Predictors of young people’s charitable intentions to donate money : an extended theory of planned behavior perspective

An extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to predict young people’s intentions to donate money to charities in the future. Students (N = 210; 18-24 years) completed a questionnaire assessing their attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control [PBC], moral obligation, past behavior and intentions toward donating money. Regression analyses revealed the extended TPB explained 61% of the variance in intentions to donate money. Attitude, PBC, moral norm, and past behavior predicted intentions, representing future targets for charitable giving interventions.

Entrepreneurship education in non-business schools : best practice for Australian contexts of knowledge and innovation communities (Final Report)

In the current era of global economic instability, business and industry have already identified a widening gap between graduate skills and employability. An important element of this is the lack of entrepreneurial skills in graduates. This Teaching Fellowship investigated two sides of a story about entrepreneurial skills and their teaching. Senior players in the innovation commercialisation industry, a high profile entrepreneurial sector, were surveyed to gauge their needs and experiences of graduates they employ. International contexts of entrepreneurship education were investigated to explore how their teaching programs impart the skills of entrepreneurship. Such knowledge is an essential for the design of education programs that can deliver the entrepreneurial skills deemed important by industry for future sustainability. Two programs of entrepreneurship education are being implemented at QUT that draw on the best practice exemplars investigated during this Fellowship. The QUT Innovation Space (QIS) focuses on capturing the innovation and creativity of students, staff and others. The QIS is a physical and virtual meeting and networking space; a connected community enhancing the engagement of participants. The Q_Hatchery is still embryonic; but it is intended to be an innovation community that brings together nascent entrepreneurial businesses to collaborate, train and support each other. There is a niche between concept product and business incubator where an experiential learning environment for otherwise isolated ‘garage-at-home’ businesses could improve success rates. The QIS and the Q_Hatchery serve as living research laboratories to trial the concepts emerging from the skills survey. The survey of skills requirements of the innovation commercialisation industry has produced a large and high quality data set still being explored. Work experience as an employability factor has already emerged as an industry requirement that provides employee maturity. Exploratory factor analysis of the skills topics surveyed has led to a process-based conceptual model for teaching and learning higher-order entrepreneurial skills. Two foundational skills domains (Knowledge, Awareness) are proposed as prerequisites which allow individuals with a suite of early stage entrepreneurial and behavioural skills (Pre-leadership) to further leverage their careers into a leadership role in industry with development of skills around higher order elements of entrepreneurship, management in new business ventures and progressing winning technologies to market. The next stage of the analysis is to test the proposed model through structured equation modelling. Another factor that emerged quickly from the survey analysis broadens the generic concept of team skills currently voiced in Australian policy documents discussing the employability agenda. While there was recognition of the role of sharing, creating and using knowledge in a team-based interdisciplinary context, the adoption and adaptation of behaviours and attitudes of other team members of different disciplinary backgrounds (interprofessionalism) featured as an issue. Most undergraduates are taught and undertake teamwork in silos and, thus, seldom experience a true real-world interdisciplinary environment. Enhancing the entrepreneurial capacity of Australian industry is essential for the economic health of the country and can only be achieved by addressing the lack of entrepreneurial skills in graduates from the higher education system. This Fellowship has attempted to address this deficiency by identifying the skills requirements and providing frameworks for their teaching.

Introduction: Is a General Theory of Violence Possible?

"There once was a man who aspired to be the author of the general theory of holes. When asked ‘What kind of hole—holes dug by children in the sand for amusement, holes dug by gardeners to plant lettuce seedlings, tank traps, holes made by road makers?’ he would reply indignantly that he wished for a general theory that would explain all of these. He rejected ab initio the—as he saw it—pathetically common-sense view that of the digging of different kinds of holes there are quite different kinds of explanations to be given; why then he would ask do we have the concept of a hole? Lacking the explanations to which he originally aspired, he then fell to discovering statistically significant correlations; he found for example that there is a correlation between the aggregate hole-digging achievement of a society as measured, or at least one day to be measured, by econometric techniques, and its degree of techno- logical development. The United States surpasses both Paraguay and Upper Volta in hole-digging; there are more holes in Vietnam than there were. These observations, he would always insist, were neutral and value-free. This man’s achievement has passed totally unnoticed except by me. Had he however turned his talents to political science, had he concerned himself not with holes, but with modernization, urbanization or violence, I find it difficult to believe that he might not have achieved high office in the APSA." (MacIntyre 1971, 260)

A world map of knowledge in the making : Wikipedia's Inter-Language Linkage as a dependency explorer of global knowledge accumulation

Analysis of Wikipedia's inter-language links provides insight into a new mechanism of knowledge sharing and linking worldwide.

Testing a model of physical activity among mothers and fathers of young children: integrating self-determined motivation, planning, and the theory of planned behavior

Parents are at risk for inactivity; however, research into understanding parental physical activity (PA) is scarce. We integrated self-determined motivation, planning, and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to better understand parental PA. Parents (252 mothers, 206 fathers) completed a main questionnaire assessing measures underpinning these constructs and a 1-week follow-up of PA behavior to examine whether self-determined motivation indirectly influenced intention via the TPB variables (i.e., attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control) and intention indirectly influenced behavior via planning. We found self-determined motivation on intention was fully mediated by the TPB variables and intention on behavior was partially mediated by the planning variables. In addition, slight differences in the model’s paths between the sexes were revealed. The results illustrate the range of important determinants of parental PA and provide support for the integrated model in explaining PA decision making as well as the importance of examining sex differences.

Proteomics science & society : the role of knowledge translation in moving towards clinical applications

Background: Outside the mass-spectrometer, proteomics research does not take place in a vacuum. It is affected by policies on funding and research infrastructure. Proteomics research both impacts and is impacted by potential clinical applications. It provides new techniques & clinically relevant findings, but the possibilities for such innovations (and thus the perception of the potential for the field by funders) are also impacted by regulatory practices and the readiness of the health sector to incorporate proteomics-related tools & findings. Key to this process is how knowledge is translated. Methods: We present preliminary results from a multi-year social science project, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, on the processes and motivations for knowledge translation in the health sciences. The proteomics case within this wider study uses qualitative methods to examine the interplay between proteomics science and regulatory and policy makers regarding clinical applications of proteomics. Results: Adopting an interactive format to encourage conference attendees’ feedback, our poster focuses on deficits in effective knowledge translation strategies from the laboratory to policy, clinical, & regulatory arenas. An analysis of the interviews conducted to date suggests five significant choke points: the changing priorities of funding agencies; the complexity of proteomics research; the organisation of proteomics research; the relationship of proteomics to genomics and other omics sciences; and conflict over the appropriate role of standardisation. Conclusion: We suggest that engagement with aspects of knowledge translation, such as those mentioned above, is crucially important for the eventual clinical application ofproteomics science on any meaningful scale.

Investigating mothers' decisions about their child's sun-protective behaviour using the Theory of Planned Behaviour

This study tested the utility of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to predict mothers’ decisions to ensure their child engages in sun-protective behaviours. Mothers (N = 162) of children aged four or five years completed standard TPB items (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, intention) and additional variables of role construction, mothers’ own sun safe behaviour, planning and past behaviour. One week later, participants (N = 116) reported their behaviour. Results found support for the TPB constructs, role construction, past behaviour and the mediating role of planning. These findings can inform strategies to prevent skin cancer.

Towards an integration of the theory of planned behaviour and cognitive behavioural strategies : an example from a school-based injury prevention programme

Adolescent risk-taking behavior has potentially serious injury consequences and school-based behavior change programs provide potential for reducing such harm. A well-designed program is likely to be theory-based and ecologically valid however it is rare that the operationalisation process of theories is described. The aim of this paper is to outline how the Theory of Planned Behavior and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy informed intervention design in a school setting. Teacher interviews provided insights into strategies that might be implemented within the curriculum and provided detail used to operationalise theory constructs. Benefits and challenges in applying both theories are described with examples from an injury prevention program, Skills for Preventing Injury in Youth.

An extended theory of planned behavior intervention for older adults With Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease

A randomized controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of a 4-wk extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) intervention to promote regular physical activity and healthy eating among older adults diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease (N = 183). Participants completed TPB measures of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention, as well as planning and behavior, at preintervention and 1 wk and 6 wk postintervention for each behavior. No significant time-by-condition effects emerged for healthy eating. For physical activity, significant time-by-condition effects were found for behavior, intention, planning, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm. In particular, compared with control participants, the intervention group showed short-term improvements in physical activity and planning, with further analyses indicating that the effect of the intervention on behavior was mediated by planning. The results indicate that TPB-based interventions including planning strategies may encourage physical activity among older people with diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Toward a theory of the architectural subject

The extraordinary event, for Deleuze, is the object becoming subject – not in the manner of an abstract formulation, such as the substitution of one ideational representation for another but, rather, in the introduction of a vast, new, impersonal plane of subjectivity, populated by object processes and physical phenomena that in Deleuze’s discovery will be shown to constitute their own subjectivities. Deleuze’s polemic of subjectivity (the refusal of the Cartesian subject and the transcendental ego of Husserl) – long attempted by other thinkers – is unique precisely because it heralds the dawning of a new species of objecthood that will qualify as its own peculiar subjectivity. A survey of Deleuze’s early work on subjectivity, Empirisme et subjectivité (Deleuze 1953), Le Bergsonisme (Deleuze 1968), and Logique du sens (Deleuze 1969), brings the architectural reader into a peculiar confrontation with what Deleuze calls the ‘new transcendental field’, the field of subjectproducing effects, which for the philosopher takes the place of both the classical and modern subject. Deleuze’s theory of consciousness and perception is premised on the critique of Husserlian phenomenology; and ipso facto his question is an architectural problematic, even if the name ‘architecture’ is not invoked...

A Survey-based Study of Knowledge of Alzheimer's Disease among Health Care Staff

Background Continued aging of the population is expected to be accompanied by substantial increases in the number of people with dementia and in the number of health care staff required to care for them. Adequate knowledge about dementia among health care staff is important to the quality of care delivered to this vulnerable population. The purpose of this study was to assess knowledge about dementia across a range of health care staff in a regional health service district. Methods Knowledge levels were investigated via the validated 30-item Alzheimer's Disease Knowledge Scale (ADKS). All health service district staff with e-mail access were invited to participate in an online survey. Knowledge levels were compared across demographic categories, professional groups, and by whether the respondent had any professional or personal experience caring for someone with dementia. The effect of dementia-specific training or education on knowledge level was also evaluated. Results A diverse staff group (N = 360), in terms of age, professional group (nursing, medicine, allied health, support staff) and work setting from a regional health service in Queensland, Australia responded. Overall knowledge about Alzheimer's disease was of a generally moderate level with significant differences being observed by professional group and whether the respondent had any professional or personal experience caring for someone with dementia. Knowledge was lower for some of the specific content domains of the ADKS, especially those that were more medically-oriented, such as 'risk factors' and 'course of the disease.' Knowledge was higher for those who had experienced dementia-specific training, such as attendance at a series of relevant workshops. Conclusions Specific deficits in dementia knowledge were identified among Australian health care staff, and the results suggest dementia-specific training might improve knowledge. As one piece of an overall plan to improve health care delivery to people with dementia, this research supports the role of introducing systematic dementia-specific education or training.

Greener workplace: An examination of Green HR initiatives adoption through the theory of planned behaviour lens

The goal of this article is to propose the model of green human resource initiatives adoption. Based on innovation management and psychology literatures, attitude, pressure and controllability are key drivers for organizational change. Data were collected from 210 organizations in Australia. Results indicated that attitude, pressure and controllability significantly influenced the firms’ adoption of green HR initiatives. Attitude and resource availability especially had greater impacts than pressure. Limitation, implications and future researches are also outlined.