Digital Commons Network^™

The Australian Family Farm: Is It Soon To Be An Illusive Myth?, Fiona M.H. Mckenzie

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper examines the challenges faced by Western Australian rural enterprises since 1961 and the effects of economic and demographic change on the agricultural industry over the last thirty years.

Increasing capitalisation and technological advances have led to major shifts in the way the business of farming is conducted. There is evidence to suggest that these changes have contributed to an oversupply of agricultural products, the development of large-scale agri-business firms and a general depopulation of the agricultural sector.

The family farm has always been considered the backbone of Australian agriculture but there is evidence to suggest that in this …

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 6: Women In International Assignments: The Australian Experience, Catherine R. Smith, Leonie V. Still

Research outputs pre 2011

Businesses are increasingly operating within an international environment, where the human and financial costs of failure are more serious than the domestic arena, and expatriate failure is reported to be a persistent and recurring problem for multinational corporations (Scullion, 1994). The successful implementation of global strategies depends heavily upon the existence of an adequate pool of nationally and internationally experienced managers with a diversity of talent. Adler ( 1993a, p55) has argued that "the option of limiting international management to one gender is an arm-chair 'luxury' that no company can afford". Given the need to develop global teams with a …

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 7: Gender Issues In Management Education: Redressing The Imbalance, Catherine R. Smith, Barbara Vitoria

Research outputs pre 2011

In 1992 the Federal government appointed an Industry Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills !hereinafter referred to as the Task Force) to review Australia's management and leadership capabilities, and advise on measures to strengthen management practices, in an effort to improve economic performance. An international leadership expert advising the Task Force alleged that 'corporate Australia's Achilles' heel' is its all-male monoculture, whose 'rugby-serum mentality' makes boardroom entry difficult for women, and non-traditional men who do not fit the stereotypically masculine image IMant, 1994:3). Mant emphasised that, because new ideas result from diversity, Australian management culture needs to embrace a …

Proceedings Of The 21st Annual Conference Of The Western Australian Science Education Association, Mark W. Hackling (Ed.)

Research outputs pre 2011

The Western Australian Science Education Association (WASEA) is an informal group of science educators that meets annually for a conference at one of the Perth universities. The conference is organised by a committee of representatives from the universities and has contributed greatly to collegiality amongst the community of science educators in Perth.

The first meeting of WASEA was held at the Churchlands College of Advanced Education in 1975 and has been held each year except in 1979 and 1991 when the W ASEA meeting was incorporated into the meeting of the Australian (now Australasian) Science Education Research Association.

These Proceedings …

Accounting For And Quantifying Dependencies In Dichotomous Test Data, Barry Sheridan

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper reports on a strategy employing the Extended Logistic Model of Rasch to quantify dependencies in dichotomous test data by providing standard errors of measurement which are commensurate with the loss in information arising from dependencies among subsets of items. Data collected for the Australian Scholastic Aptitude Test were analysed and shown to exhibit strong dependencies among the items involved. A technique is presented for estimating the number of equivalent independent items (found to be 74 in this study) to the original test number (100).

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 8: Career Transitions Of Dual-Career Couples: An Empirical Study, Catherine R. Smith

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

International Networking: Education, Training And Change, Nerida F. Ellerton (Ed.)

Research outputs pre 2011

The decision to inaugurate the International Networking Conference to focus on education, training and change was a direct result of the Higher Education/UNESCO Conference which was held in Cyprus in 1992. I was given the opportunity of delivering a paper on some of the problems associated with managing an internationally respected performing arts institution in the most remote capital city in the world-Perth, Western Australia.

Upon my return to Perth I broached the notion of conducting an international conference in Western Australia which would highlight issues and problems relative to higher education programs in Australia, Asia and the Indian Ocean …

Guy Grey-Smith : Guy Grey-Smith's Landscapes Of Western Australia, Annette Davis

Research outputs pre 2011

This exhibition focuses on the landscapes of one of Western Australia's most significant artists, Guy Grey-Smith (1916-1981). Working in Western Australia for more than thirty years from 1948 to 1981, GreySmith offered audiences a fresh, new interpretation of the Western Australian environment.

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 4: Women As Leaders, Leonie V. Still

Research outputs pre 2011

Leadership is a term that is not normally associated with women. This is despite the fact that throughout history women have often played a prominent role. Those that have gained prominence have done so in four main ways (Apfelbaum and Hadley, 1986):

• through charismatic leadership: the unique example being Joan of Arc.

• through inherited leadership positions: examples include the women who become heads of family businesses or queens by succeeding to monarchs.

• through the achievement of professional eminence: women who become leading figures in their disciplines because of their professional and / or scientific achievements - examples …

High Growth Maritime Industries: Recent Successes And Major Opportunities For Western Australia, Edith Cowan University

Research outputs pre 2011

There are indications that the maritime industry in Western Australia is currently insufficiently serviced by the tertiary sector in terms of its educational needs. Thus, in May 1995 a Maritime Industry Taskforce was formed to investigate opportunities for further development of maritime industries in Western Australia and around the Indian Ocean Rim. Following months of discussion with government agencies, industry and tertiary education providers, it was considered opportune to conduct a seminar to bring these areas together to openly explore key issues in building upon successes already achieved. The seminar included speakers from each of the areas of government, industry …

Needs Assessment In Mental Health Care In General Practice, Samar Aoun

Research outputs pre 2011

Current practices in mental health care among general practitioners (GPs) servicing part of the rural South West region of Western Australia were ascertained in a survey on psychosocial morbidity in rural general practice (Aoun et al 1995a,b). The survey identified the patient and illness profiles and the patterns of treatment and referral to mental health services...

Upgrading Search Strategy Skills: Unit Two: Developing Search Strategies For Cd-Rom Encylopedias: A Continuing Professional Development Course For Library And Information Service Managers, Gulten S. Wagner

Research outputs pre 2011

This Unit Two focuses on the development of search strategies in using CD-ROM encyclopedias. A thorough introduction to the basics of searching with Boolean logical operators is provided in Unit One. CD-ROM encyclopedia publishers not only update their products annually but some now provide monthly online updating facilities from the Internet. In this very dynamic environment it is rather difficult to evaluate their search facilities as improvements take place constantly.

The Unit develops strategies to take full advantage of the text and multimedia materials stored in the various indexes of an electronic encyclopedia, as well as methods for evaluating the …

Brave New World? Women And Part-Time Employment: The Impact On Career Prospects And Employment Relations, Leonie V. Still

Research outputs pre 2011

Part-time employment is a growing segment of the labour force, a trend that has been discernible in all OECD countries over the past thirty years (Thurman and Trah, 1990). According to Burgess, Gleisner and Rasmussen (1996,p95), part-time employment growth has been widespread across all sectors, occupations and demographic groups. Both Australia and New Zealand have recorded such a growth in the numbers of part-time workers and a growing part-time employment share, that nearly one quarter of the workforce in both countries is employed on a part-time basis. Among OECD countries Australia is one of the larger employers of part-time labour, …

International Review Of Women And Leadership: Special Issue, Volume 2 Number 1: Women And Politics, Marian Sawer

Research outputs pre 2011

This year is the 75th anniversary of the election of Edith Cowan to the Western Australian parliament, the first woman to be elected to an Australian parliament. It is highly appropriate that the International Review of Women and Leadership should commemorate this anniversary with a special issue dedicated to women and politics. This has enabled us to use Edith Cowan's experience of parliamentary politics as a prism through which to examine continuing dilemmas of women's representation in public life - including concepts of women's interests, equality and difference, separatism versus integration and independence versus partisanship...

International Review Of Women And Leadership: Volume 2 Number 2, Leonie V. Still (Ed.)

Research outputs pre 2011

This issue represents the culmination of two years of publishing. In that time we have had a special issue on Women and Politics, and have published contributions from Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States of America. Each issue has had its own distinct flavour. Each issue has also had a diverse range of contributions. A number of ground-breaking articles have been published, while several reviews have handled different aspects of the status of women in a number of fields. The diversity and depth of the contributions illustrates that the field of women and leadership is …

Women In Leadership Project: Research Register, Linley Lord, Leanne Burton

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

Coming Out Of The Closet : Young Gay Men's Experiences In The Process Of Coming Out, Ronald Macdonald

Theses : Honours

Coming out of the closet is a decision that all young gay men consider, however there has been little recent research undertaken which investigates this phenomenon. The purpose of this qualitative study is to provide an account of young men's experiences in the process of coming out and a critical analysis of the influences of cultural, political and social factors which impinge on the process. A phenomenological method (utilising Colaizzi's procedural steps) will be employed to collect data and to extrapolate common themes and meanings. A purposeful sample of seven young gay men were interviewed. Data was collected from taped …

Individual Differences In Word Association And Inference Generation From Brief Discourse, Alison L. Clark

Theses : Honours

When people read a short discourse, both more and less skilled readers make word associations. However, it has also been found that, whereas more skilled readers generate inferences from the text, less skilled readers do not (Long, Oppy, & Seely, 1994). The present study partially replicates and extends the study of Long et al. (1994) by investigating the pattern of word associations and whether less skilled readers may be able to generate inferences if given more time to process the discourse. In particular, the study investigates whether word association are made and inferences are drawn as part of an automatic …

Exploring Infertility Through Art, Olga Gibson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study, entitled "Exploring infertility through art" focuses on researching the use of art to explore the psychogenic, psychological and physiological aspects of infertility and the psychosomatic avenues of expression possibly resulting in, or contributing to, infertility. The term psychogenic means "pertaining to disorders which are functional in origin" (Chaplin, 1973, p. · 391), or "term usually employed of disorders which originate in mental conditions, though they may come to involve physiological changes, as a result of these mental conditions" (Drever, 1978, p. 231). A psychogenic disorder is ''a functional disorder which has no known organic basis and is therefore …

Katharine Susannah Prichard's Coonardoo : An Historical Study, Marion V. Austin-Crowe

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The focus of this thesis is Katharine Susannah Prichard's novel, Coonardoo ( 1929), and its capacity to provide a framework for the reconstruction of the historical situation in the North-West region of Western Australia during the period mid-1860s to late 1920s. The thesis has a dual purpose: to contextualise the novel in terms of the historical, political, ideological, and social situation; and to read the novel in ways which reveal its reconstruction of the wider historical context. My approach is a new historicist close reading of the text. Specific events or situations are scrutinised for their power to convey insights …

The Beliefs And Attitudes Of Primary School Teachers In The Bunbury Region Toward The Subject Of Science, Michelle A. Mckeon

Theses : Honours

The study investigated the beliefs and attitudes of primary school teachers in the Bunbury region toward the subject of science. Teachers' beliefs and attitudes were investigated in terms of the dependant variables of teachers' attitude toward science, preference for teaching science and confidence to teach science and how they related to the independent variables of qualifications, Year 11 and 12 science subjects, years of teaching experience, time of last science inservice and gender. Teachers' perceptions of the barriers toward more and better teaching of science in primary schools were also investigated. The sample included 89 teachers from nine schools, six …

An Analysis Of Potential Incompatibility Between The Acts Amendment (Evidence Of Children And Others) Act 1992 And Defendants' Rights, V. F. Pearson

Theses : Honours

The need to balance the needs and rights of all parties is a central consideration in legal procedure. This is no simple task, however, when the interests of the defendant are often in direct contrast to those of the witness. Much of the contention arises from the ambiguity associated with the nature of both victims' and defendants' rights and the lack of clear guidelines for the resolution of conflict where such competing interests are involved. Because Australia has no document precisely delineating the nature and content of individual rights, the result is a reliance on an ill-defined combination of common …

Samurai Of Gentle Power : An Exploration Of Aikido In The Lives Of Women Aikidoka, Katie Noad

Theses : Honours

This exploratory study of women's experience of the martial art of aikido comes as a response to the paucity of texts on women in the martial arts. My 16-year involvement with aikido and my studies in the field of Leisure Science have led me to explore the apparent contradiction between the traditionally masculine domain of martial arts and prescribed female/feminine behaviour. As a feminist researcher and as an aikido participant I acknowledge a close connection with my topic and hence the subjective nature of this study. I am not trying to produce an absolute truth, but present some of the …

The Effect Of Role Play On Year 9 Students' Creative Writing, Kerry Mulholland

Theses : Honours

This thesis investigated the effect of the teaching strategy of role play on Year 9 students' creative writing and attitudes towards creative writing in the English classroom. The aim of the research was to compare role play, as a student-centred strategy, with the more commonly used strategies in the teaching of writing in the secondary English classroom, and explore and measure the effects. An experiment was conducted with a class of 32 students of average to above average abilities, divided into two groups: one was taught creative writing through role play while the other group was taught by a variety …

A Whole School Approach To Literacy Intervention, G. J. Raison

Theses : Honours

This research project reports on the process of developing a whole school approach to literacy intervention in one multi-ethnic, designated disadvantaged primary school. The study describes how teachers worked collaboratively, using items from a resource package Successful Intervention K-3 Literacy, to critically reflect on their pedagogy in their efforts to better address the needs of those students in their classes who appeared to have difficulties with literacy learning. A modified action research method was used by the teachers to devise a context-specific school plan. Within the plan, they allocated time and resources to assist them as they shared and developed …

The Development Of Community Mental Health Nursing Services In Western Australia : A History (1950-1995) And Population Profile, Phillip M. Maude

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This descriptive• study discusses the development of community mental health (CMH) in Western Australia (WA) and describes the current practising population of CMH nurses. The study explores literature pertaining to the emergence of the CMH movement and the deinstitutionalisation of the mentally ill. A conceptual framework was developed by adapting Lewin's change theory. CMH nurses practising in WA (n= 130), were invited to participate in the study and were asked to complete a survey questionnaire. This resulted in a 66% response rate (n = 86). Quantitative data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Open ended …

The Recall And Retention Of New Vocabulary From Second Language Lessons, Toni Dobinson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study set out to take a close look at English language lessons and the Individual language learners ability to recall new words arising In those lessons. Learners were asked to report the new vocabulary items that they could recall immediately after a lesson. Many words were recalled and in some Instances the same word was recalled by more than one learner whereas in others, learners recalled words not recalled by anyone else. Just under half of the words recalled, fitted the former category and just over half fitted the latter category. The amount of vocabulary recalled by individuals varied …

A Qualitative Evaluation Of The S.A.I.F. Programme, Anne Blair

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis describes an evaluation of Sexual Assault in Families Inc., Perth, Western Australia (the SAIF programme) which offers therapy and counselling to families where one or more of the children have been sexually abused by one of the family members. The purpose of the study was to demonstrate the use of a triangulated qualitative research methodology in order to determine whether the programme is achieving its objectives in terms of service delivery. It adopted a phenomenological approach in which participants were acknowledged as expert informants who were capable of identifying valued aspects of the programme. The participants were twelve …

Politeness And Paradigms Of Family: A Perspective On The Development Of Communicative Competence In The Japanese Esl Speaker, Christopher J. Conlan

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis examines the issue of linguistic politeness in English with specific reference to Japanese ESL speakers. It develops a theoretical framework that sees shared assumptions concerning the marking of social-power and social-distance differentials as crucial. Developing the notion that linguistic politeness is a function of a status-dependent and context-dependent variety of language usage, it argues that there are four fundamental types of utterances, and that speech acts conforming to any of the power and distance configurations by means of which these four utterance types are defined can be considered to be polite if-but only if -both speaker and hearer …

Use Of Section 20 Of The Education Act 1928: The Study Of A Contemporary Issue Using The Narrative Form, Janette R. Gray

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

There is a growing acceptance in the social sciences that in the telling and reading of a story a form of truth can be developed. This 'truth' will be dependent on the reader actively constructing knowledge from constant reflection and modification using cultural (bounded) knowledge as a basis for comparison. Typically the narrative form employs the use of evocative, contextualised language to create implicit meaning, a plot based on some form of conflict within a temporal framework, and the use of multiple voices and genres. Generalisation from the sequence of events subsumed in the plot is assisted by the effective …