate through close scrutiny how and where their work of observing the researcher was visible. These understandings demonstrate the nature of reflexive phenomena, so that the activities of observation and being observed are realised as texts to be examined as much as the scenes that are videotaped.

Towards a collaborative learning community

This is a case study of a group of teachers introducing multi-age classes at a rural primary school. The study focuses on teachers' and the principal's perceptions and learning as they work through this educational change process. The study documents the development of collaborative learning and collegial support, with an emphasis on the role of professional dialogue in an internal school support group. The context of this case study is one facing all Australian schools: the challenges created by the rapidly changing post-modern society in which schools operate. Thus, the overriding themes are related to professional learning for educational change via collaborative processes.

The study provides insights into a) the development of collaborative learning and collegial support amongst a group of teachers introducing a shared innovation; b) the process of fostering professional dialogue as a means of resolving professional dilemmas and of enabling workplace-based professional development; c) teachers' voices during a period of non-mandated change; a change which requires a fundamental rethinking of the elements of the teaching-learning process (planning; teaching and learning strategies; and assessment) and of classroom management and relationships; and d) the role of the principal in facilitating professional learning and inquiry through a change process. This presentation will provide a discussion of emerging ideas from the research-to-date (over the period of eight months). Data was collected via an initial questionaire, semi-structured focus group discussions, individual semi-structured interviews and personal reflections.

DAVIJ435

Parents as partners for educational change

Julie Davis, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 1 Parterships in educational action research: Voices of participants.

DAWSL001

"They said when I joined the group I would meet new and interesting people, but so far they have only been Jamie and David on the Helpdesk." Education and training issues from rural women getting on-line

Leonie Daws, Queensland University of Technology

A four year study of rural women's uses of interactive communication technologies revealed that access to appropriate education and training was a significant challenge and barrier for women wanting to leave the dirt track and get onto the information superhighway. It demonstrated that women are significant communication nodes for business and service related activities as well as social and family maintenance in rural communities. This paper explores the range of education and training issues arising from this study. It focuses particularly on computer mediated communications, especially the use of electronic mail and the world wide web. It discusses the perceived importance of access to computer mediated communication as a vehicle for education and training for rural women and their families. It also focuses on the gendered dimensions of current education and training programs and provision in rural communities.

This has significant implications for future education and training provision. The paper also reflects on the methodological issues arising out of the use of computer mediated technologies for such research, addressing both data collection and data analysis issues.

DEETJ149

Is modernism still relevant: Rethinking visual arts education

Jane Deeth, University of Tasmania

This paper reconsiders many of the assumptions about the nature of visual arts and visual arts education that have become the backbone of art teaching in the classroom. Through a process of deconstruction I examine whrere these assumptions converge and diverge from the objectives of much contemporary general teaching practice. Many of the ideas that are taken for granted and assumed to be objective truths are found to be historical constructs which carry with them significant ideological baggage. On uncovering some of the stories behind the development of ideas on art teaching, teachers may feel that the traditional approach is no longer relevant or appropriate to their contemporary teaching practice.

The underlying argument in the paper is that much of current art teaching practice is based on Realist and Modernist principles which tend to be prescriptive in their creative and interpretative languages and focussed primarily on traditional "art" mediums, techniques and object making. In contrast both current education practrice and contemporary arts practice operate on models which appreciate diversity, difference, change, risk and individual responsibility.

The paper considers practical examples which aim at connecting visual arts teaching practice with general teaching practice, so that teachers are working consistently and maximising the educational potential of the learning experiences they offer their students.

There is much that can be learned by examining current arts practice for strategies which involve the articulation of identity and the construction ofmeaning in a complex and constantly shifting environment. Such an approach can connect students not only to the meaning and value of art but can encourage an understanding of themselves within a social and cultural context. Art can become an intervention rather than an activity.

Reading standards up or down - What do the test norms say?

Molly de Lemos, Australian Council for Educational Research

There has been continuing debate in Australia and elsewhere as to whether or not standards in reading have improved or declined over the last two decades. Direct evidence on this is however limited. One way of monitoring trends over time is through examination of changes in test scores on standardised tests that are renormed at periodic intervals. In the case of intelligence tests, such studies have indicated a gradual increase in scores over the last 50 years or so. Comparable studies have not been undertaken on reading test scores. This paper will examine scores on standardised tests of reading that have been periodically renormed over the period 1958 to 1996 to determine whether there is a trend for an increase or a decrease in reading test scores over this period.

The role of training and development in creating employee 'readiness' for effective workplace change

Dell Dennis, Monash University

The momentum for change is forever present. We experience change in our daily lives in a range of ways and in a range of settings. One setting where there has been significant change in recent years is the workplace. However, in many instances, proposed and substantive workplace change has resulted in considerable employee resistance.

Based on evidence from two case studies undertaken in large, but diverse organisational settings, this paper examines the use of training and development as intervention strategies to minimse employee resistance to change. The paper also examines issues which could assist organisations to effectively diagnose, manage, and overcome employee resistance, whilst at the same time, engender a climate conducive employee 'readiness' for change.

Homosexuality and body image issues: teacher awareness

Carmel Desmarchelier, University of New England

This paper explores the understanding of sexuality and body image amongst students by heterosexual and homosexual teachers attending High Schools in Sydney, Australia between September 1996 and February 19 The concept of habitus (Bourdieu 1984) will be used to indicate the series of understanding of these issues and their dispositions to act that are manifested by these teachers. Broadly, the lack of perception of one issue (homosexuality) replictes as lack of awareness of body image issues amongst teachers and the converse occurs. This results in symbolic violence (Bourdieu 1984) through neglect against the students. The marginalisation of students who are perceived to be homosexual or whose body shape or mannerisms do not conform to the norm is evidenced as bullying and alienation, so the implications of this research have relevence for school teachers and their habitus. The links betwen machismo masculinity and homophobia are discussed as part of the hidden curriculum, whilst exerpts from teachers' interviews teachers are included for analysis of the processes of habitus and student exclusion. "They [teachers] don't want the kids to see they're supporting homosexuality because they might be accused of being homosexuals themselves" (James 17/12/96).

DEVRP517

Teacher burnout: The researcher speaks from personal experience

Peter de Vries, Griffith University

In the proposed paper teacher burnout is examined from a very personal perspective in that the researcher is also the subject. The primary data source is the researcher's autobiographical novel, a reflective account of his teaching career. Analysis of the novel points to teacher burnout as being a primary theme in his teaching career. Burnout is seen to be multi-dimensional in its nature, with both environmental variables and the individual teacher's background effecting the level of burnout. The primary outcome of teacher burnout is identified as teacher laziness. Burnout is identified as stemming from a number of factors, these being cynicism, the low status of the teaching profession, bureaucrats being removed from the reality of teaching, teacher workload, student behaviour problems, the effect of student social problems on teachers, and being "stuck" in the profession of teaching.

Essential encounters: A study of university students' out-of-classroom interactions with academic staff

Kristie Daniel DiGregorio, University of Sydney

Research has shown that a majority of students' university experience and learning fall outside the boundaries of the classroom. Student outcomes research suggests that when students spend time outside of class with academic staff, that the effects of those interactions can span a lifetime, eg, by significantly effecting intellectual and personal development.

Less is known about what draws students into out-of-class interactions with academic staff in the first place and what meaning the interactions have for students. In this study, eighteen students from an American research university participated in a series of intensive, qualitative interviews on 1) the factors that encourage or discourage out-of-classroom interactions between students and academic staff, 2) the qualities that make these interactions meaningful for students, and 3) the outcomes students report from the interactions.

Many of the factors that encourged or discouraged interaction outside of class related to the size of classes and to academic staff members' roles as teachers, so classrooms have important implications for the likelihood of out-of-classroom interactions. A common theme among meaningful out-of-class interactions was that they extended beyond an exchange of information which could have occurred in the classroom. Students reported that these interactions affected them in important ways, by improving their academic performance, enhancing their self-image and making staff seem more "human".

This study offers the first in-depth exploration of students' views of how students and academic staff navigate the initial distance between them to interact outside of class. It articulates for the first time

what meaning those interactions have for students. Finally, it illuminates the outcomes that students attribute to these interactions, interactions that have been highlighted by correlational research as positively influencing students' intellectual and personal development.

The Student Experiences Study: Understanding the factors that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' academic success

Susan Page, Kristie Daniel DiGregorio and Sally Farrington, University of Sydney

These are indeed "new times" for Indigenous students in higher education: their numbers have doubled in recent years. But because the gap between their attainment and the attainment of other Australians has remained consistent, it is essential to elucidate the factors that promote their academic success, not in order to justify the exclusion of Indigenous students from tertiary education, but to refine and develop culturally relevant strategies for promoting student learning.

For the past year, Yooroang Garang: The Centre for Indigenous Health Studies at the University of Sydney has been involved in a study of diploma students' academic success. The setting of the study is unique not only because it is a program designed by, for, and about Indigenous Australians but also because it is offered in block mode where the academic year consists of four, intensive two-week blocks of instruction.

Initial data from the study has suggested potential factors predictive of students' academic success, for example, whether they had previous health-related experience, their age, and their gender. The aims of the study include 1) qualitatively assessing students' understandings of the factors that enhance or impede their success at university and comparing these factors to the hypothesized predictors of success and 2) testing the effectiveness of study groups being piloted in 1997 to enhance student success.

Credentialling of teacher professional development activities

Paul Dillon, The National Association of Agricultural Educators and Orange Agricultural College, University of Sydney

The recently completed National Professional Development Program (NPDP) actively promoted the delivery of teacher professional development (PD) activities that were designed by partnerships including professional associations and Education Faculties.

The National Association of Agricultural Educators (NAAE) NPDP project final report recommended key issues requiring further investigation. The primary focus was the reality of a professional association developing a PD activity that would satisfy university requirements and allow participating teachers to obtain meaningful university credentialling.

From the NAAE project emerged the question of whether this experience (to date) was representative of that experienced by other professional associations involved in NPDP projects, or was it peculiar to teachers of agriculture? The answer to this question would inform the practice of all professional associations. Consequently the managers of those NPDP projects facilitated by professional associations were interviewed.

The findings reflect the perceptions of these managers on a range of issues including:

1. The reality of obtaining credentialling from Tertiary Institutions
2. The willingness of teachers to engage in the activity
3. The enthusiasm of teachers to seek the available credential.

This study is the first stage of a much wider study of the participants' perceptions of professional development.

Meta-analysis of research comparing children with and without disabilities on multiple dimensions of self-concept

Roselyn Dixon, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

Vocational competence in young adults with intellectual disabilities: The influence of the family

Rose Dixon, University of Sydney

This paper reports the results of a qualitative research study of vocationally competent people with mild intellectual disailities. The study identified many factors inside and outside the individual that allowed them to maintain employment.

One of the most significant of these factors that emerged from the study was the importance of family in the indivuals efforts to maintain employment.

The subjects ranged inage from 16-25 years and were clients of a Competitive Employment and Training Program. The subjects were purposely sampled using an objective test and the criteria of having maintained employment for 6 months after support was withdrawn by the employment agency.

The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the subjects and their parents. The results indicated that certain family characterisitcs led to more successful outcomes.

Getting ready for school

Sue Dockett and Bob Perry, University of Western Sydney

In recent years there have been calls, both within Australia and abroad, to ensure that children come to school, "ready to learn". This paper is the first of a series which will explore what is meant by this term by different groups of people and the ways in which the beliefs underpinning such a term influence decisions such as when children start school, the classes they enter and whether or not they progress annually.

In this initial investigation, a group of preschool teachers, parents of Kindergarten children, teachers of Kindergarten classes and several children within Kindergarten classes from one school have been asked to identify elements of school readiness and the ways in which these could be identified. This paper will consider differences and similarities in the responses of these groups and note implications for the development of transition programs between home and school or home and preschool.

DOLES379

![900]Year 8-10 students performance on percent problems

Shelley Dole, Tom Cooper and Annette Baturo, Queensland University of Technology

This paper discusses the implications of a study of Years 8, 9 and 10 students' knowledge of percent and proficiency in solving percent problems. Research has identified three types of one-step percent problems: where the percentage is unknown (Type A), where the percent is unknown (Type B), and where the value which is 100% is unknown (Type C). Testing has shown large performance differences between the types, with Type A the highest and C the lowest. Mathematical analysis reveals connections between these problems and multiplicative comparison for whole numbers, fractions and decimals, indicating they may be components of an abstract schema (Ohlsson, 1992). In particular, there is an isomorphism between Type C problems and part-to-whole fraction activity, and a structural connection between solution procedures for the three problem types and the 'rule of three' proportion relationship.

The study used percent problem solving to identify for interview a purposeful sample of six proficient (solves all types), six semi-proficient (solves Type A) and six non-proficient (solves no types) Year 8-10 students from a Brisbane catholic boys secondary school. The interview explored the relation between the students' proficiency with percent problems, knowledge of percent, problem-solving strategies, pictorial representations and mental models. The non-proficient and semi-proficient students' responses were as expected, they were inflexible and formula oriented. The non-proficient students focused on key words, while the semi-proficient students showed some use of estimation and trial and error. The proficient students' responses were not as expected, they were not based on a schematic understanding of percent knowledge. They identified problems by solution structure, knew the problem types, used strategies and metastrategies, and were confident in their solutions. However, instead of a schema-based interpretation of problems leading to a classification approach to solution, proficient students tended to use a flexible mixture of benchmarking, approximation and estimation, and number and operation sense, and some use of the trial and error strategy (i.e., what could be called a 'first principles' approach to solution). No students utilised pictorial representations or indicated the presence of mental models which integrated the problem types.

That proficiency reflected a combination of means-ends analysis and expertise with number sense, instead of schema based interpretation of problem type, provides an instructional dilemma for percent problem solving. Should instruction focus on building connections between the percent concept, percent problem solving and multiplicative comparison that might lead to schematic interpretation, or on pictorial representations and proportion techniques (with the 'rule of three') that would support the existing flexible number sense approach?

Everyone knows: Questioning some commonsense truths about Asian students

Karen Dooley and Parlo Singh, Griffith University and Paul Herschell, Queensland University of Technology

Implementing recently developed culturally inclusive and anti-racist policies requires a theoretically and empirically based understanding of how culture and race enter into pedagogic relations. With the

so-called immigration debate of the mid-1990s, schools and universities have been constructed as sites of racial conflict. While it is necessary for educators to develop strategies for dealing with overt racial violence and harassment, it is crucial in this context that the construction of race and culture in everyday social relations of schooling is not overlooked. Commonsense assumptions about second language learning, and the characteristics of students of particular cultural groups, are key to understanding this everyday construction of race and culture.

The data analysed in this paper has been drawn from the ARC project, "Constructing Australian Identities through language and literacy education in schools, communities and workplaces" (First Chief Investigator: Parlo Singh). We examine teacher and students accounts of a year 12 English unit and transcripts of the lessons in the unit, documenting the implications for teaching and learning of the assumption that it is necessary to split groups of Asian students up on educational grounds, specifically, to force them to acquire English. Conclusions are drawn about the cultural assumptions and implications of teacher explanations of the pedagogic participation of Asian students.

Transition to university - A self-regulatory approach

Ann Bramwell-Vial, Bob Bingham, Allan Doring, Australian Catholic University

Within universities, expanding first year enrolments and lower academic entry levels have further increased the diversity of students' backgrounds. Much of the literature suggests that the transition to university is often problematic requiring significant social and academic adjustments on the individual's part (McInnis and James (1995), Burroughs-Lane (1996) and Trindle (1996). Poor coping can lead to ongoing academic and social difficulties including eventual failure or withdrawal.

It is argued that students who make a successful transition to university are competent in their self-regulatory behaviour especially in three important components: goals, self-efficacy and learning strategies (Schunk, 1993). The student who is able to self-regulate their learning behaviour is more likely to cope while those with low self-regulation likely to suffer stress from poor handling of competing priorities and/or poor learning behaviour.

As part of an ongoing project, this paper examines the notion of self-regulation as an inherent component of a student's transition to university and as a means of increasing the understanding of student difficulties, particularly in the academic area. It also examines whether self regulatory behaviour can be fostered as part of the overall academic process. Standard tasks such as reflective self monitoring are evaluated in terms of their contribution to self-regulation and academic development. The use of additional tasks which serve this function is then discussed.

How do teachers make sense of performance management? Constructing

professional knowledge through narrative

Carol Hogan, Barry Down and Rod Chadbourne, Edith Cowan University

The professional world of teaching seems to be characterised by a large and increasing gulf between the official representation of that world and its "reality" as experienced by teachers in their daily lives.

Attempts to make schools and teachers more accountable for what happens to the education dollar have resulted in a proliferation of measures such as Outcome Statements, Performance Indicators, Competency Frameworks, Monitoring Standards, School Development Plans and much more. The result of these pressures has been the generation of an enormous amount of written information about children, teachers and schools, representing countless hours of work by thousands of teachers and administrators across the country. How complete or truthful is this representation of school life? In searching for answers this paper draws on the personnal stories of classroom teachers to understand how they construct their own professional knowledge about performance management. Specifically, it examines how teachers feel, make sense of, use, avoid and adapt performance management in their daily work. We are especially interested in the implications of these stories for professional development and school reform processess.

Putting it all together: Relationships between early adolescents' multiple motivational goals, multiple cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and multiple achievement outcomes

Martin Dowson and Dennis M. McInerney, University of Western Sydney

The paper describes an investigation into relationships between middle school students' multiple motivational goal orientations and their use of multiple cognitive and metacognitive strategies. In particular, it focuses on the effect relationships between these motivational and cognitive variables have on students' academic achievement in a variety of curriculum areas. Studies to date have, typically, used either cognitive or motivational variables when attempting to explain variations in student achievement. Far fewer studies have combined cognitive and motivational variables in order to gain a more complete understanding of the processes underlying student achievement. The present paper contributes to more recent research using this 'dual' approach. Moreover, the paper further validates the salience, for Australian school students, of various motivational goals, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies identified in international research.

School renewal that works: A qualitative case study

Martin Dowson and Tony Cunneen, University of Western Sydney

A significant trend in both Australian and international contexts is the decline (relative to females') of males' academic results. This trend is noticeable particularly, although not exclusively, in results obtained from secondary school 'exit' examinations. In Australia this trend appears to be national. The paper describes an investigation into the elements of school renewal which have resulted in a significant improvement in the 'exit' academic achievement scores of students attending a secondary boys school in the Sydney metropolitan area. Elements of school renewal identified and assessed include: developing an academic culture, enhancing teacher professionalism, improving students' academic self-efficacy, and balancing student management and pastoral care responsibilities. The paper focuses on elements of the renewal process in this school which may be portable to other schools/contexts. Specifically, the paper suggests that, despite their effectiveness in a 'males only' educational context, the positive effects of these renewal elements on students' academic achievement scores are not necessarily gender specific. Finally, the paper demonstrates the usefulness of the case study approach in examining school renewal issues.

Teaching through difference - working with resistance to cultural diversity

Jane Durie and Affrica Taylor, University of Western Sydney

The paper will discuss our research, development and implementation of a model of 'teaching through difference' for working with students' resistances to cultural diversity. Working in this area over a number of years it has been our experience and that of other educators in the field that there is often considerable resistance on the part of students to what is seen as an imposition of 'political correctness' in cultural diversity curriculums. Students often express a sense of resentment towards curriculum that gives 'special attention to' and 'privileges' the experiences of minority groups over those of the majority. In response to this we have developed a model of affinity group work around resistance to differences which is designed to both highlight and work with these resistances in the classroom. The model will be applied in teaching the subject "Cross Cultural Communication" in the Bachelor of Adult education at UWS Macarthur. Our research draws on theoretical work in relation to critical pedagogy (such as Giroux and McLaren), feminisms and post-structuralist theories (such as Ellsworth and Lather) and Australian work in the field of pedagogy and cultural diversity (such as Singh and Luke). The paper will highlight the experience of working with the model in the classroom and theoretical implications of this for pedagogical practices.

EDWAP196

Web-based electronic discussion groups: An alternative to traditional tutorials

David Neil and Pamela Edwards, University of Queensland

Electronic discussion groups (EDGs), accessed by students via the World Wide Web, replaced traditional tutorials in a second year geography subject. The 'discussion groups' were active for most of the semester and comprised 40% of the subject's assessment.. They were designed to give students flexibility in the content of, and approach to their learning as well as attempting to resolve some common problems associated with tutorials such as students' lack of preparation for, and participation in discussions during tutorials.

Mechanics for the implementation of the discussion groups, the rationale for their use and some of the limitations and problems experienced are outlined, together with details of students' evaluation of the discussion groups as an effective mode of learning. 49% of students reported having no problems with the technology and 51% reported being comfortable with the EDG mode of learning. However, of those students reporting deep learning approaches, 72% reported having no problems with the technology and 75% reported being comfortable with the EDG mode of learning. Students' rating of the EDGs as a mode of learning was x = 2.7 for surface learners (7 point Likert scale) and 5.2 for deep learners. Implications of these findings are further discussed.

Addressing diversity and flexibility issues in students evaluation of teaching

Pamela Edwards and David Neil, University of Queensland

Existing models of students evaluation of teaching in higher education have been criticised in the literature for being largely teacher-centred and failing to provide sufficient information to allow for the improvement of teaching and learning. These instruments also fail to adequately address the diversity of students' learning needs, generally assuming a homogenous student body and only one model of teaching and learning. Such an approach is inconsistent with the current emphasis in higher education on flexible delivery and students taking responsibility for their own learning.

Preliminary research, based on the interpretation of student ratings of teaching in the context of their approaches to study, showed clear distinctions between students reporting a deep learning approach and those reporting a surface learning approach. For example, the mean subject ratings from students reporting a "deep approach" to learning were 55% higher than those from "surface learners". Similarly, mean teaching ratings from students reporting a "deep approach" were 62% higher than those from "surface learners". These, and similar, data provide a basis for identifying and developing teaching strategies which may promote more effective learning in higher education. Our results suggest that students' evaluations of teaching should be conducted and interpreted in their learning context.

EHRIL426

Principals and their experiences of professional development

Lisa Ehrich, Queensland University of Technology

That professional development is one of the most challenging and important activities facing principals and teachers, has been highlighted in the policy and research literature. This paper reports on a study which explored the nature of professional development from the unique experiences of principals. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews with eight primary school principals from Queensland Government schools to ascertain the meaning of professional development outside the confines of theoretical constructs and overarching frameworks. A phenomenological methodology guided the study and allowed the principals' experiences to speak for themselves. This paper reports on the key findings and identifies implications for those involved in planning and implementing professional development programs.

ELMSJ344

Simple higher education student productivity indices that motivate

John Elms, University of Southern Queensland

The perennial problems of higher education student discontinuation have been virtually ignored by senior academics. Maintenance of high academic standards has been commonly summoned as the explanation of the relatively high wastage of our most able students (as measured by various matriculation or other entrance examinations). Lack of application by those who fail has been nominated as the more specific reason for higher education students failing to satisfy the requirements of various courses of study. Reliance upon these explanations of higher education student discontinuance or failure has been challenged by the adoption of a relatively simple student productivity index that has evidently motivated a wide range of higher eduation students.

The productivity index has been readily accepted by students as it is simple to calculate and to interpret. In addition, the fact that the index allows each individual to compete with his or her previous best index and grade point average has won many adherents. In essence, the index is used in a similar fashion to an individual's golf rating. The aim is to better one's own previous best score. A simple graphical representation makes it evident whether the individual has succeeded in this attainable goal.

Associated with the time taken productivity based index were two forms of results achieved indices. One identified the student's assignment marks or grades: the other was the student's grade point average (GPA) for the semester. Both of these indices were readily calculated by the student under the watchful eye of several of his or her peers. Comparison by graphing of these indices readily identified whether the student had improved his or her previous best set of personal indices. The mere existence, availability and ease of implementation of these indices acted as a powerful motivator for all of the research subjects and fellow students. In addition, the prospect that the graphs of these indices can and have been used to persuade members of selection panels has encouraged typical higher education students to maintain verified indices.

New times old questions: Towards a clearer view on what students learn

Geoff Emmett, Board of Studies Victoria and Lois Kennedy, Education Queensland

Learning outcomes, benchmarks and the like require teachers to develop common understandings of levels of attainment which in turn requires a clear and common specification of what students should learn. The nationally developed curriculum documents, Statements and Profiles for Australian schools, have to some extent facilitated this renewed emphasis on syllabuses and what is negotiable and non negotiable in school programs and courses of study.

This paper considers the strengths and weaknesses of the nationally developed curriculum documents and their sustainability in the present climate and pursues this matter in the context of the preparation and publication of Student Work Samples in Health and Physical Education, a Curriculum Corporation Project which the authors of this paper coordinated. It also addresses how work samples can be most effectively used in schools to benchmark students progress and promote reflection on the effectiveness of teaching and learning strategies in improving the progress of all students against agreed expectations.

ENGEP317

Pre-service teachers' acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability: The South African scene

Petra Engelbrecht, University of Southern Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 13, Pre-service teachers' acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability: Educational implications in new times.

Having what it takes: Homophobia and masculinities in educational settings in the UK and South Africa

Debbie Epstein, University of London

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 20, Post-colonial pedagogies.

Teaching sexualities

Debbie Epstein, University of London

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 3, Sexualities and the intellectual work of gender reform.

ERBET465

Strategies in interlanguage communication using audiographic technology

Tony Erben and Leo Bartlett, Central Queensland University

This paper reports research into the development of interlanguage communication strategies involved in second language learning when this communication is networked through the medium of audiographics technology (two-way audio and two way computer visual). While audiographic technology heas the potential to enhance meaningful second language usage, its creative applications have tended to be minimalised because it remains under realised, under researched and under theorised.

The types of linguistic modifications which occur in a unique immersion second language learning environment are reported. It has been shown tht environments tht adopt an immersion approach in a tertiary teacher education program (Bartletta nd Erben 1995) provide students with the means to achieve high levels of communicative competence. One of the contriburing factors to this phenomenon is the nature of immersion pedagogy (and its attributes) which stimulates meaningful interactions in the second language. The paper also suggests that immersion students are obliged to develop a wider range of interlanguage communication strategies when learning is networked through audiographic technology, in order to facilitate high levels of interactive discourses which ultimately stimulate second language learning.

There are a number of clearly identifiable practical outcomes that contribute to our understanding of effective interlanguage communication including descriptions and explanations of the types of linguistic modifications utilised by second language immersion learners supported by the applications of audiographic technology.

ESSOK236

Knowing, being, doing: Adolescent girls' perspectives on womanhood and the future

Kathy Esson, University of Sydney

It is fashionable to point out that girls' school retention rates, examination success and participation in post-secondary training now equal, or even (on some measures) surpass that of boys - although rarely does the discussion identify which girls, and in relation to which boys. At a more psychological level, questions arise about the ways in which contemporary girls conceptualise their futures, work-and other-wise, and about how these perceptions are integrated into broader notions of themselves as adults.

The findings presented here are based on a series of questions concerning society's views on women, gender differences and similarities, feminism, career plans, desirable personality characteristics, and ideas about the future. Drawing on data from a longitudinal, in-depth study of a small number of early, middle and late adolescent girls from both socio-economically privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds, this paper describes changes in perceptions over time, and outlines contradictions in girls' self-positioning. Using forms of narrative analysis and layered interpretation, the paper presents a range of ways of illuminating girls' viewpoints, and raises specific questions for further investigation.

Finally, it argues for more complex and subtle analyses of contemporary data, to offset simplistic and ideologically motivated assessments of the success of feminism as an emancipatory project.

EVAND191

Feasibility and desirability of classroom practices for students with special education needs in new times

David Evans, University of Western Sydney

The inclusion of students with special education needs in regular classrooms has become common place in many schools across Australia. These students have been perceived to have added to the busy schedule of teachers, resulting in adverse publicity about the inclusion of students with special edcuation needs. An examination of effective classroom practices for students wth special needs, however, shows that many are very similar to those already used in classrooms.

This paper will examine the responses of undergraduate students about the desirability and feasibility of classroom practices for accommodating students with special education needs. These reposnes will be compared to those given by the supervising practicum teachers of each student. In conclusion, the combined responses will be examined in terms of where future research needs to focus attention if inclusive educational practices are to be part of classrooms of tomorrow.

EVAND269

Validity of a curriculum-based measure for assessing beginning reading skills

David Evans, University of Western Sydney

Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) involves the assessment of key indicators of success in the curriculum. In the area of reading, curriculum-based measures have utilised reading fluency to measure decoding proficiency and maze passages to assess comprehension. These data have been used to develop an information base that permits decision about the eligibility of students to receive special education resources.

The use CBM technology in the area of beginning reading measures has been limited. This paper outlines the results of a project that validates an curriculum-based measure for assessing beginning reading skills, in particular, phonemic awareness skills. The technical adequacy of the measure will be discussed as well as the use of these data to make decisions about the allocation of resources for students experiencing difficulty learning. These results will be related to current literature underpinning the use of curriculum-based measures and perceived weaknesses in the CBM principles.

EVANT283

Off-campus supervised research and advanced study

Terry Evans, Deakin University and Margot Pearson, Australian National University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 19, Supervision of postgraduate research in education.

EVANT336

Postgraduate educational research in New Times: emerging issues for research professional contexts

Terry Evans, Deakin University

This paper outlines the current position and debates concerning the growth of professional doctorates in Education in Australia. The development and spread of new educational technologies, together with the conditions of the 'New Times', lead to issues developing and sustaining appropriate research and dissemination skills with students; developing and sustaining appropriate supervision qualities with staff, and appropriate examining qualities in others.

Behind each of these concerns lay many issues which are important to those working in higher education; not just academics, but everyone involved in the support and administration of such doctoral programs. This paper draws on Australian research, and partly on work based on the EdD program at Deakin University, to analyse and discuss some of the above issues.

The focus of the paper is on the unfolding nature of higher degrees by research, and the supervisory relationships and characteristics which are required of organisations and their staff as they provide and facilitate doctoral learning and research for professional contexts. The paper concludes by outlining some issues and questions which arise from the paper and require addressing by those involved with and concerned about ensuring and enhancing the quality of professional doctorates.

FAZAA210

Academic culture, attitudes and values of leaders, and students' satisfaction with academic culture in Australia's universities

Ahmad Fazaeli, University of Western Sydney

A conceptual framework, based upon attribution of the role of leadership in shaping an academic culture was developed in a research study involving a pilot followed by a comprehensive survey. Subjects were staff and postgraduate students in four disciplines (chemistry, history, mathematics, and psychology) sampled from Australia's universities. Multivariate statistical procedures were the principal means of analysis. to explore the relationship among staff's attitudes towards organisational culture, academic culture, and student satisfaction with that academic culture.

A number of significant differences will be reported along with variations for different categories of staff and disciplines. That is, analysis of the study's data identified factors which distinguished staff reporting different combinations of person-oriented and task-oriented leadership and its relation to staff and student satisfaction with the current culture of the department/faculty. The results emphasise the importance of treating the construct of academic culture as multidimensional and staff as a heterogeneous group.

FEENA217

School-based management: Implications for Australian public education

Anne Feeney, University of Queensland

The lessons learned from data gathered from countries such as Britain, Canada and New Zealand and more recently Victoria and Queensland in this country have clearly demonstrated both the potential and pitfalls of school-based management (SBM). The potential includes the development and effective management of cooperative and collaborative schools concerned with exploration, discovery and pursuit of knowledge through a variety of mediums which provide opportunity for the enhancement of the ethical dimensions of schooling. The pitfalls include the notion of schools as competitive, 'stand-alone' enterprises concerned primarily with the economic rationalist approach to commodities and mechanisms for profit and loss. Some consequences of this approach have been shown to be deleterious to public education in Australia.

The paper briefly addresses a broad definition of, and the rationale behind, SBM. Drawing on data from the pilot program of the Schools of the Future in Victoria and the Leading Schools program in Queensland, the paper identifies some of the consequences of the economic rationalist approach and the effects on the principals' collegium and the educational leadership role of the principals. Questions raised about the direction of public education in Australia are followed by some suggestions as to how the State Governments and Principals might avoid pitfalls, maintain a sense of equilibrium and smooth what has inevitably become an exciting, albeit a frustrating and stressful period in Australian educational history.

FERNJ046

Prospective physical educator's perspectives on school politics: A phenomenological study

Juan-Miguel Fernandes-Balboa, University of Northern Colorado

The literature on teacher socialization, teacher burn-out, teacher proletariarization, and critical pedagogy points out the fact that schools are places of politics and power struggles, and, to a great extent, what enables teachers to survive and succeed professionally is their ability to deal with the political issues and aspects of schools. Yet, despite the poignancy of these premises, PETE programs have traditionally focused most of their efforts on providing future physical educators with content and methods with a main emphasis on pedagogy , not politics. As such, PETE graduates are left on their own to figure out how to confront and address the political matters and issues of schools. In this regard, very little is known about (a) how novices perceive school politics, (b) what political struggles they anticipate, and (c) what strategies they have in mind in order to cope with and control these political forces and dynamics. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate these three issues. Data were collected through phenomenological interviews with 15 (male and female) seniors in physical education teacher education. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed to enhance the study's

trustworthiness and facilitate data analysis. The data were sorted out and categorized through several rounds of structured and comparative analysis following the principles of the grounded-theory method. This study's trustworthiness was maximized through the following strategies:(a) taping of the interviews, (b) member checks, (c) disclosure of the researcher's philosophical orientation, (d) peer debriefing, (e) negative case analysis, (f) extensive use of original quotes, (g) triangulation of the results with the literature, and (h) the establishment of an audit trail. Preliminary results show a lack of reflection and awareness on the part of these soon-to-be-teachers about the political forces of schools and their own roles and functions regarding political funcions and practices in these settings. Moreover, data are beginning to indicate that these seniors, as a norm, do not have specific strategies to deal with the politics of their future jobs as educators.

FERRB097

Using concept mapping to help preservice teachers map subject matter knowledge

Brian Ferry, John Hedberg and Barry Harper, University of Wollongong

This paper reports on preservice teachers use of a HyperCard(tm)-based tool to create and modify concept maps about science related subject matter. The seventy-one preservice teachers who used the tool were planning science-based instruction that they would be delivered to an elementary school class. Data gathered from interviews, journals and analysis of the concept maps constructed indicated that the process of concept mapping stimulated preservice teachers to organise their cognitive frameworks into more powerful integrated patterns. It was also found that the process of concept map construction enhanced preservice teacher thinking about effective instruction.

FIELB142

Interpersonal conflict in school settings: Bi-product of educational change

Barry Fields, University of Southern Queensland

A number of major policy developments and organisational changes in education systems have taken place in countries such as Australia, England, Canada, New Zealand, and in many states of the United States. These have included a movement towards school based management, and increasing the power of parents and the broader school community in the running of schools. These and other changes have been promoted as having the potential to improve the quality of education, educational outcomes, and the professional status of teachers. They have, however, brought significant changes to the role and work of teachers and have inadvertently brought teachers into conflict with school administrators, parents, and colleagues. This paper looks at the nature of this conflict and how teachers manage conflict in the work environment.

FINZE055

Ideologies in early childhood education: Why do we need to think about them?

Eva Finzel, University of Melbourne

The term "ideology" has a number of different meanings which, together with the relation between ideology and action, continue to be debated. In this paper the term "ideology" is used in a broader sense than usually adopted. It describes not only thoughts which have developed into theories and a system of explicit values but also a system of practices.

In this sense ideologies influence early childhood education in three ways:

1. they have an impact on the concepts of how children develop,
2. they influence how educators and teachers work with children,
3. they describe and, as some believe, construct understanding about what early childhood education means and how it is positioned in society.

The impact which ideologies have on early childhood education often is hidden. Educators and teachers of young children may not be aware of the implications ideologies can have for themselves and their work. Because ideologies influence the work with children it is necessary to gain more knowledge about the ways in which this happens. Another reason why it is important to think about ideologies is that research must be sensitive to the ideological, moral and political context in which early childhood education is embedded.

FISHJ016

Spiritual well-being: An imperative for education in new times?

John Fisher, The University of Melbourne

Many young people in Australia are experiencing strong feelings of stress, confusion, lack of security and identity. They have deep spiritual hunger for belonging and a need to find direction in life.

Can schools hope to be places which take time to care for their students' total well-being, including their spiritual well-being?

Nearly 100 staff in a variety of State, Catholic and other non-government schools near Melbourne, were interviewed about their own spirituality, their understanding of the nature of spiritual health, and about their views on the place of spiritual health/well-being in the school curriculum.

A close inspection of the teachers' responses showed they thought spiritual well-being was expressed through relationships in four domains of human experience, which can be labelled: Personal Communal Environmental Global

There was considerable difference between some teachers' personal understanding of spiritual health/well-being and what they felt comfortable including in the curriculum.

This project has looked at what provides meaning, purpose and values at the heart of educating adolescents, in the hope that we might find some ways of helping them face new times with confidence and compassion.

FISHS421

Male violence in schools - who's doing the bullying?

Stephen Fisher, Murdoch University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 25, Addressing boys' education: Framing debates, implementing strategies and formulating policies.

FITZL423

Coaches, charges and contexts; studying gender dynamics and football

Lindsay Fitzclarence, Chris Hickey and Russell Matthews, Deakin University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 25, Addressing boys' education: Framing debates, implementing strategies and formulating policies.

Leaping without looking

Phil Fitzsimmons, University of Wollongong

Nested in a long term study this paper describes the dynamics of personal experience and change which 150 'first time' students experienced while taking part in a Wilderness Program. Employing Guba and Lincoln's (1989) constructivist methodology of 'Fourth Generation Evaluation', which is Riterative, interactive, hermeneutic and at times intuitive and certainly opens to construct a level consensus (Guba and Lincoln, 1989:183), this naturalistic inquiry focussed strongly on observer/observed interactions to construct a 'sophisticated level of consensus' (Guba and Lincoln, 1989:149).

Although recognised as a definitive psychological mechanism of change, the therapeutic results of Wilderness Experiences have been described by Loynes (1997) as being mythic, having a fairy tale content that has been little explored. This paper seeks to give life to these myths, discussing both the

processes which the participants believed engendered personal change and the new personal perspectives that were developed.

The findings of this study have important educational implications in regard to the development of self esteem, relationships and the enhancement of 'life metaphors' (Lakoff and Johnson 1980).

A Thai student writes - towards the understanding of the writing of overseas post-graduate students in Australian Universities

Richard Flavell, Monash University

The continued impact of the globalisation of education on Australian Universities challenges educators to develop new understandings of the writing of overseas students. Overseas students are an integral part of our university classrooms. This paper arises from a series of case studies of students undertaking an MBA at an Australian university has as its focus a case study of a Thai student following her progress from the commencement of a set of lectures, the setting of a writing assessment task, through her research and production of the essay, to the lecturer's assessment and subsequent events. It highlights the cultural mismatch of the student and lecturer as academic discourse is attempted. It examines some of the ways that academic writing has been viewed and using extracts from interviews with the Thai student and her lecturer, as well as the student's essay, suggests a more complex understanding of the writing of overseas students, and consequently how this writing is read by lecturers, is necessary to meet the needs of these new times.

Exploring the effect of the Reading Developmental Ccontinuum on teacher practices

Margaret Fletcher, Griffith University, Janelle Young, Australian Catholic University, Robyn Cox, Central Queensland University and Dawn Haynes, Catholic Education, Diocese of Rockhampton

This session will report on the findings of a collaborative project among three universities, the Australian Catholic University - McAuley Campus, Central Queensland University and Griffith University, and was funded by Language Australia: National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia. The study investigated the interactive nature of teaching, planning, assessing and reporting of reading development in the beginning years of schooling while using the Reading Developmental Continuum.

This presentation will report findings and highlight methodological issues and processes associated with co-operative cross-institutional research. Findings include the perceptions of teachers relating to efficacy, comprehensiveness and validity of the Continuum and the relationship between these and teacher knowledge.

The collaborative nature of this project resulted in innovative use of technology for communication purposes and the use of interactive software for data entry and report writing. The problems and solutions associated with an evolving framework and joint authorship will be shared.

Teachers' perceptions of the stress associated with inclusive education and their methods of coping

Chris Forlin, University of Southern Queensland

The current educational philosophy is wherever possible to educate all children, including those with a disability, in regular classes. Inevitably this poses different pressures on teachers who need to cater for an ever increasing range of student abilities within regular classrooms. This paper reports the findings of a research study undertaken to determine the ways in which regular class teachers cope during inclusive education and the specific issues which are stressful for them. The study was undertaken in primary schools in Queensland during 19 Initial focus group interviews with regular class teachers currently involved in inclusive education identified key issues in the education of students with a disability in regular classes. These discussions focused on aspects of inclusion that regular class teachers found stressful and the ways in which they coped with these, the difficulties they encountered, the availability and usefulness of support structures, and the benefits obtained. Subsequently, two Likert style questionnaires were developed to assess the usefulness of various problem-focused or emotion-focused coping behaviours and the degree to which identified issues were stressful for regular class teachers during inclusion. Differences between teachers from regional schools where alternative placement options exist for children with a disability, and teachers from rural areas where no optional placements are available, were considered.

FORLC081

SYMPOSIUM 13: Pre-service teachers* acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability: Educational implications in new times

Presenters: Chris Forlin, Annemaree Carroll, Ann Jobling, Kath Tait, and Petra Engelbrecht, University of Southern Queensland

Overview:
With the continued movement towards inclusive education it is very clear that training for teachers will need to change. Institutions must develop training courses that will empower teachers to provide quality programs for including all children within regular classrooms. Such courses need to consider the philosophical beliefs of pre-service teachers and their acceptance of children with a disability. This research reports the findings from four universities regarding pre-service teacher*s attitudes towards people with a disability. It employs the Interactions With Disabled Persons Scale (Gething, 1991) to investigate the effect of undertaking compulsory and optional units in special education on pre-service teacher*s acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability. The implications of these findings form the basis of the discussion regarding the development of appropriate compulsory pre-service teacher training courses in inclusive education.

PAPER 1:

Re-designing pre-service teacher education courses: An inclusive curriculum in New Times

Chris Forlin, University of Southern Queensland

The concept of inclusive education is considerably more than simply the placement of children with a disability into regular classrooms. According to Mittler (1994:2) inclusion "requires radical school reform, changing the existing system and rethinking the entire curriculum of the school in order to meet the needs of all children". It is essential that teacher training institutions provide relevant courses that reflect such a philosophy. This paper outlines a collaborative research project between four teacher training universities (the University of Southern Queensland, the University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, and the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa) which investigated pre-service teachers* acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability. An overview of the project will be given in relation to teacher training in Queensland and South Africa. The use of the Interactions With Disabled Persons Scale (Gething, 1991). and an explanation of the data analysis will be provided in this paper. The main objective of this research is the development and implementation of appropriate preservice training programs for teachers. These research findings will direct the development of future courses at each institution regarding inclusive education.

PAPER 2:

CARRA316

Pre-service teachers* acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability: The Queensland Scene

Annemaree Carroll, Ann Jobling and Kath Tait, University of Southern Queensland

As programs for teacher education become more comprehensive, it is likely that regular teachers will be better prepared for managing students with special needs. Inservice and preservice programs are needed for regular teachers who currently feel unprepared for their vital role in integration (Elkins, 1994). Courses in special education for primary and secondary preservice teacher educators have become strongly recommended by Education Queensland. In South East Queensland, these courses are presently offered as either compulsory or elective units. The present research aims to determine the acceptance and attitudes of preservice students to people with a disability. Both positive attitudes and perceptions are seen to be essential to the success of inclusive education (Patching, 1988). All pre-service teacher education students undertaking either compulsory or elective units from three universities in South East Queensland were asked to complete the Interactions With Disabled Persons Scale (IDP, Gething, 1991). This scale comprises 20 statements and asks respondents to indicate on a 6-point scale how much they agree or disagree with the statement (e.g., I feel ignorant about persons with a disability). Twelve questions pertaining to personal details were also collected. This paper examines the impact of personal details (e.g., age, gender, direct face-to-face contact with people with disabilities) as well as current course (e.g., primary or secondary course, type of unit) on participants' responses on the IDP Scale. The research findings will be utilised in the development of future courses regarding inclusive education.

PAPER 3:

ENGEP317

Pre-service teachers* acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability: The South African Scene

Petra Engelbrecht, University of Southern Queensland

Courses for teacher training at South African universities and training colleges has previously focused on service delivery in separate schools in dealing with children with special educational needs. It is very clear that all teachers (in-service and preservice) need a thorough grounding in inclusive education to enable them to provide quality service for children with special educational needs within the mainstream. The basic element for training should consist of the development of a philosophy that incorporates a clear vision of inclusion as a warm embracing attitude, accepting and accommodating others unconditionally and without preconditions. In order to optimalise training on a preservice and in-service level it is necessary to investigate a range of associated issues before deciding upon the type of training which would be most suitable to implement. One of these issues is the determination of the acceptance and attitudes of preservice students to people with a disability as both attitudes and perceptions are seen to be essential to the success of inclusive education. This paper will focus on a summary of attitudes and perceptions of preservice students in the Western Cape in South Africa and will compare results to the Queensland experience.

Re-designing pre-service teacher education courses: An inclusive curriculum in new times

Chris Forlin, University of Southern Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 13, Pre-service teachers' acceptance of and socila interactions with people with a disability: Educational implications in new times.

FORLP041

A new curriculum in science, technology and society for undergraduate primary educators

Peter Forlin, The University of Southern Queensland

In this paper I will present a new curriculum in science, technology and society (STS) for undergraduate primary teachers. The curriculum development process will be described and comments from science educators, of international repute, who reviewed the curriculum in its draft form, will be presented. The draft curriculum will be offered in terms of its significance; what the international science education community is doing in similar circumstances; perceived limitations and difficulties associated with the course; the impact of information technology on a curriculum such as this; the educational aims of the course; a proposed teaching methodology; specific lecture topics; laboratory teaching and learning methods; a health and safety risk management framework; provisions for students with disabilities who wish to enroll; and textbooks. It is advocated that courses such as this ought to cater for most students, not just those with a significant scientific background.

FOSTV251

Feminist theories and the construction of citizenship in the modern state

Victoria Foster, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 21, Understanding civic learning and its social context: Current research in civics and citizenship education.

Assisting pre-service teachers in becoming reflective practitioners

Sandra Frid, Chris Reading, and Ted Redden, University of New England

One emphasis in the recently released National Competency Framework for Beginning Teachers is that of reflection on and evaluation of one's own teaching practices and programs. This study investigated how these processes can be developed in pre-service teachers through involvement in peer and self-assessment activities. Specifically, four classes of third-year Bachelor of Teaching students (total of 95) participated in a series of eight seminars in which small groups of students presented a range of topics on general issues related to mathematics teaching. Two major components of the seminars were peer assessment of the presentations and ongoing development of an evaluation/feedback form. Following each seminar the presenters were required to prepare a self-evaluation report and re-designed evaluation form based on their peers' comments and their own reflections. Students' feedback comments and the various evaluation forms were analysed to determine what changes took place in what students perceived to be important issues, how the quality of their comments changed over time, what students felt they learned from peer and self-evaluation, and how students developed in their capacity to reflect critically. Similarities and differences from across the groups were examined, and the outcomes of the research are discussed here in relation to current trends in education to incorporate alternative, non-traditional assessment practices and to develop teacher competencies as reflective practitioners.

Using curriculum statements and profiles in South Australian schools

Tracey Frigo, Australian Council for Educational Research

South Australia was one of the first systems to adopt Curriculum statements and profiles for Australian schools as a resource for curriculum review and reform focussing on student outcomes. Twelve months after an initial survey of teachers from 100 randomly selected South Australian schools, a follow-up survey provided evidence that desired shifts in emphasis are indeed occurring. Teachers were again asked to indicate the nature and extent of curriculum reform at their school, perceived benefits and concerns regarding implementation, and to comment on their use of technology and student achievement information. The usefulness of statements and profiles as a common framework for teaching and assessing was acknowledged, but workloads and timeline issues are still in the minds of many principals and teachers. The use of levels to assess students was also raised as a concern. Responses indicated that use of technology is not widespread and that there is a general need for technology training in schools. Both principals and teachers seem to appreciate the usefulness of information on student achievement for their curriculum planning, but actually using it still has not become a high priority for most. Time is appropriate for tools and materials, focusing on the recording of information and use of student achievement information, to become more widely available and better disseminated within schools.

Generalist student teachers' perceptions of self, physical activity and health and physical education curriculum

Michael Gard and Joan Fry, Charles Sturt University

The debate about generalist versus specialist teachers in primary schools has long been fought, possibly nowhere more vigorously than in regard to physical education. Here, it continues to appear as an issue in national enquiries into the quality of teaching. This study is based on the premise that people embody the feelings and beliefs that they hold about phenomena and so feelings and beliefs influence the ways people act. In the case of physical activity, it is thought that feelings and beliefs about the body and physical activity greatly impact on behaviour. Therefore in order to develop effective physical education teacher education programs, it is important to consider student teachers' perceptions of their bodies, physical activity and physical education curriculum. Data were collected through survey and interview. Students in early childhood and primary as well as secondary specialist health and physical education courses at a rural university volunteered to complete inventories designed to measure perceptions of self in relation to physical activity, perceptions of physical activity and feelings about the health and physical education curriculum. Following preliminary analysis, students with a range of perceptions and feelings were purposefully sampled for individual open-ended interviews. In this paper the findings will be discussed with tentative recommendations for heath and physical education teacher education curriculum.

FUNNB504

Changes to the market for research in tertiary education: the case of teacher education and vocational education in New Zealand and Australia

Bob Funnell, Griffith University, John Rosonowski, and Tim Williams, Christchurch College of Education

The object of this paper is to outline and model conditions that now influence a political and economic demand for vocational relevance and market driven imperatives in educational research. The discussion is based on an historical case study comparing responses to these factors in New Zealand and Australia with teacher training and technical education as the starting point. One focus is on the differences in how the boundaries between universities, technical and teacher education have been drawn and redrawn since the turn of the century to establish universities as the accepted institutions to conduct research. A second focus is on the rise of vocational education, in particular, to challenge universities in terms of their relevance and their rights to students and funding. A third focus is on the changing status of teacher education in these political and economic manoeuvres. The paper begins with the Picot and Hawke recommendations which have resulted in degrees being approved by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and for vocational and teacher training institutions to offer degrees and to compete with private providers for places in teacher training in New Zealand. A caveat here is that any institution offering a degree has to have staff teaching actively involved in research, read as publication. The second case begins with the amalgamation of colleges of education into universities in Australia. Comparisons are made between the Australian TAFE system, the system of polytechnics in New Zealand and institutions for teacher preparation in both countries and their capability to remain active in producing research in the new of the market for research.

GALET107

Vocality in policy production: Excavations of Australian higher education entry policy

Trevor Gale, Central Queensland University

Licence to 'speak' policy is not granted uniformly to policy actors, nor to the forums in which policy is 'spoken'. Rather, some policy voices tend to be louder, more strategically directed, or expressed with greater authority relative to the 'vocalities' of others. Drawing primarily on interviews with policy actors, this paper seeks to reveal the authoritative voices and localities as they are evidenced in higher education entry policy in Australia and the strategies utilised to establish such authority. In particular, the paper identifies strategies related to determining jurisdictions, changing commitments, the selection of people and processes, and sites of engagement.

The development of an appropriate practicum model for the B.Ed primary course in new times

Kay Gibson and Chris Forlin, University of Southern Queensland

The practicum is a major component of most B Ed (Primary) courses which allows students to make vital learning connections between theory and practice. The articulation of the practicum to other course components is critical to the success of such courses and to their marketability. This research reports the development of a new practicum model responsive to student learning needs and to policy and practice change in Queensland. The collaborative development of the model between Faculty staff and local school principals and teachers is outlined. The involvement of current and previous students in the development of the model is also reviewed. The model which has been informed by best practice is evaluated from the perspective of the sequence of practicum experiences, the placement of practicum experiences within the context of the overall course, the flexibility of the model to respond to change in policy and practice, the ability of the model to allow and encourage students to make vital learning connections between theory and practice, and the ability of the model to incorporate a number of approaches to practice.

GILBR250

Education for citizenship and concepts of identity

Rob Gilbert, James Cook University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 21, Understanding civic learning and its social context: Current research in civics and citizenship education.

GILBP486

New times, old times: Masculinity, literacy and schooling

Nola Alloway and Pam Gilbert, James Cook University

This paper focuses on recent debates and developments surrounding boys' performance in literacy classrooms. In the paper we argue that the constructions of hegemonic masculinity in New Times lead to patterns of alienation of boys from significant aspects of schooling, particularly literacy learning. The questions here are: how literacy is to be constructed in New Times; and how boys can be enabled to play a different role in the construction of themselves as literate students with a critical capacity to critique their own practices and the textual practices through which they are constructed.

The paper offers suggestions for understanding masculinity, literacy and schooling in New Times. At the same time, it draws attention to the intensely complex conceptual nature of the work and to the dangers inherent in research and theorisation in these areas.

GILLJ352

Children's perceptions of public power and politics: Reclaiming citizenship education for the education agenda

Judith Gill and Sue Howard, University of South Australia

The report of the Civics Expert Group Whereas the people ... proceeded from the position that Australian education had overlooked the need for civics education in our schools. This impression was drawn from a nationwide survey of people's understanding of the structures and processes of government which had shown that the younger the population the less likely were they to be informed on questions of governance. This survey had not investigated responses from those younger than 18. Overseas research has shown that young children begin thinking about questions of citizenship, nationality, governmental responsibility during their primary school years. Questions were raised as to what do young Australians think about citizenship and what sort of meanings do they ascribe to issues of power and responsibility. This paper reports on a study of the perceptions of a group of Australian primary school children about issues to do with power and public responsibility. The children in the study revealed that they had some clear understandings about their rights and responsibilities and those of people in authority - parents, care givers, teachers, public officials and politicians. The paper concludes with recommendations that curriculum which seeks to address these areas be located within the current mind set and experience of the children rather than being informed by an orientation that could be described as 'What every child should know...'.

GILLR341

The effect of cooperative learning experiences on children's social and helping behaviours in the middle primary school years

Robyn Gillies, The University of Queensland

This paper discusses the results of a study which involved 180, Year 4 children who worked in four-person, gender balanced, class-based work groups over the duration of a full school year. The study had three foci. First, it sought to determine if there were differences between the cooperative and

helping behaviours of the children who worked in groups in which they were trained to cooperate (Trained condition) and those who worked in groups were no training occurred (Untrained condition). Second, it was designed to examine the stability of the behaviours and interactions for the children in the two conditions over the duration of the study. Finally, the study sought to determine if there were changes in the children's descriptions of their academic, friendship, and physical attributes as a result of the cooperative group experience as measured by their responses on the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ-1). The results show clearly that the children in the trained condition were consistently more cooperative and helpful to other group members than the children in the Untrained condition and these behaviours were maintained across the duration of the group experience. However, there were no significant differences in the children's perceptions of their academic, friendship, and physical attributes as measured on the SDQ-1. The implications for effect of cooperative group experiences on children's behaviour and self-perceptions are discussed.

GILLR354

The effect of cooperative learning experiences on children's social and helping behaviours in the middle primary school years

Robyn Gillies, The University of Queensland

This paper discusses the results of a study which involved 180, Year 4 children who worked in four-person, gender balanced, class-based work groups over the duration of a full school year. The study had three foci. First, it sought to determine if there were differences between the cooperative and helping behaviours of the children who worked in groups in which they were trained to cooperate (Trained condition) and those who worked in groups where no training occurred (Untrained condition). Second, it was designed to examine the stability of the behaviours and interactions for the children in the two conditions over the duration of the study. Finally, the study sought to determine if there were changes in the children's descriptions of their academic, friendship, and physical attributes as a result of the cooperative group experience as measured by their responses on the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ-1). The results show clearly that the children in the trained condition were consistently more cooperative and helpful to other group members than the children in the Untrained condition and these behaviours were maintained across the duration of the group experience. However, there were no significant differences in the children's perceptions of their academic, friendship, and physical attributes as measured on the SDQ-1. The implications for effect of cooperative group experiences on children's behaviour and self-perceptions are discussed.

GILLS355

Factors influencing decision making in competency based assessments across both industrial and vocational educational settings

Shelley Gillis, Patrick Griffin, R.Trembath and P.Ling

This paper investigated the theoretical underpinnings of assessment. Factors influencing decision making processes in competency based assessment were explored across both industrial and vocational eduation and training settings. The project involved a national survey of workplace assessors and VET Trainers who were actively parcitipating in competency based assessments. The research investigation explored and tested a theoretical model of decision making and revealed significant differences in the use of interpretative frameworks, influences of assessor bias in predicting workplace assesmsents, organisational influences, the assessment and reporting process, the complexity of the relationship among stakeholders and the perceived consequences associated with the assessment outcomes among workplace assessors and VET Trainers. The outcomes of the research paper include eight measures of factors influencing decision making and the findings have direct implications for assessor selection, training and monitoring.

GINNI440

SYMPOSIUM 14: Transition into teaching: Voices of women primary teachers of mathematics and science

Presenters: Bill Atweh, Ian Ginns, Ann Heirdsfield, James Watters and others, Queensland University of Technology

Overview:
Research has shown that the majority of primary school teachers are women and that many of them express lack of confidence in teaching mathematics and science. It has also shown that limited support is available for teachers to assist them in the crucial transitional period from university to teaching. This symposium reports an action research project conducted in collaboration between first year women teachers and university lecturers. Three groups working on participants concerns considered issues of assessment, catering for the gifted and talented and the development of inclusive mathematics. The symposium consists of four papers describing the whole project and each of the three sub-projects.

PAPER 1:

Scaffolding the beginning teacher: the EMSTAR project

Ian Ginns, Bill Atweh, Jim Watters and Ann Heirdsfield, Queensland University of Technology

Many components of teaching are problematic for many primary school teachers but early career experiences may act as either inhibitors or catalysts for an enduring commitment to and enthusiasm for effective mathematics and science teaching. This paper describes the conduct of an action research project designed to promote effective mathematics and science teaching among a group of beginning women teachers. The paper outlines the organisational features of the project, in particular the formation of action research cells comprised of subgroups of the participating teachers whose foci are particular aspects of teaching mathematics and science, e.g. assessment and inclusivity. Data analysis will focus on the individual experiences of the participating teachers in their action research cells and an evaluation of the use of action research methods as a means for the induction of teachers into the teaching profession. Results from the project will be used to develop inservice models designed to serve new and growing school and systemic needs with respect to curriculum implementation and best practice in teaching and learning in mathematics and science.

PAPER 2:

ATWEB442

Transition into teaching: Women's experiences in making mathematics more inclusive

Bill Atweh, Pam Harris, Lisa Garrett, Gabrielle Pitman, Janette Sitton, Queensland University of Technology

The teaching of mathematics is problematic for many primary teachers and early career experiences may act as either inhibitors or catalysts for an enduring commitment to effective mathematics teaching. One problem shared by several teachers is how to make mathematics more inclusive to the needs of students from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. This study is a collaborative partnership between a group of 3 first year women teachers, a university academic, and an experienced teacher. Specifically there are two sets of aims for this study. For the participating beginning women teachers, the study aims to foster their effective teaching of mathematics in the primary school with classes that are predominately of Aboriginal or non English speaking backgrounds. For the participating university staff, the study aims to: investigate the use of action research networks for teacher professional development. The study employed the use of teleconferencing and electronic mail for communication between participants. The paper will present the experiences of the teachers and their voices in discussing the problems identified and the solutions trailed. Data will be collated from electronic e-mail communication, teachers diaries and writing for the project. The paper will conclude with some learnings about the problems and possibilities of using of action research as a means for teacher induction.

PAPER 3:

WATTJ443

The challenge of meeting the needs of the gifted child

James Watters, Bernadette Andrew, Amy Henderson and Belinda George, Queensland University of Technology

Gifted education has assumed more prominence in recent times with both national and state initiatives setting the scene for a change in practice in many systems. For a beginning teacher having a gifted child in the classroom can present a genuine challenge. Strategies for coping and programming for the needs of children who are exceptional in their cognitive capacities are not core features of pre-service training programs. Furthermore, beliefs and assumptions of many experienced teachers and the school ethos or culture can conflict with the idealism of beginning teachers compounding their levels of anxiety. This presentation explores the experiences of a group of beginning teachers who attempt to develop strategies for implementing enriching experiences for children. The work of these teachers, struggling with the challenge of change, identifies a need for all teachers to acknowledge the special requirements of gifted children.

PAPER 4:

GINNI444

Coping with assessment: The experiences of beginning teachers

Jennifer Fitzgerald, Cassandra Moman, Monica Suhrbier and Ian Ginns, Queensland University of Technology

Assessment of children on a continuous basis is a formidable obstacle for beginning teachers. The increasing demands of governments and parents for accountability in the education of children place beginning teachers under immediate pressure to evaluate the progress of children as soon as they commence employment. This project documents action research projects initiated by beginning teachers as they face the reality of assessing children in mathematics and science in order to meet the demands of a state-wide testing program and to better understand assessment as an integrated component of any curriculum. The results of the action research project will be discussed from the point of view of the participants. Generalisations from the data will be used to inform existing preservice teacher education programs and the development of new inservice programs for teachers in mathematics and science.

Scaffolding the beginning teacher: The EMSTAR project

Ian Ginns, Bill Atweh, Jim Watters and Ann Heirdsfield, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 14, Transition into teaching: Voices of women primary teachers of mathematics and science.

GINNI444

Coping with assessment: The experiences of beginning teachers

Jennifer Fitzgerald, Cassandra Moman, Monica Suhrbier and Ian Ginns, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 14, Transition into teaching: Voices of women primary teachers of mathematics and science.

Passing first year university: Perceptions of key stake holders

John Glass, and Judith Maxwell, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and Patricia McLean, University of Melbourne

This paper will report on the analysis of a survey which investigated the relative perceptions of academic staff and tertiary students at two universities and across the faculties of Engineering and Education as well as secondary students ( from both private and government schools), as to the factors considered important for success at university. The main predictors of university success have traditionally been pre-enrolment performance measures such as academic performance at school and university admissions tests. The failure of single measures such as TE scores to adequately predict success relates to the complexity of other (post enrolment) factors affecting success (motivation, teaching strategies and students' approaches to study). Perceptions of the factors contributing to success/failure in the first year of university by key stakeholders (prospective students, enrolled students and academic staff) may provide insight not only as a potential predictor of success, but also in terms of providing strategies which will facilitate the avoidance of a mismatch between staff and student expectations at a university level. This paper discusses the factors which are perceived as contributing to university success from the perspective of the key stake holders.

The effect of using assessment procedures in values education

Philip Cox and John Godfrey, Edith Cowan University

This study investigates the effect of utilising formal assessment procedures on values education.

A survey of the literature on formal assessment procedures and values indicates that utilisation of assessment procedures in the affective domain may have a detrimental effect on the achievement of objectives in that domain. Teachers therefore tend to avoid the use of assessment procedures when values are involved. However, if one takes a broad view of assessment, it is not impractical to involve them in the process of value formation.

The subjects were 160 students in Year 8 in a Catholic school in Perth. The source of data was a values survey where students responded to questions on values aspects of objectives of a module. Magnitude scaling was the scoring procedure selected.

A nested design enabled two levels of analysis to occur; variation between the experimental and control group and an analysis of variation between individual classes.

Mean scores for the values test illustrated change between the pre-test and post-test. The change was in a direction opposite to that expected. The teaching process altered students' values scores from the moral high ground towards a central position. The teaching process enabled students to re-evaluate their values stance.

Self-directed and peer-assisted thinking in a secondary mathematics classroom

Merrilyn Goos, The University of Queensland

The last decade has seen the emergence of an international movement calling for reform in the teaching and learning of mathematics. In both the United States and Australia, for example, new curriculum and policy documents place increased emphasis on problem solving, communication and mathematical reasoning, and endorse greater use of small group work and peer interaction as a means of encouraging students to become self-directed learners. Such significant curriculum reforms require a sound research base if they are to be effectively implemented. However, our theoretical understanding of problem solving processes, and how students' self-monitoring and self-regulatory abilities are cultivated by these new forms of classroom interaction, is far from complete. This paper reports on a study of a Year 11 mathematics classroom which exemplified the learning goals and instructional practices articulated by the mathematics education reform movement. A major aim of the study was to examine students' metacognitive knowledge and strategies in both individual and collaborative settings. In this paper, data from questionnaires, interviews, and videotaped lessons are used to analyse connections between self-directed and peer-assisted metacognitive activity, and suggest implications for the social organisation of mathematics classrooms.

Resisting interaction and collaboration in secondary mathematics classrooms

M Goos, Peter Renshaw and P Galbraith, The University of Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 26, Communities of learners: Researching resistance and exclusion in the collaborative classroom.

Changes in approaches to learning of international students in their first year at an Australian tertiary institution

Mira Gordon, Robert H. Cantwell and Phillip J. Moore, The University of Newcastle

Australian Higher Education is undergoing significant change as it seeks to accommodate the large increase in international students now studying in Australian universities. Between 1989 and 1996 the number of international students studying in Australian universities increased from 21,000 to 53,000.

This paper will report on the approaches to learning identified by a group of international students as they commenced their study in an Australian university. Over the course of their first year of study, the extent to which the students identified changes in their approaches to learning is evaluated. Cultural background and language competency on arrival are amongst a number of factors considered. The extent to which instruments developed to identify the approaches to learning of tertiary students can be applied cross culturally is briefly examined.

The findings may be of some interest to educators in Australian Higher Education institutions as they seek to address the challenges of internationalising their curricula and identifying the extent to which international students are able to accommodate different approaches to learning.

GOREJ289

Towards a theory of power relations in pedagogy

Jennifer Gore, The University of Newcastle

Based on my study of four pedagogical sites (the design and preliminary findings of which have been reported at previous AARE conferences), this paper reports on work done toward constructing a new theory of power relations in pedagogy. The following broad analytical concerns are being addressed in this process of theory building:

1. Practices of power: Which practices are constitutive of pedagogy and what are their effects?
2. Disciplining bodies: In what specific ways are teachers' and students' bodies the site of enactments of power, and what specific forms of self-disciplining does schooling produce?
3. Progressive pedagogies: In the micro-level enactment of instructional practices, to what extent do radical pedagogies escape the power relations of other classrooms?
4. Institutionalised pedagogy: In what ways does the institutionalisation of pedagogy account for its specific character and for continuities across sites and across time?
5. Power-knowledge: In what ways do the power relations of specific classrooms interact with the knowledge produced there?

This theory of power relations in pedagogy is intended to identify patterns and specific practices in such a way that new points of intervention might be explored.

Who has the authority to speak about practice and how does it influence educational inquiry?

Jennifer Gore, University of Newcastle

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 8, Issues in qualitative research.

Cultural globalisation and educational inquiry: Conceptual and methodological issues

Noel Gough, Deakin University

Globalisation implies new and increasingly complex patterns of interconnectedness--cultural processes that destabilise interrelationships among spaces and places, technologies and materials, media and meanings, and that might previously have seemed to be (relatively) 'settled'. This paper reports on issues for educational inquiry that are emerging from a project that is examining interrelationships between cultural globalisation, new curriculum priorities, and curriculum change in schools. This research focuses on the ways in which processes of cultural globalisation are represented in curriculum policies and school programs, and expressed by teachers and students, with particular reference to the ways in which meanings that circulate in increasingly globalised media (television, the internet) are deployed in the construction of school knowledge. Conceptual and methodological implications of cultural globalisation for curriculum inquiry will be a particular focus of this paper.

GREEB427

SYMPOSIUM 15: New times for literacy, pedagogy and young people: Research challenges

Presenters: Barbara Comber, Phil Cormack, and Helen Nixon, University of South Australia, Bill Green, Deakin University, and Jo-Anne Reid, University of Ballarat

Overview:
Increasingly media culture and its associated literacies form not just a context for research in education but also its object. Among other things, this involves taking account of the complex and changing relations between education and the media, as well as new forms and relations of curriculum and literacy, and properly gauging the educational and cultural significance of the new information technologies. What needs to be better understood however is both the nature of media culture in this regard, specifically in its implication for education generally, and more broadly, the historical nexus between educational practice and technocultural change. The symposium will engage these issues with regard to researching cultural formations of literacy, pedagogy and young people. What would a research programme in this area look like? What would it entail? What would be its methodological issues and problematics?

PAPER 1:

The problem of 'background' in researching the student subject

Barbara Comber, University of South Australia

Ways of describing student populations in educational research frequently refer to cultural background, socio-economic background, and linguistic background. This term is increasingly problematic in terms of what it implies about students' lifeworlds and subjectivities. Through an analysis of teachers' descriptions of their students I discuss the limits and the dangers of employing 'background' as a construct in these times. I argue that as educational researchers we need to examine the effects of our vocabularies in public discourses and local educational institutions and to begin to generate new vocabularies for understanding how different young people take up what schooling makes available. 'Background' may be seen as symptomatic of counter-productive educational discourses which fail to explain dynamic and changing educational conditions and student populations.

PAPER 2:

What can history offer literacy research in new times?

Phil Cormack, University of South Australia

This paper is based on a genealogical study which examines how literacy and the adolescent have been brought together in educational and public policy discourses this century in Australia. This study suggests the value of historical research in 'new' times - times when what counts as literacy and the role of literacy in the lives of young people, are the subjects of intense debate. Issues relating to the roles of school and literacy in shaping/being shaped by adolescent subjectivity will be highlighted for discussion.

PAPER 3:

GREEB430

On the (Im)possibility of educational research: Emergent literacies, media culture and postmodern education

Bill Green, Deakin University

What does it mean to be living and learning (in) media culture? What are the possibilities and problems associated with researching new technocultural dynamics and new social forms and identities, and indeed the very idea of the New? In literacy education and media studies, attention is directed increasingly to the notion of new and emergent literacies and textualities, within what is argued to be a cultural shift from print to digital-electronics. This paper accordingly explores various issues in researching new textual practices and formations and new subjectivities and forms of life, more particularly in their educational terms and frames of reference. In doing so, it seeks to raise and explore questions about the (im)possibility of educational research in 'New Times'.

PAPER 4:

Researching multimedia multiliteracies

Helen Nixon, University of South Australia

This paper is based on a pilot study of critical approaches to the teaching of literacy in a disadvantaged school in which the integration of "new technologies" into the curriculum is a school priority. Transcripts of student talk during the production of multimedia Hypertext documents will be used to explore questions raised by the study. These include: What are the possibilities and limitations of ethnographic studies of computer-based literacy teaching and learning? What are the possibilities and limitations of computer-based critical literacy which attempts to connect with "real world" learning and textual practice in "new times"?

PAPER 5:

REIDJ432

New times, new methodological problems? Researching the Nintendo generation

Jo-Anne Reid, University of Ballarat

This paper draws on data collected during a research study undertaken in 1995-96, which attempted to explore the extent to which the children popularly known as the 'Nintendo generation' might be understood as different from previous generations. It also attempted to explore the implications, accordingly, for teachers and educational researchers. One implication seems to be the question of how we can best access information about the nature and quality of this distinctiveness. I will discuss the problems associated with 'finding', controlling and constructing data about young children's interactions with and around electronic game playing in relation to literacy practice.

GREEB430

On the (Im)possibility of educational research: Emergent literacies, media culture and postmodern education

Bill Green, Deakin University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 15, New times for literacy, pedagogy and young people: Research challenges.

GREEB455

Theorising the professional doctorate: Representation, practice and the

curriculum problem in postgraduate education

Bill Green, Deakin University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 6, Professional doctorates in new times for the Australian University.

Psychological and contextual factors influencing mathematics achievement

Lisa Greenwood, Australian Council for Educational Research

This study investigates various student characteristics (including attitudes, perceptions of the importance of mathematics and out of school activities) on achievement in mathematics. Home background variables will be taken into account. Multivariate methods will be used to analyse the data obtained from 11,248 students in 441 classes in 179 schools obtained from the Australian population one (majority of nine year olds), collected in late 1994 during the Third International Mathematics and Science Study. It is expected that complex interactions will emerge, and that these might differ with age and possibly gender. Major findings of this research will be presented and discussed.

GRIES447

Why here? Why now? The Queensland Preschool Curriculum Guidelines

Susan Grieshaber, Queensland University of Technology

This paper provides a critique of the Queensland Preschool Curriculum Guidelines (Trial Version). The emergence of these Curriculum Guidelines after twenty-five years of free, non-compulsory preschool education by the State comes as a recommendation of the Report by Wiltshire, McMeniman & Tolhurst (1994), (Shaping the Future): Review of the Queensland School Curriculum. The paper argues that the recommendation can be located in an economic rationalist perspective and follows an international and national trend of producing educational documents for the years prior to formal schooling. Political imperatives of the recommendation are considered and analysis of the document shows that it is likely to perpetuate the status quo because it fails to come to terms with recent moves to reconceptualise early childhood curriculum.

GRIFP417

Dimensions of numeracy in a large-scale testing program

Patrick Griffin, The University of Melbourne and Rosemary Callingham, Office of Educational Review, Hobart

A series of Numeracy assessment tasks was administered to approximately 5000 year-9 students in Tasmanian government schools. The items were developed to assess specific outcome statements selected from the National Mathematics Profile that together make up the Tasmanian Key Intended Numeracy Outcomes (KINOs) for year 8 students. The tasks included a test of mental computation, two multiple-choice tests, - one with and one without calculator use - a constructed response test and an extended investigative task. The tests were initially intended to be equated using common person equating approaches to form a singe measure of numeracy. It was also intended to report sub-scores for each of the strands of the mathematics profiles.

A constant problem with equating tests of this kind, is the assumption that the tests are equivalent and that they are measuring the same construct. There is considerable evidence that this may be the case, despite the fact that the content analysis of the tests may be measuring a constant factor (Lietz, 1996). The evidence for the existence of the common factor is sought using a series of analytical approaches including confirmatory factor analysis (Gustaffson, 1991) using both a single factor model and a nested factor model linking the first general factor to underlying structural factors, contained within. Where the nested factors did not add to the variance explained by the first general factor, it was appropriate to calibrate the items using the single parameter Rasch model (Hunji, 1997).

The approach consisted of the following steps.

1. Confirm the dimensionality of the items within tests and across tests, using a confirmatory factor analysis.
2. Where a unidimensional construct could be identified, calibrate the items, using item level data and common person equating with concurrent anchoring.
3. Score student performances, based on calibration results, allowing for 'not reached' and 'omitted' responses to be treated at missing.

These scores become the student performance measures on the dimensions identified in step 1.

Inside the precincts but outside the processes: Perceptions of the role of students in schooling

Shirley Grundy, S Bonser and F Hickey, Murdoch University

Student participation is noticeably absent from policies and programs which advocate devolved responsibility for planning and management to schools.

This paper brings together a number of research studies which independently investigated the relationships of students to schools. One study used quantitative questionnaire research to investigate nationally the perceptions of school staff regarding the extent to which various 'restructuring' initiatives (including participative decision-making) has been adopted in Australian schools. Responses to items pertaining to the role of students in the processes of schooling indicted that students were regarded as central to the purpose of schooling, but not participants in the processes. Another study used qualitative interview research to investigate the perceptions of students about their place in school. A similar pattern of perception (of students as 'Other' in the discourse of schooling) emerged. Another study of a school in which students were integral to the decision-making processes is described to develop a scenario of possibility.

The paper argues that, whether the devolutionary/participatory discourse of school restructuring is 'read' through a democratic or a managerial lens, the exclusion of students from participation in the processes of schooling will not adequately prepare them either as citizens or as workers for 'new times'.

Children's literacy research in Australia: Some findings and current investigations from a national program

Stephanie Gunn, Griffith University

The Commonwealth Government has played a vital role in literacy research in Australia with the highest percentage of large grants for literacy research coming from the Commonwealth Government (DEETYA) through programs such as the Children's Literacy National Projects (CLP) program.

From 1997, funding for Children's Literacy National Projects has been incorporated into the Commonwealth's broadbanded Literacy Program - Grants for National Literacy Strategies and Projects. The objective of the Grants for National Literacy Strategies and Projects is to identify, research and implement strategic national initiatives and developments in literacy and numeracy. The programme focuses upon:

• the early years of schooling;
• students experiencing literacy and numeracy difficulties in the middle years of schooling; and
• links between literacy and general or vocational pathways in senior years.

Since 1992, sixteen projects have been funded by DEETYA. This paper will provide information about, and summary findings from, the completed projects. Information and updates on current projects which are still due for completion will also be included. Methodological issues and a number of recurring and dominant themes evident within the findings across the projects will be discussed.

HAGEP267

Lifelong education and workplace learning

Paul Hager, University of Technology, Sydney, and David Beckett, University of Melbourne

This paper focuses on the workplace as a site for lifelong learning, rather than the more formal and structured provision found in classrooms and training settings. Workplace learning is typically informal and incidental, since it engages the moment-by-moment, day-by-day experiences people undergo at, and through, the performance of their work. Research into the phenomenal spectrum of daily workplace experience - how decision-making and judgments go to make up a certain practical wisdom - is showing the basis for a new epistemology of practice. This suggests, we argue, that lifelong learning in the workplace is more accurately regarded as lifelong education in the workplace. The implication is that lifelong education in the workplace is set to confront many of the cherished and traditional values of education.

In particular, our research shows that, in terms of the traditional binary categories, workplace education emerges from:

• the contingent (rather than formal, sustained, and systematic studies)
• the practical (rather than the theoretical)
• the process (rather than assimilation of content)
• the particular (rather than the universal and a priori as the context)
• the affective and the social domains (rather than merely the cognitivedomain)

However, we argue that the traditional binary categories are deficient and that lifelong learning in the workplace is better seen as coalescing the binary categories into a new synthesis that suggests a conception of education more suited to the 21st century than received conceptions of education.

HALLG184

SYMPOSIUM 16: Early childhood teachers working in new times: Reports on research undertaken in the 1990's

Presenters: Kerryann Walsh, Noelene McBride, Alison Kelly, Gail Halliwell, Judith Burton and Donna Berthelsen, Queensland University of Technology

Overview:
This symposium focuses on issues in reconceptualising teachers' work in times of new, sometimes ambiguous expectations of school systems and other systems responsible for educating young people. Posters [perhaps video] will highlight key features in six research projects completed or currently underway in CASEC. Short handouts will be available and researchers will be prepared to engage in critical analysis of the thrust of this work.

Each project:

• nurtures collaborative inquiry
• taps into the real world dilemmas faced by teachers as they take responsibility for education in their workplaces
• surfaces what practitioners know, bringing their voice to the fore through collaborative analysis of reflective conversations, reflective writing and development of narrative accounts
• aims to build better (more useful) theory grounded in teachers' practical knowledge.

PAPER 1:

WALSK185

Early childhood teachers' work with maltreated children: The quest for a knowledge base

Kerryann Walsh, Queensland University of Technology

Extensive research indicates that children with a history of child abuse or neglect will frequently have greater difficulty than others in coping with the requirements of school. The literature increasingly cites teachers as people with the potential to intervene to address the problems endured by these children. But little is known about what constitutes an adequate and appropriate knowledge base for early childhood teachers to prepare them to work effectively and confidently with maltreated children.

The findings of research reveal that the training provided to teachers has, in the past, not adequately prepared them for the complexities of the role in supporting and managing abused and neglected children in classrooms and centres on a day to day basis.

University teachers and teachers in the field are currently involved in a project which aims to surface the personal practical knowledge of experienced early childhood teachers when they work with maltreated children on a daily basis. Qualitative methods such as focus groups, interviews, journaling and image making are being used to capture and collaboratively examine the knowledge that is relied upon by skilled practitioners. It is anticipated that this study will advance teaching practice with maltreated children and begin to map out the knowledge needs for future teachers of maltreated children.

PAPER 2:

MCBRN186

Adults responsible for groups of very young children in child care centres

Noelene McBride, Queensland University of Technology

This presentation reports on a study of how meanings assigned to the lived experiences and identities of adults impact on the direct lived experiences and forming identities of children

The most dramatic growth in the child care population in the 1990s is among our youngest children- those under three years. The growth in numbers of adults employed to work with these children is almost as dramatic. Link this with growing realisation that the personal life and career histories of adults working in child care impact on the lives and identities of children, and the need for more information about the cultural baggage adults bring into their work with very young children is evident. The future generation is currently partaking of much of their direct lived experiences and identity formation through their contacts with these adults.

This study takes an ethnographic approach, seeking to surface some of the social, cultural and political influences that have entered into the direct lived experiences of adults working in child care. These may or may not have been reconceptualised through the training that enabled them to obtain work in child care centres. The voices of these adults have not been of particular interest to the field and thus little is known about how they perceive children and their responsibilities with groups of very young children. This study is in the final stages and the findings pose challenges for those currently fabricating and delivering courses that enable adults to be employed to work with very young children in child care centres.

PAPER 3:

Teachers' work in the child care centres of the 1990's

Alison Kelly, Queensland University of Technology

In the 1990s, the child care industry has undergone astonishing growth accompanied by changing expectations of workers and trends towards increasing employment of teachers. The unique characteristics of teachers' work in these settings are not well understood yet this is an imperative at a time when it is likely that many graduates of early childhood teaching courses will be employed in this sector. This presentation reports on the knowledge needs of six teachers who began their teaching careers in 1997 as workers in the child care industry. The study has surfaced interesting aspects of the knowledge teachers acted upon when they faced moments of indecision and competing demands in their daily work.

The study had interpretive purposes, designed to illuminate the ways in which past experiences, present circumstances and visions for the future influence what teachers do. Teachers in the field and the university teacher worked collaboratively, probing and examining situations and experiences, to construct new meanings through reflection. Observational notes, teacher journal entries, the researcher's letters to participants, and transcripts of conversations with teachers have allowed for progressive focusing on practical knowledge. Collaboratively, new meaning is given to everyday situations and actions. This was a pilot study for a larger project involving more teachers in 1998.

PAPER 4:

HALLG188

Teacher contributions to the development of preschool curriculum guidelines

Gail Halliwell, Queensland University of Technology

An independent evaluation conducted for the intersystemic body, the Queensland Schools Curriculum Council (QSCC), provides the data examined for this presentation. The evaluation was conducted by staff from QUT and USQ in semester one 1997 and involved three focus group meetings over a five month period, in five geographic regions in Queensland. Three stakeholder groups (parents, administrators and teachers) met separately at each site to discuss their expectations of and reactions to the draft Preschool Curriculum Guidelines document. The final meetings identified issues and made recommendations to QSCC. The development of preschool curriculum guidelines for teachers in Queensland schools and centres is a major new initiative indicating that early childhood teachers are working in new times. This presentation analyses the teacher expectations, reactions, issues and recommendations and compares these with those of parent groups and administrators. Possible reasons for differences among the data are examined. The influence of the teachers' views on the revision of the document is traced.

PAPER 5:

BURTJ189

Teaching dilemmas and workplace relations

Judith Burton, Queensland University of Technology

Changes to the organisation and resourcing of teachers' work highlight the timeliness of investigating the knowledge teachers' hold and use about work relationships. Recent changes to industrial relations legislation emphasising 'individual' contracts, in tandem with school based management, could result in many industrial relations concerns, previously dealt with at Departmental and Industrial Relations Commission level, being addressed at school level. Exploring teachers' perceptions of industrial issues and the ways they negotiate employment relationships to implement valued practices provides essential information regarding processes of decision making within educational settings.

This presentation focuses on findings of a four year study into dilemmas arising for teachers employed as workers within the industrial relations applying in the child care industry. Teachers' experiences of connections among industrial relations and their curriculum responsibilities are reported in four case studies of experiences and actions over a one year period. Teaching dilemmas, involving tensions among educational responsibilities and workplace agreements, are portrayed with particular attention to strategies used to pursue their educational responsibilities. This approach to researching teachers and their work contributes to the critical examination of what teachers need to know and do to be effective in the places where they are employed to teach.

PAPER 6:

BERTD190

Early childhood teachers' work histories: Graduates 1991-5

Donna Berthelsen, Queensland University of Technology

This presentation reports on a survey of 922 early childhood teachers who graduated between 1991 and 1995 from QUT courses. This survey marks the beginning of a five year project that will map the career paths of these graduates and delves more deeply into what it is like to teach in the early childhood programs of the 1990s. The project has a future orientation, using findings to identify the knowledge needs of early childhood teachers for the programs that can be expected by the start of the twenty-first century. The presentation is based on work by CASEC staff and students, Gail Halliwell, Alison Kelly, Debbie Gahan, Donna Berthelsen and Rehke Sharma.

Responses of a cohort of 137 graduates out of a possible 431 graduating in 1991/1992 are analysed. The employment picture emerging indicates increasing proportions of graduates finding their first jobs in child care centres, as part time workers. The collated responses were analysed and meaning explored in relation to time spent in particular teaching positions and reasons advanced for leaving a position. The survey also identified a pool of over 200 graduates who are willing to participate in further research on their teaching experiences. Subsequent studies will trace both individual careers and employment cycles, providing information about current and emerging employment patterns to teacher educators and their students.

HALLG188

Teacher contributions to the development of preschool curriculum guidelines

Gail Halliwell, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 16, Early childhood teachers working in new times: Reports on research undertaken in the 1990's.

HANSB480

SYMPOSIUM 17: The practical problems of doctoral research

Participants: Brian Hansford, Sandra Dunn, Doug Stewart, Patricia Weeks, John Whitta, Di Orr and Tania Aspland, Queensland University of Technology

Each of the participants has recently completed, or is nearing completion of their doctoral programs. The methodological approach used in each study differs, from phenomology to statistical analysis. Each study confronted a set of specific methodological problems and adopted techniques to overcome and minimise negative effects. The symposia would consider the methodology problems encountered and their resolution. In simple terms, researchers telling their story.

The primary LOTE curriculum: the teachers and the impact of their stories

Lesley Harbon, University of Tasmania

Most Australian states and territories responded to the 1987 'National Policy on Languages' (Lo Bianco) and the Curriculum Corporation's 'Languages other than English-A curriculum profile for Australian schools' (1994), by implementing LOTE policies in the school systems. The educational and economic imperatives of LOTE progams being able to add to the skilling of Australia's future generations are of great consequence, according to these documents.

In Tasmania the implementation of the Tasmanian LOTE policy began in 1996 (Department of Education and the Arts LOTE policy, 1995, Hobart) and allows students from Grades 3 to 10 access to a guaranteed LOTE study pathway.

In considering the significance and magnitude of this new LOTE policy for Tasmania, the researcher isolated a key process: 'What is involved in the planning of the LOTE curriculum by these teachers?' This research is part of a research higher degree and necessitates collaborative, case study research with primary LOTE teachers through a narrative inquiry based approach, tracing the relationship between 'teacher narrative' and 'classroom practice'.

Looking for girls in all the wrong places: Researching the responses of women principals to current gender equity policies

Kylie Harris, Central Queensland University

It has recently been claimed that education is now more equitable than ever before and that the need for equity programs specifically designed to support girls in their learning has significantly declined. This additional shift is reflected in the changing nature of key policy documents such as: The 1997 Gender Equity: a framework for Australian schools.

Despite claims to the contrary however these 'new times' in education are still characterised by sex-based harassment, the under-representation of girls in many traditionally male subjects and of course the under-representation of women in leadership positions (of the 69.99 per cent of women who work in education only 5.4 per cent hold promotional positions: Education Qld EEO data). Therefore in the context of declining institutionalised government support for gender reform the role that school principals play in initiating and sustaining reform processes is crucial.

Drawing on post-structural feminist perspectives this paper explores the ways in which women principals focus on issues of resistance and reform when they individualise current gender policy documents. Throughout this paper the methodological implications for a young feminist researcher to be exploring these issues and to be accessing new ways of conducting feminist educational research will also be considered.

What's new, pussycat?

Kevin Harris, Macquarie University

This paper addresses the Conference theme by actually calling it into question. 'New Times' and 'preparedness for the new millenium' are catchy and trendy cries at the moment. But as we go about researching education what new things should we have our eye on, what are really old things that we should have had our eye on for ages, and what is simply fashionable but either dubious and/or ephemeral, not to mention just plain stupid or dangerous? The paper will raise a number of issues, be critical of both empiricist and postmodernist extremes, and try to stir discussion about how educational research might valuably adapt to and take account of that which is valuable in the new.

The cultural politics of research in New Zealand Polytechnics

Sharon Harvey, Auckland Institute of Technology

Legislative and socieetal changes have transformed New Zealand polytechnics almost beyond recognition ove the last ten years. They are now able to offer degrees and post-graduate qualifications. The large New Zealand polytechnics, eager to upgrade their status and compete on a "level playing field" in the mass education market, have seized the opportunity, offering an ever-increasing smorgasboard of graduate and post-graduate qualifications. New Zealand Qualifications Authority validation of these programmes requires staff teaching at and above the graduate level to be "actively engaged in research". Concomitantly, the polytechnic drive for university status demands that these institutions have a "worthy" resezrch record. This requirement for academic staff to be researchers has been and still is a shock to many. It is one of the most significant and yet under-documented changes in the tertiary sector.

This presentation seeks to problematise the notion of research as it is currently constituted in New Zealand tertiary institutions, with special reference to New Zealand polytechnics. It analyses the publicly held and documented notions of research and knowledge, questioning how relevent these are in light of contemporary philosophical debates over the status of knowledge and by association, research. Specifically, it seeks to explore the following problems:

1. What is research and how might the current meta-narratives of research in education be interrogated? i.e. that research and therefore more knowledge is beneficial; that research informs teaching; that teachers need to research to be effective; that researching people with a different owrld view than one's own is unproblematical; that research can and ought to be measured in terms of "outputs"; that quantitative research is mor valuable and believable than qualitative forms of investigation; that greater research funding indicates better and more research; that research exists in particular categories and hierarchies of usefulness to the institution and society in general.
2. What societal, legislative and associated discoursal changes have led to the large New Zealand polytechnics reconstituting themselves in the way that they have, particularly in regards to research? Whose interests do the changes serve?

This paper will be of interest to anyone teaching and/or researching in tertiary education. They are encouraged to share their own views with others in discussion following the presentation.

HATTE528

The status of teachers in rural and regional areas: A comparison between the perceptions of teachers and community members

Elizabeth Hatton, R Meyenn, J Parker, J Sutton, M Gard and K Maher, Charles Sturt University

There has been much recent concern about the status of teaching (consider, for example, the current Federal Senate Review). The status of teaching is shaped, amongst other things, by teachers' and community members' perceptions. Because of concerns that recent empirical research which might be drawn on to address the issue of the status of teaching focuses exclusively on teachers and urban teachers at that (see, for example, Dinham and Scott, 1996), it was decided that it was timely to revisit the issue in rural and regional areas and to include community members in the study. This paper reports the perceptions held by teachers and community members of the status of teachers in rural and regional areas. It identifies areas in which there are similarities in perceptions and areas in which there are differences. Implications for policy are drawn from these findings.

In whose interests - school reform and teachers' learning?: Whole school reform as a site of negotiation of interests

Robert Hattam, John Smyth, Peter McInerney, and Michael Lawson, Flinders University of South Australia

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 27, Reclaiming the space for teachers' dialogic learning in schools.

HAYDJ061

Teaching for diversity - Research versus practice in the early school years: Structural and systemic issues. A case study from New South Wales

Jacqueline Hayden, University of Western Sydney, Nepean

This paper presents the findings from a study of three teachers who reported a commitment to utilising individualised teaching strategies in the public school system in NSW. Personal journals, interviews and observations were used to analyse the situations in which these teachers found themselves.

The need to deal with a culture which emphasised curriculum over developmental goals presented a major challenge. The teachers describe their attempts to make sense of their situation, their concerns, their perceptions of themselves and others. The findings from this case study suggest a review of systemic and structural variables which support and/or constrain teachers in their pursuit of appropriate teaching strategies for divergent classrooms.

The relationship between knowledge, purpose and qualitative research design

Felicity Haynes, The University of Western Australia

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 8, Issues in qualitative research.

Exploring gender and phenomenography

Elizabeth Hazel, University of Technology, Sydney, Linda Conrad, Griffith University and Elaine Martin, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Phenomenographic research has been used in two main ways in science education: to look at what is learned (for example students' conceptions of acceleration) and to look at the experience of being a student or teacher of science. A critical feature of phenomenographic research is the generation of the "outcome space" in which the results of the study are summarised. The central idea underlying this exploration of gender and phenomenography is that women may be "lost in space" - the phenomenographic outcome space. First, women seem to be literally missing in the majority of phenomenographic studies, especially those based in the physical sciences where women are under-represented and in research samples in which women have not been present. Second, the traditional disciplines of study, the values of which largely determine the structure of the typically hierarchical outcome space, are distinctly patriaarchal. Without attention to the hidden as well as the explicit aspects of what learners are coming to know, the understanding that we gain from the outcome space may be distorted. Third, the outcome space tends to be defined in cognitive terms, with such dimensions as the affective and aesthetic, often associated with women, being excluded or neglected.

The architecture of mental addition and subtraction

Ann Heirdsfield and Tom Cooper, Queensland University of Technology

Research has shown that mental computation is a valid computational method which contributes to mathematical thinking as a whole (e.g., Sowder, 1990). It is also a process for which young children have exhibited a variety of proficient spontaneous strategies contrary to instruction (Cooper, Heirdsfield, & Irons, 1996a). This paper reports on a series of three studies on young children's understanding of mental addition and subtraction and describes the mental architecture of a proficient mental computer. The first of these studies charted children's proficiency with and use of mental strategies with respect to instruction (Cooper, Heirdsfield, & Irons, 1996b; Heirdsfield & Cooper, 1996). The second and third related knowledge of mental computation to knowledge of number and numeration, concepts of addition and subtraction, basic facts, computational estimation, and mental representations of number and operation (Heirdsfield, 1996; Heirdsfield, in preparation). Analysis of the first study showed that children's strategy use is idiosyncratic, but influenced by instructional emphases, experience and presentation forms; particularly in relation to the strategies underlying pen-and-paper algorithm procedures. Analysis of the second study identified a relationship between proficiency in mental computation, number fact knowledge and computational estimation. Initial analysis of the third study, which involves detailed construction of mental models, is indicating a more complex interaction.

HEMMB125

Students succeeding at university during `new times'

Brian Hemmings, Charles Sturt University

The study reported here is a continuation of a longitudinal study of senior secondary school students and the factors which influenced their decision to stay on at or leave school during Years 11 and 12.

Riverina-based students (N=125) in the original study were contacted to determine whether or not they pursued tertiary studies. Those who enrolled in university courses were then surveyed in order to: (i)ascertain if they were satisfied with their university experience; (ii) determine the extent to which these students were successful in completing their first year of university study; and, (iii) isolate the main intrapersonal and environmental factors which explain and predict success in first year university studies. Additionally, a sub-sample of these respondents (N=15) was interviewed to elucidate the contextual details and amplify aspects of the survey data. The results of the surveys and interviews are presented and implications for those who work with students from rural areas are discussed.

Does bus start with /CH/?: Dealing with randomly focused learning in the classroom

Christine Ludwig, Education Queensland and Paul Herschell, Queensland University of Technology

There is little doubt that learning is enhanced when it is contextualised in ways that make it accessible to students. However, analysis of the classroom transcripts from recent research (Ludwig and Herschell 1996) revealed that much of that contextualisation was only loosely related to a set of learning objectives. In the classroom data there was a large degree of blurring of focuses which made it difficult for many students to identify and make portable appropriate learning content. Rather than making the learning accessible, the integration seems to perpetuate the culturally bound nature of the learning.

In this paper the presenters will argue that this way of organising learning is unique to the school. Comparisons will be made with home literacy events which indicate a more direct and task orientated focus. The result is that there is much less opportunity for the student to fail to identify the learning content, that is, the homework sessions are less about sharing cultural experience and more about getting the job done. It is surprising that in the homework sessions when there is ample opportunity to use shared cultural experience to enhance the learning it is rarely exploited at the expense of the focus of the task or used to refocus the task. Conversely, in the classroom, where cultural experience is diverse and varied, the teacher's version of that experience is used to refocus the lesson.

The paper will problemitise an integrated multifocused approach to learning and teaching which relies on everyday cultural experience for its major direction.

HICKA380

When Marxist and postmodern theories won't do: The potential of postcolonial theory for educational analysis

Anne Hickling-Hudson, Queensland University of Technology

This paper explores the potential of postcolonial theory as a way of researching education in 'new times'. Arguing that postmodern perspectives tend to ignore or deal inadequately with the crippling effects of colonialism, the paper discusses how postcolonial perspectives can both fill this gap, and at the same time utilise many of the ideas which have come to be associated with postmodernism. It applies postcolonial theory to analysing education in the 'South', using the case study of the Caribbean region to suggest how the theory can be developed in a eclectic yet systematic way to meet the particular needs of postcolonial regions. A postcolonial perspective illuminates the deep historical / cultural roots of current educational problems, and can therefore be a foundation for working towards their solutions. Whereas postmodern theory tends to be Western centered, postcolonial theory is more sensitive to global history, making a central feature of its analysis the fluid interactions between the colonial and postcolonial periods, and exploring the cultural implications of repossessing the philosophies of civilisations world-wide in order to tackle the problems of present and future.

HICKC032

Football: An untold story

Lindsay Fitzclarence, Christopher Hickey and Russell Matthews, Deakin University

Much is known about the scientific dimensions of preparing for and participating in a game of football. The mathematical, physiological, biomechanical and psychological factors that comprise performance are fodder for coaches, would-be coaches, players, pundits and other followers of the game. At the same time the increasing commodification of the game means it is also common-place to know each players favourite, drink, food, music, book and nite-spot. Further, there is considerable investment in the packaging and propagating of football myths and folklores. Through all of these analyses, reflections, embellishments and anecdotes it is reasonable to assume that football as a social and cultural practice is widely understood.

What is less clear, however, is the full extent to which football acts as a socialising agent. Much is written about the socialising impact of the families, schools and work-sites, but rarely are sporting institutions given the prominence they clearly warrant. In relation to football, little is known about who is socialised, how socialisation takes place and what the socialisation experience means to different people. In this paper we take-up these issues in the context of a U/15 football team using a method we title 'narrative pedagogy'.

HICKC239

Exploring critical pedagogies in physical education within the limits to change

Christopher Hickey, Deakin University

'Critical' scholars within the physical education arena frequently base their versions of pedagogy on a 'world view' of the potential for agents to engage in a rational reordering of their qualitative existence. The essence of their claim is that critical discourses have the potential to facilitate a heightened level of consciousness through which physical education teachers might better recognise, understand, critique and transform their values and practices. However, there is increasing recognition (even from within this tradition) that the translation of social-critical discourses into a pedagogical practices is highly problematic.

In seeking to temper the 'over-rationalistic' tendencies of the critical project this paper identifies the historical, embedded, embodied and traditional nature of human existence. A prominent dimension of this theorising is the promotion of a dialectical relationship between agency and structure as a means of practically advancing critical pedagogies in physical education. Drawing on the experiences of physical education students involved in a teacher education program this paper concludes with some broad recommendations pertaining to the practical application of social critical discourses in constructing (theorising and implementing) physical education pedagogies.

Evaluating students' science work - the importance of what you already know

Ruth Hickey, Murdoch University

This research examines the premise that teachers can make accurate and effective judgements about students' conceptual development in science. Primary and secondary teachers, of high and low levels of science education, responded to three science tasks involving aspects of heat and light energy, combustion and insulation. They were then asked to evaluate transcripts of students of unknown backgrounds, from primary and secondary, for the same three tasks.

Initial responses to the tasks were then compared to their assessment of students' work. Response patterns emerged that were linked to the level of the teachers' science education. These included classic and novel misconceptions, which affected what was noticed - or not noticed - in student work. Non-recognition of critical evidence of higher level concepts of the students was a key issue. Teachers with high levels of science education became insecure with transcripts that included intuitive responses, particularly when these were out of their specialised field. For others, there was confusion with students who presented beliefs and explanations counter to the ones the teachers' held.

This research supports the view that teachers are compromised in their skills when evaluating students' science work, in relation to their own level of science knowledge.

HOBAG229

SYMPOSIUM 18: Sustaining teachers' professional development: Exploring action learning and mentoring to maintain workplace learning

Participants: Garry Hoban, Charles Sturt University, Chris Tome, Oberon High School, and Mark Carter, NSW Department of School Education

Overview:
Teachers' professional development should be a continuous process to sustain their workplace learning. In this symposium, two approaches will be examined that have been used to maintain teachers' workplace learning.

The first approach is action learning that involves small groups of teachers reflecting on their practice and meeting regularly to share their ideas and actions. One paper focuses on action learning with a small high school science faculty and another paper used action learning with beginning teachers. The second approach explored the use of school-based mentoring on the induction of beginning teachers.

The strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches will be discussed.

Sustaining teachers' professional development through enhanced action learning

Garry Hoban, Charles Sturt University

This paper describes a process of teacher learning called enhanced action learning (Hoban, 1996) that sustained the professional development of three teachers in a small high school science faculty over a period of three years. Action learning is underpinned by three interrelated principles of learning-Reflection, Community and Action-that enrich each other to produce continuous and holistic professional development (McGill & Beaty, 1995; Pedlar, 1991; Revans, 1982). In this study the action learning process was further enhanced by feedback in the form of interview data from the teachers' own students describing their positive and negative learning experiences across the school. The program resulted in substantial changes in the teaching of science at the school such as a new grade 7-10 curriculum, instructional strategies, assessment and writing policies.

PAPER 2:

Action learning and the professional development of beginning teachers: Some preliminary observations

Chris Tome, Oberon High School

Although the first year of teaching is crucial in shaping professional practice, learning is often ad hoc and unsupported (Bullough, 1989, 1992). In this study the author has applied principles and techniques of action learning (McGill & Beaty, 1995; Pedlar, 1992; Revans, 1983) to provide a program of professional development for beginning teachers in a state high school in NSW.

Action learning has a long history of usage in industry, particularly in the ranks of middle management, as an effective technique for providing useful professional development (Zuber-Skerrit, 1993). In recent years there has been an upsurge in its use, particularly with MBA programs in a variety of British and North American universities. Its application in other educational settings, however is limited.

Using action learning as a framework, four beginning teachers met on a fortnightly basis to reflect on their practice and share their ideas. These meetings resulted in the teachers experimenting with ideas that were discussed again at subsequent meetings. The teachers believed that the group provided valuable support in their first year of teaching practice.

PAPER 3:

School based induction and mentoring of beginning teachers: Preliminary findings from case study research

Mark Carter, NSW Department of School Education

Induction programs for beginning teachers have emerged as an area of critical importance given the ageing of Australian teachers and the debate over teacher professionalism and approaches to teacher registration. Recent developments in research and practices in teacher induction have required a reconceptualisation of approaches to professional learning for beginning teachers. Traditional conceptions of teacher induction have incorporated the notion of the transmission of craft knowledge and have resulted in the initiation and socialisation of beginning teachers into existing school cultures and forms of knowledge.

The 1997 induction program developed by the NSW Department of School Education acknowledges the need to accommodate both the technical aspects of teaching and the development of critical reflection on the part of beginning teachers and their mentors and supervisors. A research project is being conducted in urban and isolated rural settings in NSW. The research project includes focuses on mentoring and workplace learning as strategies for teacher professional development. The paper explores the implications of the project for induction practices in schools and examines the workplace learning experiences of beginning teachers and mentors. Preliminary findings outlined in the paper will inform future school based induction practices and provide a guide to further research into teacher induction.

Sustaining teachers' professional development through enhanced action learning

Garry Hoban, Charles Sturt University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 18, Sustaining teachers' professional development: Exploring action learning and mentoring to maintain workplace learning.

Secondary school teachers' perceptions of the characteristics of good schools

Ho Boon Tiong, Ministry of Education, Singapore and Low Guat Tin, National Institute of Education, Singapore

Many research studies on effective schools have yielded lists of characteristics of good or effective schools. However, these characteristics were identified mainly by the researchers, the principals or the local educational authorities. Very few studies were done where the characteristics of effective schools were identified by the teachers. This present study addresses this lack of information concerning teachers' perceptions of the characteristics of good schools and aims to identify what teachers in Singapore secondary schools perceive to be characteristics of good schools and the level of relative importance they perceive each characteristic to have. Four research questions were posed.

This exploratory study was carried out in two phases. The construct,teachers' perceptions of the relative importance of the characteristics of good schools, was measured by the ordinal rating scores on a 5-point Likert scale. These formed the dependent variables. The independent variables used were gender, the type of school and the length of service. Two hundred and twenty teachers were surveyed in Phase One and another 403 teachers sampled in Phase Two.

One major finding is that teachers consistently perceived the STAFF dimension to be an important characteristic of good schools; particularly referring to principals who were fair and firm in making decisions and who distributed duties fairly among teachers. Another significant finding is that teachers with length of service of 15 or more years consistently rated all dimensions (except CURRICULUM dimension) of lesser importance than did teachers with "low" (0-4 years) or "medium" (5-14) length of service. Gender was found to have no effect on the dependent variable.

HOGAD254

The social demography of citizenship and education in Australia

David Hogan, University of Tasmania

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 21, Understanding civic learning and its social context: Current research in civics and citizenship education.

HOLBA108

SYMPOSIUM 19: Supervision of postgraduate research in education

Chairpersons: Susan Johnston, University of Canberra and Allyson Holbrook, University of Newcastle

Contributors: Susan Johnston, University of Canberra, Martin Bibby, University of New South Wales, Tania Aspland, Queensland University of Technology, Terry Evans, Deakin University and Margot Pearson, Australian National University , (Possibly Sharon Perry and Martin Hayden, and Bill Green, Alison Lee and Barbara Kamler, Deakin University)

Overview:
Researching education in the future will be in the hands of those who are now undertaking research degrees. In recent times we have become more and more aware of the need to make visible the methods by which candidates are supervised. Indeed, this is in itself becoming the subject of research. In order to contribute to the debate on quality of supervision, this symposium brings together a group of papers that address a wide range of issues concerned with supervision in the field of Education.

PAPER 1:

JOHNS166

Postgraduate supervision in education - Are we different?

Sue Johnston, University of Canberra

This paper will provide an overview of the literature and reports on postgraduate supervision, highlighting issues of particular relevance to those supervising postgraduate students in education. Over the years, the literature has provided a range of perspectives on postgraduate supervision although, in many respects, the same issues keep arising without much progress necessarily being made. Given the increase in postgraduate student numbers within Faculties of Education throughout Australia, it is essential to identify what issues are common across all disciplines and what issues may be particularly relevant to postgraduate supervision within education. In the context of quality assurance, it is also important to consider how the quality of postgraduate supervision is monitored and how the standard performance indicators in this area impact on Faculties of Education.

PAPER 2:

BIBBM179

Impotence and the driven snow: Ethical quandaries in supervising research students in an imperfect society

Martin Bibby, University of New South Wales

Standard issues about research supervision concern the extent and quality of input by the supervisor and the ownership of intellectual property. There are new concerns about the acceptance of students, their career prospects, the conditions under which they work, pressures for high success and publication rates and early completion, and the demands upon academics' time. Competent education research requires a substantial knowledge of at least one sub-discipline and a good knowledge of others. It requires time, and motivation to complete a long and arduous process. A research thesis requires these things of both the student and the supervisor. But students who seek to do education research are typically ill-prepared. They have perhaps a Dip. Ed. and some Master's courses. They work, and have family responsibilities. Requiring coursework costs them money. Research degrees give them little advantage in Australian school or administration careers. Academic careers have lost their attractiveness. There are new concerns. Supervision competes with other tasks in the academic's crowded work life. Governments press for early completion and high success rates, and for greater "productivity". Yet rejecting students is expensive. These things threaten standards, education policy and the quality of future academics. The resultant moral dilemmas are explored. No easy solutions are found.

PAPER 3:

ASPLT200

Struggling within supervisory relationships: Stories from Asian women

Tania Aspland, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will explore how a number of Asian women students construct their supervisory relations in response to the images they perceived their supervisors to have of them. It will also explore how these perceptions become socially and culturally organised through the pedagogical practices of supervision, and how such practices produce and reproduce supervisory practices that are characterised by ambivalence; an ambivalence that arises from uncertainty, conflict, and the contradictory experiences that are central to the different positioning of each woman within supervisory relations. It will be argued that being an Asian student located within Australian supervisory relations means being positioned in the 'grey area of inclusion and exclusion'. The stories illustrate how each subject makes sense of the contradictory images that she experiences as self and 'other' within her everyday supervisory experiences. Each woman experiences 'bifurcated' images of herself as she struggles with the specificity of various subject positions within the hybrid world of supervisory relations. This paper will theorise the ways in which their identities become 'bifurcated' and 'othered' as they attempted to find a comfortable supervisory space.

PAPER 4:

EVANT283

Off-campus supervised research and advanced study

Terry Evans, Deakin University and Margot Pearson, Australian National University

Among the changes to postgraduate research in education is a trend to off-campus study. The context within which this change is occurring is outlined in the paper, including changing demands by the community and student body, and the increasing internationalising of research and education. The authors address the nature and extent of off-campus supervised research and study in general and the situation in Education in particular. The issues discussed include national ones of funding and resources, the diversification of higher education, quality assurance and professional expectations. Institutional issues comprise what constitutes a doctorate in education, supervisor selection, quality control, and the meaning of accreditation. Other issues pertaining to students and to supervisors and the processes involved in supervision in general are also explored. The authors conclude by examining the question: 'Are quality and flexibility compatible?'.

Portfolio benchmarking of teacher education courses

Deborah Corrigan, Monash University and Brenda Cherednichenko, Neil Hooley, Tony Kruger and Christine Leece, Victoria University of Technology

Benchmarking is usually associated with a systematic and cyclical process utilised by industrial and commercial institutions to improve their economic performance, increasingly with a global perspective. The process assumes an emerging strategic plan for change and can include a focus mix of management vision, consultation with the workforce and clients, integration of latest technologies, improved training programs and more adaptable and responsive administrative structures. Benchmarking can be undertaken within the enterprise itself, with other similar organisations nationally or internationally, or against generic best practice processes wherever they exist in quite disparate situations. While economic benchmarking can be found in some higher education institutions in Australia, a coherent approach to educational benchmarking in regard to the quality of teaching and learning outcomes is not yet established. Throughout 1997, Monash University and Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, embarked upon a five-step change process of educational benchmarking as a means of reviewing the quality of pre-service teacher education courses. The central feature of this process is the construction of a philosophical and reflective teaching portfolio by all student teachers. A description of the portfolio benchmarking implementation procedure is given, together with a discussion of findings and proposals for a continuing research program.

HOOLN339

Collaborative teacher research and school change

Merv Fogarty, Jan Millwater, Allan Yarrow and Merv Wilkinson, Queensland University of Technology and Brenda Cherednichenko, Neil Hooley, Tony Kruger and Rod Moore, Victoria University of Technology

Research teams from Victoria University of Technology and Queensland University of Technology, in collaboration with the National Schools Network as industry partner, are involved in a three-year study funded by an Australian Research Council Collaborative Grant, to investigate the relationship between school structures and improved student learning outcomes. The two research teams are working with eight schools in Queensland, Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria and have adopted case study, teacher case and commentary writing and the collection of student work samples as data gathering techniques. The methodology is collaborative and participatory interpretive research whereby collaborative research teams of university and school personnel describe school and classroom practice in writing, analyse the representations of teaching and learning so obtained and negotiate tentative theoretical understandings of school life on which proposals for change are based. Frameworks of analysis that integrate both sociological and epistemological factors are being developed which are subject to ongoing refinement. A feature of the research and analytical frameworks at this stage is the slightly different approach being pursued by each team which, the teams intend, will be amalgamated into an integrated methodology as the research continues.

HOPKS143

The adolescent learning disabled student and simple addition performance: Performance under pressure?

Sarah Hopkins, Flinders University of South Australia

The delay-deficit issue associated with a math disability is consequential in educational practice. Whilst exploring patterns of delay and difference amongst a group of learning disabled (LD) adolescents, a distinct pattern of reaction time (RT) variability emerged. To illustrate: one student aged

15 years repeatedly performed the sum 6+9 using a Min counting procedure and corresponding RTs ranged from 4.2 seconds to 21.9 seconds; another student aged 17 years, repeatedly performed the sum 2+9 using a retrieval strategy and RTs ranged from 2.8 to 4.6 seconds. What factors would account for such variability given that strategy use was comparable? Six students received individual, daily practice on simple addition sums over a period of a month. Detailed information was collected, including RT data and self reports recorded on a trial by trial basis. In this paper, the concept of 'Pressure' is introduced to account for patterns of variable RTs and results of analyses supporting the influence of proposed pressure factors are presented. These findings have significant implications for the delay/deficit debate and are discussed in terms of contributing to a resolution of this debate and the implications for teaching LD students addition facts.

HORTL524

Culture shock: The maladaptive academic response to new industrial times

Linda Hort, Griffith University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 29, Re-inventing academic work: The makeover of tertiary teachers.

HOTCS022

Creating new times for humanity: Praxis research for self-determination, relationships, leadership and social change

Shirley Hotchkiss, Queensland University of Technology

It's clear that what we know can provide a useful basis for what we do. Yet despite our vast capacity for clear thinking and for loving, co-operative relationships, we humans can act in ways that we know are harmful to ourselves and others, or we act on 'knowledge' that is not useful. This paper reports a PhD research project as praxis, the deliberate use of resereach to implement change in a community education context, where the researcher was also the teacher and participant. The change method I introduced to participants reflected the methodology, the idea that the research process enables participants to pursue their change aims. Information from participants' experiences of this change process showed that: feelings are significant in what we know and do, and so provide the key to changing behaviour that is not useful; widespread social change to enable all of us to have enjoyable lives is an inevitable result of this self-change process, and; the change process itself can be fun and fulfilling. This information enabled the development of a model for change. The change method used and the change model developed provides us with a reliable process for change, beginning with ourselves.

Mathematics and manipulatives: Comparing primary and secondary mathematics teachers' views

Bob Perry, University of Western Sydney Macarthur and Peter Howard, Australian Catholic University

This paper continues the author's research agenda introduced in 1994 to investigate teachers' beliefs about mathematics, mathematics learning and mathematics teaching. Focus is given to data collected in 1996 and 1997 which investigated the views of more than seven hundred primary and secondary mathematics teachers in the south western suburbs of Sydney and the North Coast of New South Wales towards the use of manipulatives in the learning and teaching of mathematics.

Current mathematics curriculum documents support the availability to and use of manipulatives by students and teachers in their learning and teaching of mathematics through all school years. This paper provides data on the current use of manipulatives in the surveyed primary and secondary schools and compares primary and secondary mathematics teachers' responses about their use of manipulatives in the learning and teaching of mathematics. Questions about the effect of differences in this use on the transition of students from primary to secondary schools will be addressed.

Aboriginal educators: Voices in our schools

Peter Howard, Australian Catholic University

This paper reports on an ethnographic study undertaken in a rural community in New South Wales. The study investigated the expressed beliefs of Aboriginal parents, Aboriginal Educators, Aboriginal children and their teachers towards the learning and teaching of mathematics in Years 5 and 6 of primary school. The researcher lived in the community for a year of the study negotiating appropriate protocols and consulting with various groups before interviewing participants. Where permission was given interviews were audio taped, transcribed and through analysis seventeen categories for classifying participant comments emerged.

This paper reports specifically on the views expressed by Aboriginal Educators related to the categories of Learning, Teaching, Context and Family Concerns in the context of Aboriginal children's school achievement. Among several stated issues those of teacher - student relationship, teacher consistency, expectations and learning styles emerge as factors influencing Aboriginal children's learning. Though the comments were in the context of the learning and teaching of mathematics they have significant implications for educators, parents and the community in the overall learning of many Aboriginal children.

"Aboriginal ways of learning" - Learning styles and needs of Aboriginal

students

Paul Hughes, AM., Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research, The Flinders University of South Australia, and Arthur J. More, University of British Columbia, Canada

The purpose of this presentation is to describe an approach which uses learning styles as one component of working with culturally diverse, special needs students, ie Aboriginal. The presentation describes the links between learning styles and culture, as well as between culture and special needs.

The primary advantage of using a learning styles approach is that it helps the teacher to identify and build on strengths of the learner - strengths related to cultural background, and strengths that occur despite, or because of, the student's special need. This approach is particularly useful when formal assessments of the students' special needs are not possible, such as geographically isolated areas, because it does not rely on external assessment by specialists.

Definition of learning styles - There are many definitions of learning styles (More, 1990). Furthermore many authors fail to define the term at all. We have operationally defined two related terms for this paper - Ways of learning are the mental processes and instructional settings which a student uses while learning. Mental processes include organizing, perceiving, coding, remembering and reasoning.

Instructional settings include formal or informal, warm or impersonal, cooperative or competitive.

Learning styles are ways of learning in which the student has a strength, and is more competent.

The model - Learning styles are made up of many dimensions and are usually presented on a series of continuums. We focus on the following four dimensions because they seem to have the closest link to cultural differences:

1. Global Analytic
2. Verbal Imaginal
3. Concrete Abstract
4. Trial & Feedback Reflective

Application to the classroom - A four step process has been developed for using the model as a positive way of assisting minority culture students. Step 1 involves identifying the learning styles of the individual learners. This is done, first, by using the learning style and teaching style inventories. Second, it involves looking at the cultures of the students (traditional and contemporary; homeland and new home) for ways of learning which are more likely to be learning styles; but the teacher must not assume that every individual will have these learning styles. Step 2 entails the teacher matching teaching styles to student learning styles for difficult learning tasks. Step 3 is comprised of strengthening weaker ways of learning, because sometimes the nature of the learning task requires a particular way of learning even if it is not a strength. Step 4 involves helping the students become aware of their strengths and helping them to develop learning style selection strategies.

HUYP197

Self-efficacy as a contribution to the selection of maths/non-maths related career choice

Huy Phan, University of Sydney

The role of cognitive mechanisms, especially self- efficacy, has been gaining a lot of support and attention from career psychologists in understanding career-related beliefs, career interests, decision making skills, and career development. Self-efficacy refers to "people's judgments of their capabilities to organise and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances" (Bandura, 1986). Bandura's self-efficacy theory (1986 ) has been seen as a significant influence not only towards career decision making and career choice but also the development of core predictors such as interests, values and goals (Lent, Brown & Hackett, 1994). As people's self-efficacy increases in relations to their educational requirements and career roles, they will have wider career options and interests in pursuing those options (Betz &Hackett, 1981; Lent, Brown & Hackett, 1994; Matsui, Ikeda & Ohnishi, 1989). What this entitles is the rationale that academic development is viewed as unifying and developing with career development. Interests and skills developed at an early age set in motion and translated into later development especially career development (Lent, Brown & Hackett, 1994).

IBRAM290

The use of HTML in language learning

Mohd Jais Ibrahim, University of Technology of Malaysia, and Hanita Hassan, FPPSM

Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project recently announced by the Malaysian Government has an immediate impact on the trend of education in Malaysia. In conjunction with that, smart schools will be built and these schools are claimed to be furnished with an internet system and fully computer-based.

Teachers are expected to be facilitators rather than supplying information. This is to provide the nation with better information technology communication skills. Consequently the needs arise to develop learning materials on internet. This paper will illustrate the materials developed using hypertext mark-up language (HTML) for UTM students to learn English language. This is a project done in a way to incorporate language learning into information technology. The purpose for having learning materials on internet is threefold such as to expose students to web world, to be used at the self-access centre or for self-directed learning and lastly it will be worth for distance learning programme. As now UTM specially the department of modern languages is developing its self-access centre and moving towards self-learning methods since the number of students is increasing. Besides that, UTM is also offering distance learning courses for those who are not permitted to take study leave.

School self-management and the development of professional community: Some effects of the Professional Recognition Program in Victoria

Lawrence Ingvarson, Monash University, and Rod Chadbourne, Edith Cowan University

In 1992 the newly elected state government of Victoria in Australia introduced a system of self-managing schools, called Schools of the Future. This paper provides some preliminary findings about a new program for managing staff in Schools of the Future. The Professional Recognition Program (PRP) , as it is called, provides guidelines for self-managing schools on how they are to carry out their new responsibilities for managing teacher performance.

The central features of the PRP include a new three level career structure from probation to leading teacher, annual performance reviews and bonuses, and an enhanced authority for principals in teacher selection, evaluation and promotion.

The main focus for this research was the relationship between moves toward school self-management and the development of professional community in schools. We use Louis, Kruse and Marks (1996) and Darling-Hammond's definitions of professional communities. Smylie's (1994) review of work redesign provides the conceptual framework for the study. Findings are based on interviews with 25 staff in four high schools and a survey of 350 teachers and principals in twenty high schools.

ISDAL054

Theorising new work practices in educational administration: The case of SMS in Queensland

Lindy Isdale, Central Queensland University

Since the 1900s, as global politics has become increasingly manifest in school policy, the work of school administrative staff has become increasingly technologised. The new computerised School Management System (SMS), introduced into Queensland schools in 1996, is not an adjunct to existing administrative practices but requires new administrative attentions and practices to be developed in school offices. These changes have received little attention from researchers to date but, nevertheless, are of far more significance to our understandings of schools as workplaces than are the more frequent studies of corporatisation and globalism in general.

This paper draws on aspects of a larger study of school administrations and SMS, looking specifically at the initial stages of its introduction and the newly emerging work practices and relations which arise out of workers' associations with the new technology.

The paper investigates the use of Latour's Actor Network Theory, Foucault's concept of power/knowledge and post-fordist work theory to explore the translations which occur between large policy networks and the local school SMS project as workers and technology seek to enrol one another in their respective interests. The study is then able to specify the concrete associations and new work practices, building new ways to iterrogate the broader globalisation literature and that of educational administration.

ISDAL479

Theorising new work practices in educational administration: The case of School Management System (SMS) in Queensland

Lindy Isdale, Central Queensland University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 7, Towards a theoretical framework for researching computers in educational administration.

'They're all the same ... but different!' - A study of intertextuality and its links with literacy in the kindergarten classroom

Sharyn Jameson, University of Western Sydney

This paper will provide an overview of the formation and progression of a qualitative research project being undertaken to study literacy development in a kindergarten classroom.

The study focuses upon the social construction of literacy in a NSW kindergarten classroom where I ws both teacher and researcher in 1995.

The study began with the broad aim of examining factors that influenced literacy development in this classroom. Data collection began at the beginning of the school year in 1995 and was completed at the end of the same year. The data is currently being analysed using a qualitative research computer program. As the analysis proceeded, the study narrowed to focus upon 'intertextuality' - a term used to describe the connections made between texts. The study is exploring the intertextuality that occurred frequently in this classroom, and its links with literacy learning.

This presentation will describe the progress of this study from its broad beginning to its current status of focussing on intertextuality in the kindergarten classroom. The seminar will comprise:

Introduction and description of the study

Research methodology

Intertextuality - Definition, Theory amd other studies

Intertextuality in this current study

Study Progress and Future Directions

Researching the affect of new technologies on teaching practice: an approach to understanding the video conferencing classroom

Peter Jamieson and Elaine Martin, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Previous research into teaching by video conferencing has focused on the role and affect of the technology on how teachers teach in this environment. Learning to teach by this medium has been represented as the acquisition of appropriate media and technology skills. This paper describes current research using the phenomenographic approach into the way that teachers experience teaching in the cross-campus video conferencing classroom. Initial findings will be presented which show that teachers are concerned with a number of key aspects of the broader context, including the physical setting, apart from the technology itself. These findings have considerable implications for academic development programs concerned with video conferencing and other telecommunications media where teachers and students are physically separated from one another in the teaching and learning transaction.

JEANB333

On teaching action research in higher degree programs

Bruce Jeans, Deakin University

In the last twenty five years there has been a concerted challenge to the dominance of the logical positivist paradigm for research in schooling and education. University departments of education that offer qualitative methodologies often include action research as a significant "alternative" methodology. Although action research is popular with education students, they often find it difficult to actually do it in a way that is consistent with the underlying principles. This paper reports data derived from systematic observations over three years of student beliefs about, and perceptions of action research. The data show clearly that both groups of students share some common misunderstandings about action research. The role of language in these misunderstandings is considered. The data also illustrate the importance of cultural context (organisational and socio-political) in the design and conduct of action research. The author argues that the teaching of action research can be improved by studies that contextualise action research as a research methodology and that provide practical opportunities to conduct small scale action research projects. The paper also discusses the implications of these data for Australian universities involved in the "export" of higher education to South East Asia.

JEANB335

On university teaching

Bruce Jeans, Deakin University

Universities sometimes use images of high status researchers to attract students - the assumption being that students would be enriched by being in the same institution as these researchers. Images of high quality teachers are not used in the same way. This paper presents a theoretical model of relationships between research and teaching. It then presents data derived from systematic observations of undergraduate and postgraduate education students over five years. The data show that Australian undergraduate students are much more likely to be influenced by the presence of an effective teacher rather than by the aura of a seldom sighted researcher. For these students an effective teacher combines personal qualities of "student-centredness" with technical competence in selecting, organising and presenting appropriate material. Students believe that a positive relationship with their teacher is an important determinant of their progress. Postgraduate students have similar feelings about this personal-professional relationship. However, postgraduate students are much more conscious of the mentoring role of their advisor/tutor in introducing them to the research community. They prefer advisors/tutors who combine teaching and research competence. If this is not possible postrgraduate students would prefer an advisory team that combined teachers and researchers.

JEANB334

Brother can you spare a dime?: Exporting higher education

Bruce Jeans, Deakin University

Australia has been a relatively recent exporter of fee-for service university programs. Universities engaged in this activity expect it to be income-generating. For this reason there is intense interest in finding new markets, optimising income and providing quality. Deakin University provides university programs to overseas students in a number of ways. This paper deals with one particular way - the provision of a doctoral program on-site in an overseas university. In 1994 Deakin University and Khon Kaen University in the north-east of Thailand commenced a structured, research-only Doctor of Education on the Khon Kaen campus. The six semester program consists of five semesters on campus at Khon Kaen and not less than one-semester on-campus at Deakin University in Australia. The program is conducted in English with some Thai as appropriate. Each of the on-campus semesters at Khon Kaen centres on a three-week seminar conducted by Deakin University staff. Each student has a supervisor from KKU and a supervisor from DU. The paper discusses the origins of the program, the nature of the program, its implementation and progress, and the costs and benefits. The difficulty of producing income equal to or in excess of costs is highlighted.

JEANB335

On university teaching

Bruce Jeans, Deakin University

Universities sometimes use images of high status researchers to attract students - the assumption being that students would be enriched by being in the same institution as these researchers. Images of high quality teachers are not used in the same way. This paper presents a theoretical model of relationships between research and teaching. It then presents data derived from systematic observations of undergraduate and postgraduate education students over five years. The data show that Australian undergraduate students are much more likely to be influenced by the presence of an effective teacher rather than by the aura of a seldom sighted researcher. For these students an effective teacher combines personal qualities of "student-centredness" with technical competence in selecting, organising and presenting appropriate material. Students believe that a positive relationship with their teacher is an important determinant of their progress. Postgraduate students have similar feelings about this personal-professional relationship. However, postgraduate students are much more conscious of the mentoring role of their advisor/tutor in introducing them to the research community. They prefer advisors/tutors who combine teaching and research competence. If this is not possible postrgraduate students would prefer an advisory team that combined teachers and researchers.

Electronic publication of academic work with particular reference to AARE Conference Papers publishing 1989 - 1997 and the infamous "research quantum"

Peter Jeffery, Swinburne University of Technology

This paper will review the Australian Association for Research in Education's efforts to disseminate members' educational research papers, in print, and particularly on computer disks and via the Internet in the 1980s through 19 The extent of the database of conference papers, indexing, and media used will be covered. Issues regarding electronic publishing of scholarly work will be explored, including attribution and offects of the "research quantum" on electronic publishing of academic work.

AARE published abstracts and full conference papers from members presenting at conferences in print until the late 1980s and then changed to dissemination of conference papers on computer disk. Subsequently the material from each annual conference was also made available via the Internet. During this period, the papers have also been indexed in the Australian Educational Index, by ACER where all available printed [hard-copies] of the papers have been lodged in the ACER Library. This consequently resulted in the works being indexed by ERIC. Since 1993, the collection has been electronically indexed on a server computer for all users within Australia or elsewhere. Since the advent of WWW publishing, plus changes in requirements to establish academic merit via lists of publications and influences from commercially published professional journals, there have been both positive and negative reactions to the AARE dissemination project and its magnanimous academic underpinnings. The paper will outline possible developments for the further dissemination of members' research work through the efforts of the Association.

JEFFP482

"Establishing Change": Third review of the project to introduce educational technological approaches to the provision of higher education at Swinburne at Lilydale

Peter Jeffery, Swinburne University of Technology

The Multi-Modal Learning Project reviewed and reported in this paper, commenced in 1992 at Mooroolbark Campus of Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria, Australia as a pilot project for introduction of educational technological approaches to provision of degree courses offered at the Lilydale Campus from 1996. The project introduced strategies and facilities to permit use of teaching and learning techniques similar to those more frequently used by distance education, in addition to enhanced traditional procedures for use with students who attend campuses frequently for classes of one sort or another. This paper reviews the implementation stage of the project to change the educational practices of academic staff teaching at Swinburne.

Teacher attitudes to correction of spoken errors in the second language classroom

Marie-Therese Jensen, Monash University

Recent research suggests that when learners of a second language receive feedback on errors they make in the classroom, their interlanguage is "pushed" to a stage of greater proficiency. A group of teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages taking part in a larger research study were interviewed about their attitudes to error correction or took part in a workshop where their attitudes were the focus of discussion. The teachers differ in their pathways into adult TESOL and reflect teacher training and teaching experience in their attitudes to error correction. Differences are explored and implications for second language teacher training are discussed.

From police to pal. Changing concepts of Grammar School teacher authority in Sweden

Ulla Johansson, Ume University, Sweden

The aim of this paper is to analyse the changing concepts of grammar school teachers' authority during the period 1927 - 1965, in relation to changes in education and society. The data consists of the debate on discipline problems in a teachers' journal.

The analytic tool used is Weber's three ideal types of authority, eg bureaucratic, traditional, and charismatic authority. I found all these types evident in the debate. Bureaucratic authority was based on formal, impersonal and explicit rules, and connected to the position of the teacher rather than the teacher as a person. Traditional authority rested upon the personal relationship between the teacher and the pupil. The father-son relationship was typical for this type. The notion of charismatic authority lingered on among those claiming that a good teacher would be able to maintain order because of his or her fascinating personality. One could also distinguish a fourth type, professional authority, based on the teachers' expert knowledge in various fields. In the 1960s a fifth type of authority emerged which I have labelled maternal authority, since it was related to qualities usually regarded as belonging to women rather than men.

Researching children: Priorities, principles and practicalities

Bruce Johnson and Susan Howard, University of South Australia

A cursory examination of the abstracts of papers presented at recent conferences of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE, 1997) reveals an interesting phenomenon - children are rarely the prime focus of educational research in Australia despite being central participants in, and consumers of education. There are numerous papers on teachers' experiences, perspectives and practices, policy analyses and critiques, and innovations and reform initiatives, but surprisingly few on children's knowledge and thinking, performance, skill development, their values, beliefs, attitudes, likes, dislikes or even their fads and fancies. In the absence of research on the researchers themselves, we are left to speculate about the possible reasons why this is so. Our hunch is that the induced chaos of rapid and ideologically driven educational change has had the effect of raising other issues and problems above those to do with children's schooling experiences. We also suspect that researching children is perceived by many researchers to be too messy, unpredictable, and constrained by bureaucratic and ethical restrictions.

In this paper, we address the issue of research priorities in education. We also draw on our own research with children to highlight the difficulties and problems associated with directly involving children in educational research. While these may serve to frustrate and challenge those who embark on child centred research, and to discourage other researchers from starting at all, we argue that these difficulties must be endured and addressed to further our knowledge of children and the education process.

Factors that promote childhood resiliency: Insights from a qualitative study

Bruce Johnson and Susan Howard, University of South Australia, and Kaye Johnson, Riverdale R-7 School

Resiliency can be defined as the capacity to successfully adapt in the face of adversity, and to develop social competence despite exposure to severe stressors. The research reported in this paper used focus group interviews with educators, parents and children to explore issues of resiliency and disruptiveness at school. Participants were asked to reflect on their own experiences with children whom they categorised as either 'vulnerable and disruptive', or 'vulnerable but resilient'. By constantly questioning why particular children were disruptive or resilient, a range of salient influences were identified for both 'resilient' or 'disruptive' children. The research confirms the influence of 'protective factors or assets' in children's lives that serve to protect them by either reducing the impact of risks or by changing the way in which children respond to the risks. The research reinforces Winfield's (1994) reflection that 'We need to change our approach from one that emphasises risks, deficits, and psychopathology to one that capitalises on protection, strengths and assets ... To design effective interventions, we must understand how some students persist and succeed in school and in later life despite the overwhelming odds against them'. Suggestions about the school's role in helping children move beyond risk to resiliency are presented.

Academics working with schools: Resolving the tensions

Bruce Johnson and Judy Peters, University of South Australia

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 10, Authentic assessment in middle schooling: Research and curriculum development through university/school research circles.

JOHNL193

SYMPOSIUM 20: Post-colonial pedagogies

Presenters: Lorraine Johnson-Riordan, University of Western Sydney, Debbie Epstein, University of London, and Fazal Rizvi, Monash University

Overview:
The three papers in this symposium will address key issues surrounding post-coloniality and education in "new times" (the Howard/Hanson era) including:

1. anti-racist work in schools in the current political climate;
2. ethnicities, homophobia and the construction of masculinities in educational settings in the UK and South Africa;
3. memory work, autobiography and indigenous students in higher education

Theoretical issues related to "post-coloniality", "race", ethnicity, gender and sexuality will be discussed.

PAPER 1:

"See you on the road...?" Post-colonial pedagogies in the age of Howard and Hanson

Lorraine Johnson-Riordan, University of Western Sydney

Pat Dodson closed the Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne in May this year with the words "See you on the road." But the Convention, and events surrounding it, have brought to the surface crucial questions - ethical, moral, political, epistemological - which impact teacher-cultural workers engaging in de/colonizing pedagogies in classrooms and other pedagogical sites. Drawing on critical tools in feminist postcolonial cultural theories ( about history and truth, memory and forgetting, fact and fiction, denial and justification) this paper offers a meditation on the contemporary scene and suggests possible ways forward.

PAPER 2:

Having what it takes: Homophobia and masculinities in educational settings in the UK and South Africa

Debbie Epstein, University of London

This paper will use ethnographic data from the UK and published (especially auto/biographical) material from South Africa to develop an account of the role of homophobia and ethnicities in the construction of masculinities within educational settings. In particular, it will suggest that recent moral panics around the 'underachievement' of boys are related to the bullying of 'sissies' and 'swots' through the use of homophobic abuse in schools. It will be concerned, too, to trace the ways in which racialized/ethnicized masculine identities shape and are shaped by gender and on the contrasted ways in which notions of 'traditional culture' and 'traditional masculinities' play a part in resistances to racism in the UK and in post-apartheid South Africa.

"See you on the road...?" Post-colonial pedagogies in the age of Howard and Hanson

Lorraine Johnson-Riordan, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 20, Post-colonial pedagogies.

JOHNR121

The heart of the university: Education as a `metadiscipline'

Rosemary Johnston, University of Technology Sydney

The West Review and current and impending cuts to the tertiary sector make it imperative that the position of education at the university nexus is claimed and consolidated. This paper argues that education is a metadiscipline - a 'grand' discipline as we have a 'grand' narrative. Education is overtly concerned with the processes of teaching and researching. It is one of the tasks of the educational researcher to enhance perceptions of this nexus. The current strategic initiatives in the tertiary sector such as flexible learning and work-based learning, are initatives that many education faculties have practised for years and the related systems, procedures and practices are strongly in place both theoretically and practically. Therefore, why are we so backward in coming forward? The paper proposes that those whose focus is education have much to offer the wider university community and that we must seek creative ways to make our presence felt, to develop innovative links and to share our expertise across all faculties. Further, it proposes that education as 'vocation' must be deliberately articulated, and the pejorative associations that the adjective ('vocational') seems to have acquired must equally be deliberately addressed.

JOHNS093

Evaluating curriculum quality: Stakeholder perspectives of an industry sponsored university program

Scott John, Central Queensland University

Curriculum quality in the 'new' university can no longer be considered in terms of academic values and interests alone, but must now also accommodate the perceptions of institutional managers, private sector sponsors and the needs of the institutions' full fee paying 'clients'. To facilitate informed perceptions of program structures and practices, it is imperative that strategies be developed to identify and articulate the changing and different dimensions of higher education quality in the 1990s.

The paper will report on work in progress of a doctoral study that develops, implements and critically reviews the feasibility of using a responsive, issues-centered approach to evaluating an industry sponsored higher education program. The focus of the paper will be a report on the application and effectiveness of an evaluation strategy specifically designed to elucidate the issues and concerns of multiple curriculum stakeholders who include adult external students, part-time industry-based lecturers, international program consultants, university managers and administrators and industry sponsors.

The study draws on the ideas of a number of context-focused evaluation models to create an evaluation specifically designed to address the curriculum monitoring needs of innovative, externally sponsored and supported higher education programs. Case study methods have been adapted and refined to establish an evaluation process that progressively focuses the complexities of curriculum quality as perceived by a diverse range of program stakeholders.

JOHNS166

Postgraduate supervision in education - Are we different?

Sue Johnston, University of Canberra

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 19, Supervision of postgraduate research in education.

JONEA112

Architectural Metaphor in Educational Research: How Useful in these Times?

Dr Alison Jones, University of Auckland

This paper explores some of the architectural/building and spatial metaphor which abound in contemporary feminist (and other) discussion in education. Terms ranging from `subject position' to `gaps/spaces', and `construction' to `production' are discussed, as well as the confusion often surrounding their use, and questions are asked about how - and whether - such phrases are significant for the kind of liberatory narrative in education possible in these politically complex times.

Teaching post structuralist feminist theory in education: Textual confusions and student resistances

Alison Jones, University of Auckland , New Zealand

Increasing numbers of undergraduate students in education are using, or referring to, `post structuralist' theory and concepts in their discussions of gender. However, because of their lack of knowledge of structuralism, their use of POST structuralist theory is often barely considered rejection - or a confused embracing. While they purport to work within a theoretical framework which eschews humanism, many of my students invoke a humanist subject who `positions' herself in a range of discourses. Contributing to such confusion are ways in which this apparently unremarked tension is evident more widely in sociological discussions about/within post structuralism. In this paper, Judith Butler's work on `the subject' is used to critique this tension, which is evident particularly in the students' use of the popular work of Bronwyn Davies.

Pathways and curricula: Its distribution of power

John Joshua, The University of Melbourne

The paper concentrates on haw a critical and reflexive pedagogy can promote a circultion of power within and between social fields. This thesis is grounded in social theory which is tested against an empirical analysis of different types of secondary schools in Victoria.

Historically, the pendulum of school reforms swung between two contradictory educational philosophies: on the one hand, a liberal progressive philosophy which sees students as potential adults, and on the other hand, an instrumental philosophy of eductaion to serve the industries with sufficient human resource capital. These two contradictory philosophies impinge on the structure and function of schooling, teachers' work, curriculum design and the socio-political framework which surrounds schooling. The pendulum has shifted in favour of the pragmatic and instrumental and not least because the student population has changed.

The reproduction of social structures through organic curricula fosters those values which are regarded as appropriate for a specific social destination. Vicational education may be regarded here as a constructed organic curriculum as such curriculum makes cultural reproduction invisible as it engages in considerable less symbolic violence than an imposed academic curriculum.

Some pathways exhibit a teaching method which is more behavioural, that is, disciplinary, for example, in some vocational pathways. In other pathways, with a more liberal academic emphasis, teaching methods may be more pastoral in nature. However, any pedagogy that claims to be critical and reflexive, ought to have a pastoral element in its method. The aim of disciplinary and pastoral power differs; whereas disciplinary power may be exercised to train individuals in given skills to excel in the completion of task set by others, pastoral power may facilitate individuals to find their potential. Disciplinary power is more centralised while pastoral power is more dispersed, so that the latter is a better facilitator of social mobility.

As the population taking part in post-compulsory education becomes more heterogeneous, different and conflicting demand will be made on resources and curricula design. The unfloding contested discourse is subject to various influences of power. The exercise of pastoral power may assist students to choose between different pathways; but the adverse labour market exerts a disciplinary power over the students to remain at school.

Who's asking the questions?: Researching institutional race relations

Barbara Kamler and Ninetta Santoro, Deakin University, and Jo-Anne Reid, University of Ballarat

The issue of racism in Australian society is highly significant at the present time. We can no longer consider ourselves as untainted by the mark of racism in social and institutional practice. However, most research dealing with racism in an Australian context has investigated racism between students and/or institutionalised racism directed towards ethnic minority students. If we accept the view that popular racism (Rizvi 1993) pervades all facets of society, covertly and overtly, that we are all implicated in it (Troyna, 1993), and that most teachers and teacher educators occupy contradictory positions in relation to racism, then we are led inexorably to ask why there has been little recognition or understanding of racism as it is experienced by practising teachers in schools.

In this paper we explore the methodological ethics of an attempt to investigate this problem, as we research the nature of the professional experience of overseas born and educated non-native English speaking teachers in Victorian secondary schools. We will discuss the ethical and theoretical dilemmas which arose for us as we worked on the development of a questionnaire to be distributed to all principals in state secondary schools. The shaping of this questionnaire has become a concrete realisation of the dilemmas of insider/outsider research, particularly in relation to race, and we use this experience to situate and theorise this dilemma in terms of our current research practice.

New times in secondary schooling: The effects of vocational education on the development of self-concept and vocational preparation

Jan Kane, Macquarie University

Vocational education has emerged in the past ten years as an important facet of the post-compulsory years of schooling. The growth in retention rates of students during that time to Years 11 and 12 has been the impetus for the development of varied curriculum and pathways of study to ensure that the needs of all students, not just those aiming for tertiary entrance, are met. In NSW this has resulted in the Pathways program for the Higher School Certificate, which has enabled students to diversify their programs of study and to undertake vocationally-oriented course work in employment preparation programs.

This paper will address this development in the post-compulsory secondary education of students in new times. It will focus on the development of vocational education in New South Wales schools and particularly on the results of a research project which investigated the effects of vocational education on the development of self-concept and vocational preparation in senior secondary students. It will highlight common elements and diverse initiatives in relation to program design and implementation and will discuss implications for the ongoing development of vocational education and areas of future research.

Factors that affect student transition from Year 12 to the first year of university: A case study of arts undergraduates at Monash University

Tanya Kantanis, Monash University

Literature in the field of transition, the process of change that occurs when students progress from Year 12 to the first year of university, largely consists of specialised studies that tend to isolate and dissect pertinent factors; few writers have embraced the issue's global nature. This paper, based on research that was carried out at Monash University, recognises, appreciates and explores the complex interactive nature of the elements that pertain to transition and advocates a more holistic approach to the issue. the academic arena remains the main focus, with three other interrelated factors: environment, finances and socialisation noted as fields that are problematic for first year students, particularly Arts undergraduates, in making the transition.

From the research, and confirmed through the literature, serious concerns were registered in relation to the limitations in the academic arena. More significantly, the results highlighted an area of concern that has received scant attention in the literature, socialisation as an influential dimension in effecting a successful transition. in that, poor socialisation into the university environment and culture actively operates as a disincentive, with serious repercussions, for students facing the challenges of transition.

KAYAH304

Universities, students and employment prospects in the new South Africa

Hassan Omari Kaya, University of North-West, South Africa

Against the background of the complex relationships between the world of work, students and universities, this paper examines how the universities in the new South Africa try to define new policies and programmes to help in the training of South Africans, especially those who were neglected by the apartheid system, to enable them to get gainful employment and contribute to the socio-economic and political development of the country.

Universities are involved in employment in a number of ways. First, as training institutions, they are concerned with equipping their students with knowledge and skills which will enable them to embark on successful careers. Universities in developing countries including South Africa have come to recognise that they have a potential role in updating and improving the skills of the people already in employment, i.e. continuing education. Second, as research institutions, universities have a social responsibility, especially during times of widespread unemployment to study the broader issue of employment, how work is organised and the relationships between training, skills and employment. Third, as teaching and research institutions, universities are also sizeable employers.

Teachers' work in the child care centres of the 1990's: A report on a study in progress

Alison Kelly, Queensland University of Technology

A high proportion of early childhood trained teachers are employed in child care centres. This project investigates the knowledge needs of these teachers. Six teachers who are beginning their teaching careers are involved.

The child care industry is undergoing astonishing growth and change and the unique characteristics of the setting and teaching context are not well understood. Greater understanding of teachers' work in this setting and teachers' knowledge needs is essential if teacher education courses are to be relevant and adequately prepare student teachers for work in this setting.

This study is about surfacing the knowledge teachers are acting upon when they face dilemma situations in their work. Understanding the dilemmas teachers working in child care are facing is valuable in terms of uncovering some unique characteristics which apply to their work.

The study involves theorising teachers' experiences, where teachers share their experiences and reflect on the practical knowledge which informs their teaching actions. Teachers in the field and the university teacher work collaboratively, probing and examining situations and experiences, to construct new meanings through reflection.

The research has interpretive purposes, designed to illuminate the ways in which past experiences, present circumstances and visions for the future influence what teachers do. Observational notes, teacher journal entries, the researcher's letters to participants, and transcripts of conversations with teachers have allowed for progressive focusing on practical knowledge Collaboratively, new meaning is given to everyday situations and actions.

Teachers' work in the child care centres of the 1990's

Alison Kelly, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 16, Early childhood teachers working in new times: Reports on research undertaken in the 1990's.

Researching the use of innovative technological tools

David Kennedy, Peter McTigue, and Paul Fritze, University of Melbourne

In this paper we report the results of an investigation of student use of an innovative design element in a computer-facilitated learning (CFL) module. The rapid growth of new technologies for the delivery of academic courses in higher education has provided obvious logistical advantages including improved student access to courses both locally and at a distance and providing on-line remediation or assessment.

The need to embed sound educational pedagogy in the application of new technologies is crucial to any lasting improvement in student learning outcomes. The CFL element has been designed and used within a framework that links the literature on student learning and understanding symbolic representations of simple chemical phenomena.

The CFL element is an interactive graphing engine that can be used with on-line web-based courses that has been designed to actively engage students in constructing relationships between their knowledge of macroscopic chemical processes and the symbolic representations used by chemists to represent those processes.

While the example provided is based on undergraduate chemistry, it must be stressed that the graphing engine is applicable to many other academic subjects with a similar need to develop graphical representations of knowledge.

KENNK248

SYMPOSIUM 21: Understanding civic learning and its social context : Current research in civics and citizenship education

Participants: Kerry Kennedy, University of Canberra, Rob Gilbert, James Cook University, Victoria Foster, University of Western Sydney, Murray Print, University of Sydney, Suzanne Mellor, Australian Council for Educational Research and David Hogan, University of Tasmania

Overview:
Citizenship has been a priority theme for the Australian Research Council for some time and civics education has become a priority for successive governments at Commonwealth and state levels. The purpose of this symposium is to being together research efforts in these areas that ordinarily might not bee seen as part of the same research agenda. An expected outcome is an appreciation of the diversity of research being conducted and the creation of a dialogue between researchers from different traditions.

PAPER 1:

KENNK249

Policy contexts and theoretical perspectives : Civics and citizenship education in Australia

Kerry Kennedy, University of Canberra

Successive Australian governments have provided bipartisan support for programs of civics education in Australian schools. Yet the policy contexts in which this support has been given vary markedly. The Keating government, keen to build momentum behind the republican issue, saw civics education as the key to creating a politically literate population that would appreciate the subtleties behind the current debate. The Howard government, with its pursuit of market oriented policies in key social and economic areas, saw the need to provide for some cohesion in a rapidly fragmenting society. Civics education was thus able to serve two political masters for quite different reasons.

This paper will analyze in some detail the changing policy contexts of the Keating and Howard governments and will link these to the theoretical perspectives that have driven civics education. Current initiatives will be analyzed as a product of these perspectives.

PAPER 2:

GILBR250

Education for citizenship and concepts of identity

Rob Gilbert, James Cook University

Notions of identity and citizenship have traditionally been closely linked through the concept of national identity. While this idea may have been more rhetoric by centralizing forces than the felt experience of national communities, at least as a rallying cry for politicians it remains important. Yet globalisation, minority social movements, ethnic division, multiculturalism etc place traditional ideas of national identity and its more committed version of patriotism in question. Those engaged in education for citizenship need to consider this question, for, despite claims for a concept of global citizenship, the nation is still the basic unit for the recognition and promotion of citizenship, and a sense of identity, either explicitly or implicitly, is an important part of most citizenship education programs. This paper will offer an analysis and discussion of the relationship between education for citizenship and identity.

PAPER 3:

FOSTV251

Feminist theories and the construction of citizenship in the modern state

Victoria Foster, University of Western Sydney

Education should be a preparation for citizenship directed towards active and successful participation by all students in a modern democratic society. Since the mid-1980s there has been a revival of interest in participatory democratic theory and in particular, a renewed focus on the concept of citizenship as a new organizing principle for democratic politics (Pateman, 1992).

Despite clear evidence of widely disparate outcomes from women's and men's education across western industrialized nations (OECD, 1986), the gendered nature of citizenship as both a philosophical and social goal has received little attention from educational theorists.

This paper will address the issue of whether citizenship for women is possible in the modern state which is predicated on a division between public and private life.

PAPER 4:

PRINM252

Benchmarking student achievement in civics and citizenship education

Murray Print, University of Sydney

This paper will report on an ARC funded project that seeks to identify significant student learnings and attitudes in civics and citizenship education at the end of three stages of schooling - Years 6, 8 and 10. From this information the project will develop civics education benchmarks for students at these points in their schooling.

The project involves close consultation with the community involved with civics education in NSW. Thus far we have conducted consultation meetings, prepared a project outline, an issues paper on the project, a set of civics content statements, and commenced preparation of assessment instruments.

Data are planned for collection in 1988. Subsequently civics and citizenship education benchmarks will be constructed from this data.

PAPER 5:

Impact of schools and pedagogy on students' civics and citizenship attitudes

Suzanne Mellor, Australian Council for Educational Research

The paper will report the findings of an Australian study, undertaken by ACER in 19 It is based on the study Comparative Perspectives on Citizenship Education: A Study in Five Western Democracies. (in press), undertaken by Dr. Carole Hahn, Professor in the Division of Education at Emory University, Atlanta. The countries involved in the earlier study were the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United States. The research surveyed and investigated the political attitudes, (trust, efficacy, confidence, tolerance, equality) and interests of senior secondary Australian students, their opinions on their past and likely future political experience, and their observations on the classroom climates they have experienced. The comparative approach will be maintained in the presentation as it points to linkages between cultural factors and citizenship education in Australian schools and classrooms. Thus the context will have been set, for a more detailed evaluation, in the paper, of the effectiveness of certain pedagogies, in the area of citizenship education.

PAPER 6:

HOGAD254

The social demography of citizenship and education in Australia

David Hogan, University of Tasmania

The paper will outline the principal conceptual and theoretical questions that members of the Centre for Citizenship and Education at the University of Tasmania are investigating in a current research project on citizenship and civic education. Theoretically, the project is especially interested in the political culture and social demography of Australian citizenship, the explanation of variations in civic and educational attainment at both the individual and institutional level, and the identification of schools and school practices that are unusually effective in producing high levels of "civic attainment" after controlling for student intake and peer group characteristics.

KENNK249

Policy contexts and theoretical perspectives : Civics and citizenship education in Australia

Kerry Kennedy, University of Canberra

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 21, Understanding civic learning and its social context: Current research in civics and citizenship education.

The feminisation of the labour market and males' 'new disadvantage'

Jane Kenway, Deakin University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 30, Restructuring gender, reworking schooling and reschooling work.

KINGA413

Integrated problem based learning: More than simulation and mentoring

Arthur Kingsland, The University of Newcastle

Design education learning environments should incorporate the study of theoretical viewpoints and conceptual thinking in combination with the development of practical skills and an understanding of technical issues related to the specific discipline. This paper discusses the use of Integrated Problem Based Learning (IPBL) to provide such a learning environment where theoretical issues are seen as a central component of the learning environment. The full potential in adopting the IPBL philosophy for design education far surpasses mere simulation, and can provide deeper theoretical coverage than a curriculum based around mentoring in a specific discipline.

There is much dis-information about PBL and particularly its application to design education. There is a perception that PBL increases workloads and stress levels for staff and students, and that PBL is too practical reducing emphasis on theoretical aspects of studies in design disciplines (rightly regarded as of prime importance in tertiary-level education). Research has shown that many of the problems experienced in implementing PBL stem from inadequate staff development and support provisions (Cowdroy & Kingsland, 1992; Kingsland, 1992; Cowdroy, 1994, 1992) rather than specifically from the use of PBL. This paper expands on specific points from that research relating to staff (and student) workloads and stress levels, and demonstrates that it is possible to incorporate theoretical components as a central platform of a PBL curriculum.

Constructions of educational discourse

David Kirk, Doune Macdonald and Dawn Penney, The University of Queensland

Developing the work of Basil Bernstein on the social construction of educational discourse, this paper investigates the relationships between senior high school health and physical education and university human movement studies, focusing particularly on the ways in which knowledge in each field is constructed at their interface. The paper reports on the findings of a study tht examined the relationships between these fields over time, university students' constructions of this relationship, and the realisation of this relationship in the workplace practices of health and physical education teachers. The paper concludes with some recommendations for policy and curriculum development in both schools and tertiary institutions.

Flexible learning : Implications for academic practice

Denise Kirkpatrick, Viktor Jakupec and Kitty te Riele, University of Technology Sydney

The notion of flexible learning has become increasingly common in higher education in recent years. This may be seen as a response to a number of factors, particularly the proliferation of communication and information technologies. 'Flexible learning' has multiple meanings, some of which appear to be more privileged than others. As universities identify the development of flexible learning as a priority and invest a range of resources there is a need to consider the range of meanings that may be associated with 'flexible learning' and the ways in which flexible learning affects the culture of the university and academic practice. The perception of flexible learning that becomes dominant will have significant impact on the way in which it is enacted, reflecting and influencing views of teaching and learning, knowledge, research, academic practice, the role of academics, and allocation of resources. The way in which flexible learning comes to be interpreted will play a major role in determining the nature of academic culture. This paper explores the meanings which are ascribed to flexible learning and the way in which these are contested, as well as the effect of "flexible learning" on academic practices and culture.

KIRKD498

Women's research as performance: Performing what?

Denise Kirkpatrick, University of Technology Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 5, Women and higher education: Gendered performances in an era of uncertainty and difference.

KLEIM530

How does student subjectivity work against change in preservice teacher education?

Mary Klein, James Cook University

The research presented in this paper was carried out with three preservice teachers in the second year of a matheamtics methods course. It examines how their prior experiences of matheamtics in school, and in practicum sessions, firmly entrench absolutist views of knowledge which are not easily interrupted in teacher education programs. I use poststructuralist concepts of positioning, subjectivity and storylines to theorise the data and to argue a case for certain changes in preservice programs.

KONZD104

Ethical issues in qualitative research: What would you do?

Deslea Konza, University of Wollongong

This paper aims to generate a discussion of ethical dilemmas which have faced the presenter when engaging in research relating to students with a range of special needs. Several of the dilemmas have arisen when conducting interviews with the parents of these children:

• when the issue of confidentiality conflicted with disclosures of illegal activity, including child abuse;
• when the role of interviewer appeared to merge with that of counsellor;
• when the interviewees asked 'what would you do?'
• when 'reflective listening' and 'acceptance of individual realities' would have involved reflecting back damaging personal beliefs;
• when the interviewee appeared to become dependent on the interviewer throughout a series of interviews.

Other ethical issues arose when it became difficult to determine whether or not the consent given prior to research was, in fact, 'informed', due to literacy, cognitive or psychiatric problems which became evident throughout the research.

It is hoped that a discussion of these issues will result in a clearer understanding of some of the difficulties associated with qualitative research and of our responsibilities towards people willing to assist us in our research, especially those who may be particularly vulnerable.

LADYR130

The use of standardised human simulations for professional skills evaluation and research

Mr Richard Ladyshewsky and Robert Baker, Curtin University of Technology

Research and assessment of students in professional programs such as health and education regularly use field based observation, written records of performance and interviews as the method of student evaluation. One of the major difficulties with these approaches is that there is variability between fieldwork settings, limited case sampling and variations in inter-rater reliability. This creates a problem for the educator or researcher who is trying to measure differences in students' performance. One method that can overcome some of these measurement difficulties are standardised human simulations (SHS). Medical educators have used this method since the mid-seventies with good results. However, reported use of this educational technology in other professional disciplines appears limited. This paper will describe the psychometric properties of SHS as tools for educational research and student assessment in the fields of health and education; specifically, SHS reliability, content, construct, and criterion validity and fidelity. Methods for the application of this technology in the two fields is also presented. While the focus of the paper will draw upon examples from medicine, where the bulk of this research has been carried out, the relevance of SHS for research and assessment in other disciplines will be discussed.

LAFFG525

Responding to management by crisis: Possibilities for the democratisation of academic work

George Lafferty, Griffith University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 29, Re-inventing academic work: The makeover of tertiary teachers.

LAMBI209

Education, Religious Diversity and Ideological Fragmentation in a Postmodern Landscape

Dr Ian P M Lambert, National Institute for Christian Education

The postmodern world view operates with a community-based understanding of truth. It affirms that whatever we accept as truth and even the way we envision truth are dependent on the community in which we participate. While ethnic and religios diversity is not a new experience in educational and cultural life in Australia, what is it that is making our present-day encounter with pluralism so special?

How can teacher education programs of the future provide teaching and learning experiences that recognise the reality that schools in the public and private sector are increasingly conscious that we are immersed in a culture of options? This paper argues that because the ethical heart of postmodernity can be identified with a desire to honour the 'other', the essential characteristic of the new pedagogy should be grounded in the notion of hospitality - receiving each other with openness and care.

If education in the future can develop a listening pedagogy, then hospitality will need to be recognised as both an ethical and epistemological virtue. Consequently, such an affirmation will be manifest in the languages learned, the history studied, the literature taught and the cultural voices that are heard and celebrated.

From: LIZ LAMB

submitted by Ms Liz Lamb

PhD candidate

University of Technology, Sydney

LAMBL133

An information literacy framework for the learning of gifted students at Secondary level

Ms Liz Lamb, University of Technology Sydney

This research project investigates the significance of the learning / teaching environment in the education of gifted students in secondary schools. Specifically, it investigates the impact of an Information Literacy framework on the learning of gifted secondary students .

It is a qualitative study incorporating seven case studies whch were conducted while students were studying a Board of Studies (NSW) course in their Preliminary Year. The project was begun mid-1995 and it is expected that the thesis will besubmitted mid-1998.

It is anticipated that the project will make three important contributions to the body of knowledge in the areas of education and of teacher education. First although the results will come from a New South Wales experience, they undoubtedly will be of global interest - as has happened with results from studies into the impact of such a framework on the learning and teaching in mainstream classes. Secondly, the project should result in a model which could be considered for use in schools. Thirdly, it should provide local evidence to assist in professional development of teachers in the area of the education of the gifted in these times in which access to information is growing at a rate not known before.

The moral consequences of what we construct through qualitative research

Colin Lankshear, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 8, Issues in qualitative research.

The constructive nature of teachers' learning

Michael Lawson, Peter McInerney, John Smyth and Robert Hattam, Flinders University of South Australia

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 27, Reclaiming the space for teachers' dialogic learning in schools.

LEWIJ144

Value-added schooling

Jenny Lewis, University of Western Sydney

An interest in raising standards and improving the quality of education and opportunities available to students in all schools has become a key focus of system thinking throughout the world. This focus on proving and improving performance has given systems, schools and communities new tools to identify, measure and report performance, to revise practice, and to enhance the quality of schooling, policy, practice and standards.

Within the New South Wales Department of School Education there is a growing interest to show system and school improvement, and although requiring schools to state what and how they intend to improve is not in itself new, what is new is the obligation for schools to state explicitly and publicly:

how they propose to marry centrally set priorities and those which emanate from the school community the criteria against which school policy and performance will be evaluated, an the value added by a school to improve school and student achievement

'Value-added' measures which "assess the extent to which a school's performance improves over time, and how far it contributes to the academic progress of its pupils" (OECD, 30, 1995) has become a meaningful way of assessing and reporting school and student improvement in terms of school and system priorities.

This paper provides evidence of national and international measures. It presents the research and practice of one school as it has come to terms with 'value-addedness'. This paper illustrates the measures this school has used to enhance school improvement over a two year period.

Girls, bullying behaviours and peer relationships: The double edged sword of exclusion and rejection

Barbara Leckie, University of South Australia

Bullying is recognised to be a reliably identifiable sub-set of children's aggressive behaviour (Dodge, Coie, Pettit and Price, 1990). Whilst little appears to be known directly about girls' bullying behaviours, recent research has shed considerable light upon related fields. Lagerspetz, Bjorqvist and Peltonen, (1988) have revealed that girls use indirect methods of aggression, such as spreading rumours and excluding and ostracising others; and Crick, Bigbee and Howes (1996) report that with relational aggression, girls' peer conflicts increase in frequency and become more common as they move from middle childhood to adolescence. Such socially manipulative strategies are also powerful tools often used by girls to protect and maintain their peer relationships and friendship dyads, which in turn reflect exclusivity, intensity and disclosure. These behaviours, appear to serve a dual function: to protect existing friendships from the intrusion of others; and to deliberately harm target girls through rejection and isolation. Surveys which included both self report and peer nomination instruments were administered to girls in individual classes from Year 6 to Year 10 (N = 987) in seven South Australian Catholic and Independent schools, 5 of which were single-sex and 2 were co-educational systems. This paper will explore the apparent dual function of these behaviours and examine the links between girls' peer relationships and bullying behaviours in light of what is known about indirect and relational aggression. Implications for co-operation and conflict management between girls in schools will also be discussed.

LEEA456

Supervision pedagogy as co-production

Alison Lee, University of Technology, Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 6, Professional doctorates in new times for the Australian University.

Testing the internal/external frame of reference model of self-concept with Chinese high school students in talented and nontalented classes

Frances Laimui Lee, Putai Jin and Renae Low, University of New South Wales, and Alexander Yeung, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

LEEI369

Japanese colonisation of Korean textbooks

Isaac Lee, University of Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 22, Reworking education in postcolonial conditions: Local and global contexts for change.

LEIMM501

An analysis of parent-teacher conversations in a preschool setting

Michele Leiminer, The University of Queensland

In this paper I will report on findings from my Honours dissertation titled, 'An analysis of the construction of talk in parent-teacher conversations in a preschool setting'. I have used an ethnomethodological, conversation analytic perspective to analyse parent-teacher conversations in a preschool. Although such conversations are the principal means by which parents and preschool teachers communicate, no previous research on such conversations in early childhood settings was found in the literature. I examine the extent to which my data were 'institutional interactions' or 'mundane conversations', and determine how blurred these distinctions may be. I then analyse these conversations as to how the talk is constructed, especially with regard to the management of proposals and advice-giving and reception. According to this analysis, these conversations were extremely complex.

These 'institutional conversations' were not entirely symmetrical in nature or entirely asymmetrical. At times parents proposed strategies and gave advice, and at other times the preschool teacher evaluated proposals and gave advice of her own. In these ways, these parent-teacher conversations were negotiated on a turn by turn basis by the participants themselves to produce a zigzagging effect between these two poles. However, these shiftings of balance were distributed relatively evenly between participants. In this way, they could be best described as 'symmetrical'. This finding of 'symmetry' in parent-professional talk is in contrast to the work of Heritage and Sefi (1992) and Baker and Keogh (1995). This is explained in part by the overlapping knowledges of the parents and teacher. This overlap is then played out in and produced in the talk. In conclusion, a 'parent-teacher partnership' is evident between the parent and the preschool teacher.

Five male secondary science teachers: Dis/playing gender

William Letts, University of Delaware, USA

Male secondary science teachers are uniquely positioned in schools in that they are engaged in as profession that has traditionally been viewed as feminized in a subject area that is largely masculinized.

Relatively little attention has focused on the development and role of masculinity in school settings. Following the guiding principles described by Weedon (1987), this study originated from a feminist post-structuralist framework to the extent that it forced me to make explicit certain issues that might otherwise have been easier and more convenient to ignore. This framework compelled me to problematize the relationship between men, masculinity and schooling, and to re-examine it from the standpoint of the male teacher. This study was emergent and interpretive, and the primary means of data collection was interviews with five male secondary science teachers. Four themes were culled from the data: 1) views about the epistemology of science, 2) issues of control, 3) issues of autonomy and 4) seemingly contradictory self-descriptions. Potential implications of this work include a better understanding of the gender codes that teachers both act according to and enforce in classrooms, the gendered nature of teaching, and the recruitment and retention of teachers, male teachers in particular.

LEVIL171

Integration of the practicum with academic units

Lesley Levins, University of New England

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 28, Towards collaboration in the practicum - issues of power and ownership.

Value-added schooling

Jenny Lewis, University of Western Sydney

An interest in raising standards and improving the quality of education and opportunities available to students in all schools has become a key focus of system thinking throughout the world. This focus on proving and improving performance has given systems, schools and communities new tools to identify, measure and report performance, to revise practice, and to enhance the quality of schooling, policy, practice and standards.

Within the New South Wales Department of School Education there is a growing interest to show system and school improvement, and although requiring schools to state what and how they intend to improve is not in itself new, what is new is the obligation for schools to state explicitly and publicly: how they propose to marry centrally set priorities and those which emanate from the school community the criteria against which school policy and performance will be evaluated, an the value added by a school to improve school and student achievement 'Value-added' measures which "assess the extent to which a school's performance improves over time, and how far it contributes to the academic progress of its pupils" (OECD, 30, 1995) has become a meaningful way of assessing and reporting school and student improvement in terms of school and system priorities.

This paper provides evidence of national and international measures. It presents the research and practice of one school as it has come to terms with 'value-addedness'. This paper illustrates the measures this school has used to enhance school improvement over a two year period.

LIETP004

Findings of a pilot-study of economic literacy in Central Queensland.

Petra Lietz and Dieter Kotte, Central Queensland University

In addition to literacy comprising the traditional "three Rs" of reading, arithmetic and writing, knowledge of economic issues is important to be a "literate" adult (Walstad, 1994).

Economic literacy includes the understanding of economic matters involved in everyday life of adults, from paying a bill, issuing a check or understanding a balance sheet (Ristau, 1985; Soper & Walstad, 1987; Walstad & Robson, 1981) as well as more complex concepts such as GDP or trade arrangements with other countries which is required to understand reports in the printed and electronic media (De Rooy, 1995).

This paper reports findings from a study of approximately 400 students attending Year 11 in government and private schools in the Central Queensland region. In particular, results from Rasch analyses using QUEST (Adams & Khoo, 1993) will be discussed to examine the appropriateness of the achievement test, which has previously only been used in the United States and the United Kingdom. In addition, results of analyses using path analysis (LISREL, J=F6reskog & S=F6rbom, 1993) and hierarchical linear modelling (HLM-4, Raudenbush et al., 1993) will elucidate ways in which factors at different levels, for example student motivation, instructional practices and facilities provided by the school impact on student achievement.

The conclusion of the paper will discuss results in terms of their relevance for the teaching and learning of economic issues at secondary school level. Finally, implications of the study for a possible future study of economic literacy across Australia will be discussed.

LIMEB214

New times for Education Queensland: An opportunity for female teachers and administrators?

Brigid Limerick and Cheryl Anderson, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will examine the careers of some female teachers and administrators who work for Education Queensland. It will seek to establish whether the 'New Times' in education in Queensland are offering females greater career opportunities, and how they felt about the many changes which are occurring in education at present. Using the data-base of women who completed the Women in Management, (W.I.M), courses at QUT in the early 1990s, interviews will be conducted with a number of women who have management positions in Education Queensland. (This is part of a longitudinal study of the careers of W.I.M. graduates). By listening to, and analysing, what the interviewees say, these interviews will establish how their careers have progressed since completion of the W.I.M. course. Of particular interest will be whether the moves to school-based management have offered these women a chance to establish new ways of managing schools and enhanced their promotion prospects. Do the interviewees believe a new culture is evolving in Queensland education to suit the "New Times", or is there a continuation of the old male dominated hierarchial culture?

LINGB343

The Disadvantaged Schools Program: Caught between literacy and local management of schools

Bob Lingard, The University of Queensland

The Disadvantaged Schools Program (DSP), which provides extra funds for schools serving the poorest student, is the longest running Commonwealth equity program. The paper traces developments in the program since its inception in 1974. However, the main focus of the paper is on the likely impact of changes to Commonwealth schools programs introduced by the Howard Coalition government, whereby the DSP has been reconstituted as a literacy program and accountability requirements on the States have been considerably weakened and States given the option to 'broadband' the program with English as a Second Language (General Support) and Early Literacy. Simultaneous with these changes have been the moves by all State systems towards school-based management. The paper evaluates the likely impact of both sets of changes on the DSP. More specifically, the paper documents the potential dangers to the integrity of the program, particularly the loss of program memory, the abdication of system responsibility for the schooling of all students, the reification of literacy as the only educational problem, and the return of the individual deficit explanation for the links between socio-economic background and school performance.

Professional education in the australian regular army: The JOPES scheme

Juri K Linins, University of New England

University employer/industry links are demonstrated through the Junior Officer Professional Education Scheme (JOPES). It commenced in 1990 after a recommendation from the Regular Officer Development Committee to sponsor a program of tertiary external studies to compliment military training and development program for serving officers. On-going professional education is essential for serving officers by broadening their understanding of the society in which they serve. The Armed Forces are Australia's largest single employer so over 650 officers have already used this scheme since 1990.

The development of JOPES involved extensive negotiations with a wide range of tertiary institutions including ADFA, Deakin University, Queensland University and the University of New England. Due to the flexibility, relevance and competitive cost of the UNE proposal, JOPES was based on purpose - designed degree programs developed in conjunction with UNE, which will be analysed.

JOPES is intended to encourage the development of critical thinking ,synthesis, scholarship, research skills, analytical ability and communication skills using illustrations from Australian society and culture with those of other nations. This requires officers to confront the pluralistic social context within which they work. JOPES studies are developing officers who are aware of the economic/political context.of diverse social issues.

LOHG241

Clock building, not time telling in Singapore

Grace Loh, National Institute of Education Singapore

In Singapore, there has been a shift in thinking about history education from time telling to clock building. Previously, the emphasis was on the students' ability to tell time and to remember significant events. Recently, the focus is on helping students learn how to build a clock that can tell the time. To construct this type of clock, students need to use the historical mode of inquiry, by gathering, examining and interpreting evidence and reaching a conclusion. This paper examines initiatives taken to prepare teacher trainees to teach history differently. With a greater emphasis on the process of learning, trainees are encouraged to use the historical mode of inquiry. Instead of delivering descriptive history, the trainees are asked to convey information in terms of questions requiring students to reorganize and rethink the information available and to use data in fresh ways.The trainees are shown how to help students deal with new questions about the substance of history that they had not thought of before by providing students with fundamental skills of locating, analysing and assessing evidence. The significant outcomes of the process are that trainees reported the benefit of being more focused in their teaching and challenged to find interpretative questions to engage students while students expressed concern that they may not have sufficient time to use the historical mode of inquiry for all topics.

LONGR178

The key competencies in teacher education

Robert Long and Jim Mitchell, University of Canberra

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 23, University teacher education and the key competencies.

Understanding beginning teaching: Researching the impact of first year teaching

Jennifer Brown, Brenton Doecke and John Loughran, Monash University

This paper will explore how a group (N =3D 20) of beginning teachers conceptualised their transition from Teacher Education (Dip. Ed.) to their first year of full-time teaching. The participants in this study completed their Dip. Ed. in 1995 and during 1996 volunteered to be involved in a series of interviews to help unpack their understanding of their role as teachers, the influence of their Teacher Education program in preparing them for teaching and their personal and professional dilemmas in adjusting to the stresses and demands of full-time teaching. The participants in this study show a remarkable maturity and depth of understanding about their teaching practice and the events and episodes which influence it in their day to day work. The relationship between teaching and learning, teacher preparation and teaching practice, and the development of reflection and teacher thinking are all highlighted through the transcript data.

One important outcome of this study is the manner in which the participants begin to express their understanding of their work and the development and articulation of their narratives of practice.

This paper begins to explore the world of practice from the practitioners perspective and as the participants are beginning teachers, helps to unpack how they embark on constructing their understanding of professional practice.

Striving for the learning teacher: An innovative approach to preservice teacher education

Megan Lugg and Jennifer Allen, University of Newcastle

The paper presents an innovative model for initial teacher education that engages lecturers and students in a collaborative, reflexive learning context. This model reflects a paradigm shift in theories of teaching and learning; subject development and presentation; assessment; and academic culture. It contends that successful learning involves interaction between lecturers and students; between students and the learning environment; among students themselves; among lecturers themselves; and between the formal learning environment and the workplace. These encounters are incorporated into a framework which responds to the need for increased flexibility and the demands of the problematic and dynamic workplace. By extending a problem-based model it provides real choices for learners, emphasising multiple 'solutions' and valuing questions as well as answers. The model responds to the competencies and values identified in the National Competency Framework for Beginning Teaching, and the increasing demands on academic staff in an environment of shrinking resources and growing student numbers.

The paper will present the teaching and learning components of this model and justify decisions pertaining to aims, content choice, learning experiences, teaching strategies (andragogical and pedagogical), assessment and evaluation. To incorporate this model within ttraditionalt approaches to undergraduate teacher education a tcultural shift is required. and this will also be discussed in the paper.

LUKEA366

SYMPOSIUM 22: Reworking education in postcolonial conditions: Local and global contexts for change

Chairperson: Allan Luke, University of Queensland

Presenters: Varadune Amarathithada, Samuela Bogitini, Issac Lee, Priscilla Puamau, Richard Wah, Daisy Webster and Ella Yulaelawati, University of Queensland

Overview:
Over the past two years, educators, scholars and planners from throughout Asia, Africa and the South Pacific have worked in the Post-colonial Studies Group at the University of Queensland to discuss issues of curriculum and educational policy in relation to identity and cultural articulation, economic and social formations in 'new times' and in 'post-colonial' conditions. Part of our discussion has been to debate and discuss these next contexts of education and the possibilities for post-colonial educational models that serve the interests and futures of local communities and groups. This seminar brings together a sample of research on such contexts: Fiji, Indonesia, Kenya, Korea and Laos. The key questions addressed by each paper is: what might count as curriculum and education in post-colonial conditions? In whose interests?

PAPER 1:

AMARV367

Policy implementation of non-formal education in Lao PDR

Varadune Amarathithada, University of Queensland

The shift from Marxist economics to a free market based approach and the World Conference on Education for All (WCFEA) in Jomtien in 1990, presented two challenges that reinforced the Lao government's intention to commit itself to education. Given the inaccessibility of formal education coupled with the economic constraints and the government's desire to invest in the development of human resources, non-formal education was found to be the most appropriate type of education. It is a strategy to provide access for basic education, for development and for empowerment. The principles of the WCFEA were accepted as guidelines for designing the educational policy on NFE in Laos. This study suggests that the successful of non-formal education policy depends on broader participation in policy development within the framework of internal and external components.

PAPER 2:

BOGIS368

School curriculum and the construction of Fijian identity: A composite reality

Samuela Bogitini, University of Queensland

Although significant intermingling of Fiji's indigenous people with other ethnic groups has occurred since British colonisation from the late 1800s, relatively little literature addresses the effect of cultural blending on the construction of ethnic identity of Taukei from an insider perspective. From the colonial period through its postcolonial present Fiji's education system and curriculum model had been heavily influenced by the West. This paper attempts to examine the development of Fijian identity by the school curriculum. Because of the impact of modernity and Westernisation, a "selective" version of Taukei traditions or customs is expressed in curriculum.. However, there are prominent social and political indications of the reemergence of many historically suppressed aspects of vaka-i-Taukei (Fijian way of life).

PAPER 3:

LEEI369

Japanese colonisation of Korean textbooks

Isaac Lee, University of Queensland

Korea was colonised by Japan for 36 years (1910-1945). Working from a postcolonial lens, this paper documents the Japanese colonisation and legitimation of Korean curriculum. In many official textbooks, Koreans were constructed as inferior others, and attempts were made to replace aspects of Korean language and indigenous cultures with Japanese ones. The image of Koreans constructed was one of lazy and unreliable workers. The Japanese also educated Korean elites in order to make them cultural and economic intermediaries. After the Japanese had withdrawn in 1945, Korean elites who had been educated by the colonisers took the most of academic areas and continued to influence Korean curriculum. Nationalists have attempted to decolonise the Korean curriculum. This paper provides a critical look at that curriculum and these more recent efforts.

PAPER 4:

PUAMP370

Is affirmative action in education really necessary in Fiji?

Priscilla Puamau, University of Queensland

This paper begins by outlining the problems that have faced Fijian indigenous education which have resulted in affirmative action policies.This paper also examines the way affirmative action has been conceptualised and theorised in western countries such as America and Britain with Fiji. It

specifically examines two positive discrimination policies with a view to assessing their outcomes. The main contention of this paper is that affirmative action policies in education were Fiji's way of asserting its post-coloniality after almost a century of colonial rule. It argues that the maintenance and perpetuation of colonial structures in education such as curriculum, pedagogues, language and assessment system may be one explanation for the continuing underachievement of indigenous Fijian students in formal schooling. The final aim of this paper is to pose a series of questions about the kinds of research questions that may need to be asked regarding the future direction of affirmative action policies in new times.

PAPER 5:

WAHR371

Distance education in the new times: Postcolonial content, space and time

Richard Wah, University of Queensland

By definition, education is provided to students within a context. For modernist, colonialist and industrial eras, the school was a useful concept for creating an 'artificial' institutional context which has stood the test of time. However, in New Times it is both necessary and difficult for formal education to define the appropriate and effective contexts for education. This is particularly the case for what has traditionally been called 'distance education', which struggles with how to define its contexts and its human subjects, whether real or simulated. The construction of the students' contexts within distance education is by way of the presupposition and building of the 'average' distance student. Post-colonial and postmoderm theories dispute this type of homogenisation. Consider the rapid changes of New Times facing South Pacific peoples: traditional beliefs and ethics under threat; moves towards flexible work routines and conditions; new technologies and explosions of available information from very conceivable source, even those that sites that had been 'silenced' for so long. This paper is a discussion of the possibilities and the problems facing distance education in Fiji and selected Pacific Islands.

PAPER 6:

WEBSD372

The differential implications of globalisation for Kenya's stratified education system

Daisy Webster, University of Queensland

The focus of this paper is to explore and discuss the implications of globalisation on education and schooling in Kenya from a historical perspective. The paper will consider the differential impact of globalising trends on a stratified schooling system by comparing the nature of Kenya's 'pre-globalised' colonial and 'globalising' post-colonial schooling system. While the postcolonial period greatly expanded the education system which the British colonizers had left, stratification remained acute. The globalising process, including the reduction of government investment in social welfare, means that the Kenyan elite is likely to be increasingly able to appropriate the benefits of a globally sophisticated Western education and capitalist consumer culture, while the gap that separates them from other social groups becomes wider. Information technology has the potential, however, to revolutionise education by countering the disadvantages of remoteness and insufficient resources, and the paper ends by considering the circumstances in which such a situation could be brought about.

PAPER 7:

YULAE373

Decontextualization and recontextualization of educational reform in Indonesia

Ella Yulaelawati, University of Queensland

In the postcolonial period, Indonesia education has attempted reform by mixing and blending the importation of so-called Western models with attempts to maintain and develop indigenous Indonesian models and approaches. Pressure to fit in the global arena and the past severe experiences of colonisation provide two contextual realities of privatization and patron-client relation that simultaneously occur within the community. In these pressures, reformers tend to DEconTEXTualize reform elements under the assumption that practitioners will RECONtextualize these ideas and practices. These phenomena resulted in two prevalent conflicts between cultural domination and progressive reforms and between decontextualization and recontextualization in the implementation of

educational change. In this paper, analysis of institutional hegemony is used to explain the conflicts. This analysis provides a postcolonial explanation of resistance to change and suggests modes of recontextualisation which are useful for retheorising practice in new times.

Professor Allan Luke, Graduate School of Education, the University of Queensland

Old Racisms in New Times: the responsibilities of educators and researchers

The practices and discourses of the New Racism in Australia in 1996 and 1997 have already influenced the lives of many teachers and students in schools, universities and other educational institutions. But a critical understanding of the current debate requires that it be set against the broader themes of New Times: the emergence of new ethnic identities and cultural practices, the impact of the globalisation of the economy on educationally 'at risk' communities, the significance of discourse and representation across these moves. This paper aims to introduce to a broad audience of educational researchers, teacher educators and teachers a critical vocabulary for talking and thinking about racism and racist practices in schools - a vocabulary drawn broadly from work in postcolonial studies and materialist sociology. My point here is that a closer focus on 'racialising practices', forms of cultural 'hydridity', and on a materialist analysis of economic marginality in Australian communities, has a great deal to taech us about the stratgeies and practices of the New Racism, of its socioeconomic and historical bases,and of constructive and practical counter-strategies.

LUKEC497

Cultural diffierence and glass ceiling politics

Carmen Luke, University of Queensland

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 5, Women and higher education: Gendered performances in an era of uncertainty and difference.

LUNDR174

SYMPOSIUM 23: University teacher education and the key competencies

Chairperson: Roy Lundin, Queensland University of Technology

Participants: John Lidstone and Mark Brommeyer, Queensland University of Technology, Brian Sharpley and team, Monash University, Laurie Brady, Gilda Segal, Christine Deer and Kim Walker, University of Technology, Sydney, and Jim Mitchell and Robert Long, University of Canberra

Overview:
During 1997, DEETYA commissioned four universities to develop learning packages to develop curricula within a teacher education course which enhances the ability of trainee teachers to develop key competencies in students. The four universities were also provided funds to collaborate in the research and development of these learning packages and this has resulted in an innovative set of complementary materials, including videos and case studies, as well as an online Web resource. This symposium will provide the opportunity for the four universities to collaborate further in displaying the materials and explaining their use. These packages may also be taken up by other university Faculties of Education as well as by Education systems for inservice programs on the key competencies.

PAPER 1:

LUNDR175

Identifying, teaching, assessment and reporting of key competencies in environments other than the classroom

Roy Lundin, John Lidstone and Mark Brommeyer, Queensland University of Technology

This presentation is based on the learning materials for the Key Competencies which were developed, tested and then refined with a group of fourth year Bachelor of Education students at QUT. Learning materials for three modules comprised a printed workbook for students, 12 videotaped scenarios of school children and teachers in non-classroom learning environments, and a teachers' handbook. The modules deal with the identification, teaching, assessment and reporting of the seven Key Competencies which are part of the national agenda for school curricula. The research focussed on trialing these modules with a view to determining how the concepts were grasped by the teacher trainees and whether they could pick up skills relating to these four processes. Of particular interest were the notions of competency levels and how the teaching of the competencies could be made explicit.

PAPER 2:

Key competencies in preservice teacher education

Brian Sharpley and team, Monash University

This research is derived from a DEETYA-funded project to develop a model for Presenting Key Competencies at the Preservice level. The major aims of this project were to familiarise preservice teachers with the Key Competencies; to encourage them to reflect upon and evaluate their own performance levels; and encourage them to explore the use of Key Competencies in teaching and learning. A number of case studies will be presented of how preservice teachers perceive their own levels of competencies - particularly Collecting, Analysing and Organising information; Solving Problems; and Using Technology - and how their competency levels have altered during the first six months of a preservice program. Some insights will also be offered about how experienced teachers perceive the Key Competencies, how their perceptions have changed over time and how the competency of students are developed in some schools.

PAPER 3:

BRADL177

Case-based pedagogy and the key competencies

Laurie Brady, Gilda Segal, Christine Deer and Kim Walker, University of Technology, Sydney

The purposes of our research were to develop and trial teaching cases (written and video material) to assist trainee student teachers to deepen their understanding of issues surrounding possible introduction of the Key Competencies into secondary education. In this paper, we explore issues arising from the development of a selection of our cases and their trialling with Graduate Diploma in Education (Science) students. Issues emerging from this research are: some teachers' and student teachers' claims that the Key Competencies are implicit in science syllabi and therefore do not need to be taught explicitly; the nature of strategies required to teach the Key Competencies; ways of assessing the Key Competencies; ways of implementation of the Key Competencies into school programs; practising teachers' cynicism when confronted with politically imposed change. Hence our research raises the question: What is the meaning of the Key Competencies for schooling?

PAPER 4:

LONGR178

The key competencies in teacher education

Robert Long and Jim Mitchell, University of Canberra

For the past nine months the Faculty of Education's Centre for Research in Learning and Teaching (CRILTS) has been conducting a project on the Key Competencies (KC's) in teaching. Funded by DEETYA, the Project is a collaborative work across four universities which seeks to develop Teacher Education curricula through which to implement ideas put forward by the Mayer Committee. Essentially the Project aims to assist university staff across Australia develop a theoretical knowledge of the KC's and to provide them with means for communicating the KC's to Secondary Teacher Education students in such a way as to assist them to develop a framework for incorporating the KC's into an overall schema of teaching. This paper reports the curriculum planning, implementation, and the results of an evaluation process adopted at The University of Canberra, and the role of information technology innovation as the basis for cooperative ventures in program development and diffusion at tertiary level.

LUNDR175

Identifying, teaching, assessment and reporting of key competencies in environments other than the classroom

Roy Lundin, John Lidstone and Mark Brommeyer, Queensland University of Technology

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 23, University teacher education and the key competencies.

Contemporary perspectives: An innovative approach to post-graduate study

Margaret Botticchio, Pauline Lysaght, Florence Rankin, Maria-Raquel Silva and Lesley Smith, University of Wollongong

This paper will report on the experiences of a group of five post-graduate students involved in the evolution of their own course on Contemporary Perspectives in Education. The impetus for this program stemmed from the desire to develop independent research projects within a collaborative learning environment. What emerged was an innovative structure that created a forum for intimate discussions which, at times, included specialised input from academics invited to participate with the group. In addition, assessment was negotiated to satisfy individual needs and academic standards. In a time of diminishing educational resources this innovative approach to course design and delivery may provide a flexible model for academics and post-graduate students involved in education.

MABEP082

The problems of promoting cooperate governance in historically black institutions in South Africa: With reference to the University of North-West

Phineas Mabetoa and H.O. Kaya, University of the North-West

The advent of democracy in South Africa and the challenges posed by national and global social economic political opportunities have prompted the restructuring of the racially segregated system of education into a single coordinated effective and efficient system which among others provides for stakeholder participation, i.e. students, staff, parents, university management, etc.

The proposed new system for higher education in South Africa requires the creation of a new organisational and regulatory framework which can facilitate responsible interaction and productive partnerships among the stakeholders.

This paper examines the problems encountered in the process of transformation of the roles and responsibilities of council and executive management at the University of North-West, (South Africa) in order to promote cooperate governance in the following areas:

1. academic transformation
2. broad transformation forum
3. role of linkages in transformation

MACCJ258

Learning from feature film: A sociocultural analysis

Judith MacCallum, Murdoch University

This paper uses Wertsch's notion of narrative as a cultural tool in historical representation, as a framework, to examine students' learning from feature film. Students' reflective journals and responses in focus group interviews during a semester-long university course, 'Hollywood and History', are used to construct the data. Analysis focuses on students' "consumption" of the accounts of history (ie what they take away from the films), and in particular their "mastery" of the content and "appropriation" (commitment or resistance) to the historical representation. Findings are discussed in the context of multiple and competing narratives of history, and the wider implications of learning from visual media.

Using a self-reflective journal to enhance science communication

Judith MacCallum and Ruth Hickey, Murdoch University

In new times the ability to self-evaluate and reflect on one's own action in communicating with others, will be a crucial workplace skill. This paper examines the use of reflective journals in an innovative peer tutoring course, designed to support university science students in peer tutoring and mentoring in schools. The course aims to enhance the effectiveness of student tutoring through students' self-evaluation and reflection on their personal tutoring experiences in relation to the course content, and to develop a link between school tutoring and workplace communication.

Findings from the first two years of the course, based on data sources of students' journal entries and responses to a questionnaire (n=45), will be presented. Analysis focuses on the development of reflective skills and students' awareness of their personal power in detecting and solving problems and developing strategies to promote two way communication. The use of self-evaluation through reflective journals was found to enhance the effectiveness of tutoring. Discussion will focus on the appropriateness of the course for developing the 'human side' of science, and the implications for developing this often under-represented aspect of science.

SYMPOSIUM 24: Researching curriculum leadership in new times: Insights into theorising and researching teachers' curriculum leadership in changing contexts.

Participants: Ian Macpherson, Tania Aspland, Ross Brooker, Robyn Wretham and Greg Thurlow, Queensland University of Technology

Overview:
This symposium will initially report on a dynamic model of curriculum leadership that has emerged with our collaborative research over the past four years. Within this model, teachers are positioned as central to curriculum leadership, and our cross sector research team has invited them to voice how they are positioned differently within differing school contexts. The findings will form the substance of Paper 1.

The research methodologies and practices have evolved within a narratives research framework juxtaposed with a particular form of critical and collaborative action research that has valued teachers stories and critical conversations as the most effective way of collecting and analysing research data about curriculum leadership in new times. The processes that we have used and the insights we have gained will form the basis of an interactive dialogue between teachers and the members of the research team. This will be the focus of Paper 2 which will be supplemented by video material.

In conclusion, we will put to the symposium that this type of research is the most appropriate methodology for teachers engaging in curriculum leadership in changing times, for it positions teachers at the centre of a process that values dialogical communication amongst partners who enjoy a parity of esteem.

MACPI146

Creating space for the voices of all stakeholders in curriculum leadership

Ian Macpherson, Queensland University of Technology

This paper reflects upon collaborative school-based research over recent years in an ARC-funded project which focussed on curriculum leadership for effective learning and teaching. While the research has addressed certain questions about the nature of curriculum leadership and its rich diversity of representation in a range of teaching/learning contexts, it has raised others of significance in relation to the "readiness" of significant stakeholders to engage in curriculum leadership practice. This paper begins to explore to what extent and in what ways all stakeholders have voice and are included in curriculum leadership practice.

The paper interrogates some exploratory conversations with teachers, students and parents in terms of their sense of empowerment to engage in and transform/reconstruct their curriculum leadership practice.

The interrogation is informed by emerging understandings about curriculum leadership from the Research Project mentioned above, and by insights derived from relevant literature about the empowerment of stakeholders to engage in and transform curriculum leadership practice.

The paper concludes with a call to define empowerment to engage in and transform curriculum leadership practice by all stakeholders in ways which are authentic and relevant in teaching/learning contexts. Such a call will foreshadow possible ways of responding to, and further researching, the challenge of creating space for the voices of all stakeholders in curriculum leadership.

Making the most of research supervision at a distance

Mary Jane Mahony, Orange Agricultural College, University of Sydney

Government and higher education imperatives together with a rising demand for postgraduate qualifications are driving an increase in postgraduate enrolments. Postgraduate research supervision, a specialised form of teaching, is thus becoming a teaching and learning issue of increasing importance, especially when coupled with the increasing number of postgraduate students undertaking programs at a distance. While supervision of postgraduate research students at a distance has always been with us and in the 1990s it is an increasing practice, it has as yet been little examined in Australia compared with the more traditional campus-based supervision. Results of a preliminary inquiry addressed to supervisors of postgraduate research students, with a focus on expectations, practices and perceived value of postgraduate research at a distance using a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) framework will be reported. Issues arising from the results together with preliminary recommendations at institutional and practitioner level will be discussed.

MAHOP425

Teaching in the managerial state

Pat Mahony and Ian Hextall, Roehampton Institute London

As for many other workers in the public sector the working lives of teachers are being redefined in accordance with precepts derived from what is commonly known as New Public Management. This phenomenon transcends national and continental boundaries and is one expression of that vigorously contested concept "globalisation". In the UK conceptions of what constitutes the 'effective teacher' and what counts as career progression are being reshaped by the new structure of National Professional Qualifications. The teaching profession is being increasingly differentiated in ways which carry significant social justice implications for particular groups of children and teachers. Major transformations are also occurring throughout the nation states of the European Community in the structure, organisation, characteristics and control of teacher education and professional development. This paper will consider why so much change should be occurring now and the influences which may be generating such activity in so many diverse contexts. It will also explore the ways in which this process of de/reprofessionalisation impacts upon issues of governance and accountability in teacher education and connect with wider debates in the public sector both in the UK and elsewhere.

MALIR095

Parental control and academic performance: A case of the Chinese-Australian and Anglo-Australian high school students

Ranbir Singh Malik, Edith Cowan University

Cross-cultural studies undertaken in the Cofucian Heritage Cultures (China, Japan and Korea) and in the Western World, have provided compelling evidence to suggest that CHC children are more diligent, have higher achievement motivation and m,ore of them aspire to professionall degrees, compared to their counterparts from the Western countires. Why do the children from the South East Asian countries, home and abroad, take school work so seriously and many Westerners do not?

This author undertook a doctoral study at Edith Cowan University and found a strong relationship between parental control strategies and children's academic achievement. In this qualitative study, thirteen high school children (six girls and seven boys) from four Chinese-Australian and four Anglo-Australian families were studied in their homes and the school they attended. These families resided in the same, predominantly middle class, suburb of Perth and their children attended the same school where this author taught for several years, including the period of doing this research.

When these children started high school, apart from the disadvantage of language for the Chinese-Australian children, similarities rather than the differences in maths and English (measured on IQ tests conducted by the school psychologist) characterised them. By the time they completed grade 12, there was a marked difference in their performance and aspirations for further studies. Only one Anglo-Australian student enrolled at the university, two enrolled at TAFE colleges and three dropped out either before completing grade 12 or after failing it. By contrast, four Chinese-Australians had enrolled at different universities to do professional degrees, one had enrolled at TAFE college and two of them (still at high school) had selected subjects leading to study programs at the university. The author found parental control in the case of th Chinese-Australians and a lack of it Anglo-Australians, as a key factor for these differential outcomes.

One journal : Two voices

Carmel Maloney and Glenda Campbell-Evans, Edith Cowan University

The art of journal writing has been increasingly included in teacher education programmes as a means of reflective practice. Although minimal research evidence exists to substantiate the effectiveness of journal writing as a tool for enquiry, Knowles and Holt-Reynolds (1991) suggest that journal writing is valuable when it "becomes interactive, shared with others as a dialogue such as what we, as teacher educators and preservice teachers interact in the pages of journals".

This paper reports phase two of a project and explores the interactive nature of journal writing between student teachers and university teachers. Whilst building upon a framework for journal analysis, an outcome of Phase one, part two of the project provides opportunities for further investigation into the respondents 'place' in the process of journal writing. Phase two data were drawn from two sources; survey and interviews. The survey focussed on issues such as how the journal was used, what it contributed to student learning, and the interactive process of journal writing. The primary purpose of the interviews was to identify the strategies university teachers used as journal respondents which contributed to students' learning about teaching.

Through content analysis themes, concepts and meanings regarding the role and the impact of respondents during interactive journalling have been explored.

MALOK272

Where will the children play? Young people talking on the urban environment

Karen Malone, Deakin University

1997 marks the twentieth anniversary of the landmark UNESCO funded research study in the field of young people's urban environmental experience: 'Growing Up In Cities'. Currently a replication and extension of this original project has been initiated in eight countries, including Australia. The Australian project contributes to this international study by comparing baseline data from the original 1972 study within the context of local and international trends, policies and patterns of urban development, children's rights and environmental education. This project is particularly significant due to the escalating impact of urbanisation on young people's lives in Australian cities and their position as marginalised and silenced in urban decision making forums.

Preliminary findings from the research project have revealed that young people living in these 'high risk' urban situations construct non-sterotypical views of the physical and social environment based on their lived experience. These experiences find them dislocated from their local environment and apathetic to much of the environmental education currently taught in schools. The aim of this project has been to establish collaborative relationships with local government officials, young people and educators from the local secondary college to develop a relevant and action oriented education emanating from young people's desire for a safe and stimulating urban environment. This paper focuses on the research methodology used to support the interaction between local government officials, researchers, community workers, police, educators and young people. The presenter poses the question: How can our research endeavours support young people to have an authentic voice in negotiating the planning of urban environments?

MALOP208

Teaching with, not from, a textbook

Patricia Malone, Australian Catholic University

This paper will explore the use of textbooks in HSC Studies of Religion classes. In the past five years, several series of Australian text books have been developed in response to new approaches to religious education and new courses such as the NSW HSC but there has been no research into the use of these materials or their contribution to an educational approach to religious education. This paper will examine text books as an aid to the teaching learning process and creative ways to use them in the religion classroom. It will discuss some research data obtained from a preliminary case study and link this to research into the effectiveness of the course on students's attitudes to religion and religions. It will also examine some of the growing educational research into the contribution of the use of text books to the teaching learning process and possible implications for the area of religious education and other subject areas.

Educational innovation in difficult contexts: Changing whole programmes to problem-based learning

Don Margetson, Griffith University

Innovations in education during a period of severe cuts in government funding face a bleak prospect. The pressure is to produce more with less.Financial pressure is, of course, not the only influence. Ideological shifts, technological developments, and other changes play their parts. However, the new times in which education finds itself are dominated by a severe reduction in resources. A common criticism (whether valid or not) of problem-based learning is that it is resource-intensive in terms of staff-student ratios. Yet, in this context, three medical schools in Australia have recently moved systematically towards problem-based learning to some extent. In a similar context in the UK, all medical schools have been encouraged to move in that direction, and at least three have recently changed whole programmes towards problem-based learning. What has been their experience of such thorough change in the currently difficult context? What might we learn from this for research and innovation at all levels of education? This paper will consider the issues in the light of a study based on recent visits to some of these institutions.

MARKG182

When human capital theory serves social justice: Competency based wages for workers with disabilities

Genee Marks, Bricolage Academic and Research Consultancies, NSW

The Supported Wage System, established by Australia's Federal Labor government, was designed to ensure that people who were not considered competitive in the open labour market, could still be employed, and earning what was considered to be 'appropriate wages', whilst also receiving vocational education and training relevant to their specific employment. Despite the clear potential for abuse by employers, this arrangement was fully endorsed by the ACTU, employer bodies and the Industrial Relations Commission. The government report, Working Solution, took this human capital perspective further yet, arguing that for workers with disabilities, even within supported and sheltered employment services, "payment is at full award rates or pro-rata rates, on the basis of an agreed productivity based/skills competency assessment, consistent with the principles of the supported wages system." (1995, p.9).

What is in question in this paper is the effect that the notion of a supported or competency based wage may have on the employment, and subsequent work-based vocational education and training, of people with disabilities. It seems, in fact, that the Supported Wage System has worked effectively towards affirmative action and equal opportunity for people with disabilities. Companies such as McDonald's and Pizza Hut have taken the system on board, and have proved themselves to be consistent and supportive employers of people with disabilities. Pizza Hut, for example, has a Supported Wage Clause inserted into the P.H.A. Enterprise Agreement, and boasts that through its JobPlus Disability Programme, 2.2% of Pizza Hut's workforce across Australia has a disability. It will be argued in this paper that a perspective driven by human capital theory is working to support social justice and equity in the workforce.

Influences on reading comprehension and numeracy among junior secondary school students in Australia: 1975-1995

Gary N Marks, Australian Council for Educational Research

This paper focuses on changes in achievement over time and the association of achievement with several social and educational factors. Data for the analyses reported were drawn from two national monitoring studies and other studies of representative samples of junior secondary school students

designed to monitor the progress of young people through school into further education, training and work. The tests focussed on reading skills (which correlate highly with other aspects of literacy) and numeracy.

The analyses reported include: comparisons of the percentage of students correctly answering common items; the mean levels of achievement and (where possible) over time comparisons over time of the influence of gender, ethnicity, a variety of aspects of social background and schools on achievement.

Impact of national curriculum initiatives on teachers' practical theories

Perc Marland, Andrew Sturman and Chris Forlin, University of Southern Queensland and Kerry Kennedy, University of Canberra

A number of changes linked to National Curriculum Frameworks and Profiling have occurred throughout Australian schools in the last few years. Attempts have been made to monitor, in broad terms, the progress of these developments across State and Territory jurisdictions and to identify factors which have facilitated or impeded such progress. Teacher reactions to these developments have also been mapped but no study has yet examined the impact of such developments on the practical theories of teachers, that is, the notions about teaching and learning which shape the actual classroom practices of teachers. Yet the success of any classroom reform depends on teachers developing a commitment to the reform and changing the ways they conceptualise their work and the values, beliefs and principles which underlie their practices.

This study examines changes to the practical theories of twelve teachers of English and Mathematics in three state schools in Queensland and relates those changes (or lack of change) to aspects of the institutional contexts in which they served.

The measurement of physical self-concept

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

The lability of psychological ratings: The chameleon effect in global self-esteem

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

MARSH155

New times, new techniques for examining the separation of the competency and affective components of self-concept: A developmental perspective

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

MARSH154

The lability of psychological ratings: The chameleon effect in global self-esteem

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

MARSH155

New times, new techniques for examining the separation of the competency and affective components of self-concept: A developmental perspective

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

Self-handicapping and level and stability of self-concept

Andrew Martin, University of Western Sydney

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 11, To boldly go beyond: New advances in self-concept measurement, theory and enhancement.

MARTW358

Addressing homophobia in schools

Wayne Martino, Murdoch University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 3, Sexualities and the intellectual work of gender reform.

MARTW419

SYMPOSIUM 24: Addressing boys' education: Framing debates, implementing strategies and formulating policies

Chairperson: Wayne Martino

Participants: Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, University of Technology, Sydney, Stephen Fisher, Murdoch University, Lindsay Fitzclarence, Chris Hickey and Russell Matthews, Deakin University, and Lori Beckett, University of Sydney

Overview:
In this symposium issues pertaining to the education of boys are outlined within a gender equity framework for drawing attention to the impact and effect of hegemonic masculinites in schools. Current debates and assumptions in boys' education that obstruct and limit the work that can be done will be addressed. Research with adolescent boys in schools will also be drawn on as a basis for signalling the effectivity of particular strategies for helping boys to address issues of masculinity and power in their lives within the context of gender reform initiatives. The ways in which the new national framework, "Gender Equity : A Framework for Australian Schools", can contribute to teachers' and parents' work with boys to understand their schooling and social experiences and improve their educational outcomes will also be outlined.

PAPER 1:

"The boys and the binaries": Current debates in boys education

Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, University of Technology, Sydney

In this paper, I will address current debates and assumptions in boys education that obstruct and limit the work that can be done. Misrepresentations and simplifications of history, feminism, and social, cultural and sexual diversity are sometimes mobilised as forms of resistance to attending to the complexities and subtleties in boys education in the context of gender reform.In addressing current debates, it will become evident that they are often constructed as oppositional discourses within a binary either/or framework.Some of the examples I will present are: essentialism OR socialconstruction; absent father OR present father; pro-feminist or anti-feminist. Each of these dualities homogenises and simplifies issues that require far more contextualised understandings.

PAPER 2:

FISHS421

Male violence in schools - who's doing the bullying?

Stephen Fisher, Murdoch University

Two streams of current social concern - the problem of masculinity and the issue of violence - converge in the institutional arena of schooling often obscurely named 'bullying'. This interest has led to recent publication of works that address either 'school-based violence' or 'issues for boys' (and only occasionally both) which not only contain many problematic assumptions, but are providing a framework for action/intervention in schools.

This presentation aims to uncover the essentially 'violence-reproducing' chararcteristic of these frameworks and programs. In particular, the 'issues for boys debate' is being driven by a thinly veiled 'backlash' against feminism being spearheaded by the charismatic Steve Biddulph. On the other hand, work to address violence in schools is largely cosmetic by lacking a recognition of the importance of structural/cultural change. Finally a new framework for addressing 'masculinity' and violence is described.

PAPER 3:

Boys in schools: Addressing the politics of hegemonic masculinities

Wayne Martino, Murdoch University

In this paper I will draw on interviews conducted with a group of adolescent boys in a catholic co-educational school to explicate the regimes of practices in which they enact particular stylised forms of masculinity. The data will be used to draw attention to ways in which these boys learn to relate to themselves and to others within the context of peer group relations and dynamics at this particular school. Possible implications of this research for assisting boys to develop specific kinds of capacities are indicated with regards to establishing a gender equity framework for addressing the politics of masculinities in schools.

PAPER 4:

FITZL423

Coaches, charges and contexts; studying gender dynamics and football

Lindsay Fitzclarence, Chris Hickey and Russell Matthews, Deakin University

In this presentation we outline the use of 'narrative pedagogy' in working with an underage football team. The presentation is designed to explore the use of the narrative approach as strategy for teaching aimed at developing alternative ways of experiencing and understanding gender relations. By focusing on the sporting arena we confront both theoretical and practical challenges because until recent times sport has evaded critical examination as it was generally regarded as a cultural practice that was thought to be in a socially neutral space, beyond the relations where legitimate social politics was conducted. The presentation outlines attempts to work within the sporting context with an aim to generate alternative gender knowledges.

PAPER 5:

BECKL424

Boys concern parents: Lobbying for gender reform

Lori Beckett, University of Sydney

In this paper, I will share some of my interview work with parents and their sons, which investigates, at a school community level, parents' and students' beliefs about feminine and masculine behaviours; parents' and students' expectations of educational outcomes; the ways these beliefs about gender are linked to patterns of boys' participation in education, and in the case of HSC candidates, their post-school outcomes; and parents' and students' views about gender equity. The intention is to shed some light not only on the way gender actually impacts on boys' schooling and their educational outcomes, but also on the ways parents and boys understand the schooling experience, in order to provide some direction for gender reform work.

Boys in schools: Addressing the politics of hegemonic masculinities

Wayne Martino, Murdoch University

This paper will be presented as part of Symposium 25, Addressing boys' education: Framing debates, implementing strategies and formulating policies.

MATSA377

The images of Japan in Australian secondary school textbooks

Akinori Matsumoto, Christchurch Polytechnic, New Zealand

This study identifies the images of Japan in the context of the Meiji Restoration and the Pacific War as described in Victorian secondary school textbooks, and clarifies the chronological changes of the images. The images include positive and negative views of Japan and the Japanese, and stereotyped and non-stereotyped views of Japan and the Japanese in the context of both of the previously mentioned events in modern Japanese history. Positive and negative views are identified by investigating judgemental information in the textbooks. By comparing Western scholars' views with Japanese scholars', stereotyped and non-stereotyped views on the events are defined.

The chronological changes in international relations between Australia and Japan are also investigated by using both Australian and Japanese materials. The links between these changes of such extreme images and stereotyped views, and the chronological changes in international relations are clarified. The results of the analysis show the degree to which the interdependence between the two groups (Australia and Japan) influenced the formation of the images of the outgroup (Japan) among the ingroup (Australia) members. This study also clarifies how the power balance between two groups can affect the creation of stereotyped views of the outgroup among ingroup members.

Fleeing the self in pursuit of the other

Julie Matthews, Sunshine Coast University College

Philosophers, feminists and postcolonial theorists cast radical doubt on our ability to see it and tell it like it is. Exploring the uncer