Shannon Research Press

Follow

• 

  A man of measure and more: John P. Keeves 1924-2020

  Petra Lietz ed., Katherine Dix ed., and Juliet Young-Thornton ed.

  John Philip Keeves was an eminent researcher with a lifelong quest to improve teaching and learning by being a researcher, teacher, supervisor and mentor. He produced a myriad of scholarly publications, many on topics of research design, comparative research and educational measurement. In 1962, John was recruited to the Australian Council for Educational Research and he moved to Melbourne, later becoming Associate Director from 1972 to 1977 and then Director until his retirement in 1984. During this time, he also undertook research fellowships at the Australian National University and the Institute of International Education in the University of Stockholm. After John’s retirement from ACER, he was an Emeritus Professor at both Flinders University and the University of Adelaide, where he lectured to and supervised both higher degree and doctoral students. This book honours John by bringing together memories of the man from those who knew him well, his family, his students, colleagues and friends.

• 

  The Processes of Change on Learning Literacy and Numeracy in South Australian Primary Schools

  I Gusti Ngurah Darmawan and Carol Aldous

  Success in science and mathematics is predicated on successful literacy and numeracy learning. Yet schools and communities across the country struggle to negotiate factors that both impede and facilitate such learning - particularly factors over which they have some control. Working with data more comprehensive than that used previously and applying statistical methods only recently developed, researchers from the South Australian hub of the centre for Science, Information and Communication Technology and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia (SiMERR-SA) seek answers to three basic questions. What factors influence performance in Literacy and Numeracy? Does living in a rural and remote community influence the outcome? What is the situation in rural and remote South Australia when compared with metropolitan Adelaide? This book, the final in a three part series, documents the findings of this research and makes initial recommendations for the advancement of an innovative approach to the teaching of educational research.

• 

  Mental health and wellbeing: Educational perspectives

  Rosalyn H. Shute ed.

  Mental Health and Wellbeing: Educational Perspectives provides a significant overview of the matter of mental health and wellbeing with particular relevance to educational contexts. Comprising peer-reviewed chapter contributions from prominent Australian and international researchers and practitioners, this book presents an authoritative and diverse account of:

  • links between wellbeing and learning

  • interventions and initiatives in the field

  • evidence based practice guidelines

  • policy and practice examples

• 

  The learning of numeracy and literacy in South Australian primary schools: an investigation into the performance of students and schools in numeracy and literacy in rural and regional South Australia.

  Carol Aldous

  Success in science and mathematics is predicted on successful literacy and numeracy learning. Yet schools and communities across the country struggle to negotiate factors that both impede and facilitate such learning - particularly factors over which they have no control. Working with data more comprehensive than that used previously and applying statistical methods only recently developed, researchers from the South Australian hub of the National Centre for Science, Information and Communication Technology and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia (SiMERR-SA) seek answers to three basic questions. What factors influence performance in literacy and numeracy? Does living in a rural and remote community influence the outcome? What is the situation in rural and remote South Australia when compared with metropolitan Adelaide?

• 

  From fighting to freedom: Stories from Serbian Balkan war refugees

  Svetlana Michelle King, Larry Owens, and Neil Welch

  The 1990s saw the dissolution of former Yugoslavia following the decline of Communism. Ethnic cleansing campaigns resulted in the displacement of many of the region’s citizens. There is limited published research which specifically examines Serbian experiences of trauma and transformation as a result of the civil unrest. The lack of research attention that this population has received was likely influenced by the international mass media reporting of the events during this time, which portrayed the Serbs as the sole transgressors of the ethnically-driven conflicts. This qualitative study involved ten Serbian participants who migrated to Australia as a result of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. Through multiple semi-structured interviews with participants, eight stories were produced, where three participants co-constructed their stories. Six of these stories have been selected for presentation in this book. In analysing the interview data, eight key themes were identified. These were: changing conceptions of ethnicity; the role played by wider social networks; the importance of family throughout participants’ lives; the impact of war experiences; the experiences and impact of health difficulties; the role of grief and loss; the importance of age in shaping participants’ experiences and responses to trauma; and the importance of lifelong learning. In considering these themes, three adaptation patterns – active integration, passive integration, and segregation – were developed and are specific to the participants in the study.

• 

  Adaptation of Arab immigrants to Australia

  Nina Maadad

  This book examines the psychological problems that Arab immigrants experienced in their efforts to adapt socially and culturally when they settled in Australia. The research was based on a group of 40 participants, 16 of whom migrated to Australia between 1973 and 2004. The other 24 were all of Arab descent and born in Australia. The participants’ ages ranged between 14 to 66 years of age. The methodology for undertaking the research utilised humanistic sociology principles, particularly when collecting and analysing qualitative data. This investigation is divided into three sections. The first part focuses on the psychological issues resulting from migration and adaptation to Australian culture and customs. The second section concentrates on socio-cultural factors especially the maintenance of traditional Arab religious practices, family values, language and personal identity. The third analyses the respondents’ perceptions of the ways in which Anglo-Australian host society has responded to Arab immigrants and their children. The findings indicate that Arab immigrants endured many challenges when adapting to a new culture. They had to adjust to its values and morals, which were new and alien to them, and learn to integrate the old with the new culture so they could live comfortably. The major finding of this book is that the Arab immigrant families did adjust to the new country wholeheartedly, even in the first generation, partly by maintaining the core values of their Arab home culture. Adapting to mainstream Australian culture was more pronounced in the second generations. Nonetheless, there was an equal enthusiasm from younger people of Arab descent who were born in Australia to retain and express the values of their family elders’ culture and to explain and share it with Australians from non-Arab backgrounds.

• 

  The process of research in education: A festschrift in honour of John P Keeves AM

  Bobbie Matthews and Tony Gibbons

  John Keeves is acknowledged internationally by colleagues, students and friends as a superb teacher and researcher. Now in his eighty-fifth year, a number of these same people have come together to write papers that, in their content, express the foci of his teaching and research activities and, that pay tribute to the considerable effect he has had on the world of educational research and, on the authors themselves. This book is the result. It is no surprise that the authors are international and diverse.

• 

  Education revolution: Ending educational apartheid in Australia

  Noel Guerin

  The education system in Australia is fundamentally unfair and undemocratic. It fails the fundamental test of giving a fair go to every student, because access to the best education is not equally available to all young Australians. Instead, it depends on parents’ capacity and willingness to pay. Discrimination for the privileged elite is based, not on race, but on financial resources. In the United Kingdom, where a similar situation exists, there has been much public debate about ‘educational apartheid’! There is little reason to believe that the situation in this country is fairer. Government school students are generally perceived to be disadvantaged simply by the fact they attend a government school. More than one third of Australian school students are considered to be unfairly advantaged simply because they can and do choose to attend an independent school. Social class division is created by and perpetuated by the dual system of education, and by the huge gap in standards between the best schools and the worst.

• 

  Is school wide adoption of ICT change for the better?

  Katherine Dix

  The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools is now an intrinsic part of students’ learning, both inside and outside the classroom. The adoption and impact of ICT on teaching practice and learning outcomes has been a source of keen interest among government policy makers, school leaders, teachers and researchers worldwide. Few empirical studies have been conducted in Australia, or worldwide, that focus on student attitudinal outcomes framed within a design-based paradigm that spans several years. The overarching purpose of this study is to investigate longitudinal change in school climate through its influence on students and teachers, during a period of school-wide transition as ICT were embedded throughout mainstream curricula. An assessment of the impact of ICT on student attitudinal outcomes, in particular, changes in self-esteem over a three-year period of school-wide ICT adoption, is provided through the examination of factors affecting teaching practice and students’ attitudes towards computers and school. A total of 219 teachers and 2560 students from six metropolitan public primary and secondary schools in South Australia participated in the study. The main method of data collection involves the use of online questionnaires suitable for repeated administration over the three-year lifespan of the study, and appropriate for all teachers and those students in Years 5 to 7 in primary school and Years 8 to 10 in secondary school.

• 

  Families at Risk: The Effects of Chronic and Multiple Disadvantage

  Phillip Slee

  The Families at Risk study has produced local evidence drawing attention to the strengths and challenges for parents living in situations of chronic and multiple disadvantage with children aged 0 to 7 years. Life for the majority of these parents and young children is under-resourced, stressful and isolated, and interventions are required that open up pathways out of disadvantaged life situations. In order to achieve improved outcomes for families at risk, a paradigm shift is required so that unequal outcomes for families and children are seen as social injustices, rather than as products of individual dysfunction or deficit. This paper suggests how services should respond in order to address these inequalities.

• 

  Building your argument: A guide to postgraduate writing skills

  Paddy O'Toole

  Building your argument: A guide to postgraduate writing skills is aimed at helping postgraduate students learn the skills relating to their study. It outlines principles derived from study into what postgraduates are taught about academic writing, compared with what they need to know. Building your argument: A guide to postgraduate writing skills is designed to help students understand the task of completing a piece of academic writing that includes or is based on a literature review. Academic writing generally requires the writer to:

  • focus the work to argue for particular conclusions;

  • gather evidence to support those conclusions;

  • develop the argument in a logical and systematic way; and

  • present the conclusions and their implications.

  Many students mistakenly believe that knowing the content is sufficient to achieve high grades. A university’s function, however, is more than helping students increase their knowledge. Students also need to develop analytical thinking skills and to be able to develop ideas and conclusions that can be defended in a forum of peers.

• 

  The Seeker

  Sivakumar Alagumalai ed., Murray Thompson ed., James Anthony Gibbons ed., and Andrew Dutney ed.

  This book is dedicated to acknowledge and honour the work Prof John P Keeves. A seeker of knowledge, John is exemplary in highlighting the nexus between instruction, learning and research. John’s diversity of learning experiences and contributions to students, colleagues and the broader community are highlighted through the broad range of articles in the book.

  PART 1 FROM SCHOOL TO UNIVERSITY

  • Chapter 1 Observations from a Family Perspective by John S. Keeves & Wendy Keech
  • Chapter 2 Student Days at PAC by Ren Potts
  • Chapter 3 Prince Alfred College 1934-1977 by Murray Thompson & Alan Dennis
  • Chapter 4 John’s Reflection of PAC and beyond by Ron Gibbs & Murray Thompson
  • Chapter 5 Teaching Days at PAC 1947-49, 52-56, 58-61 by David Prest
  • Chapter 6 Wesley College Council by David Prest
  • Chapter 7 Port Willunga by David Prest
  • Chapter 8 Teacher and Scout Leader by John Willoughby

  PART 2 CONTRIBUTIONS AND COLLABORATIONS BEYOND AUSTRALIA

  • Chapter 9 Ten Questions by which to Judge the Soundness of Educational Achievement Surveys by T. Neville Postlethwaite
  • Chapter 10 Exploring the Effects of Language Proficiency upon Secondary Students’ Performance in Mathematics in a Developing Context by Sarah J Howie & Tjeerd Plomp
  • Chapter 11 The Subversive Influence of Formative Assessment by Paul Black
  • Chapter 12 Diversity of Research on Teaching by Toh Kok Aun

  PART 3 FLINDERS UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND BEYOND

  • Chapter 13 Investigating Good Quality Knowledge about Learning and Teaching by Michael J. Lawson & Helen Askell-Williams
  • Chapter 14 Future Directions for the Reform of Education in Oceania by G R (Bob) Teasdale
  • Chapter 15 Students’ Knowledge of Normal Swallowing: Tracking Growth and Determining Variables by Ingrid Scholten
  • Chapter 16 Rasch Scaling and the Judging of Produce by Murray Thompson
  • Chapter 17 Modelling and Experiments by Tony Gibbons
  • Chapter 18 Theological Education and the Identity of the Uniting Church in Australia by Andrew Dutney
  • Chapter 19 Teaching Out of the Unconscious: The Role of Shadow and Archetype by Robert Matthews
  • Chapter 20 Collaboration over the Net: HTML & Java, the Necessary Tools by Sivakumar Alagumalai & Jury Mohyla
  • Chapter 21 Factors Influencing Reading Achievement in Germany and Finland: Evidence from PISA 2000 by Dieter Kotte & Petra Lietz
  • Epilogue Lifelong Learning and the Place for ICT: Learning and Research for the Twenty-first Century by John P. Keeves

• 

  The Quality of Learners' Knowledge About Teaching and Learning

  Helen Askell-Williams

  The aim of this monograph is to report the development and application of a framework for identifying quality in teachers' and learners' knowledge about teaching and learning.

• 

  On Reflection

  James Anthony Gibbons

  This book commences with a criticism of constructivism as the basis for curriculum design followed by an attempt to argue an alternative. It is possible to proceed to criticise constructivism as the basis for curriculum design by illustrating the issues with references to extracts from curricula used by various countries and Departments of Education. This book takes a different route. The assumption is made that criticism will be clearer if related to a substantial part of a curriculum rather than extracts from a variety of curricula from a variety of countries. The focus is on the recently developed, and currently in use, South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework (the Framework) and the Science Curriculum within it. This is not to indicate that the criticisms of the Framework do not have application beyond the confines of South Australia. It is clear from the arguments that they do.

• 

  Life values and approaches to learning: a study of university students from Confucian heritage cultures

  Bobbie Matthews

  This study seeks to examine the principles that guide the lives of students from East Asia who come to Australia to study. The more specific purpose is to investigate the values and approaches to learning that are important in the lives of Asian tertiary students and to examine changes that may occur when students come from East Asia in order to pursue their education in Australia.

• 

  Alternative education : an international perspective

  Yoshiyuki Nagata

  Chapter 1 discusses how the characteristics of alternative education are to be understood, for the purposes of this research, in the contemporary context and in light of former interpretations. Chapters 2 to 8 take up cases of alternative education in practice in six countries and discuss the realities of the systems and mechanisms involved in practice and theory in alternative schools.

• 

  Retaining Knowledge Through Organizational Action

  Paddy O'Toole

  The main goal of this study is to contribute to the understanding of knowledge retention in organisations. Knowledge retention relates to the storage of knowledge within organisations. The word 'storage', however, gives an erroneous impression of the active and dynamic way in which knowledge is manifested and retained within the organisation. Knowledge may be retained via documents, databases or within the culture and structure of the organisation. Knowledge can be held in one individual head, or be synthesised by groups. This book gives an account of research that investigated development of knowledge retention structures, the communication of knowledge and the protection and management of knowledge in three different sites in one organisation.

• 

  The Measurement of Adolescent Depression

  Leigh Roeger

  Very broadly the general aims of this study are: to examine whether the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) measures depressive symptomatology equivalently across adolescent boys and girls; and to examine whether schools exert effects on student levels of depressive symptomatology independently of individual level characteristics. In the course of this study quite a number of subsidiary questions are also addressed. Most of these questions centre around the psychometric properties of the CES-D scale when used with adolescent samples.

• 

  Implementation of Information Technology in Local Government in Bali, Indonesia

  I Gusti Ngurah Darmawan

  The adoption and implementation of information technology (IT) has been a source of interest for many people and sectors in developed countries. Research in this field has traditionally focused mainly on organisations in developed countries, without considering how these frameworks and models can be applied and extended to developing countries. This study investigates the adoption and utilisation of IT in local government in Bali.

• 

  Measuring school effects across grades

  Njora Hungi

  This study investigates the issue of the value-added components of the education provided across Grade 3 and Grade 5 in primary schools in South Australia and how these components could be measured. The study shows that it is very difficult to identify effective or ineffective schools because the amount of variance left unexplained at the school-level is small. As a solution to this problem, it is more meaningful to identify effective or ineffective schools when the school effects are expressed in terms of years of learning that a student spends at school.

• 

  Optimism and Pessimism in Children

  Shirley M. Yates

  Areas of learning where performance is measured through systematic and responsible assessment can contribute to the conceptualisation and valuing of art education through the provision of evidence of learning and development of artistic skills. There is a need for measurement to be undertaken in assessment in art production, on the basis of a shared symbol system, that allows for detailed classifications of visual art works. The aim of this study was to improve validity, reliability and credibility in measuring student performance in art production, and thereby increase the positive impact of assessment in the visual arts discipline.

• 

  Changes in mathematics achievement over time in Australia and Ethiopia

  Tilahun Mengesha Afrassa

  This study has five major purposes: to develop a general theoretical model which considers the multivariate structure of the available data; to examine the changes of the mathematics achievement level of Australian lower secondary school students over time; to develop a common mathematics scale to enable investigation of mathematics achievement over time and across countries; to develop a theoretical model of student level factors influencing the mathematics achievements of lower secondary students in Australia and Ethiopia and to examine these hypothesised interrelationships between variables; and to investigate the views and attitudes of Australian and Ethiopian students towards mathematics and schooling and to develop common scales which are independent of the samples of students tested and the items employed.

• 

  Building a national vocational education and training system

  Robin Ryan

  This study seeks to establish that policy in vocational education has oscillated between two poles. At one, vocational education is seen largely as an adjunct to economic development and the primary concern of the sector is to meet the needs of industry rather than of students. At the other, vocational education is seen as primarily student centred, encompassing goals of individual self-development and the creation of a more equitable society. In practice both these perspectives are present at any time, and both may be almost equally emphasised in VET policy and rhetoric.

• 

  Listening to the boys: issues and problems influencing school achievement and retention

  Malcolm Slade

  This work summarises the views of 1800 boys, from 60 secondary schools in South Australia, balanced across all sectors. Their views have been clear and largely uniform across the schools, year levels and levels of achievement. Several popularly held views, that the problems start in the primary years, and that the issues are reducible to matters of gender difference, gender equity, peer pressure or literacy and numeracy, are rejected, by the boys and others, as simplistic to the point of being false. Issues about masculinity are conspicuous in their absence. Instead, the boys identify a broad range of interconnected factors, fundamental to which is that the adult world is not really listening and not genuinely interested in either their concerns or their future needs.

• 

  Science, technology and society in science education

  Debra Tedman

  This study had four major purposes. First, the study developed and used scales to measure the strength and coherence of students', teachers', and scientists' views, beliefs and attitudes in relation to science, technology and society (STS). Second, the factors which influenced the development of strong and coherent views on STS by students, were examined. Third, the study investigated whether male and female students differed in the strength and coherence of their views on STS. Fourth, structured group interviews with teachers provided information for the consideration of the problems encountered by teachers and students in the introduction of STS courses.