This is the column in AARE News dedicated to publishing news on recent doctoral theses in education. This addition includes theses from the Cunningham Library ACER Education Research Theses database. These can be accessed at http://www.acer.edu.au/library/catalogues/theses.html.
Digital theses can also be accessed via the Australian Digital Thesis Program, coordinated through the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL). http://adt.caul.edu.au/
Please encourage the research units in your Faculties/Schools of Education to consider forwarding details of recently completed theses. Abstracts of completed doctoral theses can be sent to me at: vharwood@uow.edu.au
Guidelines for your submission can be found in AARE News Issue 42 (available on AARE's website). Please note that we are now publishing the names of candidates' supervisor(s), to include them in the celebration of the work completed.
Some key points to remember are:
Valerie Harwood
Executive Member
Gender and socio-economic differences in participation, subject selection and performance in grade 12 subjects were examined in this research project. One of Australia's largest senior secondary schools was the main setting for the study. This project comprised three stages: a quantitative investigation of subject participation and performance, involving 2500 students; an anonymous survey of 800 students, in which students' beliefs and attitudes toward subjects, and their reasons for subject choices were examined; and focus group interviews with students and teachers to probe in more detail selected findings from the first two stages.
Traditional gender-stereotyped enrolment patterns were found in the mathematics and science subjects. Girls and boys chose differing subject combinations and gave different reasons for selecting mathematics and science subjects. Gender differences in performance in favour of girls were found in all mathematics and science subjects and for most types of assessment. Few of these differences were statistically significant when "ability" was taken into account. Enrolments and performance in the key mathematics and science subjects were found to increase with increasing socio-economic group. Socio-economic differences were statistically significant when "ability" was taken into account. Boys, particularly lower socio-economic boys, were found to put in less time and effort into their school work than the girls claimed they did. Boys' peer groups may be a factor in this effect.
Male and higher socio-economic students were found to occupy a high value "niche" in the curriculum which is likely to advantage them post-school. This may, in part, be related to teacher beliefs and expectations. Sex-stereotyped beliefs were found to be prevalent among the students in the study. Boys selected a more limited range of subjects, with choices shaped by their intended career; girls were more diverse in their selections and seemed to be planning for two possible lives - a career, and childrearing. Limited evidence in this study was found to support the crisis in boys' education. However, the media portrayal of this issue probably influences student beliefs.
This thesis examined what two groups of Western teachers said about the students they taught, their own role, professional and social identity, the knowledge transmitted, and their pedagogical strategies. A review of the literature concluded that teachers draw on four interrelated: knowledge of content, teaching processes, and of their own and students' pedagogic identities. The theoretical framework drew on models of teachers' knowledge bases (Elbaz, 1983; Shulman, 1986a, 1986b, 1987; Nias, 1989; Turner-Bisset, 1997, 1999), the sociology of knowledge (Bernstein, 1975, 1990, 1996, 1999, 2000), and notions of pedagogic identity (Bernstein, 2000). This framework theorised the types of knowledges taught, categories of teaching process knowledge, and the range of pedagogic identities made available to teachers and students in offshore education. The teacher participants from both case studies taught a range of subjects and used English as the medium of instruction. Data for both case studies were generated via semi-structured interviews. The interviews focused on the teachers' descriptions of the learner characteristics of Indonesian students, their professional roles whilst teaching offshore, and curriculum and pedagogic design.
The analyses produced four findings. Firstly, the teacher participants drew on all knowledge bases and that these knowledge bases were interrelated. Secondly, teachers' knowledge bases were negotiated in response to their beliefs about their work and the past, present and future demands of the local context. A third finding was that it was only when the teachers entered into reflective dialogue that they questioned the stereotypical views of Indonesian learners as passive, shy and quiet. The final finding was that the teachers were positioned in multiple ways by contradictory and conflicting discourses. The analyses suggested that teachers' pedagogic identities were a site of struggle between dominant market orientations and the criteria that the teachers thought should determine who was a legitimate teacher for offshore Indonesian students.
This thesis presents an interpretative study of an Australian offshore program in educational leadership conducted at Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in China from 2002 to 2003. It is a study of the influence of international education on the conceptions of the participants in a particular context, where Chinese culture and Western cultures came into contact. The study is significant because it investigated a relatively new aspect of international education, offshore education, this time from the perspective of the participants. It explored the conceptions of learning and leadership brought by a group of Chinese educational leaders to the course and investigated the perceived influence of the course upon their conceptions and self-reported leadership practice. It employed a culturally sensitive approach which recognizes that a complex interaction between Chinese and Western cultures is occurring in the participants of this study.
This study was inspired by the phenomenographic approach and employed a semi-structured and in-depth interview technique. Twenty participants were interviewed twice over a 12-month period. The study sought a better understanding of their conceptions by making a comparison between their perceptions prior to and after undertaking the course. Participants were from schools, universities and educational departments.
The findings showed that most participants developed more complex understandings of learning and leadership throughout the course. Comparison of their conceptions prior to and after the course indicated an expanded range of, and more complex conceptions. There was a general shift from content/utilitarian-oriented learning conceptions to meaning/developmental-oriented conceptions. There was also a shift from task/directive-orientated conceptions about leadership to motivation/collaborative-oriented conceptions. The findings also revealed some differences regarding conceptual and practice changes across the three sectors. This study therefore makes a new contribution to understanding Chinese educational leaders' conceptions of learning and leadership in an international education context.
This study examines one school and university partnership that was modelled on the principles of a Professional Development School. Whereas most research investigating school and university partnerships addresses the outcomes of such partnerships, or attempts to describe and advocate for ideal partnerships, this study considers the actual interactional work of the participants as they engage in the everyday and ongoing activities of partnership. It adopts the view that the work of partnership is an ongoing accomplishment through the activity of the participants. In this way, it shows the local social order of a partnership as it was built, maintained and transformed through the interactional work of the participants. Both the institutional setting and the participants' enactment of partnership work contribute to the establishment of the social and moral order of the partnership.
This study drew on ethnomethodological resources, particularly those of conversation analysis and membership category analysis, to develop understandings about how the participants accomplish the partnership work through their talk-in-interaction. The study shows the resources that the participants use to construct and accomplish their different kinds of expertise, to enact the leadership activities required, and to co-construct the various features of partnership. It offers analytic tools for uncovering the interactional resource of the participants. In showing how the social and moral orders of partnerships are revealed and by offering understandings of the pragmatics of school and university partnership, the social structure of school and university partnerships is explicated. Epistemologically, the study explores and exposes the kinds of knowledge produced from this kind of accounting for school and university partnerships. It shows how the work of partnership can be accomplished by participants, rather than attempt to claim how it should be done.
This thesis presents the critical analysis of a study of students, perceptions of educational change. Much educational change involves shifts in power and responsibilities between different actors, such as governments, school administrators, teachers, parents, the community and students. Despite widespread interest in educational change it is usually the macro-level policy elite who exert the most influence, using their power, privilege and status in order to propagate particular versions of schooling; students continue to be the 'objects' of policy initiatives, submerged in a Freirean Oculture of silence,. Students are frequently excluded as participants in both the process and decision making phases of change. The research explored their exclusion from educational changes resulting from a top-down policy initiative by the State department of education in WA, the Local Area Education Planning (LAEP) Framework. How policy is defined and acted on is explored, and the roles students could have, but often do not, are highlighted. An eclectic hybrid conceptual framework drawing on both critical theory and a postmodern policy cycle approach was used.
The research comprised in-depth case studies of three schools undergoing educational restructuring. Key elements of the policy were school amalgamations, closures and the creation of Middle Schools. Data collection methods included focus group with students from the three schools, as well as document analysis, staff interviews and field notes. The research found that students were very perceptive about educational change, that they were deeply impacted by educational change and that they wanted to participate in restructuring agendas. Several meta-level themes emerged from the students, Ovoices,, including issues associated with disempowerment, and competing social justice and economic discourses. The findings foreground the often messy and contradictory tensions evident in policy processes. The thesis concluded by developing theory on ways in which students could be included meaningfully as participants in educational change.
This research explores how motivation in the domains of sport and music is shaped at the interface of person and context. From a social cognitive perspective, motivation research focuses on factors within the individual, whereas a more situated conceptualisation examines motivation within a person in context perspective. This study combines elements of both perspectives. It is proposed that motivation is shaped at the interface of person and context, where individuals make appraisals of social (other people) and structural (physical or organisational) aspects of their environments. A holistic view of motivation is adopted that incorporates initial engagement, ongoing involvement and persistence. In order to capture such a dynamic, complex construct, semi-structured interviews and innovative tasks are used to gather biographical and longitudinal data about high-achieving athletes and musicians from diverse settings.
The findings reveal that complex personal and contextual factors operate reciprocally and dynamically as individuals make ongoing appraisals of their current situations. For example, personal factors such as aptitude, and contextual factors such as the existence of community programs, operate in a reciprocal way to shape participants' initial engagement in sport or music. Complexity is highlighted when examining the role of onlookers (spectators or audience). A powerful effect on continuing involvement occurs when communities overlap and family members take on roles associated with onlookers. Participants face a range of potential problems in their lives and there are variations in the way these are perceived, in strategies and resources used, and in their impact on persistence. An important finding is the dynamic nature of motivation as participants' involvement in sport or music changes over time. In addition to deepening our understanding of how motivation is shaped at the interface of person and context, the study offers a unique methodological contribution and the findings have implications for enhancing motivation in applied settings.
This study explores the qualities of effective environments for English learning and teaching by examining the experiences and beliefs of 12 adult EFL Korean learners. Within a qualitative research paradigm, data were collected using a background questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, post-interview notes and learner journals. An interpretive approach to analysis was applied.
The learners believed the following as intrinsic to effective learning: continuous learning, active learning, individual learner effort, learner responsibility for learning, and practice through memorisation and repetition. Importantly, for these learners, effective teaching is built on warm and trusting relationships between teachers and learners, and among classmates, a comfortable and safe classroom atmosphere, and teachers who regard teaching as a mission, not simply as a job, and who are enthusiastic and responsible.
The findings suggest that more attention needs to be given to: the integration of important elements of both old and new teaching methods and of both Eastern and Western values. The study suggests that different varieties of English should be taught and learned as a means of cross-cultural communication and understanding and of conservation of local cultures. The findings also suggest that Korean teachers of English need to be exposed to other varieties of English and recognise that their English is not inferior to, but rather different from, NESs' English. Native speaking-teachers of English (NSTEs) should also learn about Korean culture and language as part of their professional responsibility as teachers of English in Korea. The study highlights cross-cultural understanding between EFL learners and NSTEs as an important element to create desirable learning and teaching environments. Finally, the study offers a range of insights to inform the development of culturally appropriate models of learning and teaching environments not only in the Korean context, but also in contexts similar to Korea.