Assessment for learning - Why the theory needs the practice

Assessment for Learning is a pedagogical practice with anticipated gains of increased student motivation, mastery and autonomy as learners develop their capacity to monitor and plan their own learning progress. Assessment for Learning (AfL) differs from Assessment of learning in its timing, occurring within the regular flow of learning rather than end point, in its purpose of improving student learning rather than summative grading and in the ownership of the learning where the student voice is heard in judging quality. Since Black and Wiliam (1998) highlighted the achievement gains that AfL practices seem to bring to all learners in classrooms, it has become part of current educational policy discourse in Australia, yet teacher adoption of the practices is not a straightforward implementation of techniques within an existing classroom repertoire. As can be seen from the following meta-analysis, recent research highlights a more complex interrelationship between teacher and student beliefs about learning and assessment, and the social and cultural interactions in and contexts of the classroom. More research is needed from a sociocultural perspective that allows meaning to emerge from practice. Before another policy push, we need to understand better the many factors within the assessment relationship. We need to hear from teachers and students through long-term AfL case studies both to inform AfL theory and to shed light on the complexities of pedagogical change for enhancing learner autonomy.

Within and without family in the Icelandic sagas

The Icelandic sagas reflect a deep social interest in the nature of family obligations. Narrative tension and drama often result from carefully plotted increases in competition between families,while considerable space is given over to family biographies and genealogical information. As a result, the saga authors’ conception of the historical seems closely bound to a desire to represent family life. In Gísla saga Súrssonar and Íslendinga saga, the representation of family life extends to the situation of internal family conflicts, when the strict ethical codes underpinning the centrality of family obligations seem to be complicated and perhaps even threatened by characters’ formation of stronger bonds outside the family. The portrayal of internal family conflicts in these two sagas enabled the authors to express complex and often conflicting ethical issues.

Drinking and driving in Vietnam : perceptions and risk

Road traffic injuries are a major global public health problem but continue to receive inadequate attention. Alcohol influences both risk and consequence of road traffic injury but the scale of the problem is not well understood in many countries. In Vietnam, economic development has brought a substantial increase in the number of registered motorcycles as well as alcohol consumption. Traffic injury is among the leading causes of death in Vietnam but there is little local information regarding alcohol related traffic injuries. The primary goal of this study is to explore the drinking and driving patterns of males and their perceptions towards drink-driving and to determine the relationship between alcohol consumption and road traffic injuries. Furthermore, this thesis aims to present the situation analysis for choosing priority actions to reduce drinking and driving in Vietnam. The study is a combination of two cross-sectional surveys and a pilot study. The pilot study, involving 224 traffic injured patients, was conducted to test the tools and the feasibility of approach methods. In the first survey, male patrons (n=464) were randomly selected at seven restaurants. Face-to-face interviews were conducted when patrons just arrived and breath tests were collected when they were about to leave the restaurant. In the second survey, male patients admitted to hospital following a traffic injury (n=480, of which 414 were motorcycle or bicycle riders) were interviewed and their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) measured by breathalyzer. The results show broadly similar patterns of drinking and driving among male patrons and male traffic injured patients with a high frequency of drinking and drink-driving reported among the majority of the two groups. A high proportion of male patrons were leaving restaurants with a BAC over the legal limit. Factors that significantly associate with the number of drinks and BAC were age, hazardous drinking, frequency of drink-driving in the past year, self-estimated number of drinks consumed to drive legally, perceived family’s disapproval of drink-driving, and perceived legal risk and physical risk. The proportion of patrons and patients with BAC above the legal limit of 0.05 were 86.7% and 60.4% respectively, which was much higher than found in previous studies. In addition, both groups had a high prevalence of BAC over 0.15g/100ml (39.7% of patrons and 45.6% patients), a level that can seriously affect driving capacity. Results from the case-crossover analysis for patients indicate a dose-response relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of traffic injury. The risk of traffic injury increased when alcohol was consumed before driving and there was a more than 13 fold increase when six or more drinks were consumed. Regarding perceptions towards drinking and driving, findings corroborate the low awareness among males in Vietnam, with a majority of respondents holding a low knowledge of safe and legally permissible alcohol use, and a low perceived risk of drinking and driving. The results also indicate a huge gap in prevention skills in terms of planning ahead or using alternative transport to avoid drink-driving and a perception by patrons and patients of a low rate of disapproval of drink-driving from peers and family. Findings in this study have considerable implications for national policy, injury prevention, clinical practice, reporting systems, and for further research. The low rate of compliance with existing laws and a generally low perceived legal risk toward drink-driving in this study call for the strengthening of enforcement along with mass media campaigns and news coverage in order to decrease the widespread perception of impunity and thereby, to reduce the level of drink-driving. In addition, no significant difference was found in this study on risk of traffic injuries between car drivers and motorcycle drivers. The current inconsistency between legal BAC for drivers of motorcycles, compared to cars, thus needs addressing. Furthermore, as drinking was found to be very common, rather than solely targeting drink-driving, it is important to call for a more strategic and comprehensive approach to alcohol policy in Viet Nam. This study also has considerable implications for clinical practice in terms of screening and brief interventions. Our study suggests that the short form of the AUDIT (AUDIT-C) screening tool is appropriate for use in busy emergency departments. The high proportion of traffic injured patients with evidence of alcohol abuse or hazardous drinking suggests that brief interventions by alcohol and drug counselors in emergency departments are a sensible option to addressing this important problem. The significance of this study is in the combination of the systematic collection of breath test and use of case-crossover design to estimate the risk of traffic injuries after alcohol consumption. The results provide convincing evidence to policy makers, health authorities and the media to help raise community awareness and policy advocacy toward the drinkdriving problem in Vietnam. The findings suggest an urgent need for a multi-sectoral approach to curtail drink-driving in Vietnam, especially programs to raise community awareness and effective legal enforcement. Furthermore, serving as a situation analysis, the thesis should inform the formulation of interventions designed to curtail drinking and driving in Vietnam and other developing countries.

Using participatory action research in a community-based initiative addressing complex mental health needs

Objective: This paper describes the first phase of a larger project that utilizes participatory action research to examine complex mental health needs across an extensive group of stakeholders in the community. Method: Within an objective qualitative analysis of focus group discussions the social ecological model is utilized to explore how integrative activities can be informed, planned and implemented across multiple elements and levels of a system. Seventy-one primary care workers, managers, policy-makers, consumers and carers from across the southern metropolitan and Gippsland regions of Victoria, Australia took part in seven focus groups. All groups responded to an identical set of focusing questions. Results: Participants produced an explanatory model describing the service system, as it relates to people with complex needs, across the levels of social ecological analysis. Qualitative themes analysis identified four priority areas to be addressed in order to improve the system's capacity for working with complexity. These included: (i) system fragmentation; (ii) integrative case management practices; (iii) community attitudes; and (iv) money and resources. Conclusions: The emergent themes provide clues as to how complexity is constructed and interpreted across the system of involved agencies and interest groups. The implications these findings have for the development and evaluation of this community capacity-building project were examined from the perspective of constructing interventions that address both top-down and bottom-up processes.

Adolescent experiences of 'family meals' in Australia

Popular discourse laments the decline of the ‘family meal’, leading to family fragmentation and nutritional compromise. This article reports findings of a study investigating beliefs and practices surrounding the ‘family meal’, using data drawn from an on-line survey completed by 625 adolescents in Perth, Western Australia. The results challenge current concerns about the loss of the ‘family meal’, demonstrating that, for a majority, meals are eaten together rather than in isolation; are home-made rather than store bought or fast food; and are sites of conversation regardless of the presence of a television. Adolescents are divided, however, on the value of the ‘family meal’, with half seeing it as a positive experience of family togetherness and half regarding it negatively or as unimportant. The findings go some way to dispelling the notion that the ‘family meal’ no longer exists in Australia.

The evidence-based development of an intervention to address the information needs of adults newly diagnosed with primary brain tumours and their carers

Adults diagnosed with primary brain tumours often experience physical, cognitive and neuropsychiatric impairments and decline in quality of life. Although disease and treatment-related information is commonly provided to cancer patients and carers, newly diagnosed brain tumour patients and their carers report unmet information needs. Few interventions have been designed or proven to address these information needs. Accordingly, a three-study research program, that incorporated both qualitative and quantitative research methods, was designed to: 1) identify and select an intervention to improve the provision of information, and meet the needs of patients with a brain tumour; 2) use an evidence-based approach to establish the content, language and format for the intervention; and 3) assess the acceptability of the intervention, and the feasibility of evaluation, with newly diagnosed brain tumour patients. Study 1: Structured concept mapping techniques were undertaken with 30 health professionals, who identified strategies or items for improving care, and rated each of 42 items for importance, feasibility, and the extent to which such care was provided. Participants also provided data to interpret the relationship between items, which were translated into ‘maps’ of relationships between information and other aspects of health care using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis. Results were discussed by participants in small groups and individual interviews to understand the ratings, and facilitators and barriers to implementation. A care coordinator was rated as the most important strategy by health professionals. Two items directly related to information provision were also seen as highly important: "information to enable the patient or carer to ask questions" and "for doctors to encourage patients to ask questions". Qualitative analyses revealed that information provision was individualised, depending on patients’ information needs and preferences, demographic variables and distress, the characteristics of health professionals who provide information, the relationship between the individual patient and health professional, and influenced by the fragmented nature of the health care system. Based on quantitative and qualitative findings, a brain tumour specific question prompt list (QPL) was chosen for development and feasibility testing. A QPL consists of a list of questions that patients and carers may want to ask their doctors. It is designed to encourage the asking of questions in the medical consultation, allowing patients to control the content, and amount of information provided by health professionals. Study 2: The initial structure and content of the brain tumour specific QPL developed was based upon thematic analyses of 1) patient materials for brain tumour patients, 2) QPLs designed for other patient populations, and 3) clinical practice guidelines for the psychosocial care of glioma patients. An iterative process of review and refinement of content was undertaken via telephone interviews with a convenience sample of 18 patients and/or carers. Successive drafts of QPLs were sent to patients and carers and changes made until no new topics or suggestions arose in four successive interviews (saturation). Once QPL content was established, readability analyses and redrafting were conducted to achieve a sixth-grade reading level. The draft QPL was also reviewed by eight health professionals, and shortened and modified based on their feedback. Professional design of the QPL was conducted and sent to patients and carers for further review. The final QPL contained questions in seven colour-coded sections: 1) diagnosis; 2) prognosis; 3) symptoms and problems; 4) treatment; 5) support; 6) after treatment finishes; and 7) the health professional team. Study 3: A feasibility study was conducted to determine the acceptability of the QPL and the appropriateness of methods, to inform a potential future randomised trial to evaluate its effectiveness. A pre-test post-test design was used with a nonrandomised control group. The control group was provided with ‘standard information’, the intervention group with ‘standard information’ plus the QPL. The primary outcome measure was acceptability of the QPL to participants. Twenty patients from four hospitals were recruited a median of 1 month (range 0-46 months) after diagnosis, and 17 completed baseline and follow-up interviews. Six participants would have preferred to receive the information booklet (standard information or QPL) at a different time, most commonly at diagnosis. Seven participants reported on the acceptability of the QPL: all said that the QPL was helpful, and that it contained questions that were useful to them; six said it made it easier to ask questions. Compared with control group participants’ ratings of ‘standard information’, QPL group participants’ views of the QPL were more positive; the QPL had been read more times, was less likely to be reported as ‘overwhelming’ to read, and was more likely to prompt participants to ask questions of their health professionals. The results from the three studies of this research program add to the body of literature on information provision for brain tumour patients. Together, these studies suggest that a QPL may be appropriate for the neuro-oncology setting and acceptable to patients. The QPL aims to assist patients to express their information needs, enabling health professionals to better provide the type and amount of information that patients need to prepare for treatment and the future. This may help health professionals meet the challenge of giving patients sufficient information, without providing ‘too much’ or ‘unnecessary’ information, or taking away hope. Future studies with rigorous designs are now needed to determine the effectiveness of the QPL.

Parental experience of childhood cancer using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Whilst survival rates for childhood cancer have improved dramatically over the past three decades, it is still a devastating diagnosis for family members and an illness which severely disrupts the lifestyle of the family unit. Developing an understanding of the impact of the illness on the family is crucial to better support families’ deal with the demands of the illness. In this study 9 families in which a child was diagnosed with cancer were interviewed twice over a 12 month period, approximately 6 months apart. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), a semi-structured interview was used to explicate parent’s experience of childhood cancer. The results revealed 5 super ordinate themes; (1) a pivotal moment in time, (2) the experience of adaptation in relation to having a sick child, (3) the nature of support, (4) re-evaluation of values during a critical life experience and (5) the experience of optimism and altruism. Findings indicate that parents express both negative and positive experiences as they re-evaluate the meaning and purpose of life, seek to redefine themselves, often in terms of priorities, relationships, sense of community, and achieve degrees of optimism and altruism. Implications for addressing the needs of parents and for further research are discussed.

Caregiving experience and its influencing factors : rural versus urban adult-child caregivers caring for parents with dementia in China

Background: It is predicted that China will have the largest number of cases of dementia in the world by 2025 (Ferri et al., 2005). Research has demonstrated that caring for family members with dementia can be a long-term, burdensome activity resulting in physical and emotional distress and impairment (Pinquart & Sorensen, 2003b). The establishment of family caregiver supportive services in China can be considered urgent; and the knowledge of the caregiving experience and related influencing factors is necessary to inform such services. Nevertheless, in the context of rapid demographic and socioeconomic change, the impact of caregiving for rural and urban Chinese adult-child caregivers may be different, and different needs in supportive services may therefore be expected. Objectives: The aims of this research were 1) to examine the potential differences existing in the caregiving experience between rural and urban adult-child caregivers caring for parents with dementia in China; and 2) to examine the potential differences existing in the influencing factors of the caregiving experience for rural as compared with urban adult-child caregivers caring for parents with dementia in China. Based on the literature review and Kramer.s (1997) caregiver adaptation model, six concepts and their relationships of caregiving experience were studied: severity of the care receivers. dementia, caregivers. appraisal of role strain and role gain, negative and positive well-being outcomes, and health related quality of life. Furthermore, four influencing factors (i.e., filial piety, social support, resilience, and personal mastery) were studied respectively. Methods: A cross-sectional, comparative design was used to achieve the aims of the study. A questionnaire, which was designed based on the literature review and on Kramer.s (1997) caregiver adaptation model, was completed by 401 adult-child caregivers caring for their parents with dementia from the mental health outpatient departments in five hospitals in the Yunnan province, P.R. China. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed as the main statistical technique for data analyses. Other statistical techniques (e.g., t-tests and Chi-Square tests) were also conducted to compare the demographic characteristics and the measured variables between rural and urban groups. Results: For the first research aim, the results indicated that urban adult-child caregivers in China experienced significantly greater strain and negative well-being outcomes than their rural peers; whereas, the difference on the appraisal of role gain and positive outcomes was nonsignificant between the two groups. The results also indicated that the amounts of severity of care receivers. dementia and caregivers. health related quality of life do not have the same meanings between the two groups. Thus, the levels of these two concepts were not comparable between the rural and urban groups in this study. Moreover, the results also demonstrated that the negative direct effect of gain on negative outcomes in urban caregivers was stronger than that in rural caregivers, suggesting that the urban caregivers tended to use appraisal of role gain to protect themselves from negative well-being outcomes to a greater extent. In addition, the unexplained variance in strain in the urban group was significantly more than that in the rural group, suggesting that there were other unmeasured variables besides the severity of care receivers. dementia which would predict strain in urban caregivers compared with their rural peers. For the second research aim, the results demonstrated that rural adult-child caregivers reported a significantly higher level of filial piety and more social support than their urban counterparts, although the two groups did not significantly differ on the levels of their resilience and personal mastery. Furthermore, although the mediation effects of these four influencing factors on both positive and negative aspects remained constant across rural and urban adult-child caregivers, urban caregivers tended to be more effective in using personal mastery to protect themselves from role strain than rural caregivers, which in turn protects them more from the negative well-being outcomes than was the case with their rural peers. Conclusions: The study extends the application of Kramer.s caregiving adaptation process model (Kramer, 1997) to a sample of adult-child caregivers in China by demonstrating that both positive and negative aspects of caregiving may impact on the caregiver.s health related quality of life, suggesting that both aspects should be targeted in supportive interventions for Chinese family caregivers. Moreover, by demonstrating partial mediation effects, the study provides four influencing factors (i.e., filial piety, social support, resilience, and personal mastery) as specific targets for clinical interventions. Furthermore, the study found evidence that urban adult-child caregivers had more negative but similar positive experience compared to their rural peers, suggesting that the establishment of supportive services for urban caregivers may be more urgent at present stage in China. Additionally, since urban caregivers tended to use appraisal of role gain and personal mastery to protect themselves from negative well-being outcomes than rural caregivers to a greater extend, interventions targeting utility of gain or/and personal mastery to decrease negative outcomes might be more effective in urban caregivers than in rural caregivers. On the other hand, as cultural expectations and expression of filial piety tend to be more traditional in rural areas, interventions targeting filial piety could be more effective among rural caregivers. Last but not least, as rural adult-child caregivers have more existing natural social support than their urban counterparts, mobilising existing natural social support resources may be more beneficial for rural caregivers, whereas, formal supports (e.g., counselling services, support groups and adult day care centres) should be enhanced for urban caregivers.

The effectiveness of a short-term group music therapy intervention for young parents and their children

The quality of early life experiences are known to influence a child’s capacities for emotional, social, cognitive and physical competence throughout their life (Peterson, 1996; Zubrick et al., 2008). These early life experiences are directly affected by parenting and family environments. A lack of positive parenting has significant implications both for children, and the broader communities in which they live (Davies & Cummings, 1994; Dryfoos, 1990; Sanders, 1995). Young parents are known to be at risk of experiencing adverse circumstances that affect their ability to provide positive parenting to their children (Milan et al., 2004; Trad, 1995). There is a need to provide parenting support programs to young parents that offer opportunities for them to come together, support each other and learn ways to provide for their children’s developmental needs in a friendly, engaging and non-judgemental environment. This research project examines the effectiveness of a 10 week group music therapy program Sing & Grow as an early parenting intervention for 535 young parents. Sing & Grow is a national early parenting intervention program funded by the Australian Government and delivered by Playgroup Queensland. It is designed and delivered by Registered Music Therapists for families at risk of marginalisation with children aged from birth to three years. The aim of the program is to improve parenting skills and parent-child interactions, and increase social support networks through participation in a group that is strengths-based and structured in a way that lends itself to modelling, peer learning and facilitated learning. During the 10 weeks parents have opportunities to learn practical, hands-on ways to interact and play with their children that are conducive to positive parent-child relationships and ongoing child development. A range of interactive, nurturing, stimulating and developmental music activities provide the framework for parents to interact and play with their children. This research uses data collected through the Sing & Grow National Evaluation Study to examine outcomes for all participants aged 25 years and younger, who attended programs during the Sing & Grow pilot study and main study from mid-2005 to the end of 2007. The research examines the change from pre to post in self-reported parent behaviours, parent mental health and parent social support, and therapist observed parent-child interactions. A range of statistical analyses are used to address each Research Objective for the young parent population, and for subgroups within this population. Research Objective 1 explored the patterns of attendance in the Sing & Grow program for young parents, and for subgroups within this population. Results showed that levels of attendance were lower than expected and influenced by Indigenous status and source of family income. Patterns of attendance showed a decline over time and incomplete data rates were high which may indicate high dropout rates. Research Objective 2 explored perceived satisfaction, benefits and social support links made. Satisfaction levels with the program and staff were very high. Indigenous status was associated with lower levels of reported satisfaction with both the program and staff. Perceived benefits from participation in the program were very high. Employment status was associated with perceived benefits: parents who were not employed were more likely than employed parents to report that their understanding of child development had increased as a result of participation in the program. Social support connections were reported for participants with other professionals, services and parents. In particular, families were more likely to link up with playgroup staff and services. Those parents who attended six or more sessions were significantly more likely to attend a playgroup than those who attended five sessions or less. Social support connections were related to source of family income, level of education, Indigenous status and language background. Research Objective 3 investigated pre to post change on self-report parenting skills and parent mental health. Results indicated that participation in the Sing & Grow program was associated with improvements in parent mental health. No improvements were found for self-reported parenting skills. Research Objective 4 investigated pre to post change in therapist observation measures of parent-child interactions. Results indicated that participation in the Sing & Grow program was associated with large and significant improvements in parent sensitivity to, engagement with and acceptance of the child. There were significant interactions across time (pre to post) for the parent characteristics of Indigenous status, family income and level of education. Research Objective 5 explored the relationship between the number of sessions attended and extent of change on self-report outcomes and therapist observed outcomes, respectively. For each, an overall change score was devised to ascertain those parents who had made any positive changes over time. Results showed that there was no significant relationship between high attendance and positive change in either the self-report or therapist observed behavioural measures. A risk index was also constructed to test for a relationship between the risk status of the parent. Parents with the highest risk status were significantly more likely to attend six or more sessions than other parents, but risk status was not associated with any differences in parent reported outcomes or therapist observations. The results of this research study indicate that Sing & Grow is effective in improving outcomes for young parents’ mental health, parent-child interactions and social support connections. High attendance by families in the highest category for risk factors may indicate that the program is effective at engaging and retaining parents who are most at-risk and therefore traditionally hard to reach. Very high levels of satisfaction and perceived benefits support this. Further research is required to help confirm the promising evidence from the current study that a short term group music therapy program can support young parents and improve their parenting outcomes. In particular, this needs to address the more disappointing outcomes of the current research study to improve attendance and engagement of all young parents in the program and especially the needs of young Indigenous parents.

Characterisation of the TaNF-Y family of transcription factors in wheat

Light plays a unique role for plants as it is both a source of energy for growth and a signal for development. Light captured by the pigments in the light harvesting complexes is used to drive the synthesis of the chemical energy required for carbon assimilation. The light perceived by photoreceptors activates effectors, such as transcription factors (TFs), which modulate the expression of light-responsive genes. Recently, it has been speculated that increasing the photosynthetic rate could further improve the yield potential of three carbon (C3) crops such as wheat. However, little is currently known about the transcriptional regulation of photosynthesis genes, particularly in crop species. Nuclear factor Y (NF-Y) TF is a functionally diverse regulator of growth and development in the model plant species, with demonstrated roles in embryo development, stress response, flowering time and chloroplast biogenesis. Furthermore, a light-responsive NF-Y binding site (CCAAT-box) is present in the promoter of a spinach photosynthesis gene. As photosynthesis genes are co-regulated by light and co-regulated genes typically have similar regulatory elements in their promoters, it seems likely that other photosynthesis genes would also have light-responsive CCAAT-boxes. This provided the impetus to investigate the NF-Y TF in bread wheat. This thesis is focussed on wheat NF-Y members that have roles in light-mediated gene regulation with an emphasis on their involvement in the regulation of photosynthesis genes. NF-Y is a heterotrimeric complex, comprised of the three subunits NF-YA, NF-YB and NF-YC. Unlike the mammalian and yeast counterparts, each of the three subunits is encoded by multiple genes in Arabidopsis. The initial step taken in this study was the identification of the wheat NF-Y family (Chapter 3). A search of the current wheat nucleotide sequence databases identified 37 NF-Y genes (10 NF-YA, 11 NF-YB, 14 NF-YC & 2 Dr1). Phylogenetic analysis revealed that each of the three wheat NF-Y (TaNF-Y) subunit families could be divided into 4-5 clades based on their conserved core regions. Outside of the core regions, eleven motifs were identified to be conserved between Arabidopsis, rice and wheat NF-Y subunit members. The expression profiles of TaNF-Y genes were constructed using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Some TaNF-Y subunit members had little variation in their transcript levels among the organs, while others displayed organ-predominant expression profiles, including those expressed mainly in the photosynthetic organs. To investigate their potential role in light-mediated gene regulation, the light responsiveness of the TaNF-Y genes were examined (Chapters 4 and 5). Two TaNF-YB and five TaNF-YC members were markedly upregulated by light in both the wheat leaves and seedling shoots. To identify the potential target genes of the light-upregulated NF-Y subunit members, a gene expression correlation analysis was conducted using publically available Affymetrix Wheat Genome Array datasets. This analysis revealed that the transcript expression levels of TaNF-YB3 and TaNF-YC11 were significantly correlated with those of photosynthesis genes. These correlated express profiles were also observed in the quantitative RT-PCR dataset from wheat plants grown under light and dark conditions. Sequence analysis of the promoters of these wheat photosynthesis genes revealed that they were enriched with potential NF-Y binding sites (CCAAT-box). The potential role of TaNF-YB3 in the regulation of photosynthetic genes was further investigated using a transgenic approach (Chapter 5). Transgenic wheat lines constitutively expressing TaNF-YB3 were found to have significantly increased expression levels of photosynthesis genes, including those encoding light harvesting chlorophyll a/b-binding proteins, photosystem I reaction centre subunits, a chloroplast ATP synthase subunit and glutamyl-tRNA reductase (GluTR). GluTR is a rate-limiting enzyme in the chlorophyll biosynthesis pathway. In association with the increased expression of the photosynthesis genes, the transgenic lines had a higher leaf chlorophyll content, increased photosynthetic rate and had a more rapid early growth rate compared to the wild-type wheat. In addition to its role in the regulation of photosynthesis genes, TaNF-YB3 overexpression lines flower on average 2-days earlier than the wild-type (Chapter 6). Quantitative RT-PCR analysis showed that there was a 13-fold increase in the expression level of the floral integrator, TaFT. The transcript levels of other downstream genes (TaFT2 and TaVRN1) were also increased in the transgenic lines. Furthermore, the transcript levels of TaNF-YB3 were significantly correlated with those of constans (CO), constans-like (COL) and timing of chlorophyll a/b-binding (CAB) expression 1 [TOC1; (CCT)] domain-containing proteins known to be involved in the regulation of flowering time. To summarise the key findings of this study, 37 NF-Y genes were identified in the crop species wheat. An in depth analysis of TaNF-Y gene expression profiles revealed that the potential role of some light-upregulated members was in the regulation of photosynthetic genes. The involvement of TaNF-YB3 in the regulation of photosynthesis genes was supported by data obtained from transgenic wheat lines with increased constitutive expression of TaNF-YB3. The overexpression of TaNF-YB3 in the transgenic lines revealed this NF-YB member is also involved in the fine-tuning of flowering time. These data suggest that the NF-Y TF plays an important role in light-mediated gene regulation in wheat.