An analysis of the timeliness and nature of profit warnings in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis

The global financial crisis (GFC) has severely impacted the financial position and performance of many companies internationally. Because of its severity and associated increase in uncertainty it challenges the effectiveness of existing disclosure regulation. Australia provides a unique environment in which to test the effects of the GFC on corporate disclosure because statutory rules mandate the timely disclosure of ‘price-sensitive’ information (ASX Rule 3.1) by listed entities. Exploiting this institutional setting we investigate the determinants and timeliness of profit warnings issued by the top 500 ASX-listed firms with profit declines in the 2009 fiscal year. Our findings show that firms behave differently with regard to the issuance of profit warnings: larger and more indebted firms are more likely to issue a profit warning and tend to be timelier; surprisingly, poorer performing firms tend to release the news more quickly and this might be attributed to an increasing threat of litigation. Our analysis of profit warning determinants shows interesting results with the presence of asset impairments hindering the early disclosure of profit warnings. Our findings are novel for two main reasons: first, we provide insights into the impact of global financial crisis on profit warning behaviour; second, we are the first to examine the differential impact of alternative features of profit warnings on disclosure timeliness. The findings have implications for regulators in determining compliance with continuous disclosure rules and more broadly, for market participants in interpreting profit warnings.

Geochemistry-based coral palaeoclimate studies and the potential of ‘non-traditional’ (non-massive Porites) corals : recent developments and future progression

Understanding the natural variability of the Earth's climate system and accurately identifying potential anthropogenic influences requires long term, geographically distributed records of key climate indicators, such as temperature and precipitation that extend prior to the last 400. years of the Holocene. Reef corals provide an excellent source of high resolution climate records, and importantly represent the tropical marine environment where palaeoclimate data are urgently required. Recent decades have seen significant improvement in our understanding of coral biomineralisation, the associated uptake of geochemical proxies and methods of identifying and understanding the effects of both early and late, post depositional diagenetic alteration. These processes all have significant implications for interpreting geochemical proxies relevant to palaeoclimatic reconstructions. This paper reviews the current 'state of the art' in terms of coral based palaeoclimate reconstructions and highlights a key remaining problem. The majority of coral based palaeoclimate research has been derived from massive colonies of Porites. However, massive Porites are not globally abundant and may not provide material of a particular age of interest in those regions where they are present. Therefore, there is great potential for alternate coral genera to act as complimentary climate archives. While it remains critical to consider five key factors - vital effects, differential growth morphologies, geochemical heterogeneity in the skeletal ultrastructure, transfer equation selection and diagenetic screening of skeletal material - in order to allow the highest level of accuracy in coral palaeoclimate reconstructions, it is also important to develop alternate taxa for palaeoclimate studies in regions where Porites colonies are absent or rare. Currently as many as nine genera other than Porites have proven at least limited utility in palaeothermometry, most of which are found in the Atlantic/Caribbean region where massive Porites do not exist. Even branching taxa such as Acropora have significant potential to preserve environmental archives. Increasing this capability will greatly expand the number of potential geochemical archives available for longer term temporal records of palaeoclimate.

Old mastheads and new media : newspapers striving to adapt in Australia and South-east Asia

As a key element in their response to new media forcing transformations in mass media and media use, newspapers have deployed various strategies to not only establish online and mobile products, and develop healthy business plans, but to set out to be dominant portals. Their response to change was the subject of an early investigation by one of the present authors (Keshvani 2000). That was part of a set of short studies inquiring into what impact new software applications and digital convergence might have on journalism practice (Tickle and Keshvani 2000), and also looking for demonstrations of the way that innovations, technologies and protocols then under development might produce a “wireless, streamlined electronic news production process (Tickle and Keshvani 2001).” The newspaper study compared the online products of The Age in Melbourne and the Straits Times in Singapore. It provided an audit of the Singapore and Australia Information and Communications Technology (ICT) climate concentrating on the state of development of carrier networks, as a determining factor in the potential strength of the two services with their respective markets. In the outcome, contrary to initial expectations, the early cable roll-out and extensive ‘wiring’ of the city in Singapore had not produced a level of uptake of Internet services as strong as that achieved in Melbourne by more ad hoc and varied strategies. By interpretation, while news websites and online content were at an early stage of development everywhere, and much the same as one another, no determining structural imbalance existed to separate these leading media participants in Australia and South-east Asia. The present research revisits that situation, by again studying the online editions of the two large newspapers in the original study, and one other, The Courier Mail, (recognising the diversification of types of product in this field, by including it as a representative of Newscorp, now a major participant). The inquiry works through the principle of comparison. It is an exercise in qualitative, empirical research that establishes a comparison between the situation in 2000 as described in the earlier work, and the situation in 2014, after a decade of intense development in digital technology affecting the media industries. It is in that sense a follow-up study on the earlier work, although this time giving emphasis to content and style of the actual products as experienced by their users. It compares the online and print editions of each of these three newspapers; then the three mastheads as print and online entities, among themselves; and finally it compares one against the other two, as representing a South-east Asian model and Australian models. This exercise is accompanied by a review of literature on the developments in ICT affecting media production and media organisations, to establish the changed context. The new study of the online editions is conducted as a systematic appraisal of the first level, or principal screens, of the three publications, over the course of six days (10-15.2.14 inclusive). For this, categories for analysis were made, through conducting a preliminary examination of the products over three days in the week before. That process identified significant elements of media production, such as: variegated sourcing of materials; randomness in the presentation of items; differential production values among media platforms considered, whether text, video or stills images; the occasional repurposing and repackaging of top news stories of the day and the presence of standard news values – once again drawn out of the trial ‘bundle’ of journalistic items. Reduced in this way the online artefacts become comparable with the companion print editions from the same days. The categories devised and then used in the appraisal of the online products have been adapted to print, to give the closest match of sets of variables. This device, to study the two sets of publications on like standards -- essentially production values and news values—has enabled the comparisons to be made. This comparing of the online and print editions of each of the three publications was set up as up the first step in the investigation. In recognition of the nature of the artefacts, as ones that carry very diverse information by subject and level of depth, and involve heavy creative investment in the formulation and presentation of the information; the assessment also includes an open section for interpreting and commenting on main points of comparison. This takes the form of a field for text, for the insertion of notes, in the table employed for summarising the features of each product, for each day. When the sets of comparisons as outlined above are noted, the process then becomes interpretative, guided by the notion of change. In the context of changing media technology and publication processes, what substantive alterations have taken place, in the overall effort of news organisations in the print and online fields since 2001; and in their print and online products separately? Have they diverged or continued along similar lines? The remaining task is to begin to make inferences from that. Will the examination of findings enforce the proposition that a review of the earlier study, and a forensic review of new models, does provide evidence of the character and content of change --especially change in journalistic products and practice? Will it permit an authoritative description on of the essentials of such change in products and practice? Will it permit generalisation, and provide a reliable base for discussion of the implications of change, and future prospects? Preliminary observations suggest a more dynamic and diversified product has been developed in Singapore, well themed, obviously sustained by public commitment and habituation to diversified online and mobile media services. The Australian products suggest a concentrated corporate and journalistic effort and deployment of resources, with a strong market focus, but less settled and ordered, and showing signs of limitations imposed by the delay in establishing a uniform, large broadband network. The scope of the study is limited. It is intended to test, and take advantage of the original study as evidentiary material from the early days of newspaper companies’ experimentation with online formats. Both are small studies. The key opportunity for discovery lies in the ‘time capsule’ factor; the availability of well-gathered and processed information on major newspaper company production, at the threshold of a transformational decade of change in their industry. The comparison stands to identify key changes. It should also be useful as a reference for further inquiries of the same kind that might be made, and for monitoring of the situation in regard to newspaper portals on line, into the future.

Interpreting discovered patterns in terms of ontology concepts

Semantic Web offers many possibilities for future Web technologies. Therefore, it is a need to search for ways that can bring the huge amount of unstructured documents from current Web to Semantic Web automatically. One big challenge in searching for such ways is how to understand patterns by both humans and machine. To address this issue, we present an innovative model which interprets patterns to high level concepts. These concepts can explain the patterns' meanings in a human understandable way while improving the information filtering performance. The model is evaluated by comparing it against one state-of-the-art benchmark model using standard Reuters dataset. The results show that the proposed model is successful. The significance of this model is three fold. It gives a way to interpret text mining output, provides a technique to find concepts relevant to the whole set of patterns which is an essential feature to understand the topic, and to some extent overcomes information mismatch and overload problems of existing models. This model will be very useful for knowledge based applications.

The importance of the Deutsche Luxfer Prismen Syndikat, the Victoria regia lily and Gothic imitation in the design of Bruno Taut's Glashaus

Bruno Taut's Glashaus is considered a seminal example of early modernist architecture. Yet, some of the crucial factors behind the design of the Glashaus remain little understood. This PhD reveals that the Glashaus' patron, Frederick Keppler, exerted a significant influence over its design by insisting that it follow a prescriptive brief. Interpreting these rigid instructions, Taut as the architect, gained inspiration from the myths and symbols associated with the Victoria regia lily and the Gothic. This PhD therefore significantly expands the understanding of the Glashaus, and thus reinvigorates our comprehension of one of the most distinctive early examples of modern architecture.

Learning to lead: The development and testing of a model of leadership learning

Drawing upon an action learning perspective, we hypothesized that a leader’s learning of project leadership skills would be related to facilitative leadership, team reflexivity, and team performance. Secondly, we proposed that new and experienced leaders would differ in the amount they learn from their current and recent experience as project managers, and in the strength of the relationship between their self-reported learning, facilitative leadership, and team reflexivity. We conducted a 1-year longitudinal study of 50 R&D teams, led by 25 new and 25 experienced leaders, with 313 team members and 22 project customers, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. We found evidence of a significant impact of the leader’s learning on subsequent facilitative leadership and team performance 8 and 12 months later, suggesting a lag between learning leadership skills and translating these skills into leadership behavior. The findings contribute to an understanding of how leaders consolidate their learned experience into facilitative leadership behavior.

Improving wound management for residents in Residential Aged Care Facilities: National dissemination and implementation of the evidence based Champions for Skin Integrity Program

Overview The incidence of skin tears, pressure injuries and chronic wounds increases with age [1-4] and therefore is a serious issue for staff and residents in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs). A pilot project funded in Round 2 of the Encouraging Best Practice in Residential Aged Care (EBPRAC) program by the then Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing found that a substantial proportion of residents in aged care facilities experienced pressure injuries, skin tears or chronic wounds. It also found the implementation of the evidence based Champions for Skin Integrity (CSI) model of wound care was successful in significantly decreasing the prevalence and severity of wounds in residents, improving staff skills and knowledge of evidence based wound management, increasing staff confidence with wound management, increasing implementation of evidence based wound management and prevention strategies, and increasing staff awareness of their roles in evidence based wound care at all levels [5]. Importantly, during the project, the project team developed a resource kit on evidence based wound management. Two critical recommendations resulting from the project were that: - The CSI model or a similar strategic approach should be implemented in RACFs to facilitate the uptake of evidence based wound management and prevention - The resource kit on evidence based wound management should be made available to all Residential Aged Care Facilities and interested parties A proposal to disseminate or rollout the CSI model of wound care to all RACFs across Australia was submitted to the department in 2012. The department approved funding from the Aged Care Services Improvement Healthy Ageing Grant (ACSIHAG) at the same time as the Round 3 of the Encouraging Better Practice in Aged Care (EBPAC) program. The dissemination involved two crucial elements: 1. The updating, refining and distribution of a Champions for Skin Integrity Resource Kit, more commonly known as a CSI Resource Kit and 2. The presentation of intensive one day Promoting Healthy Skin “Train the Trainer” workshops in all capital cities and major regional towns across Australia Due to demand, the department agreed to fund a second round of workshops focussing on regional centres and the completion date was extended to accommodate the workshops. Later, the department also decided to host a departmental website for a number of clinical domains, including wound management, so that staff from the residential aged care sector had easy access to a central repository of helpful clinical resource material that could be used for improving the health and wellbeing of their older adults, consumers and carers. CSI Resource Kit Upgrade and Distribution: At the start of the project, a full evidence review was carried out on the material produced during the EBPRAC-CSI Stage 1 project and the relevant evidence based changes were made to the documentation. At the same time participants in the EBPRAC-CSI Stage 1 project were interviewed for advice on how to improve the resource material. Following this the documentation, included in the kit, was sent to independent experts for peer review. When this process was finalised, a learning designer and QUT’s Visual Communications Services were engaged to completely refine and update the design of the resources, and combined resource kit with the goal of keeping the overall size of the kit suitable for bookshelf mounting and the cost at reasonable levels. Both goals were achieved in that the kit is about the same size as a 25 mm A4 binder and costs between $19.00 and $28.00 per kit depending on the size of the print run. The dissemination of the updated CSI resource kit was an outstanding success. Demand for the kits was so great that a second print run of 2,000 kits was arranged on top of the initial print run of 4,000 kits. All RACFs across Australia were issued with a kit, some 2,740 in total. Since the initial distribution another 1,100 requests for kits has been fulfilled as well as 1,619 kits being distributed to participants at the Promoting Healthy Skin workshops. As the project was winding up a final request email was sent to all workshop participants asking if they required additional kits or resources to distribute the remaining kits and resources. This has resulted in requests for 200 additional kits and resources. Feedback from the residential aged care sector and other clinical providers who have interest in wound care has been very positive regarding the utility of the kit, (see Appendix 4). Promoting Healthy Skin Workshops The workshops also exceeded the project team’s initial objective. Our goal of providing workshop training for staff from one in four facilities and 450 participants was exceeded, with overwhelming demand for workshop places resulting in the need to provide a second round of workshops across Australia. At the completion of the second round, 37 workshops had been given, with 1286 participants, representing 835 facilities. A number of strategies were used to promote the workshops ranging from invitations included in the kit, to postcard mail-outs, broadcast emailing to all facilities and aged care networks and to articles and paid advertising in aged care journals. The most effective method, by far, was directly phoning the facilities. This enabled the caller to contact the relevant staff member and enlist their support for the workshop. As this is a labour intensive exercise, it was only used where numbers needed bolstering, with one venue rising from 3 registrants before the calls to 53 registrants after. The workshops were aimed at staff who had the interest and the capability of implementing evidence-based wound management within their facility or organisation. This targeting was successful in that a large proportion (68%) of participants were Registered Nurses, Nurse Managers, Educators or Consultants. Twenty percent were Endorsed Enrolled Nurses with the remaining 12% being made up of Personal Care Workers or Allied Health Professionals. To facilitate long term sustainability, the workshop employed train-the-trainer strategies. Feedback from the EBPRAC-CSI Stage 1 interviews was used in the development of workshop content. In addition, feedback from the workshop conducted at the end of the EBPRAC-CSI Stage 1 project suggested that change management and leadership training should be included in the workshops. The program was trialled in the first workshop conducted in Brisbane and then rolled out across Australia. Participants were asked to complete pre and post workshop surveys at the beginning and end of the workshop to determine how knowledge and confidence improved over the day. Results from the pre and post surveys showed significant improvements in the level of confidence in attendees’ ability to implement evidence based wound management. The results also indicated a significant increase in the level of confidence in ability to implement change within their facility or organisation. This is an important indication that the inclusion of change management/leadership training with clinical instruction can increase staff capacity and confidence in translating evidence into practice. To encourage the transfer of the evidence based content of the workshop into practice, participants were asked to prepare an Action Plan to be followed by a simple one page progress report three months after the workshop. These reports ranged from simple (e.g. skin moisturising to prevent skin tears), to complex implementation plans for introducing the CSI model across the whole organisation. Outcomes described in the project reports included decreased prevalence of skin tears, pressure injuries and chronic wounds, along with increased staff and resident knowledge and resident comfort. As stated above, some organisations prepared large, complex plans to roll out the CSI model across their organisation. These plans included a review of the organisation’s wound care system, policies and procedures, the creation of new processes, the education of staff and clients, uploading education and resource material onto internal electronic platforms and setting up formal review and evaluation processes. The CSI Resources have been enthusiastically sought and incorporated into multiple health care settings, including aged care, acute care, Medicare Local intranets (e.g. Map of Medicine e-pathways), primary health care, community and home care organisations, education providers and New Zealand aged and community health providers. Recommendations: Recommendations for RACFs, aged care and health service providers and government  Skin integrity and the evidence-practice gap in this area should be recognised as a major health issue for health service providers for older adults, with wounds experienced by up to 50% of residents in aged care settings (Edwards et al. 2010). Implementation of evidence based wound care through the Champions for Skin Integrity model in this and the pilot project has demonstrated the prevalence of wounds, wound healing times and wound infections can be halved.  A national program and Centre for Evidence Based Wound Management should be established to: - expand the reach of the model to other aged care facilities and health service providers for older adults - sustain the uptake of models such as the Champions for Skin Integrity (CSI) model - ensure current resources, expertise and training are available for consumers and health care professionals to promote skin integrity for all older adults  Evidence based resources for the CSI program and similar projects should be reviewed and updated every 3 – 4 years as per NH&MRC recommendations  Leadership and change management training is fundamental to increasing staff capacity, at all levels, to promote within-organisation dissemination of skills and knowledge gained from projects providing evidence based training Recommendations for future national dissemination projects  A formal program of opportunities for small groups of like projects to share information and resources, coordinate activities and synergise education programs interactively would benefit future national dissemination projects - Future workshop programs could explore an incentive program to optimise attendance and reduce ‘no shows’ - Future projects should build in the capacity and funding for increased follow-up with workshop attendees, to explore the reasons behind those who are unable to translate workshop learnings into the workplace and identify factors to address these barriers.

Specificity and context in post-exercise recovery: It is not a one-size-fits-all approach

The concept of specificity of exercise prescription and training is a longstanding and widely accepted foundation of the exercise sciences. Simply, the principle holds that training adaptations are achieved relative to the stimulus applied. That is, the manipulation of training variables (e.g. intensity or loading, mode, volume and frequency) directly influences the acute training stimulus, and so the long-term adaptive response (Young et al., 2001; Bird et al., 2005). Translating this concept to practice then recommends that exercise be prescribed specific to the desired outcomes, and the more closely this is achieved, the greater the performance gain is likely to be. However, the cardiovascular and metabolic adaptations traditionally associated with long, slow distance training types, similarly achieved using high-intensity training methods (for a review see Gibala et al., 2012), highlights understanding of underlying physiology as paramount for effective training program design. Various other factors including illness, sleep and psychology also impact on the training stimulus (Halson, 2014) and must be managed collectively with appropriate post-exercise recovery to continue performance improvements and reduce overtraining and injury risks (Kenttä and Hassmén, 1998).

Can different measures of intelligence be used interchangeably? A comparison of the Wechsler and Stanford-Binet scales

The Wechsler and Stanford Binet scales are among the most commonly used tests of intelligence. In clinical practice, they often seem to be used interchangeably. This paper reports the results of two studies that compared the most recent editions of two Wechsler scales (WPPSI-III and WISC-IV) with the Stanford-Binet Fifth Edition (SB5). The participants in the first study were 36 typically developing 4-year-old children who completed the WPPSI-III and SB5 in counter-balanced order. Although correlations of composite scores ranged from r = .59 to r = .82 and were similar to those reported for earlier versions of the two instruments, more than half the sample had a score discrepancy greater than 10 points across the two instruments. In the second study, the WISC-IV and SB5 were administered to 30 children aged 12-14 years. There was a significant difference between Full Scale IQs on the two measures, with scores being higher on the WISC-IV. Differences between the two verbal scales were also significant and favoured the WISC-IV. There were moderate correlations of Full Scale IQs (r = .58) and Nonverbal IQs (r = .54) but the relationship between the two Verbal scales was not significant. For some children, notable score differences led to different categorisations of their level of intellectual ability The findings suggest that the Wechsler and Stanford Binet scales cannot be presumed to be interchangeable. The discussion focuses on how psychologists might reconcile large differences in test scores and the need for caution when interpreting and comparing test results.

Translating biomechanics research into clinical practice

There is a large amount of research conducted each year examining every aspect of the mechanics of the human body and its interaction with medical devices and the environment; from the cellular level through to the whole body. While, as researchers, we obtain great pleasure from conducting studies and creating new knowledge we need to keep in mind that while this is a good thing it is even better if this new knowledge can lead to improvement in the quality of life for individuals suffering from biomechanical disorders. Such that while commercialisation is a good aim, not all research leads to marketable outcomes. However, it can lead to improvements in surgical techniques and clinical practice. It is important for us to identify and promote how the outcomes of research lead to improvements in quality of care, as this is perhaps the most important outcome for individual patients.

Translating Management Storylines: developing a visual strategy to communicate science to stakeholder community, a case for Mackay, QLD

This project developed a visual strategy and graphic outcomes to communicate the results of a scientific collaborative project to the Mackay community. During 2013 and 2014 a team from CSIRO engaged with the community in Mackay to collaboratively develop a set of strategies to improve the management of the Great Barrier Reef. The result of this work was a 300+ page scientific report that needed to be translated and summarised to the general community. The aim of this project was to strategically synthesise information contained in the report and to design and produce an outcome to be distributed to the participant community. By working with the CISRO researchers, an action toolkit was developed, with twelve cards and a booklet. Each card represented the story behind a certain local management issue and the actions that the participants suggested should be taken in order to improve management of The Reef. During the design synthesis it was identified that for all management issues there was a reference to the need to develop some sort of "educational campaign" to the area. That was then translated as an underlying action to support all other actions proposed in the toolkit.

Report: The Canadian Best Practices Educational Toolkits: Translating evidence-based stroke recommendations into practical implementation resources

The Canadian Best Practice Recommendations for Stroke Care are intended to reduce variations in stroke care and facilitate closure of the gap between evidence and practice (Lindsay et al., 2010). The publication of best practice recommendations is only the beginning of this process. The guidelines themselves are not sufficient to change practice and increase consistency in care. Therefore, a key objective of the Canadian Stroke Network (CSN) Best Practices Working Group (BPWG) is to encourage and facilitate ongoing professional development and training for health care professionals providing stroke care. This is addressed through a multi-factorial approach to the creation and dissemination of inter-professional implementation tools and resources. The resources developed by CSN span pre-professional education, ongoing professional development, patient education and may be used to inform systems change. With a focus on knowledge translation, several inter-professional point-of-care tools have been developed by the CSN in collaboration with numerous professional organizations and expert volunteers. These resources are used to facilitate awareness, understanding and applications of evidence-based care across stroke care settings. Similar resources are also developed specifically for stroke patients, their families and informal caregivers, and the general public. With each update of the Canadian Best Practice Recommendations for Stroke Care, the BPWG and topic-specific writing groups propose priority areas for ongoing resource development. In 2010, two of these major educational initiatives were undertaken and recently completed—one to support continuing education for health care professionals regarding secondary stroke prevention and the other to educate families, informal caregivers and the public about pediatric stroke. This paper presents an overview of these two resources, and we encourage health care professionals to integrate these into their personal learning plans and tool kits for patients.

Robbery under arms: Copyright law and the Australia-United States free trade agreement

TThis article considers the radical, sweeping changes to Australian copyright law wrought by the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement 2004 (AUSFTA). It contends that the agreement will result in a “piracy of the public domain”. Under this new regime, copyright owners will be able to obtain greater monopoly profits at the expense of Australian consumers, libraries and research institutions, as well as intermediaries, such as Internet service providers. Part One observes that the copyright term extension in Australia to life of the author plus 70 years for works will have a negative economic and cultural impact — with Australia’s net royalty payments estimated to be up to $88 million higher per year. Part Two argues that the adoption of stronger protection of technological protection measures modelled upon the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (U.S.) will override domestic policy–making processes, such as the Phillips Fox Digital Agenda Review, and judicial pronouncements such as the Stevens v Sony litigation. Part Three questions whether the new safe harbours protection for Internet service providers will adversely affect the sale of Telstra. This article concludes that there is a need for judicial restraint in interpreting the AUSFTA. There is an urgent call for the Federal Government to pass ameliorating reforms — such as an open–ended defence of fair use and a mechanism for orphan works. There is a need for caution in negotiating future bilateral trade agreements — lest the multinational system for the protection of copyright law be undermined.

The modified card sorting test: Test-retest stability and relationships with demographic variables in a healthy older adult sample

Objectives. To investigate the test-retest stability of a standardized version of Nelson's (1976) Modified Card Sorting Test (MCST) and its relationships with demographic variables in a sample of healthy older adults. Design. A standard card order and administration were devised for the MCST and administered to participants at an initial assessment, and again at a second session conducted a minimum of six months later in order to examine its test-retest stability. Participants were also administered the WAIS-R at initial assessment in order to provide a measure of psychometric intelligence. Methods. Thirty-six (24 female, 12 male) healthy older adults aged 52 to 77 years with mean education 12.42 years (SD = 3.53) completed the MCST on two occasions approximately 7.5 months (SD = 1.61) apart. Stability coefficients and test-retest differences were calculated for the range of scores. The effect of gender on MCST performance was examined. Correlations between MCST scores and age, education and WAIS-R IQs were also determined. Results. Stability coefficients ranged from .26 for the percent perseverative errors measure to .49 for the failure to maintain set measure. Several measures were significantly correlated with age, education and WAIS-R IQs, although no effect of gender on MCST performance was found. Conclusions. None of the stability coefficients reached the level required for clinical decision making. The results indicate that participants' age, education, and intelligence need to be considered when interpreting MCST performance. Normative studies of MCST performance as well as further studies with patients with executive dysfunction are needed.