Barriers and opportunities in developing a 'best … and opportunities in developing a ‘best practice’ model in early childhood fieldwork placements for students articulating from

FINAL REPORT

To

Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development Skills Victoria

Barriers and opportunities in developing a ‘best practice’ model

in early childhood fieldwork placements for students articulating from the TAFE sector

Joce Nuttall and Marie Hammer Centre for Childhood Studies

Faculty of Education 31 January 2008

FINAL REPORT TO DEPARTMENT OF INNOVATION, INDUSTRY AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT – SKILLS VICTORIA 2 45

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 3

Executive summary 4

Background and overview of the project 5

Designing a ‘best practice’ fieldwork model 9

Research design 15

Findings and discussion 17

Conclusion 33

References 35

Appendices 37


Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the Victorian Office of Training and Tertiary Education*, which provided the funding to conduct this project. We are grateful to the students who participated in the study and academics in other institutions who contributed to the research. We would also like to acknowledge those staff from Monash University who assisted with the research and trialling of the project.

*The Office of Training and Tertiary Education is now Skills Victoria


Executive Summary

The integration of children’s services across the early childhood sector is a key policy driver for the Victorian Office for Children (Government of Victoria, 2007, pp. 39-40). Effective implementation of this policy is intended to improve access to children’s services for Victorian families, achieve efficiencies in the sharing of service expertise and funding, and increase the likelihood that ‘at risk’ families, who are often connected to multiple social services, are more effectively supported. A notable aspect of the policy of service integration in the Victorian context is the move toward integration of kindergarten programs into long-day child care services. Graduates of the Diploma of Children’s Services who continue on to university-level studies in early childhood education are seen as a key source of teacher supply in implementing this policy. In July 2006, researchers at the Centre for Childhood Studies at Monash University’s Faculty of Education were invited to research and report on the barriers to effective fieldwork participation faced by pre-service early childhood education teachers who have pursued a pathway from Diploma-level TAFE early childhood courses to university early childhood degrees. As part of the project, a ‘best practice’ fieldwork model was designed and trialled. This report begins by describing the policy context for the research and the empirical literature drawn on to support the project. The approach taken to conducting the research is described, as is the design and implementation of the alternative fieldwork model. Individual interviews were conducted with eleven students in Monash University’s Bachelor of Early Childhood Studies course and two university lecturers. Further data were generated at a focus group of thirteen TAFE participants, drawn from a variety of Victorian TAFEs, and all involved in the delivery of the Diploma of Children’s Services. The report concludes that there was no evidence that the pathways students participating in the study faced major barriers in undertaking fieldwork placements. On the contrary, the student participants reported extremely positive fieldwork experiences and seemed well able to manage fieldwork arrangements, including academic requirements. The opportunity to learn and develop was a key factor for students. For some students, it was also an opportunity to reconfirm, and even reconsider, their career direction. There was some evidence that the ‘best practice’ model trialled as part of the research, comprised of geographical placement clusters with linked professional development opportunities for teachers and students, is worthy of further development. Policy, practice, and research issues highlighted in the report include:

• the absence of consistent frameworks for assessing credit transfer between VET and HE • the impact of student employment in addition to study commitments • confusion amongst potential pathways students about available options • the need for systematic support for graduating teachers as they enter the profession • the need for research into the experiences of students from diverse backgrounds • the need for research into the experiences of kindergarten teachers already working in long-day-care

settings. This study confirmed Watson’s (2006) finding that pathways programs provide students with an avenue to leave the child care workforce and that they are highly unlikely to return to child care settings. Given that these students are seen as a key source of qualified staff in integrated kindergarten settings, this finding is of concern. The students’ decision to leave child care is clearly related to the industrial and professional conditions surrounding work in child care.


Background and overview of the project Introduction In July 2006, researchers at the Centre for Childhood Studies at Monash University’s Faculty of Education were invited to research and report on the barriers to effective fieldwork participation faced by pre-service early childhood education teachers who have pursued a pathway from Diploma-level TAFE early childhood courses into university early childhood degrees. As part of the project, a ‘best practice’ fieldwork model was designed and trialled. This report describes the policy context for the research, the empirical literature drawn on to support the project, the approach taken to conducting the research, the design and implementation of the alternative fieldwork model, and the project’s findings and recommendations. Throughout this report, reference is made to a key report released by the the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), formerly the Department of Education, Science and Training) in August 2006, Pathways to a Profession (Watson, 2006). This report canvassed the barriers to learning in pathways programs for early childhood educators making the transition from TAFE to higher education. Although fieldwork was not an explicit focus of the DEEWR report, issues related to fieldwork inevitably arose as part of the research, and many of the themes arising in the present study reflect the DEEWR findings. The policy context The integration of children’s services across the early childhood sector is a key policy driver for the Victorian Office for Children (Government of Victoria, 2007, pp. 39-40). Effective implementation of this policy is intended to improve access to children’s services for Victorian families, achieve efficiencies in the sharing of service expertise and funding, and increase the likelihood that ‘at risk’ families, who are often connected to multiple social services, are more effectively supported. This policy of service integration reflects similar government initiatives in the United Kingdom, including Sure Start (www.surestart.org.uk) and the New Zealand government’s 10-year Strategic Plan for Early Childhood Services (Ministry of Education, 2002). A notable aspect of the policy of service integration in the Victorian context is the move toward integration of kindergarten programs into long-day child care services. Victorian kindergartens are still mainly operated as stand-alone services, managed by voluntary parent committees, and programs are usually sessional and part-time. This model of service provision dates from when parents of pre-school children (typically mothers) had low rates of participation in the paid workforce. However, changing patterns in workforce participation since the 1970s have seen a steady rise in the number of mothers of preschool children entering paid work on a part-time or full-time basis. Most recent estimates of these participation rates suggest that 96% of four-year-old children in Victoria participate in some form of preschool education. This demographic shift has led to increased demand for long-day extra-familial care in Victoria but, with a few exceptions (such as kindergartens attached to private schools), kindergarten services have remained largely sessional. This is despite an investment by the state government of a 91 per cent increase in funding for kindergartens since 1999, some of which has been specifically earmarked to support service integration. In the face of rapidly changing demographic patterns and the Victorian government’s desire to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of children’s services, the integration of kindergarten services into new and existing long-day services is a key plank of the Victorian government’s early childhood policy. The 2005-2006 state Budget included $19.3 million over four years to provide incentives for child care services to provide kindergarten programs. This social and policy context – of complex service provision, demographic change,


and state-based policy and regulation – is prevalent across Australia (Watson, 2006) and provided the starting point for this research. The professional context Historically, prior-to-school ‘care’ services in Victoria (principally long-day child care services but also family day care) have existed separately from ‘early childhood education’ services (mainly kindergartens). This separation has been embedded institutionally and industrially through separate qualifications pathways, differences in staff qualifications requirements, separate industrial awards, and separate language (e.g. child care ‘workers’ and kindergarten ‘teachers’). In Victorian long-day child care settings, holders of the two-year Diploma of Children’s Services are fully qualified under the terms of the State’s Children’s Services Regulations. By contrast, kindergarten teachers in Victoria are required to graduate with either a three-year or four-year degree in early childhood education. At the time of preparing this report, the Regulations are under review, and the Victorian government has signalled its determination to strengthen some regulatory aspects of care and education, including staff:child ratios (Government of Victoria, 2007, p. 37). During the last few years, there has been a trend across Australia for holders of the Diploma of Children’s Services to seek credentialisation as kindergarten teachers. In response to this demand, three-year awards, commonly referred to as ‘pathways’ programs, have been established to meet this demand. Three Victorian universities –Victoria University, The University of Melbourne, and Monash University – currently provide campus-based or off-campus pathways degrees in early childhood education, with Melbourne and Monash also offering these programs in Singapore. With the introduction of the ‘Melbourne Model’ (whereby teacher education will be offered as a sequence of a generic undergraduate degree followed by a two-year postgraduate program) the early childhood pathways program at Melbourne is coming to a close. At the same time, however, other Victorian universities – Deakin University and the University of Ballarat – are launching TAFE to university ECE pathway degrees. Charles Sturt University also offers a fully-distance mode pathway degree in ECE to students in Victoria and New South Wales. Diploma-qualified early childhood students can also successfully apply for entry to four-year ECE and primary degrees in Victoria. Diploma graduates entering university ECE programs typically receive course credit to acknowledge the knowledge and expertise accrued during their prior study although, as Watson (2006) points out, there is no standard framework across universities for calculation of such credit. At the same time as many Diploma holders are seeking to becoming qualified kindergarten teachers, Victoria faces persistent difficulties in the recruitment and retention of qualified kindergarten staff, particularly in rural areas and in long-day child care settings. Logic should dictate that an important source of potential teachers is graduates of ECE pathways degrees, since they are qualified as kindergarten teachers but also have experience in long-day settings. Discussions with the Early Years Service Quality team in the Victorian Department of Human Services have identified articulation from Diploma to early childhood degree courses as a critical issue for workforce development and participation in children’s services. This assumption is a key part of the rationale for this research project. The higher education context Federal funding for university education in Australia has declined steadily since the 1980s to the extent that, in 2006, only around 40% of the funding of faculties of education was received from government sources. This decline has been paralleled by a transfer of the costs of higher education to individual students. For example, in 2007 full-time fees for an undergraduate place in Monash’s ECE pathway degree, the Bachelor of Early Childhood Studies, were $3,998 per annum for students accepting a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP; formerly known as HECS) and $15,200 per annum (for two years) for full-fee paying places.


A further source of pressure on university programs is the rising cost of fieldwork supervision. This occurs in two ways. First, increases in the conditions of industrial awards in kindergarten and school teaching usually include increased per deum payments for the supervision of pre-service teachers on block placements. These costs are billed direct to faculties of education but funding for teacher education programs has not increased to reflect this rising on-cost. At the same time, increases in rates of pay for sessional and tenured academic staff has increased the cost of face-to-face supervision of teaching fieldwork placements by university staff. Universities have responded to these pressures in a variety of ways, including decreases in the number and duration of block placements, increases in placements at sites where supervision payments are not required (e.g. community and child care placements), and by decreasing or doing away with site-based fieldwork supervision by academic staff. The student context The rising costs of university education are reflected in increasing levels of student debt. Graduates of early childhood teacher education programs in Victoria do not have pay parity with graduates of primary and secondary teacher education programs; nor do educators in child care settings have parity with kindergarten teachers. The low rates of pay of child care and kindergarten educators, when compared to other teachers and other professions, mean that the burden of student debt falls more heavily on graduates of early childhood education. In the case of students in pathways programs, this debt may be in addition to study debt already accrued during their time at TAFE. Increasingly, students turn to paid employment in tandem with their studies to ease the cost of study fees and living expenses. At Monash, for example, approximately 70% of all full-time students work either part- or full-time to support themselves during study. Most of the students participating in the present study were working full- or part-time in child care or after-school-hours care. The management of fieldwork placements is a challenge not only for faculties of education but for students themselves. Fieldwork allows pre-service teachers direct access the professional and intellectual arena to which they aspire. For students in ECE pathways programs, this is particularly pertinent, since their studies (at least in the Victorian context) allow them to undergo a career change from child care to kindergarten. New industrial and professional possibilities are laid open to them, at the same time as they may have to suspend their paid employment and meet increased child care costs for their own children. Aims of this project This project stands at the intersection of the issues described in preceding paragraphs: the rising cost of study; increasing rates of workforce participation by university students; professional and industrial distinctions within the early childhood education workforce; policy moves toward integration of kindergarten and child care services; and the rising cost of fieldwork placements. These contextual factors are challenging faculties of education to develop and implement new ways of allowing students to demonstrate that they have met the professional requirements of teaching practice, without unduly burdening students and universities. During Semester 1 of 2007, an alternative model of fieldwork supervision was developed and trialled with Monash’s final year Bachelor of Early Childhood Studies (pathways) students and students in the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education. Funding provided by Skills Victoria allowed for a systematic investigation and evaluation of this trial, described in this report. The aims of the project were to:


1. Research the opportunities and barriers that face students, supervising teachers, and training providers in implementing fieldwork placements for students articulating from TAFE to university settings

2. Identify the features that characterise a ‘best practice’ model for such placements, based on recent

research in teacher education and the perspectives of students, supervising teachers, and training providers

3. Trial a ‘best practice’ model in order to identify the opportunities and limitations inherent in the model

4. Establish a dialogue with Skills Victoria on the implications for the TAFE and higher education (HE)

sectors, based on the outcomes of the research. In order to design an alternative model of fieldwork placement, a review of Australian research literature was conducted with respect to teacher education fieldwork and early childhood teacher education. The results of this review are described in the next section of this report.


Designing a ‘best practice’ fieldwork model The design of a ‘best practice’ fieldwork model, within the opportunities and constraints of the present project, drew on three sources, each of which is detailed in this section of the report:

• Recent research into teacher education programs in Australia • Research into early childhood teacher education in Australia, including fieldwork • The evaluation of a recent pilot fieldwork project in ECE in rural Victoria, funded by the Department of

Human Services Research into teacher education programs in Australia In a review of research into pre-service teacher education in Australia during the period 1995 to 2004, Murray, Mitchell and Nuttall (2008) identified approximately 1500 books, conference papers, theses, and journal articles as their initial data set. By applying a single criterion – that items should have been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal – the data set was reduced to 470 papers. The final data set, of 236 peer-reviewed journal articles, was drawn from the pool of 470 by applying additional review criteria, including adequacy of description of instruments and sampling methods (in the case of quantitative studies) and methods of data analysis. Of these 236 papers, 27 papers (20 %) investigated aspects of the practicum (fieldwork) in teacher education. Given the centrality of fieldwork to teacher education, this number is surprisingly low, perhaps reflecting the complexity of researching the practicum. Authors were more likely to have researched aspects of the content of teacher education curricula (particularly in mathematics and science education). The review authors have written elsewhere in more detail (Nuttall, Murray, Seddon, & Mitchell, 2006) about the scope and content of papers reviewed in the larger study, and have offered commentary on the issues of research quality raised by this review. For the purposes of this report, one of most notable features of the review is the very small number of papers related to early childhood teacher education: only 27 papers (11.5%) of the final 236 papers investigated any aspect of early childhood teacher education. Research into early childhood teacher education in Australia, including fieldwork In order to review relevant literature for this project, we returned to the wider pool (470 papers), allowing us to draw on 54 peer-reviewed papers from the decade from 1995 to 2004. Figure 1 (below) summarises the distribution of these 54 papers across the six broad categories considered by the review. (Note that Figure 1 only shows five of these categories, as the sub-set of early childhood teacher education research had no papers in the sixth category, Program evaluation).


Figure 1: Distribution of Australian early childhood teacher education research papers, 1995 – 2004, by category (n=54)

In addition to these broad categories, the 54 ECE papers were analysed by topic. Table 1 summarises this breakdown:

Topic Number of papers

Pre-service teachers’ beliefs, values, attitudes 18

Student coursework (specific techniques plus general achievement)

11

Fieldwork (the practicum, including supervising teachers) 7

Curriculum (general or by domain) 5

Teacher educators 5

Reflection, reflective practice 4

Newly qualified teachers 4

Total 54

Table 1: Research into ECE teacher education in Australia, 1995 – 2004, by topic

Just seven of the early childhood papers were on the topic of fieldwork. Table 1 reflects the reality that very few Australian academics in early childhood education also research aspects of teacher education. The small amount of material available meant that we had to look elsewhere for guidance about fieldwork program and design and evaluation. While there is some overseas research in early childhood teacher education, including one specialist (American) journal, the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, and considerable research based on fieldwork in schools, this work has only limited usefulness when applied to the local context of Victorian early childhood services. At the broadest level of teacher education program design,

Characteristics ofPSTsCoursework

Fieldwork

Instructional methods

Teacher educators


recent work by Darling-Hammond (2006) and others has attempted to identify the key characteristics of successful courses. Darling-Hammond summarises these programs thus:

[T]hey have in common an approach that prepares teachers to practice in ways that we describe as both learning-centered (that is, supportive of focused, in-depth learning that results in powerful thinking and proficient performance on the part of students) and learner-centered (responsive to individual students’ experiences, interests, talents, needs, and cultural backgrounds). These programs go well beyond preparing teachers to manage a calm classroom and make their way through a standard curriculum by teaching to the middle of the class. They help teachers learn to reach students who experience a range of challenges and teach them for deep understanding. They also help teachers learn not only how to cope with the students they encounter but how to expand children’s aspirations as well as accomplishments, thereby enhancing educational opportunity and social justice (Darling Hammond, 2006, pp. 7-8, emphasis in original).

Darling-Hammond is writing outside the Australian context and on teacher education for compulsory schooling – and the design of early childhood teacher education programs in Australia needs to pay attention to local, contextual factors – but she highlights powerful principles. The context for program design in early childhood teacher education in Australia Early childhood education is not compulsory in Australia, nor is it compulsory for early childhood educators to be registered teachers, although there are regulations determining minimum qualifications for licensing purposes, and courses must be approved by the peak professional body, Early Childhood Australia. University early childhood education courses sit alongside courses for the preparation of child care workers in TAFE colleges, reflecting and reinforcing historical, industrial, professional, conceptual, and social divides. Furthermore, early childhood teacher preparation in Australia has not been subject to any major review, unlike primary and secondary programs (Dyson, 2003). This perhaps reflects the status of early childhood education but also means that early childhood teacher preparation has not been subject to widespread consultation, or public and academic debate. In the early 2000s, considerable energy has been directed at reviewing primary and secondary teacher education, both by the Federal government (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2007) and by the Government of Victoria (2006). Against this backdrop, Victorian early childhood education is in a state of flux with respect to policy, theoretical, and practice orientations. Any reconsideration of teacher education curriculum in ECE, therefore, needs to adopt a strong conceptual base as well as anticipating the likely future trends and issues facing the wider educational field. University teacher education courses are often characterized by what Korthagen (2001) calls a ‘technical-rational’ approach. Such approaches privilege theory over practice, emphasise coursework at the beginning of the program with fieldwork experiences located later in the program (known as ‘front-loading’), and maintain a strong separation between the role of co-operating teachers in schools/centres and teacher educators who are university academics. Simply reorganising these existing course structures will not be adequate to address future pressures on teachers and teacher education. Green (2004) has recently argued that the renewal of teacher education is characterised by ‘tinkering’ and ‘adjusting’ programs to adapt to changing conditions, without fundamentally changing the assumptions upon which programs are based. By contrast, Luke, Luke, and Mayer (2000) call for a radical reconsideration of the nature of teacher education as a consequence of rapid changes in global relations, new technologies, neo-liberal agendas, and notions of citizenship. Designing effective fieldwork experiences


Three important concepts that are informing trends in teacher education and workplace organisation have the potential to radically reframe teacher education in early childhood: the concept of practice as a mode of inquiry; the notion of communities of learners; and an understanding of developing practice as transformation of participation. Recent trends in professional inquiry have been informed by almost twenty years of action research in educational settings in Australia (beginning with Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988). Indeed, it can be argued that ongoing inquiry into one’s practice has become one of the hallmarks of a professional teacher. More pragmatically, the Victorian Institute of Teachers requires evidence of ongoing professional learning for the purposes of full registration and it is likely that this will be a key component of processes of ongoing maintenance of registration. South Australia has extended this standpoint to the widest possible degree; Reid (2004) has described the state-wide commitment made in South Australia to a ‘culture of inquiry’ at every level of the education system, including the state’s education bureaucracy. The notion of a community of learners stems from the field of social psychology, particularly studies of workplace culture, and has been explored through the psychological-anthropological work of Lave and Wenger (1991) and others. A third concept, drawing again on the work of Rogoff (2003) – transformation of participation – offers important possibilities for thinking about fieldwork in teacher education. In adopting this concept, learning to teach is understood as a continuous process of progression and change in students’ abilities, toward progressive cultural mastery of teaching as a distinctive cultural activity. Within the framework provided by this project, the fieldwork component of the final-year ECE fieldwork unit was reconfigured in an attempt to mobilize all three of these concepts: professional inquiry, communities of learners, and transformation of participation. This model had been tested as part of the Rural Practicum Pilot Project (funded in 2005 and 2006 by the Department of Human Services) in the Bendigo, Campaspe, and Loddon-Mallee regions. At the stage this project was being designed, early feedback from the rural project suggested that the model had considerable benefits for students and supervising teachers, as well as allowing a deeper level of engagement between teachers and visiting lecturers The fieldwork cluster model The model is based on the aggregation of geographically local preschools and child care centres into ‘clusters’ of about fifteen centres in total. Students were assigned to a cluster and to a preschool within the cluster. The main fieldwork block was then structured around three seminars. In the case of the rural project, these were: a briefing at a local site on the Friday afternoon prior to the block (principally for supervising teachers); an in-service seminar (for students and supervising teachers) at the mid-point of the block; and a final debrief (principally for students) held on campus immediately after the block. Students in this model did not receive individual visits unless the supervising teacher had a particular concern. One of the benefits of this model is the opportunity to address a fundamental concern of supervising teachers, identified as part of a recent research project into the perspectives of supervising teachers (Clarke, Mitchell, & Nuttall, 2006): the need to know whether they are assessing and providing feedback to students at the appropriate level. Supervising teachers in the rural pilot project were presented with a range of scenarios at the briefing session, and had the opportunity to discuss and negotiate the supervision strategies best suited to each scenario. This provided important insights for the participating lecturers as well as allowing supervising teachers to begin to generate a community of practice around fieldwork supervision. Also, students who attended this briefing gained an insight into the expectations of supervising teachers and their thinking processes with respect to student learning. A further feature of the initial seminar was that the supervising teachers were asked to explicitly identify what they believed the students would (and should) learn during the fieldwork placement and the strategies that they would use to support student appropriation of this learning. Supervising teachers in the pilot project were


unanimous in stressing the importance of understanding family circumstances in rural settings, a theme which reappeared throughout the pilot. The mid-practicum seminar (which was opened up to all ECE teachers in the region) was focused on recent theory and research in early childhood education, and provided a welcome professional development opportunity for the supervising teachers; for the students it was largely going over ‘old ground’ but, again, they had the opportunity to engage with the thinking of their supervising teachers and to see that their up-to-date knowledge, as students, could make a contribution to the community of practice developing in their placement centres during the fieldwork block. The final seminar asked students to share what they had learned. Two rural teachers attended by invitation (with paid travel, accommodation, and teaching relief), allowing academic staff to test the students’ responses against the more experienced perspectives of the teachers, and allowing the teachers to identify the aspects of teaching in rural areas they viewed as ‘next learning’ for the students. Not surprisingly, engagement with families was noted by students as a particularly powerful aspect of their placements, suggesting that supervising teachers had followed through on goals they had identified at the initial seminar. In summary, the model was found to provide simultaneously for the development of explicit modes of inquiry, the formation of a community of learners, and an awareness of transformation of participation, both for students and for supervising teachers. Furthermore, the participating teachers rated highly the professional development opportunities offered by the pilot. Program design for a ‘best practice’ fieldwork model in early childhood teacher education On the basis of the review of Australian ECE teacher education and fieldwork literature, the broader literature on program design in teacher education, and results of the evaluation of the DHS rural practicum pilot, key features were identified for the design of students’ final-year ECE (preschool) teaching placement for Semester 1 2007. These were:

1. The placement of students within geographically-based ‘clusters’ of fieldwork sites (preschools) 2. The provision of free professional development workshops for supervising teachers, based on topics

studied by final-year ECE students in the university’s pre-service programs, instead of one-hour ‘advisory’ visits

3. Regular contact with supervising teachers.

Additionally, the conceptual basis of the students’ program was more tightly focused than in previous years, with an emphasis on explicit teaching goals, and on the development of effective pedagogical tools (e.g. planning formats) for implementation and evaluation during the final four-week block. The structure of the placement itself was not changed from previous years. It began with a one-week block in February, then students spent one day per week in their preschool for nine weeks, concluding with a four-week block placement in June that included at least two weeks of ‘full control’ of the preschool. The identification of geographically-based clusters of fieldwork sites (preschools) drew on existing groupings, including the City of Casey’s network of preschools, and preschools in the Peninsula and Chelsea Kindergarten Teachers’ Association (PACKTA) region. Whilst it did not prove possible to place large numbers of students in individual preschools, supervising teachers were asked at the beginning of 2007 whether they would like to host more than one final-year ECE student for the semester. For many years, ECE students on their final-year preschool placement each received a one-hour advisory visit during the four-week block at the end of Semester 1. These visits were conducted by a mix of tenured and sessional (casual) staff. Anecdotal evidence from students and supervising teachers suggested that these visits were often unsatisfactory. These visits provided for face-to-face ‘checking in’ with students and teachers, to ensure that fieldwork requirements were being understood by everyone and that students were making


adequate progress. However, the brevity of the visits did not allow for systematic observation and feedback for the student or lengthy consultation with supervising teachers, leaving many students and teachers dissatisfied with the visits. Simultaneously, as the pressure on tenured staff to be research active has grown, these visits have increasingly been staffed by casual advisors. Through no fault of their own, casual advisors have often not been fully apprised of fieldwork requirements, resulting in further frustration for students and teachers. This project provided the opportunity to re-consider whether advisory visits were providing adequate support and advice for students and teachers during fieldwork placements. It was decided to build on the opportunity to bring students and teachers together, afforded by the model of clustered fieldwork sites, by offering professional development opportunities for supervising teachers instead of the one-hour visits. A letter describing the workshops was sent to supervising teachers in March 2007. Two of the workshops (on pedagogical tools and evidence-based practice) were designed to directly mirror student work in their fieldwork unit. The other workshop focused on feedback and coaching, aimed both at working with students and for teachers seeking to establish systems for peer feedback with colleagues. At the first and third workshop, students presented aspects of their work in the fieldwork unit, allowing teachers to make clear links between university requirements and the practices students were attempting to implement during their placement. Additionally, in an attempt to reinforce university expectations and keep supervising teachers ‘in the loop’, teachers involved in the project were written to in December 2006, January 2007 (with a copy of the university’s ECE fieldwork manual enclosed) and March 2007. Teachers who participated in the workshops were also contacted by email. At the same time as the program was being designed, a parallel process of researching the perspectives of students, lecturers, and supervising teachers was also being designed. Whilst this project would pay particular attention to fieldwork issues, it also provided an opportunity to explore general issues faced by TAFE students articulating into university degrees in ECE. The research process is described in the next section of this report. A limitation of the study was the small sample size small and that all of these students were drawn from the same university. Although the students were a mix of full-time and part-time, none were international students, students studying in a rural setting, or students studying by distance mode. The report recommends that, given the particular issues in recruiting and retaining early childhood educators in rural Victoria, research into the experiences of these students would be timely. A further limitation of the study was the absence of supervising teachers’ perspectives. Teachers’ views are to be canvassed in a follow-up study.


Research design

Methodology The project took the form of a small-scale phenomenological case study, using qualitative research methods (interviews and focus groups). The aim was to generate rich data about students’ experiences of articulation from TAFE to university, their experiences of fieldwork, and their views on the trial model. A phenomenological approach is principally concerned with the perspectives and thought processes of participants, rather than their actions, and pays attention to emotional as well as cognitive factors in research participants’ understanding of the research focus. The participation of the students in the study was conceptualised as a single case, rather than each student being viewed as a separate case. This was because we were interested in patterns or trends in students’ perspectives, without necessarily having to pay close attention to individual experiences. Triangulation of student perspectives was sought through interviews and focus groups with TAFE lecturers involved in Diploma programs and with university lecturers responsible for co-ordinating and advising ECE pathways students. The sample Eleven students in Monash University’s Bachelor of Early Childhood Studies course responded to an advertisement (Appendix 1) inviting them to consider participating in the study. These students were then sent an Explanatory Statement and Consent Form (Appendix 2). TAFE participants were solicited informally at a DHS training provider forum in mid-2006, and thirteen lecturers subsequently consented to take part in the study. Two university lecturers also contributed to the study. Research ethics At the outset of the study, we had hoped to also invite supervising preschool teachers involved in the trial fieldwork model to be involved in the research. However, about one-third of the way through the project and after gaining Monash University ethics approval to interview the teachers, we were alerted to Human Ethics requirements recently introduced by the Department of Human Services (DHS). This meant we could not immediately invite participation from preschool teachers on the basis of our Monash SCERH approval. The lengthy time taken to first receive confirmation from the DHS Research Co-ordinating Committee that DHS ethics approval would be necessary, then the likely long timeframe for approval once we submitted an ethics application, meant that the opportunity to solicit teacher participation at the start of the 2007 academic year would be missed. After consultation withSkills Victoria, it was agreed we would increase our sample of student participants from six to 12, in lieu of the planned sample of six supervising teachers. Eleven students eventually participated in the study. The involvement of student participants in the research raised particular ethical sensitivities for the researchers. The Chief Investigator, Dr Joce Nuttall, was the students’ main fieldwork lecturer during the period of the research project, with responsibility for assessment of the students’ work. This was managed, with approval from Monash University’s Human Ethics Committee, by having all student contact (recruitment, selection, interviewing, and return of transcripts) co-ordinated via the project’s Research Assistant, Ms Jo Hansen, so that the identity of the participating students remained unknown to other research team members. This strategy was emphasised in the recruitment of students. As a further precaution, analysis of student interview data was not conducted until all student work in the fieldwork unit had been assessed.


Research timeline The research timeline was initially 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007. However, the students did not conclude their fieldwork placement until 15 June 2007 and their final work for assessment was not submitted until 22 June, after which it had to be marked. In June 2007, Skills Victoria generously allowed for the project timeline to be extended by one month, allowing for follow-up interviews to be completed, subsequent data analysis, and drafting of this report. Research methods Student participants in the study were interviewed twice, once during Semester 1 prior to their final four-week fieldwork block and again after the conclusion of the block. Interviews were semi-structured, around a basic set of questions (Appendix 3) and audio-recorded, then transcribed. The TAFE lecturers participated in a single focus group, using a similar set of questions (Appendix 4), which was audio-recorded and transcribed. University lecturers were interviewed individually, also as semi-structured interviews (Appendix 5), with responses manually transcribed during the interviews. Data analysis Transcripts of the interviews and focus groups were analysed twice. The first level of analysis examined the a priori constructs embedded within the interview questions e.g. challenges TAFE graduates experienced in the transition to university study. A second level of analysis was then conducted by open coding the transcripts, looking for unexpected or spontaneous patterns and themes in the participant responses. The results of this analysis, although not always directly related to the fieldwork focus, provided rich insight into a range of issues impacting on the experiences of students articulating from TAFE to university. These findings are discussed in the next section of this report.


Findings and discussion Introduction In the first part of this section, we discuss the project findings directly related to students’ experience of fieldwork. These findings are arranged around themes that were actively canvassed by the researchers (e.g. anxieties about fieldwork, practical barriers in completing fieldwork, and opportunities afforded by kindergarten placements) and one further, emergent, theme (the interpersonal challenges posed by fieldwork placements). In the second part of this section, we discuss a number of themes that, whilst not directly related to fieldwork, are pertinent to the project. The themes comprise: academic literacy and workload; the benefits of prior study at TAFE; university study as a pathway out of working in child care; the demands of working in child care; and pathways to primary teaching. In the third part of this section, we discuss students’ responses to the trial fieldwork model. We conclude this section with a summary of the perspectives of TAFE and university lecturers. Students’ experiences of fieldwork

Anxieties about fieldwork Students reported remarkably few anxieties about fieldwork. Extensive background in working with young children meant the students felt well-prepared for kindergarten placements, except in the area of centre administration and management:

With this placement, having to do more of the administration side by presenting the report to the committee, the thought makes me shake. But I think it’s a really good thing because it’s giving us that hands-on approach and building [connections] with the families. I talk to the families but it’s another learning opportunity for me. I feel I can go in there and run that kindergarten well. All I’m worried about is the behind the scenes stuff like the other jobs, like the Director and the running of the kindergarten. I haven’t had any experience with that and we haven’t talked about that at uni, so I’m a bit worried about that. I’ve talked to my supervising teacher about it and she will guide me through it. … The planning and setting up for experiences, I feel comfortable with that.

One student had anxieties about her age:

How will they treat a mature student? How will the children and families behave towards me? Will I succeed or fail?

One other was concerned about her knowledge of the children and families:

Barriers, I would say, not feeling as confident as I would because it’s not my centre, it’s not my kinder. The teacher has known these children from day one. I have only known them for the last six weeks doing observations and visits. I don’t know the families as well as I would like.

Practical barriers A focus of this research project was the barriers faced by students in participating in fieldwork. It was notable that students identified practical barriers in their own lives (e.g. juggling placement and family responsibilities), rather than conceptual or professional concerns (e.g. working with larger groups or new modes of planning). The students’ identification of practical barriers and difficulties of fieldwork fell broadly into two categories:


issues related to students’ personal circumstances; and issues related to university arrangements. At the personal level, one of the students had heavy family responsibilities:

[Y]ou’re a mother and you have all these other roles. That’s what it’s like as a student, we’re students, but we have all these other roles, and it’s great to talk about that and get that understanding. I think there has always been an open door policy and if I didn’t understand something on an assessment task I always felt I could ask.

Others spoke of personal financial pressures:

I can see the pros and cons of having a longer placement. It might be harder for people to have a full time job as well but I think, having a four week block, you will actually see what it will be like for a certain amount of time and I think taking control, and I know it’s only a week, but it’s a big thing for some people as well.

I worked just in the mid-semester break and over summer. I work to have money to support myself. I’m lucky because I live at home and I get support from them and Centrelink. I think I was very nervous and had been out of school for such a long time and I didn’t know whether I could extend anything if I have to fit everything in, like losing an income and having a harder struggle than what I thought.

Students appear to generally accept that fieldwork, particularly block teaching placements, will interrupt their usual routine and they plan accordingly. However, problems with university arrangements, related to timetabling and the requirement on some of the students to complete further child care placements, were a source of frustration that was beyond the control of students:

I think they could have done a lot better job of organising our timetable. We had a placement coming up for one subject, which was a first year subject, but because we were doing second year subjects that clashed with first year subjects…there were classes we needed to miss. The first two years were hell because I was doing first and second year subjects in the first year, and then second and third year subjects in the second year. I feel pretty confident with this placement. Probably more confident except for that stupid first placement in a child care. That was ridiculous because I didn’t need to do it. [A less positive aspect was] having to do child care pracs when we’ve done numerous of them. Getting placed within a child care centre where I was more qualified than the person that was in charge in my room. We’ve worked in the field, we’ve come from TAFE. Most of us have worked in child care centres and it seems like a backward step. You do take things in from a different perspective because you’ve learnt new theories and stuff. I did look at a child care centre in a different form but it was hard because I was more qualified that the person running the room. They would offer to pay me to stay back and work but I didn’t because I heard that they could still fail you, I was a student and not an employee. I didn’t want to jeopardise that. I was a student at that placement.

One of the conditions of course approval imposed by Early Childhood Australia is that students in pathways programs who have not had significant work experience (usually two years or more after graduating from


TAFE) are required to complete further child care placements under the supervision of the university. This is obviously a requirement that grates with these students.

The opportunities afforded by kindergarten placements Overall, the students were extremely positive about the opportunity to complete a kindergarten placement. Kindergarten placements offer a range of opportunities to students, including new knowledge and practices, access to networks, and potential job opportunities, but the students in this study mainly emphasised opportunities for new learning:

[It’s the] chance to see, learn, observe what it’s like be a kinder teacher…learn from the supervising teacher and assistants and children. The thing I’m really looking forward to is not planning [from an exclusively developmental perspective]. I have always planned from a developmental perspective and I’m really looking forward to planning from their interests. There are different approaches you can take, like Te Whāriki [the New Zealand early childhood curriculum framework]. The kindergarten I was doing my placement with is using that and the uni is… saying you can conduct learning stories and reflect and, because you’re getting photographs as well as your written work, it backs each other up. It was good to see the continuity on uni and placement. It gave me a lot of enthusiasm to get out there and do it. I know program planning and environments are changing all the time, so it will be an opportunity for me to learn about the new programs and philosophies some of the teachers are running off… Using learning stories and things like that. I think there will be a lot of opportunities out there.

There is a strong sense in these excerpts that students are seeking a broad range of perspectives on curriculum and pedagogy. Some of the students were fortunate to have particularly supportive supervising teachers:

The opportunity, basically, getting to run a community-based preschool. It builds up my self-esteem in running the kindergarten and also having the teacher direct me here and there…they’re the sort of opportunities I feel that are helping me to become the teacher that I want to become. I have been very fortunate because the kinder teacher that I am working alongside, she does teaching meetings with teachers in the community, and I found it a benefit to be a part of that. I will attend a lot of the teacher meetings and she’s done it so that I can, and it gives me a lot of opportunities for when I’m finished and I have contacts, which is great, so there are people to ask for advice and keep growing and learning together. I think that’s a really good thing. There is so much, I’m learning a great deal from her. Interpersonal challenges and opportunities on fieldwork placements

An unexpected theme in the interviews was the interpersonal challenges students faced on fieldwork placements. Concerns were mainly focused on the relationship with the supervising teacher, since not all teachers are fully supportive:

[T]he hardest thing is making that connection with your supervising teacher as well, who sometimes views you as a fourth year student and wants you to know it all and be confident, but sometimes they forget that you’re at the beginning of your career and they’ve got years of experience. That can be a challenge.


The university is a different entity to what’s happening out in the schools, and the schools will be saying that the universities are out of touch … as a student, you don’t know where your loyalties lie. Are your loyalties with your lecturers at university who are bringing lots of foreground in lots of research or do you go with the teachers who are out there? Where are my loyalties? It can be quite stifling as a student. Personally my loyalties are with the lecturers, because whilst the teachers may say that they’re out of touch they’re not able to critically reflect on their own practice… The teachers that make those comments are the teachers themselves that are out of touch.

One student described how she thought strategically about whether she would disclose her prior experience to a supervising teacher, a behaviour that (anecdotally) seems to be fairly widespread amongst students articulating from TAFE:

Sometimes I choose [whether] to divulge that information [that she has previously worked in child care] to my supervising teachers because if I feel their expectations are really high. To protect myself I feel that I need to keep that to myself and just go with it and then, in the end, when a comment is made, then I can say that I’ve got all these years experience, and it does change the dynamics when you can say that to them.

Another student identified a different reason why her prior experience might be seen as problematic:

On my primary school placements all of my early childhood experience seems irrelevant to the primary school teachers, which I was really disappointed with. We have more grounding knowledge, what we come into the primary school sector with is invaluable to them but I think there is still that classic barrier between the two: they’re down there, we’re up here. That’s disappointing.

In summary, these excerpts suggest that fieldwork placements are a complex ‘juggling act’ for students. They are not only negotiating their own learning goals but their supervising teachers’ expectations, family and financial considerations, university requirements, new models of curriculum and pedagogy, complex relationships with colleagues, children, and families, and their identity as early childhood educators.

General themes related to articulation from TAFE to university Whilst this project was principally interested in fieldwork, in this section we discuss project findings that provide a broader understanding of pathways students’ experiences. Some of the students participating in the study had articulated from TAFE to university immediately on completing their TAFE Diploma, others after several years of working in child care settings. Irrespective of whether the students had seen TAFE as a pathway to university they all acknowledged in one form or another:

It was a big step from TAFE to uni. The nature of this “big step” was actively explored in the interviews in this project. In Watson’s (2006) report to DEEWR, academic literacy was identified as a major concern of students and lecturers. Although academic literacy was not explicitly explored with students (who were asked about “challenges” in articulating to university) Watson’s findings about academic literacy were mirrored in the present project, with some students linking this concern to university workloads.

Academic literacy and workload for pathways students The students were able to explicitly contrast their studies at TAFE with university expectations:


I was shocked. I don’t think I was prepared. I think for me [at] TAFE I was confident and I could do it. Now I feel I have taken twenty steps back and I’m the dummy… People will be talking intellectually and I feel I don’t follow it… Having said that, university is another notch and I sometimes want my hand held. I think the workload [was an issue] initially. I think coming from a part time workload to full time, and the academic reading… I think in my TAFE education it was a lot more hands on, a lot more talking, and it was the theory side and the academic reading [at university]. I had to understand the relevance of it and how it was going to be of importance for me. I think fourth year has been the biggest challenge for me. I have found that the workload went to an intensity level that, in my personal life, I couldn’t sustain. That was for me the difficult side of it, but because of the relationships you have with your lecturers I was able to negotiate situations and my study load to a part time basis and it hasn’t affected my time here. I thought I couldn’t cope because we didn’t have to read anything at TAFE, not really, not as much as here. We would have to read a couple of pages but now we have to read text books and text books.

These shifts in expectation sometimes had dramatic consequences:

Student: I failed [a university unit] purely on referencing… Interviewer: And you didn’t get referencing at TAFE? Student: No, we copied and pasted off the internet at TAFE. Everyone did.

However, the students participating in the research were final-year students who, by definition, had succeeded thus far in university studies. They were not only able to articulate their earlier difficulties, but the strategies they had adopted to deal with raised expectations:

It’s a higher standard. My situation [is that] I might have the prac but I don’t have the theory, so I have to learn the theory behind the prac and what I’m doing in every situation. That’s a big stepping stone for me, to look at the text books and analyse the questions. There’s a lot of interpretation, the language. I have to use a dictionary sometimes. That’s part of the learning journey. I find what has been really beneficial in the tutorials is that we’re going into small groups and having that round discussion. That’s really helped me. You’re very independent here. At TAFE you’re very spoon fed. Here you have to research the knowledge. It’s good. It’s an advantage. [O]ne of the major things is time management and organisation, which I didn’t have time for in Year 12 but I developed them in TAFE because I had to, and it really helps in uni. It’s not anything to do with IQ or intelligence. I just think that the keys are time management and organisation and you’re fine.

The benefits of prior study at TAFE

As with this last comment, several of the students were able to reflect on how their experiences at TAFE had benefited them in their university studies:

I think it was actually good that I did TAFE before uni. I think it was a good thing. I think students that aren’t ready for uni, I always encourage TAFE because it’s a good starting block. It doesn’t matter if it takes you one, two, three, four, five years before you get to uni. It’s taken me ages to get to uni but now I feel ready to come. I felt pressure to come to uni but I said I was not ready. What’s the point of coming to uni and failing? I would feel worse.


I always say things happen for a reason and I’m so glad I did TAFE, and if anyone didn’t mind doing the extra year, or say that it was two years TAFE and two years uni, I would tell anyone to do TAFE first. It was the best thing for me to have done. I think [it] helps, from coming to do the TAFE course as well. I tied it in with what I didn’t learn at uni. TAFE is a little bit different to uni, a lot more hands on experience and they cover a little bit of why we’re doing this and the background of it. You retain a lot more things and you learn a lot more things. …I think TAFE gives you a good foreground for this thing, for like taking obs[ervations] and stuff. We already knew how to do it… [W]e had to learn sort of new planning ways and it was easier to plan knowing the background that we had.

An important finding in Watson’s (2006) study was the lack of mutual understanding between university and TAFE providers regarding content and expectations in ECE courses. Student data in the present project suggests that this was not a significant problem for this group. However, these students have been accepted into a large, urban university with demanding entry requirements, so may have been more equipped to successfully negotiate the transition to university than students in some other institutions.

University study as a pathway out of child care The students who participated in the study knew that the main context for the research was recent State government policy to integrate kindergartens into long-day care settings. They were not directly asked about their views on this policy. Instead, they were asked to reflect on their employment goals for after they graduated. Despite the broad nature of this question, the students emphatically confirmed one of the main findings of Watson’s (2006) research: that university study provides a pathway out of child care:

As soon as I finish this course I want to do sessional kindergarten or primary school. I don’t want to look back to long-day care. I would go mad. … I have never seen a long-day care run really well. There is always problems with it. I don’t feel like it’s interesting me enough. I just feel like the parents are sending their kids to a babysitter. I didn’t do five years of study to be a babysitter and that’s how I feel in long-day care or child care. [I came to university] to become a teacher. Originally that’s what I wanted to do, either kinder or primary teacher. I didn’t know much about child care until I studied the TAFE course. I didn’t even know there were different rooms for different age groups because I never attended child care when I was a child. Financially, my husband wants me to go into primary. I can see myself in a kindergarten environment [more] than a primary school setting. One of the reasons would be [that] I loved working in child care. For me, kinder is that next step up and [I can] still do some of those wonderful things I was doing in child care but there’s more purpose. I love the feel of kinder. There is something about a kinder that you don’t see in a child care centre. I went and did my Diploma and taught for about six months and I like it but I wanted to educate more and I felt very restricted in the child care centre. You can’t go out as much and there’s a lot of policies and stuff. I know there is in schools as well, but I wanted to educate more and learn about reading and writing and extend the children’s knowledge. I first applied for the straight kindergarten [course] and got accepted into that and I also got accepted into the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education, and I started to do Education because I wanted to do kindergarten and primary. It gives you more options and the same amount of time, why not?!


As indicated in some of these statements, this aspiration was based on a combination of industrial issues, status, and the challenges of working in child care environments.

Difficulties in working in child care environments As experienced child care personnel, the students were frank about the realities of working in some long-day child care environments. These included boredom:

[It] can get really boring in child care. I think that some of the people that work in child care as well, it’s kind of their last resort. They’ve gone there because they’ve got nothing else to do, they can’t find another job… They don’t have a lot of enthusiasm. They are kind of just there working, they finish, and they leave. I see good aspects of child care but it’s not something I would want to do for ten years or the rest of my life…It really depends on what centre you’re in… It can deter some people and it’s deterred me a little bit from child care.

One student, who had worked in community-based child care, recalled a lack of resources:

We didn’t always have the resources. There wasn’t the money to explore. We used to try and get parents in to talk. It was a small centre, 33 [places]. It was a bit hard to get out there and also, because you’re in child care you don’t want to teach them how to read and write because it’s not your job. Parents and staff members would get funny about it. And you didn’t want to teach them the wrong way because they could go backwards.

A recurring theme was the web of low pay, low status, and high contact hours:

The fact that the money is so bad in child care and the hours are really long and I feel that things you do in child care should be recognised. I was doing observing, planning, evaluating, everything a teacher was doing, but I felt that people were not recognising me. People would say that I was babysitting kids, but I felt I had to educate people on what I actually do. Child care workers have a hard day, the ratio is 1 to 5 and you have to care for every single baby and meet their needs. Were not octopuses – even though we’re women. I had to get out of child care and there was a way to upgrade myself. I felt doing the degree at uni would help. I might teach primary but I don’t mind doing kinder – get out of the child care scene. Child care, you always hear it, glorified babysitters… You do think about it because you do hear that. Maybe because I’ve had negative child care experiences as well. Some of the things you see are terrible. I went into one centre and I did the kinder room. Some of the things, I tried to change, but it’s hard to change with the Director. … you’re not given the appropriate planning time. You’re supposed to get two hours a week. A lot of them don’t even get that. By the time you sit down you have to get up and go into the room again. I don’t know [if I would teach in a kindergarten in a long-day child care setting]. I’m looking more [at] community-based kindergartens. Long-day care, no, the hours are too long. If it was on the hours I want and I stipulate what I want and the pay should be according to my degree [but] I don’t think so, child care is not like that. I know it gets paid by the award wage, but I don’t know. I’ve worked in child care. I want to get out of that scene.


One student was particularly pragmatic about the choice between working in child care versus schools: if you enjoy both, why not go where the benefits are greater?

No, it’s the type of work… If I had to put it on a scale, I do feel more comfortable with that age group [primary school children]. The hours of child care and stuff like that, and holidays… if you’re happy in both, why not go where there is more of a benefit?

University study as a pathway to primary teaching For some of the students, university study was clearly understood not just as a pathway out of child care but as an alternative entry pathway to school teaching. At least one of the students had understood the potential of this pathway from the outset of their TAFE studies:

I went straight from high school to doing TAFE. I never wanted to do child care forever. It was a stepping stone to get me into here.

Again, industrial and professional factors were a major consideration:

There are benefits the higher you go in the age groups – the pay and the support. Especially the support as a graduate because of the network of teachers. I just can’t get over the fact that the early years are not paid the same as teachers. It’s just ridiculous. Student: I wanted to be a primary school teacher. After doing child care, I enjoyed that age

group of kids but I couldn’t do it full time. Interviewer: Why is that, do you think? Student: Well it would be the money reason and the fact that there is a lot of pressure on you

and stuff and, it’s just, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem worth it I guess…[A] lot of the [child care] places that I saw I didn’t feel comfortable working there and I wouldn’t put my kids in there and you would have to find a good one to work in them. I always wanted to do primary, and my mum’s a primary school teacher and that would have been an influence as well.

Some of the students in the sample had transferred internally from the early childhood pathways program into the combined early childhood/primary course, precisely so they could qualify to teach in schools:

I feel like… I am advantaged because I have had the experience with early childhood… I do want to go into the primary field next year, but then again I want to go into… the lower primary because I’m used to the younger years. I don’t want to go into a job next year and go into Grade 6. I’m more comfortable with the younger kids.

But at least two of the students were still deciding which path to follow:

I’m still really torn. Pressure from families who say ‘You’ve done all this study, don’t go back to early childhood, go into primary where there’s better pay and holidays’ but personally that’s not what I got into it for and I know that at the end of this it will be early childhood. I have worked in child care for five years now, it’s my comfort zone and I wouldn’t like to give it up. But I still enjoy the aspects of a sessional kinder. I am still undecided. I need more experience to make that decision.


Overall, these responses suggest that there is a wide range of student perspectives about future pathways. For some, there remains a strong commitment to ECE although probably not in child care settings. For others, teaching in kindergartens is not only a stepping stone out of child care but a stepping stone into primary teaching. Watson (2006) argues that these complex arrangements are partly a reflection of the lack of articulation between the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector and the Higher Education sector, which originates in the 19th century assumption that school leavers will choose a single career pathway and remain committed to it for life. This is clearly not the expectation of the students participating in this study.

Student perspectives about the final placement In the interviews prior to the final four-week placement, the students were positive about the forthcoming block, particularly the longer time-frame:

I think it’s going to be really good. It was really good to do that week [an initial one-week block in the kindergarten at the beginning of the Semester], then do one day visits. … I think the four week block will be awesome…I need to be pushed and challenged and I think it will be really beneficial to see how I cope and to reflect on that and see how it goes.

I think it’s really good. I think having quite a long placement is better because you are going to learn a lot more and develop a lot more in that time. Not just three weeks and you’re gone. We’ve started to develop relationships already because we’re going one day a week already which is really good.

In the interviews following the block, this positive orientation was confirmed:

It was great. It was really fantastic. I loved the whole thing. I feel more confident. Before…I was a bit nervous but I feel like I can do it now with a few little things to learn on the way, but I feel more confident that I can do it now.

Students particularly valued the extended nature of the placement:

It was good. It was really beneficial to have the placement through to June. We haven’t had that before. We’ve only had three week blocks.

Seeing the children in February and then following them for one day [a week] you could see week to week... how they’ve come from February to June… It was really good. When you come to do your responsibility in the four week block you feel like you’ve been there for ages and you’re comfortable with the staff and children.

One theme was consistent with other research and concurred with the initial interviews: the importance of a positive, encouraging relationship with the supervising teacher. A surprising finding, however, was that those students who had previously been firmly committed to primary teaching were reconsidering their options. These findings are discussed next, followed by student perspectives on the trial fieldwork model. Student relationships with their supervising teacher In the follow-up interviews, students were not asked specifically about the change to practicum supervision arrangements, such as the workshops with teachers. Instead, they were asked about what helped them succeed on the placement, giving them the option of identifying factors other than the workshops. The most common response to this question was that the approach to supervision taken by the supervising teacher was the major factor. This included general support and frequent feedback:


Probably the support of the teacher [helped me develop]. She was only a couple of years older than me and I think that helped and she knew what I was going through with the uni stuff, so it was less pressure, because she didn’t really tell me what to do but asked me what I wanted to do. I was lucky because the teacher is really professional and she makes time to see me whenever I had anything to say or she would give me feedback. She stayed in her office the whole time and the kids thought I was the teacher and that was the real experience but I still had her there if ineeded to. It was her that made my experience beneficial.

Role-modelling of behaviours and expectations was also identified as important:

Also I had a great role model. My kindergarten teacher was fantastic. I loved it. I was really fortunate to be put into a kinder where the staff care. It makes a difference, they’re not just there to do a job, their hearts are there. [Primary] teachers have hearts but you don’t get to see it. Whereas the kinder teacher I was with, she came in on the weekend and she was so dedicated and so committed and it rubbed onto me. I want to be like that. I’m happy to do that, I’m looking forward to it.

A slightly troubling aspect of these statements is that students considered themselves “lucky” or “fortunate” to be placed in a supportive environment. Anecdotally, students often report serious difficulties in their relationships with supervising teachers (and vice versa) or that the teacher does not represent their professional ideal. The idea that students believe that a successful placement is largely dependent on luck should give teacher educators pause for thought. Reconsidering career options A particular benefit of positive student-teacher relationships seemed to be that it could prompt students to reconsider their decision to enter primary teaching:

At the start I didn’t want to go there but I had a really good time. I would have rather done primary but…I feel it was good. I had such a great time. This was the first placement that she made me take full control…and she let me try new things. …I challenged myself… I will be applying for primary only because that’s the field I would really like to do. In saying that, I didn’t think I would want to do kinder but after this placement I really enjoyed it and I could see myself doing that as well. Yes, I’m pretty sure I want to get into primary school next year…. In the end I did enjoy my placement in the kindergarten. In the future I do want to do primary but I want to get registered in primary then travel, then decide to do primary or kinder. I think I will be doing my primary straight away to get registered. But I definitely want to do kinder because one day I want to have children and it’s easier hours – part time work and I think that would be a good option to have. It’s a different feel altogether. Not so structured lesson-wise, more free-range, and I like that thought. I was a little more leaning towards the primary school teaching but now I’m leaning towards kindergarten teaching. Some people think that the pay is better in primary but I had such a really good time, the teachers just bounce off each other and [the children are] at an age when they’re extremely happy. It was really good.

My ideal job is to get a full-time job in a professional kindergarten for now. If I can’t do that I want to get two part-time jobs and I want to do that until I get some money. My goal is to travel and teach or


do Camp America. I want to do primary school but at the moment I’m more interested in kinder. To me, primary school was an added bonus.

However, pay and conditions remained an important consideration for some:

I had my mind made up on primary and it made me think of pre-school and primary and I discussed it with my teacher and then one of the things was the support and the pay and the benefits. I have always said preschool and primary because I enjoy both but then I look at the benefits of both… but my teacher said about the MECA award this year. I went to a talk with [a local ECE consultant] and she was really good. They’re going to set up a mentor program and for experienced teachers [who] may not be in touch with learning practices and stuff. That made me think, because that was what I thought that primary had… but at the end of this year I will still go for primary… This program made me think but I don’t know if that made a difference… I am still interested. I don’t see myself doing primary forever, maybe preschool. We’ll see what happens.

For students who were already committed to teaching in ECE, the placement strengthened their expectations and reduced anxieties about issues such as administration and engaging with parents:

I would like to get into a kindergarten. I can see myself more as a kinder teacher. It was a natural progression for me from child care. The holidays are great but I would love to get into a kinder environment … I have learnt a lot from my kinder teacher but she organised a lot of that herself between the kinder teachers and I’m hoping to do that as well, and see how we go. There [are] a lot of teachers to bounce idea off, I think. I want to do that. I think the experience has shown me what a kindergarten is really about. And seeing the parents’ reactions, dealing with something wrong with the parents, seeing what happened behind [the scenes], like the admin. It was interesting to see… because with the child care centre and the primary, you don’t see the parents as much... I was quite proud of how I went and that I can do it and I would make a good pre-school teacher. I was surprised about the families and having positive relationships with families. In the past I held back a bit and tried hard but didn’t want to push too much in the conversations because I was a student teacher and they’re rushing in and out. This time I tried to make an effort and they were really positive in their response. They would come to me in the morning and apologise if they were late and I feel that they respected me in my role as well.

I have never done the admin side of things. It had always been the planning for the kids. Whereas on the placement I was doing little things like taking money and doing mail, sorting that all out and just picking up little things along the way that you don’t really think about.

The trial fieldwork model

The aim of the changes made to fieldwork placements, student supervision, and communication with supervising teachers was to mobilise the three principles identified as important for ‘best practice’ fieldwork: a culture of inquiry, a community of learners, and transformation of participation. Evidence from the student interviews tended to emphasise the value of community, and that they had indeed transformed their thinking and practice, whilst the issue of inquiry was notably absent from their responses.


The importance of a community of learners Student interview comments, as well as anecdotal comments from students and teachers, identified the value of the workshops in promoting a feeling of community during the placement:

That connectedness, which I don’t feel any more [since coming from TAFE to university]. I feel I work better in that.

Only 15 of the 44 supervising teachers involved in the final-year fieldwork unit attended the workshops, with five of these teachers attending all three sessions. The students placed with teachers who attended the workshops were alert to the benefits of their supervisors’ participation:

[M]y supervising teacher was a big help for me. She was so approachable or if I had concerns I knew I could talk to her. She really made an effort to find out what was going on, which made it a lot easier for me as well. [My supervising teacher] is a very dedicated teacher and up to date. She would make sure she would keep her contacts. She keeps her finger in there and it’s really good to see because there is a possibility for me to do that as well. I had never looked that far ahead yet. I could see myself in that position.

These comments point to an important variable affecting the range of opportunities available during fieldwork placements: effective supervising teachers are generally “up to date” and make “an effort to find out”. Whilst the students interviewed for this project were overwhelmingly positive about their experiences, the sample size means we cannot assume that all students have similarly positive placements, or that all supervising teachers have a strong commitment to being up-to-date or to giving clear feedback. At its best, the relationship between student and supervising teacher allowed for a genuine community of learners, including parents. This provided a genuine site of co-construction for knowledge and practice:

All the ideas that I had, they encouraged me to have a go and a lot of the ideas I came up with she’s actually implementing now. I had a look at the program this week and she’s changed hers to a bit of mine… I did a sheet to attach the plan and each day I evaluate the plan, and there was a section for parents and we discussed how that could be implemented. We [made] a change to it so it was in a folder in the kitchen and when parents were on duty they would fill that out. That worked really well, so she’s doing that now. It was really good to pass on ideas.

Although data is not available from supervising teachers, anecdotal feedback from teachers after the workshops was consistent with teacher feedback in the rural pilot. Teachers indicated they valued the workshops highly, particularly the session on coaching and feedback. Several teachers asked that this session be repeated in future but earlier in the semester. Not only did the workshop provide them with specific advice about university expectations, it increased their confidence in insisting on certain levels of student engagement in the preschool, particularly interactions with parents.

The perspectives of TAFE and university lecturers Four themes that largely mirrored the comments of the students were identified in the data contributed by TAFE and university lecturers: TAFE as a pathway to university (including primary teaching); the need for sufficient, good quality placement sites; issues of status and recognition in children’s services; and the shift in expectations between TAFE and university. One further theme, consistent with Watson’s (2006) research, was


the need for better communication and co-ordination between TAFE and university personnel about articulation arrangements.

TAFE as a pathway to university In keeping with the student data, the lecturers understood that some students clearly see TAFE as a pathway to university (and, eventually, to primary teaching if that is the student’s goal), whilst other students find their aspirations changing as their studies progress. This topic led to vigorous discussion in the TAFE focus group:

I think a lot of them don’t actually know what the options are. I think a lot of students coming into the Diploma of Children’s Services courses often are coming in wanting to do primary school teaching and then I think they don’t actually know enough about where they can go once they’ve done their Diploma of Children’s Services. They often come to us at information night with the expectation it will be an automatic pathway for them into the uni. So at information night we make it very clear that they need to consult with individual universities. That nothing is guaranteed…

We mention articulation into degree courses in early childhood. Our students get quite a lot of information on articulating into Bachelor of Early Childhood courses but, primary, we have a lot of students who are particularly interested in primary teaching and that, even for us as staff, is very confusing. We get a lot of primary teach[ing applicants] coming the other way, who missed through VTAC and come to us desperate to be let in and some of them have, in fact, gone on to primary and to early childhood at [a university] after doing their course with us. But they’ll come to us because they see it as a viable option when they’ve missed out on primary, when they can’t do much else if that’s the field they like.

But for the TAFE lecturers, this also raised a concern about the commitment of some students to the early childhood field:

I certainly have nothing against people continuing to study but I have, to a degree, a concern about the fact that they tend to use TAFE and the diploma course in a way, without any real commitment to it in terms of employment or something else. We try to encourage them to certainly consider their pathways but to also have some commitment towards the early childhood field in terms of children’s services as well. And whether that be two or three years part time work while they’re at uni or whatever, but a lot, generally speaking, the best students we train up will not be found in the field of children’s services the very next year. There are many others that actually do want to stay in the early childhood, children’s services area and say that’s where they want to stay. But they’re also disturbed by the remuneration and there are others that want to do that, get experience in the field, come back, and do the Advanced Diploma and move into leadership positions in the children’s services area.

The availability of sufficient and good quality placement sites

TAFE and university lecturers alike identified placement shortages, and the lack of high quality placement sites, as an issue in ECE fieldwork:


I think the issue [is] trying to get a high quality placement for a start. That’s a really big issue. (TAFE lecturer) We’re constantly competing against other universities for placements and, in child care, we’re competing against the TAFEs as well. We often phone a centre to be told, ‘Sorry, we’ve already accepted a student from [another university]’. (University lecturer) And the other impact there is too … the programming and the practices within [some] centres can often be at odds with what we’re teaching the students, or certainly that the students have a conflict when they go there and we try to do things. [Or] when they get to a big organisation that has their own ways of doing things and won’t let the students do it any other way. (TAFE lecturer)

I think one of the issues that we all face is it is our responsibility to uphold the standards of the profession and uphold best quality for children. So we have to do that by explaining to students what is excellent practice and what is not good practice and … sometimes dilemmas arise because of the necessity [to] access places where it’s not best practice. Sometimes it seems harder to maintain good teaching with the students in a mediocre placement. (TAFE lecturer)

One TAFE was managing placements differently, in an attempt to minimise the impact of poor models of practice:

In organising placements this year, in order to address the fact that not all students see centres with excellent practice, we’ve introduced some observation days where a group of them go in with a teacher to ones we have picked as high quality children’s services for them to look at the practices. Issues of status and recognition in children’s services

The students in the study spoke frankly of the problems of status and recognition involved in working in child care, versus kindergartens or schools. This was also a theme taken up by the TAFE lecturers, both with respect to their own status and to issues in the field:

I suppose in the industry there’s a thing about child care and kindergarten. There always has been. I still feel that that’s going on today between TAFE and uni. We’re the poor cousin. We’re not as good. (TAFE lecturer)

This was not, however, the perspective of university staff:

The TAFE grads come to us with terrific strengths. I always tell supervising teachers to really push them. They can already plan, manage a room full of children, that sort of thing. They need to be extended, even the ones that don’t want to. (University lecturer) I think TAFE sets them up pretty well. (University lecturer)

And one TAFE lecturer made a strong case for diverse programs:

We’ll never resolve it but let’s see where we stand on it, embrace it, and have and look at it and say, okay, we do differ. We can’t change that. Let’s be true to ourselves in what we believe. Move on. What are we managing? We’re managing the fact that training packages are very industry driven. That’s what they’re about. And … that’s what we work within. There’s another fantastic element which is the university-based training. What is it about? I really don’t know. And maybe that’s the building of the


bridges to actually getting some more information. I think that’s reassuring. What do we deliver? How do we deliver? Why do we do it? And the same thing back to you guys.

Two TAFE lecturers, however, identified an important difference they saw between the VET and HE sectors:

Well, see, the difference is, in our sector, someone can come along and become an RTO. You can’t come along and become a university, well not quite as quickly. There are these online and offshore things that are a bit dodgy but basically we have people coming out of nowhere and all of a sudden they’re doing what we’re doing and we don’t know what that is. So that’s a real threat to us.

And maybe in the current climate of being attacked at all levels in terms of quality, with lots of RTOs delivering training at a poor standard… maybe we as educationalists should unite.

In discussing the status of the child care sector generally, one of the TAFE lecturers described arrangements in some preschools offering longer hours:

Lecturer 1: The preschools that are actually full are the preschools that are offering after- preschool care. They don’t finish until 2.30… and a Diploma [qualified teacher] comes in the afternoon.

Lecturer 2: I find that minimising of the Diploma qualified staff member who is seen as, ‘Oh the kindergarten teacher’s here today, that’s wonderful’ and then the kindergarten teacher goes, [and] ‘Oh, we just pack up at the end of the day’. The Diploma [qualified staff member] comes in and just packs up.

Lecturer 1: But that’s not what they do. Lecturer 2: Well, absolutely not, but really there’s seen to be two levels.

This example confirms the persistence of the dualism between child care and kindergarten, and does not bode well for the policy of service integration.

The shift in expectations between TAFE and university TAFE and university lecturers alike were aware that students often believe their TAFE courses placed higher expectations on them than university study:

The [pathways] students are always trying to get more credit. They do a unit like art and claim ‘we’ve done this already’ but they haven’t really. Just because you can make play-dough doesn’t mean you really understand art education. They get realise it sooner or later but they don’t like it at the start. (University lecturer)

In keeping with student data about frustration at having to do further child care placements, the TAFE lecturers reported students’ understanding that they had already completed fieldwork requirements in child care beyond those imposed by universities:

Lecturer 1: I think also one of the issues is our training is over two years and, especially the final practicum, our students have to be already taking the responsibility of the whole room with all the planning and from the delegating of the tasks, while at the university they usually have an extra year. So I feel sometimes that our students have to be competent so quickly in such a short time… some [students] say [they were placed with a] university student and she was also a year two, ‘… and she didn’t’ have to do anything like I have to do’.


Lecturer 2: We’ve had that comment too, where they’ve been together on placement, ‘… and I’m doing five times as much work as the student from [a university] is doing’.

Whilst the issue of academic literacy was not raised by TAFE lecturers, it was a concern for university staff:

Some of them struggle a bit, especially at first. They’re sometimes a bit freaked out by the fact that they’re at university. Once they settle in and figure out where all the support services are they’re usually okay. And they’re remarkably good at getting help from each other and other places. By the time they graduate, they’re often some of our strongest students. (University lecturer)

Communication and co-ordination of articulation arrangements for ECE pathways students

Watson’s (2006) report identified confusion about articulation arrangements as a major theme and this was borne out in the present project:

And I find with our students [they] have the greatest difficulty getting information. They really do find it very frustrating trying to work out what they need. What credits can they get? When are they able to apply? When are they likely to get, you know, access into [courses]? Do they have to complete their full Diploma? Do they have to do one year? Whether Certificate III is sufficient. Whatever. They’re very confused. You know, there’s such a range of information, diverse expectations, and, yeah, I think they find that very frustrating. (TAFE lecturer0

Watson also highlighted the thorny issue of graded assessment in transition arrangements, which was mentioned by lecturers from both sectors:

Sometimes they’re asked to collect evidence and whatever of graded assessment and then we don’t grade assess so then they have to have other sorts of evidence and then we have to document course content. It gets quite an involved process to try and provide them with information. (TAFE lecturer)

We have to be sure they can cope at university-level study and the only way, really, is to make sure they have good grades at TAFE. It’s an imprecise art … but what can we do? (University lecturer)

In summary, whilst these themes (with the exception of issues around placement sites) are not directly related to fieldwork for pathways students, they do confirm some of the wider issues raised by students about their experience of university after TAFE studies, particularly the ways in which university study provides a pathway out of child care.


Conclusion This final section returns to the aims of the study: identification of barriers and opportunities in fieldwork for ECE pathways students; the design, trial, and evaluation of a ‘best practice’ fieldwork model; and further dialogue with Skills Victoria about the implications of the project. We begin by noting the limits of the study, before touching on each of these aims. In highlighting areas for dialogue, we emphasise messages for teacher education and higher education, and messages for the early childhood policy context. Throughout this discussion we signal areas for further research. Limitations of the study This project was designed as a small-scale, exploratory study to canvass issues faced by pathways students undertaking fieldwork in ECE settings. Not only is the sample size small (11 students) but all of these students were drawn from the same university. Although the students were a mix of full-time and part-time, none were international students, students studying in a rural setting, or students studying by distance mode. We suspect that students from these groups would identify additional or different issues to students in this study. Given the particular issues in recruiting and retaining early childhood educators in rural Victoria research into the experiences of these students would be timely. A further limitation of the study was the absence of supervising teachers’ perspectives, due to issues of access (discussed earlier in this report). It is the intention of the research team to repeat this model in 2008, by which time ethics approval via DHS should be secured, so that the perspectives of supervising teachers can be more systematically investigated. On a positive note, considerably more TAFE lecturers elected to contribute to the study than we anticipated in the study design, including lecturers from rural TAFEs. Barriers and opportunities in undertaking fieldwork There is no evidence in this project that these pathways students faced major barriers in undertaking fieldwork placements. On the contrary, the students participating in the research reported extremely positive fieldwork experiences and seemed well able to manage fieldwork arrangements. The opportunity to learn and develop was a key factor for students. For some, it was also an opportunity to reconfirm, and even reconsider, their career direction. There was only limited evidence of difficulties with academic literacy amongst this group of students. However, as final-year students, they have probably overcome (or learned to manage) any difficulties with university-level study. Design, trial, and evaluation of a ‘best practice’ fieldwork model There is some evidence in this project that the model of geographical clusters with linked professional development opportunities is worthy of further development. It is our view that the potential to generate genuine communities of inquiry around fieldwork was not fully explored in this project. Nor was there sufficient attention to inquiry-based practice. In generating fieldwork clusters in ECE, parallel developments in creating ‘link’ schools for groups of primary and secondary should increase understanding of this model across the educational community. The amount and sequencing of students’ fieldwork experience in the project appears to be sound but other aspects of the model did not proceed entirely as hoped. Fewer than half of the teachers involved in fieldwork


supervision were both able and willing to attend the professional development workshops and it was likely that those who did attend were already highly motivated supervisors. For us as teacher educators, this raises issues of quality control and moderation in fieldwork placements. At a time when placements are increasingly difficult to secure, what do we do when students report examples of highly unsatisfactory supervision? Or when supervising teachers impose standards of student assessment that are at odds with those of the university? For the students, however, the opportunity to meet as a group during the long block placement was particularly welcome. Although most students support each other informally during placements, field experience can be an isolating experience, particularly for students who do not feel well-supported at their placement site. It is important to note that this was a best practice model, rather than the best practice model. No single model of fieldwork provision will be suitable for all programs or all institutions. Research comparing contextual factors, fieldwork models, and student and teacher perspectives across institutions would help refine our understanding of potential alternatives. Continuing the dialogue Many of the issues identified in this project have implications for policy in the VET and HE sector. Other issues relate to policy shifts in early childhood education in Victoria. Issues for VET and HE policy include:

• the absence of consistent frameworks for assessing credit transfer between VET and HE • the impact of student employment in addition to study commitments • confusion amongst potential pathways students about available options.

The project speaks, perhaps most powerfully, to the present early childhood policy context in Victoria. This study confirmed Watson’s (2006) finding that pathways programs provide students with an avenue to leave the child care workforce and that they are highly unlikely to return to child care settings. Given that these students are seen as a key source of qualified staff in integrated kindergarten settings, this finding is of concern. The students’ decision to leave child care is clearly related to the industrial and professional conditions surrounding work in child care. At a time when there is an under supply of qualified teachers internationally – and Australian teacher education graduates do not generally have difficulty finding employment, particularly if they are prepared to teach in rural areas or overseas – this raises the problem of how kindergartens in long- day settings will secure qualified staff. A final issue for early childhood policy is that of support for graduating teachers. This was identified by students as a negative factor in working in community-based kindergartens. There are a small number of ECE graduates who are firmly committed to long-day child care and these teachers will also need support and mentoring as they enter (or re-enter) the profession. Research into the experiences of qualified kindergarten teachers already working in long-day settings may help anticipate the needs of this group.


References Clarke, A., Mitchell, J., & Nuttall, J. (2007).Co-operating teachers’ perspectives under scrutiny: A comparative

analysis of Australia and Canada. Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 35(1), 5-25. Darling-Hammond, L. (2006). Powerful teacher education: Lessons from exemplary programs. San Francisco,

CA: Jossey-Bass. Dyson, M. (2003, December). Teacher Education: Reviewed to the eyeballs but where is the evidence of

significant and meaningful change? Paper presented at the joint NZARE/AARE Conference, Auckland, New Zealand

Green, B. (2004). Renewing Teacher Education? Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 32(3), 187-191. Korthagen, F. A. J. (2001). Linking practice and theory: The pedagogy of realistic teacher education. Mahwah,

N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge

University Press. Luke, A., Luke, C., & Mayer, D. (2000). Redesigning teacher education. Teaching Education 11(1), 1-3. Ministry of Education. (2002). Pathways to the future: Nga huarahi arataki. A 10-year strategic plan for early

childhood education. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Murray, S., Nuttall, J., & Mitchell, J. (2008). Research into initial teacher education in Australia: A survey of the literature 1995 – 2004. Teaching and teacher education, 24(1), 225-239.

Nuttall, J., Murray, S., Seddon, T., & Mitchell, J. (2006). Changing research contexts in teacher education in

Australia: Charting new directions. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 34(3), 321-332. Office for Children. (2007). National reform agenda: Victoria’s plan to improve outcomes in early childhood.

Melbourne: Department of Human Services. Parliament of Victoria Education and Training Committee. (2005). Step up, step in, step out. Report of the

inquiry into the suitability of pre-service teacher training in Victoria. Melbourne: Parliament of Victoria. Reid, A. (2004). Towards a culture of inquiry in DECS. Occasional Paper Series, No. 1, pp. 1-19. Adelaide:

South Australian Department of Education and Children’s Services Rogoff, B. (1998). Cognition as a collaborative process. In W. Damon (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology

(Fifth ed., Vol. Two: Cognition, perception and language, pp. 679 – 744). New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training. (2007). Top of the class: Report on the inquiry into

teacher education. Canberra, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia. Sure Start. (2007). http://www.surestart.gov.uk/. Accessed 3 August, 2007.

http://www.surestart.gov.uk/�


Watson, L. (2006). Pathways to a profession. Canberra, ACT: Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.


Appendix 1: Flyer for recruitment of student participants

Research Project: Barriers and opportunities in fieldwork

for early childhood education students Are you an early childhood education student who has previously graduated from a Victorian TAFE with the Diploma of Children’s Services? Would you like to be a participant in a research project? What’s it about? Skills Victoria has commissioned Monash University to investigate the experiences of ECE students who are TAFE graduates and have pursued further university study. In particular, we want to find out about what helps (or hinders) your experiences during fieldwork (prac placements). What’s involved? We would like to interview you on your own twice (once before your preschool placement in EDF4507 and once after), for about an hour each time. Your participation will be entirely confidential – no-one except the interviewer, including your lecturers, will know you have taken part. What’s in it for me? Apart from receiving a thank-you gift of a stylish Monash University coffee mug, the interviews will be an opportunity for you to reflect on your success in your studies so far and influence how the university supports students who come from a TAFE background. Where do I find out more? If you are interested in taking part please email [email protected] for more information and a full Explanatory Statement and Consent Form This project has been approved by the University’s Standing Committee on Ethics in Research involving Humans (Project Number 2006 - 778).

mailto:[email protected]�


Appendix 2: Explanatory Statement and Consent Form, Student Participants

A.

Barriers and opportunities in fieldwork for early childhood education students

B. EXPLANATORY STATEMENT Project No: 2006 - 778 Monash University, with the support of funding from the Victorian Office of Training and Tertiary Education, is seeking to investigate the experiences of students who have graduated from Victorian TAFEs with the Diploma of Children’s Services, and who are now studying for a university degree in early childhood education. The project will be led by Dr Joce Nuttall, a Senior Lecturer in the University’s Faculty of Education (Peninsula Campus), assisted by Ms Marie Hammer and Dr Jane Mitchell, who are also staff members of the Faculty, and Ms Jo Hansen, a post-graduate student who is undertaking study toward her MEd(Early Childhood) degree within the project. This Explanatory Statement has been posted to you because you responded to the flyer that advertised opportunities for you to take part in this project as a student participant. You are warmly invited to participate in this project. If you decide to participate in this project, we will interview you twice, for not more than one hour each time, regarding your experiences as a TAFE graduate at university, and your experiences during fieldwork (practicum placement) in a preschool setting. It is anticipated that participation in this project will provide an opportunity for you to reflect on your learning at university and to celebrate your progress in your degree studies. The interview will be conducted by Ms Jo Hansen and your identity as a participant in the study will be known only to her. With your consent, the interview will be audio taped for research purposes. We do not anticipate any risks to you as a result of your participation, beyond the normal experience of everyday life, but please note that your participation is voluntary and you have the right to withdraw from the study at any time. You will not be identified by name in the findings of the project and every attempt will be made to protect your privacy (for example, by changing the names of participants in any reports of the findings of the project). Also, you will not be required to answer any questions that you consider personal or intrusive and you will retain the right to withdraw some or all of your data from the study at any time. None of the lecturers in your current degree studies (including the lecturers who are part of the research team) will know you are a participant in this study. Your decision to participate (or not) in this study will have no bearing on any aspect of your university program, including assessment of your work.


Results of the project will be disseminated at conferences, in practitioner and academic journals, and in a report of the research to the Office of Training and Tertiary Education. Some of the project findings will also be disseminated as part of Ms Hansen’s MEd(Early Childhood) thesis. No findings of a personal nature, or data which could have the potential cast as a negative light on you, will be included in these reports. Data from the project will be retained for up to five years and then destroyed. You will see that, on the attached Consent Form, you are asked whether you give permission for data involving you in this project to be used by the researchers as part of other projects during this time period. This is entirely optional. On the Consent Form you may request a summary of the project findings for your information; we anticipate that these will be made available in the second half of 2007. If at any time you have any questions, concerns, or complaints about the project, you can contact the Chief Investigator, Dr. Joce Nuttall, telephone 9904 4087, or email [email protected] . You can also contact the secretary of the Human Ethics Committee by telephoning 9905 2052 or emailing [email protected]. Alternatively, you can write to: The Secretary The Standing Committee on Ethics in Research Involving Humans PO Box 3A Monash University Clayton VIC 3800 If you are prepared to participate in the study, please read and sign the attached consent form and return it in the stamped envelope provided. Please keep this Explanatory Statement for your own reference. Yours sincerely Dr Joce Nuttall Senior Lecturer Faculty of Education




Barriers and opportunities in fieldwork for early childhood education students

C. CONSENT FORM Project No: 2006 - 778 This research project has been explained to me, in my role as an early childhood education student of Monash University who has previously graduated from a Victorian TAFE with the qualification of Diploma of Children’s Services. I have read the Explanatory Statement, which I will keep for my records. I understand that agreeing to take part in this project means that I will participate in one or two one-hour individual interviews, which will be audio-taped

I understand that I will receive a copy of the transcript of my interview on request and that I retain the right to withdraw some or all of this data from the project at any stage. I understand that my participation in the project is voluntary and that I can withdraw from the project at any stage without penalty. I understand that my consent to participate in this project has no bearing on my university studies, including assessment of my course work. Please indicate (below) whether you consent to data involving you, which is collected during this project, being used in similar projects in the future. Please circle ONE option:

• I consent to data involving me being using in related projects • I consent to data involving me being used in related projects provided that my consent is sought at the

time • I do not consent to data involving me being used in other projects

Please sign this form (below) and return it in the envelope provided. Thank you. Name: …………………… (Please print) Signed: …………………… Date:……….. Telephone contact:……………… Email:………………… Please tick here ٱ if you wish to receive a summary of the study’s findings in late 2007.


Address to which summary should be sent:………………………………………….


Appendix 3: Interview questions, Students

Interview 1 (pre-fieldwork placement)

• Tell me about your background in early childhood education. How did you come to be an early childhood education student at Monash?

• What motivated you to pursue university study after you completed your Diploma of Children’s Services?

• Think back to when you first began studying at Monash. What would you say were the positive aspects of that time? What were the less positive aspects?

• Tell me about your experience of university study since then. How would you say university study is different from TAFE study?

• Next semester you will be undertaking a lengthy placement in a preschool. What are your thoughts about this placement? What opportunities or barriers do you think this placement presents for you?

Interview 2 (post-preschool placement)

• You have just finished your extended placement in a preschool. What has that experience been like for you?

• What would you say are the things that have helped you learn and develop on this placement?

• What would you say are the things that have hindered your learning and development on this placement?

• When we spoke last semester, I asked you what you were thinking about regarding your preschool placement. You told me [insert student’s earlier response]. What do you think about those comments now, as you look back?

• Congratulations on making it to this stage of your university studies. What are your hopes for when you graduate?


Appendix 4: Focus group questions, TAFE lecturers

• Thanks for agreeing to take part in this focus group. Many of you work with students who later go on to further studies in early childhood education, at a university level. What do you think your students know and understand about the possibility of further university study?

• Do you provide information to them about further university study? In what ways? What kind of information do you find that they want or need?

• What do you think are the potential barriers for students who make this transition?

• What do you see as the opportunities for students who make this transition?

• This project is taking a particular focus on these students’ experiences of fieldwork placements. What do you think are the particular issues around fieldwork placements for these students in preschool settings?

• How would you describe the relationship between TAFE and university early childhood education programs in Victoria? How might this relationship be developed or extended?



ATTACHMENT 9c: Focus group questions, Supervising teachers (Participant Group 5)

• Thanks for agreeing to take part in this focus group. You have been invited to take part in this focus group because you have supervised students in the preschool who have come to university already holding the Diploma of Children’s Services. Do you think that these students have particular characteristics? In what ways?

• What do you see as the opportunities for students who make the transition from TAFE studies to university programs?

• We are particularly interested in these students’ experience of fieldwork placements. Do you think there are any particular issues around fieldwork in preschool settings for these students?

• What do you think are the opportunities or, conversely, the barriers that these students face on their preschool placements?

• How would you describe the similarities or differences between TAFE and university early childhood education programs in Victoria? How do you think these similarities or differences might be explored?

Barriers and opportunities in developing a 'best … and opportunities in developing a ‘best practice’ model in early childhood fieldwork placements for students articulating from

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