This study investigated the latent structure of vocational assessment decision-making. It also sought to examine how the background characteristics of the assessor (such as age, gender, assessment experience and location) affected the relationship between the constructs proposed as underpinning assessment decision-making. For each of the eight constructs explored, a set of rating scale items were developed to measure the intensity of the assessors’ attitudes and beliefs.

This study explores the issues involved in the theoretical bases, rationale and implementation of practical work in junior secondary science programs. The part that practical work has played in science education, both internationally and in Australia, is reviewed. Links are made between statements made by science educators more than 200 years ago to those made by modern day researchers into science teaching and learning. The study draws together the research traditions of the philosophy of science, science curriculum development, learning environments, and educational psychology. The researcher has carried out a multi-stage field study using both qualitative and quantitative methods to achieve the objectives of the study. Developments in the philosophy of science as they impinge on science education are reviewed. Science practicals are defined for the purposes of this study and a new Theoretical Model for Science Practicals is proposed. The model enables the description and statement of purpose of eight types of science practicals. The target population of the study is Australian science teachers and students. The model provides a theoretical basis for the development of the survey instrument, Science Practicals Inventory (SPI), to investigate students’ perceptions of the use of practicals in science learning. The eight types of practicals described in the model were used as the scales for the SPI. Qualitative data collected during separate group interviews of science teachers and students supported the development of the SPI together with quantitative data from three pilot studies. The SPI was validated using samples of high school students from Tasmania and Western Australia. / Using statistical procedures involving factor analyses, alpha reliability, discriminant validity, and ANOVA, a valid, reliable, efficient, eight scale, 50 item instrument has been developed. Analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data in this study enabled issues involved in the theoretical bases, rationale and implementation of practical work in junior secondary science programs to be clarified and better understood. The results of this study include implications for science curricula and recommendations for further research and are generalizable to science teachers and students in Australia. The SPI is available for further application in action research, science program evaluation, science teacher professional learning and science program renewal.

Abstract not available

Abstract not available

While home schooling is by no means a new phenomenon, the last three decades have seen an increasing trend in the engagement of this educational alternative. In many countries, including Australia, a growing number of families are opting to remove their children from the traditional schooling system for numerous reasons and educate them at home. In response to the recent home schooling movement a research base in this area of education has emerged. However, the majority of research has been undertaken primarily in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, with very few studies having examined home schooling in Australia. The existing corpus of research is also relatively small and incomplete. Also, certain categories of home schoolers and the processes involved in their undertaking of this modern version of a historically enduring educational alternative have been overlooked. In particular, children with disabilities appear to be one of the home schooling groups that have attracted very little research world wide. This group constituted the focus of the study reported in this thesis. Its particular concern was with generating theory regarding how parents deal with educating their children with intellectual disabilities from a home base over a period of one year. Data gathering was largely carried out through individual, face-to-face semi-structured interviewing and participant observation in the interpretivist qualitative research tradition. However, informal interviews, telephone interviews and documents were also used to gather supplementary data for the study. Data were coded and analysed using the open coding method of the grounded theory model and through the development and testing of propositions. The central research question which guided theory generation was as follows: 'How do parents within the Perth metropolitan area in the state of Western Australia deal with educating their children with intellectual disabilities from a home base over a period of one year?' The central proposition of the theory generated is that parents do so through progressive modification and that this involves them progressing through three stages over a period of one year. The first stage is designated the stage of drawing upon readily-available resources. The second stage is designated the stage of drawing upon support networks in a systematic fashion. The third stage is designated the stage of proceeding with confidence on the basis of having a set of principles for establishing a workable pattern of home schooling individualised for each circumstance. This theory provides a new perspective on how parents deal with the home schooling of their children with intellectual disabilities over a period of one year. A number of implications for further theory development, policy and practice are drawn from it. Several recommendations for further research are also made.

The combination of literature and technology provides a powerful scenario for learning and it is made a reality through the use of electronic storybook software. This study concentrates on the everyday decisions made by teachers concerning why, how and in what way learning occurs in their classroom. Three case studies show how primary teachers engaged in action research to introduce electronic storybooks into their classrooms, monitoring changes in pedagogy, organisation and management. It is confirmed that teachers can integrate electronic storybooks into their classroom practices to create enjoyable and productive learning experiences. A range of pedagogical approaches was used and the introduction of electronic storybooks had a positive effect on student motivation, enthusiasm and achievement of learning goals, and resulted in changes in the physical composition of the classroom and the way learning was structured. The teachers received confirmation of their own ability to integrate technology into teaching and learning. The results of this study have direct implications for teaching practices and reinforce the need for teachers to develop confidence and competence as technology users / Master of Education (Hons)

The study produces a genealogy of ‘the child’ as the shifting subject constituted by the confluence of discourses that are utilized by, and surround, Western Australian precompulsory education. The analysis is approached as a genealogy of governmentality building on the work of Foucault and Rose, which enables the consideration of the research question that guides this study: How has ‘the child’ come to be constituted as a subject of regimes of practices of pre-compulsory education in Western Australia? This study does not explore how the historical discourses changed in relation to ‘the child’ as a universal subject of early education, but it examines the multiple ways ‘the child’ was constituted by these discourses as the subject at which government is to be aimed, and whose characteristics government must harness and instrumentalize. Besides addressing the research question, the study also develops a set of intertwining arguments. In these the author contends that ‘the child’ is invented through historically contingent ideas about the individual and that the way in which ‘the child’ is constituted in pre-compulsory education shifts in concert with the changing problematizations about the government of the population and individuals. Further, the study demonstrates the necessity to understand the provision of pre-compulsory education as a political practice. Looking at pre-compulsory education as a political practice de-stabilizes the takenfor-granted constitutions of ‘the child’ embedded in present theories, practices and research with children in the field of early childhood education. It also enables the de- and reconstruction of the notions of children’s ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘citizenship’. The continuous de- and reconstruction of these notions and the destabilization of the constitutions of ‘the child’ creates a framework in which improvement is possible, rather than “a utopian, wholesale and, thus revolutionary, transformation” in early education (Branson & Miller, 1991, p. 187). This study also contributes to the critiques of classroom discipline approaches by reconceptualizing them as technologies of government in order to reveal the power relations they silently wield.

Errata is pasted inside front end paper. / Bibliography: leaves 309-329. / vii, 329 leaves : ill., maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1996?

Bibliography: leaves 369-391. / xiv, 391 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / This thesis seeks to elucidate the origins, nature and impact of age standards in the organisation of state-provided elementary schooling in South Australia from 1875 to 1990. The study traces the shift which occurred from ungraded schools to the classification and promotion of scholars according to attainment and then increasingly on the basis of chronological age. It also examines the introduction of specialist departments, teachers and pedagogy to better manage the youngest pupils. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1997?

No description available.