Unpacking academic practices: international students in management and education disciplines

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative case study that explores how international students in different disciplines struggle to interpret their disciplinary requirements. The study shows the emergence of five main forms of unpacking academic expectations that individual students in the study employed. It will be argued that these international students appear to be active and capable of drawing on various strategies and problem‐solving skills in order to take control of their academic life and enable them to participate in the academic practices of their discipline. The students' experiences also indicate that the interaction and dialogue they establish with their lecturers plays a significant role in their success in the course.

Integrated depression management: a proposed trial of a new model of care in a low vision rehabilitation setting

Purpose:
Depression is a common problem among people with visual impairment and contributes to functional decline. This article presents a study protocol to evaluate a new model of care for those patients with depressive symptoms in which psychological treatment is integrated into low vision rehabilitation services. Low vision staff will be trained to deliver "problem solving therapy for primary care" (PST-PC), an effective psychological treatment developed specifically for delivery by non-mental health care staff. PST-PC is delivered in 8 weekly telephone sessions of 30-45 minutes duration and 4 monthly maintenance sessions. We predict this new integrated model of care will significantly reduce depressive symptoms and improve the quality of life for people with visual impairment.

Methods and Design:
A randomized controlled trial of PST-PC will be implemented nationally across low vision rehabilitation services provided by Vision Australia. Clients who screen positive for depressive symptoms and meet study criteria will be randomized to receive PST-PC or usual care, consisting of a referral to their general practitioner for more detailed assessment and treatment. Outcome measures include depressive symptoms and behaviors, quality of life, coping and psychological adjustment to visual impairment. Masked assessments will take place pre- and post-intervention as well as at 6- and 12-month follow-up.

Conclusion:
We anticipate that this innovative service delivery model will lead to sustained improvements in clients' quality of life in a cost effective manner and provide an innovative service delivery model suitable for other health care areas in which depression is co-morbid.

Project-oriented design-based learning: aligning students’ views with industry needs

This paper focuses on the alignment of students' views on project-oriented design-based learning (PODBL) with today's industrial needs. A Collaborative relationship between academic institutions and industrial expectations is a significant process towards analytical thinking (linking the theory and practice). Improving students' knowledge as well as the students' transition into industry, requires efficient joint ventures by both learning institutions and industry partners. Project-based learning (PBL) is well developed and implemented in most engineering schools and departments around the world. What requires closer attention is the focus on design within this project-based learning framework. Today design projects have been used to motivate and teach science in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. They are also used to assist students with possible science and engineering careers. For these reasons, design-based learning (DBL) is intended to be an effective approach to learning that is centered on a design problem-solving structure adopted for a problem-oriented project-based education. Based on an industry design forum, which the authors conducted in Melbourne, Australia in 2012, a research study was performed to investigate the industry and academic requirements for students focusing on achieving design skills. To transform the present situation in the academic teaching and learning environment and to fulfill industry needs, this research study also investigated the students' views on design skills.

The Virtualopolis archipelago: creatively interconnecting work-based virtual scenarios

One of the key elements of a quality student experience in higher education, outlined in the 2008 Bradley Report on the review of Australian higher education, is access to well-designed and engaging courses that lead to good vocational outcomes. 1 The Virtualopolis project concerns the development of a virtual city or platform which can encompass a community or vocational context for learning resources, linking these to engaging course delivery across disciplines and faculties. It is a virtual community with great potential to scaffold the imaginative immersion of the modem net generation learner. It was designed to incorporate virtual scenarios which were already in use, such as the country town of Bilby and the Pacific-style island of Newlandia, and has expanded to provide a virtual city of Virtualopolis across faculties and disciplines. One of the key strengths of this form of virtual environment is its capacity to focus on graduate attributes across disciplines. Virtualopolis provides access and a virtual city context to an interactive teamwork scenario, to develop attributes related to working with others, interrelating virtual business entities across all faculties. The teamwork scenario has multiple applications, with capacity to be a hurdle requirement, assessment item or training activity depending on the needs of the faculty's Work-integrated Leaming (WIL) policy. By developing the online virtual framework or platform of Virtualopolis, work-integrated team assessment can be used as skills preparation for experiential learning units such as internships, professional experience and workplace-based projects university-wide. It also provides the opportunity to repeatedly reuse the virtual city context for resources to support other courses. The Virtualopolis city and its interactive team scenario will be transferable for future cross-faculty and interdisciplinary virtual developments. Plans are already made for content areas as diverse as community health, nursing, creative arts, international relations and management.

Cognitive-reminiscence therapy and usual care for depression in young adults: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background
Depression is a common affliction for young adults, and is associated with a range of adverse outcomes. Cognitive-reminiscence therapy is a brief, structured intervention that has been shown to be highly effective for reducing depressive symptoms, yet to date has not been evaluated in young adult populations. Given its basis in theory-guided reminiscence-based therapy, and incorporation of effective therapeutic techniques drawn from cognitive therapy and problem-solving frameworks, it is hypothesized to be effective in treating depression in this age group.

Methods and design
This article presents the design of a randomized controlled trial implemented in a community-based youth mental health service to compare cognitive-reminiscence therapy with usual care for the treatment of depressive symptoms in young adults. Participants in the cognitive-reminiscence group will receive six sessions of weekly, individual psychotherapy, whilst participants in the usual-care group will receive support from the youth mental health service according to usual procedures. A between-within repeated-measures design will be used to evaluate changes in self-reported outcome measures of depressive symptoms, psychological wellbeing and anxiety across baseline, three weeks into the intervention, post-intervention, one month post-intervention and three months post-intervention. Interviews will also be conducted with participants from the cognitive-reminiscence group to collect information about their experience receiving the intervention, and the process underlying any changes that occur.

Discussion
This study will determine whether a therapeutic approach to depression that has been shown to be effective in older adult populations is also effective for young adults. The expected outcome of this study is the validation of a brief, evidence-based, manualized treatment for young adults with depressive symptoms.

A cluster-randomised, controlled trial to assess the impact of a workplace osteoporosis prevention intervention on the dietary and physical activity behaviours of working women: study protocol

Background Osteoporosis is a debilitating disease and its risk can be reduced through adequate calcium consumption and physical activity. This protocol paper describes a workplace-based intervention targeting behaviour change in premenopausal women working in sedentary occupations. Method/Design A cluster-randomised design was used, comparing the efficacy of a tailored intervention to standard care. Workplaces were the clusters and units of randomisation and intervention. Sample size calculations incorporated the cluster design. Final number of clusters was determined to be 16, based on a cluster size of 20 and calcium intake parameters (effect size 250 mg, ICC 0.5 and standard deviation 290 mg) as it required the highest number of clusters. Sixteen workplaces were recruited from a pool of 97 workplaces and randomly assigned to intervention and control arms (eight in each). Women meeting specified inclusion criteria were then recruited to participate. Workplaces in the intervention arm received three participatory workshops and organisation wide educational activities. Workplaces in the control/standard care arm received print resources. Intervention workshops were guided by self-efficacy theory and included participatory activities such as goal setting, problem solving, local food sampling, exercise trials, group discussion and behaviour feedback. Outcomes measures were calcium intake (milligrams/day) and physical activity level (duration: minutes/week), measured at baseline, four weeks and six months post intervention. Discussion This study addresses the current lack of evidence for behaviour change interventions focussing on osteoporosis prevention. It addresses missed opportunities of using workplaces as a platform to target high-risk individuals with sedentary occupations. The intervention was designed to modify behaviour levels to bring about risk reduction. It is the first to address dietary and physical activity components each with unique intervention strategies in the context of osteoporosis prevention. The intervention used locally relevant behavioural strategies previously shown to support good outcomes in other countries. The combination of these elements have not been incorporated in similar studies in the past, supporting the study hypothesis that the intervention will be more efficacious than standard practice in osteoporosis prevention through improvements in calcium intake and physical activity.

Methods and technologies to promote information-centered knowledge construction

This alternative event for the 2013 iConference is a combination of lightning talks, a demonstration of an assessment technology for knowledge construction in complex domains, and a hands-on exercise in using the tools discussed. The unifying logic for this presentation is that meaningful learning often involves solving challenging and complex problems that allow for multiple solution approaches and a variety of acceptable solutions. While it is important to prepare students to solve such problems, it is difficult to determine the extent to which various interventions and programs are contributing to the development of appropriate problem-solving strategies and attitudes. Simply testing domain knowledge or the ability to solve simple, single-solution problems may not provide support for improving individual student ability or relevant programs and activities. A reliable and robust methodology for assessing the relevant knowledge constructions of students engaged in solving challenging problems is needed, and that is our focus.

Identifying a taxonomy for the emergence of metacognition in young learners

This paper details a study of upper primary (elementary) students’ thinking as they go about solving a problem, presented in an innovative computer program. Student responses to a metacognitive probe question reveal levels of responses that can be classified because of their shared quality. A thematic analysis was conducted with the initial classifications being based on theoretically derived categories from the metacognitive literature. These classifications were subsequently ordered into a taxonomy of hierarchical progression towards metacognition. Results in this instance indicated that less than 20% of these upper primary students showed they were capable of operating at a metacognitive level.

Improving the outcomes of the South Australian mental health court: an examination of the predictors of success

 This thesis investigated the role that mental health problem-solving courts play within the Australian criminal justice system. It demonstrated that these courts can be an effective solution in the delivery of effective justice responses to vulnerable offenders, if administered in a manner that focuses on risk rather than clinical variables.

Virtual villages: networking the global archipelago

In today’s changing economy, moving rapidly beyond industrial and information priorities, the creative arts, industries and enterprises have a powerful capacity for transforming a society’s cultural and economic capabilities and growth. One of the greatest challenges for present and future workplace participants in the context of this rapid change is the need to adapt to changing roles within a capitalism which has moved beyond a focus on the production of commodities to a greater social and economic flexibility. Gee talks of the ‘new capitalism’ requiring ‘shape-shifting portfolio people’ , creative and entrepreneurial individuals who can take on multiple identities. The key to managing this change is to focus on building a capacity to design new identities, affinity groups and networks. The virtual villages project described in this paper is a creative response to building ‘shape-shifting’ skills, focusing on the power of narrative immersion through virtual world environments to explore issues for rural and regional communities. The project aims to assist local communities in geographically diverse regions to develop their capacities for designing new identities through participating in the creation of digital storylines and characters for problem-solving. This will also have the outcome of an expanded affinity group (the project participants and their digital audiences) and potentially global networks (the archipelago). The concept of virtual villages utilizes associational narrative techniques, exploring portals of virtual worlds, thresholds of community discovery and fragments of narrative as the framework. Developing associational narratives which explore and share creative problem solving across diverse virtual villages will provide both individuals and the community with the ‘shape-shifting’ capacity to situate themselves beyond current community networks and identities.

The National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards requirements for orientation and induction within Australian healthcare: a review of the literature

Introduction: A workplace orientation program is a core requirement of the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards in Australia. This is particularly important within healthcare as patient safety and the patient experience are at risk if the healthcare workforce is not supported with an effective orientation and induction program. Aim: This study aimed to review the literature and map the requirements of the NSQHS Standards in relation to orientation and induction. Method: This study utilised online databases to search for literature pertaining to orientation and induction within healthcare. Inclusion criteria included relevance to research questions, and originating in a country with a comparative health system to Australia. Results: The search identified a total of 202 articles of potential relevance with 42 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. Articles were ranked according to hierarchy of evidence criteria for both qualitative and quantitative studies. The importance of using orientation to detail safety and quality roles, the organisations' risk management system, governance structure, operational processes and procedures was highlighted. Patient-centred care, antimicrobial stewardship, clinical handover and mechanisms for escalation of care and emergency assistance should also be covered within the orientation process. Conclusion: There is a dearth of studies in relation to orientation and induction in the healthcare literature. Orientation content is now clearly prescribed, what is lacking within healthcare is a standardised framework. Concept mapping, educational theory and adult learning methods have been shown to enhance workforce problem solving and engagement with orientation, however further research is needed to enhance practice

Looking outside: What can be learnt from computing education around the world?

There is a growing awareness of the importance of including computing education in the curriculum of secondary schools in countries like the United States of America, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and South Korea. Consequently, we have seen serious efforts to introduce computing education to the core curriculum and/or to improve it. Recent reports (such as Wilson et al. 2010; Hubwieser et al. 2011) reveal that computing education faces problems regarding its lack of exposure as well as a lack of motivators for students to follow this line of study. Although students use computers for many tasks both at home and at school, many of them never quite understand what computer science is and how it relates to algorithmic thinking and problem solving. This panel will bring together leaders in computing education from Australia, Germany, Greece, Israel and Norway to describe the state of computing education in each of their countries. Issues raised will include how high school computer education is conducted in that country, how teachers are skilled /accredited, the challenges that are being faced today and how these challenges are being addressed. Panellists will suggest lessons other countries may find of value from their way of doing things. An important issue is how to recruit female students in to computer education at high school level and how to encourage them to continue in the discipline to university. The problem is exacerbated because computer education is still not included as a compulsory subject in the regular curriculum of high schools in all of these countries.