The thesis of this research paper is clarifying the relationship between educational change, teacher education and management at the tertiary level in a local university immediately after the handover of Hong Kong to the People?s Republic of China. The purpose is to describe the research process, to present data, and to draw conclusions. Chapter 1 describes the structure of the paper and introduces two theoretical issues which arise in the data and are referred to in the literature (commodification and collectionism) but are not the focus of this study. Nevertheless, they seem to explain some important relationships between these three themes and are referred to in the conclusion. Chapter 2 presents recent references to literature from around the world related to the three themes. The review highlights the weakness that few references describe the practical implementation of a theoretical management approach to effecting educational change through teacher education. Chapter 3 describes in detail the successful application of the management approach of the learning organisation, the practical implementation of an educational change, and the resultant teacher education within the alternative programme section of the university department studied. Chapter 4 covers the methodological process of the data collection for this research. The data collection is comprised of: 1) a questionnaire about teacher education activities; 2) a lengthy interview with each of thirty academic staff, the Head of Department, and a Vice-President; 3) supporting documents; and, 4) my observations as participant-observer. Chapter 5 presents the findings and discussion. They are analysed in an overall manner and then re-analysed between two groups of staff. One group is part of the teacher education described in Chapter 3; the other group is the remainder of the staff who had not been part of that teacher education. The findings of the questionnaires, the interviews, and the supporting documents indicate that differences in attitude toward teacher education exist between staff who has been exposed to different teacher education management approaches. These findings also show that staff who have been affected and staff who have been unaffected by the learning organisation approach to staff development note differences in management approach. Both staff and appraisers evaluate the learning organisation management approach used in the alternative programme section of the department very positively. Chapter 6 ends with conclusions, links back to the literature, and suggestions. The conclusions show that the educational change found in this research is similar to the change listed in the literature. The shortcomings and issues of teacher education in this research are similar to those revealed in the literature. The conclusions also support the importance of management approach and its relationship to effective teacher education. It ends with a summary of the positive results of using a learning organisation management approach in teacher education at this site. The final chapter also refers back to commodification and collectionism noted in the introduction and suggests that they should also be considered by teachers, managers and researchers in further work on teacher education. / thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2003.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/173340 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Heuring, Christine |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyrigjht 2003 Christine Heuring 2003 |
Page generated in 0.0084 seconds