Association between the family environment and television viewing in Australian children

Aim: To describe the time children spend watching television (TV) and to assess associations between TV viewing time, the family environment and weight status.

Methods: Parents reported the amount of time children watched TV/video both for ‘the previous school day’ and ‘usually’ and described aspects of the family environment influencing TV access as part of a large cross-sectional study in the Barwon South-western region of Victoria, Australia. Child weight status was  based on measured height and weight. All data were collected in 2003/2004.

Results: A total of 1926 children aged 4–12 years participated. Parent-reported mean ± SE TV time for the previous school day was 83 ± 1.5 min. Children who lived in a family with tight rules governing TV viewing time (22%), or who never watched TV during dinner (33%), or had only one TV in the household (23%) or had no TV in their bedroom (81%) had significantly less TV time than their  counterparts. Overweight or obese children had more TV time than healthy weight children 88 ± 2.9 versus 82 ± 1.7 min per day (P = 0.04). They were also more likely to live in a household where children had a TV in their bedroom than healthy weight children (25% vs. 17%, P < 0.001).

Conclusion: Strategies to reduce TV time should be included as part of broader strategies to prevent childhood obesity. They should include messages to parents about not having a TV in children’s bedrooms, encouraging family rules restricting TV viewing, and not having the TV on during dinner.

Stories of ambivalence : Australian executives' experiences of outplacement services

The increasing prevalence of organizational downsizing has been matched by growth in the provision of outplacement services. Yet there has been limited research on either the effectiveness of these programs or the experience of individuals undertaking them. Within a qualitative study investigating the experiences of Australian executives who had been made redundant, one of the focus areas explored was the experience of using outplacement services. Respondents' stories revealed a sense of ambivalence towards these programs. This paper discusses the conflicting experiences giving rising to this ambivalence, namely, positive outcomes with respect to the use of office services and the receiving of proactive support, and more negative aspects of an absence of counselling skills and impersonal treatment through the organizational exit process. It is argued that further research on the outplacement experience is required to determine the type and quality of services which will best serve those who have been made redundant.

Longitudinal surveys of Australian youth : active citizenship and the secondary school experience : community participation rates of Australian youth

LSAY is a research program that follows young Australians as they move through secondary school, into further education or training, and into the labour market and adult life. This website provides access to the electronic full text versions of LSAY research reports, from 1996 to present.

Opting out of shareholder governance rights: a new perspective on contractual freedom in Australian corporate law

One of the classic debates in corporate law relates to whether the rules of corporate law are ar should be 'mandatory', in that companies must comply, or 'enabling' - meaning a set of default rules which companies have the choice of adopting or 'opting out' of through alternative contractual arrangements. The so-called 'mandatory/enabling' debate has been especially prominent in the United States fro numerous reasons, yet has also received some attention in Australia. That said, the extent to which companies can 'opt out' of corporate law has rarely been considered as a practical issue in Australia - particularly whether Australian companies can 'opt out' of provisions under the Corporations Act ("the Act"). However, just recently, two high-profile events in Australia have made 'opting out' of corporate law a relevant issue, especially the question of whether companies are free to 'opt out' of provisions of the Corporations Act  which provide express governance rights to shareholders. These events were Boral's constitutional amendment in 2003 to restrict the ability of shreholders to propose amendments to the company's constitution, and the contemplation and introduction of so-called 'pre-nuptial' agreements- designed to by-pass the right of shreholders to vote on removing directors in public companies. In the light of these two recent events, in this article the authors revisit the mandatory/enabling debate. However, rather than going over old ground as to whether a mandatory or enabling approach to corporate regulation is desirable, the authors approach the issue from a fresh perspective: that Australian Securitiesand Investments Commission's ("ASIC") existing relief powers under the Act should be extended to provide a means for companies to opt out of provisions containing shareholder governance rights.

Rethinking the English pedagogy at Hope College in Taiwan

For many years Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and an English-Only approach to English teaching have characterised pedagogy at Hope College in Taiwan.

These approaches have had a significant impact on the ways in which students understand their cultural identities and develop competency in both oral and written English. Sometimes, in the EFL context in Taiwan, an English-Only policy can impact on students' learning in two ways. Firstly, it may cause students to doubt the validity of their own culture in comparison to English speaking culture. Secondly it may lead to students' resisting English culture because of enhanced feelings of nationalism. Furthermore, sometimes, students may feel disturbed when learning English in an English-Only class because the lack of cognitive understanding usually makes them misunderstand the content expressed in the target language (English) and misuse the target language.

In this paper I consider the need to reintroduce elements of the Grammar-Translation method to an EFL context and suggest an integrative pedagogy in which native English-speaking teachers, applying English only in the classes, focus on teaching listening and speaking to directly foster students' English linguistic competence, while local English teachers, applying both English and Chinese in the classes, focus on teaching reading and writing to foster students' in-depth cognitive ability of English culture and suitable written expression. The purpose of such integrative pedagogy is to keep students' cultural identity as well as advance students' understanding and correct use in English.

Nurse practitioner standards : an Australian and New Zealand research collaboration

This paper will report the findings from research conducted in Australia and New Zealand to inform development of standards for nurse practitioner education and practice competencies. In New Zealand and Australia the nurse practitioner is a new and unique level of health-care provider. The shifting boundaries caused by health-care reform have created impetus and demand for development of new models of health-care, but have also created some uncertainty regarding nurse practitioner standards, education and models of care. The title, Nurse Practitioner, is now legislated in New Zealand and most jurisdictions in Australia but there is scant research to inform development of nurse practitioner standards. This research, sponsored by the Australian Nursing Council and the Nursing Council of New Zealand, was conducted to develop generic standards that could be applied for the education, authorisation and practice of nurse practitioners in both countries. The study involved collection and triangulation of data from a range of sources across Australia and New Zealand including: in-depth interviews with 15 nurse practitioners from different geographical and clinical contexts; curriculum survey of all nurse practitioner courses in the two countries and interview with convenors of these courses; collation of the authorisation/registration processes and policies from states and territories in Australia, New Zealand and internationally. These data were analysed within and across the data modalities to provide information on standards for nurse practitioner practice and education. Findings from the study included identification of the core role of the nurse practitioner as it is expressed in New Zealand and Australia and generic standards for nurse practitioner competencies, education and authorisation. These findings will standardise expectations, support mutual recognition of nurse practitioner authorisation across the two countries and make an important contribution to the current international debate on nurse practitioner standards and scope of practice.

The Ethics of Australian Fitness Professionals

The Australian fitness profession has grown rapidly in the past three decades, but there has been unequal growth in the ethical practices of its workers. The purpose of this book is to examine the ethical beliefs and behaviours of Australian fitness professionals. Several questions are of particular interest: 1) How ethical are the beliefs and behaviours of Australian fitness professionals? 2) How do the ethical beliefs and behaviours of Australian university trained fitness professionals compare with TAFE (community) college trained fitness professionals? This book explores the ethical knowledge and practices of Australian fitness professionals and compares their beliefs and behavious with practitioners from other helping professions such as psychology. Issues examined in this book include: 1) the ethics education of fitness professionals; 2) the regulation of questionable behaviours by practicing members of the fitness profession; 3) and the professional boundaries of Australian fitness workers.

Benchmarking the teaching of Australian Indigenous content in undergraduate psychology

This paper discusses a teaching and learning project on incorporating Australian Indigenous content into psychology undergraduate programs. After the impetus generated by the Head of Schools meeting in Perth in 1998 and the publication of the special issue of the Australian Psychologist on Psychology and Indigenous peoples in 2000, little progress seems to have been made. The paper discusses the process of developing curriculum guidelines for psychology academics wishing to include Indigenous content. These include the need to critically examine the assumptions and history of Western psychology in relation to Indigenous peoples, the inclusion of non-conventional teaching and learning methods, staff and institutional support, and appropriate staff development. While we have been encouraged by the growing support for this process, there are also significant obstacles, including rigidity of thinking about psychology programs and the attitude that it is all too hard. It is important to get this right, since the token inclusion of Indigenous material into otherwise mainstream Western psychology courses will be ineffective in bringing about the required understanding for psychology students wishing to work with Indigenous people in their professional careers and bring about social justice.

The validation of an Australian sign language instrument for outcome measurement of adults in mental health settings

Objective: There are currently no adult mental health outcome measures that have been translated into Australian sign language (Auslan). Without a valid and reliable Auslan outcome measure, empirical research into the efficacy of mental health interventions for sign language users is unattainable. To address this research problem the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS), a measure of general functioning, was translated into Auslan and recorded on to digital video disk for use in clinical settings. The purpose of the present study was therefore to examine the reliability, validity and acceptability of an Auslan version of the ORS (ORS-Auslan).
Method: The ORS-Auslan was administered to 44 deaf people who use Auslan as their first language and who identify as members of a deaf community (termed ‘Deaf’ people) on their first presentation to a mental health or counselling facility and to 55 Deaf people in the general community. The community sample also completed an Auslan version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21).
Results: t-Tests indicated significant differences between the mean scores for the clinical and community sample. Internal consistency was acceptable given the low number of items in the ORS-Auslan. Construct validity was established by significant correlations between total scores on the DASS-21-Auslan and ORS-Auslan. Acceptability of ORS-Auslan was evident in the completion rate of 93% compared with 63% for DASS-21-Auslan.
Conclusions: This is the only Auslan outcome measure available that can be used across a wide variety of mental health and clinical settings. The ORS-Auslan provides mental health clinicians with a reliable and valid, brief measure of general functioning that can significantly distinguish between clinical and non-clinical presentations for members of the Deaf community.

Recruitment and selection of Vice-Chancellors for Australian universities

This study addresses the gap in our understanding of the processes used to recruit and select Vice-Chancellors for Australian Universities. There are presently 39 recognised Universities in Australia and between them they provide the nation with the academically qualified leaders of the future. As such one would expect that not only would they be the vessels of our knowledge, but also that they would be managed and led in ways that were similar to those in use in the private sector. The changes that have taken place in the higher education system have meant that additional pressures have been placed upon the senior executive of each University. The transition from a binary system to the current unified system, the advent of the global community, increased technology and new management practices have created the need for University management to adopt recognised management and leadership practices. The Federal government has moved to reduce the dependence of the system upon recurrent funding and there has been an increase in managerialism within Universities. One outcome has been the need for the Chief Executive Officer (Vice-Chancellor) to develop additional management and leadership skills in order to cope with the changes occurring and the rate of change. In the United States, the selection criteria used to recruit Vice-Chancellors (or University Presidents) have changed to reflect the desire for candidates to have backgrounds in management and leadership. The role of the Vice-Chancellor is critical to the success of educational institutions that are now being managed as autonomous business units responsible for budget, growth, mergers as well as maintaining academic credibility. A literature review revealed that the work undertaken by David Sloper formed virtually our entire knowledge base of Vice-Chancellors in Australia. Sloper identified democratic and incumbency patterns, social characteristics, the legal basis for the role and what incumbents actually do. Thus we know quite a deal about the role and incumbents. However the same literature review showed that while this data existed, it did not extend to the processes that were used within the Higher Education system, to target, identify and select suitable candidates. Clearly there was also no examination as to the effectiveness of such processes or how they could be improved if necessary. Given the importance of Universities in Australia and their role in Higher Education, this lack of knowledge provided the basis for this study and the systematic review of all available data. The study also identified a paradox in addition to the lack of research on recruitment and selection practices in this unique microcosm. The paradox concerns the fact that many of the successful candidates do not come from a ‘business’ discipline as may be expected for a role considered to be the Chief Executive Officer of the institution. Yet in Australia, previous research indicated that the ‘rules’ for recruiting Vice-Chancellors have changed little and that traditionally candidates have come from the science disciplines (Sloper, 1994). While this in itself does not indicate that incumbents are lacking in fundamental management and leadership knowledge and expertise, an obvious question arises. Why are Australian Vice-Chancellors not drawn from faculties where this expertise resides or why are they not drawn from the business community? In order to further examine the processes in place and to a lesser extent the paradox, all available data was collected regarding the roles of Vice-Chancellors, the paths they have taken to the position as well as selection criteria, position outlines, job adverts and related material. This was thoroughly examined and then a brief questionnaire was forwarded to current incumbents and other involved stakeholders. Interviews were conducted to clarify specific issues and case studies prepared accordingly. Thus this qualitative study thoroughly researches the recruitment and selection practices in use, attempts to determine their effectiveness and addresses the paradox in order to provide a detailed framework that allows these elements to be explained.