Faculty of Education

Cornelia Staats

Pretend Play and Pre-Primary Children with Developmental Vulnerabilities

In this study, 63 preprimary children were individually assessed using a child-initiated pretend play assessment. Teachers were also involved in the study and were asked to complete the Strength and Difficulties questionnaire. The analysis of the collected data found no relationship between behavioural difficulties (developmental vulnerabilities) and children's ability to engage with pretend play.

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Hoda Nawar

Temporal Expressions in the Introduction of Academic Articles in English and Arabic: A Special Focus on Translation

The present paper examines temporal expressions (i.e. tense and aspect) in the introduction section of English and Arabic academic articles. More specifically, the study reported in the paper investigated how English temporal expressions are translated into Arabic and vice versa. It also examined how such expressions are translated back into the source language and looked at the differences between the back translation and the source text in both languages.

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Sharon Tham

From ‘Problem’ to Resource: A Place for Singlish in the Language Classroom?

This study is an appraisal of the English learning situation in Singapore schools in the past seven years since the emergence of the Standard English-Singlish (a hybridized subvariety of Singapore English, also known as Singapore Colloquial English) controversy in 1999.

It seeks to examine teachers’ attitudes towards Standard English and Singlish. It also aims to investigate the challenges teachers face in teaching English to Singaporean students. Additionally, the study endeavours to explore teachers’ attitudes towards using Singlish as a teaching resource in acquiring the standard variety.   

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Harjinder Kaur

Heritage Language Learning: Insiders Perspectives

The Singapore language learning situation is governed by the Bilingual policy of the nation. All students learn at least two languages, English, the official business language and a Mother Tongue language. Learning a third language is encouraged for political reasons.

There are THREE main official languages in Singapore, namely Chinese, Malay and Tamil. These languages came into acceptance as official languages based on the population ratios.

The Indian officers who presented papers in the choice of the official Indian language had all originated from Tamil Nadu and hence the language presented and officially approved was Tamil. No study or thought had been given to the languages spread of the Indian continent and the official Indian language in India. This posed problems to the almost 50% of the Indian population who opted out of learning Tamil and had to send their children for Malay or Chinese, both languages extremely different from their heritage language. The performance of the affected students in the so-called “Mother Tongue language” was below average. 

In 1989, the Singapore government, with feedback and inputs from the Indian community in Singapore, approved FIVE other Indian languages, namely Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu.

I am studying Insiders’ perspectives of the learning of their heritage language, Punjabi. A survey is conducted to profile the students. This survey shows the continuum of the background of the students’ language learning ability and support. Insiders’ perspectives will be sought through interviews with students aged between 6 and 10, teachers and organisation heads.  

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Mignon Shardlow

The Perspective of Students and Beginning Journalists on the Education of Journalists: Implications for Journalism Teaching Practice

The analysis of interviews with journalism students raises important implications for journalism educators. Journalism students become highly disillusioned with journalism when they discover the professional ideals of journalism, for example commitment to truth, accuracy and freedom of speech, the public’s right to know and unbiased reporting collide with the practice of commercial journalism.

The question is this, how journalism students reconcile themselves to the conflict between the two opposing value systems? Part of the answer lies in another theme that emerged from interviews conducted with beginning journalists. This theme is that journalists employ strategies to subtly resist the uncomfortable demands of their new employers.

This paper draws on my broader doctoral research into the professional formation of journalists to recommend that journalism educators: 

• reduce student alienation and dissatisfaction by making students aware that feelings of disillusionment are common to students;
• assist students to bridge the gap between the ‘ideal’ and the ‘real’ by discussing the power and moments of autonomy of individual journalists and their ability to contribute to good journalism despite existing within a contested ideological space;
• prepare students for the workplace by outlining examples of tactics used by beginning journalists to negotiate the realities of the newsroom.

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Michelle Striepe

Management Teams’ Understandings of Educational Leadership: Case Studies of Western Australian Faith Schools

The presentation will focus on a recently proposed study that aims to develop insights in how the members of faith school management teams’ understandings and practices of educational leadership in Perth, Western Australia (WA).

It will adopt an interpretive approach, using a multiple case study design, to generate rich descriptions of the team members’ leadership understandings and practices. The study will use multiple qualitative research methods of data collection including concept maps, semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation and document analysis. In doing so, the study seeks to provide in-depth insights into how the members of faith school management teams’ understand and practise educational leadership.

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Karen Anderson

The Novice Experience: Deputy Principals’ First year in School Management

The aim of this study was to develop an understanding about how primary deputy principals in Western Australian government schools deal with their work during their first year in the position.

In order to gain an insight into the perspectives of participants, a qualitative approach and a longitudinal case study design was adopted. Multiple methods of data collection were employed and multiple contacts with participants were made over a twelve-month period to gather rich data that reflected participants’ perspectives and changing perspectives.

The study revealed that deputies follow a trajectory of role development in their first year that differs from the path that principals take. The study revealed three themes which were predominant for deputies at different times throughout their first year.

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Diana Purcell

Likert and See; Like it or Not: Scaly Questions

Some say I have gone to the dark side, but the move to quantitative research has been the right move for me to make.   As Miles & Huberman are to qualitative research, so it seems Likert is to quantitative.  The journey, so far, in developing a questionnaire has been a real learning curve, the wording, the scales to use etc.  This contribution to the forum will be an interactive exploration of questionnaire development.

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Asrijanty Asril

Measuring Scholastic Aptitude

The purpose of the research is to examine the validity of the Indonesian Scholastic Aptitude Test (ISAT). It will examine internal validity of the ISAT based on the Rasch model and its paradigm and predictive validity using university academic performance (grade) as the criterion.

The ISAT is developed to measure academic capability which is considered a significant factor contributing to the success in higher education studies. The test has been used as selection instrument to enter some public universities in Indonesia.

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Lesley Williams

Conceptualising Academic Excellence in High Ability Students

Students achieving academic excellence together with their teachers and parents offer unique perspectives on academic excellence.  High achieving students, (tertiary entrance examination scores of 95 or above on a 100 point scale), together with their parents and teachers participated in this previously unpublished research. 

The presentation will report on a qualitative investigation of how these key stakeholders conceptualise academic excellence at the transition from high school to university.

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Suzanne Cooper, The University of Western Australia

An analysis of gifted and talented education policy for public schools in Western Australia from 1978 to 2008

The purpose of the study is to conduct an analysis of education policy for gifted and talented education in Western Australia from 1978 to 2008. It focuses on the policy documents produced by the Western Australian Department of Education and Training, with regard to gifted and talented education in the compulsory years of public schooling, particularly those produced in 1978, 1994 (revamped in 1996), 2001 and in 2008. These will be examined within a trajectory path, ranging from contexts, to policy text production to text interpretation at the school level.

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Josephine Dundas, The University of Western Australia

Second language classroom-Are they boy-friendly environments?

The study brings together a number of key concepts. Firstly, Carr and Pauwels (2006) have shown that, in Australia, boys and girls have different attitudes towards language study and that these differences reflect social class. Secondly feminist researchers suggest that the concept of gender is not fixed but is a role which is enacted and thirdly, the classroom can be seen as a particular community of practice which may favour certain gender roles.

The study investigates whether there is indeed a gender element to students behaviour in languages classes and whether this behaviour varies with social class. The study focuses upon classroom language since language is the medium through which many of our social customs are realized (Fairclough 2003).

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Umneea Khan, The University of Western Australia

Delinquency Reputational Orientations and Aggression in Primary and High School Female Students

The research presented here builds upon the findings of earlier large scale empirical research which revealed that females commit significantly fewer delinquent activities than males, seek a more conforming reputation and to achieve this communicate positive things to others. A pair wise matched sample of at risk and not at risk female adolescents showed that at risk females indulged in more delinquent activities than not at risk females.

Furthermore, a Canonical Correlation Analysis showed that with the exception of soft drug use, all other delinquent activities contributed strongly to the overall relationship between delinquency and reputation enhancement.  From these findings, a qualitative study was undertaken to further explore delinquency, reputational orientations and aggression among at risk females.

A series of semi-structured interviews conducted with nine professionals add further support to the extensive evidence showing that reputation enhancement theory is a valid explanation for at risk young person's involvement in delinquent activities.

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Karyn Chan, The University of Western Australia

The 'non-tangibles' in music performance education:  Integrating an Einsteinian Approach

Contemporary research in music education has shown that several problems exist in the area of music performance education.  However, attempts to resolve these issues have been largely considered from a cognitive approach.

Recent global trends by scholars in the educational arena (Gardner, 2000; McNeill, 2000; Best, 1996) are advocating a clear shift from the cognitive approach to a more meaningful outcomes-focussed education inclined toward the domain of the 'non-tangibles' in various aspects of teaching and learning.

This session will present the findings of a qualitative research study involving high school music students highlighting the positive effects and the practical applications of incorporating the 'non-tangibles' into music performance education.

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Laszlo Bubrik, Murdoch University

What is the status of relief teachers in the teaching profession?

Relief (substitute, supply, teacher on call (TOC)) teachers are frequently employed on the basis of mere day-to-day requirements by various schools. Although there is a high demand for such teachers in educational sectors, they are still viewed by many (other teachers, students) as less than "real" teachers, they are perceived as 'baby sitters'.

Thus this standpoint seems to indicate that their professional status is not highly regarded and respected, in fact they are "second class citizens".
The enquiry aims to find out how do students, fellow teachers, principals, parents and relief teacher themselves perceive relief teachers status in educational milieu? Are they important and equal members of the teaching community? If so, then how can their perceived professional status be raised so they become accepted and utilised as 'real' teachers.

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Janean Robinson, Murdoch University

Wow! At such a rate of knots: Slowing down to untangle the mess.

This presentation has at its core, a captured collection of young people's interpretations and experiences of schooling to reclaim a public discourse and space within education. My intention is to reframe and reconstruct the labels and misperceptions concerning their participation.

In contrast, The WA Behaviour Management Policy (1998, 2001, and 2008) is analysed, appearing as a 'messy knot' of contradictions. In the interrogation of this policy, I use Freire's (2004) 'pedagodgy of indignation' and Noddings (1984) 'caring' to reveal a multi-layered and complex process (McInerney, 2007, page 7)  when policy meets practice within the secondary school.

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Elizabeth Criddle, The University of Western Australia

Senior secondary curriculum change: Case studies and contexts

Overview of the contextual background and beginning research for a doctorate study on how curriculum policy change is being enacted in Western Australia. Presentation is a shared reflection on the opening stages of research.

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Brad Gobby, Murdoch University

Political calculations in education policy and reform

The 'problematic of government' is a methodological approach to examining the exercise of political power through technologies of government. This approach is sceptical of the analytical purchase of those interpretations of political power as exercised primarily as an act of domination and control over individuals by various institutions or state apparatus, or that its legitimate exercise is dependent upon reflecting the popular will.

This presentation reports on its utilisation in my study of school reform. I begin with a brief outline of what is meant by a neo-liberal political rationality as discussed in Foucauldian studies of government. I then illustrate how 'devolution' in education embodies the thought of governing the individual as an enterprising self.

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Wahiza Wahi, The University of Western Australia

Investigating English Language Academic Literacy for Employability of Malaysian Undergraduate Students

The aim of this study is twofold. First, it intends to develop substantial understanding of the English language academic literacy competencies and practices of first year undergraduate students of National University of Malaysia. This part of the study will explore the existing academic literacy competencies and practices of the undergraduate students at the exit point of completing the only compulsory English language course, Foundation English; and it will discover the academic environment and English language proficiency that influence the students' current competencies and practices.

Second, it aims to examine whether their current English language literacy competencies and practices fit with the required expectations of prospective employers. This will be achieved by measuring their existing level of competencies and practices against the prospective employers' benchmark in terms of English language proficiency.

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Elisa Adriasola , The University of Western Australia

Student Teachers - Evaluation of Teaching as a Profession: A Case Study at One Western Australian University

Concern in the effectiveness of teaching has caused different arenas to invest resources to develop programmes that ensure bringing professional teachers into teaching.

The present study argues that these efforts cannot to be successful unless the teachers' perspectives are taken into account.

The research presented here aimed to provide the first step to fill the vacuum existing in this regard in the Western Australian context. To do so, a quantitative case study was developed that investigated the perspectives of a group of student teachers in a Graduate Diploma of Education.

The results indicated that the surveyed group of students attached great importance to the three main professional attributes of teaching, namely, knowledge, autonomy and service. Despite of the limitations of the study, a number of recommendations are made for further study and for informing policy, particularly within the local Western Australian setting.

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