Changes in conceptions of learning for indigenous Australian university students

Background. Conceptions of learning have been investigated for students in higher. education in different countries. Some studies found that students' conceptions change and develop over time while others have found no changes. Investigating conceptions of learning for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university students is a relatively new area of research. Aims. This study set out to investigate conceptions of learning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university students during the first two years of their undergraduate degree courses in three Australian universities. Conceptions for each year were compared. Knowing, more about learning as conceived by this cultural group may facilitate more productive higher educational experiences. Sample. The sample comprised 17 students studying various degrees; Il were male and 6 were female. Ages ranged from 18 to 48 years; mean age was 26 years. Method. This was a phenomenographic, longitudinal study. Individual semistructured interviews were conducted each year to ascertain students' conceptions of learning. Conceptions for second year were derived independently of those From first year. A comparative analysis then took place to determine ally changes. Results. These students held conceptions of learning that were similar to those of other university students; however there were some intrinsic differences. On a group level, conceptions changed somewhat over the two years as did core conceptions reported by some individual students. Some students also exhibited a greater awareness of learning during their second year that resulted in three dimensions of changed awareness. Conclusions. We believe the changed conceptions and awareness resulted from learning at university where there is some need to understand and explain phenomena in relation to theory. This brought about new understandings which allowed students to see their own learning in a relational sense.

Memory awareness and schematization: Learning in the university context

Following the application of the remember/know paradigm to student learning by Conway et al. (1997), this study examined changes in learning and memory awareness of university students in a lecture course and a research methods course. The proposed shift from a dominance of 'remember' awareness in early learning to a dominance of 'know' awareness as learning progresses and schematization occurs was evident for the methods course but not for the lecture course. The patterns of remember and know awareness and proposed associated levels of schematization were supported by a separate measure of the quality of student learning using the SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) Taxonomy. As found by previous research, the remember-to-know shift and schematization of knowledge is dependent upon type of course and level of achievement. Findings are discussed in terms of the utility of the methodology used, the theoretical implications and the applications to educational practice. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Curriculum development for professional ethics in Australian human service university programmes

Australian academics and practitioners in the human services are particularly susceptible to social, political and economic influences in respect of their relevance, viability and operations. In fact, it can be argued that the impact of these influences has placed human service practitioners and academics in a perpetual state of vulnerability. Australian universities have been challenged to make their programmes more relevant and viable to the community at large, and practitioners face increasing workloads with limited resources based on restricted fiscal allocation, and the changing relationship between government and service providers. Drawing on interview data from twenty-one (n = 21) practitioners, this article highlights their identified problems regarding the notion of professionalism in the human services with a particular focus on ethical dilemmas in human service practice. Gleaning these details will be a basis for recommending necessary professionalethics curricula content in human services programmes offered in Australian universities. Moreover, while the research data is Australian based, the authors contend that the universal theories and principles underpinning human service practice justify the significance and value of the data as an important source for international consideration in curriculum development of human service academic programmes.

Estimating economic relationships subject to firm- and time-varying equality and inequality constraints

Applied econometricians often fail to impose economic regularity constraints in the exact form economic theory prescribes. We show how the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) Theorem and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods can be used to rigorously impose time- and firm-varying equality and inequality constraints. To illustrate the technique we estimate a system of translog input demand functions subject to all the constraints implied by economic theory, including observation-varying symmetry and concavity constraints. Results are presented in the form of characteristics of the estimated posterior distributions of functions of the parameters. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

The relevance to firm valuation of capitalising intangible assets in total and by category

Debate about the appropriate treatment of intangible assets can benefit from knowledge about the relevance of their financial statement capitalisation to valuation of firms. With rules permitting or requiring intangible asset capitalisation, Australia provides an ideal setting to obtain this evidence. This paper reports findings that indicate that capitalisation of intangibles is value-relevant for Australia's largest firms. Results indicate that investors place greater value on capitalised goodwill than on other categories of capitalised balance sheet items. Similarly, capitalisation of identifiable intangible assets adds value to large firms. However, research and development capitalisation does not affect the value of firms in our study.

Information internalisation in internationalising the firm

Internationalisation occurs when the firm expands its selling, production, or other business activities into international markets. Many enterprises, especially small- and medium-size firms (SMEs), are internationalising today at an unprecedented rate. Managers are strategically using information to achieve degrees of internationalisation previously considered the domain of large firms. We extend existing explanations of firm internationalisation by examining the nature and fundamental, antecedent role of internalising appropriate information and translating it into relevant knowledge. Based on case studies of internationalising firms, we advance a conceptualisation of information internalisation and knowledge creation within the firm as it achieves internationalisation readiness. In the process, we offer several propositions intended to guide future research. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.