The influences of conceptions of learning and learner self-concept on high school students' approaches to learning

This study investigated the mediating effect of learner selfconcept between conceptions of learning and students' approaches to learning using structural equation modelling. Data were collected using a modified version of Biggs' Learning Process Questionnaire, together with the recently developed 'What is Learning Survey' and 'Learner Self-Concept Scale'. A sample of 355 high school students participated in the study. Results indicate that learner self-concept does mediate between conceptions of meaning and approaches to learning. Students who adopted a deep approach liked learning new things and indirectly viewed learning as experiential, involving social interaction and directly viewed learning as personal development. Implications for teachers are discussed, with consideration given to appropriate classroom practice.

The effectiveness of designated driver programs

Designated driver programs aim to reduce alcohol related crashes by encouraging and facilitating a safe means of transport for those who have been drinking and by influencing attitudes and knowledge. This review discusses the use and effectiveness of designated driver programs in preventing drink driving and ultimately reducing alcohol related road trauma. The limitations of studies examining designated driver programs and recommendations for further research are also discussed. The available evidence suggests that while designated driver campaigns can successfully increase the awareness and use of designated drivers, it is less clear whether these programs lead to a reduction in drink driving and/or alcohol related crashes. Differences in the way that designated driver programs have historically been implemented may account for the inconsistent evidence for their effectiveness in reducing drink driving. There are also a variety of methodological problems relating to the evaluation of designated driver programs which need to be addressed by future research.

The study process questionnaire : a revalidation study

The Study Process Questionnaire (Biggs, 1987) has been widely used in studies investigating learning behaviours in tertiary education. Many of the studies that have used the instrument have investigated the construct validity of the SPQ using a variety of factor analytic methods and techniques in an atheoretical way. Contrary to this method, Burnett and Dart (1997) argued that the hypothesised structure of a scale should be used when assessing the construct validity of an existing instrument. This study investigated the factor structure of the SPQ using a theoretical approach and found strong support for the three approaches to learning structure of the instrument.

Schools' guide : How to select providers of road safety education programs for senior school students

Road safety education is not just about safe driving. Best practice road safety education seeks to improve knowledge and change attitudes relating to being safe, and making sure others are safe on the road. Typical topics might include: • Strengthening attitudes toward safe road use behaviours and avoiding risks • Supporting behaviours to ensure others are safe • Promoting knowledge of traffic rules.

Driving and licensing experiences of learner drivers in two Australian states prior to major changes in the licensing laws

The learner licence is an important component of the graduated driver licensing system. This research describes the driving and licensing experiences of learner drivers in Queensland and New South Wales licensed prior to the changes made to the system in mid-2007. The sample consisted of 392 participants who completed a telephone interview just after they obtained their provisional licence. The results suggest that learner drivers in the two states had many similar experiences when they were obtaining a learner licence. However, once a learner licence was obtained, there were differences in the amount of practice, the supervisor learners practised with, the type of vehicle they used and the amount of unlicensed driving. This paper provides important baseline descriptive data that can be used to measure the impact of the changes that were introduced to the learner licence phase in mid-2007 in both of these states.

Opportunities for enhancing the Australian national road safety strategy

With the current National Road Safety Strategy [1] coming to the end of its term, it is timely to consider ways in which the next iteration of this strategy can be enhanced. Strategic planning should be a cyclic process in which learning and adaptation are just as important as planning and implementation. It will always be the case that some actions are not as effective as expected, or that barriers to effective implementation will emerge. Rather than being setbacks, these are opportunities for learning about the validity of our assumptions. They are also opportunities for us to adapt to meet unanticipated or emerging challenges. One of the positive aspects of the implementation of the first and second National Road Safety Strategies has been the willingness of road safety agencies to critically assess progress and to identify where and how actions would be better focused. This has been reflected in the evolving nature of the periodic National Road Safety Action Plans. As the decade of the current Strategy reaches an end, there is a need to take this process further, and undertake a thorough critical evaluation of the Strategy development and implementation. While not an attempt to be exhaustive, the following article will identify some key priorities for consideration as part of this process.

Citizen journalism as social networking : reporting the 2007 Australian Federal Election

One of the perceived Achilles heels of online citizen journalism is its perceived inability to conduct investigative and first-hand reporting. A number of projects have recently addressed this problem, with varying success: the U.S.-based Assignment Zero was described as "a highly satisfying failure" (Howe 2007), while the German MyHeimat.de appears to have been thoroughly successful in attracting a strong community of contributors, even to the point of being able to generate print versions of its content, distributed free of charge to households in selected German cities. In Australia, citizen journalism played a prominent part in covering the federal elections held on 24 November 2007; news bloggers and public opinion Websites provided a strong counterpoint to the mainstream media coverage of the election campaign (Bruns et al., 2007). Youdecide2007.org, a collaboration between researchers at Queensland University of Technology and media practitioners at the public service broadcaster SBS, the public opinion site On Line Opinion, and technology company Cisco Systems, was developed as a dedicated space for a specifically hyperlocal coverage of the election campaign in each of Australia's 150 electorates from the urban sprawls of Sydney and Brisbane to the sparsely populated remote regions of outback Australia. YD07 provided training materials for would-be citizen journalists and encouraged them to contribute electorate profiles, interview candidates, and conduct vox-pops with citizens in their local area. The site developed a strong following especially in its home state of Queensland, and its interviewers influenced national public debate by uncovering the sometimes controversial personal views of mainstream and fringe candidates. At the same time, the success of YD07 was limited by external constraints determined by campaign timing and institutional frameworks. As part of a continuing action research cycle, lessons learnt from Youdecide2007.org are going to be translated into further iterations of the project, which will cover the local government elections in the Australian state of Queensland, to be held in March 2008, and developments subsequent to these elections. This paper will present research outcomes from the Youdecide2007.org project. In particular, it will examine the roles of staff contributors and citizen journalists in attracting members, providing information, promoting discussion, and fostering community on the site: early indications from a study of interaction data on the site indicate notably different contribution patterns and effects for staff and citizen participants, which may point towards the possibility of developing more explicit pro-am collaboration models in line with the Pro-Am phenomenon outlined by Leadbeater & Miller (2004). The paper will outline strengths and weaknesses of the Youdecide model and highlight requirements for the successful development of active citizen journalism communities. In doing so, it will also evaluate the feasibility of hyperlocal citizen journalism approaches, and their interrelationship with broader regional, state, and national journalism in both its citizen and industrial forms.

Reduction of Secondary Degeneration after Spinal Cord Injury by Acute Delivery of Proinflammatory Growth Factors

INTRODUCTION Inflammation is a protective attempt to facilitate the removal of damaged tissue and to initiate the healing response in other tissues. However, after spinal cord injury (SCI), this response is prolonged leading to secondary degeneration and glial scarring. Here, we investigate the potential of sustained delivery of pro-inflammatory factors vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and platelet derived growth factor (PDGF) to increase early inflammatory events and promote inflammatory resolution. Method Animal ethics approval was obtained from the Queensland University of Technology. Adult Wistar-Kyoto rats (12-16 weeks old) were subjected to laminectomies and T10 hemisections. Animals were then randomised to treatment (implantation of osmotic pump (Alzet) loaded with 5ug VEGF & 5 ug PDGF) or control groups (lesion control or lesion plus pump delivering PBS). Rats were sacrificed at one month and the spinal cords were harvested and examined by immunohistology, using anti-neurofilament-200(NF200) and anti- ionized calcium binding adapter molecule 1 (Iba1). One way ANOVA was used for statistic analysis. Results At 1 month, active pump-treated cords showed a high level of axonal filament throughout the defects as compared to the control groups. The mean lesion size, as measured by NF200, was 0.47mm2 for the lesion control, 0.39mm2 for the vehicle control and 0.078mm2 for the active pump group. Significant differences were detected between the active pump group and the two control groups (AP vs LC p= 0.017 AG vs VC p= 0.004). Iba-1 staining also showed significant differences in the post-injury inflammatory response. Discussion We have shown that axons and activated microglia are co-located in the lesion of the treated cord. We hypothesise the delivery of VEGF/PDGF increases the local vessel permeability to inflammatory cells and activates these along with the resident microglia to threshold population, which ultimately resolved the prolonged inflammation. Here, we have shown that maintaining the inflammatory signals for at least 7 days improved the morphology of the injured cord. Conclusion This study has shown that boosting inflammation, by delivery VEGF/PDGF, in the early phase of SCI helps to reduce secondary degeneration and may promote inflammation resolution. This treatment may provide a platform for other neuro-regenrative therapies.

Response efficacy : the key to minimizing rejection and maximizing acceptance of emotion-based anti-speeding messages

This study sought to improve understanding of the persuasive process of emotion-based appeals not only in relation to negative, fear-based appeals but also for appeals based upon positive emotions. In particular, the study investigated whether response efficacy, as a cognitive construct, mediated outcome measures of message effectiveness in terms of both acceptance and rejection of negative and positive emotion-based messages. Licensed drivers (N = 406) participated via the completion of an on-line survey. Within the survey, participants received either a negative (fear-based) appeal or one of the two possible positive appeals (pride or humor-based). Overall, the study's findings confirmed the importance of emotional and cognitive components of persuasive health messages and identified response efficacy as a key cognitive construct influencing the effectiveness of not only fear-based messages but also positive emotion-based messages. Interestingly, however, the results suggested that response efficacy's influence on message effectiveness may differ for positive and negative emotion-based appeals such that significant indirect (and mediational) effects were found with both acceptance and rejection of the positive appeals yet only with rejection of the fear-based appeal. As such, the study's findings provide an important extension to extant literature and may inform future advertising message design.

A participative education program to reduce speeding in a group of work-related drivers

A number of intervention approaches have been developed to improve work-related driving safety. However, past interventions have been limited in that they have been data-driven, and have not been developed within a theoretical framework. The aim of this study is to present a theory-driven intervention. Based on the methodology developed by Ludwig and Geller (1991), this study evaluates the effectiveness of a participative education intervention on a group of work-related drivers (n = 28; experimental group n = 19, control n = 9). The results support the effectiveness of the intervention in reducing speeding over a six month period, while a non significant increase was found in the control group. The results of this study have important implications for organisations developing theory-driven interventions designed to improve work-related driving behaviour.

How to progress forward in improving safety outcomes in the work-related driving field : a review of work-related driving research and development of an intervention framework [Extended abstract]

Road crashes are now the most common cause of work-related injury, death and absence in a number of countries. Given the impact of workrelated driving crashes on social and economic aspects of business and the community, workrelated road safety and risk management has received increasing attention in recent years. However, limited academic research has progressed on improving safety within the work-related driving sector. The aim of this paper is to present a review of work-related driving safety research to date, and provide an intervention framework for the future development and implementation of workrelated driving safety intervention strategies.

"I'm thinking 'bout moving in"... An examination of the issues impacting on the recruitment of secondary school graduates to the library and information profession

In recent years concern has been expressed internationally about the future of the library and information services (LIS) profession: recruitment and retention, changing skill sets and declining numbers of people choosing librarianship as a career are all factors contributing to an uncertain future. One area yet explored in any depth is the topic of why LIS studies are not perceived, let alone promoted, as a good first professional qualification for high school graduates. This paper considers the professional literature that examines the uptake of librarianship as a first qualification by school leavers and discusses, in the context of the Australian library sector, the role of professional associations, library schools, National and State Libraries, as well as individual libraries and librarians. Examples of best practice are presented to highlight the opportunities for inspiring and motivating students through well structured and stimulating work experience programs. The topic is relevant to all librarians who are interested in the future of the LIS profession. It is argued that the focus of the present conference on ‘moving up’ and ‘moving on’ can only have real significance when the profession has a more complete understanding of the barriers to and the opportunities for ‘moving in’.