Designing to maintain human agency in context-aware systems

This paper describes a series of design games, specifically aimed at exploring shifts in human agency, how they are managed, and the impact this will have on the design of future context-aware applications. The games focussed on understanding information handling issues in dental practice with participants from the University of Queensland Dental School playing an active role in the activities. Participatory design activities reveal how technology solution impact on dental practices. By finding methods of representing technological possibilities in ways which can easily be understood we enhance the contribution that dentists can make to the design process.

Work at hand : an exploration of gesture in the context of work and everyday life to inform the design of gestural input devices

This research explores gestures used in the context of activities in the workplace and in everyday life in order to understand requirements and devise concepts for the design of gestural information applicances. A collaborative method of video interaction analysis devised to suit design explorations, the Video Card Game, was used to capture and analyse how gesture is used in the context of six different domains: the dentist's office; PDA and mobile phone use; the experimental biologist's laboratory; a city ferry service; a video cassette player repair shop; and a factory flowmeter assembly station. Findings are presented in the form of gestural themes, derived from the tradition of qualitative analysis but bearing some similarity to Alexandrian patterns. Implications for the design of gestural devices are discussed.

Maintaining human agency in the design on context-aware systems : Design games in a dental surgery

This paper describes a series of design games, specifically aimed at exploring shifts in human agency in order to inform the design of context-aware applications. The games focused on understanding information handling issues in dental practice with participants from a university dental school playing an active role in the activities. Participatory design activities help participants to reveal potential implicit technical resources that can be presented explicitly in technologies in order to assist humans in managing their interactions with and amidst technical systems gracefully.

Uncritical framing : lesson and knowledge structure in school science

There is clearly contention over the shape and formation of science curriculum and over, ultimately, what will count as scientific knowledge, skill, capacity and world view. The Cold War set the policy context for an ongoing focus on science education across Western nations. Sputnik-era US and UK educational policy offered a broad premise for the purpose of school science: in a risky geopolitical environment, high levels of advanced scientific expertise were central to the national interest and necessary for the maintenance of military/industrial and technological power. Half a century on, in the context of global economic and environmental crisis, as a justification for digital, industrial and biomedical innovation, the rationale for the production of scientific capital is central to curriculum settlements and educational policy in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Foucault Goes to Law School : Using Foucault to Examine Australian Legal Education

This paper will consider the way that Foucault’s work has been utilised to examine Australian legal education, particularly in the context of understanding the construction of the legal identity. While remaining sensitive to the many potential ‘uses’ of Foucault’s tools, as well as his problematisation of the author as an organising feature of discourse, this paper will argue that legal education scholarship overwhelmingly utilises concepts such as ‘discourse’ and ‘power-knowledge’, which, while useful, cannot provide a nuanced understanding of the construction of the legal identity. Consequently, this paper suggests that future legal education research utilise Foucault’s concepts of ‘ethics’ and ‘governmentality’ to address these issues.

Documenting reproduction and inequality : revisiting Jean Anyon’s “Social class and school knowledge”

Jean Anyon’s (1981) “Social class and school knowledge” was a landmark work in North American educational research. It provided a richly detailed qualitative description of differential, social-class-based constructions of knowledge and epistemological stance. This essay situates Anyon’s work in two parallel traditions of critical educational research: the sociology of the curriculum and classroom interaction and discourse analysis. It argues for the renewed importance of both quantitative and qualitative research on social reproduction and equity in the current policy context.

Psychosocial predictors of intentions to engage in change supportive behaviors in an organizational context

This study utilized the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to understand employee change readiness. The extent to which attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control predicted employees’ intentions to carry out activities that were supportive of a change event were investigated. The impact of group norm was examined as a further predictor of change-related intentions. The context of the research was a sample of 82 employees in the early stages of a re-brand. Results indicated that direct measures of attitude and subjective norm, as well as group norm, emerged as significant predictors of employees’ intentions to perform re-brand behaviors. To capture the indirect beliefs underlying attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, participants also provided an assessment of their behavioral, normative, and control beliefs in regards to the change event, respectively. A series of MANOVAs revealed significant differences between moderate and high intenders on a range of underlying beliefs. Findings are discussed in terms of the application of the TPB for effective change management.

The enactment of the New Basics Project in a special school

This study investigates the impact of the New Basics Project on teachers at a special school for students with intellectual impairments. The study is aimed at exploring the complex nature of the work of special educators as they enact the New Basics curriculum with a particular focus on the teachers’ opinions about challenges that arose for their curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices. Attention is also paid to how the principal’s leadership supported the enactment of the New Basics in respect to what he did and why he used particular strategies. The nine teachers and their principal were involved in a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews from one of only three special schools in phase one of the New Basics trial in Queensland, Australia. These interviews produced data from the special educators as they were confronted with a new curriculum that challenged their previous teaching practices. The enactment of the New Basics curriculum occurred within the context of a state-sanctioned mandate to provide alternative programs to those offered in mainstream schools, for students with special needs. This thesis explores these teachers' experiences using critical theory as a basis for analyzing their opinions on issues such as the role of the special educator, tensions between old and new curricula, pedagogical and assessment practices, and connections between the at-school learning experiences for intellectually impaired students and the realities of post-school life. The investigation also examines the leadership conduct of the principal in changing times at the school. The findings suggest that the New Basics has played a significant role in providing structures for developing communities of practice amongst teachers; in supporting special educators to focus more on the educational needs of the students (e.g., literacy, numeracy, financial planning) and less on their medical needs (e.g., toileting, feeding, personal hygiene); and supporting school leadership that empowers and listens critically to teachers as essential components of the successful enactment of curriculum reforms like the New Basics.

The importance of school connectedness in adolescent risk taking and injury prevention

Background: Injury is the leading cause of mortality for young people in Australia (AIHW, 2008). Adolescent injury mortality is consistently associated with risk taking behaviour, including transport and interpersonal violence (AIHW, 2003), which often occurs in the context of alcohol and other substance use. A rapid increase in risk taking and injury through early to late adolescence highlights the need for effective school based interventions. Aim: The aim of the current research was to examine the relationship between school connectedness and adolescent risk and injury, in order to inform effective prevention approaches. School connectedness, or students’ feelings of belongingness to school, has been shown to be a critical protective factor in adolescence which can be targeted effectively through teacher interventions. Despite evidence linking low school connectedness with increased health risk behaviour, including substance use and violence, research has not yet addressed possible links between connectedness and a broader range of risk taking behaviours (e.g. transport risks) or injury. Method: This study involved background data collection to inform the development of an intervention. A total of 595 Year 9 students (aged 13-14 years) from 5 Southeast Queensland high schools completed questionnaires that included measures of school connectedness, risk taking behaviour, alcohol and other substance use, and injuries. Results: Increased school connectedness was found to be associated with fewer transport risk behaviours and with decreased alcohol and other substance use for both males and females. Similarly, increased school connectedness was associated with fewer passenger and motorcycle injuries for male participants. Both males and females with increased school connectedness reported fewer alcohol related injuries. Implications: These results indicate that school connectedness appears to have protective effects for early adolescence. These findings may also hold for older adolescents and indicate that it may be an important factor to target in school based risk and injury prevention programs. A school connectedness intervention is currently being designed, focusing on teacher professional development. The intervention will be implemented in conjunction with a curriculum based injury prevention program for Year 9 students and will be evaluated through a large scale cluster randomised trial involving 26 schools.

The research pathway to developing a health promotion intervention for the high school curriculum

Introduction: Schools provide the opportunity to reach a large number of adolescents in a systematic way however there are increasing demands on curriculum providing challenges for health promotion activities. This paper will describe the research processes and strategies used to design an injury prevention program.----- Methods: A multi-stage process of data collection included: (1) Surveys on injury-risk behaviours to identify targets of change (examining behaviour and risk/ protective factors among more than 4000 adolescents); (2) Focus groups (n= 30 high-risk adolescents) to understand and determine risk situations; (3) Hospital emergency outpatients survey to understand injury types/ situations; (4) Workshop (n= 50 teachers/ administrators) to understand the target curriculum and experiences with injury-risk behaviours; (5) Additional focus groups (students and teachers) regarding draft material and processes.----- Results: Summaries of findings from each stage are presented particularly demonstrating the design process. The baseline data identified target risk and protective factors. The following qualitative study provided detail about content and context and with the hospital findings assisted in developing ways to ensure relevance and meaning (e.g. identifying high risk situations and providing insights into language, culture and development). School staff identified links to school processes with final data providing feedback on curriculum fit, feasibility and appropriateness of resources. The data were integrated into a program which demonstrated reduced injury.----- Conclusions: A comprehensive research process is required to develop an informed and effective intervention. The next stage of a cluster randomised control trial is a major task and justifies the intensive and comprehensive development.

Applying Keller’s brand equity model in a B2B context : limitations and an empirical test

It has been recognised that brands play a role in industrial markets, but to date a comprehensive model of business-to-business (B2B) branding does not exist, nor has there been an empirical study of the applicability of a full brand equity model in a B2B context. This paper is the first to begin to address these issues. The paper introduces the Customer- Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model by Kevin Keller (1993; 2001; 2003), and empirically tests its applicability in the market of electronic tracking systems for waste management. While Keller claims that the CBBE pyramid can be applied in a B2B context, this research highlights challenges of such an application, and suggests changes to the model are required. Assessing the equity of manufacturers’ brand names is more appropriate than measuring the equity of individual product brands as suggested by Keller. Secondly, the building blocks of Keller’s model appear useful in an organisational context, although differences in the subdimensions are required. Brand feelings appear to lack relevance in the industrial market investigated, and the pinnacle of Keller’s pyramid, resonance, needs serious modifications. Finally, company representatives play a role in building brand equity, indicating a need for this human element to be recognised in a B2B model.

An application of Keller’s brand equity model in a B2B context

Purpose – The importance of branding in industrial contexts has increased, yet a comprehensive model of business-to-business (B2B) branding does not exist, nor has there been a thoroughempirical study of the applicability of a full brand equitymodel in a B2B context. This paper aims to discuss the suitability and limitations of Keller’s customer-based brand equity model and tests its applicability in a B2B market. Design/methodology/approach – The study involved the use of semi-structured interviews with senior buyers of technology for electronic tracking of waste management. Findings – Findings suggest that amongst organisational buyers there is a much greater emphasis on the selling organisation, including its corporate brand, credibility and staff, than on individual brands and their associated dimensions. Research limitations/implications – The study investigates real brands with real potential buyers, so there is a risk that the results may represent industry-specific factors that are not representative of all B2B markets. Future research that validates the importance of the Keller elements in other industrial marketing contexts would be beneficial. Practical implications – The findings are relevant for marketing practitioners, researchers and managers as a starting-point for their B2B brand equity research. Originality/value – Detailed insights and key lessons from the field with regard to how B2B brand equity should be conceptualised and measured are offered. A revised brand equity model for B2B application is also presented.

Australian school leadership today : conclusions

The evidence provided in this book allows us to conclude that the context of 'new managerialism', which embraced managerial efficiency and effectiveness through bureaucracy and accountability as key levers for meeting higher community expectations and reforming schools, has failed. It also allows us to conclude that it is time that the professionals, the school leaders, ensure that what happens in schools, now and in the future, is what they want to happen. The professionals need to re-establish their individual and collective educational agency. The major professional challenge for any school leader is overcoming the gap between dependence in, or a feeling of, the inevitability of political, system or bureaucracies being the means of achieving what they want, and actively working to implement their preferred model of schools as social centres, learning organisations or professional learning communities (see chapters in this book and Mulford, 2008).

Confirmatory factor analysis of the Way of Coping Checklist-Revised (WCCL-R) in the Asian context

Industrial employment growth has been one of the most dynamic areas of expansion in Asia; however, current trends in industrialised working environments have resulted in greater employee stress. Despite research showing that cultural values affect the way people cope with stress, there is a dearth of psychometrically established tools for use in non-Western countries to measure these constructs. Studies of the "Way of Coping Checklist-Revised" (WCCL-R) in the West suggest that the WCCL-R has good psychometric properties, but its applicability in the East is still understudied. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to validate the WCCL-R constructs in an Asian population. This study used 1,314 participants from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Thailand. An initial exploratory factor analysis revealed that original structures were not confirmed; however, a subsequent EFA and CFA showed that a 38-item, five-factor structure model was confirmed. The revised WCCL-R in the Asian sample was also found to have good reliability and sound construct and concurrent validity. The 38-item structure of the WCCL-R has considerable potential in future occupational stress-related research in Asian countries.

Real world contexts in PISA science : implications for context-based science education

The PISA assessment instruments for students’ scientific literacy in 2000, 2003 and 2006 have each consisted of units made up of a real world context involving Science and Technology, about which students are asked a number of cognitive and affective questions. This paper discusses a number of issues from this use of S&T contexts in PISA and the implications they have for the current renewed interest in context-based science education. Suitably chosen contexts can engage both boys and girls. Secondary analyses of the students’ responses using the contextual sets of items as the unit of analysis provides new information about the levels of performance in PISA 2006 Science. .Embedding affective items in the achievement test did not lead to gender/context interactions of significance, and context interactions were less than competency ones. A number of implications for context-based science teaching and learning are outlined and the PISA 2006 Science test is suggested as a model for its assessment.