Attracting and retaining specialist teachers and non-teaching professionals in Queensland secondary schools : a report to the Queensland Department of Education and Training

This report provides the Queensland Department of Education and Training (DET) with independent evidence based data to enable the identification of barriers and enablers to effective attraction and retention of suitably qualified people to specialist teaching and non‐teaching roles in Queensland secondary schools. The scope of this report is to consider the strategic imperatives, trends, and drivers as they apply to the recruitment and retention of specialised teachers and non‐teaching professionals. The research was specifically designed to inform DET on innovative and novel strategies to recruit and retain staff within Education Queensland in areas specifically identified as at risk of experiencing shortages in the near future. Those areas considered to be at risk of experiencing shortages included: • Teaching principals • Specialist teachers in mathematics, science, industrial technology and design, and special education • Non‐teaching professional roles, such as speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and registered nurses providing services in schools to students with special needs.

Transitioning from vocational education and training to university : strengthening information literacy through collaboration

"Students transitioning from vocational education and training (VET) to university can experience a number of challenges. This small research project explored the information literacy needs of VET and university students and how they differ. Students studying early childhood related VET and university courses reported differences in how and where they searched for information in their studies. These differences reflect the more practical focus of VET compared with the more academic and theoretical approach of university. The author proposes a framework of support that could be provided to transitioning students to enable them to develop the necessary information literacy skills for university study."--publisher website

Automatic de-identification of electronic health records : an Australian perspective

We present an approach to automatically de-identify health records. In our approach, personal health information is identified using a Conditional Random Fields machine learning classifier, a large set of linguistic and lexical features, and pattern matching techniques. Identified personal information is then removed from the reports. The de-identification of personal health information is fundamental for the sharing and secondary use of electronic health records, for example for data mining and disease monitoring. The effectiveness of our approach is first evaluated on the 2007 i2b2 Shared Task dataset, a widely adopted dataset for evaluating de-identification techniques. Subsequently, we investigate the robustness of the approach to limited training data; we study its effectiveness on different type and quality of data by evaluating the approach on scanned pathology reports from an Australian institution. This data contains optical character recognition errors, as well as linguistic conventions that differ from those contained in the i2b2 dataset, for example different date formats. The findings suggest that our approach compares to the best approach from the 2007 i2b2 Shared Task; in addition, the approach is found to be robust to variations of training size, data type and quality in presence of sufficient training data.

The impact of funding deadlines on personal workloads, stress and family relationships : a qualitative study of Australian researchers

Objective To examine the impact of applying for funding on personal workloads, stress and family relationships. Design Qualitative study of researchers preparing grant proposals. Setting Web-based survey on applying for the annual National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Project Grant scheme. Participants Australian researchers (n=215). Results Almost all agreed that preparing their proposals always took top priority over other work (97%) and personal (87%) commitments. Almost all researchers agreed that they became stressed by the workload (93%) and restricted their holidays during the grant writing season (88%). Most researchers agreed that they submitted proposals because chance is involved in being successful (75%), due to performance requirements at their institution (60%) and pressure from their colleagues to submit proposals (53%). Almost all researchers supported changes to the current processes to submit proposals (95%) and peer review (90%). Most researchers (59%) provided extensive comments on the impact of writing proposals on their work life and home life. Six major work life themes were: (1) top priority; (2) career development; (3) stress at work; (4) benefits at work; (5) time spent at work and (6) pressure from colleagues. Six major home life themes were: (1) restricting family holidays; (2) time spent on work at home; (3) impact on children; (4) stress at home; (5) impact on family and friends and (6) impact on partner. Additional impacts on the mental health and well-being of researchers were identified. Conclusions The process of preparing grant proposals for a single annual deadline is stressful, time consuming and conflicts with family responsibilities. The timing of the funding cycle could be shifted to minimise applicant burden, give Australian researchers more time to work on actual research and to be with their families.

Successful outcomes in vocational education and training courses and mathematics: how pedagogy and expectations influence achievement

This paper reports on a four year Australian Research Council funded Linkage Project titled Skilling Indigenous Queensland, conducted in regional areas of Queensland, Australia from 2009 to 2013. The project sought to investigate Vocational Education and Training (VET) and teaching, Indigenous learners’ needs, employer culture and expectations and community culture and expectations to identify best practice in numeracy teaching for Indigenous VET learners. Specifically it focused on ways to enhance the teaching and learning of courses and the associated mathematics in such courses to benefit learners and increase their future opportunities of employment. To date thirty - nine teachers/trainers/teacher aides and two hundred and thirty - one students consented to participate in the project. Nine VET courses offered in schools and Technical and Further Education Institutes (TAFE) were nominated to be the focus on the study. This paper focuses on student questionnaire responses and interview responses from teachers/trainers one high school principal and five students as a result of these processes, the findings indicated that VET course teachers work hard to adopt contextualising strategies to their teaching; however this process is not always straight forward because of the perceptions of how mathematics has been taught and learned by trainers and teachers. Further teachers, trainers and students have high expectations of one another with the view to successful outcomes from the courses.

De-Identification of health records using Anonym: Effectiveness and robustness across datasets

Objective Evaluate the effectiveness and robustness of Anonym, a tool for de-identifying free-text health records based on conditional random fields classifiers informed by linguistic and lexical features, as well as features extracted by pattern matching techniques. De-identification of personal health information in electronic health records is essential for the sharing and secondary usage of clinical data. De-identification tools that adapt to different sources of clinical data are attractive as they would require minimal intervention to guarantee high effectiveness. Methods and Materials The effectiveness and robustness of Anonym are evaluated across multiple datasets, including the widely adopted Integrating Biology and the Bedside (i2b2) dataset, used for evaluation in a de-identification challenge. The datasets used here vary in type of health records, source of data, and their quality, with one of the datasets containing optical character recognition errors. Results Anonym identifies and removes up to 96.6% of personal health identifiers (recall) with a precision of up to 98.2% on the i2b2 dataset, outperforming the best system proposed in the i2b2 challenge. The effectiveness of Anonym across datasets is found to depend on the amount of information available for training. Conclusion Findings show that Anonym compares to the best approach from the 2006 i2b2 shared task. It is easy to retrain Anonym with new datasets; if retrained, the system is robust to variations of training size, data type and quality in presence of sufficient training data.

Innovations in dietetic training in foodservice management : can early exposure to practice enhance final year competency development?

Student engagement in the delivery of theoretical course materials is a current challenge in the tertiary sector including for dietetic training. In 2011 with the creation of a new nutritionist position for Queensland Meals on Wheels (QMOW), a service learning approach to support this organisation was used with third year dietetic students undertaking two days of structured activities at various QMOW sites in South East Queensland, aligned with coursework in Foodservice Management (FSM). This cohort of students was then followed in their final year post successful completion of five weeks professional practice in FSM to see if this experience supported readiness for placement and competency development. Evaluation was undertaken of eligible students (n = 50) via paper based survey (response rate 94%) with all participating in targeted focus groups. Findings showed that students acknowledged the QMOW experience (on reflection 14 months later) providing opportunity for participation and/or observation in 5 of 12 FSM areas taught in third year, including food safety, meal production, assembly, delivery and dishwashing. Over half the students identified good exposure to FSM competency areas during the QMOW experience, with 83% satisfied with their competency exposure and subsequent practice during final year placements. A consistent theme emerged from focus groups supporting inclusion of practical opportunities with the theoretical component of the FSM subject to highlight relevance to learning. These findings highlight the importance of such teaching initiatives to met student learning preferences, linking theory with practice and supporting competency development in the final year of training programs.

Pushing cultural competence boundaries in nutrition and dietetics training

A health workforce ready for safe practice is a government priority, and particularly critical to support indigenous communities closing ‘the gap’. Increased pressure exists on dietetic training programs for quality placements, with fewer opportunities for immersion in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to demonstrate cultural competence. In 2012, Queensland University of Technology established a partnership with Apunipima Cape York Health Council with 56 weeks of dietetic placement for 8 students provided to achieve these aims. Clinical practice in Community Public Health Nutrition (CPHN) was structured in a standard 6 week placement, with Individual Case Management (ICM) and Foodservice Management (FSM) integrated across 8 weeks (4 each), with an additional 2 weeks ICM prior in a metropolitan indigenous health service. Students transitioned from urban to rural then remote sites, with new web-based technologies used for support. Strong learning opportunities were provided, with CPHN projects in antenatal and child health, FSM on standardisation of procedures in a 22 bed health facility, and ICM exposing students to a variety of cases via hospital in/outpatients, general clinics and remote community outreach. Supervisor focus group evaluation was positive, with CPHN and FSM enhancing capacity of service. Student focus group evaluation revealed placements exceeded expectations, with rating high, and strong confidence in cultural competence described. Students debriefed final and third year cohorts on their experiences, with increased awareness and enthusiasm for work with indigenous communities indicated by groups. With the success of this partnership, placements are continuing 2013, and new boundaries in dietetic training established.

Genetics and the transformation of the personal

The shared nature of genetic information presents new challenges for legal understandings of the self. Within traditional legal discourses the individual is conceptualised as separate and autonomous. In contrast, the genetic individual is understood as inherently relational. This paper analyses the transformation of our understandings of the personal. The transformative processes are assessed through discussion of the changing meanings of privacy in the context of genetic information within families; changing views over access to information about biological parentage by children conceived through assisted reproductive technology; preimplantation genetic diagnosis and the changing context of reproductive decisionmaking.

Personal media and wireless cities : towards an urban spatial analysis

For the past decade, at least, varieties of small, hand held networked instruments have appeared on the global scene, selling in record numbers, and being utilized by all manner of persons from the old to the young; children, women, men, the wealthy and the poor and in all countries. Their presences bespeak a radical shift in telecommunications infrastructure and the future of communications. They are particularly visible in urban areas where mobile transmission network infrastructure (3G, 4G, cellular and Wi-Fi) is more established and substantial, options more plentiful, and density of populations more dramatic. These end user products—I phones, cell phones, Blackberries, DSi, DS, IPads, Zooms, and others – of the mobile communications industry are the latest, hottest globalized commodities. At the same time, wirelessness, or the state of being wireless, and therefore capable of taking along one's networks, communicating from unlikely spaces, and navigating with GPS, is a complex social, political and economic communications phenomenon of early 21st century life. This thesis examines the specter of being wireless in cities. It lends the entire idea an experimentally envisioned, historical and planned context wherein personalization of media tools is seen both as a design development of corporate, artistic, and military imagination, as well as a profound social phenomenon enabling new forms of sharing, belonging, and urban community. In doing that it asserts the parameters of a new mobile space which, aside from clear benefits to humankind by way of mobility, has reinscribed numerous categories including gender. Moreover, it posits the recognition of other, more nuanced theoretical spaces for complex readings of gender and gendered use, including some instantiation of the notion of 'network' itself as a cyborgian and gendered social form. Additionally, cities are studied as places where technology is not only quickly popularized, but is connected to larger political interests, such as the reading of data, tracking of information, and the new security culture. In so doing the work has been undertaken as an urban spatial analysis and experimental ethnography, utilizing architectural, feminist, techno-utopian, industrial and theoretical literatures as discursive underpinnings from whence understandings and interpretations of mobile space, the mobile office, networked mobility, and personal media have come, linking the space of cities to specific, pioneering urban public art projects in which voice, texting and MMS have been utilized in expressions of ubiquitous networks and urban history. Through numerous examples of techno art, the thesis discusses the 'wireless city' as an emerging cultural, socially constructed economic and spatial entity, both conceived and formed through historic processes of urbanization.

Dispositional resistance to change : measurement equivalence and the link to personal values across 17 nations

The concept of dispositional resistance to change has been introduced in a series of exploratory and confirmatory analyses through which the validity of the Resistance to Change (RTC) Scale has been established (S. Oreg, 2003). However, the vast majority of participants with whom the scale was validated were from the United States. The purpose of the present work was to examine the meaningfulness of the construct and the validity of the scale across nations. Measurement equivalence analyses of data from 17 countries, representing 13 languages and 4 continents, confirmed the cross-national validity of the scale. Equivalent patterns of relationships between personal values and RTC across samples extend the nomological net of the construct and provide further evidence that dispositional resistance to change holds equivalent meanings across nations.

Practice & procedure : Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002

The decision of Atkinson J in Watkins v State of Queensland [2007] QSC 057 on an application for disclosure of documents under s27 of the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld) required determination of a range of issues relating to the disclosure of documents and legal professional privilege.

Disclosure obligations - Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002

In Huag v Jupiters Limited [2007] QSC 068, Lyons J considered the extent of the obligations imposed upon a respondent under the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 to disclose documents and information.

Practice & procedure : disclosure obligations - Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 s27

In Huag v Jupiters Limited [2007] QCA 199 the Queensland Court of Appeal allowed an appeal from interlocutory orders made in the trial division of the court and concluded that, although provisions such as s27 of the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld) should be given a broad, remedial construction, this did not mean the words of limitation in the section could be ignored.

Personal Epistemologies and Teaching

Over the last three decades, a growing body of research related to epistemic beliefs has been identified as a crucial for understanding teaching and learning (Yadav, Herron, & Samarapungavan, 2011). In particular, research related to beliefs about teaching, learning and knowledge has been considered important for understanding why teachers engage in certain approaches to pedagogy, curriculum and assessment in classrooms (Stromlo & Bråten, 2011). The beliefs held by teachers about knowledge and knowing, otherwise known as personal epistemology (Hofer, 2010), have been shown to influence other knowledge and beliefs (Schommer-Aikens, 2004). Five and Buehl (2012) indicated that because an individual’s understanding of reality is always seen through the lens of existing beliefs, the role of beliefs as a filter is particularly relevant in the context of teacher education. That is, if beliefs influence how individuals interpret new information and experiences, preservice and practicing teachers’ beliefs shape what and how they learn about teaching.” (p. 470-480). It is likely that such beliefs have an important relationship with teacher knowledge and practices...