Older patients request more information : a survey of use of written patient education materials in general practice

Objectives: To determine GPs' reported use of written education materials with older patients and older patients' reported receipt of these materials. To determine GPs' and older patients' perceptions of written materials.---------- Method: Using self-report questionnaires, two populations were surveyed; a randomised sample of 50 GPs (29 males and 21 females) practising in Brisbane's southern suburbs and a convenience sample of 188 older community-dwelling people (aged over 64 years).----------- Results: All GPs reported using written materials with patients, although 28% had not given any to the Last 10 patients. This increased to 46% when patients were older. Twenty percent of patients wanted more written information from their GP, while some GPs believed that older patients preferred verbal information and gave out written information only when they perceived patient interest. All GPs reported giving written materials at the time of consultation and over two thirds discussed the content with patients. Just over 50% of patients reported receiving written information from GPs in the Last six months and only hall of these again discussed it directly with their GP. Overall, patients were more positive than GPs about the value of written education materials.---------- Conclusions: Older patients' desire for written information may be better met if they are more assertive in requesting this of GPs and GPs may better serve their patients' needs if they make written information more readily available to them. Better access to materials and more financial incentives to give them out might also increase GPs' use of written materials.

Developing a consumer policy for the 21st century

In light of the Productivity Commission's inquiry into Australia's consumer policy framework and administration, this article explores three assumptions that have underpinned our consumer protection framework to date: assumptions about the benefits of competition, self-regulation, and information. It argues that the benefits can be over-stated, and do not always reflect the reality of consumer experience. The article calls for the development of an overarching framework or principles document, with a more moderated approach to competition, self-regulation and information. While the Productivity Commission's draft report has admirably dealt with many of these issues, there is scope for the proposed objectives and recommendations in the final report to reflect more consistently the disparate impact of markets and competition on consumers, and the findings of behavioural economics.

Protecting the most vulnerable in consumer credit transactions

There are two key ways in which the Australian Uniform Consumer Credit Code seeks to protect consumers in relation to consumer credit transactions. The first is by means of disclosure regulation where information is required to be disclosed to the consumer before the credit contract is entered into and the second is by way of “safety net” provisions, where contracts can be varied or set aside in the event of hardship, a finding that the transaction was unjust, or a finding of unconscionable fees or charges. This article explores the limitations of both of these means of protection, particularly in the case of vulnerable, low-income consumers. In order to highlight the inadequacies of these forms of consumer protection and the need for regulatory reform, we draw on interviews conducted with 30 low-income consumers who had recently signed a credit contract, focusing on their understanding of information disclosed in the contract, as well as their responses to hypothetical unfair terms and their understanding of their rights, for example in the event of an unjust transaction. These interviews were conducted as part of a joint research project between Brotherhood of St Laurence and Griffith University’s Centre for Credit and Consumer Law, funded by Consumer Affairs Victoria.

Catching up with consumer realities: the need for legislation prohibiting unfair terms in consumer contracts

In the policy debate about the need for legislation to prohibit the use of unfair terms in consumer contracts, substantive unfairness is often distinguished from procedural unfairness. Current consumer protection laws appear to offer the potential for relief on substantive unfairness grounds alone. However, a review of cases involving credit contracts shows this potential is rarely realised. This reluctance to provide relief for substantive injustice reflects a preoccupation with freedom and certainty of contract, the notions underpinning classical contract theories. As a class, consumers are vulnerable in the marketplace, and they do need protection from substantively unfair terms. A new framework for regulating consumer contracts is needed, one that relies less on classical contract theories and takes the reality of consumer contracting and consumer behavior as its starting point. Unfair contract terms legislation will be a step on the path towards this new framework.

Contemporary consumer law : the role and effectiveness of regulation in consumer protection

This issue of the Griffith Law Review focuses on consumer law, and the pervasive nature of this area of law. We are all consumers, but do not necessarily identify as such, nor are we a homogeneous group. The boundaries of

Managerial effectiveness for a new millennium in the global higher education sector

With the global tertiary education environment undergoing some of the most rapid changes it has experienced since the 1980s, a technology-driven new millennium is requiring an unprecedented capacity for change on a number of fronts, one of these being the way managers manage. This article discusses some of the new realities facing tertiary education organizations, one of which is a realization that "knowledge capital" is the lifeline of an organization. It ultimately vests in the people whom successful organizations will lead, motivate, develop, and value in a manner sensitive to global trends of convergent social, cultural, and organizational change. This article suggests that the effective leadership of people will return as the touchstone for success, the technological age notwithstanding, and notes recent theory on increased reliance upon organizational integrity in the form of value-based policy and practice. This article draws on management and futurist theory to suggest some of the "flexibility imperatives" in managing the potentially different-looking work force of the future.

Of tails and Tempests : Feminine sexuality and Shakespearean children's texts

This paper reads a range of nineteenth-century texts for children that retell either Shakespeare's The Tempest or mermaid narratives, considering the models of feminine subjectivity and sexuality that they construct. It then moves on to two key contemporary texts — Disney's film adaptation of The Little Mermaid (Clements and Musker 1989) and Penni Russon's Undine (2004) — that combine the Shakespearean heroine with the mermaid, and reads them against the nineteenth-century models. Ultimately, the essay determines that, while these texts seem to perform a progressive appropriation of the two traditions, they actually combine the most conservative aspects of both The Tempest and mermaid stories to produce authoritative (and dangerously persuasive) ideals of passive feminine sexuality that confine girls within patriarchally-dictated familial positions. The new figure for adolescent female subjectivity, the mermaid-Miranda, becomes in turn a model of identification and aspiration for the implied juvenile consumer.

Learning to reflect in the first year of legal education : the key to surviving legal education and legal practice

Lawyers and law students suffer significant rates of depression and substance abuse. This paper suggests that Law Schools have an obligation to assist students to develop the emotional intelligence necessary in order to cope with the stressful nature of legal practice. We draw on Schön’s discussion of the indeterminate zone of professional practice to suggest that reflective practice is the means by which students can become sufficiently emotionally intelligent to become balanced and happy lawyers. We suggest that incorporating reflective practice in intentional curriculum design in the first year of law is an effective first step in assisting students to develop the emotional intelligence necessary to survive the study and practice of law.

Stepping out into the real world of education : an introduction

‘Stepping out into the real world of Education��� has been written to complement ‘Transitioning to the real world of Education��� (Millwater & Beutel, 2008). Both books are aimed at strategising the transition you are experiencing, from preservice teacher to professional educator, through issues that you will face as early career teachers from any specialist teaching strand - early childhood, primary, middle or secondary. ‘Transitioning to the real world of Education��� (Millwater & Beutel, 2008) addressed the particularities and practicalities of professional standards, life-long learning, teaching for diversity, values-education, teacher/student relationships, teaching in a digital age and teacher burnout. This text aligns with these and explores other areas, in recognition that your early career phase is the pivotal point of how much you commit to being a teacher in the long term.

Educating the Other: Standpoint and Theory on the 'Internationalisation' of Higher Education

How adequate are current theoretical standpoints, tools and categories for explaining the flows of international students to Anglo/American/European universities? This essay takes a different analytic tact and historical standpoint to the study of them and us, insiders and outsiders (cf. Foley, Levinson & Hurtig, 2001), in the internationalisation of education.

On Indigenous education

A critical overview of current policy debates in Indigenous education, with a focus on the tensions between models of direct instruction and culturally appropriate pedagogy.

Understanding preservice teachers’ predispositions for teaching engineering education in Australian schools.

Engineering education is underrepresented in Australia at the primary, middle school and high school levels. Understanding preservice teachers’ preparedness to be involved in engineering will be important for developing an engineering curriculum. This study administered a literature-based survey to 36 preservice teachers, which gathered data about their perceptions of engineering and their predispositions for teaching engineering. Findings indicated that the four constructs associated with the survey had acceptable Cronbach alpha scores (i.e., personal professional attributes .88, student motivation .91, pedagogical knowledge .91, and fused curricula .89). However, there was no “disagree” or “strongly disagree” response greater than 22% for any of the 25 survey items. Generally, these preservice teachers indicated predispositions for teaching engineering in the middle school. Extensive scaffolding and support with education programs will assist preservice teachers to develop confidence in this field. Governments and education departments need to recognise the importance of engineering education, and universities must take a stronger role in developing engineering education curricula.

Moving from Awareness to Knowing, Understanding, Speaking and Doing: Indigenous Women Academics in Higher Education. National Tertiary Education Women's Conference, 18-19 July 2009, South Melbourne, Victoria.

Bronwyn Fredericks was asked to outline some of the issues faced by Indigenous women academics.

Race and equity in higher education : A harder path for Indigenous academics

Our experiences as Indigenous academics within universities often reflects the experiences we have as Indigenous people in broader society, yet I am still surprised and angered when it is others working in higher education who espouse notions of justice and equity with whom we experience tension and conflict in asserting our rights, values and cultural values. At times it is a constant struggle even when universities have Reconciliation Statements as most of them do now, Indigenous recruitment or employment strategies and university wide anti-racism and anti-discrimination policies and procedures.

Naming trouble in online internationalized education

This paper offers an analysis of cultural politics that emerged around naming practices in an ethnographic study of the interactions within an online MBA unit, offered by an Australian university to both ‘local’ Australian students and international students enrolled through a Malaysian partner institution. It became evident that names were doing important identity, textual and pedagogical work in these interactions and considerable interactive trouble arose over the social practices surrounding names. The analysis uses sociolinguistic concepts to analyse selected slices of the online texts and participants' interview accounts. The analysis shows how ethnocentric default settings in the courseware served to heighten and exacerbate cultural difference as a pedagogical problem. These events are related to the larger problematic of theorising the context of culture in times of globalisation and increasingly entangled educational routes, with implications for the enterprise of online internationalised education.