Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Australian Psychologists' Perceptions And Experiences Of Client Threats, Penny Hyde

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

There is empirical evidence that workplace violence is increasing, particularly in settings where health care professionals such as psychologists are employed, and often these incidents are perpetrated by clients. Given that client violence can have wide ranging and serious consequences, it is not surprising that researchers are focussing on this issue. One notable finding is that psychologists feel that they do not have the training or confidence to manage the violent behaviour of clients. A review of the relevant literature was undertaken to determine why psychologists feel ill prepared for such incidents. Whilst there is a wide range of definitions …

Information Provision And Retrieval In The Farming Industry In Western Australia, Hasham Al Musawi

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Agricultural information dissemination to farmers has been studied extensively. However, farmers preferred methods of delivery has not been investigated thoroughly within a Western Australia (WA) context.

Availability of different information delivery channels have led to the overwhelming and overlapping of information available to farmers. As a consequence, the type of information required by WA farmers should be considered as knowing information needs could allow farmers to access relevant, concise and timely agricultural information.

To answer the research questions, a survey was designed, using Likert-scale, close ended and open ended questions techniques, enabling qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The study‘s findings …

The Role Of Resilience In Individual Innovation, Muhammad T. Amir

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Organisations in today‘s changing environment face significant challenges, requiring continual innovation. A critical factor in their response may be employees‘ resilience, the ability to apply high levels of effort and persistence while initiating, promoting and applying new ideas. However, despite growing evidence of the value of many positive psychological characteristics in organisational behaviour, the role of resilience in individual innovation has received little attention in the literature.

This thesis describes two studies of this issue. First, current perspectives and definitions of resilience were reviewed, revealing a need for an improved definition, a re-examination of its dimensions and a new measure. …

Teachers' Experiences With Disengagement In Physical Education Classes At Secondary School Level In The Perth Metropolitan Area, Nuno Matos Oliveira

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Students’ disengagement from school has been one of the major concerns in educational research (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). According to researchers (Alexander et al., 1997; Finn & National Center for Education Statistics, 1993; Finn & Rock, 1997; Finn & Voelkl, 1993; Fredricks & Blumenfeld et al., 2004) the more disengaged the students are, the more likely they will be to fail academically and ultimately drop out. Although researchers have already identified several risk factors that can influence students’ engagement (Fulton, 2007; Lee & Burkam, 2003; Newmann, 1992), very few studies have explored teachers’ views of this educational issue. The …

Memory, Truth And Justice: A Contextualisation Of The Uses Of Photographs Of The Victims Of State Terrorism In Argentina, 1972-2012: Communicating An Intersection Of Art, Politics And History, Richard Askam

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Photographs of the victims of Argentine state terrorism from 1972 to 1983, and most prominently those of the detained-disappeared victims of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional dictatorship (1976-1983), have had a significant role in elucidating the demands of human rights activists since the aftermath of the Trelew Massacre in 1972. In this thesis I examine the role of photographs of victims of state terrorism in the construction of unofficial, or counter, narratives critical of those produced by two dictatorships and by elected democratic administrations in the demand for truth and justice, and in the construction of social memory. I discuss …

The Australian Football League And The Closet, Andrew Douglas

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis examines the complete absence of openly gay males from the ranksof the professional players in the Australian Football League (AFL). It seeks to explain this absence in the context of the modern gay rights movement. incontemporary Australian society. It compares and contrasts the effects of thismovement on both the AFL and other mainstream Australian social institutions.

Over more than four decades, the gay rights movement has effected a number of social changes. These changes include both specific legal reforms and more general trends such as the increasing social visibility of gay men across a range of mainstream institutions …

Post-School Adult Life For Young People With Down Syndrome, Kitty Rose Foley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Down syndrome is a chromosomal birth disorder affecting one in 650 to 1000 live births in Western Australia. The life expectancy for people with Down syndrome has increased dramatically over the past two generations leading to these young people having changing needs in terms of social, economic and personal life. Encompassed within this, is the successful transition from school to post-school, a time of upheaval, stress and important decisions for young people with intellectual disabilities. The International classification of functioning, disability and health (ICF) is a world renowned framework which provides a scientific basis and standardised language for describing and …

The Creation And Validation Of A Youth Fundamental Hitting Scale: The Assessment Of Youth Baseball And Softball Hitting Fundamentals And The Perceived Psychological Barriers To Hitting A Pitched Ball, Andrew Walsh

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The primary purpose of the thesis was to create a hitting scale for youth players that assess the fundamentals of a baseball swing. Secondly, the purpose of this thesis was to determine the interactions between the changes in anxiety, perceived competence and fear variables have with actual hitting competence over a four week sport specific training program.

Website Accessibility In Australia And The National Transition Strategy: Outcomes And Findings, Vivienne Conway

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In the most recent statistics, published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2012, it was reported that slightly under one in five people stated they had a disability. A further twenty-one percent of the population (4.7 million people) reported that they had a long-term health condition that did not restrict their everyday activities. This total group of people who suffer either a disability or a long-term health condition numbers 8.9 million people, or over thirty-nine percent of the Australian population. Of the people reporting a disability, 3.7 million or eighty-eight percent of that group experienced limitations in the activities …

Feeling The Fleshed Body: The Aftermath Of Childhood Rape [Thesis], Brenda Downing

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The point of propulsion for this research is my raped and censured body with its somatic aftermath narrative. This doctoral research project is a feminist and creative investigation that sought to uncover and articulate the long term somatic impacts of childhood rape as they manifest in the adult female body. I employed a multi-modal, complementary, and embodied methodology using a combination of autoethnography, somatic inquiry, writing-as-inquiry, and performance-making-as inquiry. In addition to my autoethnographic explorations, I gathered information from other women raped in childhood, as well as information from women’s healthcare professionals. Drawing on the autoethnographic and participant information gathered, …

Religion, Heritage, And Power： Everyday Life In Contemporary China, Asan Xue

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Based on an ethnographic study of the religious life of ordinary people in the town of Dongpu, this research explores the relationships between: religion and state power; Chinese ritual (li, 礼/禮) tradition and Christian culture; and religion and intangible cultural heritage in contemporary China.

This research found that both the practitioners of Chinese rituals and the Christian community deploy tactics to resist and negotiate with the hegemonic official culture through spatial and religious practices in their everyday life. Chinese ritual practices dedicated to deities and ancestors are defined as idol worship in the doctrine of Christianity and denigrated …

An Investigation Of Technique And Equipment Factors Associated With Clubhead Speed In Golf, Christopher Joyce

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

If golfers achieve long hitting distances whilst maintaining their accuracy they will gain a competitive advantage. To increase hitting distance, faster clubhead speed is required and this can potentially be achieved through a number of factors. Firstly, anthropometric factors such as height and physical factors such as trunk rotational power have been previously considered to be of importance. However, biomechanical factors such as; the X-factor (separation of the trunk-pelvis alignment when viewed in the transverse plane), have been a major focus of recent research. Further, the interaction of the golfer with the implement they hit with i.e. the golf club …

A Leap In The Dark: Identity, Culture And The Trauma Of War Mediated Thorough The Visual Arts Of North-East European Migrants And Émigrés To Australia After 1945, Eileen Whitehead

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis explores the contribution to the cultural life of post-war Australia by migrant artists from north-eastern Europe. It researches the lives and work not only of displaced artists arriving in the mass exodus from Europe after the Second World War, but also second and third generation artists descended from original migrant families, and much later émigré artists.

Art histories written to date about the post-war period provide little coverage of the contributionto the art and culture of Australia by migrant artists from north-eastern Europe. The coverage in the literature written about the visual art produced by established Australian artists …

Examining Tacit Exchange, Embedded Within Socially Shared Hand-Stitching Practices, With The Shipibo Artists Of Peru, Nicolle Anne Desmarchelier

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This exegesis reflexively examines the role of the tacit in my intercultural creative exchange with a number of the Shipibo artists of Peru. Central to the research was a three month residency spent in Peru with these artists. The research reflexively examines the impact of the residency on my creative praxis.

In particular, the research explores how the process of hand-stitching, embedded within the day to day lifeworld, can offer a space for such intercultural exchange. Furthermore, the research focuses on the shared hand-stitching practices as part of a socially communicative process. This creative exchange is placed in the social …

University Student Support Systems, Help-Seeking Behaviour And The Management Of Student Psychological Distress, Richard Bostwick

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The issue of student management and retention remains one of the most pertinent considerations for any university. In a climate of increasing awareness of mental and physical health issues, university policy development needs to adapt to ensure all students engage with and utilise support services effectively. It would appear that there are various influences on a student’s university experience, including learning abilities and styles, impact of life events and situations, for example, housing and finance, availability of support services and the ability of an individual to seek out appropriate help. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, in combination with the Health Belief …

The Distinct Contributions Of Affective Distress And Personality To Memory Complaints Made In Older Adulthood, Matthew Robert Merema

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Whilst a substantial amount of research has investigated the role of affective distress and features of personality in memory complaints made by older adults, little effort has been directed towards understanding their distinct contributions to complaints. Given considerable overlap between affective distress and features of personality, such evidence is necessary to inform theoretical frameworks pertaining to memory complaints and clarify results from other empirical studies examining these concepts. Consequently, the current study examined symptoms of depression and anxiety as predictors of memory complaints within the context of features of personality and other relevant contextual variables (i.e., age, gender, education, premorbid …

What Remains Is The Book: The Idea Of The Book In And Around Electronic Space, Andy Simionato

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this study is to question the idea of the book in general and how this idea is transforming in electronic space, understood as a space of flows as distinct to a space of places (Castells, 1989, p. 349). In order to question the idea of the book in electronic space we must begin at its ending, or more specifically, at a point in the histories of the book that is widely understood as representing a closing of a parenthesis - that began with the invention of the printing press, up to the end of print—spanning some 500 …

Education And Training Of Specialist Sexual Offence Investigators In Victoria, Australia From 2009 To 2011, Jennifer Anne Turnley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The topic of training specifically designed for investigators of sexual offences has received little attention from academic researchers to date. Previous studies have not described training provided to police investigators of sexual offences in Australia. This thesis developed Turnley’s Framework for the Examination of Police Training in Sexual Assault Investigation, to examine and describe a Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigative Teams (SOCIT) Course, provided to Victorian Police from 2009 to 2011. This entailed triangulation of findings from non-participant observations of one SOCIT Course, with quantitative and qualitative data sourced though an in-depth interview with course trainers; feedback sheets voluntarily …

The Effect Of Shared Leadership On Workgroup Creativity, Simon Guive Minaee

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Research on leadership typically assumes a single leader who has managerial authority over the group, unit or organisation. Shared leadership is an emerging concept of leadership as a group-level phenomenon. It builds on antecedents such as democratic leadership, semi-autonomous and self-managed work groups, participative decision-making and co-leadership that are typically studied as variations of leadership by a single leader. Shared leadership is seen as more distributed, informal and emergent than these. Recent empirical research shows shared leadership can have beneficial effects on a variety of group process and outcome variables. However, so far its effects on creativity have not been …

Learning From The Experts: Qualitative Study Of The Lived Experience Of Mental Illness, Zdenka Bartova

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Severe mental illness has a profound effect on the affected individuals yet it does not necessarily prevent them from leading a meaningful and fulfilling life, and therefore recovering. Recovery has received a great interest in clinical and consumer research yet little is known about how those individuals who do not primarily identify with recovery respond to the concept and come to accept it as something that is personally meaningful. Using a qualitative approach following the principles of Gadamer’s (1975) hermeneutics, the present study explored people’s subjective experience of mental illness with the aim of identifying factors related to their views …

A Mixed Methods Obesity Prevention Intervention For Australian Children Aged 6-12 Years: Influence Of Parents Misperceptions About Food And Exercise On The Efficacy Of Educational Obesity Simulations, Claire Ellen Roockley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Increasing numbers of Australian children are being classified as overweight or obese. Given the health complications associated with excess weight, interventions to prevent children becoming overweight are crucial. Despite literature showing that parents shape their children’s food and exercise habits, no child obesity prevention programs have directly targeted parents. Moreover, although fear appeals have been used across several health promotion areas to change attitudes and behaviours, they have not been incorporated into an obesity preventive program. This study addressed these gaps by testing whether fear-based obesity simulations, targeted at parents as a tool for preventing childhood obesity, was more effective …

Role Of Physical Exercise In Reducing Depression And Improving Mental Health In Cancer Survivors, Gregory Levin

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Cancer survivors are more than twice as likely as the general population to suffer the debilitating effects of depression. This comorbid condition is associated with several negative consequences, such as reduction in compliance with cancer treatments, and hastened mortality. Recent research has examined the therapeutic effect of exercise on depression and reported excellent results of similar magnitude to those achieved with pharmacotherapy or psychological intervention. However, no research, to date, has examined the effectiveness of exercise on reducing depression in depressed cancer survivors. In order to address this important question this thesis reviewed previous literature in the area of cancer …

Best Interests Of The Child Principle In The Context Of Parent Separation Or Divorce : As Conceptualised By The Community, Nadia Dias

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Best interests of the child (BIC) is a construct that is central to legal decisions in several areas including parenting matters in the Family Courts, guardianship, child-protection, and adoption. Despite the centrality of the construct, BIC has not been operationalised (Thomson & Molloy, 2001) and there is little agreement about what is considered best for children within social service and legal communities (Banach, 1998). Given that one of the aims of law is to reflect public sentiment (Green, 1996), the current study explored the general public’s conceptualisation of BIC. More specifically, I sought to determine what community members think the …

Community Building, Multiculturalism And The Suburban Public Library, Rajeswari Chelliah

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research investigates the role of public libraries in building communities and cross-cultural citizenship through provision of equitable information resources and services to English as Additional Language (EAL) speakers, particularly in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia. The rapidly changing demographic profile of Western Australia is producing an ever increasing diversity of people who need to access information in order to thrive in their new community. However, access to these information services pose challenges to users who lack competency in language, computer and general literacy, while the increasing diversity in the local population creates widely divergent competencies in information seeking skills among …

The Identity Of The Heart Patient In The Context Of The Gift Economy: Heartnet And Media Framing, Lynsey Uridge

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This health communication research examines the identity levels of the heart patient on a therapeutic website HeartNET through an empirical investigation of site interactions as manifestations of a gift economy. The thesis also explores the media’s representation of heart health in both television and print.

This research utilised a longitudinal qualitative ethnographic and netnographic approach involving twenty-six participants who completed two in-depth interviews. The first one-on-one interview occurred during the early stages of the participants’ heart journey, explored their heart story and use of interactive technology for heart health support. The second interview occurred six to twelve months later, and …