Faculty of Education

Michele Barry

The Transition of Student Midwife to Graduate Midwife in 2009

Midwifery is known as one of the oldest professions.  A practitioner was at one time autonomous.  The recent few hundred years have witnessed change to the profession.  Control of practice was overtaken by the nursing and medical professions and a culture of fear, risk and reliance on technology developed in society.These changes impacted negatively on the midwife.  This impact has been acknowledged and new directions have been instigated to create improved maternity services.  In the interim, however, it is the midwife in the work place that has to address the challenges as they present today. Using a grounded theory research approach, this study examined the strategies engaged by newly qualified midwives as they commenced work.   The research question was ‘how do midwives in their first six months of practice ‘deal with’ applying the philosophy of midwifery?’

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Russell Trowbridg

Post Secondary Employability: What Counts for VET and TER Students?- Developing a Survey Instrument to Test a Hunch

This research began as an evaluation of a school program for marginalised students.  Anecdotally observations indicated that VET (Vocational Education and Training) students appeared to be better prepared for either entering the work force or enrolling in TAFE (Technical and Further Education) than TER (Tertiary Entrance Rank) students who had not been accepted into University. A probable cause being that VET programs have a greater focus on developing employability traits then TER programs. Within this study, employability traits are classified into academic ability, job application skills, character attributes and work ethic attributes.The aim is to measure, on a reliable and valid scale, perceptions of these traits using a survey questionnaire as an instrument to sample the views of young work bound students and their prospective employers.

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Janean Robinson

A Mad Policy Party: Who is Informing Who?

The ‘Mad Hatter’ asks, “why do we have this policy”. When ‘Alice’ gives up, the Hatter admits he does not have an answer himself. In this presentation I want to ask, “What impact does policy really have on educational practice?”Using critical ethnographic research on a policy implemented throughout schools in Western Australia, I attempt to expose and interrogate tensions within apparent best practice. My data suggests that mandated policy may actually be nonsensical. What research has informed this policy both before and during its implementation? Have any audits or assessments been done to ensure its impact? What research is being done on the practices that emerge from such policy? Who is informing who and how is the policy affecting those for whom it was written?

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Yibing Liu

Make Chinese Learning More Enjoyable---A Case Study on a Chinese Community College

Chinese language, accompanied by the increasingly tight economical relations between China and Australia, has become popular. Specifically, in WA, there are many schools and universities running Chinese as a subject or a unit. Also some community colleges and private educational institutions afford Chinese teaching to a larger number of learners with varied backgrounds.

This case study is about Chinese language teaching and learning in a local community college. Through interview and questionnaire, the study examines teachers' pedagogy, work experience, teaching methods, together with the teaching resources and some factors from students’ side, such as learning needs, expectations, etc. It later reveals that although there remains a gap between the teachers' and learners’ perspectives and some conflicts between Chinese teachers’ traditional pedagogy and local learners’ learning habits, the teaching is constantly being revised to adapt to the local learning environment.

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Aminah Mah

Parenting Second Generation Muslim Australians: Living Islam to Achieve Success

The focus of this study was on parenting among migrant Muslims in Australia. Terror events linked to Muslims internationally had put Muslims living in the West in the spotlight since the turn of the millennium. This study explored how Australian Muslim parents dealt with these complicated circumstances to bring up their children to achieve success. Qualitative research methods were employed to find answers to the question: What constitutes a successful outcome for migrant Muslim parents raising their children in Australia, how do they account for this success, and what do they offer by way of advice for influencing the situation?   Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with two community focus groups and in-depth case studies of five “successful families”, recruited from families nominated by the focus group participants. Three propositions were developed to address the central research question.

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Karen Read

Dealing with the WACE

The aim of this study is to determine how school administration teams deal with the Western Australian Certificate of Education policy in the first year of the award of the certificate, 2009.This is a qualitative study conducted under an interpretivist research approach, utilizing symbolic interactionism as the theoretical perspective. A collective case study and purposive sampling have been used to determine the four metropolitan public secondary schools. Within each case, the sample includes the Principal, Deputy Principal and up to three Heads of Learning Areas. The data collection consists of semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and policy text which will be analysed using Miles and Huberman’s (1994) qualitative data framework. Interviews will be conducted three times during the year. Propositions will be developed from each case study site which will be followed by a cross-case analysis.  The reliability and validity of this study will be evaluated in terms of ‘trustworthiness’ (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).

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Sabreena Ahmed

Same Old, Same Old? (From Boring to Creative Presentations)

This paper reports on an ongoing research which compares attitudes of tertiary-level students in Australia and tertiary-level students in Bangladesh to the use of technology in lectures and in seminars. Students were shown an audiovisual recording of two seminars. The content and teacher in both were identical. One seminar, however, used a PowerPoint presentation package while the other used usual whiteboard –marker pen, and post-it notes as an additional tool in making the presentation. Preliminary findings from the research suggest that both Australian and Bangladeshi students prefer the audiovisual recording without PowerPoint as it seems more effective and interactive to them.  Such findings have important implications with respect to educational planning and effectiveness of modern technology in making presentations in both of these countries.

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Neil McCallum

School Leadership Teams in Western Australian High Schools and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Student Populations

It is crucial to understand the issues facing culturally diverse students in schools so that students’ learning opportunities are optimised to enhance their employment prospects and further educational opportunities. Failure to understand and respond to the issues which culturally diverse students experience may compound the challenges they will face in society in the future. Thus, the area merits serious research. To date, very little research in Australia and overseas has focused on the perspectives of the leadership teams in each school regarding culturally diverse students. The proposed qualitative study will investigate the perspectives of the leadership teams in four Western Australian government high schools concerning culturally diverse students in their schools. It will adopt a symbolic interactionist theoretical position approach within an interpretivist paradigm. Grounded theory approaches will be used to analyse the data. The research methods to be used are semi-structured interviewing and document study.

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Paula Joyce

Methodology and the 8th Moment:  Research as Emancipation and Sites for Revisioning Democracy

This presentation will describe how a multiple research paradigm is used to create new possibilities for emergent, empowering and emancipatory research.  During a long-term research project focussed on introducing sociocratic governance into a school, the 8th moment (described by Guber & Lincoln, 2005) and multiple research paradigms (Taylor, 2009) created a space for leadership and democracy to be revisioned, multiple voices to be heard and valued, and value-pluralism to be accommodated.  Traditionally research is conducted with the researcher sitting inside a paradigm and utilising the methods and quality standards of that methodology.  The 8th movement suggests that the researcher is situated outside a specific paradigm and chooses the methods, data analysis strategies, representations and standards that will give voice to certain aspects of the project that could not be done effectively in any other way.

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Joshua Adongo

An Investigation of Teachers’ Views towards Integration of Learners with Visual Impairments in Regular Primary Schools in Kenya

This paper presents and discusses the methodology of a proposed study which seeks to determine the views of Kenyan primary school teachers towards integration of learners with visual impairments in regular schools. A qualitative survey questionnaire will be developed from a review of literature and currently established instruments. The instruments will then be pilot tested with a group of 10 Kenyan primary school teachers. The instruments will then be administered to a large sample of 150 teachers that represent 51 primary schools currently integrating learners with visual impairments. The study proposes to conduct in depth interviews with a sample of teachers (N=12) based on the results of the questionnaire to further explore critical issues arising. The aim of this study is to produce findings that will improve education of PWD in society.

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May 22 forum

Florence Kayad

Learning literature in second language: Is it necessary?

This presentation focuses on the perspectives of pre-service and in-service English teachers on learning university literature courses in Malaysia. It is part of a current doctoral study on literature education in the English as a Second Language (ESL) context of Malaysia. It reports the early findings of an interpretivist study in which twenty three pre-service teachers and eighteen in-service teachers were interviewed and observed as they studied literature in their respective classes over a period of three months. The data for this part of the study came from the summary of the focus group interviews and the participants’ reading journal. Emerging themes and issues revealed convergent and divergent motivations for learning literature which will affect the participants’ future teaching of literature. 

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Joanne Godfrey

'Don't open the rabbit's eyes too soon': Regional education in Western Australia, 1888-1930

The poor quality of government regional education in Western Australia has been part of an ongoing discourse between town and country residents since the early 1900s. This presentation investigates the relationship between government economic development policy and government education provision from the regional perspective. It found that between 1888 and 1930, successive Western Australian governments tailored education to prepare and keep a ‘peasant’ class population on the land. They did this by introducing differentiated town and country curricula into government schools; providing the lowest level of educational provision in terms of buildings, staffing and resources to regional schools and by structuring the government education system in a centralised best-to-worst model. This work contributes to our understanding of regional education by arguing that regional education was tailored to maintain a nineteenth century London-esque centrality in Perth while, for economic reasons, encouraging a peasant class population to remain on the land.

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Angela Evangelinou-Yiannakis

A longitudinal qualitative study of the teaching of Greek as a second language in Western Australia under the 'Seconded Teachers from Greece 'Scheme'

The ‘Seconded Teachers from Greece Scheme’ (STGS) has been operating in Australia since 1977. Its concern has been with the maintenance and promotion of the Greek language and culture through the secondment of teachers and the supply of material resources from Greece. However, there has been no substantial research to date on its progress in Western Australia (WA). The qualitative study that was undertaken for the degree of Doctor of Education from the University of Western Australia aimed to address this deficit. Specifically, the study aimed to generate theory regarding how the key stakeholders ‘dealt with’ the curriculum for teaching Greek as a second language in WA under the STGS. It is this theory that will be the main focus of the presentation. Mention will also be made of the implications of the study for the development of policy and practice, as well as for future research. 

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Asrijanty Asril

Exmaining guessing in the Indonesian Scholastic Aptitude Test (ISAT) based on the Rasch Model

Multiple choice item format is common in educational and psychological test, including the Indonesian Scholastic Aptitude Test (ISAT). In this format some response options are provided, one of which is the correct answer. One consequence of using this format is that test taker can guess. The problem with guessing is that the estimation of item’s difficulty and person’s ability is less accurate. When guessing is involved, the person’s ability seems to be higher and the item seems to be easier. There are different perspectives in how guessing is considered and treated. This session will present the method for detecting guessing in the ISAT based on the Rasch model and the findings.

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Dana Zhang

Chinese community language school: Issues for teacher education in WA

The aim of the study was to investigate, from the teachers’ perspective, how and to what extent the factors of qualification, experience and continuing professional development help the teachers in Chinese community language (CCL) schools around Western Australia to perform their teaching role. Two one-hour semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted with nine teachers from two Perth-based CCL schools. In-depth interviews were conducted with two participants as a supplementary form of data collection. The findings of the study are that: (1) there is a great need for Chinese-language-specific pre-service training and professional development for CCL teachers; and (2) teacher education and professional development for CCL teachers needs to respond to the diversity of the profession. From the findings, the intricate situation of CCL schools is elaborated. Suggestions are given to enhance collegiality within a broader educational context, and to optimize the benefits of professional development activities.

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Ying Tao

A multiple comparative case study of Chinese and Australian primary children's conceptual understanding of science

The aim of this research is to explore the impact that different approaches to primary science curricula in the different countries have on children’s conceptual understandings of science. This study will compare the conceptual understandings of science among Chinese and Australian children in their third year and sixth year of primary school. A socio-cultural perspective on conceptual understanding of science will form the theoretical framework. The research design is a multiple comparative case study with mixed methods approach. Cases consist of one government school, one private school and one rural school in Hunan Province, central south of China and their counterparts in Perth, Western Australia. Science survey will be administered to children and small group interview will be conducted. Teachers and school principals will be interviewed, classroom observations completed and documents collected to ascertain how the science curriculum is delivered in the case study schools in each country.

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Joshua Adongo

Challenges of integrating learners with visual impairments in regular schools in Kericho District, Kenyan

This study concerns the challenges encountered in educating learners with visual impairments in regular schools in Kericho District, Kenya. The education of learners with visual impairments requires the use of special teaching methods, techniques and equipments. Quite often regular schools do not have specially trained teachers and equipment for the learners. In this scenario the regular teachers are faced with learners whose educational needs and methods of learning are quite different from those of regular learners in classes which in most cases have many learners. This results in the learners educational needs not been met. The study uses qualitative research design to collect data from the participants of the study mainly made up of the head teachers, special and regular teachers, parents and children. Data will be collected through structured questionnaires observation and focussed group discussions. The finding from this study will be used to suggest ways to improve education of PWD in societies.

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Corrie Staats

Handwriting acquisition: Perspectives from the literature

By the second year of formal schooling, typically developing children have consolidated correct letter formations to produce neat and legible handwriting (Rosenblum, Weiss, & Parush, 2003). However, between 10% and 34% of children experience difficulty developing handwriting readability and proficiency (Smits-Engelsman, Niemeyer, & Van Galen, 2005). Children with more severe difficulties do not respond well to current interventions (Feder & Majnemer, 2007). If handwriting difficulties persist, children’s academic performance and their development of written expression will be severely hampered (Graham, Harris, & Fink, 2000).

Handwriting is complex and a number of subprocesses have been implicated in acquiring this important skill. This presentation will focus on a review of the literature undertaken thus far to inform research questions for this area of research.

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Rebecca Walker

The disorganised secondary student: A cognitive-educational perspective of organisation involving visual-spatial working memory

Organisation is a key factor for successful everyday adaptive functioning in schools and in students achieving academic success (Barkley, 1990, 1997). Not only do schools, administrators and teachers need to be organised but so do students. Disorganised students can experience difficulties in managing their time and belongings, and keeping track of daily schedules (Barkley, 1990, 1997; Shields & Heron, 1989). Furthermore, it has been found that students’ with organisational difficulties can exhibit visual-spatial working memory deficits (Martinussen, Hayden, Hogg-Johnson, & Tannock, 2005).

Three interrelated studies were conducted to explore secondary students’ organisational abilities. The first study aimed to develop and validate an instrument for assessing students’ organisational skills. Study Two aimed to identify the prevalence of organisational problems amongst secondary school students (n=242). The third study aimed to investigate the relationship between visual-spatial ability and organisation (n=33). This session will present the findings of the research conducted.

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Zarín Táj Salter

Impact of whole-school approaches to education for sustainability on adoption of environmentally responsible behaviours by upper-primary students and their families

In schools where a well-supported whole-school approach to sustainable practices is established within the teacher and student body, the next challenge is to engender the same awareness and enthusiasm for adopting sustainable practices among the parent body. Parents and caregivers must become partners in the whole-school approach to support their children’s efforts at home and learn to make necessary behavioural changes themselves.

This study will explore effects of whole-school education for sustainability initiatives supported by AuSSI-WA on immediate and sustained adoption of environmentally responsible behaviours in upper-primary school children. It will also examine the extent to which students’ parents, caregivers and families support these behaviours and the perceived relationship between families’ adoption of environmentally responsible behaviours and children’s involvement with an AuSSI-WA school. Lastly, this study will identify factors that may maximise the support and reciprocal adoption of environmentally responsible behaviours among parents, caregivers and families of the children studied.

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