Growing pressure is being placed on schools, as students, employers and governments look at the economic, demographic and vocational environments of the present, and expect schools to adequately prepare students for an ever widening post-school vocational future. A major factor contributing to the lack of adoption of any new innovations is the entrenched attitudes of the teaching staff and a reluctance to change. In differing forms, Vocational Education and Training programs have been circling the change process in Australian schools since 1930, yet still are in the adoption and implementation phase rather than having become institutionalised and embedded in the life of schools. It is clear that the way teachers construct meaning for innovations is a major factor in whether innovations are institutionalised in schools. However, this paper also investigates the influences of organisational culture, infrastructure, leadership and policy on the adoption of National Training Packages and their components in a West Australian case-study school.
BatesA. (2000). Managing Technological Change: Strategies for college and university leaders. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
3.
BlakersC. (1978). School and Work. Canberra: Australian National University, Education Research Unit
4.
ByrneE. M.BeaversW. S. (1993). Career education, career guidance and curricula choice: A research review. Australian Journal of Career Development, 2 (3), 23–6
5.
CubanL. (1988). A fundamental puzzle of school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 70 (5), 341–4
6.
DalinP.RolffH.KleekampB. (1993). Changing the School Culture. London: Cassell
7.
DedenA. (1998). Computers and systemic change in higher education. Communications of the ACM, 41 (1), 58–63
8.
DenzinN.LincolnY. (1994). Handbook of Qualitative Research. California: Sage
9.
Education Department of Western Australia. (2000a). Review of vocational education and training in schools, 2000. Perth: State Government Printer
10.
Education Department of Western Australia. (2000b). Integration of Enterprise and Vocational Education Across the Curriculum, 2001–2004. Perth: State Government Printer
11.
EricksonF. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In WittrockM. C. (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching (3rd ed., pp. 119–60). New York: Macmillan
12.
FarmerD. (1990). Strategies for change. New Directions for Higher Education, 71, 7–17
13.
FisherS. (1986). Stress and Strategy. London: Lawrence Erlbaum
14.
FullanM. (1982). The meaning of educational change. Ontario: OISE Press
15.
FullanM. (1993). Change Forces Probing the Depths of Educational Reform. London: The Falmer Press
16.
FullanM.StiegelbauerS. (1991). The New Meaning of Educational Change. New York: Teachers College Press
17.
GandolfoA. (1998). Brave new world? The challenge of technology to time-honoured pedagogies and traditional structures. In GillespieK. H. (Ed.), New Directions for Teaching and Learning: The impact of technology on faculty development, life and work # 76, (pp. 7–22). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
18.
GeogheganW. (1994, July 17–20). What ever happened to instructional technology? Paper presented at the 22nd Annual Conference of the International Business Schools Computing Association, Baltimore, MD. Retrieved from http://www.hied.ibm.com/news/whitep/whg/wpi.htm
19.
GibsonJ.IvancevichJ.DonnellyJ. (1985). Organisations: Behaviour, structure and processes. Plano, Texas: Business Publications, Inc.
20.
GreenK.GilbertS. (1995). Great expectation: Content, communications, productivity, and the role of information technology in higher education. Change, 27 (2), 8–18
21.
HallG.LoucksS. (1978). Teacher concerns as a basis for facilitating and personalising staff development. Teachers College Record, 80 (1), 36–53
22.
HargreavesA. (1994). Changing Teachers, Changing Times: Teachers work & culture in the postmodern age. Great Britain: Redwood Books
23.
HubermanM.MilesM. (1984). Innovation Up Close. New York: Penguin
24.
JoyceB.ShowersB. (1988). Student Achievement through Staff Development. New York: Longman
25.
KashnerJ. (1990). Changing the corporate culture. New Directions in Higher Education, 71, 19–29
26.
KingC. (1995). Making it happen: Reflections on a varied career. In SloweyM. (Ed.), Implementing Change From Within Universities and Colleges, (pp. 41–8). London: Kogan Page
27.
LoucksS.HallG. (1979). Implementing innovations in schools: A concerns-based approach. Paper presented at American Educational Research Association annual meeting, Austin, Texas
28.
McCowanC.HyndmanK. (1998). Career advisory system for Australia?Australian Journal of Career Development, 7 (1), 35–41
29.
McMahonM.CarrollJ. (1999). Implementing a developmental career education program using a K-12 framework. Australian Journal of Career Development, 8 (3), 38–44
30.
McNaughtC.PhillipsP.RossitierD.WinnJ. (1999). Developing a framework for a useable and useful inventory of computer-facilitated learning and support materials in Australian universities. Evaluations and Investigations Program Report. Canberra: Higher Education Division, DEETYA
31.
MarrisP. (1975). Loss and Change. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday
32.
MCYEETA (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs). (1999). The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the 21st Century. Canberra: DETE Publishing
33.
MCYEETA (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs). (2000a). New Framework for Vocational Education in Schools: Policy directions. Canberra: DETE Publishing
34.
MCYEETA (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs). (2000b). New Framework for Vocational Education in Schools: Implementation. Canberra: DETE Publishing
35.
MCYEETA (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs). (2000c). New Pathways for Learning. Report of the MCEETYA taskforce on VET in schools. Canberra: DETE Publishing
36.
MCYEETA (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs). (2001). New Framework for Vocational Education. Canberra: DETE Publishing
37.
MerriamS. (1998). Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
RogersE. (1995). Diffusion of innovations (4th ed.). New York: The Free Press
40.
RogersE.ScottK. (1997). The Diffusion of Innovations Model and Outreach from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine to Native American Communities. Retrieved from http://www.nnlm.nlm.nih.gov/pnr/eval/rogers.html
41.
RosenholtzS. (1989). Teachers' Workplace: The social organisation of schools. New York: Longman
42.
SchonD. (1971). Beyond the Stable State. New York: Norton
43.
SchwahnC.SpadyW. (1998). Why change doesn't happen and how to make sure it does. Educational Leadership, 55 (7), 45
44.
TrowlerP. (1998). Academics Responding to Change: New higher education frameworks and academic cultures. Buckingham: Open University Press/SRHE
