UNIVERSIDAD POPULAR DEL CESAR
CONSIDERACIONES PARA LA VALIDEZ DE LA EXPERIENCIA ESPECÍFICA:
The scope of this thesis has changed dramatically since the inception of the project in 2015. It is important to account for the changes in scope and methodology, because they made it necessary to employ an adaptive method of data collection and carry some implications towards my overall conclusions. In my initial plans, I intended to carry out research on a national scale, interviewing a small sample of teachers from each state and territory in Australia: my initial proposed sample was one government school and one non-government school from each jurisdiction. It soon became apparent that this was an unrealistic sample size, both logistically and because I intended to conduct an analysis of the ACM in addition to my proposed interviews. Furthermore, researching the ACM revealed that some
jurisdictions were not yet implementing the Australian Curriculum.8 To retain some sense of
national significance while managing the scope of the research, I targeted the study to two jurisdictions: the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), and Tasmania. These were convenient jurisdictions because they were both at the front end of the Australian Curriculum
implementation schedule, and because they are logistically convenient for me to work within.
8 This challenges the concept of the Australian Curriculum as a national curriculum. New South Wales chose to
integrate the Australian Curriculum with elements from their previous state-based syllabi (Board of Studies NSW 2015); Victoria and Western Australia also made significant amendments (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority 2018, Government of Western Australia n.d.).
The first challenge I faced was the rejection of my research application by the Tasmanian Education Department. After a promising consultation where the Department identified the Tasmanian government secondary schools that were implementing the ACM in 2016, my formal application to research within these schools was denied on the grounds that “the proposed research does not demonstrate a benefit to schools” (Tasmanian Department of Education, email message to author, October 17, 2016). While the Department were within their rights to reject the application, I sought to determine more precise reasoning why, as the inclusion of Tasmanian schools was important to retain national scope. The Department replied, indicating that because the ACM was so new they did not want to pressure schools and teachers by having their implementation of it under assessment.
The [Tasmanian] Department [of Education] has recently begun implementing the Australian Curriculum for Music in schools using a staged approach. Schools are making this transition at their own pace and for this reason the Department will not support any projects that seek to undertake research in this area at this early stage (Tasmanian Department of Education, email message to author, October 18, 2016, emphasis added).
They also indicated that this situation would not change for at least twelve months,
significantly delaying my proposed fieldwork timeline. There was also no guarantee that the Directorate would approve the second application. The barring of access to Tasmanian government schools was a significant setback which demonstrated a general reluctance of the Tasmanian Department of Education to participate in research of this nature without even consulting teachers. I determined to maintain national scope by instead targeting non- government schools in Tasmania, which did not require approval from the Department.
While I was re-structuring my approach in Tasmania, the ACT Education Directorate approved my research application and I made attempts to contact ACT government schools. Non-response of potential participants is a significant issue in social research (Bryman 2012), and I was only able to conduct three interviews in the timeframe that the Directorate had given me. I also dealt with non-response in the Tasmanian non-government schools I attempted to contact as well. I managed to gain permission from the principals of two Tasmanian non-government schools, but in one case the music teachers did not respond to any further emails, and in the other the music teacher refused to participate any further, citing the same reasons as the Tasmanian Department of Education. Non-response and reluctance to participate may be indicative of broader attitudes among teachers. However, it could also be argued that I began this research too early in the ACM’s implementation
timeline. I acknowledge this point, but I also highlight the benefits of conducting such an initial study. In particular, I draw attention to the focus on teachers’ adaptation to changing models of curriculum: had I waited for teachers to become more familiar with the ACM, their recollections of previous curriculum models may have been less accurate and the understanding of the teachers’ adaptation to change more limited. Teachers’ reluctance to participate may also indicate a need for greater support mechanisms in the implementation of new curriculum programs. Finally, the dates listed for ACM implementation were, in fact, the latest dates that teachers could fully implement the curriculum model. Because of this, teachers may have had a significant amount of time to experiment with their delivery of the ACM. In the present sample, the two schools that provided the most detail had been
working from drafts of the ACM since 2014 or 2015—at least two years before the interviews took place. Regardless, and despite my best attempts, my sample was now limited to the ACT.
Because Tasmania was closed to me, and I wanted to collect data from non-government schools, I compiled a list of all non-government secondary schools in the ACT, determined whether they implemented music, and then attempted to contact all schools that matched these criteria. The majority of schools did not respond to the request. In the end, only one school approved my request to conduct interviews, culminating in my final sample size of three government schools and one non-government school. However, this was not the end of the negotiation process: once I had confirmed the involvement of the final school, it took almost six months to actually meet and conduct the interview. Again, this is indicative of the challenges inherent to social research, and may also indicate why there is a lacuna of the detailed perspectives of teachers in research about schools and curricula: the reason for the delay was simply because the teachers were too busy to fit it in. Furthermore, a school principal indicated that they believe students are over-surveyed for research purposes, and it does appear that much educational research is aimed at compiling the results of students (Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2018b).9 This perspective may engender an attitude
9 One of the principals I contacted replied with the following: “However, as you’d be aware, we get numerous
requests such as yours, all for very good research, and there is only so much time we can devote to surveys. Our students can get over-surveyed and I am very aware of the potential for this” (Tasmanian non-government school principal, email message to author, May 8, 2017). The supporting audio interview with Brian Caldwell, conducted by Nadia Mitsopoulos, reveals that the concern about over-testing is not isolated to a single school principal (Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2018b).
that extends even to areas of research that do not engage directly with students: if other school principals feel the same way, then it may be that research about the opinions and responses of teachers may be rejected out of hand.
The final challenge, and the one that had the most considerable impact on the structure of this thesis, was the unwillingness of some schools to provide copies of the course
documentation I requested. The course documents that teachers design are the property of the school, not the teachers themselves; therefore, all teachers within the sample were unwilling to provide any documentation without first confirming approval with their school principal. In the end, two schools did provide course documentation, and two did not: one government school teacher agreed in principle during the interview but did not respond to any further requests for this documentation; and the teachers at the non-government school indicated that it would be difficult to arrange access to this documentation.10 This
resulted in the final re-structuring of my analytical framework. My initial plan was to conduct a comparative thematic analysis between the four schools in an attempt to understand common themes and trends in the interpretation and implementation of the ACM. As only two schools provided course documentation, I instead analysed their programs in detail and drew from interview data from the other two schools to support the analysis. This informed the final tripartite structure of this thesis: curriculum analysis, interview analysis, and the analysis of course documentation through the detailed comparison of case studies.
10 The Head of Music at School Four sent the following email after I had sent numerous requests for a copy of
their course documents: “Hello Alex, sorry for the delay. Getting a copy of our 7–10 full academic curriculum might be difficult as it is all online and [only] accessible to [School Four] staff and students” (Chris, email message to the author, April 9, 2018).