bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Cognitive Psychology of Knowledge: Basic Research Findings and Educational Implications
Authors: Yates Gregory C.R. , Chandler Margaret
Published: March 2013

This article reviews empirical findings that implicate personal knowledge in human information processing. It cites findings in relation to intelligence, automaticity, learning, schemata activation, analogical processing, problem solving, reading, and cognitive development, and indicates ways in which the impact of prior knowledge typically is not obvious to a teacher, and ways in which prior knowledge can, at times, disrupt the learning process (especially via misconception and know-it-all effects). Educational implications, especially the Matthew effect, are discussed
Key Determinants of Motivation of Non-Traditional Aboriginal Students in School Settings: Recommendations for Educational Change
Authors: McInerney Dennis M.
Published: March 2013

This research was designed to investigate culturally specific elements of non-traditional Aboriginal motivation. Among the aims of the research were to study: (a) the salient determinants of motivation of urban and rural non-traditional Aboriginal students in mainstream educational settings; (b) the relevant background factors that influence Aboriginal motivation in these settings; (c) the dynamics of decision making that orient the Aboriginal student to continue with school beyond the minimum school leaving age, and (d) ways in which education programs may be made more adaptive to the special needs of Aboriginal children. A consistent picture of the urban Aboriginal child at school emerged from the analyses. In contrast to the Anglo and migrant comparator groups, the explanatory base for the Aboriginal child's decision making within the school environment appears restricted to a small number of key variables.
Responding to Teacher Education Imperatives for the Nineties
Authors: Hewitson Mal , McWilliam Erica , Burke Clarrie
Published: March 2013

This paper presents a case study in which the staff of a department of teacher education was challenged to transform theoretical notions into practical outcomes in relation to its own role in the scheme of things. By seizing the moment of history when a coincidence of forces—economic, political and intellectual—was making a deep impact on the professional lives of its staff, the department moved from traditional structures and approaches to teaching to a value position founded on critically reflective analyses of the needs of professional practice in the 1990s. The values for which the revitalised department now stands are authenticated in the discussion which follows. This paper traces the development of a conceptual framework which gave new shape and direction to what the department now both espouses and practises.
Parental Role Conceptions Associated with Preschool Involvement
Authors: Russell Alan
Published: March 2013

This research was conducted in a large preschool in Adelaide where parental involvement was encouraged and emphasised. Parents were interviewed about how they conceived their role in the education of their child. They were classified into one of four groups based on these beliefs. The classification was influenced especially by the parent's ideas about the relative contributions and responsibilities of parents and teachers. The parents were also interviewed about their involvement with the preschool. Finally the parents completed a self-report questionnaire indicating how often they had engaged in each of 58 possible involvement activities throughout the year. Parental views about and participation in involvement activities were in many ways consistent with conceptions of their educational role. It was concluded that parental beliefs about their educational role is likely to be a factor influencing the nature and extent of parental involvement at preschool.
The Development of Educational Computing Policy in the Victorian School System, 1976–1985
Authors: Walker Rae
Published: March 2013

This paper is a critical historical review of the development of school computing policy primarily in the Victorian secondary state school system. As Victoria is linked to the national computer education program, relevant developments at that level are also explored. Computer technology is conceptualised as a social phenomenon and policy development as both a historical and political process. Policy development is located within the context of the development of microcomputer technology and of teacher relationships to that technology. In the early stages of policy development, the rudiments of a critical social perspective on technology are apparent. In the Victorian policy, this perspective became marginalised during the policy process. The orientation towards a broad social concept of technology was displaced by an instrumental framework in which computers were conceived as an unproblematic set of tools and associated techniques.
Teaching as a Form of Work: Effects of Teachers' Roles and Role Definitions on Working to Rule
Authors: Warton Pamela M. , Goodnow Jacqueline J. , Bowes Jennifer M. , Bowes Jennifer M.
Published: March 2013

Teachers' ideas about the nature of their work become more explicit during times of industrial action. The present study explored the effects of some characteristics of teachers (gender, length of teaching) and their current roles (K–6 classroom, secondary classroom, school executives) upon their perceptions of what teaching involves, their actions taken during the work-to-rule campaign, and their definitions of and attitudes towards work-to-rule. Most teachers saw their work in interpersonal terms rather than in terms of duties and conditions, and distinguished between ‘essential’ and ‘gift’ activities. Current roles had little effect on attitudes towards work-to-rule, but a strong effect on action: K–6 classroom teachers were significantly less likely to participate or make sizeable changes. These findings were discussed in terms of the differing social and interpersonal contexts of teaching.
Demand, Supply and Adjustment in the Teachers Labour Market
Authors: Lewis Philip , Norris Keith
Published: March 2013

There have been important changes in the labour market for teachers in Australia over recent years which have not received much attention from economists. This paper analyses the way in which a particular state, namely Western Australia, has adjusted to these changes. The analysis of how the teachers labour market works is of interest both in Australia and overseas.
The Use of Student Evaluations of University Teaching in Different Settings: The Applicability Paradigm
Authors: Marsh Herbert W. , Roche Lawrence A.
Published: March 2013

The applicability paradigm has been used in five studies to evaluate the applicability of items from two North American instruments designed to measure students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness. In the present investigation, the paradigm is used at the new University of Western Sydney, Macarthur (UWSM). Items from both instruments were seen as appropriate and important, and differentiated among lecturers chosen as good, average and poor teachers. A multitrait-multimethod analysis of responses from the two instruments supported their convergent and divergent validity. The pattern of items judged to be most important at UWSM was more similar to patterns found at two research universities than patterns in the technical and further education sector or at two other institutions. These results support the applicability of the instruments at UWSM and across a diversity of educational settings.
Expert Review and Educational Reform: The Case of Student Assessment in Queensland Secondary Schools
Authors: Sadler D. Royce
Published: March 2013

Major reforms in assessment policy in Queensland secondary schools have occurred during the past 30 years. In each case, the reforms resulted from the adoption of recommendations, produced by a panel of experts, which constituted the design for a new system. Two features of the designs—their underlying philosophy and the status and technical adequacy of the recommendations—affected their prospects of success. Other influences were the experiences of teachers and public opinion as expressed and shaped through the media. Although substantial procedural changes were made to each assessment system during its operating life, these adjustments seemed incapable of warding off a crisis of professional and public confidence. In this article, crises in the reform cycles are analysed and interpreted in terms of legitimation theory.
Access to Curricula in Three School Settings for Students with Severe Intellectual Disability
Authors: Grbich Carolyn , Sykes Stewart
Published: March 2013

The area of severe intellectual disability has received little attention in Australian research. This Victorian study examined the issue of access to curricula in post primary school and special school placements for a group of students with severe intellectual disability. Results from the investigation indicated: that parents were generally dissatisfied with the lack of choice available regarding educational placements and the lack of opportunity for them to contribute in a supportive manner to their daughter's/son's schooling: that teachers in post primary schools reported an urgent need for special training or for specialised staff to assist them with curricular modification: and that the female students in this group experienced disadvantage in several curricular areas.
The Media: Moral Lessons and Moral Careers
Authors: Turnbull Sue
Published: March 2013

The account of a media lesson on female stereotypes in advertising, conducted in a multicultural single-sex classroom of an inner-urban Australian school, becomes the starting point for a challenge to the feminist orthodoxies currently being taught in media studies. It is suggested that, in the negotiation of selves and future roles, the media play a complex role in the lives of young women whose expectations and desires may differ from those of their parents and/or teachers. Crucial to the construction of selves is the question of agency which is discussed in relation to the concept of moral careers and how these are to be managed successfully by girls who experience degrees of cultural dissonance across different social spheres. It is argued that the media play a significant role in the negotiation of such dissonance which should be recognised and acknowledged by teachers in their classroom practice.
Children Talk Horror Videos: Reading as a Social Performance
Authors: Moss Gemma
Published: March 2013

This article argues that children should be treated as a specific media audience in their own right, who are engaged in actively learning how to read media texts. I use children's talk about horror videos to argue for a social theory of learning in which both talk about text and the social contexts in which the genre circulates orientate readers towards its content and the subject positions from which it can be read.
Strengthening Australia's Schools through Corporate Federalism?
Authors: Lingard Bob , O'Brien Peter , Knight John
Published: March 2013

The federal policy document, ‘Strengthening Australia's schools’ (SAS), signified a new approach to commonwealth—state relations in schooling policy making—corporate federalism. Corporate federalism extended the application of neocorporatist strategies for managing and responding to crisis (here, in particular, Australia's worsening national and international economic situation) from the private to the public sector This paper documents and evaluates the rationale for corporate federalism in SAS. Some possible future developments within federalism and schooling policy are also considered.
Teacher Knowledge, Education Studies and Advanced Skills Credentials
Authors: Fawns Rod , Nance David
Published: March 2013

It is argued that appraisal of advanced skills in teaching should be based on the pedagogical content knowledge which good teachers, in biology for instance, could be expected to possess and which a well-trained biologist would not. Public acceptance of this claim is the key element in any argued case for a career restructuring which rewards the development of teaching expertise in schools and universities. Several initial schemes employed in Victoria for appraisal of Advanced Skills Teacher 1 are critically examined. An alternative to the competency-based approaches is presented, founded on research into the development of practical reasoning of teachers.
Knowledge, Gender and Power in Physical Education Teacher Education
Authors: Macdonald Doune
Published: March 2013

This paper is part of a larger study which looked at the social construction of knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and practices in a physical education teacher education program. Through participant observations and interviews, texts of pedagogy were read in terms of their gendered discourses. Specifically the discourses associated with staffing patterns, students' physicality and body image, social interaction patterns, course knowledge, and research foci and how notions of ‘the body’ underpin these were examined. Analyses suggested that the female students were marginalised by the dominant discourses although there was resistance from some faculty and students. The conclusion is drawn that the teacher education program perpetuated masculine hegemony. It thus contributed to limiting the voice of women physical educators and the potential of all graduates to challenge the sexist structures within physical education and the teaching profession.
Fundamentalist Education and Creation Science
Authors: Speck Cathy , Prideaux David
Published: March 2013

It is argued that creation science education, because of its conservatism, has become accepted as a quiet presence in Australian education. The authors demonstrate, via an examination of the social studies and science components of a creation science education program, how these programs are at odds with widely accepted views on education in Australia and do not comply with requirements for registration of non-government schools, as set out by the Australian Education Council. Moreover the wider issue of creation science has been pushed aside as ‘too hard’ by Australian educators. It is argued that there is evidence to question seriously this narrow fundamentalist education operating in some Australian schools.
Work Experience as a Solution to the Problems of Relevance and Credibility in Teacher Education
Authors: Hatton Elizabeth
Published: March 2013

Teacher educators are mainly recruited from the ranks of teachers and are overwhelmingly experienced in teaching. This solid background of experience is frequently taken for granted to be a good, questioned only when experience is seen as obsolete. Turney and Wright (1990), for example, question the contemporary relevance of teacher educators' classroom experience. They recommend that teacher educators spend ‘a period … every three years in work experience in schools’. They believe such work experience will substantially contribute to the solution of two connected problems endemic in teacher education; namely, the problems teacher educators face in appearing both relevant and credible in the eyes of their clientele. This paper offers arguments and provides empirical data concerning teacher educators' use of experience which cast doubt on the Turney and Wright proposal. An alternative solution to the problems of relevance and credibility is outlined.
Principals' and Teachers' Reactions to School Restructuring
Authors: Dimmock Clive , Hattie John
Published: March 2013

There have been relatively few studies that have gauged the thoughts, reactions and expectations held by those working in schools towards decentralisation and restructuring of school systems. This study investigates the views held by a sample of principals and teachers in Western Australia of the likely effects of restructuring on changing roles and responsibilities, actual and desired outcomes, changing power and influence relations, personal values, and difficulties in meeting new expectations. Both principals and teachers predicted that decentralisation and devolution would increase their workloads and broaden their roles. Principals would require more human and technical management competencies; teachers would assume more non-teaching duties. Notwithstanding difficulties and drawbacks, principals and teachers believed that restructuring would lead to better, more effective, and more efficient schools.
A Methodology to Choose Performance Indicators of Research Attainment in Universities
Authors: Tognolini J. , Adams K. , Hattie J.
Published: March 2013

This paper presents a procedure for identifying performance indicators of research attainment and highlights some definitional issues of the chosen performance indicators. Both the procedure for identification and the definition of performance indicators need to be reconciled prior to the implementation of models of performance indicators, if the model is to have a high probability of becoming accepted within a university context.
Australian TAFE Assessment Practices: Confusing Relevance and Responsiveness
Authors: Stevenson John , Brown Irene
Published: March 2013

There are two contrasting world views discernible in contemporary Australian government skill-formation literature: one which recognises the need for the development of underlying cognitive structures and interpersonal attributes for the workplace; and one which values the development of pre-specified observable skills, as in competency-based training. This study examines TAFE assessment practices across Australia, as an indicator of the extent to which each view is represented in practice. The study found that, for initial vocational courses, some practices accord more with the latter world view than with the former; but, for non-vocational courses, there was a greater balance in approaches to assessment and relatively more emphasis on assessing some increasingly important workplace attributes. The implications of some current practices are that TAFE graduates entering the workforce may be inept when required to adapt, solve problems or innovate.
Co-Operative Group versus Individual Evaluations of Instruction in Professional In-Service Training
Authors: Townsend Michael A.R. , Moore Dennis W.
Published: March 2013

School principals and senior school administrators evaluated an in-service training course in which they had participated, concerned with the use of co-operative learning programs in schools. Approximately half of the participants made their evaluations as individuals, whereas the remaining participants made their evaluations as members of three-person groups which were asked to reach consensus on each rating item. Course evaluations were more positive in the group-evaluation condition. The results are discussed in terms of group polarisation theory and validity issues concerning the uses of such evaluations in higher education settings.
The Productivity of Australian Academics in Education
Authors: Hattie John , Print Murray , Krakowski Krzysztof
Published: March 2013

The recent push towards ‘quality assurance’ classifies universities into six bands based on quality of research, teaching, community service, and processes to improve quality. This paper argues that the individual, rather than university and department, is the appropriate unit of analysis to make statements about quality. This conjecture is illustrated by using one criterion, productivity of publications in Australia by academics in education, as an index. The productivity of 2048 academics in education across the 32 universities with departments of education were matched with the 45 000 entries in the Australian Education Index. The individual highly productive academic had the most critical impact on overall productivity and it is suggested that the correct unit of analysis for quality assurance is more appropriately the individual and not the department or university.
The Development of a Semi-Structured Interviewing System to be used as an Adjunct to Secondary School Performance for the Selection of Medical Students
Authors: Tutton Peter J.M.
Published: March 2013

The Faculty of Medicine at Monash University made a decision to take personal qualities, as appraised by semi-structured interviews, into account alongside academic merit for selection of students from 1993 onwards. To develop competence in these techniques, the Faculty interviewed entrants, rather than applicants, in 1991 and 1992. Interviewing panels consist of three members—a member of the Faculty of Medicine, a member of the Association of Monash Medical Graduates Inc., and an outside person who is not involved in medicine. These qualities fall into four ‘fields’—quality of motivation, appropriateness of cognitive style, appropriateness of interpersonal style, and verbal communication skill. This paper describes the interview procedure, presents the results of questionnaires taken by the interviewers and the interviewees, and analyses the interview scores in relation to some demographic variables.
Choosing Mathematics ‘You Need it Even if You Don't Want to Do it’
Authors: Johnston Sue
Published: March 2013

Because of the concern about gender differences in participation in various school subjects and the policies to redress those differences, the reasons and processes for choosing subjects are an important consideration in the gender equity debate. In this paper, data from interviews with Year 11 girls are analysed to highlight some of the complexity of choosing mathematics in the post-compulsory years of schooling. Campaigns to encourage girls to choose mathematics and the impact these have had on subject choices are presented as being problematic. The importance of mathematics is justified in terms of its role as a filter for future pathways but the hierarchy of mathematics subjects in schools means that these pathways are not open to all girls.
Leadership Characteristics and School Improvement
Authors: Silins Halia C.
Published: March 2013

School leadership has been recognised as a critical element in school improvement and reform Theories about educational leadership have become closely aligned with theories about effective leadership in business, industrial and military settings. The concept of transformational leadership is a recent interpretation of the kind of leadership required to promote educational restructuring and improvement. Survey data from Canadian schools involved in school improvement programs were examined for evidence of relationships between principals' leadership behaviours and school outcomes. Using multiple regression analysis, transformational leadership accounted for a significant incremental effect above that of transactional leadership in bringing about enhanced school, teacher, program and instruction, and student outcomes. This supports a compelling argument that school leaders can promote change more successfully through employing methods associated with transforma tional leadership.
Scale Economies in Australian Secondary Schools
Authors: McKenzie Phillip
Published: March 2013

The estimation of scale economies has been hampered by inadequate conceptualisation of a production function for schooling and limited data on educational outcomes. Therefore most studies, especially in Australia, have approached the question indirectly through analyses of per student expenditure and patterns of curriculum provision in schools of different sizes. In these terms, the evidence suggests that the gains from increasing school size are relatively limited.
Using Cognitive Structures and Cognitive Dispositions to Analyse Values in Vocational Education
Authors: Stevenson John
Published: March 2013

This paper conceptualises value positions in education in terms of cognitive dispositions derived from critical theory and cognitive structures derived from cognitive science. Categorisations of value positions in general, adult and vocational education are analysed for commonalities and differences and it is argued that these categorisations need to be understood in terms of both cognitive dispositions and cognitive structures. This argument is synthesised from the inadequacies of existing taxonomies of curricular orientations where they tend to confine the treatment of cognitive structures to a single category of value positions, even though all categories either explicitly or implicitly rely on attaching importance to various cognitive structures. The conceptualisation of values in terms of both cognitive dispositions and cognitive structures is applied to various vocational educational goals, including contemporary governmental goals. The utility of this framework in examining such goals is discussed.
Sex Differences at the NSW Higher School Certificate after Adjustment for the Effects of Differential Selection
Authors: MacCann Robert
Published: March 2013

Sex differences in Higher School Certificate achievement were analysed by adjusting for differential selection. A general ability criterion, favouring neither sex, was developed by modifying the Tertiary Entrance Score (TES). For each course, sex differences in achievement were displayed over eight Key Learning Areas (KLAs). Contrary to many studies based on a more restricted set of courses, it was found that females outperformed males overall. In five KLAs, females outscored males; in two, the results were mixed; and in one (Mathematics) males outscored females. Although the female TES median was 15 marks higher, males performed slightly better at high TES levels. The explanation given was that males tend to specialise in more highly intercorrelated courses than females, which creates variance in their aggregate.
Adolescent Receptivity to the Health Curriculum in Western Australian High Schools
Authors: Carter D.S.G. , Carter S.M.
Published: March 2013

Adolescents comprise a substantial proportion of the at risk population for sexually transmissible diseases and AIDS. They are also potentially amenable to the curricular influences of the high school. This study uses adolescents' perspectives and concerns regarding their sexuality and sexual relationships in which receptivity to the messages of health and sexuality curricula by adolescents provides the central focus for the investigation. The purpose was to investigate the question whether, given the same exposure to similar content and processes in sexuality education curricula in coeducational classrooms, differences in receptivity will occur between male and female high school students. It was found that, as the amount of sexuality education increased, the more receptive adolescents became to its content and processes, with females exhibiting higher receptivity than males.
Methodological Issues in Educational Performance and School Effectiveness Research: A Discussion with Worked Examples
Authors: Rowe Kenneth J. , Hill Peter W. , Holmes-Smith Philip
Published: March 2013

There has been a growing awareness among educational researchers of the consequences of using data-analytic models that fail to account for the inherent clustered or hierarchical sampling structure of the data typically obtained. Such clustering poses special analytic problems related to levels of analysis, aggregation bias, heterogeneity of regression and parameter mis-estimation, with important implications for the correct interpretation of effects. This paper compares the results obtained from fitting single-level and multilevel models to two hierarchically structured data sets designed to explain variation in student achievement. Emphasis is given to the crucial importance of fitting models commensurate with the sampling structure of the data to which they are applied.
Tracing Bio-Political and Eugenic Connections in Education and Treatment of ‘Youth Problems’
Authors: Bessant Judith
Published: March 2013

Against a backdrop of increasing popular concern about teenage street ‘gangs’, student violence in schools, high levels of youth joblessness and its perceived relationship to crime, substance abuse, suicide and homelessness, this article explores some of the biological explanations of ‘juvenile anti-social behaviour’. One of the many spheres in which eugenics has been influential is education, particularly in its application of psychology, intelligence testing and similar mechanisms for ensuring citizenship and the self-governance of young people. The article contextualises and critically analyses some of the current debates about education and young people within a critical historical analysis of eugenics.
Gender Differences in Bullying Experiences and Attitudes to Social Relationships in High School Students
Authors: Tulloch Marian
Published: March 2013

The study examines gender differences in the self reports of students as bullies or victims and their attitudes to social relationships within the school. Students were drawn from Year 8 in seven New South Wales rural high schools. Differences were found in the overall level of bullying behaviour of males and females and in the type of bullying and in the gender of the victim targeted by boys and girls. Differences in the patterns of reports between bullies and victims were greater for cross-gender than same-gender bullying. Attitudes to bullying and social confidence varied between bullies, victims and other students. Female and male bullies differed from non-bullies in their attitudes to bullying whereas victims, especially males, were marked by a particularly strong rejection of bullying and a low level of social acceptance and confidence. The implications of these findings for classroom and whole school policy are examined.
Constructivism and Educational Practice
Authors: Hendry Graham D.
Published: March 2013

The constructivist approach is seen to be useful notably in science, mathematics and tertiary education. An account of non-radical constructivism is advanced and applied to classroom teaching and learning, and teaching strategies derived from the application of constructivist principles are identified and evaluated. It is suggested that many traditional classrooms are places of over-control, and certain traditional teaching methods may actually hinder students' potential to procreate human knowledge. Constructivism represents a fundamental challenge to many aspects of educational praxis, and may change significantly the ways by which young people are mass educated.
Education and Poverty: An Australian Primary School Case Study
Authors: Dent Jane Nicklin , Hatton Elizabeth
Published: March 2013

This paper documents some mechanisms and relationships evident in a multicultural, working-class Brisbane primary school which ensure that ‘children from poor families are, generally speaking, the least successful by conventional methods and the hardest to teach by conventional methods’ (Connell, 1993, p.I). Chief among them are three survival strategies commonly used by teachers in the face of the daily difficulties. Each of these, it is demonstrated, contributes to lack of academic success for many students while enabling teachers to cope in a difficult situation. Implications for teacher education are drawn from the study.
The Negative Effects of School-Average Ability on Academic Self-Concept: An Application of Multilevel Modelling
Authors: Marsh Herbert W. , Rowe Kenneth J.
Published: March 2013

This study examines the effects of attending higher-ability high schools on students' academic self-concept, and demonstrates a multilevel modelling approach for evaluating school effects on individual students. Equally able students in higher-ability schools had lower academic self-concepts than those in lower-ability schools, and this effect generalised across a nationally representative sample of 1628 students drawn from 87 high schools. Although the effects were negative for students of all ability levels, the effects were slightly smaller for the most able students and the least able students (a linear school-average ability by quadratic individual student ability interaction). A multilevel analysis of the data provided stronger support for the robustness of this effect than procedures used previously.
‘And How Would You Describe Yourself?’ Researchers and Researched in the First Stages of a Qualitative, Longitudinal Research Project
Authors: Yates Lyn , McLeod Julie
Published: March 2013

This article discusses methodological issues and some initial substantive findings from the first two years of the 12 to 18 Educational Research Project. The 12 to 18 Project is a qualitative, longitudinal study of girls and boys from the end of Year 6 and as they proceed through each year of their secondary schooling. The article discusses epistemological and ethical issues related to how and with what implications the researchers ‘construct’ the researched in this long-term empirical study. It then discusses background literature and some initial findings in the three areas with which the project is concerned: the development of gendered subjectivity in the years of secondary school; schools, inequalities, and students' changing relationship to curriculum; and students' changing thinking about their futures.
Strategies of Teachers as Users of Interactive Multimedia
Authors: Ferry Brian , Hedberg John , Harper Barry
Published: March 2013

This study reports the results of an evaluation study of a training process that provided teachers with information about how to use an interactive multimedia package for classroom instruction The ways in which the teachers accessed relevant printed text and hypertext information were mapped and analysed. Search patterns for each information source were tentatively classified into two cognitive strategies labelled as ‘sequential search strategies’ and ‘goal-oriented search strategies’. It was found that the ‘sequential search strategies’ broke down in the non-sequential hypertext environment and users had to be supported by conceptual maps to ensure meaningful outcomes.
The Effects of Single-Sex and Mixed-Sex Mathematics Classes within a Coeducational School: A Reanalysis and Comment
Authors: Marsh Herbert W. , Rowe Kenneth J.
Published: March 2013

Rowe (1988) and Rowe, Nix, and Tepper (1986) compared single-sex and mixed-sex mathematics classes within a coeducational school in one of the few studies to use a true experimental design in which students were randomly assigned to class-types, and they claimed that the study provided strong support for single-sex classes, particularly for girls. However a critical reanalysis of the results indicated that the randomly assigned class-type intervention had relatively little effect on mathematics achievement or attitudes, and that at least some of the significant effects favoured mixed-sex classes. Furthermore the limited support for single-sex classes seemed to be stronger for boys than for girls. Whereas unanticipated difficulties in the research design complicate interpretations, claims that students randomly assigned to single-sex classes did better than students randomly assigned to mixed-sex classes are unwarranted.
Professional Practice in Education: Research and Issues
Authors: Hager Paul
Published: March 2013

AS pointed out in my Introduction to this Special Issue, there have been various reasons for the recent increasing interest in researching and reforming professional practice. A major reason is our limited understanding of the nature of professional practice itself. Professional practice is a typical interdisciplinary topic which can be viewed, and has been viewed, from the perspective of a variety of disciplines and fields, such as sociology, cognitive psychology, philosophy, management theory, economics, and learning theory. As well, there are various literatures which are arguably relevant to an understanding of professional practice, even though their main foci are somewhat different. These include research on the nature of expertise, on workplace learning, on situated learning, etc. Hence research on professional practice represents a convergence of rather diverse literatures. This paper will provide a brief critical outline of the main findings of some of these relevant literatures and a discussion of the implications of these overall findings for professional practice.
Professional Practice in School Teaching
Authors: Preston Barbara
Published: March 2013

IN this article, three approaches to ‘professionalism’ are discussed. The functionalist approach makes a taxonomic list of characteristics which distinguish ‘real’ professions. The critical sociologists accept the taxonomic approach, but consider the social implications of seeking the public status of a ‘profession’. The third approach focuses on the practice of an occupation, which is more or less professional according to the utilisation of high level judgements. Teaching is an occupation of mass employment in a highly professionalised industry, and teacher unions and school authorities have significant roles to play concerning the professional practice of teachers. Yet the influence of the functionalist approach led to a distrust, denial and distortion of their roles, while the critical approach was not constructively incorporated into the key policy debates of the past decade. Developments may facilitate a teacher professionalism which best ensures high quality student learning in a difficult environment.
Integrating Research and Development in the National Schools Network
Authors: Ladwig James G. , White Vivienne
Published: March 2013

Amidst a host of recent teacher professional development initiatives in Australia, the National Schools Network (NSN) can be seen as a major educational reform program. Funded by the commonwealth and state systems, the NSN is a national network providing support for over 200 Australian schools that are rethinking their work organisations and teaching and learning practices in order to improve learning outcomes for students and teachers. A key aspect of the NSN's work has been to link the professional development of teachers with a systematic research program which focuses on issues of organisational change and restructuring. This paper reports on the ongoing development of the NSN, place its work within the larger national and international educational reform agenda, and provides an overview of the Network's strategic rationale for its research and development programs.
Professional Practice in Education in an Era of Contractualism: Possibilities, Problems and Paradoxes
Authors: Brown Lynton , Seddon Terri , Angus Lawrence , Rushbrook Peter
Published: March 2013

Recent policy changes have encouraged the development of a contractualist environment in Australian education, where social relations are organised around the promise of each party to fulfil particular obligations. Contractualism is evident not only in moves to expand contract employment and to organise service delivery around a contractual relationship between service providers and service consumer agencies, but also in government efforts to privatise public services so that individual consumers make choices about the kinds of services they will receive. The focus of this paper is particularly on the impact of the contractualist environment of teachers' professional practice. The paper draws on interview data to document what teachers perceive to be changing in education and in their professional practice, and to identify opportunities and constraints in this shifting policy context. On the basis of these data, some of the challenges and dilemmas of professional practice in an age of contractualism will be discussed.
Gender (im)Material: Teaching Bodies and Gender Education
Authors: McWilliam Erica
Published: March 2013

THE purpose of this paper is to insist on the sexed and gendered teaching body as ‘material’ to curriculum for gender education and gender equity in classrooms. It is not simply that the body of the teacher refuses to be excised, despite educational traditions of appealing to the mind as ‘above’ and transcending the body. It is that the sexed and gendered body of the teacher, male as well as female, must be the focus of more than censure if gender education projects are to be effective in generating useful pedagogical tools. In the paper, I give two reasons why the curriculum kit has been so visible and the teaching body so invisible. The first is the propensity of funding institutions to see a tangible ‘project’ such as a kit as the appropriate outcome of curriculum initiatives. The second is the ambivalence of many feminist educators about issues of bodily desire and pleasure in the context of a patriarchal society and culture.
Using Language Policies to Highlight and Contrast the Values that Shape Multicultural Societies: Examples from Singapore and Australia
Authors: Boufoy-Bastick Béatrice
Published: March 2013

THIS paper introduces the idea of using the foreign language teaching policies of multiracial societies as a means of highlighting the self-identified values that shape those societies and comparing these societal moulding values between countries. A country's foreign language policies relate to, and protect, the country's preferred indigenous social values from the foreign values of racial groups within and external to the country. This paper compares how Singapore and Australia differ in their methodological approaches and educational ideologies for implementing second and foreign language teaching. A sectarian comparison of the two societies shows how their different lifestyles, economic conditions, and educational policies emanate from the contrasting values they place on the person as an individual. The first part of this paper compares Singaporean bilingual policies and goals. The second part outlines the Singaporean foreign language program. The third part discusses the impact of educational policies on shaping both societies.
Making Grades
Authors: Farrell Lesley
Published: March 2013

THE focus of this paper is on the role that culture plays in shaping the way examiners arrive at assessments of candidates' relative academic ability in tertiary entrance examinations. In attempting to understand this process, I call on notions of ‘Discourse’, especially of the kind developed by Gee (1991, 1992, 1994). When examiners ‘make grades’, they call on culturally specific understandings of what counts as a ‘literate essay’, a ‘relevant’ argument, and an appropriate relationship between candidate and examiner. I start with a discussion of tertiary entrance examinations, move to a discussion of Discourse and conclude with an analysis of one set of examiners' reports. Examiners use underlying discourse structure as the basis on which they make their judgements about academic merit, and that these judgements are culturally situated and do, therefore, realise cultural values. However, although they are clearly culturally situated, they gain their legitimacy in the public arena by an appeal to the universality of standards of academic merit.
In Whose Interests? Competing Discourses in the Policy and Practice of School Restructuring
Authors: Grundy Shirley , Bonser Stewart
Published: March 2013

THE study investigates restructuring initiatives in schooling systems. In examining the policy context of school restructuring, interviews were conducted with high status educational stakeholders in a number of Australian states and were analysed thematically. A number of themes are discernible in the discourses of restructuring. Two of particular interest here are the themes of continuity/discontinuity, fragmentation/integration which facilitate illustrative examples of the way restructuring is being implemented and construed within state systems of education. A key question within this analysis is ‘Who benefits from the restructuring initiatives currently being undertaken?’. The issue of supposed benefit is therefore explored and the nuances of difference among restructuring initiatives in educational systems are identified.
The Genie and the Bottle: Putting History Back into the School Curriculm
Authors: Macintyre Stuart
Published: March 2013

THIS article originated in addresses to the annual conferences of the Queensland History Teachers Association on 23 June 1996 and the South Australian History Teachers Association on 24 March 1997, with some subsequent revision. It begins with the widespread concern that the teaching of history is under threat, considers statistical evidence for the decline of history enrolments in the postcompulsory years of schooling, and qualifies the predictions of the doomsayers. The principal concern is with the erosion of history as part of the common curriculum in Years P-10 and its subsumption into studies of society and environment. I suggest that if history is to be restored to its proper place in the school curriculum, we need to think of academic history and school history as related but distinct activities. The renewed attention to civics provides an opportunity to revive school history.
Teachers at Work: Utilising Professional Teaching Skills in Industry Settings
Authors: Waterhouse Peter , Sefton Robin
Published: March 2013

AS more teachers move into new areas such as enterprise-based workplace education, concerns have been expressed regarding the deprofessionalisation of their work. This article explores an approach to workplace education, within a manufacturing environment, which not only re-defines the work of teachers in ways which utilise, enhance and extend their skills, but also values the role of professional educators in advising industry personnel on matters relating to learning and assisting in the development of learning frameworks. It is argued that when competence is contextualised and viewed holistically, and the subsequent training program is based on the complex reality of the particular workplace, all the professional skills of teachers are required to design effective learning strategies. If the resultant educational program is also to be responsive to the needs of the learners and sufficiently flexible to encompass changes in the workplace as they occur, its development and implementation will pose a unique challenge to teachers.
Completing School in Australia: Trends in the 1990s
Authors: Lamb Stephen
Published: March 2013

AFTER a period of dramatic growth in school completion in Australia, rates of school retention have begun to decline. At its peak in 1992 the national rate of retention to Year 12 was approximately 77 per cent. By 1995 the rate had fallen to 72 per cent. The aim of this paper is to document state, system, and social differences in the recent downturn in school completion rates in Australia. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and from the Australian Youth Survey are used to look at patterns across states, school systems, geographical locations, social backgrounds, and by sex. The results suggest that during the 1990s the downturn in completion has been uneven and some groups of users which had come to rely on schooling during the 1980s for their future economic security are now turning away from school. The findings indicate a continuing need to monitor the numbers of young people completing school and their backgrounds.
Long-Staying Rural Teachers: Who are They?
Authors: Boylan Colin , McSwan David
Published: March 2013

ISSUES of teacher recruitment and retention in rural and isolated areas have received considerable attention in Australia and North America. Research findings have influenced policy and many training incentive programs and packages are in place. Litle attention, however, has been given to long-staying rural teachers and why they are satisfied to stay in locations which others in the profession find disagreeable. This report analyses available studies and, among other things, reveals much variation in the definition of ‘long-staying’. A survey was administered to 427 long-staying rural teachers, teachers who had been in their current school for at least six years and were not planning to move within twelve months. It sought information on professional pre- and inservice education, satisfaction, commitment and community. There emerged a profile of a professionally satisfied, community integrated, family oriented teacher who enjoyed the rural lifestyle and environment. The results carry strong messages for teacher education and teacher selection processes.