Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Misattribution Of Sensory Input Reflected In Dysfunctional Target: Non-Target Erps In Schizophrenia, K. Brown, E. Gordon, L. Williams, H. Bahramali, A. Harris, J. Gray, C. J. Gonsalvez, R. Meares

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background. While numerous studies have found disturbances in the Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) of patients with schizophrenia linked to task relevant target stimuli (most notably a reduction in P300 amplitude), few have examined ERPs to task irrelevant non-targets. We hypothesize, from current models of dysfunction in information processing in schizophrenia, that there will be less difference between ERPs to targets and non-targets in patients with schizophrenia than in controls.

Methods. EEGs were recorded for 40 subjects with schizophrenia and 40 age and sex matched controls during an auditory oddball reaction time task. ERPs to the targets and non-targets immediately preceding the …

Performance Measures, Benchmarking And Value, Felicity Mcgregor

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

[Extract] The announcement of the establishment of a Quality Audit Agency to evaluate the performance of universities, signalled an inevitable expansion of the incipient culture of measurement and evaluation in Australian universities. Those who consider that quality, and its associated tenets of measurement and evaluation are of dubious value, will be constrained to demonstrate goal achievement through whichever mechanisms are deemed appropriate by the Agency. Otherwise, they may face an uncertain funding future. Although the details of the audit process are not yet clear, there will be a single national body which will be responsible for overseeing independent external quality …

Improving Teaching And Learning Through Formative Evaluation: Using A Customised Online Tool To Collect Student Feedback, Robert M. Corderoy, Ray Stace, Sandra Wills, A. Ip

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

Good teachers spend time reflecting on their teaching practice. What is working, what isn't - and more importantly, why is or isn’t it? Such reflection is an essential component of maintaining and improving both teaching practice and the learning outcomes for students. Changes in current teaching practice towards more flexible teaching and learning environments and especially towards more student-centred online environments make this an even more important process. To answer this kind of question requires data which reflect the student's viewpoint on the teaching process and the time to collect and analyse it. As the subject itself is more and …

Investors In People, Felicity Mcgregor

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

The University of Wollongong Library is the first library in Australia to be awarded the Investors in People (IiP) standard. IiP is an internationally recognised standard concerned with achieving best practice in the management and development of people to achieve organisational goals, together with a framework for ongoing evaluation and improvement. The standard originated in the United Kingdom and is administered in Australia by NCSI (NATA Certification Services International). The award was presented by the chief executive officer of NCSI, Sue Chapman at a ceremony on 25 February 2000, attended by the University's vice-chancellor, Professor Gerard Sutton, the pro vice-chancellor …

A State Of Ambivalence: Feminism And A Singaporean Women’S Organisation, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

There has been some interest in recent years in identifying the features or characteristics of an ‘Asian’ or ‘Third-World’ feminism (Moraga and Anzaldua 1983; Jayawardena 1986; Grewal et al. 1988; Mohanty 1991; Basu 1995; Alexander and Mohanty 1997). Part of this concern has focused on a costs-benefits analysis of Asian women ‘coming out’ as feminists in overtly hostile political climates. For many women embracing the identity ‘feminist’ continues to be a difficult process. Caught within multiple and shifting discourses that serve to inscribe place, allegiance and behaviour, being a feminist is not only an expression of individual political belief, but …

The Decline Of Ethics Or The Failure Of Self-Regulation? The Case Of Alcohol Advertising, Sandra C. Jones

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Restrictions on alcohol advertising have increasingly become an issue for debate around the world. Some countries rely on governmental regulation; whereas others, including Australia, utilise a system of industry selfregulation. This study calls into question the effectiveness of the alcohol beverage industry’s self-regulation of advertising. Between May 1998 and April 1999, 11 alcohol advertising complaints (relating to nine separate advertisements) were lodged with the Advertising Standards Board (ASB) by members of the general public. In the present study, five expert judges were selected to review these complaints, without knowing the ASB’s rulings, and to judge whether the advertisement(s) breached any …

Evaluation Of The Helping Hands Volunteer Program For People With Mental Illness, Judy A. Pickard, Frank P. Deane

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Volunteer programs have been used to alter attitudes, provide long-term knowledge towards mental illness and increase the quality of life of consumers receiving volunteer services. Sixteen volunteers completed an 18-hour training program and in pairs worked with 11 consumers over 4 months. Sixteen volunteers completed training measures of knowledge and attitudes scales. Pre and post program quality of life and behavioural functioning measures were taken on 5 consumers. Volunteers maintained their knowledge of mental illness over 6 months and had significant increases in their comfort in interactions with people who have mental illness. Case managers, consumers and volunteers all reported …

Managing Technological Change And University Teaching, Sandra Wills, S. Alexander

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

Current economic and political climates, together with the need to provide more flexible learning opportunities for students, has resulted in unprecedented pressure on education to use information and communications technologies (CIT) as a way of coping with these pressures, without decreasing the quality of offerings.

This chapter reviews the introduction of technology in teaching and learning in higher education from the theoretical perspective of the MIT90s framework developed in Yetton et al (1997), drawing upon case studies of the introduction of technology in teaching and learning in two institutions, and a study of the outcomes of a national initiative to …

History And Heritage: Change And Adaptation, Michael K. Organ

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

Nestled at the base of the Illawarra Escarpment, in the shadow of Mount Keira and Bert Flugelman's winged monument to flight, the University of Wollongong central campus is constantly reminded of the power of nature and the unique sense of place which exists in this most picturesque part of Australia. Located at a geographical point of convergence between the mountains and the sea, nature is everywhere and obvious, despite the ever encroaching evidence of man and machine. As a seat of learning and focus for research and the implementation of new technologies in the 21st century, the University of Wollongong …

Investing In People To Develop The Ideal Culture, Margie H. Jantti

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

While technical skills and professional qualifications will continue to play an important role in the identification and selection of people to join our organisations, the development of life-long learning skills will be the corner-stone of an organisation’s ongoing success and capacity to develop and adapt in a constantly shifting market place. Change is the only constant is the catch phrase of the moment. In a climate of ever-accelerating, and often overwhelming change, the ability of individuals to develop suites of skills and knowledge that promote flexibility, innovation and creativity will be a key determinant of an organisation’s future success or …

A Systemic Approach To Working With Academic Staff: Addressing The Confusion At The Source, Alisa Percy, Jan Skillen

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

The role of the learning adviser in the tertiary context could be argued to be in a period of transformation with the changing culture of modern universities. While in many respects we are still attempting to develop an appropriate and comprehensive definition of our role at the national level, the approach we take is often dependent on our university’s organisation, philosophy and policy. In response to a number of educational and economic factors, in some universities the role of the learning adviser is moving from one that operates in the remedial mode focusing solely on student skills development, to one …

Building Online Essay Writing Support Tools, Cath Ellis, Alisa Percy

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

The English Studies Program at the University of Wollongong, with support from staff in the library and Learning Development, has linked together a series of learning support tools for use in their 100-level subjects. These tools — an online research and citation skills assessment task and an essay and quiz writing study guide — harness the world wide web as a means of augmenting and enhancing student learning at an undergraduate level. Each of these tools is flexibly delivered, student centred and curriculum integrated. This project is part of a broader initiative in the English Studies Program to develop an …

Complementary Pedagogical Strategies For Online Design, Sandra Wills, Albert Ip, Adair Bunnett

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

The First Fleet Convict Database has had a 20 year journey as an exemplar of educational software, published first on mainframe, then microcomputer, and now the web. We describe how the nature of the web environment has changed the nature of this educational package. Pedagogically, databases of primary source data provide students with a learning experience based on the inquiry learning model however, observations of students and teachers in the past 20 years have indicated that database searching is shallow and investigation perfunctory. Before, we could have blamed unwieldy search engines. Now that this obstacle appears to have been removed, …

Flexible Learning At The Crossroads: Are Our Teachers Ready?, Sandra Wills

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

This paper reflects on managing technological change in teaching and learning, with particular emphasis on staff development. It draws on two national reports in Australia. One report team interviewed senior management in 50% of Australian universities (Wills and Yetton, 1997). The other reviewed 104 nationally funded IT based teaching projects (Alexander et al, 1998). Both make recommendations that have implications for staff development. A number of staff development case studies are described, most practising what they preach by adopting flexible learning techniques in order to teach teachers by example about flexible learning: Project LEAD, Teaching at a Distance, Flexible Delivery …

Subject Online Survey (Sos): An Online Tool To Support Improvement In Teaching And Learning, Robert M. Corderoy, Raymond J. Stace, Sandra Wills, Albert Ip

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

Traditionally, data relating to the conduct of subjects at the University of Wollongong has been collected for teachers with one main purpose in mind: to provide the teacher with supporting information as to their teaching ability for the purposes of promotion. SOS is a web based system which teachers can use to author customised surveys to collect information about the subject they teach. These surveys are completed anonymously by the students via the web (using randomly generated, survey specific numeric tokens) and the data is automatically collated and returned to the teacher. The teacher may also produce the surveys in …

Academic Standards Versus Disability Rights, Richard Gosden, Gregory R. Hampton

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

A simmering controversy has been running in the United states since 1995 over the perceived conflict between the maintenance of academic standards and the rights of disabled university students. Recent developments are set to raise the same issue in Australian universities. The first of these developments is the shift in the emphasis of academic standards with the implementation of the Generic Skills Assessment (GSA) program. The second is the release of draft disability standards for education to streamline enforcement of the Commonwealth's Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). The DDA protects disabled people against discrimination in education. Amongst the many types of …

Telling Stories: Text Analysis In A Museum, Emily Rose Purser

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

Museum texts tell interesting stories, and their role in public education makes them quite important. The exhibition discussed in this paper gives a message that interests, but also concerns me, as a teacher of language, communication and cultural studies. It is a case of one culture telling stories about another, and in such a delicate arena there is much potential to cause offence. The exhibition in question is about peoples of the Pacific, and is in a major European museum of the world's indigenous cultures (BerlinDahlem). I had visited it to see how Australian cultures are represented in image and …

Costing The Earth: Equity, Sustainable Development And Environmental Economics, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The ethical principle of equity, particularly intergenerational equity, is central to the concept of sustainable development. Yet governments all over the world are adopting sustainable development policies that reinforce existing inequities and create new ones. These policies have been strongly influenced by environmental economists of the neoclassical school. They involve monetary valuation of the environment and the use of financial incentives aimed at using market mechanisms to allocate scarce environmental resources. However these policies tend to remove decision-making power from the community and cause some sections of the community to bear more than their fair share of environmental burdens

The Role Of Technology In Sustainable Development, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Disrupting The Center: Interrogating An ‘Asian Feminist’ Identity, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The problem of ‘difference’ has emerged as a significant issue in western feminist theory making during the past two decades. In response to claims that mainstream feminism has ignored the lives and voices of third world women and women of colour, attention has increasingly been placed on the ways in which class and ‘race’ intersect in the everyday lived experiences of women. This work has sought to displace the hegemonic control of white, western women in the production of feminist knowledge. Despite a growing body of literature on women’s movements throughout the Asian region, however, common-sense perceptions of Asian ‘submissiveness’ …

The Limits Of Feminist Political Intervention In Singapore, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

In recent years increasing attention has focused on the Singapore government’s new attitude towards limited public participation in civil society. The women’s rights organisation the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) is one example of a nongovernment organisation (NGO) that is directly engaged in this newly emerging ‘civic’ society. AWARE’s activities are constrained, however, by a state demand that its objectives remain overtly ‘non-political’ and reformist in character. This has led some observers to comment that as a state-defined practice, feminism in Singapore is unable to address issues of structural inequality and difference.

Private Desires, Public Pleasures: Community And Identity In A Postmodern World, Anthony Ashbolt

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

As George Orwell, Herbert Marcuse and, more recently John Ralston Saul have argued, language can be a key mechanism whereby social reality is blurred, camouflaged or distorted (Orwell 1957: 143-57; MarcuseI972: 78-103; Saul 1997: 41-75). Slogans, buzzwords and words blatantly misused permeate contemporary discourse. Just as the advertising industry can take a word like 'freedom' and render it a commodity, so too politicians and journalists can take a word like 'reform; and strip it of meaning. We are told, for example, of the reforms of the Kennett government in Victoria. Closing hospitals and schools and wrecking the industrial relations system …

Home Invasion: Television, Identity And Belonging In Sydney's Western Suburbs, Tanja Dreher

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Television occupies a central place in most Australian homes, and 'TV talk' is an important process in negotiations of individual and group identities (Gillespie. 1995). TV is the focus of many private, family interactions. As a 'window on the world', television is also a primary source of information about public life. Thus TV is deeply implicated both in interactions within the home, and in our understandings of the wider 'home' of the nation. This paper draws on discussions with diverse community groups in and around Cabramatta to explore the crucial role of TV in negotiations of 'home' and 'belonging' in …

Global-Perspective Jitter Improves Vection In Central Vision, Stephen A. Palmisano, Barbara Gillam, Shane Blackburn

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Previous vection research has tended to minimise visual - vestibular conflict by using optic-flow patterns which simulate self-motions of constant velocity. Here, experiments are reported on the effect of adding 'global-perspective jitter' to these displays -- simulating forward motion of the observer on a platform oscillating in horizontal and/or vertical dimensions. Unlike non-jittering displays, jittering displays produced a situation of sustained visual - vestibular conflict. Contrary to the prevailing notion that visual - vestibular conflict impairs vection, jittering optic flow was found to produce shorter vection onsets and longer vection durations than non-jittering optic flow for all of jitter magnitudes …

(De)Constructing The Interview: A Critique Of The Participatory Method, Lenore T. Lyons, J. Chipperfield

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Feminist approaches to the use of interviewing emphasise the importance of building rapport with respondents in order to achieve a successful research outcome. This ‘participatory model’ is concerned with addressing power differentials between researcher and researched and thus producing non-hierarchical, non-manipulative research relationships. We argue that the continued centring of rapport as a key interview strategy ignores both the nature of power relationships within the interview, as well as interviewee subjectivity. Drawing on our own experiences of interviewing we examine the ways in which both interviewer and interviewee are placed along intersecting axes of power. An analysis of the complex …

Use Of Self-Report To Monitor Overweight And Obesity In Populations: Some Issues For Consideration, Victoria M. Flood, Karen Webb, Ross Lazarus, Glen Pang

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective: To examine the validity of self reported height and weight data reported over the telephone in the 1997 NSW Health Survey, and to determine its accuracy to monitor overweight and obesity in population surveys. Method: Self-reported and measured heights and weights were collected from 227 people living in Western Sydney, who had participated in the NSW Health Survey 1997. Results: Self-reported (SR) weights and heights led to misclassification of relative weight status. BMI, based on measured weights and heights, classified 62% of males and 47% of females as overweight or obese, compared with 39% and 32%, respectively, from self-report. …

Not The M-Word Again: Rhetoric And Silence In Recent Multiculturalism Debates, Wenche Ommundsen

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of: Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon In World Culture, Brian M. Yecies

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Book Review, Richard Utz And Tom Shippey (Eds), Medievalism And The Modern World: Essays In Honour Of Leslie Workman, Louise D'Arcens

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

As an area of enquiry, the academic study of medievalism has seemed constitutionally, and indeed institutionally, marginal. Neither fish nor fowl, its interdisciplinarity has long consigned it in the eyes of many medievalists to the shadowy realm of para-disciplinarity, seemingly doomed to the task of merely commenting on the work of others. In recent years, however, Anglophone medieval studies has witnessed the growing momentum of what might be called a "medievalist turn". The emergence of numerous studies of the historical and political forces buttressing the emergence of the discipline, along with the biographical studies of Helen Damico and Norman Cantor, …

Diet Composition And Insulin Action In Animal Models, Leonard H. Storlien, J Higgins, T C. Thomas, Marc A. Brown, Hong-Qin Wang, Xu-Feng Huang, Paul Else

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.