An exploration of young students' ability to generalise function tasks

The Early Years Generalising Project involves Australian students, Years 1-4 (age 5-9), and explores how the students grasp and express generalisations. This paper focuses on the data collected from clinical interviews with Year 3 and 4 cohorts in an investigative study focusing on the identifications, prediction and justification of function rules. It reports on students' attempts to generalise from function machine contexts, describing the various ways students express generalisation and highlighting the different levels of justification given by students. Finally, we conjecture that there are a set of stages in the expression and justification of generalisations that assist students to reach generality within tasks.

Peer passenger identity and passenger pressure on young drivers' speeding intentions

Young drivers, aged 17 to 24 years, have the highest fatality rate in Australia. It is believed that part of this risk is due to pressure from peer passengers to engage in speeding; which may be active (i.e., verbal encouragement) or passive (i.e., perceived pressure on the part of the driver). The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was used to investigate this impact of peer passengers on young drivers, particularly the influence of the type of peer pressure and a driver’s level of identification with their passengers. A scenario-based questionnaire was constructed, informed by focus groups and pilot studies, and distributed to university students (N = 398). The questionnaire measured participants’ intentions and the TPB constructs, including two components of perceived behaviour control, within a baseline scenario as well as an experimental scenario in which the variables of type of pressure and identification were manipulated. Consistent with the hypotheses, the study found that attitudes and self-efficacy significantly predicted intentions over and above the variance explained by the sociodemographic variables of age, gender, self-esteem, sensation seeking, as well as past behaviour and exposure. Across the scenarios, attitudes explained between 4.3% and 14.5%, while self-efficacy to refrain from speeding explained between 4.9% and 17.1%, of the unique variance in intentions to speed. However, contrary to expectations, intentions to speed were found to be higher in the “no passenger” than “passenger present” conditions, although this finding is not completely inconsistent with recent literature. A high level of identification with passengers led to higher intentions to speed than low identification as expected, but, inconsistent with expectations, different types of pressure (i.e., active versus passive) did not influence intentions to speed.

Young, inexperienced and on the road: Do novice drivers comply with road rules?

Young novice drivers are at considerable risk of injury and fatality, particularly when they first drive independently. Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) has been introduced in numerous jurisdictions to allow more driving experience in conditions of reduced risk and increasing driving privileges over a longer duration. Queensland, Australia, enhanced GDL July 2007. Learners must record 100 hours in a logbook (10 hours at night) over 1 year, no mobile handsfree/loudspeaker by driver or any passenger. Provisional 1 (P1) drivers must not carry 2 or more peer passengers 11pm - 5am, no mobile handsfree/loudspeaker by any passenger. Self-reported compliance with new GDL and general road rules has not been examined.

Young and unlicensed : risky driving before entering the licensing system

Objective: On-road driving before gaining a valid licence (pre-Licence driving) represents a risk for all road users. Pre-Licence driving among young people who obtained a Provisional licence within an enhanced graduated driver licensing program in Queensland, Australia, was investigated. Methods: Recently-licensed drivers (n = 1032) aged 17-19 years (M = 17.54) completed a survey exploring their driving experiences while on their Learners licence. Six months later, 355 of these drivers completed the same survey exploring their experiences on their Provisional (intermediate) licence. Results: Twelve percent of participants reported pre-Licence driving. Pre-Licence drivers reported significantly more risky driving as Learners and Provisional drivers. Conclusions: Pre-Licence drivers not only place themselves and other road users at risk at the time but also continue to do so through their subsequent risky driving. Pre-licence driving should be discouraged, and parents should be encouraged to monitor car use and the driving behaviour of their children.

Young People and Work

This edited book brings together empirical studies of young people in paid employment from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and in different national settings. In the context of increasing youth labour market participation rates and debates about the value of early employment, it draws on multi-level analyses to reflect the complexity of the field. Each of the three sections of the book explores a key aspect of young people's employment: their experience of work, intersections between work and education, and the impact of other actors and institutions. The book contributes to broadening and strengthening knowledge about the opportunities and constraints that young people face during their formative experiences in the labour market.

A majority experience: young people’s encounters with the labour market

Young people are frequently the focus of study in social science. Education, employment, leisure, criminality and family life are all spheres within which the different experiences of young people have been examined (Pollock 2008). A still relatively small, but expanding strand of this broader scholarship addressing youth-related issues is a body of theoretical and empirical literature which focuses on young people's participation in work. This growing interest in young people's employment has followed a significant shift in many western societies. Younger and much larger numbers of young people, still engaged in full time education, are entering the formal labour market. Indeed, in many countries, employment is a majority experience for children (Hobbs and McKechnie 1997), and for young people in general. While in such work there has been a tendency to blur definitional lines, here we adopt the term 'young people' which incorporates the definitions of 'children' as those under 18 years and 'youth' as those under 24 (UN n.d.).

Convenience, loyal, and customising users : a survey of the behaviours and intentions of young online news users in Australia

The implications of the shift to online news consumption for journalism cultures and practices have attracted considerable scholarly attention and public debate. Less well considered are the implications of online news consumption for and by young people. This paper reports on research into the behaviours and intentions of online news consumers, 18-30 years of age, to propose three distinctive types of user (convenience, loyal and customising). Also opened up for discussion are questions about the strategic value to commercial news organisations of audience-centred empirical research that seeks to respond the crisis of professional journalism.

YODEX (Young Designers Exhibition)

The annual YODEX (Young Designers Exhibition) in Taipei as the largest student design show in Asia presents a substantial opportunity as a profiling event for QUT. In 2011 an interactive and highly engaging QUT exhibition ensured direct communication with participants and first hand exposure to innovative design approaches.

Expressive interactions : tablet usability for young mobile learners

In this paper we examine the usability of tablets for students in middle school in the context of mobile environmental education. Our study focuses on the expressive qualities of three input methods – text, audio and drawing – and the extent to which these methods support on-task behaviour. In our study 28 small groups of children were given iPads and asked to record ecological observations from around their schoolyard. The effectiveness of the devices and their core utility for expressive, on-task data capture is assessed.

Associations between young children's emotion attributions and prediction of outcome in differing social situations

Associations between young children's attributions of emotion at different points in a story, and with regard to their own prediction about the story's outcome, were investigated using two hypothetical scenarios of social and emotional challenge (social entry and negative event). First grade children (N = 250) showed an understanding that emotions are tied to situational cues by varying the emotions they attributed both between and within scenarios. Furthermore, emotions attributed to the main protagonist at the beginning of the scenarios were differentially associated with children's prediction of a positive or negative outcome and with the valence of the emotion attributed at the end of the scenario. Gender differences in responses to some items were also found. © 2010 The British Psychological Society.

Young adults’ accounts of scientific knowledge when responding to a television news report of contested science

This paper reports one aspect of a study of 28 young adults (18–26 years) engaging with the uncertain (contested) science of a television news report about recent research into mobile phone health risks. The aim of the study was to examine these young people’s ‘accounts of scientific knowledge’ in this context. Seven groups of friends responded to the news report, initially in focus group discussions. Later in semi-structured interviews they elaborated their understanding of the nature of science through their explanations of the scientists’ disagreement and described their mobile phone safety risk assessments. This paper presents their accounts in terms of their views of the nature of science and their concept understanding. Discussions were audio-recorded then analysed by coding the talk in terms of issues raised, which were grouped into themes and interpreted in terms of a moderate social constructionist theoretical framing. In this context, most participants expressed a ‘common sense’ view of the nature of science, describing it as an atheoretical, technical procedure of scientists testing their personal opinions on the issue, subject to the influence of funding sponsors. The roles of theory and data interpretation were largely ignored. It is argued that the nature of science understanding is crucial to engagement with contemporary socioscientific issues, particularly the roles of argumentation, theory, data interpretation, and the distinction of science from common sense. Implications for school science relate primarily to nature of science teaching and the inclusion of socioscientific issues in school science curricula. Future research directions are considered.

External orientation and business model adaptation in young and nascent firms : preliminary analysis from the CAUSSE project

Discovering factors that help or impede business model change is an important quest, both for researchers and practitioners. In this study we present preliminary findings based on the CAUSEE survey of young and nascent firms in Australia. In particular, we seek to determine an association between business model adaptation and external orientation among young and nascent firms within the random sample and amongst an oversample of high potential firms. The concept of external orientation is made operational by asking respondents whether, and to what extent, they rely on certain sources of advice and information. We find that high potential firms are more likely to have made at least some change to their business model, that greater use of external sources of advice is generally significantly associated with business model adaptation, but also that there appear to be different patterns of behaviour between the random sample and the over sample.

"My friend was over the alcohol limit, so I asked him not to drive" : Young females intervening in alcohol-impaired driving

Potential to strengthen a commitment to intervene within a friendship group: – all knew the other passengers, – 3 in 4 discussed intervening with other passengers, – expectations of friends was a key predictive factor. - young women have potential and willingness to intervene in their friends’ drink driving behaviour - majority of campaigns and strategies to reduce alcohol related crashes target the driver however it is arguable that some strategies should target the young female passenger.

Confirmatory factor analysis of the Behaviour of Young Novice Drivers Scale (BYNDS)

The greatly increased risk of being killed or injured in a car crash for the young novice driver has been recognised in the road safety and injury prevention literature for decades. Risky driving behaviour has consistently been found to contribute to traffic crashes. Researchers have devised a number of instruments to measure this risky driving behaviour. One tool developed specifically to measure the risky behaviour of young novice drivers is the Behaviour of Young Novice Drivers Scale (BYNDS) (Scott-Parker et al., 2010). The BYNDS consists of 44 items comprising five subscales for transient violations, fixed violations, misjudgement, risky driving exposure, and driving in response to their mood. The factor structure of the BYNDS has not been examined since its development in a matched sample of 476 novice drivers aged 17-25 years. Method: The current research attempted to refine the BYNDS and explore its relationship with the self-reported crash and offence involvement and driving intentions of 390 drivers aged 17-25 years (M = 18.23, SD = 1.58) in Queensland, Australia, during their first six months of independent driving with a Provisional (intermediate) driver’s licence. A confirmatory factor analysis was undertaken examining the fit of the originally proposed BYNDS measurement model. Results: The model was not a good fit to the data. A number of iterations removed items with low factor loadings, resulting in a 36-item revised BYNDS which was a good fit to the data. The revised BYNDS was highly internally consistent. Crashes were associated with fixed violations, risky driving exposure, and misjudgement; offences were moderately associated with risky driving exposure and transient violations; and road-rule compliance intentions were highly associated with transient violations. Conclusions: Applications of the BYNDS in other young novice driver populations will further explore the factor structure of both the original and revised BYNDS. The relationships between BYNDS subscales and self-reported risky behaviour and attitudes can also inform countermeasure development, such as targeting young novice driver non-compliance through enforcement and education initiatives.