A surprising omission

There appears little space for regional and rural issues in the Bradley Review, says Dianne Bills and Trevor Gale.

Fair go must not be just a phrase

Equity is back on the higher education policy agenda. After nearly 20 years of federal government policy championing the cause, with embarrassingly little change in the participation rates of equity groups, particularly indigenous students, rural and regional students and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, there is a potential new era looming in equity policy and practice.

The dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviours of Victorian regional secondary school students

The aim of this study was to investigate the dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviours of adolescents from four secondary schools in Warrnambool, regional Victoria. In 2004, a random sample of students (n=712), stratified by school year level, was generated from school enrolment databases and 443 students completed a lifestyle questionnaire. Twenty per cent of students were physically active for 60 minutes or more per day; 28 per cent used electronic media in free time for a maximum of two hours per day. Only seven per cent of students met these two Australian physical activity recommendations. Fruit, vegetables and dairy products were consumed every day by 39 per cent, 40 per cent and 71 per cent of students respectively; three serves per day of each of these foods are recommended for Australian adolescents. Compared with boys, girls were less physically active (p<0.001), consumed more fruit (p=0.011) and vegetables (p<0.001), but fewer dairy products (p<0.024). Seventeen per cent of students were overweight or obese; these students were less physically active than normal weight peers (p<0.018). The dietary, physical and sedentary behaviours of regional Victorian secondary school students in this study were inadequate when compared with Australian recommendations. Dietary and physical activity habits are still evolving in adolescence and unhealthy habits can still be changed.

Teaching journalism students and regional reporters how to work with cultural diversity

This paper examines the effectiveness of a set of curriculum materials developed for a Reporting Diversity and Integration Project tailored for Australian journalists and journalism students. The materials take a problem-based learning (PBL) approach to a hypothetical case study that involves Muslim netballers being banned from competition because they want to wear headscarves during play. Deferring to ideas developed by Russian psychologist, Leo Vygotsky, we proposed a few ‘scaffolding’ strategies to support student learning. The material was trialed with 30 first-year Deakin University journalism students and 30 regional journalists. The responses showed that both groups felt the materials we added to the curriculum resources, which provided information on Muslim women and the headscarf, affected how they would write the story. They also thought it was important to provide this kind of information for readers. This paper argues that providing cultural information in an accessible format for students and journalists in newsrooms should be integral to education and training materials designed to improve media coverage of cultural diversity issues.

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.

How ready are you? A preliminary investigation into the workplace readiness of final-year education students at a regional university

One criticism of teacher-training programs is that they do not sufficiently prepare graduating teachers for the transition between higher education and the demands and practicalities of classroom teaching. This lack of workplace readiness or 'teacher ready' status of graduates has been attributed to insufficient pre-service practical experience and the failure of training programs to adequately coach pre-service teachers in the delivery of quality pedagogy (Nelson, 2005). On the other hand, the Australian Council of Deans of Education (2005, p. 3) argues that teacher-training programs should provide foundational knowledge and skills with the onus on the profession to build on these foundations and elevate the teacher 'to the point of full and complete practitioner-readiness'. Central Queensland University has tried to respond to these concerns through the introduction of the Bachelor of Learning Management. This paper reports on a preliminary investigation into the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the program in preparing graduates and enabling workplace readiness. Towards the end of 2005 a cohort of final year students was asked to identify their levels of confidence in the transition from university to work; and how the cohort could have been better prepared. It is intended that the issues identified will be translated into recommendations for future program improvements.

Educating law students for rural and regional legal practice: embedding place consciousness in law curricula

As with other professions, the declining rates of recruitment and retention of lawyers in rural and regional Australia is of significant concern. Whilst the causes of this vary between communities, common depictions of the rural and regional lawyer’s role indicate that employment as a lawyer in such areas is characterised by unique personal and professional challenges. Nonetheless, employment as a rural and regional lawyer also offers practitioners rewarding opportunities and lifestyle benefits. Research from other disciplines indicates that the challenges inherent in rural and regional professional practice may be alleviated, and benefits more easily harnessed, via place conscious discipline-specific curriculum that sensitises tertiary students to, and prepares them for, the rural and regional career context.Largely oriented towards substantive content to satisfy external accrediting bodies, undergraduate legal education does not typically acknowledge the ‘places’in which graduates will practice as professionals. This article argues however that there is scope to incorporate place within legal education, and documents an innovative curriculum development project which embeds place consciousness to better prepare law students for employment in rural and regional legal practice.Drawing upon methods from other disciplines, the project team designed a curriculum package which aims to sensitise students to the rural and regional legal practice context, and equip them with the skills to overcome challenges and take advantage of the opportunities available in a rural or regional professional career.

Motivational readiness for active commuting by university students : incentives and barriers

Issue addressed: Walking for transport can contribute significantly to health enhancing physical activity. We examined the associations of stages of motivational readiness for active transport with perceived barriers and incentives to walking to and from university among students. Methods: Mail-back surveys were completed by 781 students in a regional university in southeast Queensland. They identified one of eight options on motivational readiness for active commuting, which were then classified as: pre-contemplation; contemplation-preparation; or, action-maintenance. Open-ended questions were used to identify relevant barriers and incentives. Logistic regressions were used to examine the barriers and incentives that distinguished between those at different stages of motivational readiness. Results: Barriers most frequently reported were long travel distances, inconvenience and time constraints. Incentives most frequently reported were shorter travel distance, having more time, supportive infrastructure and better security. Those not considering active commuting (pre-contemplation) were significantly more likely to report shorter travel distance as an incentive compared to those in contemplation-preparation. Those in contemplation-preparation were significantly more likely to report lack of motivation, inadequate infrastructure, shorter travel distance and inconvenience as barriers; and, having more time, supportive infrastructure, social support and incentive programs as encouragement. Conclusions: Different barriers and incentives to walking to or from university exist for students in the different stages of motivational readiness for active commuting. Interventions targeted specifically to stage of motivational readiness may be potentially helpful in increasing activity levels, through active transport.

Online delivery and learning in regional Australia : benefits and barriers

The potential for online learning to enhance learning opportunities of those living in regional Australia cannot be over-emphasised. This chapter* describes a study where online delivery was mapped to determine ‘what’ is happening and ‘why’. This enabled the benefits, barriers and ‘promoters’ of online learning to be identified. However, an important conclusion of this study is that there is a lack of consistent, comparable enrolment data relating to online learning, which obviously affects funding allocation decisions. To ensure high-quality learning experiences and appropriate support for students and staff, institutions require adequate funding and resources based on models which reflect the reality of online delivery and learning.

Developing a science challenge to support partnerships and pedagogy in rural and regional science

In 2007 the researchers decided to investigate the development of a “science challenge” as a means of engaging students in science. They wanted to ensure that whatever was developed was sustainable, addressed the needs of students and provided some answers for the dilemma of equitable education in regional and rural areas. A literature search indicated that whilst science competitions were not new, one which was based on schoolcommunity partnerships and involved students in the solving of real problems, was quite different. This paper will report on the development of the science challenge with reference to the viewpoints of teachers, community and industry participants.

Student support : bridging the gap between students and the university

Bangladesh introduced open and distance learning as a means of providing education for people in isolated and remote locations through the establishment of the Bangladesh Open University (BOU). The broad aim of the BOU is to provide flexible and needs-based education to those unable or not wishing to enter conventional educational institutions. The BOU is presently the only university in Bangladesh to provide mass education and also to provide continuing education and professional and technical education to support the existing educational system. The BOU has a mission that encompasses secondary and higher levels of education. BOU operates its programs through a centralised academic and administrative staff, and regional and local offices throughout Bangladesh that organise local tutorials and distribute information and materials. BOU has adult students in all parts of the country, and most of the students live in rural areas. They need support that is appropriate to their local circumstances. Using an interpretive approach, this research examines the support needs of students studying for the Secondary School Certificate and the Bachelor of Education, assesses the effectiveness of current support services and explores alternatives to the current system. The underlying assumption is that support needs to be appropriate to the country’s culture and circumstances, and useful and feasible from the perspectives of students, staff, administrators and senior university officials. To investigate the appropriate support for distance education students, this research was conducted in four sample regions. Two were selected from areas of sparse population where the terrain makes transport difficult and two from areas that are more densely populated and where transport is easier. A questionnaire survey and focus groups were conducted with students, focus groups with local staff and interviews with Regional Directors within the four sample regions. Interviews were also undertaken with central University senior staff to get their perspectives on current and future policies for student support.

Networked interactive whiteboards : rationale, affordances and new pedagogies for regional Australian higher education

This article presents an argument for the use of networked interactive whiteboards (NIWBs) in regional Australian higher education and identifies new pedagogies for this context. Most Australian universities operate multiple campuses, and many use video conference facilities to deliver courses across these sites. For students at remote video conference sites, their classroom experience is often one of isolation and limited student to student contact. In this article, NIWBs are proposed as a tool to enhance this mode of delivery and exploratory research into the additional affordances they provide is presented. By using networking with IWBs, annotation and gesture can be shared across distances. Emerging possibilities from the integration of NIWBs with video conference, web conference and lecture capture systems are also explored. Three new pedagogies for regional Australian higher education are proposed based on these new capabilities.

Business ethics and accounting students : Australia, South Asia and East Asia

Recent corporate collapses around the world show that there are no national boundaries for these occurrences. Australian corporate collapses including HIH Insurance, One.Tel, Ansett Australia and Harris Scarfe have raised public expectations of investigation of the causes of collapses (Mirshekary, Yaftian & Cross, 2005). The main reason for the collapse of HIH was mismanagement, with an emphasis more on the directors’ personal qualities such as integrity, honesty and morality rather than tougher legislation and rules. Accounting students are our future business leaders. The teaching of ethics in the classroom to multicultural groups of students provides an opportunity to facilitate the sharing of knowledge, and to increase interaction and debate around different approaches to ethics among students from different countries.
This study uses previous literature to explain the attitudes of accounting students towards academic and business/accounting ethics at an Australian university which is a multi-campus institution undertaking programs and activities at regional, national, international levels and by distance education.
This study reports the results of cross-cultural investigations of students’ ethical perceptions on moral values, academic and accounting/business vignettes, given that all students share the same learning opportunities, knowledge of ethics and interaction with their peers and lecturers. The results indicate no significant differences in responses between the students from Australia, South Asia and East Asia.

Students' perceptions of academic and business dishonesty : Australian evidence

Publicly available information indicates that the collapse of the high-profile corporations during the recent past were due to the unethical actions of a number of major players, including high level managers in those corporations. These examples of the ethical misdeeds of corporate actors have influenced accounting professional bodies and academic institutions around the globe to revisit the issue of ethical training of business and accounting students—the corporate managers of tomorrow. However, little is known about the ethical perceptions of business and accounting students, and business academics are finding it challenging to develop and promote ethics-based accounting and business curricula. This study addresses the research gap. It explores the ethical perceptions of accounting and business students in two Australian universities using three paradigms, that is, whether there are differences between regional and metropolitan, male and female, older and younger accounting students with respect to their ethical perceptions. Empirical evidence provided in this study
suggests that while there are no differences in ethical perceptions of the regional and metropolitan accounting and business students, female and older students are found to be more ethical compared to male and younger students.

Doing research with teachers, parents and students : the ethics and politics of collaborative research

Truly collaborative research partnerships between universities and schools are seldom commonplace (Potter, 2001). Many schools – particularly those in disadvantaged communities – have long histories of being involved in research yet few see themselves with real investment in, ownership of and/or benefiting from the experience. In this chapter we discuss research conceived with more mutually beneficial researcher-researched relations, cognisant of the ‘importance of respecting and ultimately giving more than we take to the communities we research’ (Schultz, 2001, p. 1). The research involved teachers’, parents’ and students’ engagement with schooling in a secondary school in regional Australia. Rather than conducting the research on others, we attempted to craft our project with them. Michelle Fine (1994) argues that a decision to work with those we once might have written about or for, necessarily changes our work, making it both more ethical and more explicitly connected to struggles for social justice. This chapter draws on the voices of the teachers, parents and students we worked with and alongside during the research to explore the ethics and politics of such an approach.