Digital Commons Network^™

Discrepant Stakeholder Perspectives On Graduate Employability Strategies, Shelley Kinash, Linda Crane, Madelaine Judd, Cecily Knight

Linda Crane

A literature review identified 12 strategies that have been empirically linked to improvements in graduate employability. A survey methodology was used to investigate self-reported use and/or perspectives on these strategies among four stakeholder groups. The following questions were asked: to students – What strategies are you using to improve your graduate employability; to graduates – What strategies did you use to improve your employability?; to higher education career development professionals and educators – Which of the following employability strategies do you provide for students?; and to employers – Which of the following strategies undertaken by students does your organisation value …

Next Steps: Measuring Reading Progress, Ross Turner

Ross Turner

Monitoring progress in literacy requires the international cooperation of the education community, as Ross Turner explains.

Film Literacy In The Primary Classroom, Marc Barrett

Marc Barrett

The recent move in Britain towards a nation-wide film literacy program to support young learners of English prompted ACER research into the use of film within Australian primary schools.

The Impact Of Group Selection On Student Performance And Satisfaction, Sakthi Mahenthiran, Pamela Rouse

Pamela J. Rouse

Investigates whether the performance and attitudes of students could be improved by giving them some control over the group selection process. Groups were formed either by randomly combining paired friends or by randomly assigning all students. Students completed a group exercise and a group case. The dependent variables were the project grades and student satisfaction. Student satisfaction was measured using a questionnaire. The results show that attitudes of students were more positive when they were allowed to choose a single friend in the group. The project grades were significantly higher when students were paired, and this result was true regardless …

Group Work In Online Business Education – Pain Or Gain?, Steffen Zorn, Rhonni Sasaki, David Qian, Anne-Marie Chase

Dr Anne-Marie Chase

Music Therapy Students' Experiences As The Client In Group Muisc Therapy, Nancy Jackson, Susan Gardstrom

Susan Gardstrom

This report highlights a collaborative, phenomenological study undertaken by 2 faculty researchers from different undergraduate music therapy training programs in the Midwest. A total of 9 junior and senior music therapy students from both programs (5 from one & 4 from another) were involved in short-term group music therapy, participating in three 2-hour sessions during the course of an academic semester. Sessions were facilitated by the researchers, both of whom were board certified music therapists. To ensure ethical treatment, each researcher led sessions with the students from the other university, with whom they had no dual relationships. Student participants were …

Designing A Learning Module Within A Dynamic Assessment Tool, Gayl O'Connor

Gayl O'Connor

This Work-in-progress report describes the conceptualization and design of a learning module within a dynamic assessment and learning research tool. The prototype module aims to provide learning opportunities and support as students aged 14 to 16 investigate the relationship between kinetic and potential energy, and the principle of conservation of energy. The six related tasks in the module will also provide opportunities for students to explore scenarios and develop science process (inquiry) skills, specifically the control of, and relationship between, experimental variables. In order to gain insight into the learning taking place, appropriate tasks were designed according to a blue-print …

On Being Gifted, But Sad And Misunderstood: Social, Emotional And Academic Outcomes Of Gifted Students In The Wollongong Youth Study. , Patrick Heaven, Joseph Ciarrochi, Wilhelmina Vialle

joseph Ciarrochi

No abstract provided.

Population-Level Approaches To Increasing Mental Health And Wellbeing In Schools: Kidsmatter And Mindmatters, Katherine Dix

Dr Katherine Dix

Can Procrastination Be Effective? A Study Of White-Collar Employees And University Students, Richard Hicks, James Storey

Richard Hicks

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Issues Surrounding Student Possession And Use Of Cell Phones In Schools, Ralph Mawdsley, Charles Russo

Charles J. Russo

Constitutional challenges to limits on the possession and/ or use of cell phones in schools present potential claims involving the Fourth Amendment rights of students to privacy and to be free from unreasonable searchesalong with parental Fourteenth Amendment Liberty Clauserights to direct the education and upbringing of their children. However, as reflected in this article, as long as educational officials enact policies in line with state laws that are explicitly designed to enhance school safety, challenges filed by students and their parents are probably destined to fail because constitutional claims are likely to be outweighed by concerns for the greater …

Performing Well In Timss And Pisa Mathematics And Science, Ray Philpot

Ray Philpot

Workshops delivered to department heads of participating schools to help schools utilise the released items in TIMSS and PISA by: educating participants about the cognitive skills and processes assessed by TIMSS and PISA in the domains of Mathematics and Science; demonstrating to participants ways that content skills are assessed in TIMSS and PISA items; demonstrating to participants some of the item types and provide recommendations for how teachers can introduce these item types to students; and enabling participants to provide training/orientation to teachers within their schools.

Expanding The Master-Apprentice Model: Tool For Orchestrating Collaboration As A Path To Self-Directed Learning For Singing Students, Lotte Latukefu, Irina Verenikina

I. Verenikina

Continued, life-long, self-directed learning is a key element of academic excellence - a desirable graduate attribute of a modern tertiary institution (Nicol, 2010). The development of self-directed learners 'involves a new role for teachers which focuses on process-orientated teaching, with students actively involved in the learning process' (Cassidy, 2011: 8). This process of teaching and learning is more than 'face-to-face interaction or the simple transmission of prescribed knowledge and skills' (Daniels, 2001: 2; it assumes a specific paradigm of teacher-student interaction, where the teadcher shares his/her expertise with the learners in a collaborative dialogue, facilitates the students' awareness of their …

Spatial Orientation And Sequencing Of Letters And Numbers By Young Children: A Rasch Measurement Analysis, Janet Richmond, R Waugh

Janet E Richmond PhD

This research follows on from research on the visual discrimination of letters in the alphabet as part of a larger study. Data on 37 items for Spatial Orientation for Letter Pairs and 42 items for Letter and Number Sequencing, where each item was scored in one of two categories (wrong scored zero and correct scored one), were Rasch analysed to create two linear scales . The student sample was N=324 pre-primary and primary students in Perth, Western Australia. Ten of the initial 37 items for Spatial Orientation for Letter Pairs were deleted due to item misfit statistics, leaving 27 items …

Equipping Students For The Real World: Using Scaffolding Experimental Approach To Teach The Skill Of Legal Drafting, Tammy Johnson, Francina Cantatore

Francina Cantatore

This article responds to the difficulty that lawyers sometimes face in maintaining the balance between protecting their clients’ legal interests and translating complex legislative provisions into plain language that conveys the appropriate message to the intended audience. Using the example of a consumer credit contract transaction, Part II highlighted common drafting challenges. With these difficulties in mind, Part III discussed the theory of teaching legal skills, with a particular focus on teaching the skill of legal drafting, suggesting that a scaffolded experiential approach to skills development is an effective way to nurture the development of students’ legal drafting skills.

Unlocking The Potential: Transition And Support For First Year Social Inclusion Students In A Commerce Faculty, Michael Zanko, Jan Turbill, Sam Jebeile

Jan Turbill

The Australian Government established the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program in 2010 in order to 'address Australia's historically poor record of increasing the participation of people from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds in higher education'. The goal set by the government is for universities to increase the student intake from low SES backgrounds from 10-15% to 20% by 2020. To support universities across Australia the government provided financial grants to support universities achieve this goal. The Faculty of Commerce in the University of Wollongong, NSW received a grant in 2011 for its project titled: Unlocking the Potential: Transition and …

Enhancing The Learning Experience Of Students By Incorporating Core Competences Into Assessment And Inspiring Diverse Student Cohorts To Be Authentic And Context Sensitive Learners, Ananda Wickramasinghe

Ananda Wickramasinghe

No abstract provided.

Youth In Australia - Policy, Administration And Politics, Terry Irving, David Maunders, Geoff Sherington

Terence H Irving, Dr (Terry)

This book describes and analyses the development of youth policy in Australia since the end of World War II. Three eras are distinguished in terms of how society constructed youth as a problem: as juvenile delinquency (to 1960); as a generation gap (to the mid-1970s); and most recently as a wasted resource (1975-1990). In each period chapters cover: the social and demographic context and images of young people; policy development; bureaucratic structures; and the politics of youth and youth policy.

Clinical Education Adapts To Changing Times, P. Jarzemsky, S. Kruger, Stephanie Gilbertson-White

Stephanie Gilbertson-White

No abstract provided.

Comorbidity Of Anxiety-Depression Among Australian University Students: Implications For Student Counsellors, Vicki Bitsika, Christopher Sharpley

Vicki Bitsika

The incidence, factor structure and scale item differences in anxiety-depression comorbidity were investigated in a sample of Australian university students defined according to the presence of anxiety and/or depression. The incidence of anxiety-depression comorbidity was over 32%, about four times that for anxiety or depression alone. Participants with comorbidity had significantly higher Selfrating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) total and factor scores than those with anxiety or depression alone. The major differences between the comorbid and unitary disordered subgroups were for self-disintegration and autonomic arousal. Comorbidity of anxiety and depression is a more serious disorder than either …

Understanding Roles Within Technology Supported Teaching And Learning: Implications For Students, Staff And Institutions, Susan Bennett, Lori Lockyer

Professor Lori Lockyer

No abstract provided.

A Web-Based E-Portfolio Support System For Teacher Education Students, Susan Bennett, Lori Lockyer

Professor Lori Lockyer

There is increasing interest in electronic portfolios as a means of collecting and presenting information about an individual’s attributes and experiences. As part of their course of study, learners may be asked to assemble a portfolio to provide a detailed, evidenced account of their learning experiences over an extended period of time. Employers are also beginning to use portfolios to identify employees that match their requirements. Portfolios have the potential to address the limitations of transcripts of academic achievement and references, which present a view of achievement that is mostly isolated from the learning context and the student’s experiences on …

Impact Of Different Item Location In Common-Item Test Equating, Luc Le

Dr Luc Tu Le

This study used real data and simulation data to investigate the impacts of different item location in common-item test equating. The real data set included responses of about 150 000 students to a generic skills test from a university survey in Columbia in 2011, where each student was assigned randomly to one of four linked test forms. Each form consisted of two of three Critical Reasoning clusters and two of three Quantitative Reasoning clusters (20 items in each cluster). The results of an analysis using Item Response Theory clearly showed that items could become more difficult when located towards the …

Students In A Digital Age: Some Implications Of Ict For Teaching And Learning, John Ainley, L Enger, Dara Searle

Dr John Ainley

No abstract provided.

Men As Students And Teachers Of Feminist Scholarship, Michael Flood

Michael G Flood

When men participate as students in Women¿s and Gender Studies (WGS) classrooms, they undergo feminist change. They adopt more progressive understandings of gender, show greater support for feminism, and increase their involvement in antisexist activism. Male students in WGS classrooms benefit to the same degree as female students, showing similar levels of change, although they start with poorer attitudes and thus the gap between them and their female peers persists. At the same time, male students¿ presence highlights critical challenges to feminist pedagogy: gendered patterns of interaction, resistance to feminist teaching, and limitations on women¿s critical reflections on personal experience. …

Medical Students On Long-Term Placements: A Financial Help Or Hindrance To Preceptors?, Judith Hudson, Kathryn Weston, Elizabeth Farmer

Elizabeth Farmer

Background: Medical student education is perceived as negatively impacting on clinical productivity and income. The current research aimed to test Worley and Kitto’s hypothetical model (2001) , which suggests for community-based longitudinal placements there is a ‘turning point’ after which time the student is beneficial to the practice. Our study triangulated quantitative income and expenditure data with preceptor perspectives derived from qualitative data. Summary of work: Preceptors provided gross practice income/expenditure. Preceptor interview data preand post- the year-long placement was analysed by two researchers who concurred on emergent themes. Summary of results: The percentage change on previous-year-average-daily-practice-income lent some support …

Twice Exceptional: Gifted Students With Asperger Syndrome, Nola Norris, Rose Dixon

Rose Dixon

No abstract provided.

Assessing Creative Thinking Skills - An Interdisciplinary Approach, Mark Butler

Mark Butler

The Australian Council for Educational Research (A.C.E.R.) is a not-for-profit organisation that works with Australian and international governments to develop and improve learning and assessment practices. In 2012 A.C.E.R. was contracted by the Victorian government to undertake research in the assessment of critical and creative thinking skills for students aged 8 to 18. Over 300 test items were developed for this purpose and these items were used to form a developmental scale for thinking. The research highlights the how critical and creative thinking skills can be incorporated into lessons which transcend traditional subject boundaries. This presentation focuses on the process …

Comparison Of Selected Teaching Strategies Incorporating Simulation And Student Outcomes, Elizabeth Swanson, Anita Nicholson, Teresa Boese, Ellen Cram, Anita Stineman, Kimberly Tew

Elizabeth A. Swanson

No abstract provided.

Simply The Best: Teaching Gerontological Nursing Students To Teach Evidence-Based Practice. Creating Tip Sheets Can Help Achieve The Goal Of Implementing Ebp In Clinical Facilities, Deborah Schoenfelder

Deborah P. Schoenfelder

This article describes a teaching strategy used in an undergraduate gerontological nursing clinical course to familiarize students with evidence-based practice. Students are required to read and summarize an assigned evidence-based practice guideline published by The University of Iowa Gerontological Nursing Interventions Research Center. They then develop a "tip sheet," based on the assigned guideline, to disseminate to health care staff at their practicum sites, which is either a long-term care facility or a hospital-based skilled nursing facility. Nursing students' reactions to the assignment and nursing staff's responses to the tip sheets are discussed.