This study is concerned with the receptivity of Western Australian secondary school teachers towards a system-wide educational change, the Unit Curriculum system. In any system-wide educational change that involves the classroom, teachers' receptivity towards the change is an important determinant of its successful implementation. It is important for educational decision-makers to know what variables affect receptivity so that new proposals can be tailored to achieve the best chance of successful implementation. It is proposed that there are fundamental variables common to all system-wide changes and these are included in a model of receptivity developed from previous research. This paper reports the results of an empirical study using data from 480 teachers where 56% of the variance in attitudes towards the Unit Curriculum system is predicted from four fundamental variables, when they are adapted to apply to the Unit Curriculum. These variables are non-monetary cost benefit to the teachers, perceived participation in the change decisions relating to the school and the classroom, perceived support for the change from principals and senior teachers, and feelings towards the previous educational system.
Cross‐national data from 1,068 Grade 11 students (223 from Australia, 135 from the former East Germany, 114 from Costa Rica, 213 from the former West Germany, 293 from the USA and 90 from Austria) were collected by questionnaire in a study relating to perceptions about cheating. Cheating perceptions were defined in terms of three aspects: perceptions of what constitutes cheating, perceptions of why cheating occurs, and perceptions of how cheating can be discouraged. Known sources of bias were taken into account before data collection and during data analysis to produce an anti‐cheating perception scale (from strong to weak) with sound psychometric properties. The results showed that Australians, with their cultural emphasis on the “fair go mate” syndrome combined with personal achievement, tended towards the stronger end of the scale, and the West Germans, with their cultural emphasis on cooperative learning to succeed, tended towards die weaker end, with students from the other countries falling between them.
Reports the results of a qualitative, cross‐sectional study
involving a survey of 549 teachers′ perceptions of the Unit Curriculum
system in 22 metropolitan state senior high schools in Perth, Western
Australia, in the context of system‐wide change, within a centralized
educational system. Surveyed perceptions of six general variables
applied to the specific case of the Unit Curriculum system. These
variables are: perceived cost benefit to the teacher; perceived
practicality in the classroom; alleviation of fears and concerns;
participation in school decisions on aspects affecting the classrooms;
perceived support from senior staff; and feelings towards the previous
system compared to the new system. Suggests these variables offer
pointers to educational administrators on how best to tailor system‐wide
changes so that teachers will be more receptive to the changes in the
implementation stage.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.