Implementing curriculum change in religious education: A study of the perceptions of primary school religious educators in the Archdiocese of Hobart

The purpose of the research reported in this thesis was to study the perceptions of school-based primary religious educators in Tasmania, Australia, as they engaged in the implementation phase of the curriculum framework at the centre of the study, Good News for Living: A Curriculum Framework in Religious Education for Students in the Archdiocese of Hobart (CEOH, 2005). The effectiveness of educational change is often judged by the impact an innovation has on the professional beliefs and practices of teachers and consequently the learning of students. The inability of implementation to link the broad concept of the change with the day-to-day practice of teachers contributes to the failure of educational change (Elmore, 2007). The study aimed to investigate the implementation of a new curriculum framework in order to generate theory about successful curriculum change.