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This study examines the opinions of a randomly selected sample of Year 12 students attending Narrabundah College in 1979. A survey was administered to determine what tasks the students believed important for secondary schools and how well the students considered Narrabundah College achieved these tasks. It has been possible to analyse the relative importance and achievement of the individual tasks because of the ranking procedure involved. Part I of the research instrument was extracted from a survey, commissioned by the Committee of Inquiry into Education and Training, distributed to New South Wales students. This was a component of a comprehensive study of the views of students, teachers and parents conducted by the Community Expectations Group, School of Teacher Education, Canberra College of Advanced Education, 1978. The responses given by the Narrabundah College students are compared with the N.S.W. students' responses and are also compared with the conclusions from other surveys concerning the objectives of secondary education. These comparisons are discussed with reference to the unique characteristics of the secondary colleges which developed from the Report of the Working Committee on College Proposals for the Australian Capital Territory, Secondary Education for Canberra (1973).

This study deals with the writing of senior students in the subject English from two ACT secondary colleges. Whilst the written work analysed is from students enrolled in courses accredited for tertiary entrance, the ACT'S high retention rate and students' tendency to avoid 'non-tertiary' courses, ensures that the scripts analysed are wide-ranging. Broadly, this study rests on the theoretical approach to language and learning that came out of Dartmouth: that which is associated with James Britton. Its focus is twofold. In Volume I it presents a heuristic, describing its development and discussing the thinking, and learning students appear to do - and the writing they do - as a result of using it. The heuristic is called 'streaming' by the students who use it and is based on Vygotsky's notion of 'Inner Speech'. A key phrase that expresses a powerful or rich idea about the subject being studied is used as a starting point for student thinking. Students explore the layers of cognitive and affective meaning encapsulated in the idea, and perhaps extend the idea, in writing. The writing is very rough, and an act of thought whereby the meaning of the phrase is accommodated, rather than a communication to others. Students are asked NOT to think prior to setting pen to paper, but to let their writing 'bring their thought out of the shadows' by giving words to it. This avoids superficial or cliched response because the process of 'thinking out loud in writing' allows an interplay of cognitive and affective meaning that seems to lead students in to abstract thinking, generally by way of poetic abstraction. The 'streaming' that students do becomes the basis for further discussion or writing in a variety of forms. Volume II is given over to an explication, and use, of Graham Little's development and refinement of an analytical model for investigating language use. Based on the variables of situation, function and form, it enables the empirical analysis of 237 examples of writing from students who had used the heuristic presented in Volume I. The analysis indicates that students who use the heuristic write differently from students who do not. Their writing shows a wide range of function and form and achieves unusually high levels of abstraction. The thinking and writing that students do when using the heuristic is usually realised poetically and used as a basis for further writing. The range within the student writing indicates a high degree of language competence whereby students are able to write in different forms. Little's analytical model is a simple and powerful means of quantifying elements of school language in order to make qualitative judgements that are sensitive to the complex and holistic nature of language development and use.

This study commences with the assumption that action can be taken to lessen the disruption to the mathematical progress of Year 11 students in the Australian Capital Territory senior secondary colleges. If students are to perform their best in mathematics they need their transition from high school to college to be as smooth as possible. Nevertheless, many students change their mathematics enrolment soon after commencing college. The study relies particularly upon The Theory of Reasoned Action to determine whether students have the intention both before and during the transition of performing well in mathematics at college. Although this measure provides a predictor of the intention, it does not necessarily follow that the conditions allow the student to comply with the prediction. Statistical instruments were also used - to determine whether students initially enrol in appropriate courses and whether they perform as well in their first semester at college as in Year 10. A small sample of students was interviewed to elicit whether there was supporting evidence for some conclusions drawn from the results and the literature survey. Analyses of the predictor of intention indicate that during the transition period a very high proportion of students intends to perform well in mathematics at college. Analysis of the components of the measure pinpoints some small differences between high schools. The statistical analyses show that a significant proportion of students completes Semester 1 in mathematics courses other than those of initial enrolment and that performance by the Year 11 students correlates well with Year 10 performance. Discussion centres around actions of intervention and their focus. Parents and guardians are possible recipients of further information since the evidence suggests they are the most influential advisers in the lives of this age group. College teachers are possibly the best current providers of that information, although, high school teachers and careers advisers could take a more prominent role following appropriate training. Recommendations are made concerning the enrolment procedure and the beginning of Year 11 routine. Other conclusions and recommendations concern action by classroom teachers that could ensure more students succeed in the course of initial enrolment, whether they are in the course most suited to their previous performance or are attempting a more difficult course.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the way in which courses in psychology were developed and introduced to the curriculum of secondary colleges in the Australian Capital Territory. It is a case study in curriculum change viewed from the perspective of a participant-observer. Briefly the study attempts to analyse the process of curriculum change within a sociological framework. The second section deals with the history behind, and subsequent introduction of similar courses in Tasmania, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, and their significance to the curriculum innovation under study. The third section deals with the background to the case study, the context in which the project was undertaken and the factors which gave rise to it. Emphasis is given to the negotiations which must go on in reconciling the differing perspectives of those groups directly involved in the change process. The process of accreditation and the influence this had on the structure of the courses is also examined. The problems inherent in developing and establishing a curriculum innovation are dealt with in considerable depth. Finally the process of curriculum change is analysed in the context of the currently available research literature on models and strategies for change in education. Implications are drawn for future studies in this field. Hopefully this report will contribute to the various theoretical models and strategies of change to be found in curriculum theory.

When A.C.T. secondary colleges opened in 1976 they constituted the first government senior secondary system in Australia to design their own curricula and assess their own students under the general direction of their own college boards and within broad system guidelines. An Accrediting Agency was set up to approve the courses of study devised by the colleges, determine assessment procedures, arrange certification of students' attainments and negotiate acceptance of students' qualifications with tertiary institutions and employers. All but one of Canberra's private schools teaching to senior secondary level also joined this accreditation system. This field study traces the genesis and development of the A.C.T. schools accreditation system, and looks in detail at its implementation at system and college level. After a brief introduction there is an outline of innovation principles relevant to the topic. To avoid repetition the literature review and the development of the accreditation system are treated together in Chapters 3 and A. Chapters 5 and 6 deal with the establishment and implementation of accreditation, with particular emphasis on the Accrediting Agency and Dickson College (used as an example of the system at college level). In 1979 a major review of the work of the Agency was undertaken by the Selby Smith Committee; Chapter 7 analyses the recommendations of that Committee. The final chapter of this study examines some of the major issues of accreditation, particularly its innovative aspects. Although this study analyses the accreditation system in some detail, it is intended to be descriptive rather than evaluative. Information was obtained mainly from primary sources: official reports, studies and papers written by participants, surveys conducted in the colleges, and original documents. Interviews were conducted but were used mainly as a check on written information.

This field study aims to identify and examine the consequences and influences of course selections and career choices made by students, their parents and college staff. Because of a lack of information regarding the implications of their selected programmes of study, many students choose unwisely and as a result, have become confused about the relevance of their choices in relation to the achievement of their ultimate career aspirations. To achieve the aims of this study, an analysis of the course selections and career choices of the Year 12 graduates of 1983 from Copland College was completed. This field study is divided into three main sections. The first section comprises Chapters I and II which outline the historical development of secondary colleges within the Australian Capital Territory. The author briefly discusses the influence of both the Hughes and the Campbell Reports and illustrates how these Reports were used as the basis for the establishment of the educational structure we now have for our senior secondary college students in Canberra. In addition, this section details the historical background of careers education within the Australian Capital Territory and the influences this has had on the status of career education at Copland College. The second section covers Chapters III, IV and V. In this section the function of the Student Services Faculty within Copland College is discussed and also a brief explanation given of the type of information gathered by college and administrative staff for career and course advice. The author provides a description of the procedures II used to obtain and collate the information collected for this field study. A questionnaire method of data collection was the basis used to examine the post-collegiate activities of over 240 graduate students of 1983, and part of the questionnaire relates specifically to the destinations of these ex-students. Finally, the third section incorporates Chapters VI and VII. It details the results of my research covered in earlier chapters and at the same time, synthesizes that of other educationalists as it relates to this field study. The concluding portion of this section sets out recommendations proposed to meet the problems identified in such areas as student course selections and careers advice.

In January, 1974, the Interim ACT Schools Authority assumed responsibility for pre, primary and secondary schools in the Australian Capital Territory. It took steps to provide a basis for the restructuring of secondary education. The traditional six-year comprehensive high school was to be replaced in 1976 by a four-year high school and a two-year secondary college. The Interim Authority decided that each school should be responsible for its own curriculum which should not be constrained by an external examination. A system of course development and teacher assessment, to replace the New South Wales Higher School Certificate syllabuses and examination, was developed during 1974. The Interim Authority sought the advice of the Australian Council for Educational Research, and a report prepared by it was used to stimulate public debate. After considering a wide cross section of points of view the Interim Authority decided that accredited courses would replace syllabuses, teacher assessments, the examination and profile reports the Certificate. The ACT Schools Accrediting Agency, a committee of the Interim Authority, was formed in 1975 to administer accrediting assessment and reporting. The Accrediting Agency negotiated the basis for tertiary entrance for ACT students. It determined that a single aggregate score, the Tertiary Entrance Score, should be calculated, using aggregated scaled teacher assessments. Scores from three major and one minor accredited-TES courses scaled by the Australian Scholastic Aptitude Test total score would be aggregated. A system-wide order of merit would be created. The maximum aggregate score would be 360. The basis for the aggregate was very different from that which it was replacing. In New South Wales, five subject scores with a possible maximum of 900 was used. An examination of a number of comparison and correlation studies presented in Part B indicates that ASAT scaling of teacher estimates improves the correlation of teacher estimates with the Higher School Certificate examination aggregate scores. Some correlations between ASAT-scaled criteria and HSC aggregates are in the order of 0.9. As is expected some movement away from what was acceptable in 1975 occurred. When examined in the light of the philosophy of school responsibility for curriculum and assessment the procedures adopted certainly facilitate this, while at the same time produce students' results which can be used as confidently as external examination results have been.