Simulated visual impairment leads to cognitive slowing in older adults

PURPOSE: To investigate the impact of different levels of simulated visual impairment on the cognitive test performance of older adults and to compare this with previous findings in younger adults. METHODS.: Cognitive performance was assessed in 30 visually normal, community-dwelling older adults (mean = 70.2 ± 3.9 years). Four standard cognitive tests were used including the Digit Symbol Substitution Test, Trail Making Tests A and B, and the Stroop Color Word Test under three visual conditions: normal baseline vision and two levels of cataract simulating filters (Vistech), which were administered in a random order. Distance high-contrast visual acuity and Pelli-Robson letter contrast sensitivity were also assessed for all three visual conditions. RESULTS.: Simulated cataract significantly impaired performance across all cognitive test performance measures. In addition, the impact of simulated cataract was significantly greater in this older cohort than in a younger cohort previously investigated. Individual differences in contrast sensitivity better predicted cognitive test performance than did visual acuity. CONCLUSIONS.: Visual impairment can lead to slowing of cognitive performance in older adults; these effects are greater than those observed in younger participants. This has important implications for neuropsychological testing of older populations who have a high prevalence of cataract.

Patient education to prevent falls among older hospital inpatients : a randomized controlled trial

Background Falls are a common adverse event during hospitalization of older adults, and few interventions have been shown to prevent then. Methods This study was a 3-group randomized trial to evaluate the efficacy of 2 forms of multimedia patient education compared with usual care for the prevention of in-hospital falls. Older hospital patients (n = 1206) admitted to a mixture of acute (orthopedic, respiratory, and medical) and subacute (geriatric and neurorehabilitation) hospital wards at 2 Australian hospitals were recruited between January 2008 and April 2009. The interventions were a multimedia patient education program based on the health-belief model combined with trained health professional follow-up (complete program), multi-media patient education materials alone (materials only), and usual care (control). Falls data were collected by blinded research assistants by reviewing hospital incident reports, hand searching medical records, and conducting weekly patient interviews. Results Rates of falls per 1000 patient-days did not differ significantly between groups (control, 9.27; materials only, 8.61; and complete program, 7.63). However, there was a significant interaction between the intervention and presence of cognitive impairment. Falls were less frequent among cognitively intact patients in the complete program group (4.01 per 1000 patient-days) than among cognitively intact patients in the materials-only group (8.18 per 1000 patient-days) (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.51; 95% confidence interval, 0.28-0.93]) and control group (8.72 per 1000 patient-days) (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.43; 95% confidence interval, 0.24-0.78). Conclusion Multimedia patient education with trained health professional follow-up reduced falls among patients with intact cognitive function admitted to a range of hospital wards.

Child participation in the early years : challenges for education

The view that children should have a say in and participate in the decision-making of, matters that affect them is now an accepted position when considering research and policy in the early years. This paper reviews the field of child participation in the Australian context to show that, despite growing evidence of support within policy and research arenas, young children’s participation rights in Australia have not been key agenda items for early childhood education. While a significant part of children’s daily experience takes place in classrooms, the actual practices of engaging young children as participants in everyday activities remains a challenge for early childhood education. Participation is an interactional process that involves managing relationships between children and adults. Recommendations include further research into the daily experiences of young children to show what participation might look like when translated to the everyday activities of the classroom and playground.

Recognising audio-visual speech in vehicles using the AVICAR database

Interacting with technology within a vehicle environment using a voice interface can greatly reduce the effects of driver distraction. Most current approaches to this problem only utilise the audio signal, making them susceptible to acoustic noise. An obvious approach to circumvent this is to use the visual modality in addition. However, capturing, storing and distributing audio-visual data in a vehicle environment is very costly and difficult. One current dataset available for such research is the AVICAR [1] database. Unfortunately this database is largely unusable due to timing mismatch between the two streams and in addition, no protocol is available. We have overcome this problem by re-synchronising the streams on the phone-number portion of the dataset and established a protocol for further research. This paper presents the first audio-visual results on this dataset for speaker-independent speech recognition. We hope this will serve as a catalyst for future research in this area.

The CAPA Indigenous Project. Indigenous postgraduate education: A project into the barriers which indigenous students must overcome in postgraduate studies: A short history 1993-2000.

This brief paper outlines some of the early work undertaken in Indigenous postgraduate activism in Australia. In particular, the work undertaken in the lead up to the 'Project into the Barriers which Indigenous Students must Overcome in Postgraduate Studies'.

Enhancing pathways for ACE learners : Building the capacity of Adult and Community Education (ACE) providers to offer non-accredited courses and VET modules with pathways into VET programs.

This report presents findings from a project that considered a) the current capacity of Adult and Community Education (ACE) providers to offer non-accredited courses and single modules of accredited learning that provide pathways into full scale accredited VET programs, and b) the factors that aid and inhibit this from occurring. Based on the findings, suggestions are made as to what needs to be done to extend this capacity and thereby to achieve the goals outlined in the 2008 Ministerial Declaration on Adult Community Education.

The critical meets the cultural : International students’ responses to critical, dialogic postgraduate education in a Western university

What happens when international students encounter critical, dialogic approaches to postgraduate education in a Western university? This chapter works with the narrative accounts of two students from Asian countries about their varied experiences of and responses to critically-oriented, interactive, English-medium study in a Master of Education course in Australia. Beginning from researcher standpoint, it tables the students’ stories of cultural, academic, linguistic and personal border crossings, and their ‘readings’ of course demands prioritising critical analysis, dialogic exchange and problem-solving. Their responses raise ongoing, unresolved epistemological and experiential issues about the cross-cultural and transnational relevance and value of Western/Eurocentric ‘critical’ education.

Education for the creative economy : innovation, transdisciplinarity, and networks

The question posed in this chapter is: To what extent does current education theory and practice prepare graduates for the creative economy? We first define what we mean by the term creative economy, explain why we think it is a significant point of focus, derive its key features, describe the human capital requirements of these features, and then discuss whether current education theory and practice are producing these human capital requirements. The term creative economy can be critiqued as a shibboleth, but as a high level metaphor, it nevertheless has value in directing us away from certain sorts of economic activity and toward other kinds. Much economic activity is in no way creative. If I have a monopoly on some valued resource, I do not need to be creative. Other forms of economic activity are intensely creative. If I have no valued resources, I must create something that is valued. At its simplest and yet most profound, the idea of a creative economy suggests a capacity to compete based on engaging in a gainful activity that is different from everyone else’s, rather than pursuing the same endeavor more competitively than everyone else. The ability to differentiate on novelty is key to the concept of creative economy and key to our analysis of education for this economy. Therefore, we follow Potts and Cunningham (2008, p. 18) and Potts, Cunningham, Hartley, and Ormerod (2008) in their discussion of the economic significance of the creative industries and see the creative economy not as a sector but as a set of economic processes that act on the economy as a whole to invigorate innovation based growth. We see the creative economy as suffused with all industry rather than as a sector in its own right. These economic processes are essentially concerned with the production of new ideas that ultimately become new products, service, industry sectors, or, in some cases, process or product innovations in older sectors. Therefore, our starting point is that modern economies depend on innovation, and we see the core of innovation as new knowledge of some kind. We commence with some observations about innovation.

Pedagogy and participation : literacy education for low-literate refugee students of African origin in a western school system

For ESL teachers working with low-literate adolescents the challenge is to provide instruction in basic literacy capabilities while also realising the benefits of interactive and dialogic pedagogies advocated for the students. In this article we look at literacy pedagogy for refugees of African origin in Australian classrooms. We report on an interview study conducted in an intensive English language school for new arrival adolescents and in three regular secondary schools. Brian Street’s ideological model is used. From this perspective, literacy entails not only technical skills, but also social and cultural ways of making meaning that are embedded within relations of power. The findings showed that teachers were strengthening control of instruction to enable mastery of technical capabilities in basic literacy and genre analysis. We suggest that this approach should be supplemented by a critical approach transforming relations of linguistic power that exclude, marginalise and humiliate the study students in the classroom.

Primary students’ interpretation of maps : gesture use and mapping knowledge

Maps are used to represent three-dimensional space and are integral to a range of everyday experiences. They are increasingly used in mathematics, being prominent both in school curricula and as a form of assessing students understanding of mathematics ideas. In order to successfully interpret maps, students need to be able to understand that maps: represent space, have their own perspective and scale, and their own set of symbols and texts. Despite the fact that maps have an increased prevalence in society and school, there is evidence to suggest that students have difficulty interpreting maps. This study investigated 43 primary-aged students’ (aged 9-12 years) verbal and gestural behaviours as they engaged with and solved map tasks. Within a multiliteracies framework that focuses on spatial, visual, linguistic, and gestural elements, the study investigated how students interpret map tasks. Specifically, the study sought to understand students’ skills and approaches used to solving map tasks and the gestural behaviours they utilised as they engaged with map tasks. The investigation was undertaken using the Knowledge Discovery in Data (KDD) design. The design of this study capitalised on existing research data to carry out a more detailed analysis of students’ interpretation of map tasks. Video data from an existing data set was reorganised according to two distinct episodes—Task Solution and Task Explanation—and analysed within the multiliteracies framework. Content Analysis was used with these data and through anticipatory data reduction techniques, patterns of behaviour were identified in relation to each specific map task by looking at task solution, task correctness and gesture use. The findings of this study revealed that students had a relatively sound understanding of general mapping knowledge such as identifying landmarks, using keys, compass points and coordinates. However, their understanding of mathematical concepts pertinent to map tasks including location, direction, and movement were less developed. Successful students were able to interpret the map tasks and apply relevant mathematical understanding to navigate the spatial demands of the map tasks while the unsuccessful students were only able to interpret and understand basic map conventions. In terms of their gesture use, the more difficult the task, the more likely students were to exhibit gestural behaviours to solve the task. The most common form of gestural behaviour was deictic, that is a pointing gesture. Deictic gestures not only aided the students capacity to explain how they solved the map tasks but they were also a tool which assisted them to navigate and monitor their spatial movements when solving the tasks. There were a number of implications for theory, learning and teaching, and test and curriculum design arising from the study. From a theoretical perspective, the findings of the study suggest that gesturing is an important element of multimodal engagement in mapping tasks. In terms of teaching and learning, implications include the need for students to utilise gesturing techniques when first faced with new or novel map tasks. As students become more proficient in solving such tasks, they should be encouraged to move beyond a reliance on such gesture use in order to progress to more sophisticated understandings of map tasks. Additionally, teachers need to provide students with opportunities to interpret and attend to multiple modes of information when interpreting map tasks.

The big picture : an integrated approach to fashion design education

This paper examines current teaching practice within the context of the Bachelor of Design (Fashion) programme at AUT University and compares it to the approach adopted in previous years. In recent years, staff on the Bachelor of Design (Fashion) adopted a holistic approach to the assessment of design projects similar to the successful ideas and methods put forward by Stella Lange at the FINZ conference, 2005. Prior to adopting this holistic approach, the teaching culture at AUT University was modular and divorced the development of conceptual design ideas from the technical processes of patternmaking and garment construction, thus limiting the creative potential of integrated project work. Fashion Design is not just about drawing pretty pictures but is rather an entire process that encapsulates conceptual design ideas and technical processes within the context of a target market. Fashion design at AUT being under the umbrella of a wider Bachelor of Design must encourage a more serious view of Fashion and Fashion Design as a whole. In the development of the Bachelor of Design degree at AUT, the university recognised that design education would be best serviced by an inclusive approach. At inception, Core Studio and Core Theory papers formed the first semester of the programme across the discipline areas of Fashion, Spatial Design, Graphic Design and Digital Design. These core papers reinforce the reality that there is a common skill set that transcends all design disciplines with the differentiation between disciplines being determined by the techniques and processes they adopt. Studio based teaching within the scope of a major design project was recognised and introduced some time ago for students in their graduating year, however it was also expected that by year 3 the student had amassed the basic skills required to be able to work in this way. The opinion concerning teaching these basic skills was that they were best serviced by a modular approach. Prior attempts to manage design project delivery leant towards deconstructing the newly formed integrated papers in order to ensure key technical skills were covered in enough depth. So, whilst design projects have played an integral part in the delivery of fashion design over the year levels, the earlier projects were timetabled by discipline and unconvincingly connected. This paper discusses how the holistic approach to assessment must be coupled with an integrated approach to delivery. The methods and processes used are demonstrated and some recently trialled developments are shown to have resulted in achieving the integrated approach in both delivery and assessment.

Eigengaze : covert behavioral biometric exploiting visual attention characteristics

It is possible for the visual attention characteristics of a person to be exploited as a biometric for authentication or identification of individual viewers. The visual attention characteristics of a person can be easily monitored by tracking the gaze of a viewer during the presentation of a known or unknown visual scene. The positions and sequences of gaze locations during viewing may be determined by overt (conscious) or covert (sub-conscious) viewing behaviour. This paper presents a method to authenticate individuals using their covert viewing behaviour, thus yielding a unique behavioural biometric. A method to quantify the spatial and temporal patterns established by the viewer for their covert behaviour is proposed utilsing a principal component analysis technique called `eigenGaze'. Experimental results suggest that it is possible to capture the unique visual attention characteristics of a person to provide a simple behavioural biometric.

Drawing on imagination : primary students' ideal learning environments

Research has established a close relationship between learning environments and learning outcomes (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria, 2008; Woolner, Hall, Higgins, McCaughey & Wall, 2007) yet little is known about how students in Australian schools imagine the ways that their learning environments could be improved to enhance their engagement with the processes and content of education and children are rarely consulted on the issue of school design (Rudduck & Flutter, 2004). Currently, school and classroom designers give attention to operational matters of efficiency and economy, so that architecture for children’s education is largely conceived in terms of adult and professional needs (Halpin, 2007). This results in the construction of educational spaces that impose traditional teaching and learning methods, reducing the possibilities of imaginative pedagogical relationships. Education authorities may encourage new, student-centred pedagogical styles, such as collaborative learning, team-teaching and peer tutoring, but the spaces where such innovations are occurring do not always provide the features necessary to implement these styles. Heeding the views of children could result in the creation of spaces where more imaginative pedagogical relationships and student-centred pedagogical styles can be implemented. In this article, a research project conducted with children in nine Queensland primary schools to investigate their ideas of the ideal ‘school’ is discussed. Overwhelmingly, the students’ work emphasised that learning should be fun and that learning environments should be eco-friendly places where their imaginations can be engaged and where they learn from and in touch with reality. The children’s imagined schools echo ideas that have been promoted over many decades by progressive educators such as John Dewey (1897, in Provenzo, 2006) (“experiential learning”), AS Neill (in Cassebaum, 2003) (Summerhill school) and Ivan Illich (1970) (“deschooling”), with a vast majority of students suggesting that, wherever possible, learning should take place away from classrooms and in environments that support direct, hands-on learning.

Individual differences in the visual control of intercepting a penalty kick in association football

Recent perceptual-motor studies have revealed variations in learning trajectories of novices. Despite such observation, relatively little attention has been paid to studying individual differences in experienced performers’ perceptual-motor behaviors. The present study examined individual differences for a visual anticipation task. Experienced association football goalkeepers attempted to intercept penalty kicks taken with deceptive and non-deceptive kicking actions. Data revealed that differences in the action capabilities of goalkeepers affected the timing and accuracy of movement response behaviors. Faster goalkeepers tended to wait until later before initiating movement in comparison with slower goalkeepers. The study of affordances in sport environments offers a theoretical framework with which to overcome some of the reported methodological limitations in the visual anticipation literature.

Student engagement with an ePortfolio : a case study of pre-service education students

The emergence of ePortfolios is relatively recent in the university sector as a way to engage students in their learning and assessment, and to produce records of their accomplishments. An ePortfolio is an online tool that students can utilise to record, catalogue, retrieve and present reflections and artefacts that support and demonstrate the development of graduate students’ capabilities and professional standards across university courses. The ePortfolio is therefore considered as both process and product. Although ePortfolios show promise as a useful tool and their uptake has grown, they are not yet a mainstream higher education technology. To date, the emphasis has been on investigating their potential to support the multiple purposes of learning, assessment and employability, but less is known about whether and how students engage with ePortfolios in the university setting. This thesis investigates student engagement with an ePortfolio in one university. As the educational designer for the ePortfolio project at the University, I was uniquely positioned as a researching professional to undertake an inquiry into whether students were engaging with the ePortfolio. The participants in this study were a cohort (defined by enrolment in a unit of study) of second and third year education students (n=105) enrolled in a four year Bachelor of Education degree. The students were introduced to the ePortfolio in an introductory lecture and a hands-on workshop in a computer laboratory. They were subsequently required to complete a compulsory assessment task – a critical reflection - using the ePortfolio. Following that, engagement with the ePortfolio was voluntary. A single case study approach arising from an interpretivist paradigm directed the methodological approach and research design for this study. The study investigated the participants’ own accounts of their experiences with the ePortfolio, including how and when they engaged with the ePortfolio and the factors that impacted on their engagement. Data collection methods consisted of an attitude survey, student interviews, document collection, a researcher reflective journal and researcher observations. The findings of the study show that, while the students were encouraged to use the ePortfolio as a learning and employability tool, most students ultimately chose to disengage after completing the assessment task. Only six of the forty-five students (13%) who completed the research survey had used the ePortfolio in a sustained manner. The data obtained from the students during this research has provided insight into reasons why they disengaged from the ePortfolio. The findings add to the understandings and descriptions of student engagement with technology, and more broadly, advance the understanding of ePortfolios. These findings also contribute to the interdisciplinary field of technology implementation. There are three key outcomes from this study, a model of student engagement with technology, a set of criteria for the design of an ePortfolio, and a set of recommendations for effective practice for those implementing ePortfolios. The first, the Model of Student Engagement with Technology (MSET) (Version 2) explored student engagement with technology by highlighting key engagement decision points for students The model was initially conceptualised by building on work of previous research (Version 1), however, following data analysis a new model emerged, MSET (Version 2). The engagement decision points were identified as: • Prior Knowledge and Experience, leading to imagined usefulness and imagined ease of use; • Initial Supported Engagement, leading to supported experience of usefulness and supported ease of use; • Initial Independent Engagement, leading to actual experience of independent usefulness and actual ease of use; and • Ongoing Independent Engagement, leading to ongoing experience of usefulness and ongoing ease of use. The Model of Student Engagement with Technology (MSET) goes beyond numerical figures of usage to demonstrate student engagement with an ePortfolio. The explanatory power of the model is based on the identification of the types of decisions that students make and when they make them during the engagement process. This model presents a greater depth of understanding student engagement than was previously available and has implications for the direction and timing of future implementation, and academic and student development activities. The second key outcome from this study is a set of criteria for the re-conceptualisation of the University ePortfolio. The knowledge gained from this research has resulted in a new set of design criteria that focus on the student actions of writing reflections and adding artefacts. The process of using the ePortfolio is reconceptualised in terms of privileging student learning over administrative compliance. The focus of the ePortfolio is that the writing of critical reflections is the key function, not the selection of capabilities. The third key outcome from this research consists of five recommendations for university practice that have arisen from this study. They are that, sustainable implementation is more often achieved through small steps building on one another; that a clear definition of the purpose of an ePortfolio is crucial for students and staff; that ePortfolio pedagogy should be the driving force not the technology; that the merit of the ePortfolio is fostered in students and staff; and finally, that supporting delayed task performance is crucial. Students do not adopt an ePortfolio just because it is provided. While students must accept responsibility for their own engagement with the ePortfolio, the institution has to accept responsibility for providing the environment, and technical and pedagogical support to foster engagement. Ultimately, an ePortfolio should be considered as a joint venture between student and institution where strong returns on investment can be realised by both. It is acknowledged that the current implementation strategies for the ePortfolio are just the beginning of a much longer process. The real rewards for students, academics and the university lie in the future.