Is it time to stop researching nurse to patient ratios?

Determining nurse to patient ratios in haemodialysis units has been debated in many forums. Ratios to ensure safe and quality care vary globally, nationally, statewide, servicewide, clinic-wide and from nurse to nurse. Given the research complexities, this editorial asks, “How do we go about exploring ratios?”, “What is the optimal ratio?” and “Is nurse to patient ratio research a worthy pursuit?”

Will it work? an initial examination of the processes and outcomes of converting course materials to CD-ROMs

The Faculty of Business and Law at Deakin University (Victoria, Australia) decided to dispense of all printed post-graduate learning materials and replace them with CD-ROMs from the commencement of the 2006 academic year. In addition, CD-ROMs were developed for a limited
number of undergraduate units as part of a future delivery plan for this cohort of students. The following paper describes this project, the reasons underpinning it, and the processes the Faculty adopted to implement the project. The project is ongoing and part of a broader agenda for change
that will see an even greater application of electronic technology to teaching and learning within the Faculty. Although only initial findings and observations are possible at this stage, the project provides a basis for longitudinal reporting and, potentially, a guide for other institutions who may
be considering such a move. The paper reports on these observations and on those in the educational development arena and suggests that the Faculty will need to learn from these initial experiences and evaluate the project in greater depth to guarantee a smooth transition for all stakeholders.

Examination of environmental beliefs and its impact on the influence of price, quality and demographic characteristics with respect to green intention

Research indicates that the environment has had a definite impact on consumer behaviour whereby suggesting to target consumers according to their environmental beliefs. This study investigated the consumers' green purchase behaviour using price and quality attributes as contributors to the formation of purchase intention. It attempts to construct a model that may facilitate the better understanding of green consumers' market segments through the use of an intelligent soft computing model. The model is designed to incorporate knowledge, beliefs, demographic profiles and situational variables. This potentially provides a more direct method for companies to gauge consumers' intention to purchase green products. The results showed strong preference for companies to place higher priority on reducing pollution than on increasing profitability. It highlighted different clusters that demonstrate various levels of the strength of intention to purchase and market segment profiles.

Every day you learn something : learning for life? Neighbourhood houses, adult learning and transitions to higher education

This book comes from a research project titled ‘Lifelong Learning? Neighbourhood Houses, Adult Learning and Transitions to Higher Education’ (T Ollis, Starr, Ryan, Angwin, & Harrison, 2016). This research has examined adult learning in the context of Neighbourhood Houses in the regions of Geelong and South Western Victoria.The research was conducted in 2015 and 2016 and sought to examine the learning experiences of adult learners who participate in the education programs of Neighbourhood Houses. The focus was on second chance learners and their transition pathways to higher education such as TAFE and University. A second group of learners were identified during the research process – later life learners. These learners were engaging with Neighbourhood Houses for personal interest learning and social and community connection. This small book provides a snapshot of the stories of learners who were involved in this research. It tells the lived stories of the participants, which is important as learning and education are connected with the ongoing development of ourselves as human beings. Learning is essential to our personhood and impacts on adults in terms of their welfare, health and prosperity over a lifetime. Many of the learners’ stories outlined in this book reveal checkered histories of education. Some have experienced learning difficulties, others have experienced family trauma that prevented them from finishing secondary schooling. Some of the stories describe issues related to reskilling or retraining in later life, responding to industry changes and work in the Greater Geelong and South West regions. Others were pursuing recreation and social connection and came to the Neighbourhood Houses to learn crafts, writing, photography and computer literacy skills. In almost all accounts of learning in this book, individuals had experienced less social isolation by being connected to others in the unique social environment of Neighbourhood houses.

An IT Bachelor degree using modern technologies to illustrate core concepts and principles and building generic skills

Information Technology (IT) changes very quickly and influences business, industry and the public in an enormous manner. Outsourcing of IT jobs to cheaper overseas labor and globalization of IT companies become a common practice. Graduates of IT university courses must be well prepared to address the needs and expectations of business, industry and every day life. Many factors in an Information Technology curriculum influence graduates’ professional preparation and image. The most important of them is to reflect technology change, the current state of knowledge of computing, business and industry demands and students’ expectations. The aim of our project was to develop a new Bachelor of IT curriculum that satisfies these requirements. In this report we concentrate our attention on two critical aspects of IT curriculum content, the modern technologies to be used to illustrate basic concepts and principles of computing, and the generic skills that each graduate is expected to acquire to get a job in Australia.

Baby, it`s you : international capital discovers the under threes

Well-established international entertainment firms such as Disney and Fisher-Price are joining new start-up firms such as Baby Einstein to create a 'Baby' market of products (including toys, games and videos) specifically targeted at children aged 0-3 years. Despite its novelty, the 'Baby' market mirrors older markets that these firms have created around other demographic groups (e.g. older children, adolescents and adults) - it redefines its target demographic group around specific commodities and promotes its redefinition as 'common sense'. The 'Baby' firms redefine babies solely as early learners whose potential to learn can be released by these firms' brand-name 'educational' or 'developmental' products. Many adults buy these products because they accept the firms' redefinition of babies, but other adults ignore the firms' promotional messages and buy the products to give themselves some time apart from their babies. The 'Baby' market is significant for children and adults because it changes young children's relationships with adults and because it subordinates local cultural differences to a children's culture that purports to be 'global' but has, in reality, extremely narrow foundations in class, race and gender.

Using shopping mall attributes to revitalise Australian small town retailing

As has occurred in many smaller rural communities in America, Europe and Canada much of inland Australia has experienced population decline involving both a net loss of people a disproportionate ageing of the population and low average family incomes. Some Australian country towns have ceased to function as retail and administrative centres while other rural areas are faced with the prospect of losing critically important retail outlets and service providers. Australian rural towns are under threat from residents outshopping at nearby large regional centres leading to the loss of businesses and services in small service towns. This paper explores the possibility of how and why retailers and service providers in Australian country towns can and should emulate certain attributes of shopping malls in an attempt to stem the rise of outshopping. Using data collected in one small Australian rural community the paper comments on residents' perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of retailing and the provision of services in their local community and what respondents thought should be done to diminish retail leakage from their town. Based on their responses it is clear that to remain competitive, retailers in smaller rural towns need to learn from the experience of shopping malls with whom they must now compete to survive. In this paper, it is argued that in certain areas this is not only possible, but essential if retailing is to remain viable in Australian country towns.

I don't need IT because I'm going to be a teacher, and other popular beliefs: High school students' explanations for the under representation of girls in information technology subjects

This paper examines the implications for teacher educators of the dominant beliefs currently circulating within diverse Australian high schools about the (lack of) relationship between girls’ interests, girls’ careers, girls’ futures and the broad field of information technology. It identifies students' attitudes towards the content, relevance and general appeal of IT subjects to highlight the challenges for both teachers and teacher educators who may be seeking to address the issues associated with girls’ under representation in IT courses and also contribute to an ongoing project of gender based educational reform. Emphasis throughout the paper is on the persistence of discourses that continue to position girls and IT in opposition to each other and on the challenges of subverting these discourses through the introduction of new figurations (cf Rosi Braidotti, 1994) or transformative understandings of what it now means to be a female student, a female teacher, or a female IT user. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of these themes for teachers and teacher educators: particularly those with an on-going commitment to the broad field of educational justice.

Exploring the role of relationship variables in predicting customer voice to a service worker

Customers’ perceptions of service workers’ trustworthiness and power, and their commitment to the service worker were investigated as possible determinants of the likelihood of customer voice directly to the service worker in the event of a service failure. Set in the context of hairdressing salons, it was found that hair stylists’ perceived trust (benevolence and credibility) and expert power were positively associated with clients’ intention to voice. By contrast, the level of coercive power hair stylists were perceived to have was negatively associated with intentions to voice. Hair stylists’ perceived benevolence was the strongest predictor of client voice.

Intelligent consumer purchase intention prediction system for green products

In this paper the authors model green behaviour by predicting consumers’ purchase intention using Kohonen’s LVQ technique. It is envisaged that such a model may facilitate better understanding of green consumers’ market segments. The model employs cognitive, affective, and situational attributes of consumers to predict their purchase intention. The model can, potentially, provide a more direct method for companies to gauge consumers’ intention to purchase green products. The results indicate that consumers are more strongly resistant to lower quality than higher prices of green products in comparison to other alternative non-green products.

What do they think when we stack them in? A comparative analysis of student perceptions relating to large and small marketing subjects

University education is in a period of flux with emphasis being focused on quality education, competition for students both local and international as well as changes in governmental financial support and direction. It is with this scenario as a backdrop, that universities in an endeavour to obtain economies of scale offer subjects with large student enrolments. This study investigates marketing students’ perception of and participation in marketing subjects relating to teaching quality, staff availability and support, and individual student involvement in marketing education with large enrolments compared to subjects with small enrolments. This research builds on the investigations of effects of class size by Cuseo (2004) and Binney et al (2004). The study used a multi-method approach. Data from a sample of 621 students was analysed using Factor analysis, MANOVA and ANOVA. Students indicated that there was little difference in the quality of learning obtained in small or large classes. Of interest from a marketing perspective, however, is the perception by students that they are more likely to obtain practical assistance and support from tutors in smaller classes. Student perceptions generally show no major differences between large and small classes in relation to subject selection, ability to learn and lecture  attendance. Students expressed a preference for the opportunity to choose from a number of lecture streams available in subjects with large enrolments. Of interest, however is the student belief that they are less likely to actively participate in large lectures than in small lecture environments.

How farmers learn : different approaches to change

This paper presents findings of an Australian study that investigated how farm- management teams go about learning to manage their businesses, including how they learn in order to make strategic and tactical changes. The Australian farming context is one of increasing complexity and risk that demands greater sophistication and professionalism in farm management. Learning is related to increased capacity to manage successful change. Farm-management teams employ four different learning patterns when making changes to their management and marketing practices. Learning patterns are termed local focussed, people focussed, outward looking and extensive networking. These patterns appear to be related to ongoing learning practices of farm-management teams as well as to learning for change. Local focussed management teams learnt for change by accessing only local sources (including government extension services) or a single individual. People focussed farm-management teams preferred to learn for change principally by seeking information and advice on a one-to-one basis from more than one person, most frequently experts, but often other farmers. The remaining farm businesses accessed a variety of sources. The group classed as extensive networkers accessed a large number of varied sources in learning for change. Others who used a less extensive range were termed outward looking.

Bridging the gap : competencies students should focus on during their cooperative experience to enhance employability

Cooperative education programmes aim to prepare students for the workplace by developing both generic and specific competencies that will enhance  employability. Researchers have investigated the competencies relevant to business, science and technology graduates (Coll & Zegward, 2006; Hodges & Burchell, 2003). However, there is little published research on the perceptions of the skills or graduate competencies that employers desire of sport and recreation graduates entering the workforce.

The aims of the study were to identify key competencies needed by third year sport and recreation degree students entering their cooperative placement as well as to identify the difference between student and graduate competencies. An online survey of sport and recreation industry supervisors was conducted. For comparison the survey was also completed by academic supervisors from AUT University. Supervisors were asked to rate the importance of specific competencies (adapted from Coll & Zegward, 2006) for the cooperative student and for the graduate.

To enhance employability in the sport and recreation industry, academic programmes within a university need to ensure that students are provided with opportunities to facilitate the development of competencies including the ability and willingness to learn, the use of initiative and personal organisational skills. Cooperative education experiences should be designed to provide opportunities for students to develop in the areas of relationship building as well as teamwork and cooperation in order to increase their likelihood of employment as graduates. It is important to identify and communicate to the tertiary education providers the needs of the industry in order to create successful cooperative education partnerships.