1 Orientation to the Study
1.4 Conceptual and Contextual Factors of the Study
1.4.5 Theoretical Framework
Road safety education provides a particular challenge in the primary school years because of the perceptual, cognitive, and physical immaturity of young children (Ross & Seefeldt, 1978). Road Safety education programme for young children have developed from diverse theoretical and pragmatic bases and there have been limited
17
attempts to integrate them with curriculum developments in primary education (Cullen, 1998).
Firstly, it is widely recognized that learners become more engaged in their work when it is of relevance to them, and when they are encouraged and enabled to explore and construct connections between issues and subject matter directly under investigation to broader life contexts and fields of activity (Bigelow, 2006).
Secondly, current pedagogical theories stress the importance of intellectual depth.
Depth is concerned with directing learners away from superficial factual learning by encouraging analysis and evaluative skills. They are enhanced by engaging in careful application of knowledge and an understanding, gained from formal study, within the confines of the classroom to a variety of real life contexts and are thus connected to the issue of relevance. Darling-Hammond (2000), states that the most powerful learning occurs when learners are encouraged and enabled to work together to explore materials. In the context of this study it will be the road safety education packs. The learners will subsequently build their own connections among facts and ideas, issues and situations, and will reflect on their own understanding of road safety education within the formal classroom setting.
This research argues that effective road safety education for primary school learners needs to incorporate both constructivists and socio-cultural theoretical perspectives on learning. Interviews with teachers and by administering questionnaires with the learners will highlight the variety of influences that affect learner‟s road safety knowledge and illustrate the interface of constructivist and socio-cultural interpretations of learning about road safety. This focus on the perspective of children acknowledges Piaget‟s early research. Contemporary constructivist views are derived from earlier Piagetian constructivist principles. They emphasize the importance of children‟s direct experience, but no longer support the general stage theory of development, which was the cornerstone of Piaget‟s theory. Socio-cultural theorists give greater emphasis to the context of learning, emphasizing that children‟s learning is embedded in specific contexts and giving a stronger role to adults and peers. A key characteristic of contemporary socio-cultural perspectives is that the environment is not viewed simply as a mediator of learning; instead, learning is seen to be embedded in social and physical contexts (Butterworth, 1993). Ginsburg and Opper (1979), state
18
that Piaget employs a social-learning theory to explain a child‟s development. As the child grows older and comes into contact with opposing points of view and varied social institutions, his thought goes through a process of de-centration and in reasoning, he tries to consider the complexities of the problem, that is, both the similarities and differences among the same set of events. The young child has an absolutistic concept of rules. Therefore, teaching learners about a traffic theme should start with the learner‟s conceptions of traffic and aim at developing an understanding of traffic as a mobile system with certain rules.
The problems encountered in the psychological analysis of teaching cannot be correctly resolved or even formulated without addressing the relation between teaching and learning. This concept will be further explored in answering critical question three.
Getting through the day requires that people process information: they notice the phenomena around them; they differentiate those phenomena by comparing and contrasting them with experiences, a set of values, or some pre-determined attributes;
they select those to which they wish to attend; and they plan their activities accordingly.
When a curriculum based on a particular perspective is implemented in a classroom, certain factors become problematic as the teacher attempts to cover the curriculum, ensure that all learners learn it, manage the classroom, and develop in learners a positive, effect towards the subject matter and the class (Posner, 2004, p. 202).
Teachers, as well as learners are, often faced with a multitude of teaching and learning constraints during the implementation of a new programme. According to Carl (1995, p. 144) there are various psychological factors that can affect the educator regarding the implementation of a curriculum. McDonough & McDonough (1997), states that teachers have both explicit formulations of and implicit attitudes to issues and events in their own professional lives, which a research perspective is able to address within the reality of the classroom context.
19
For the purpose of this study, the focus will be on the investigation of the implementation of the road safety education programme in the context of educational change and to determine whether the learners are acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge to make them safe and responsible road users.
The basic orientation of the interpretivist paradigm is towards understanding. It is not the sort of understanding which enables rules to be, formulated so that the environment may be manipulated and managed (Grundy, 1987, p. 12).
In this instance, the researcher does not seek to manipulate the environment in order to carry out her investigation, but will rather seek to observe and solicit the teacher‟s beliefs, attitudes and perceptions to the implementation of the road safety education programme in the context of curriculum change in five different primary schools in the Pietermaritzburg region.
In a review of research on curriculum implementation, Snyder, Bolin, and Zumwalt (1992), as cited in (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery & Taubman 2002, p.19), list three major approaches. The first is referred to as “fidelity perspective”. The focus here is on: 1) measuring the degree to which a particular innovation is implemented as planned and 2) identifying the factors, which facilitate or hinder implementation as planned. The assumption here is that successful curriculum implementation is characterized by fidelity to the original plan (Pinar et al., 2002). From a fidelity perspective, the educator‟s decisions are how to deliver the curriculum most efficiently and effectively in the classrooms. For the purpose of this study, the researcher will be able to determine whether the road safety education programme is being implemented according to the plan as delineated in the road safety education manual. The researcher will also be able to identify the factors which facilitate or hinder implementation as planned.
The mutual adaptation approach is defined, as “that process whereby adjustments in a curriculum are made by curriculum developers and those who actually use it in the school or classroom context (Pinar et al., 2002). From the, mutual adaptation perspective, the educator‟s role amplifies and is, understood to reshape the curriculum as planned according to the dictates of the local classroom situation. From
20
this perspective the researcher will be able determine how the teachers are reshaping the road safety education curriculum to suit local classroom situations.
The third approach as cited by Snyder, Bolin and Zumwalt in Pinar et al (2002) is referred to as Curriculum enactment. From this perspective the: externally created curricular materials and programmed instructional strategies at the heart of the fidelity and mutual adaptation perspectives are seen as tools for students and teacher to use as they construct the enacted experience of the classroom. From the enactment perspective, the teacher‟s decisions are necessary for there to be a curriculum at all.
The tools that the teachers and learners will use for the enactment of the classroom experience will be implementation of the road safety education programme.
Successful implementation will ultimately depend on the teacher‟s decision.
Implementation becomes characterized as a change in the thinking of teachers;
therefore this study‟s major emphasis is on an investigation of the educator‟s values, beliefs, attitudes and perceptions of the implementation of the road safety education programme. The conceptual framework for this study is consonant with Fullan‟s (2001, p. 110) views concerning successful curriculum implementation, and change as is summarized below:
1) change takes place over time;
2) the initial stages of any significant change always involve anxiety and uncertainty;
3) ongoing technical assistance and psychological support assistance are crucial if the anxiety is to be coped with;
4) change involves learning new skills through practice and feedback –it is incremental and developmental;
5) the most fundamental breakthrough occurs when people can cognitively understand the underlying conception of and rationale as to “why this new way works better”;
6) organizational conditions within the school (peer norms, administrative leadership) and in relation to the school (external administrative support and technical help) make it more or less likely that the process will succeed; and
21
7) successful change involves pressure, but it is pressure through interaction with peers and other technical and administrative leaders.
In line with the recommendations of (O Donoghue, 2007), this conceptual framework of curriculum change and implementation guided the data collection, analysis and interpretation of this study, as will be discussed in chapters five and six.
In classrooms, teachers and learners encounter the materials that have been developed, and it is in this encounter that curriculum becomes mediated and a symbolic social experience.
Knowledge, which is concerned with understanding, is not to be judged according to the success of the operations arising as a consequence of that knowledge. Knowledge is constructed not only by observable phenomena, but also by descriptions of people‟s intentions, beliefs, values and reasons, meaning making and self- understanding (Henning, 2002, p. 20). Instead of making the behaviour of people the facts of science, attention is given to interaction and negotiations in social situations.
In addition, the review of the literature seeks to identify the research questions that will inform the researcher‟s methodological choices and the research design of this study.