Body image and self-esteem among Asian, Pacific Islander, and white college students in Hawaii and Australia

Body image and its relationship to self-esteem was examined among Asian, Pacific Islander, and White women and men from Hawaii and Australia (n = 172). Although Pacific Islander and White participants had higher body mass indices than Asians, Pacific Islanders were more satisfied than Asians with their health and more satisfied than Asians and Whites with their appearance. Thus, higher body weight and greater body satisfaction may co-occur among Pacific Islanders, whereas lower weight and lower body satisfaction may co-occur among Asians. The findings suggest different levels of risk for body image dissatisfaction, and its associated psychological consequences, across ethnic groups.

Real estate employability : differing perceptions of graduates from undergraduate and postgraduate courses

Purpose – Employability is likely to be at the forefront of any degree applicant's mind in England and Wales due to an impending large increase in the cost of tuition. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a Centre for Education in the Built Environment-funded project which has investigated real estate graduate competencies and employability. The paper concentrates on significant differences in emphasis by graduates from undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) courses.

Design/methodology/approach – Following an extensive literature review, 72 competencies have been identified and the Confederation of British Industry classification of knowledge, skills and attributes has been adopted. An online survey of 639 graduates (half UG and half PG) asked respondents to complete five-point Likert attitude scales to rate how their course enabled development of the 72 competencies. Themes developed from the results of the questionnaire study have been explored in greater detail with five real estate education providers and the human resource managers of four large London employers.

Findings – Rather surprisingly, UGs rated their gaining of the vast majority of the competencies more highly than PGs. This finding seems to be at odds with the impression given by the educators and employers, both of whom perceive a preference for the greater maturity and commercial awareness of graduates from PG courses.

Originality/value – Real estate course providers can use the results of this study to ensure that their programmes of study adequately address what is likely to become the crucial factor in the choice of any future programme of study – employability.

Real estate graduates’ employability skills : the perspective of human resource managers of surveying firms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report further on research funded by the Centre for Education in the Built Environment (CEBE) into real estate programmes of study in UK universities (Poon and Hoxley). The aim of this paper is to identify human resource managers’ view on the employability skills of real estate graduates. It also compares the views on the employability skills of real estate graduates between human resource managers, a large sample of real estate employers and real estate course directors.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents the research findings of eight interviews with human resource managers who work in different types of surveying firms. The approach for collecting their view of the employability skills required by real estate graduates was through gathering their opinions on three charts. These charts compare what employers feel graduates require and what they feel graduates demonstrate in 31 knowledge areas, 20 skills and 21 attributes, alongside a list of additional competencies made by graduates and employers which was developed as part of an earlier study.

Findings – The human resource managers identified the key employability skills for real estate graduates as soft skills, in particular report writing skills, communication skills, presentation skills, client care and professional standards. The human resource managers of real estate consultancy firms also voiced their concern regarding graduates’ lack of commercial awareness, which echoed the same view from real estate employers and real estate course directors mentioned in the previous research (Poon, Hoxley and Fuchs). Therefore, it is necessary for universities to embed these soft skills, such as commercial awareness in the curriculum in order to enhance the employability of graduates.

Originality/value – This paper makes an original contribution to existing literature on the identification and discussion of employability skills for real estate graduates. It describes pioneering research focusing on the human resource managers’ perspective of the real estate graduate employability skills.

Three phases of the Pacific Islands Project (1995–2010)

The Pacific Islands Project (PIP), funded by AusAid and managed by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), has progressed through three phases from 1995 to 2010. During this time, it has sent over 520 teams to 11 Pacific Island Countries, providing over 60 000 consultations and some 16 000 procedures. In addition to this delivery of specialist medical and surgical services that were not previously available in-country, the project has contributed as a partner in capacity building with the Fiji School of Medicine and Ministries of Health of the individual nations. By 2011, Fiji School of Medicine, which began postgraduate specialist training in 1998, had awarded 51 doctors a diploma in surgery (1 year), 20 of whom had completed their Masters in Medicine (4 years). PIP was independently evaluated on completion of every phase, including the bridging Phase III (2006–2010). The project delivered on its design, to deliver services, and also helped build capacity. The relationship established with the RACS throughout the project allowed Pacific Island graduates to access the Rowan Nicks scholarship, and the majority of MMed graduates received International Travel Grants to attend the Annual Scientific Meeting. PIP has been a highly successful partnership in delivering and building specialist medical services. Although AusAid contributed some $20 million over 16 years, the value added from pro bono contributions by Specialist Teams, Specialty Coordinators and the Project Directors amounted to an equivalent amount. With the emergence of Pacific Island-trained specialists, PIP is ready to move into a new phase where the agendas are set, monitored and managed within the Pacific, and RACS fulfils the role of a service provider. A critical mass of Pacific Island surgeons has been trained, so that sub-specialization will be an option for the general surgeons of the larger island nations.

CADET - Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training

BACKGROUND : The Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training (CADET) is a partnership of Deakin University and the Gordon Institute of TAFE that will improve access and pathways into careers to address Australia’s critical engineering skills shortage (Walton, C). Local high schools, Belmont High and Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College are included as strategic partners. CADET is proposed to be a teaching and learning facility providing a project focused modern engineering approach to students at regional schools and TAFE as well as Deakin’s degree programs. CADET will emphasize engineering design and development through virtual and physical modelling, simulation and prototyping – skills at the heart of the 21st century engineering challenges, and will serve as an attractor to engineering and related professions.

PURPOSE : The purpose of this paper is to present an argument toward the development of a Centre for advanced design in engineering training. CADET is proposed to increase the awareness and attractiveness of engineering as an education and career option, particularly for women, in regional schools, provide under one roof state-of-the-art engineering design, modelling and prototyping facilities, facilitate access and articulation pathways between school, VET and Higher Education, increase the physical capacity to serve student demand in western Victoria, and reinvigorate engineering as an essential component of a skilled regional economy.

DESIGN/METHOD : The evidenced based argument towards the proposed centre for advanced design in engineering training is based on a detailed literature review as well as a research study with industry representatives in engineering design. The learning principles of the model are also investigated and aligned to the proposed centre.

RESULTS : CADET is a change to the way engineering has traditionally been taught. The outcomes of CADET will be to provide a broad range of contemporary/relevant teaching programs, improve the social benefits gained from teaching programs, improve retention rates, advance partnerships that link with rural and regional victoria, and collaborate with local communities to encourage governments to support regional capacity building. Through focus group interviews and open discussions with industry and academia over the past 12 months on the integration of design skills in engineering education, results indicate that the following key skills are essential elements required for a successful project oriented design based learning curriculum are creative & innovative skills, successful industry engagement, and awareness of design skills in early years. Feedback also showed that 80% of the industry representatives are looking to recruit graduates who acquired design-equipped skill and 60% indicated that they want graduates who acquired knowledge through projects.

CONCLUSIONS : CADET projected benefits are significant at the strategic and operational levels. They include access for more women in engineering, facilitates articulation pathways between VET and HE, targeted recognised critical current engineering skills shortage in Australia, improvement of regional access, attractiveness and participation in tertiary education, achievement of a significant improvement in the teaching-research nexus.

Perceptions of engineering from female secondary college students in regional Victoria

Survey and focus group interviews with female students in regional Victoria resulted in identification of four perceived barriers that influence them to exclude engineering as a career choice. These barriers were identified as a lack of interest in the perceived image, a lack of knowledge, a traditionally maledominated industry, and limited recognisable role models. This paper reports on what Year 10 females are saying about the barriers and, consequently, how engineering can be promoted to overcome these barriers.

Transition to practice in supercomplex environments: are occupational therapy graduates adequately prepared?

The authors of this viewpoint initially came together as colleagues to debate whether occupational therapy curricula (the programmes that each author teaches into) prepared students to not only survive but thrive within the increasingly complex or supercomplex world of professional practice (Barnett, 2011). Through reflective conversations on our collective experiences working with students at capstone (transition-to-practice) level, coupled with further exploration of literature surrounding graduate attributes, employability and professional issues within occupational therapy practice our attention focussed on capacities of agency and political skill, and specifically, the extent to which our graduates are explicitly or implicitly prepared to be agentic and politically adept in practice. In the context of this viewpoint, we refer to agency as an intentional motivation to work toward strategic goals (both personal and organisational). As a construct, Ferris et al. (2007) propose that political skill is comprised of four critical dimensions: social astuteness; interpersonal influence; networking ability and apparent sincerity. Early professional success in most contemporary workplaces we argue, as have others (e.g. Pollard, Sakellariou & Kronenburg, 2008), relate to graduates’ political adeptness.

That social side of things: students' experiences of social and physical place

This paper highlights the experience of social and physical place as experienced by
students at aTAFE (Technical and Further Education) college in Victoria, Australia, and TAFE diploma graduates who transitioned to a degree course at a university in Victoria, Australia.

Social moderation, assessment and assuring standards for accounting graduates

Evidencing student achievement of standards is a growing imperative worldwide. Key stakeholders (including current and prospective students, government, regulators and employers) want confidence that threshold learning standards in an accounting degree have been assured. Australia’s new higher education regulatory environment requires that student achievements are benchmarked against intended programme learning outcomes, guided by published disciplinary standards and a national qualifications framework, and against other higher education providers. Here, we report on a process involving academics from 10 universities, aided by professional practitioners, to establish and equip assessors to reliably assure threshold learning standards in accounting that are nationally comparable. Importantly, we are learning more about how standards are interpreted. Based on the premise that meaning is constructed from tacit experiences, social interactions and intentional reflection on explicit information, we report outcomes of three multi-part calibration interventions, situated around judgements of the quality of the written communication skills exhibited in student work and their related assessment tasks. Qualitative data from 30 participants in the calibration process suggest that they perceive that the process both assists them both in developing a shared understanding of the accounting threshold learning standards and in the redesign of assessment tasks to more validly assess the threshold learning standards.

Navigating teacher education: mapping the terrain, surveying the landscape

While there are many small-scale case studies that investigate specific teacher education practices, large scale longitudinal studies designed to provide rich and comprehensive data about the effectiveness of teacher education, are limited (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005). The Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project aims to address this gap by investigating the effectiveness of teacher education programs in preparing teachers for the variety of school settings in which they begin their careers. This three-year study utilises large-scale surveys and case studies, and includes a comprehensive mapping of teacher education programs across Australia. It tracks all 2010/2011 teacher education graduates in Queensland and Victoria to investigate the effectiveness of particular characteristics of their teacher education programs in equipping them with the capacity to meet the learning needs of young people in a diverse range of Australian school settings.

This paper presents the findings from the mapping exercise and the surveys of teachers and principals, and the problematics and possibilities of reading across the data sets. The SETE mapping exercise used publicly available online information to examine the characteristics of initial teacher education programs accredited by the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) and the Queensland College of Teachers (QCT). Preliminary results address, inter alia, the length, content and delivery of programs and critical issues of the development of pedagogical and assessment expertise and preparation to teach in diverse contexts. The paper also presents findings from the first of a series of online surveys completed by teacher education graduates in Queensland and Victoria. Beginning teachers’ responses are mapped against key characteristics of participants' pre-service programs and framed in relation to the key themes of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, behaviour management, and engagement with school stakeholders and local community.