Digital Commons Network^™

How Well Prepared Are Australian Preservice Teachers To Teach Early Reading Skills?, Linda J. Meeks, Coral R. Kemp

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Preservice early childhood and primary teachers from teacher preparation institutions across five Australian states were surveyed regarding their perceptions of preparedness and ability to teach early reading and spelling skills, as well as their knowledge of components of early reading, such as phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge and early spelling patterns. Surveys were conducted in the final year of the teacher training courses and targeted students attending teacher education institutions providing teacher training in the area of early literacy. Although preservice teachers generally rated themselves as prepared to teach early reading, most demonstrated minimal to very poor knowledge of the components …

Any Time, Any Place, Flexible Pace: Technology-Enhanced Language Learning In A Teacher Education Programme, Jocelyn M. Howard, Adèle Scott

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Ongoing developments in e-learning, improved internet accessibility and increased digital citizenry provide exciting opportunities to integrate effective classroom pedagogies with online educational technologies, creating mixed-mode courses to enhance student engagement and facilitate greater autonomous learning. This research examines pre-service teacher education students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of experiential and digitally-mediated tools which take them beyond the constraints of traditional lecture-type delivery. Quantitative and qualitative results from distance and face-to-face cohorts show the value the students ascribe to tools employed in a modified language course. These are discussed in relation to reported changes in students’ proficiency in the target language and …

Similarities And Differences Between Simultaneous And Successive Bilingual Children: Acquisition Of Japanese Morphology, Yuki Itani-Adams, Junko Iwasaki, Satomi Kawaguchi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper compares the acquisition of Japanese morphology of two bilingual children who had different types of exposure to Japanese language in Australia: a simultaneous bilingual child who had exposure to both Japanese and English from birth, and a successive bilingual child who did not have regular exposure to Japanese until he was six years and three months old. The comparison is carried out using Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann 1998, 2005) as a common framework, and the corpus for this study consists of the naturally spoken production of these two Australian children. The results show that both children went through …

What Is English Now? The Construction Of Subject English In Contemporary Textbooks For Australian Secondary Schools, Shannon L. Wells

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Australian educators are currently engaged in widening debates about the performance of the nation’s schools, teachers and students. Perceived literacy deficits among secondary students have fuelled the debate, and this has precipitated reforms to English curricula at both National and State levels. The newly revised curricula attempt to improve student achievement through more systematic teaching about the English language and language skills. In response to the changes, major education publishers in Australia have released revised textbooks for English that purport to engage with the new curriculum.

This research study considered whether such new resources offer genuinely fresh and effective approaches …

Development Of The Meal Framework: A Multiliteracies Approach To Engaging Adolescents In Nutrition Education, Samantha Lee Baker

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Establishing and maintaining a healthy diet is integral in promoting optimal health, growth and development. Moreover, the food choices we make and dietary behaviours we adopt are a reflection of the multiple personal, interpersonal and environmental factors to which we are exposed. Consequently, changing food habits and dietary behaviour is complex and requires the implementation of multifaceted public health strategies. Comprehensive nutrition education provided to adolescents during their school years is one such approach.

Adolescence is a period of rapid psychological and physiological changes. At a socioemotional level, there is a decreased level of dependence on parents and a greater …

Unsupervised Monitoring Of An Elderly Person's Activities Of Daily Living Using Kinect Sensors And A Power Meter, Hossein Pazhoumand-Dar

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The need for greater independence amongst the growing population of elderly people has made the concept of “ageing in place” an important area of research. Remote home monitoring strategies help the elderly deal with challenges involved in ageing in place and performing the activities of daily living (ADLs) independently. These monitoring approaches typically involve the use of several sensors, attached to the environment or person, in order to acquire data about the ADLs of the occupant being monitored.

Some key drawbacks associated with many of the ADL monitoring approaches proposed for the elderly living alone need to be addressed. These …

Primary Students’ Engagement With The Visual Arts And Their Transition Into Year 7, Zoe Wittber

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Visual Arts education is fundamental to an effective school curriculum for primary and secondary students. It provides students with opportunities for expression and personal growth, essential to a holistic education. Recently, in Perth, Western Australia (WA) several secondary Visual Arts educators expressed what they saw as a significant deficit in the outcomes of Making and Responding in Visual Arts, evidenced in their Year 7 students who had recently graduated from primary school. Consequently, this research investigated the extent of Year 7 students’ prior Visual Arts experiences upon entry into secondary school.

The research engaged a qualitative research approach to gather …

The Prevalence Of Twice Exceptional Students In The Gat Academic Programs: The Near Miss Phenomena, Lynne Ivicevic

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Twice exceptional (TE) students often experience barriers to their participation in gifted academic programs that contribute to their marginalised status amongst the school gifted population. The estimated prevalence of TE students in gifted programs worldwide varies according to the location, identification means and definition, with little agreement reached between researchers in the field. This research was made up of three interrelated studies. Firstly, six years of longitudinal quantitative cohort data from the Western Australian Department of Education (DoE) database on selected students for the GAT programs including GAT Academic programs and TE students to determine TE prevalence. Secondly, disability prevalence …

Towards Active Ageing: A Comparative Study Of Experiences Of Older Ghanaians In Australia And Ghana, Daniel Doh

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Population ageing has become a central feature of the 21st century, as most countries search for economically viable strategies to support and manage their ageing populations to live in a dignified way. In 2002, the World Health Organisation (WHO) proposed the active ageing policy framework to guide countries to develop policies that promote the quality of life for their older people. However, the interpretation and application of the active ageing model in the literature and policy discussions are inconclusive on the most important elements that promote the quality of life of older people. The discussions have largely focused on health …

Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Experiences And Self-Efficacy To Teach Music: Are They Ready?, Geoffrey M. Lowe, Geoff W. Lummis, Julia Morris

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Music is essential in developing the young brain, particularly skills relating to concentration, filtering, information retrieval, verbal competencies, mental visualisation, problem solving, empathy and personal expression. With the introduction of the Australian National Curriculum and its adoption as the basis of the Western Australian P-10 music syllabus, there is cause to reflect on the effectiveness of music provision within teacher education courses and pre-service generalist teachers' abilities to deliver the new music syllabus. Accordingly, a mixed method study was conducted with first and fourth year Bachelor of Education primary students at a Western Australian university, to investigate students' music experiences …

Conjoint Utilization Of Structured And Unstructured Information For Planning Interleaving Deliberation In Supply Chains, Naeem K. Janjua, O. K. Hussain, E. Chang, Syed M. S. Islam

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Effective business planning requires seamless access and intelligent analysis of information in its totality to allow the business planner to gain enhanced critical business insights for decision support. Current business planning tools provide insights from structured business data (i.e. sales forecasts, customers and products data, inventory details) only and fail to take into account unstructured complementary information residing in contracts, reports, user's comments, emails etc. In this article, a planning support system is designed and developed that empower business planners to develop and revise business plans utilizing both structured data and unstructured information conjointly. This planning system activity model comprises …

Participatory Action And Dual Lens Research, Francesca Robertson, Jason Barrow, Magdalena Wajrak, Noel Nannup, Caroline Bishop, Alison Nannup

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea that, in the last few decades, collaborative inquiry methods have evolved along a similar trajectory to dual lens research. Dual lens research, known in various contexts as both ways, two-eyed seeing Old Ways New Ways, and Koodjal Jinnung (looking both ways), is designed to generate new knowledge by exploring a theme through Aboriginal and contemporary western lenses. Participatory action research and a dual lens approach are considered in a number of projects with a particular focus on the issues such work can raise including conceptual challenges posed by fundamental …

Development Of The Aboriginal Communication Assessment After Brain Injury (Acaabi): A Screening Tool For Identifying Acquired Communication Disorders In Aboriginal Australians, Elizabeth Armstrong, Natalie Ciccone, Deborah J. Hersh, Judith Katzenellebogen, Juli Coffin, Sandra Thompson, Leon Flicker, Colleen Hayward, Deborah Woods, Meaghan Mcallister

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose:

Acquired communication disorders (ACD), following stroke and traumatic brain injury, may not be correctly identified in Aboriginal Australians due to a lack of linguistically and culturally appropriate assessment tools. Within this paper we explore key issues that were considered in the development of the Aboriginal Communication Assessment After Brain Injury (ACAABI) – a screening tool designed to assess the presence of ACD in Aboriginal populations.

Method:

A literature review and consultation with key stakeholders were undertaken to explore directions needed to develop a new tool, based on existing tools and recommendations for future developments.

Result:

The literature searches revealed …

The Value Of Images: Using Pictures And Words To Enhance Intercultural And International Communication, Alun Price, Stuart Medley

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

As our institution expands its international offerings it is increasingly important to be able to communicate with intelligent and able people who have not had much exposure to learning in English. It has been difficult however to communicate verbally due to the low English proficiency of international clients and lack of language skills on the part of the Australian participants. This experience in international communication has highlighted the need for alternative methods of communicating information. In communicating with the students from a Japanese university I found that using diagrams and sketches worked well for example, in creating a cartoon of …

The Land Still Speaks: Ni, Katitj!, Sandra Wooltorton, Pierre Horwitz, Len Collard

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In this paper we reflect on land, language and law in Wiilman Noongar Boodjar (Country), which has recently become known as the Upper Blackwood River Catchment in the South West of Western Australia. By intertwining historical perspectives with Western science and Noongar katitjiny (knowledge and understandings, or rationality) we argue that this region is alive, that it does have a language and that there is a message to be heard. History shows that the voice of the land might be diminishing, but signs of a transformation are evident, where a conciliation of these voices enables real listening to ancient insights …

“What Sort Of Communists Are You?” The Struggle Between Nationalism And Ideology In Poland Between 1944 And 1956, Jan Ryszard Kozdra

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The period between 1944 and 1956, also known as the “Stalinist period”, is one of the most controversial and turbulent in Polish history. The Polish communist party launched the project of restructuring Polish society, whose historically wellestablished national identity seemed incompatible with the communist project. Firstly, the communists effected a demographic change that resulted in a near monoethnic state. Simultaneously, they introduced a centrally planned economy, transformed state symbolism, initiated a national education system, attempted to reshape popular attitudes to religion, and launched a massive propaganda campaign to reinforce and popularize their objectives.

This study seeks to investigate the communists’ …

Belonging: A Place For, And In, Children’S Poetry A Hybrid Thesis Including Creative Works, Articles And Exegetical Discussion, Sally Murphy

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This hybrid thesis is comprised of three creative works – two collections of poetry for children and a verse novel – as well as three journal articles examining aspects of children’s poetry, and exegetical discussion of the creative works and of key concepts influencing both the creative and discursive elements of the thesis.

The first creative work, All About Me, is a collection of poetry for early childhood readers and their carers. It consists of 20 poems, and as a finished manuscript mirrors the length of a picture book format collection. The poems explore and highlight aspects of the …

Interpersonal Apologies: A Psychological Perspective Of Why They Might Work In Law?, Alfred Allan, James Strickland, Maria M. Allan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Apologies have become an accepted feature in many fields of law and there is evidence that they make a constructive contribution to the resolution of disputes. The reason for this might be that they address the intangible needs of parties after adverse events that law otherwise find difficult to address. Legal reformers introduced apologies into law primarily on the basis of deductive reasoning without being able to refer to a comprehensive psychological theory that explains the apology process; in part because apology was only identified as a psychological construct worthy of empirical research during the last quarter of the 20th …

Investigating The Practice And Capacity Of Paediatric Occupational Therapists To Promote The Physical Activity Levels Of Children In Western Australia, Sally Coombs

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Reorientation of the Australian health care system to meet the increasing burden of disease requires health workers to develop a focus on disease prevention and health promotion. In Western Australia (WA) a priority area for the promotion of health involves increasing the physical activity levels (PAL) of children in accordance with Australia’s Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines. There is substantial support in the literature for paediatric occupational therapists, who assist children to participate in a range of meaningful occupations, to incorporate the promotion of children’s PAL into their service. However, there is a dearth of research world-wide regarding occupational …

The Efficacy Of A Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For War-Affected Young Migrants Living In Australia: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial, Chew S. Ooi, Rosanna M. Rooney, Clare Roberts, Robert T. Kane, Bernadette Wright, Nikos Chatzisarantis

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Preventative and treatment programs for people at risk of developing psychological problems after exposure to war trauma have mushroomed in the last decade. However, there is still much contention about evidence-based and culturally sensitive interventions for children. The aim of this study was to examine the efficacy of the Teaching Recovery Techniques in improving the emotional and behavioral outcomes of war-affected children resettled in Australia.

Methods and Findings: A cluster randomized controlled trial with pre-test, post-test, and 3-month follow-up design was employed. A total of 82 participants (aged 10–17 years) were randomized by school into the 8-week intervention ( …

Photoaging Photography: Mothers' Attitudes Toward Adopting Skin-Protective Measures Pre- And Post-Viewing Photoaged Images Of Their And Their Child's Facial Sun Damage, Matthew Welch, Paul Chang, Myra F. Taylor

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

One of the major sources for children to gain knowledge of skin-protective measures is from their parents. Therefore, an imperative exists for parents to model and reinforce the sun-safety practices they want their children to adopt. Although Australian mothers have been the recipients of two extensive sun-safety public health campaigns, little is known about their attitudes, behaviors, and application of health promotion knowledge toward their and their child’s ultraviolet (UV) sun exposure. Ten mothers with children aged 4 to 12 years were asked a series of questions about their sun-safety practices, both pre- and post-viewing an UV photoaged photograph of …

Real-Time Netnography: Rejecting The Passive Shift, Leesa Costello, Marie-Louise Mcdermott

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Although netnography emerged in the 1990s, it is a term unfamiliar to many ethnographers and is still touted as a new methodology. Once explained, ethnographers often understand it in terms of online ethnography. While this is helpful, netnography, however, offers a set of steps and analytic approaches that can be applied across a spectrum of involvement online. Its focus is on gaining entree to an online community, distinguishing between participant observation and nonparticipant observation.

The Ripple Effect: Promoting A Supportive Secondary School Culture By Mobilising Bystanders To Bullying, Helen E. Monks, Donna Cross, Natasha Pearce

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The social context of bullying is pivotal with peers present as bystanders to the majority of school bullying interactions. Bystander responses can impact profoundly on the maintenance and course of school bullying and range from inciting the bullying through joining in or assisting the perpetrator, or inhibiting the bullying through actively intervening and supporting the bullied student. This qualitative study sought to elicit students’ perceptions of the bystander role and recommendations of the supports needed at the school level to encourage positive bystander behavior.

Scholarly Ecotones In The Information Landscape, Drew Hubbell, John Ryan

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

For this issue of Landscapes, we invited contributors to reflect on the concept of ecotone as a method of interrogating intersections between literature, culture, art and landscapes. We wanted to encourage the ecocritical and creative arts communities (including poets, writers, photographers, painters and graphic artists) to engage with this term in the hopes that ecotone would do for the environmental humanities what Mary Louise Pratt’s contact zone did for cultural and post-colonialist studies (see, for example, Pickles and Rutherdale). Taking our cue from Donna Haraway’s provocative study of interspecies contact zones in When Species Meet, we proposed the …

Fire Was In The Reptile’S Mouth: Towards A Transcultural Ecological Poetics, Stuart Cooke

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This paper compares two creation narratives from indigenous peoples on either side of the Pacific Ocean, the relationships between which catalyse the theorisation of a transcultural approach to ecological poetics. The comparison of these narratives reveals important, rhizomatic similarities, and also unmistakable regional differences, concerning the origins of language and culture in Yanomami (Venezuela) and MakMak (Australia) communities. Concomitant with the centrality of indigenous thought in this theorisation of ecopoetics is the de­centrality of human-only conceptions of poetics. Accordingly, the paper considers non-semantic forms of poetics such as birdsong in order to de-centre classically Western, humanist conceptions of language …

A Hybrid Behaviour Recognition And Intrusion Detection Method For Mobile Devices, Ashley Woodiss-Field

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Behaviour-based authorisation is a technique that assesses the user of a device for authenticity by comparing their activities to previously established behaviour profiles. Passwords and other point of entry authorisation techniques are often inadequate for protecting mobile device security as they only provide an initial barrier to usage and do not operate continuously. Behaviour-based authorisation continuously assesses user authorisation, using the device owner’s profile for authentication. This research improves upon behaviour-based authorisation performance by applying a hybridised intrusion detection method. The constituent intrusion detection methods that were applied include context-awareness and self-correction. Performance of a behaviour-based authorisation method can be …

The Power Of Graphic Organizers: Effects On Students’ Word-Learning And Achievement Emotions In Social Studies, İlhan İlter

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of three graphic organizers for teaching vocabulary and the development of the emotions-related to achievement. The study focused on the effects of different types of graphic organizers on word-learning and various emotions in social studies. This study was designed as a quasi-experimental design by utilizing a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The experimental group was instructed on vocabulary by using the Concept definition map, a Word-questioning strategy and a Circle thinking map for word-learning, while the control group was taught to use the C(2)QU [(Context (2)- Questioning- Using)] as a …

Exploring Efl Learners’ Perceived Self-Efficacy And Beliefs On English Language Learning, Gülten Genç, Emine Kuluşaklı, Savaş Aydın

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Abstract

Learners’ perceived self-efficacy and beliefs on English language learning are important in education. Taking into consideration the important impact of individual variables on language learning, this study seeks to highlight the relationship between Turkish EFL learners’ beliefs about language learning and their sense of self-efficacy. The participants are 210 Turkish EFL undergraduate students whose major is English. The subjects were questioned about their beliefs and self-efficacy as English language learners. The data gathered were analysed quantitatively. The findings demonstrated that EFL students have medium scores in their English self-efficacy and hold the strong belief that motivation factors have a …

Turkish Pre-Service Teachers’ Reflective Practices In Teaching English To Young Learners, Muzeyyen Nazli Gungor

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The course ‘Teaching English to Young Learners’ is the first stage where pre-service teachers are introduced to a child’s world, developmental characteristics, needs, interests as well as teaching and learning techniques for these learners in English language teaching pre-service teacher education programmes in Turkey. This action research study identifies the gap that pre-service teachers experience between the theoretical considerations and realities of teaching, and the problems they face in this course. It provides the opportunity for monitoring and evaluating themselves in a pre-service teacher education programme in Turkey. Hence, this piece of research aims to promote reflective practice at the …

Autonomy In An Efl Teacher Training Context: Trainee Teacher Perceptions Of Instructor Expectations, Selami Ok

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Abstract: Developing a sense of autonomy in teacher trainees can be considered as a goal itself; and to this end, instructors’ expectations that can help them become autonomous need to be identified through the perspectives of teacher trainees rather than accepting directly what is true for instructors. This paper aims to explore the trainee teacher perceptions of instructor expectations leading them to become autonomous in an EFL teacher training context. The participants were 170 senior teacher trainees attending the ELT Department at Pamukkale University, Turkey. A mixed method was employed in the study. Firstly, a five-point Likert questionnaire was designed …