Impact of adolescent peer aggression on later educational and employment outcomes in an Australian cohort

This study used prospective birth cohort data to analyse the relationship between peer aggression at 14 years of age and educational and employment outcomes at 17 years (N = 1091) and 20 years (N = 1003). Participants from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) study were divided into mutually exclusive categories of peer aggression. Involvement in peer aggression was reported by 40.2% (10.1% victims; 21.4% perpetrators; 8.7% victim–perpetrators) of participants. Participants involved in any form of peer aggression were less likely to complete secondary school. Perpetrators and victim–perpetrators of peer aggression were more likely to be in the ‘No Education, Employment or Training’ group at 20 years of age. This association was explained by non-completion of secondary school. These findings demonstrate a robust association between involvement in peer aggression and non-completion of secondary school, which in turn was associated with an increased risk of poor educational and employment outcomes in early adulthood.

NAPLAN, MySchool and accountability: Teacher perceptions of the effects of testing

This paper explores Rizvi and Lingard’s (2010) idea of the “local vernacular” of the global education policy trend of using high-stakes testing to increase accountability and transparency, and by extension quality, within schools and education systems in Australia. In the first part of the paper a brief context of the policy trajectory of National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is given in Australia. In the second part, empirical evidence drawn from a survey of teachers in Western Australia (WA) and South Australia (SA) is used to explore teacher perceptions of the impacts a high-stakes testing regime is having on student learning, relationships with parents and pedagogy in specific sites. After the 2007 Australian Federal election, one of Labor’s policy objectives was to deliver an “Education Revolution” designed to improve both the equity and excellence in the Australian school system1 (Rudd & Gillard, 2008). This reform agenda aims to “deliver real changes” through: “raising the quality of teaching in our schools” and “improving transparency and accountability of schools and school systems” (Rudd & Gillard, 2008, p. 5). Central to this linking of accountability, the transparency of schools and school systems and raising teaching quality was the creation of a regime of testing (NAPLAN) that would generate data about the attainment of basic literacy and numeracy skills by students in Australian schools.

Performance pay for Australian teachers: A critical policy historiography

In May 2011, the Australian Federal Education Minister announced there would be a unique, innovative and new policy of performance pay for teachers, Rewards for Great Teachers (Garrett, 2011a). In response, this paper uses critical policy historiography to argue that the unintended consequences of performance pay for teachers makes it unlikely it will deliver improved quality or efficiency in Australian schools. What is new, in the Australian context, is that performance pay is one of a raft of education policies being driven by the federal government within a system that constitutionally and historically has placed the responsibility for schooling with the states and territories. Since 2008, a key platform of the Australian federal Labor government has been a commitment to an Education Revolution that would promote quality, equity and accountability in Australian schools. This commitment has resulted in new national initiatives impacting on Australian schools including a high-stakes testing regime 14 National Assessment Program 13 Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) 14a mandated national curriculum (the Australian Curriculum), professional standards for teachers and teacher accreditation 14Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) 14and the idea of rewarding excellent teachers through performance pay (Garrett, 2011b). These reforms demonstrate the increased influence of the federal government in education policy processes and the growth of a 1Ccoercive federalism 1D that pits the state and federal governments against each other (Harris-Hart, 2010). Central to these initiatives is the measuring, or auditing, of educational practices and relationships. While this shift in education policy hegemony from state to federal governments has been occurring in Australia at least since the 1970s, it has escalated and been transformed in more recent times with a greater emphasis on national human capital agendas which link education and training to Australia 19s international economic competitiveness (Lingard & Sellar, in press). This paper uses historically informed critical analysis to critique claims about the effects of such policies. We argue that performance pay has a detailed and complex historical trajectory both internationally and within Australian states. Using Gale 19s (2001) critical policy historiography, we illuminate some of the effects that performance pay policies have had on education internationally and in particular within Australia. This critical historical lens also provides opportunities to highlight how teachers have, in the past, tactically engaged with such policies.

The marketing blog competition: Integrating educational blogging and analytics in the classroom

How should marketing educators teach today’s technologically savvy college students the latest knowledge as well as relevant soft and hardskills for employment in a world of Web 2.0? The changing environment requires the development of innovative pedagogical approaches to enhance students’ experiential learning. Recent research has focused on the idea of implementing technology and the adoption of educational blogging in the marketing curriculum. This paper outlines a semesterlong marketing blog competition, in which students had to (1) create and maintain a marketing blog and (2) apply web analytics to analyze, manage and improve their blog performance based on key performance indicators. This article offers a detailed discussion of the design and implementation as well as the outcomes based on quantitative and qualitative student feedback.

Wrestling with schools, schooling and educational research (Personal Reflections on the European Union-supported Educational Research 1995-2003: Briefing Papers for Policy Makers)

I must admit that I approached the European Union-supported educational research 1995-2003: Briefing papers for policy makers with a sense of trepidation. As a researcher who defines himself as socially critical, I wondered about the dynamics of a policy document that was published by the bureaucracy that has, in some form, a vested interest in the structure and operation of education in its various guises. In turning my attention to this review, I decided to focus my attention on the third guiding question that argues education and training "are strongly interconnected with concerns that include citizenship and democratic participation, inequalities and social justice, cultural diversity and quality of life" (Millei, 2005). The Briefing Papers include recommendations on democracy and citizenship, social exclusion and equality, gender and dealing with mental illness in schools...

An exploration of The Virtues Project: Ontological, educational and cross-cultural inquiries into a moral education program within a Mongolian school setting

This thesis explores The Virtues Project's ontological, educational and cross-cultural dimensions taking Charles Taylor's philosophical perspective of an anthropological account of the self and a phenomenological account of moral life and engagement. The experience of Mongolian schoolteachers implementing this moral education program is analyzed using a narrative inquiry method. The globally attractive project appears in moral education and virtues ethics research and surveys, yet no critical evaluation has been undertaken. Its conceptual features are appraised from a Taylorean perspective. The Listening Guide analysis of teacher experiences is presented in two narratives. The first is about the teachers' implementation experiences of moral flourishing as selves, in relationships and in community. The second is about their experience of becoming Mongolian in their modern day context. In conclusion, the project is coherent, constructive and potentially suitable cross-culturally.

Towards sustainable poverty alleviation: Building NGO accountability to beneficiaries in microenterprise development programs

This thesis investigates the operations of non-government organisations (NGOs) engaging in microenterprise development programs in Bangladesh and Indonesia, to understand the nature and mechanisms of NGO accountability to the poor. Findings reveal both barriers and mechanisms contributing to success within these programs. A range of mechanisms enhance both accountability of NGOs and the poor, facilitating more effective programs and sustainable poverty alleviation.

Information Accountability of Healthcare Big Data

Huge amount of data are generated from a variety of information sources in healthcare while the data sources originate from a veracity of clinical information systems and corporate data warehouses. The data derived from the above data sources are used for analysis and trending purposes thus playing an influential role as a real time decision-making tool. The unstructured, narrative data provided by these data sources qualify as healthcare big-data and researchers argue that the application of big-data in healthcare might enable the accountability and efficiency.

Exploring an innovative educational approach to facilitating student nurses' clinical-reasoning skills in North Sulawesi Province, Indonesia

This study examined the effect of an educational intervention utilizing principles of cognitive apprenticeship on students’ ability to apply clinical reasoning skills within the context of a purpose-built clinical vignette. A quasi-experimental, non-equivalent control-group design was used to evaluate the effect of the educational intervention on students’ accuracy, inaccuracy and self-confidence in clinical reasoning. This study makes an important contribution to nursing education by providing evidence to understand how best to facilitate nursing students’ development of clinical reasoning.

Information accountability and health big data analytics: A consent-based model

With the ever increasing amount of eHealth data available from various eHealth systems and sources, Health Big Data Analytics promises enticing benefits such as enabling the discovery of new treatment options and improved decision making. However, concerns over the privacy of information have hindered the aggregation of this information. To address these concerns, we propose the use of Information Accountability protocols to provide patients with the ability to decide how and when their data can be shared and aggregated for use in big data research. In this paper, we discuss the issues surrounding Health Big Data Analytics and propose a consent-based model to address privacy concerns to aid in achieving the promised benefits of Big Data in eHealth.

Managing and sharing health data through information accountability protocols

Concerns over the security and privacy of patient information are one of the biggest hindrances to sharing health information and the wide adoption of eHealth systems. At present, there are competing requirements between healthcare consumers' (i.e. patients) requirements and healthcare professionals' (HCP) requirements. While consumers want control over their information, healthcare professionals want access to as much information as required in order to make well-informed decisions and provide quality care. In order to balance these requirements, the use of an Information Accountability Framework devised for eHealth systems has been proposed. In this paper, we take a step closer to the adoption of the Information Accountability protocols and demonstrate their functionality through an implementation in FluxMED, a customisable EHR system.

The design and implementation of an Information Accountability Framework for eHealth systems

This tutorial primarily focuses on the implementation of Information Accountability (IA) protocols defined in an Information Accountability Framework (IAF) in eHealth systems. Concerns over the security and privacy of patient information are one of the biggest hindrances to sharing health information and the wide adoption of eHealth systems. At present, there are competing requirements between healthcare consumers' (i.e. patients) requirements and healthcare professionals' (HCP) requirements. While consumers want control over their information, healthcare professionals want access to as much information as required in order to make well-informed decisions and provide quality care. This conflict is evident in the review of Australia's PCEHR system and in recent studies of patient control of access to their eHealth information. In order to balance these requirements, the use of an Information Accountability Framework devised for eHealth systems has been proposed. Through the use of IA protocols, so-called Accountable-eHealth systems (AeH) create an eHealth environment where health information is available to the right person at the right time without rigid barriers whilst empowering the consumers with information control and transparency. In this half-day tutorial, we will discuss and describe the technical challenges surrounding the implementation of the IAF protocols into existing eHealth systems and demonstrate their use. The functionality of the protocols and AeH systems will be demonstrated, and an example of the implementation of the IAF protocols into an existing eHealth system will be presented and discussed.

Medical Data Access Accountability in EHR Systems, A Practical Perspective

The world has experienced a large increase in the amount of available data. Therefore, it requires better and more specialized tools for data storage and retrieval and information privacy. Recently Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems have emerged to fulfill this need in health systems. They play an important role in medicine by granting access to information that can be used in medical diagnosis. Traditional systems have a focus on the storage and retrieval of this information, usually leaving issues related to privacy in the background. Doctors and patients may have different objectives when using an EHR system: patients try to restrict sensible information in their medical records to avoid misuse information while doctors want to see as much information as possible to ensure a correct diagnosis. One solution to this dilemma is the Accountable e-Health model, an access protocol model based in the Information Accountability Protocol. In this model patients are warned when doctors access their restricted data. They also enable a non-restrictive access for authenticated doctors. In this work we use FluxMED, an EHR system, and augment it with aspects of the Information Accountability Protocol to address these issues. The Implementation of the Information Accountability Framework (IAF) in FluxMED provides ways for both patients and physicians to have their privacy and access needs achieved. Issues related to storage and data security are secured by FluxMED, which contains mechanisms to ensure security and data integrity. The effort required to develop a platform for the management of medical information is mitigated by the FluxMED's workflow-based architecture: the system is flexible enough to allow the type and amount of information being altered without the need to change in your source code.