- Title
- Barriers to effective educational outcomes in disadvantaged high school communities and the impact of a whole-person approach to schooling
- Creator
- Noon, Ted
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Teacher quality is the area most commonly referred to by recent Australian governments to explain why Australia’s performance in national and international educational comparisons do not meet expectations. Such an assessment is limited, as are the measures used to determine educational effectiveness. While teachers play a critical part in delivering educational success, many more factors influencing student growth and development are missed or ignored in current analyses. The aim of this thesis is to identify and aggregate the extensive and complex issues that act as barriers to effective educational outcomes. The focus of this thesis is on disadvantaged school communities, given persistent inequities in educational outcomes. In considering how outcomes might be improved, I focus on the relationship between school purpose and a connected, coordinated whole-person approach to schooling. Three studies were undertaken as part of the thesis: Study 1, a mixed methods evaluation of a pilot study to determine the impact of incorporating an experienced primary health nurse in a disadvantaged high school; Study 2, a cross-sectional analysis of the physical, social and emotional wellbeing factors associated with academic performance in a sample of students from four disadvantaged high schools; and Study 3, a qualitative study of the perceptions of principals from four disadvantaged high schools in relation to the purpose of schooling and the barriers and facilitators to achieving effective educational outcomes, using semi-structured in-depth interviews. The pilot study highlighted a significant number of health problems influencing student learning and provided evidence of the feasibility of adding a health nurse to a school learning team. The cross-sectional study provided insights into the complex relationships between social, emotional and physical elements of student development and academic outcomes. In Study 3, principals expressed a need to free-up the curriculum to expand the focus on a broad range of student outcomes and pointed to policy constraints on their capacity to work within a more equitable school system. This thesis has highlighted the compounding complex issues that need to be considered when assessing school, state and national educational purposes and objectives. The feasibility of adding integrated community-based support that includes health within an early years to post-school framework in disadvantaged high school communities should be strongly considered. It is recommended that further longitudinal research be undertaken in association with an interconnected community, whole-person approach to schooling, to meet our obligations as a nation regarding school purpose.
- Subject
- disadvantage; high schools; Australia; barriers; whole-person
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1403629
- Identifier
- uon:35195
- Rights
- Copyright 2019 Ted Noon
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 4 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 158 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |