Education Commons^™

Examining The Gender Gap In Educational Outcomes In Public Education: Involving Pre-Service School Counsellors And Teachers In Cross-Cultural And Interdisciplinary Research, Wilhelmina J. Vialle, Paul Thompson, Mary Ann Clark

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

International educational statistics have reported a gender gap in educational outcomes, with boys falling behind girls in regard to grades, high school graduation and university enrollment and retention. This study involved pre-service teachers and school counsellors in Colleges of Education at three universities on three continents carrying out focus groups with public school students, interviews with educators, and examining national and international quantitative data to investigate this issue from a local and a cross cultural perspective. Common themes were found in each country and implications for addressing the problem considered.

Key Issues And Future Directions In The Nexus Of Literacy Research, Policy And Practice., Pauline J. Harris

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Relationships among literacy research, policy and practice continue to constitute a contentious issue in the context of literacy policy reforms in Australia and overseas. Referring to these relationships as the Literacy Nexus, this paper explores the nexus in terms of research/policy relationships; policy/practice relationships; and practice/research relationships. The paper provides a review of related literature on these relationships, based on Australian and U.S. research studies and reports published since 2000; and highlights key issues inherent in these relationships. These issues include ways in which literacy research is used in literacy policy and the consequences of this use for the fields …

Ipods In Early Childhood: Mobile Technologies And Story Telling., Ian Olney, Jan Herrington, Irina Verenikina

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Mobile technologies are making inroads in many aspects of education. The potential of many of these devices is being explored in a range of educational environments but early childhood educators are not commonly early adopters of these new technologies. This paper examines the process and impact of iPods on these students’ creation of original digital stories to support their understanding of how young children learn. The pedagogical approach is described in detail together with observations on the process, lessons learned, and extensions of the activity into other discipline areas.

The Mouse Is Not A Toy: Young Children's Interactions With E-Games, Susan Roberts, Emilia N. Djonov, Jane Torr

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Little is known about how children under 5 years respond to electronic texts. Traditional methods of transcription can record spoken language and paralinguistic features, but not the relations between children’s non-verbal behaviour (e.g. gaze, gesture, facial expressions) and the visual elements which are the focus of their attention. In this paper, drawing on naturalistic videotaped data from 4 children aged 4–5 years interacting with I Spy CD-ROMs (Scholastic), we offer an innovative method of transcription which may be used to help us understand children’s responses in depth. The method captures each child’s language, body posture, facial expressions and gestures, in …

A Study Of Teachers' Integration Of Interactive Whiteboards Into Four Australian Primary School Classrooms, S. Bennett, Lori Lockyer Professor

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) have become increasingly available in Australian primary schools, however little is known about how they are being integrated by teachers. This paper reports on a study of the introduction of IWBs into an Australian public primary school. Data was collected during one day per week over two school terms, involving four classroom teachers. Data collected included a log of time allocation, lesson observations and a series of interviews with the teachers. The study found that participants used IWBs to a varying extent over the course of a teaching week, with lessons that integrated the use of IWBs …

Using Mobile Phones To Augment Teacher Learning In Environmental Education, Brian Ferry

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This study contributes to the professional development of teachers in the use of mobile phones to inform their pedagogy. The focus is on how action learning sets helped preservice teachers (PST) to effectively use mobile phones to augment their understanding of the impact of their teaching of an environmental education unit in local primary schools. These school-based, action learning sets consisted of groups of four to six PST allocated to the five schools that participated in the study. For six weeks the twenty-two participating PST worked in pairs to teach a class for two hours per week. During this time …

Ascilite Report 5 For The Carrick Exchange Project: International Perspective, R. Philip, Dominique R. Parrish, Geraldine E. Lefoe, Meg O'Reilly

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

This is the fifth report completed by ascilite for the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education to inform the development of the Carrick Exchange. It complements research findings discussed in four previous ascilite reports (Reports 1-4). Report 5 is a synthesis of particular international research and experience regarding the building of communities to support teaching and learning in higher education, and repository development and implementation. The ascilite research continues to explore emerging themes, issues and concerns regarding engagement of the Australian higher education sector with the Carrick Exchange initiative, identification of resources and methods of contribution, and …

A Peer Review Model For The Altc Exchange: The Landscape Of Shared Learning And Teaching Resources, R. Philip, Geraldine E. Lefoe, M. O'Reilly, Dominique R. Parrish

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

The ALTC Exchange (formerly the Carrick Exchange), is a national repository and networking service for Australian higher education. The Exchange was designed to provide access to a repository of shared learning and teaching resources, work spaces for team members engaged in collaborative projects, and communication and networking services. The Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) established the Exchange for those who teach, manage and lead learning and teaching in higher education. As part of the research conducted to inform the development of the Exchange, models for peer review of educational resources were evaluated. For this, a design-based research approach was …

Enabling Teaching, Enabling Learning: How Does Staff Development Fit The Educational Technology Landscape?, Geraldine E. Lefoe, I. Olney, A. Herrington

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

The New Technologies: New Pedagogies Project is a nationally funded project to support the use of mobile learning in higher education to support student learning. We explore the staff development process of this larger project, where academics in a Faculty of Education investigate new pedagogies that are required to meet the needs of millennial learners. The staff development process addressed the need for staff to own and use mobile technology in their professional and personal contexts in order to think differently about engaging their students in pedagogically sound ways. We identified four key actions for participants which contributed significantly to …

You Have To Make Something Of All That Rubbish, Do You? An Empirical Investigation Of The Social Process Of Qualitative Research, Stacy M. Carter, Christopher F. Jordens, Catherine Mcgrath, Miles Little

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In this article, we examine participants' talk about qualitative research. We provide empirical support for post-structural theorizations of the interview and propose three distinct but related dimensions of qualitative research: emotional, purposive/relational, and epistemic/ontological. In this study, participants often became upset but constructed participation as enjoyable and cathartic. The purpose of participation was to assist the communities to which one belonged. Participation was an active, reflexive practice that reconstructed the self and changed knowledge about one's self. This latter epistemic/ontological dimension of participation appeared to be the most compelling for participants, but it is also the hardest to observe, with …

Virtual Community Consultation? Using The Literature And Weblogs To Link Community Perspectives And Health Technology Assessment, Jackie M. Street, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer, Karen Facey, Richard E. Ashcroft, Janet E. Hiller

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background  Community views, expressed in social impact assessments and collected through community consultation, should play an important role in health technology assessment (HTA). Yet HTA methodologists have been slow to include outcomes of these forms of inquiry in analyses, in part because collecting community views is time‐consuming and resource intensive. Objective  To explore how community views sourced from published studies, grey literature and informal internet web pages can inform HTA. Methods  A technology reviewed by Adelaide HTA in 2004 was selected: retinal photography for detection of diabetic retinopathy. Published literature, 'grey' literature and informal web pages were searched to examine …

"It's Sort Of Like Being A Detective": Understanding How Australian Men Self-Monitor Their Health Prior To Seeking Help, James A. Smith, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer, Gary Wittert, Megan Warin

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background It is commonly held that men delay help seeking because they are ignorant about and disinterested in their health. However, this discussion has not been informed by men's lay perspectives, which have remained almost entirely absent from scholarship relating to men's help seeking practices. Methods In this qualitative paper, we draw on semi-structured interviews with 36 South Australian men to examine their understandings of help seeking and health service use. Results & Discussion We use participants' talk about self-monitoring to challenge the assumption that men are disinterested in their health, arguing instead that the men in our study monitored …

Canines, Consanguinity, And One-Medicine: All The Qualities Of A Dog Except Loyalty, Christopher J. Degeling

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The rise of pet culture and the expansion of medical science occurred concurrently in the late nineteenth century. From this time in Anglo-American societies dogs were simultaneously valorised as 'man's best friend' and the 'ideal model' for experimental medicine. By tracking the hounds into our laboratories and onto the settee, changes in our conception of the properties of blood and canine breeding can be used to excavate covert connections between the contradictory social and scientific utilisations of this species. Describing the movement of genealogical and medical knowledge between the benchtop, the kennel and the clinic illustrates how Rudolph Virchow's earlier …

Investigative Methods And Tools: Developing An Integrated Approach To Critical Thinking, Evidence-Based Medicine And Biostatistics, Tam C. Ha, Frank Starmer

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Each day's work, whether a clinician, researcher or homemaker, focuses on investigative strategies and problem solving. Investigative methods and problem solving are rarely addressed formally in a medical school curriculum. Our goal with Investigative Methods and Tools was to convey to future clinician-scientists the skills to be able to confidently deal with information whether acquired from a patient, medical literature or in the laboratory. Our strategy is to convey to students major components of the investigative process including chasing curiosity, visualisation, modelling, experimental design and analysis. In addition, we depart from the traditional "jargon compliant" statistical vocabulary and focused on …

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Financial Capability And Psychological Well-Being In Mothers Of Young Children In Poor Areas In England, Edward Melhuish, Jay Belsky, Antero Malin

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Financial difficulties lead to financial distress that in turn may lead to poorer psychological well-being. Previous work on people's financial difficulties and capability indicates that those most vulnerable to financial difficulties may well suffer with regard to their psychological state. One particularly vulnerable group are families with young children in disadvantaged areas.

Relationships Between Pupils' Self-Perceptions, Views Of Primary School And Their Development In Year 5, Pam Sammons, Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Brenda Taggart, Helena Jelicic, Sofka Barreau, Yvonne Grabbe, Rebecca Smees

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This research builds on earlier reports (Sammons et al., 2007) by investigating relationships between children's outcomes in Year 5 and aspects of pupils' self perceptions and their views of primary school measured in Year 5 (age 10) and in Year 2 (age 7) of primary school while controlling for background characteristics. These measures have been derived from a self-report instrument completed by the EPPE 3-11 children. The analyses explored associations between children's progress and development over time and their self-perceptions and views of primary school.

Influences On Pupils' Self-Perceptions In Primary School: Enjoyment Of School, Anxiety And Isolation, And Self-Image In Year 5, Pam Sammons, Kathy Sylva, Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Brenda Taggart, Rebecca Smees, Edward Melhuish

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This report presents the results of analyses of pupils' self-perceptions in primary school. It is part of the longitudinal Effective Pre-school and Primary Education 3-11 (EPPE 3-11) research project funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). The focus of this report is pupils' self-perceptions in Year 5 (age 10) in four key areas: 'Enjoyment of school'; 'Academic self-image'; 'Behavioural self-image' and 'Anxiety and Isolation'. Reports on pupils' cognitive and social/behavioural development at this age have been published separately (Sammons et al., 2007). Questionnaires were administered to children asking their views about school and classroom life. These provided …

Influences On Children's Attainment And Progress In Key Stage 2: Cognitive Outcomes In Year 6, Pam Sammons, Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Brenda Taggart, Stephen Hunt

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The report presents the results of analyses related to the primary school phase of a major longitudinal study investigating the influence of pre-school and primary school on children's development. Specifically, this report is concerned with children's cognitive attainments at the end of Year 6 when the children were aged eleven and their academic progress from the age of seven to eleven: Key Stage 2. The findings also extend and develop the findings from previous earlier ages.

Final Report From The Primary Phase: Pre-School, School And Family Influences On Children's Development During Key Stage 2 (7-11), Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Pam Sammons, Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Brenda Taggart

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

EPPE 3-11 is a large study of the developmental trajectories of approximately 2800 children in England from age 3 to 11 years. This report focuses on the primary school phase, particularly Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11). Many children have prospered, leaving Key Stage 2 (at age 11) with confidence and armed with the skills they need to tackle learning in secondary school. However, some children moved onto secondary school with poor skills in key areas or with low self-image and aspiration. The EPPE 3-11 project set out to explain some of the reasons behind these different developmental trajectories.

What Makes A Successful Transition From Primary To Secondary School?, Maria Evangelou, Brenda Taggart, Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Pam Sammons, Iram Siraj-Blatchford

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The transition from primary to secondary school is important in the lives of children and their families, yet research has shown that transitions can be stressful for children, that continuity of curriculum between primary and secondary school may suffer during transition and that some vulnerable children need intervention prior to transition (McGee et. al., 2004). In addition, the progress pupils make at primary school may not always be maintained after the move to secondary level. The Government's Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners has acknowledged that "too many children still find the transition from primary to secondary school difficult …

Pupils' Self-Perceptions And Views Of Primary School In Year 5, Pam Sammons, Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Brenda Taggart, Helena Jelicic, Rebecca Smees, Sofka Barreau, Yvonne Grabbe

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The Effective Pre-School and Primary Education 3-11 (EPPE 3-11) project investigates the impact of pre- school, primary school and family on a range of outcomes for a national sample of approximately 2,800 children in England between the ages of 3 and 11 years. This Research Brief presents findings on pupils' Self-perceptions (' Enjoyment of school', 'Anxiety and Isolation', 'Academic self-image' and 'Behavioural self-image' ) and their views of different features of primary school (' Teachers' support for pupils' learning', 'Headteacher qualities' and 'Positive social environment' ) in Year 5. The analyses involved two steps: first, differences in pupils' Self-perceptions and …

Effective Pre-School And Primary Education 3-11 Project (Eppe 3-11) - Final Report From The Primary Phase: Pre-School, School And Family Influences On Children's Development During Key Stage 2 (7-11), Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Pam Sammons, Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Brenda Taggart

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The Effective Pre-school and Primary Education 3-11 project (EPPE 3-11) has studied pre-school and primary school experiences for a national sample of approximately 2,800 children in England between the ages of 3 and 11 years. This Research Brief summarises the key findings up to the end of primary school. It focuses on the relationships between child, family, home, pre-school and primary school characteristics and pupils' subsequent cognitive (Reading/English and Mathematics) and social/behavioural outcomes ('Self-regulation', 'Pro-social' behaviour, 'Hyperacti vity' and 'Anti-social' behaviour) at ages 10 and 11 in Years 5 and 6 of primary school. It also reports on associations between …

Communicating About Screening, Vikki A. Entwistle, Stacy Carter, Lyndal Trevena, Kathy Flitcroft, Les Irwig, Kirsten Mccaffery, Glenn P. Salkeld

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Informed choice is important for screening, but not everyone wants or is able to analyse research data. Vikki Entwistle and colleagues propose a new approach to communication.

Patient And Physician Preferences For Surgical And Adjuvant Treatment Options For Rectal Cancer, James D. Harrison, Michael J. Solomon, Jane Young, Alan Meagher, Phyllis N. Butow, Glenn P. Salkeld, George Hruby, Stephen Clarke

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Hypothesis Patients and their clinicians hold varying preferences for surgical and adjuvant treatment therapies for rectal cancer.

Design Preferences were determined using the Prospective Measure of Preference.

Setting Royal Prince Alfred and St Vincent's hospitals in Sydney, Australia.

Participants Patients with colorectal cancer were interviewed during their postoperative hospital stay, and physicians were asked to complete a mailed survey.

Main Outcome Measures The Prospective Measure of Preference method produces 2 outcome measures of preference: willingness to trade and prospective measure of preference time trade-off.

Results Patients' strongest preference was to avoid a stoma: more than 60% would give up a …

Field Observations And Empirical Research, Koko Warner, Olivia V. Dun, Marc Stal

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios (EACH-FOR) project is a systematic attempt to detect the degree to which, and the pathways through which, environmental stressors affect migration.

In Vitro Cytotoxicity Assessment Of Selected Nanoparticles Using Human Skin Fibroblasts, Finance Dechsakulthorn, Amanda Hayes, Shahnaz Bakand, Lucky Joeng, Chris Winder

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Zinc oxide (ZnO) and Titanium oxide (TiO₂) are two chemical compound with very wide industrial and commercial applications, particularly as pigments. Due to their physical properties, both compounds are also used as sunscreen ingredients for protect from UV radiation. At the nano-scale, ZnO and TiO₂ have proven to have a similar level of protection compared to normal-scale sunscreen particles. An advantage of the topical use of nano-scale ingredients in sunscreens is their transparency compared to the white residue left on skin with normal scale particles. However, the potential toxicity of these nanoparticles is not well understood. The aim of this …

Politicising Parenthood In Scandinavia: Gender Relations In Welfare States, Patricia Kennedy

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Book review of: Ellingsaeter A. L. and Leira A. (2006), Politicising Parenthood in Scandinavia: Gender Relations in Welfare States. Bristol: The Policy Press. £23.99. pp. 286, pbk.

Contrapuntal Geographies: The Politics Of Organizing Across Sociospatial Difference, Noel Castree, David Featherstone, Andrew Herod

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This chapter is written against the background of two closely interlinked developments. The first is the increase in the number and type (or at least visibility) of transborder political movements this last decade or so, particularly during the years of what David Slater (2003: 84) calls 'the post-Seattle conjuncture'. The second is a sharp increase in geographical writing on these multifarious attempts to bridge sociospatial difference in order to challenge neo-liberal versions of 'globalization'. To oversimplify matters, we can say that this literature relates to two groups of space-spanning social actors: those associated with the labour movement (broadly conceived) and …

C. Coffin, Historical Discourse: The Language Of Time, Cause And Evaluation, Honglin Chen

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Published as part of the Discourse Studies series edited by Ken Hyland, Coffin's Historical Discourse provides a systematic, informative and insightful description of the nature of historical discourse, its function and role, and of its pedagogic potential in the context of secondary schools. The book draws on and expands the scholarship Coffin has developed over some ten years, which includes her work in the 'Write it Right' Project of the disadvantaged Schools Program (xiii), her PhD (Coffin 2000) and her later work on historical discourse (Coffin 2002; 2003; 2004). The book makes a significant contribution to understanding the value of …

Positive Association Between Plasma Homocysteine Level And Chronic Kidney Disease, Anoop Shankar, Jie Wang, Brian Chua, Elena Rochtchina, Victoria Flood, Paul Mitchell

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

BACKGROUND:

Increasing experimental evidence, including recently developed animal models, supports a role for homocysteine in the development of chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, relatively few clinical/epidemiological studies have examined this hypothesis in humans. We examined the relationship between plasma homocysteine level and CKD in a population-based study of older Australians.

METHODS:

Community-based study (1992-1994) among 2,609 individuals (58.6% women), aged 49-98 years, free of clinical cardiovascular disease in the Blue Mountains region, west of Sydney, Australia. The main outcome-of-interest was CKD (n = 461), defined as estimated glomerular filtration rate of <60 ml/min/1.73 m(2).

RESULTS:

Higher plasma homocysteine levels were positively associated with …