Education Commons^™

What Do Primary School Principals From The Yamaji Region Or Mid West Education District Say About Their School's Bullying Prevention And Management Guidelines And Practices And How They Support The Strengths And Needs Of Aboriginal Students And Their Families?, Dionne Paki

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Background: Australia‟s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are over represented in poor health and education outcomes. Little is known about the bullying experiences of Aboriginal school age children and young people. This Master's study aimed to investigate the policies and practises school principals use for bullying prevention and management in primary schools located in the Yamaji region or Midwest Education District of Western Australia.
This study was conducted in conjunction with the Child Health Promotion Research Centre‟s Solid Kids, Solid Schools project. Solid Kids, Solid Schools is a four-year study that aimed to contextualise the bullying experiences of Yamaji school-age …

Coping With The Demands Of Mature Age Student Life, Jenny E.M. Cowell

Theses : Honours

In Australia, mature age students are 20 years of age and above in the year that they commence study and comprise approximately 65 per cent of students enrolled in Australian universities (EIM Support, 201 0). There are many reasons why they may choose to commence tertiary education (Hoskins, Newstead, & Dennis, 1997) with their transition into university likely to require them to make changes across many life domains (Gall, Evans, & Bellerose, 2000). There is much evidence to suggest that mature age students are capable of completing their undergraduate degrees, however they have a relatively low retention rate, especially in …

Determining The Point Of Optimum Transferability Of Skill, Amanda Puchar

Theses : Honours

Cognitive research assumes that practice on a task can lead to improved performance, most often resulting in the attainment of automatic performance and possibly the transfer of this learning to another task. This study examined all of these questions through the use of a computer generated counting task that required participants, consisting of 60 randomly selected university students and friends and family of the researcher, to count stars on a display screen and determine if the number of stars presented was an odd or even number. Coefficient of variation (CV) measures that calculated the variability for a given level of …

Automaticity As A Predictor Of Skill Transfer, Jana Melis

Theses : Honours

Research into the effect of automaticity on skill transfer has resulted in conflicting conclusions about how automatic processes act on the transferability of skill. The research in this study was designed to investigate the existence and nature of the relationship between automaticity in skill acquisition and the ability to transfer that skill to a different task. Using a quantitative research design, a simple counting exercise was used to train participants in a skill, with the amount of training manipulated between groups. Accuracy rates and reaction times were recorded and analysed to determine the variance within and between the groups between …

How Do They Cope: Teaching Students With Learning Difficulties In Mainstream Classrooms, Coralyn Dick

Theses : Honours

This study seeks to examine how teachers cope with the demands of teaching students with and without learning difficulties (LD) in mainstream classrooms. The relationship between psychological coping and teachers stress, self efficacy and adaptiveness was examined in a sample of 151 mainstream primary school teachers from Perth, Western Australia. Teaching experience ranged from 1 to 35 years. Three multiple regression analyses were conducted using the psychological constructs of problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping and avoidant coping as criterion variables. Results indicated that, time management, professional investment, and instructional practices were predictors of problem-focused coping; work related stress was a predictor …

The Relationship Between Amount Of Training And Performance On A New Task, Jacinta Avril Tan

Theses : Honours

This paper was designed to examine the relationship between training and transfer tasks and performance on these tasks whereby training can be used to predict transfer. Previous research has assumed that performance of an established task should extrapolate the power function of learning. That is, performance of an established skill in a new domain will continue to improve at the same rate with practice as if there was no change in the domain. 60 participants were recruited from the University of Edith Cowan and were randomly assigned to one of three conditions; I 0 block condition, 20 block condition, or …

School Aged Children: Visual Perception And Reversal Recognition Of Letters And Numbers Separately And In Context, Janet E. Richmond

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Visual discrimination, spatial orientation, and recognition of letters and numbers in context are important issues in helping young students achieve good literacy and numeracy standards. Thus, measures of Visual Discrimination of Upper Case Letters (VDUCL), Visual Discrimination of Lower Case Letters (VDLCL), and Visual Discrimination of Numbers (VDN) as well as Spatial Orientation of Letter and Number Pairs (SOLNP), Form Constancy of Letters and Numbers (FCLNP), Letter and Number Sequencing (LNS), Figure Ground of Letters in Words FGLW) and Figure Ground Numbers in Calculations (FGNC) must be linear and uni-dimensional so that student weaknesses can be identified objectively. The Simple …

Goal Motivation, Academic Outcomes, And Psychological Distress Of A Group Of Australian Secondary Students : Scale Refinement And An Extension Of The Ingledew, Wray, Markland, And Hardy (2005) Model, Craig Harms

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Beliefs held about personal goals are termed goal dimensions. When applied to academic goals, goal dimensions represent a form of academic motivation. The purpose of this research was to examine if a model of goal dimensions developed by Ingledew, Wray, Markland, and Hardy (2005) in a business setting with adults could be applied to explain academic outcomes and psychological distress of two hundred and sixteen Australian final-year secondary students who were striving to gain a place at a university. Structural Regression (S-R) Analysis was used to examine the effect of the goal dimensions on psychological distress at Time 1 (April); …

Infusing Critical Thinking Into An Employability Skills Program: The Effectiveness Of An Immersion Approach, Sophie Kennedy

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The demands of the knowledge economy have placed renewed emphasis on graduate employability and the development of higher-order thinking skills. Preparing graduates for the workplace requires new instructional approaches to develop a matrix of interrelated skills. This study investigates an immersion approach to developing employability skills with emphasis on the infusion of critical thinking skills in an undergraduate business degree.

The research is situated within the pragmatic paradigm and comprises a mixed methods approach. Analyses of project instructions, student reflections and test scores are presented in an explanatory case study in three parts: the infusion of critical thinking skills in …

A Model For The Measurement And Presentation Of Participation Awareness In Online Groupware Systems, Greg Baatard

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The need to support effective group work in online environments has become a prominent issue in both education and enterprise. Universities continue to adopt constructivist-based learning strategies which see learners engage in group work to build knowledge, coupled with an increase in online and distance learners. In enterprise, where group or team based work is commonplace, the prevalence of the Internet has seen the emergence of teams that collaborate wholly or partially online.

In response to this emergent need, groupware, software used to support online group work, has become widely used in both education and enterprise. Although based upon sound …

Learning A Foreign Language With A Collaborative Web-Based Task, Processes And Performances. Apprendre Une Langue Étrangère À Partir D'Une Tâche Collaborative Sur Internet : Processus Et Performances, Frédérique Penilla

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Within language teaching and learning, tasks have been advocated for use as they are thought to set up ideal conditions for language acquisition to occur. With the emergence of the Internet in the last decade, and the deployment of technology in schools, Web-based tasks, referred to as Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL) are being used by an increasing number of teachers. Teachers who employ Web-based tasks in their classrooms, commonly set these up so that learners complete them in a collaborative mode. This requires learners engaging in a process of task negotiation and, at times, task redefinition, which in turn requires …