A cross-sectional study of the individual, social, and built environmental correlates of pedometer based physical activity among elementary school children

Background: Children who participate in regular physical activity obtain health benefits. Preliminary pedometerbased cut-points representing sufficient levels of physical activity among youth have been established; however limited evidence regarding correlates of achieving these cut-points exists. The purpose of this study was to identify correlates of pedometer-based cut-points among elementary school-aged children.
Method: A cross-section of children in grades 5-7 (10-12 years of age) were randomly selected from the most (n = 13) and least (n = 12) ‘walkable’ public elementary schools (Perth, Western Australia), stratified by socioeconomic status. Children (n = 1480; response rate = 56.6%) and parents (n = 1332; response rate = 88.8%) completed a survey, and steps were collected from children using pedometers. Pedometer data were categorized to reflect the sex-specific pedometer-based cut-points of ≥15000 steps/day for boys and ≥12000 steps/day for girls. Associations between socio-demographic characteristics, sedentary and active leisure-time behavior, independent mobility, active transportation and built environmental variables - collected from the child and parent surveys - and meeting pedometer-based cut-points were estimated (odds ratios: OR) using generalized estimating equations.
Results: Overall 927 children participated in all components of the study and provided complete data. On average, children took 11407 ± 3136 steps/day (boys: 12270 ± 3350 vs. girls: 10681 ± 2745 steps/day; p < 0.001) and 25.9% (boys: 19.1 vs. girls: 31.6%; p < 0.001) achieved the pedometer-based cut-points. After adjusting for all other variables and school clustering, meeting the pedometer-based cut-points was negatively associated (p < 0.05) with being male (OR = 0.42), parent self-reported number of different destinations in the neighborhood (OR 0.93), and a friend’s (OR 0.62) or relative’s (OR 0.44, boys only) house being at least a 10-minute walk from home. Achieving the pedometer-based cut-points was positively associated with participating in screen-time < 2 hours/day (OR 1.88), not being driven to school (OR 1.48), attending a school located in a high SES neighborhood (OR 1.33), the average number of steps among children within the respondent’s grade (for each 500 step/day increase: OR 1.29), and living further than a 10-minute walk from a relative’s house (OR 1.69, girls only).
Conclusions: Comprehensive multi-level interventions that reduce screen-time, encourage active travel to/from school and foster a physically active classroom culture might encourage more physical activity among children.

Framework for a Residential Energy Information System (REMIS) to promote energy efficient behaviour in residential energy end users

Previous studies on residential energy end use behavior reported significant reduction in energy end use of 7% to 24% when feedback is used to modify behavior in an energy efficient manner. However, most feedback systems investigated in previous studies have not benefited from advanced information systems (IS). IS can shape energy efficiency behavior by providing real-time feedback on energy consumption, cost and environmental impact. Such systems represent a new and less-researched subfield of energy informatics. This paper provides a conceptual framework for showing the potential use of IS to modify residential energy use behavior towards better energy efficiency. The framework builds on research in residential energy end use, in particular energy end use behavioral model. It provides conceptual inputs for a blue-print to develop a residential energy management information system (REMIS) and also highlights the use of new information and communications technologies (ICT) that had not been widely used, setting the grounds for further research in this area.

Conducting field research in a primary school setting : methodological considerations for maximizing response rates, data quality and quantity

Background: Schools are an ideal setting in which to involve children in research. Yet for investigators wishing to work in these settings, there are few method papers providing insights into working efficiently in this setting.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to describe the five strategies used to increase response rates, data quality and quantity in the TRansport Environment and Kids (TREK) project.

Setting: The TREK project examined the association between neighbourhood urban design and active transport in Grade 5–7 school children (n = 1480) attending 25 primary schools in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia during 2007.

Method: Children completed several survey components during school time (i.e. questionnaire, mapping activity, travel diary and anthropometric measurements) and at home (i.e. pedometer study, parent questionnaire).

Results: Overall, 69.4% of schools and 56.6% of children agreed to participate in the study and, of these, 89.9% returned a completed travel diary, 97.8% returned their pedometer and 88.8% of parents returned their questionnaire. These return rates are superior to similar studies. Five strategies appeared important: (1) building positive relationships with key school personnel; (2) child-centred approaches to survey development; (3) comprehensive classroom management techniques to standardize and optimize group sessions; (4) extensive follow-up procedures for collecting survey items; and (5) a specially designed data management/monitoring system.

Conclusion: Sharing methodological approaches for obtaining high-quality data will ensure research opportunities within schools are maximized. These methodological issues have implications for planning, budgeting and implementing future research.

PhD crisis discourse: a critical approach to the framing of the problem and some Australian ‘solutions’

A feature of HE reform discourse is the tendency to construct the rationale for reform in terms of averting calamity and risk. We refer to this risk talk as ‘crisis discourse’. This study examines the formulation of PhD crisis discourse internationally and in Australia. We find that a key feature of PhD crisis discourse is that universities are producing too many graduates for too few academic jobs; and graduates lack skills that enable them to be productive in jobs outside academia. In Australia, the discourse has shifted from one dominated by efficiency concerns from the late 1990s to the present focus on graduate skills and employability. The policy solution to the efficiency crisis in the Australian PhD resulted in system-wide changes in research training funding focused on increased efficiency. The current unemployability discourse has as yet prompted isolated institutional responses, the introduction of new PhD programs or re-badging existing offerings as pro-skills development offerings. Following an examination of three Australian institutional responses, we conclude that the crisis discourse signals tensions surrounding the PhD: should achievement in doctoral education be measured by outcomes in intellectual excellence or the responsiveness of qualification to the current needs and priorities of society?

Book review : Disposed to learn: schooling, ethnicity and the scholarly habitus

Book review of: Disposed to learn: schooling, ethnicity and the scholarly habitus, by Megan Watkins and Greg Noble

External policy influence and higher education reform in Ethiopia : understanding symbolic power of the World Bank

Increasingly national policy processes are intersected with and affected by global policy actors and ideas. In aid-recipient countries such as Ethiopia, donors use financial and non-financial means to influence national policy decisions and directions. This paper is about the non-financial influence of the World Bank (WB) in the Ethiopian higher education policy reform. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power as a ‘thinking tool’, the paper aims to shed light on forms of symbolic capital that the Bank uses to generate a ‘misrecognisable’ form of power that regulates the HE policy process in Ethiopia. The findings show that the WB transforms its symbolic capital of recognition and legitimacy to establish a ‘shared misrecognition’ and thereby make its policy prescriptions implicit and hence acceptable to local policy agents. The Bank uses knowledge-based regulatory instruments to induce compliance to its neoliberal policy prescriptions. The paper therefore underscores the value of symbol power as an analytical framework to understand elusive but critical role of donors in policy processes of aid recipient countries.

Neoliberal policy agendas and the problem of inequality in higher education: the Ethiopian case

Under the influence of the external policy pressure of donors such as the World Bank, higher education in Ethiopia has witnessed a series of institutional and system-wide reforms. This article reviews selected policy documents to show key neo-liberal policy agendas endorsed in the reforms and explicate how they have affected social equity in the subsystem. The analysis shows that higher education reforms in Ethiopia, primarily framed by concerns of economic efficiency, have constrained social equity in two important ways. First, at a discursive level, the problem of inequality is represented as a lack of access and a disadvantage in the human capital formation of the nation. Second, the drive for greater efficiency and reduced costs in the educational provision embedded in the reforms is inconsistent with the need for the financial and political commitments required to benefit marginalised members of the society through relevant equity instruments. If the equity policy provisions should be instrumental in ensuring participation, retention and successful completion, and thereby supporting the social mobility of disadvantaged groups, they need to draw on a broad social justice perspective.

‘Knowledge aid’ as instrument of regulation: World Bank’s non-lending higher education support for Ethiopia

In the context of low-income countries, the role of donors in public policymaking is of great importance. Donors use a combination of lending and non-lending instruments as pathways of influence to shape policy directions in aid-recipient countries. This paper reports some findings from a doctoral study on the role of the World Bank in the recent higher education (HE) policy reform process in Ethiopia. It focuses on the nature and impact of non-lending assistance by the Bank to the Ethiopian HE subsystem. Based on an interpretive policy analysis of sector reviews and advisory activities of the Bank, and selected national HE policy documents, the following findings are highlighted. First, as a ‘knowledge institution’, the World Bank produces, systematises and disseminates knowledge through policy advice, policy reports, analytical sector reviews, and thematic conferences and workshops. Second, knowledge aid from the Bank not only has a profound discursive effect on shaping Ethiopian HE policy reform priorities in accordance with its neoliberal educational agenda but also undermines the knowledge production capacity of the nation. The paper also argues that, for an effective education policy support, the Bank needs to shift its modality of engagement from knowledge aid to research capacity building. 

The `knowledge-intensive development' agenda and equitable access to knowledge: higher education in Ethiopia

In light of the normative assumption of the role of knowledge in economic productivity and in response to strong exogenous policy orientations (mainly from the World Bank), the government of Ethiopia has restructured and expanded the higher education (HE) subsystem since the late 1990s. In critically analysing selected policy documents, this article seeks to understand the seemingly unlinked agendas of strengthening the role of HE in supporting the knowledge-intensive development agenda and the representation of the problem of inequality in access to and success in HE. It has been shown that the economic value of knowledge has been echoed in the reforms of Ethiopia, and that the problem of inequality has been superficially represented just as inequality of access while serious challenges that hinder participation and success of women, non-traditional students and ethnically and regionally disadvantaged groups remain unchallenged. Hence, the analysis indicates that under a situation of unequal opportunity to knowledge, the knowledge-intensive development agenda appears to be empty policy rhetoric.

Widening access to lifelong learning for adults in Ethiopia: opportunities with recognition of prior learning

Socio-economic implication of the lifelong learning for all agenda is enormous. The very idea of lifelong learning frees learning from time and space constraints. It advocates learning to be an activity of a lifetime both within and without the formal education system. The assumption is that lifelong and life-wide learning will promote competitiveness, creativity, employability and social cohesion. Taking it in the context of developing countries such as Ethiopia, lifelong learning as an educational organising principle may play a vital role in supporting efforts to eradicate illiteracy and reduce poverty. Recently, Ethiopia has introduced the third phase of their education sector development programme, which underscores the importance of adult education, and a national strategy for adult education. This paper analyses the two documents to understand the extent to which non-formal and formal education are linked, and thereby to highlight the significance of institutionalising the recognition of prior learning (RPL) to promote lifelong learning for adults and working population.

Towards understanding epistemological assumptions of history teacher educators: my experience with phenomenological enquiry

This paper draws upon the methodological aspect of my thesis project completed in June 2007. At the center of the research problem was the question: How do history teacher educators (HTEs) in Bahir Dar University comprehend the sources and nature of historical knowledge? Phenomenological approach to research was employed in an attempt to explicate invariant structures of their epistemic assumptions of history as a school subject. Accordingly, with six purposefully selected educators as research participants, in the two-month time field work, in- depth interview and essay questions for personal text were used to gather qualitative data. Then, the data were analyzed thematically using an adapted six-phase model and interpretive themes emerged as findings of the study. And it was learnt that the educators have a very muddled conception and unquestioned assumptions on the nature and sources of historical knowledge. With this, also phenomenological enquiry, with difficulties and rewards of its own, was found to be an appropriate strategy to understand personal meaning and beliefs of the educator with regard to disciplinary knowledge of history. The paper, therefore, describes the way I employed phenomenological research approach to understand the case, and presents my personal experience of it as a beginner education researcher.