Trouble and autoethnography in assessment genre : a case for postnational design in online internationalized pedagogy

This chapter is interested in the difference between local places with implicit codes and more global spaces with explicit directions, through the case study of the design and conduct of assessment in an online internationalized MBA unit. Online learning is understood to offer new ways of belonging in 'postnational' communities less reliant on locality for their frames of reference. This study reports and analyses firstly a series of troubles which erupted over the international students' desire for more explication of the desired genre for their assessment task. Then it analyses the different, 'autoethnographic' genre structure that emerged when students started to acknowledge the diverse backgrounds within the class.The chapter then offers practical considerations for the design of online internationalized programs.

Naming trouble in online internationalized education

This paper offers an analysis of cultural politics that emerged around naming practices in an ethnographic study of the interactions within an online MBA unit, offered by an Australian university to both ‘local’ Australian students and international students enrolled through a Malaysian partner institution. It became evident that names were doing important identity, textual and pedagogical work in these interactions and considerable interactive trouble arose over the social practices surrounding names. The analysis uses sociolinguistic concepts to analyse selected slices of the online texts and participants' interview accounts. The analysis shows how ethnocentric default settings in the courseware served to heighten and exacerbate cultural difference as a pedagogical problem. These events are related to the larger problematic of theorising the context of culture in times of globalisation and increasingly entangled educational routes, with implications for the enterprise of online internationalised education.

The research pathway to developing a health promotion intervention for the high school curriculum

Introduction: Schools provide the opportunity to reach a large number of adolescents in a systematic way however there are increasing demands on curriculum providing challenges for health promotion activities. This paper will describe the research processes and strategies used to design an injury prevention program.----- Methods: A multi-stage process of data collection included: (1) Surveys on injury-risk behaviours to identify targets of change (examining behaviour and risk/ protective factors among more than 4000 adolescents); (2) Focus groups (n= 30 high-risk adolescents) to understand and determine risk situations; (3) Hospital emergency outpatients survey to understand injury types/ situations; (4) Workshop (n= 50 teachers/ administrators) to understand the target curriculum and experiences with injury-risk behaviours; (5) Additional focus groups (students and teachers) regarding draft material and processes.----- Results: Summaries of findings from each stage are presented particularly demonstrating the design process. The baseline data identified target risk and protective factors. The following qualitative study provided detail about content and context and with the hospital findings assisted in developing ways to ensure relevance and meaning (e.g. identifying high risk situations and providing insights into language, culture and development). School staff identified links to school processes with final data providing feedback on curriculum fit, feasibility and appropriateness of resources. The data were integrated into a program which demonstrated reduced injury.----- Conclusions: A comprehensive research process is required to develop an informed and effective intervention. The next stage of a cluster randomised control trial is a major task and justifies the intensive and comprehensive development.

The Google online marketing challenge and research opportunities

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is an ongoing collaboration between Google and academics, to give students experiential learning. The Challenge gives student teams US$200 in AdWords, Google’s flagship advertising product, to develop online marketing campaigns for actual businesses. The end result is an engaging in-class exercise that provides students and professors with an exciting and pedagogically rigorous competition. Results from surveys at the end of the Challenge reveal positive appraisals from the three—students, businesses, and professors—main constituents; general agreement between students and instructors regarding learning outcomes; and a few points of difference between students and instructors. In addition to describing the Challenge and its outcomes, this article reviews the postparticipation questionnaires and subsequent datasets. The questionnaires and results are publicly available, and this article invites educators to mine the datasets, share their results, and offer suggestions for future iterations of the Challenge.

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.

Staff perspectives of a cardiology short stay unit

Objective To evaluate staff perceptions about working environment, efficiency and the clinical safety of a cardiovascular intervention short stay unit (SSU) during the first year of operation. Design Postal questionnaire. Setting Cardiac catheterisation laboratory (CCL), coronary care unit (CCU), general cardiology ward (GCW) and the short stay unit (SSU) of a tertiary referral hospital situated in the mid coastal region of NSW. Subjects Cardiologists (including visiting medical officers [VMO]), cardiology fellows, cardiology advanced trainees and nurses. Results Responses on the working environment of the SSU and the discharge process were statistically significant. A substantial proportion of both nurses and doctors had concerns about patient safety, even though no adverse events were formally recorded in the database. Conclusions Though the participants of the survey agree on the efficiency of the SSU in providing beds to the hospital, they disagree on aspects that are important in the functioning of the SSU, including the working environment, patient selection and clinical safety. The results highlight potential issues that could be improved or addressed and are relevant to the rollout of SSUs across NSW.

Changing assessment practices : the case for online moderation

Online moderation meetings have the potential to support the collaborative professional development of teachers, and the formation of a common understanding of what denotes quality in student work in a standards based assessment system. In doing so systemic calls for consistency across education systems are also being met. In this paper a case for employing online moderation meetings is developed through recourse to the demands of learning in the twenty-first century and the place of assessment within those discourses. It is argued that empirical data is needed on the efficacy of online moderation meetings to guide future practice as the use of information and communication technologies increases in education systems. Online moderation is one way of gathering teachers across vast distances to share their understandings and develop common meanings of assessment. While it is suggested that online moderation is one possible procedure to meet systemic requirements and support teachers’ professional collaboration, the implementation of such a system also introduces new challenges for schools and teachers. Meeting online to discuss professional understandings is a new way of operating for teachers and involves technology that has not yet been fully utilised within education departments. Issues such as the types of interactions that are afforded within such an environment, as well as technical operating problems that occur when using technology impact on the employment of online meetings. Online moderation meetings while potentially solving the issue of developing common understandings across an entire department also pose new issues to be resolved. There is a need for research into the efficacy of online moderation meetings so that future policy decisions may be based on sound empirical data. It is imperative that as new ways of knowing and acting are incorporated into school curriculum and pedagogy, assessment practices are also aligned. Online moderation meetings can support such practices by enabling teachers to communicate with a wider and more diverse group of teachers to establish common understandings.

The relationship of loneliness and social anxiety with children’s and adolescents’ online communication

Children and adolescents now communicate online to form and/or maintain relationships with friends, family, and strangers. Relationships in “real life” are important for children’s and adolescents’ psychosocial development; however, they can be difficult for those who experience feelings of loneliness and/or social anxiety. The aim of this study was to investigate differences in usage of online communication patterns between children and adolescents with and without self-reported loneliness and social anxiety. Six hundred and twenty-six students aged between 10-16 years completed a survey on the amount of time they spent communicating online, the topics they discussed, the partners they engaged with, and their purposes for communicating over the Internet. Participants were administered a shortened version of the UCLA Loneliness Scale and an abbreviated sub-scale of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A). Additionally, age and gender differences in usage of the aforementioned online communication patterns were examined across the entire sample. Findings revealed that children and adolescents who self-reported being lonely communicated online significantly more frequently about personal things and intimate topics than did those who did not self-report being lonely. The former were motivated to use online communication significantly more frequently to compensate for their weaker social skills to meet new people. Results suggest that Internet usage allows them to fulfill critical needs of social interactions, self-disclosure, and identity exploration. Future research, however, should explore whether or not the benefits derived from online communication may also facilitate lonely children’s and adolescents’ offline social relationships.

Nutritional status and information needs of medical oncology patients receiving treatment at an Australian public hospital

This study aimed to identify: i) the prevalence of malnutrition according to the scored Patient Generated-Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA); ii) utilization of available nutrition resources; iii) patient nutrition information needs; and iv) external sources of nutrition information. An observational, cross-sectional study was undertaken at an Australian public hospital on 191 patients receiving oncology services. According to PG-SGA, 49% of patients were malnourished and 46% required improved symptom management and/or nutrition intervention. Commonly reported nutrition-impact symptoms included: peculiar tastes (31%), no appetite (24%) and nausea (24%). External sources of nutrition information were accessed by 37%, with popular choices being media/internet (n=19) and family/friends (n=13). In a sub-sample (n=65), 32 patients were aware of the available nutrition resources, 23 thought the information sufficient and 19 patients had actually read them. Additional information on supplements and modifying side effects was requested by 26 patients. Malnutrition is common in oncology patients receiving treatment at an Australian public hospital and almost half require improved symptom management and/or nutrition intervention. Patients who read the available nutrition information found it useful, however awareness of these nutrition resources and the provision of information on supplementation and managing symptoms requires attention.

Departing from the virtual community : a discussion of the ways and means to uncover localised order in online games

This paper is part one of a three part study into the collective regulation processes of players in massive multiplayer online games (MMOG). Traditionally game playing has not been classed as problematic, however with introduction of new media technologies and new ways to play games, certain contexts have become obscure, namely the localised order of ‘playing online’ or how players manage and maintain order between each other as opposed to ‘following the rules’. Principally this paper will examine concepts of ‘virtual community’. These will be illustrated as particularly unhelpful when considering how people conduct themselves in these spaces. Thus, ‘virtual community’ will be seen as critical in implicating various online behaviours as superior to other online behaviours causing obscurity and blurring actions. This obscurity is grounded by strong associations in the virtual community as logic of practise in and of itself; behaviours that fall outside this category become common sense and as such are made invisible for investigation. This paper will draw upon the theories of Basil Bernstein and Pierre Bourdieu to produce a distinction between online behaviours and ultimately make them visible for further investigation. In doing so this paper seeks to form a basis for future research where interaction in these spaces can be identified as belonging to a certain framework to inform the design of online games and applications more effectively.

The interaction order of Second Life : how micro sociology can contribute to online games innovation

This paper uses the virtual world Second Life (as Web 2.0 environment) to discuss how sociological theory is a relevant tool for innovation in the area of games design as a methodological strategy. Via the theories of Erving Goffman’s interaction order the paper illustrates how micro studies of online interaction demonstrate active accounts of membership and complex interactivity. In order to achieve this, the paper outlines a methodological tool to assist in the application of micro sociology to Web 2.0 environments that accounts for the multiple dimensions of participation within the digital field.

Democracy, participation and convergent media : case studies in contemporary online news journalism in Australia

The shift from 20th century mass communications media towards convergent media and Web 2.0 has raised the possibility of a renaissance of the public sphere, based around citizen journalism and participatory media culture. This paper will evaluate such claims both conceptually and empirically. At a conceptual level, it is noted that the question of whether media democratization is occurring depends in part upon how democracy is understood, with some critical differences in understandings of democracy, the public sphere and media citizenship. The empirical work in this paper draws upon various case studies of new developments in Australian media, including online- only newspapers, developments in public service media, and the rise of commercially based online alternative media. It is argued that participatory media culture is being expanded if understood in terms of media pluralism, but that implications for the public sphere depend in part upon how media democratization is defined.

Nursing students’ knowledge and practice of infection control precautions : an educational intervention

Aim. This paper is a report of the effectiveness of a purpose-designed education program in improving undergraduate nursing students’ understanding and practice of infection control precautions. Background. The severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003 highlighted that healthcare workers were under-prepared for such an epidemic. While many in-service education sessions were arranged by institutions in response to the outbreak, preservice nursing education has overlooked preparation for handling such infectious disease epidemics. Method. A quasi-experimental design was used and a 16-hour, purpose-designed infection control education programme was implemented for preservice nursing students in southern Taiwan. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed at three time points during the period September 2005 to April 2006 to examine the sustainability and effectiveness of the intervention. Results. A total of 175 preservice nursing students participated in the study. Following the education programme, students in the intervention group showed a statistically significant improvement across time in their knowledge of these precautions [F(2, 180) = 13Æ53, P < 0Æ001] and confidence in resolving infectionrelated issues [F(1Æ79, 168Æ95) = 3Æ24] when compared with those in the control group. Conclusion. To improve nursing students’ capacity in responding to infectious epidemics, an educational programme that integrates the theme of infection precautions, learning theory and teaching strategies is recommended for all nursing institutes.

Friends looking out for friends as an intervention strategy for young adults' risky driving

Young adults are at the greatest risk of experiences road trauma disproportionately to those in other age groups. While the influence of peers is commonly associated with motor vehicle crashes and injury few studies examine whether their influence can be positive. In particular friends may be able to actively intervene to reduce the likelihood of risky driving (e.g. speeding, drink driving or drug driving) and alcohol use. The aim of this paper is to conduct a systematic review on intervening in risky driving behaviour including the situations in which it is likely or unlikely to occur, factors associated with individuals who might or report having intervened and any evaluated programs that make use of such strategies. In addition a study was conducted with 247 first year university students (32% males) to examine whether young adults report engaging in protective behaviour with their peers in South-east Queensland. In particular, if they intervene if their friends are about to drive after drinking, drive after taking illicit drugs or when speeding. It examines any differences in reported likelihood of discouraging such illegal and dangerous behaviour (in the past 12 months prior to the survey). Findings showed that young adults (17-25 years) did indeed report protective behaviour in relation to friends’ drink driving, drug driving, speeding and binge drinking. Conclusions will be drawn regarding important considerations in developing positive strategies and advertising campaigns that encourage positive behaviours (e.g. ‘don’t let mates drink and drive’).