ON TEACHING EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
| Date | 01 February 1984 |
| Pages | 223-246 |
| Published date | 01 February 1984 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009895 |
| Author | BILL MULFORD |
| Subject Matter | Education |
THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
VOLUME XXII, NUMBER 2 SUMMER, 1984
ON TEACHING EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
BILL MULFORD
This article sets down some thoughts on the teaching of educational administration.
It delves briefly into three interrelated aspects which need to be considered by
teachers of the subject: the learners and their stages of individual development, their
tendency towards dependence, and their needs to master and belong; the setting, par-
ticularly such factors as assessment, the inclusion of students from different
organizations, and group teaching; the content, specifically how different learning
objectives might be met by different teaching approaches and whether reality is a
unidimensional concept or always the most efficient approach in learning situations.
It is concluded that only when we expect of ourselves what we expect of our students,
that is, that performance comes to depend not only on intuitive skill or 'art' but also
on explainable techniques and procedures, that we will transform a craft into a
profession.
INTRODUCTION
It could be argued that there is no one best teaching style for use with adult
learners. Because each style is appropriate for some learners, in some
settings, and for some content, it could be further argued that the matter is
far too complex for meaningful analysis and application. While this may in
fact be the case, it would seem to be an abrogation of our responsibility as
teachers of educational administration to simply accept such an argument
without first making our own attempt to unravel the complexities involved.
Although there is a degree of conflict over the most appropriate
paradigm for use in the area of education administration,1 the content of
our subject appears similar across courses offered by different institutions
and teachers.2 What, then, are some of the factors that need to be taken
into consideration in the teaching of educational administration particularly
as they relate to the learner, to settings, and to content?
THE LEARNER
What is learnt can often be different from what was intended by the
teacher. The learner will respond not only to planned content and activities
but also to the skills, strategies, meanings, and values implied as the
teacher teaches.
BILL MULFORD is Senior Lecturer in Educational Administration and Chairman, Depart-
ment of Adult Learning and Teaching, School of Education, Canberra College of Advanced
Education, Belconnen, A.C.T. 2616.
224
Teaching Educational Administration
What are some characteristics of the learner that will help determine
dif-
ferent responses to what is taught? The first area examined for answers to
this question is that of stages of adult development. Particular emphasis is
then placed on the issue of dependence. Finally, two trends in individual
learning, to master and to belong, are discussed.
Stages of Individual Development
It is important to realise that the principles employed by teachers working
with students of educational administration need to be based on adult lear-
ning and not on child learning. It is the difference between andragogy and
pedagogy. Adult educators need to spend as much time studying the
rhythm of mental, physical and emotional development of their students
as do child psychologists and pedagogues in the primary school. An adult
psychology is as necessary for continuing adult education as is an adoles-
cent psychology for education at the secondary level.
A comprehensive view of andragogy and its implications for teachers
can be found elsewhere.3 For the purposes of this article, however, it is
worth repeating in table form a highly speculative and tentative attempt to
make relationships between adult personality characteristics and, on the
one hand, student learning (such as their motives for education, and the
attitudes towards the origin and use of knowledge) and, on the other
hand, teaching practices (such as approaches, student-teacher relation-
ships and evaluation).
Four of Loevinger's4 stages of ego development are used as a base for
the adult characteristics.5 These stages are "Self-protective Opportunistic",
"Conformist", "Conscientious", and "Autonomous".
The data concerning developmental stages can help us think more clear-
ly about both content and process. They clarify the larger motives behind
the investments of time, money and energy and behind the personal
sacrifices made by adult students. They show us the more fundamental
purposes that underlie degree aspirations, the pursuit of promotion or a
career change, the desire to meet new persons, read more widely, explore
new ideas and interests. They remind us that the existential questions of
meaning, purpose, vocation, and social responsibility, dependence,
human relationships which so many adolescents face with difficulty, are re-
confronted by many thirty, forty, and sixty-year-olds.
With such information in our working knowledge we can more effective-
ly distinguish between those whose aim is simply professional training and
those people whose professional concerns involve clarification of the major
expectations of a job or the career patterns associated with it. We can
better recognise that the thirty-five-year-old who comes to educational ad-
ministration courses for clearly specified professional knowledge or com-
petence need for promotion or a new opportunity will define a programme
and approach it very differently from the forty-five-year-old who wonders
whether all those long hours, family sacrifices, shortchanged human
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