Education Commons^™

Aboriginal Research And Study Protocols, Dan Mcaullay, Colleen Hayward

Research outputs 2012

The Aboriginal Research and Study Protocols have been developed as a guide for ECU staff and students undertaking research, projects or fieldwork that involve Indigenous Australian issues, people or knowledge or that impact on Indigenous people or communities.

These protocols fulfil a strategic priority of ECU’s Reconciliation Action Plan: Develop clear and agreed protocols around Indigenous Australian research to ensure that research activity is informed by thorough cultural awareness and respect.

They also reflect the requirements of key documents that must be addressed by applicants as required by the ECU Human Research Ethics Committee. If the proposed project relates to …

Associations Between Insulin And Glucose Concentrations And Anthropometric Measures Of Fat Mass In Australian Adolescents, Elizabeth Denney-Wilson, Christopher T. Cowell, Anthony D. Okely, Louise L. Hardy, Robert Aitken, Timothy Dobbins

A. D. Okely

Background One of the most serious, yet common co-morbidities of obesity is insulin resistance, which if untreated may progress to type 2 diabetes. This paper describes the insulin and glucose concentration distributions, the prevalence of elevated insulin, the associations between insulin and body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) and fat mass index in a representative sample of Australian adolescents. Methods Cross-sectional population-based study of adolescent boys and girls (N = 496, mean age 15.3 years) attending schools in metropolitan Sydney, Australia. Fasting venous blood collected and analysed for insulin and glucose concentrations. Height, weight, waist circumference measured, …

Understanding The Design Context For Australian University Teachers: Implications For The Future Of Learning Design, Susan Bennett, Lisa Thomas, Shirley Agostinho, Lori Lockyer, Jennifer Jones, Barry Harper

Professor Lori Lockyer

Based on the premise that providing support for university teachers in designing for their teaching will ultimately improve the quality of student learning outcomes, recent interest in the development of support tools and strategies has gained momentum. This article reports on a study that examined the context in which Australian university teachers design in order to understand what role design support tools and strategies could play. In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 academics across 16 Australian universities. The findings suggest that most Australian university teachers have a high degree of flexibility in their design decisions suggesting that opportunities exist for …

A Randomized Controlled Trial Investigating The Effect Of Pycnogenol And Bacopa Cdri08 Herbal Medicines On Cognitive, Cardiovascular, And Biochemical Functioning In Cognitively Healthy Elderly People: The Australian Research Council Longevity Intervention (Arcli) Study Protocol (Anzctr12611000487910), Con K. Stough, Matthew P. Pase, Vanessa Cropley, Stephen P. Myers, Karen Nolidin, Rebecca King, David Camfield, Keith Wesnes, Andrew Pipingas, Kevin Croft, Dennis Chang, Andrew Scholey

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background One of the major challenges associated with our ageing population is the increasing incidence of age-associated cognitive decline, which has significant implications for an individual's ability to lead a productive and fulfilling life. In pure economic terms the costs of ageing reflects decreased productivity and engagement with the workforce. The maintenance of brain health underpinning intact cognition is a key factor to maintaining a positive, engaged, and productive lifestyle. In light of this, the role of diet, including supplementation with nutritional and even pharmacological interventions capable of ameliorating the neurocognitive changes that occur with age constitute vital areas of …

Does Targetted Assessment Of Function Influence Emergency Department Re-Poresentation In Older Adults: An Australian Insight, M Bissett, A Cusick

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the IFA 11th Global Conference on Ageing, 28 May-1 June 2012, Prague, Czech Republic

A Systematic Review To Update The Australian Physical Activity Guidelines For Children And Young People, Anthony D. Okely, Jo Salmon, Stewart Vella, Dylan Cliff, Anna Timperio, Mark Tremblay, Stewart Trost, Trevor Shilton, Trina Hinkley, Nicola Ridgers, Lyn Phillipson, Kylie Hesketh, Anne-Maree Parrish, Xanne Janssen, Mark Brown, Jeffrey Emmel, Nello Marino

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The objective of this review is to inform Australian Government policy on the relationship between physical activity (including the amount, frequency, intensity, duration, and type) and health outcome indicators, including the risk and prevention of chronic disease and unhealthy weight gain/obesity, and to provide information to guide evidence-based recommendations that can be used to encourage healthy, active living in apparently healthy children and young people aged 5-17 years, and as a basis for monitoring physical activity on a population level.

What Do Australian Consumers Think About Current Advertising Standards?, Sandra Carol Jones, Katherine Eagleton

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The concept of community standards is the cornerstone of advertising self-regulation in Australia. However, there is a dearth of research on current attitudes towards advertising and a virtual absence of such data in an Australian context. A questionnaire was developed to assess consumer attitudes towards advertising; respondents were 872 adults residing in New South Wales. We found high levels of concern regarding advertising standards in general and a consistent perception that advertising should not, for example, use coarse language or violent images, portray women or men as sex objects or show nudity, stereotype or make fun of groups of people, …

Knowledge About Language In The Australian Curriculum: English, Beverly Derewianka

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Somewhat surprisingly, an explicit knowledge about language has been often absent from English curricula. The new Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2012) has taken a fairly radical step in placing knowledge about language at the core of classroom practice, thereby raising the issue of an appropriate model of language to inform the Language Strand of the Curriculum. This paper will outline the rationale behind the Language Strand, and will then make explicit its underlying model of language. The paper thus provides a context for the ensuing articles in this Special Focus Issue of AJLL, which take up various concerns in relation …

The Role Of School Counsellors In Fostering Giftedness: The Australian Experience., Wilma Vialle

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

An African proverb that resonates strongly with educators is that "it takes a whole village to raise a child". The proverb has been the inspiration for at least two books (Cowen-Fletcher 1994; Rodham Clinton, 1996) and countless t-shirt and greeting card designs, but, more importantly, its sentiment acknowledges the collective responsibility we bear for educating our children. Franz Monks has dedicated his long academic career to the field of gifted education and his wide-ranging contributions have epitomized this shared responsibility for ensuring that the gifts and talents of our young people are nurtured. Like many educators who have interacted with …

Changes In Physical Activity Levels, Lesson Context, And Teacher Interaction During Physical Education In Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Australian Schools, Dean A. Dudley, Anthony D. Okely, Philip Pearson, Wayne G. Cotton, Peter Caputi

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background: Recent data show that only 15% of Australian adolescents participate in adequate amounts of physical activity (PA) and those students from Asian and Middle-Eastern backgrounds in Grades 6-12 are significantly less active than their English-speaking background peers. Schools have recently been recognised as the most widely used and cost-effective setting for promoting PA among youth and one domain within schools where PA can occur regularly for all youth, regardless of cultural background or socio-economic status, is during physical education (PE). Methods: This study describes changes in physical activity (PA), lesson context and teacher interaction in physical education over the …

Which To Become? Encountering Fungi In Australian Poetry, John Ryan

Research outputs 2012

As a largely unexplored group of organisms, fungi are ecologically complex members of the Australian biota. Fungi represent non-human alterity and interstitiality-neither animal not plant, beautiful yet evanescent, slimy and lethal, and eliding scientific categorisations. Donna Haraway's notion of "companion species" and Anna Tsing's "arts of inclusion" remind us that sensory entanglements are intrinsic to human-fungi relations. Drawing conceptually from Haraway and Tsing, this paper will examine examples of poetry from John Shaw Neilson, Jan Owen, Douglas Stewart, Geoffrey Dutton, Caroline Caddy, Michael Dransfield, Philip Hodgins, Jaime Grant and John Kinsella that represent sensory involvements with fungi based in smell, …