1997 AARE Conference, Brisbane

Compiler and Editor: Peter L. Jeffery.

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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:

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'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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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:

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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:

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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:

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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:

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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'.

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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.

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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:

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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:

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 developme