The column in AARE News dedicated to publishing news on recent doctoral theses in education. The Education Research Theses (ERT) available at ACER can be accessed via http://www.acer.edu.au/library/catalogues/theses.html.
Stuart Hughes from ACER contacted me recently to notify some changes. I've included the information below.
As of April 2006 there are 73 new records for theses, and there are some new enhancements with the ERT database for institutional subscribers being upgraded. New ERT features include:
The site also has added new access points on the theses entry page - if users happen to be browsing our site or otherwise find their way to the URL above, we direct them to their institutional authentication points for access to ERT, ensuring they can make the most of their access privileges, even if they haven't come from a resources pages at their own institution. Please check your access point and let us know if there are problems. We've already noticed an increase in ERT usage as a result of this. ERT feedback - and tip-offs about new theses - is always welcome.
The abstracts below have been taken from the Cunningham Library. I have not been able to include names of supervisors because these are not listed on the database. 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
Abstract
Changes in higher education have given rise to new management rotes in Australian universities. These include the emergence of the professional university administrator and new responsibilities for senior staff such as deans and faculty managers. The thesis contends that these changes have led to increased role conflict between administrative and academic staff and the evolution of dual authority structures in universities. It demonstrates that existing theories are not adequate to explain practices, relationships, and roles in contemporary universities. The study proposes a new theory of the university organisation as a diarchy. This theory is derived from an analysis of interviews with deans and faculty managers in seven Australian universities. The theoretical framework used for this part of the study, the layered systems model, emphasises the need to consider multiple perspectives in any organisational analysis. The empirical study finds evidence from multiple sources to support the existence of the diarchy: an administrative and an academic domain with distinct assumptions about the nature of work, structures and processes, and the basis of authority. The diarchy is most evident in informal structures such as the working relationships between pairs of deans and faculty managers. The study finds that partnerships between these pairs vary in ways not related to their formal responsibilities nor the particular faculty or university environment. Three models are identified: the nested partnership, the conjoint partnership, and the segmented partnership. There is a positive correlation between identification of deans and faculty managers with either the administrative or academic domain and the partnership style of a particular pair. The findings of the study provide new insights into the debate about collegial and managerialist models of universities, and suggest strategies that could be used by universities to support the professionalisation of administrators and to shape work cultures to align with institutional goals.
Abstract
This research shows that, to function effectively in a changing environment that includes the convergence of online learning and e-business, managers in the vocational education and training sector need an increasingly sophisticated conceptual framework and set of business skills that appropriately draw on contemporary business management theory and practice.
Abstract
Amidst intensifying demands for simultaneous improvement of current performance, adoption of priorities relinquished by other community organisations, and innovation to meet future educational challenges, schools are being urged into a paradigm shift in pedagogy. Despite the rich resource of the literature of educational change, deep and sustained change remains partial and scattered. This research examines whether it is the existing individual practical theories about learning, teaching and managing change, and the collective codes held by participants in pedagogic change, that facilitate or block innovation and, if so, what factors shape the outcome. In a qualitative study, participants in structured programs of pedagogic change at the secondary level have described their own experiences. A total of 183 trainee teachers provided reflective written comments on their intensive one-year course, and 36 established teachers and 10 groups of students from two secondary schools were interviewed. The responses have been matched with principles asserted in the literature. Memoirs and transcripts displayed practical theories and collective codes that were firmly grounded in early experiences, prior training and embedded values. They clearly facilitated pedagogic change for some, but blocked it for others. Change, if it occurred at all, was a process of learning to do familiar tasks in a different way. Participants preserved compatible practices, or assimilated new pedagogic knowledge and skills easily, or struggled to accommodate, or resisted strenuously, according to the practical theories and collective codes that were determining their current practices. Regular and sustained mentoring in an accepted alternative theory within a proximate group brought partial implementation, but contradictory theories amongst participants created serious time barriers and resource poverty. Aligning the disparate theories is the first priority of any plan for innovation.