959 resultados para academic engagement
Resumo:
Curriculum developers and researchers have promoted context-based programmes to arrest waning student interest and participation in the enabling sciences at high school and university. Context-based programmes aim for student connections between scientific discourse and real-world contexts to elevate curricular relevance without diminishing conceptual understanding. This interpretive study explored the learning transactions in one 11th grade context-based chemistry classroom where the context was the local creek. The dialectic of agency/structure was used as a lens to examine how the practices in classroom interactions afforded students the agency for learning. The results suggest that first, fluid transitions were evident in the student–student interactions involving successful students; and second, fluid transitions linking concepts to context were evident in the students’ successful reports. The study reveals that the structures of writing and collaborating in groups enabled students’ agential and fluent movement between the field of the real-world creek and the field of the formal chemistry classroom. Furthermore, characteristics of academically successful students in context-based chemistry are highlighted. Research, teaching, and future directions for context-based science teaching are discussed.
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This thesis explores how governance networks prioritise and engage with their stakeholders, by studying three exemplars of “Regional Road Group” governance networks in Queensland, Australia. In the context of managing regionally significant road works programs, stakeholder prioritisation is a complex activity which is unlikely to influence interactions with stakeholders outside of the network. However, stakeholder priority is more likely to influence stakeholder interactions within the networks themselves. Both stakeholder prioritisation and engagement are strongly influenced by the way that the networks are managed, and in particular network operating rules and continuing access to resources.
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OBJECTIVE: School-aged youth spend a significant amount of time either in transit to and from school, or within school settings performing a range of varying learning-based activities. Adolescent physical activity has also been shown to increase the likelihood of maintaining physical activity throughout adulthood. The purpose of this study is to investigate adolescents’ perceived school-based barriers and facilitators to engagement in physical activity. METHODS: One-hundred and twenty four participants (38 males and 86 females) were recruited from two non-denominational same-sex private schools, in Brisbane, Australia. The mean age and standard deviation (SD) was 13.83 (0.56) and 14.40 (2.33) for males and females respectively. Participants responded to a series questions regarding perceived barriers and facilitators to engagement in physical activity. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics and frequency distributions, and qualitative data with thematic analysis. RESULTS: A total of 121 (97.6%) participants had complete data sets and were included in the analysis. School timetable (44.6%), homework (81.8%), and assessment (81.0%) were identified as the most prominent perceived factors, increasing the difficulty of physical activity engagement. Physical Education classes (71.9%) and school sport programs (80.2%) were identified as the most prominent perceived factors that facilitate engagement in physical activity. There was no significant gender effect. CONCLUSIONS: Each of the identified factors perceived by adolescent's as either barriers or facilitators to engagement in physical activity may be addressed by administrators at a school and government policy level. These may include strategies such as; increasing the assigned hours to physical education classes, providing additional extra-curricular sporting opportunities, and reviewing the time allocated to homework and assessment items. This may provide a simpler, low-cost solution to increasing youth physical activity, as opposed to contemporary higher-cost strategies utilising increased staff commitment, mass media, provision of equipment and counsellors and other health professionals.
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Disciplines have emerged as an alternative administrative structure to departments or schools in Australian universities. We presently investigate the pattern of discipline use and by way of case study examine a role for distributed leadership in discipline management. Over forty per cent of Australian universities currently employ disciplines, especially within faculties of sciences, engineering and medicine. No trend is observed according to institutional age, state, or historical origins. Effective planning, retention of corporate knowledge and good communication are important during the transition period. Moreover, it is vital that professional staff continue to work closely alongside academics as extended members of the discipline. Distributed leadership encourages this interaction. The duties of a discipline leader can be similar to those faced by a head of department. Universities should therefore establish clear policies, position descriptions and appropriate remuneration packages in order to recruit, train and retain staff within this emerging academic management role.
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Students entering tertiary studies possess a diverse range of prior experiences in their academic preparation for tertiary chemistry so academics need tools to enable them to respond to issues in diversity in conceptual models possessed by entering students. Concept inventories can be used to provide formative feedback to help students identify concepts that they need to address to improve construction of subsequent understanding enabling their learning. Modular, formative learning activities that can be administered inside or outside of class in first year chemistry courses have been developed. These activities address key missing and mis-conceptions possessed by incoming student. Engagement in these learning activities by students and academics will help shift the culture of diagnostic and formative assessment within the tertiary context and address issues around the secondary/tertiary transition. This diagnostic/intervention framework is currently being trialed across five Australian tertiary institutions encompassing a large heterogeneous sample of students.
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“The Cube” is a unique facility that combines 48 large multi-touch screens and very large-scale projection surfaces to form one of the world’s largest interactive learning and engagement spaces. The Cube facility is part of the Queensland University of Technology’s (QUT) newly established Science and Engineering Centre, designed to showcase QUT’s teaching and research capabilities in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines. In this application paper we describe, the Cube, its technical capabilities, design rationale and practical day-to-day operations, supporting up to 70,000 visitors per week. Essential to the Cube’s operation are five interactive applications designed and developed in tandem with the Cube’s technical infrastructure. Each of the Cube’s launch applications was designed and delivered by an independent team, while the overall vision of the Cube was shepherded by a small executive team. The diversity of design, implementation and integration approaches pursued by these five teams provides some insight into the challenges, and opportunities, presented when working with large distributed interaction technologies. We describe each of these applications in order to discuss the different challenges and user needs they address, which types of interactions they support and how they utilise the capabilities of the Cube facility.
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Background Recent initiatives within an Australia public healthcare service have seen a focus on increasing the research capacity of their workforce. One of the key initiatives involves encouraging clinicians to be research generators rather than solely research consumers. As a result, baseline data of current research capacity are essential to determine whether initiatives encouraging clinicians to undertake research have been effective. Speech pathologists have previously been shown to be interested in conducting research within their clinical role; therefore they are well positioned to benefit from such initiatives. The present study examined the current research interest, confidence and experience of speech language pathologists (SLPs) in a public healthcare workforce, as well as factors that predicted clinician research engagement. Methods Data were collected via an online survey emailed to an estimated 330 SLPs working within Queensland, Australia. The survey consisted of 30 questions relating to current levels of interest, confidence and experience performing specific research tasks, as well as how frequently SLPs had performed these tasks in the last 5 years. Results Although 158 SLPs responded to the survey, complete data were available for only 137. Respondents were more confident and experienced with basic research tasks (e.g., finding literature) and less confident and experienced with complex research tasks (e.g., analysing and interpreting results, publishing results). For most tasks, SLPs displayed higher levels of interest in the task than confidence and experience. Research engagement was predicted by highest qualification obtained, current job classification level and overall interest in research. Conclusions Respondents generally reported levels of interest in research higher than their confidence and experience, with many respondents reporting limited experience in most research tasks. Therefore SLPs have potential to benefit from research capacity building activities to increase their research skills in order to meet organisational research engagement objectives. However, these findings must be interpreted with the caveats that a relatively low response rate occurred and participants were recruited from a single state-wide health service, and therefore may not be representative of the wider SLP workforce.
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Abstract Background: Studies that compare Indigenous Australian and non-Indigenous patients who experience a cardiac event or chest pain are inconclusive about the reasons for the differences in-hospital and survival rates. The advances in diagnostic accuracy, medication and specialised workforce has contributed to a lower case fatality and lengthen survival rates however this is not evident in the Indigenous Australian population. A possible driver contributing to this disparity may be the impact of patient-clinician interface during key interactions during the health care process. Methods/Design: This study will apply an Indigenous framework to describe the interaction between Indigenous patients and clinicians during the continuum of cardiac health care, i.e. from acute admission, secondary and rehabilitative care. Adopting an Indigenous framework is more aligned with Indigenous realities, knowledge, intellects, histories and experiences. A triple layered designed focus group will be employed to discuss patient-clinician engagement. Focus groups will be arranged by geographic clusters i.e. metropolitan and a regional centre. Patient informants will be identified by Indigenous status (i.e. Indigenous and non-Indigenous) and the focus groups will be convened separately. The health care provider focus groups will be convened on an organisational basis i.e. state health providers and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services. Yarning will be used as a research method to facilitate discussion. Yarning is in congruence with the oral traditions that are still a reality in day-to-day Indigenous lives. Discussion: This study is nestled in a larger research program that explores the drivers to the disparity of care and health outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians who experience an acute cardiac admission. A focus on health status, risk factors and clinical interventions may camouflage critical issues within a patient-clinician exchange. This approach may provide a way forward to reduce the appalling health disadvantage experienced within the Indigenous Australian communities. Keywords: Patient-clinician engagement, Qualitative, Cardiovascular disease, Focus groups, Indigenous
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This paper is a work in progress that examines current consumer engagement with eHealth information through Smartphones or tablets. We focus on three activity types: seeking, posting and ‘other’ engagement activity and compare two age groups, 25-40s and over 40-55s. Findings show that around 30% of the younger age group is engaging with Government and other Health providers’ websites, receiving eHealth emails, and reading other people’s comments about health related issues in online discussion groups/websites/blog. Approximately 20% engage with Government and other Health providers’ social media and watch or listen to audio or video podcasts. For the older age group, their most active engagement with eHealth information is in the seeking category through Government or other health websites (approximately 15%), and less than 10% for social media sites. Their posting activity is less than 5%. Other activities show that less than 15% of the older age group engages through receiving emails and reading blogs, less than 10% watch or listen to podcasts, and their online consulting activity is less than 7%. We note that scores are low for both groups in terms of engaging with eHealth information through Twitter.
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Digital media is often criticised for being intangible, transient and ephemeral. These characteristics limit the provision of long-lasting social experiences, as it is through the use of all our senses that we attach meaning to space, creating a sense of place. This paper presents a comparative study of the affordances of two design interventions, one tangible paper-based, called Print + Talk = Love (PTL), the other digital screen-based, called Discussions in Space (DIS). The emphasis is on a) how tangible media, such as paper, provides different and meaningful collective experiences, and b) how it can stand on its own as an interactive design intervention and as a comprehensive data-gathering tool in urban public places. By positioning PTL and DIS within the context of urban public places and testing their abilities to engage participants, we examine their particular situated engagement abilities through a mixed method approach. As a result, the digital aspects of DIS, e.g., using Twitter, extend the situated experience beyond the actual location of the intervention. Moreover, informing a hybrid approach, we also found that the physical aspects of PTL and its tangible presence, kept the user experience focused on the actual place and event surrounding the intervention.
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Evidence-based practice in entrepreneurship requires effective communication of research findings. We focus on how research synopses can “promote” research to entrepreneurs. Drawing on marketing communications literature, we examine how message characteristics of research synopses affect their appeal. We demonstrate the utility of conjoint analysis in this context and find message length, media richness and source credibility to have positive influences. We find mixed support for a hypothesized negative influence of jargon, and for our predictions that participants’ involvement with academic research moderates these effects. Exploratory analyses reveal latent classes of entrepreneurs with differing preferences, particularly for message length and jargon.
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Many efforts are made to assist with the advancement of developing economies through the activities of Non Government Organizations (NGOs). There are many management l and engagement issues associated with any successful NGO in a developed economy. When the organization is operating in a developing country, where a lack of infrastructure and education, distrust and corruption are part of the operating environment, the issues multiply. This case study discusses the structure of a NGO started in 2008 and describes the development and interaction of its two main components: a community-based NGO in a developing country and a NGO with a voluntary committee in a developed economy, australia. Despertai Mozambique is the NGO set up in Beira, which provides the necessary support, training and funding to the local poor (defined by the UN as living below the internationally accepted poverty line of US$1.25 a day) to help them set up small, often informal, businesses, to enable them to become sustainable, and ultimately to help alleviate poverty. The partnering Australian organization, Awaken Mozambique, is responsible for providing the necessary intellectual and financial resources required by Despertai Mozambique to operate.
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Policy makers increasingly recognise that an educated workforce with a high proportion of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates is a pre-requisite to a knowledge-based, innovative economy. Over the past ten years, the proportion of first university degrees awarded in Australia in STEM fields is below the global average and continues to decrease from 22.2% in 2002 to 18.8% in 2010 [1]. These trends are mirrored by declines between 20% and 30% in the proportions of high school students enrolled in science or maths. These trends are not unique to Australia but their impact is of concern throughout the policy-making community. To redress these demographic trends, QUT embarked upon a long-term investment strategy to integrate education and research into the physical and virtual infrastructure of the campus, recognising that expectations of students change as rapidly as technology and learning practices change. To implement this strategy, physical infrastructure refurbishment/re-building is accompanied by upgraded technologies not only for learning but also for research. QUT’s vision for its city-based campuses is to create vibrant and attractive places to learn and research and to link strongly to the wider surrounding community. Over a five year period, physical infrastructure at the Gardens Point campus was substantially reconfigured in two key stages: (a) a >$50m refurbishment of heritage-listed buildings to encompass public, retail and social spaces, learning and teaching “test beds” and research laboratories and (b) destruction of five buildings to be replaced by a $230m, >40,000m2 Science and Engineering Centre designed to accommodate retail, recreation, services, education and research in an integrated, coordinated precinct. This landmark project is characterised by (i) self-evident, collaborative spaces for learning, research and social engagement, (ii) sustainable building practices and sustainable ongoing operation and; (iii) dynamic and mobile re-configuration of spaces or staffing to meet demand. Innovative spaces allow for transformative, cohort-driven learning and the collaborative use of space to prosecute joint class projects. Research laboratories are aggregated, centralised and “on display” to the public, students and staff. A major visualisation space – the largest multi-touch, multi-user facility constructed to date – is a centrepiece feature that focuses on demonstrating scientific and engineering principles or science oriented scenes at large scale (e.g. the Great Barrier Reef). Content on this visualisation facility is integrated with the regional school curricula and supports an in-house schools program for student and teacher engagement. Researchers are accommodated in a combined open-plan and office floor-space (80% open plan) to encourage interdisciplinary engagement and cross-fertilisation of skills, ideas and projects. This combination of spaces re-invigorates the on-campus experience, extends educational engagement across all ages and rapidly enhances research collaboration.
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Project Management (PM) as an academic field is relatively new in Australian universities. Moreover, the field is distributed across four main areas: business (management), built environment and construction, engineering and more recently ICT (information systems). At an institutional level, with notable exceptions, there is little engagement between researchers working in those individual areas. Consequently, an initiative was launched in 2009 to create a network of PM researchers to build a disciplinary base for PM in Australia. The initiative took the form of a bi-annual forum. The first forum established the constituency and spread of PM research in Australia (Sense et al., 2011). This special issue of IJPM arose out of the second forum, held in 2012, that explored the notion of an Australian perspective on PM. At the forum, researchers were invited to collaborate to explore issues, methodological approaches, and theoretical positions underpinning their research and to answer the question: is there a distinctly Australian research agenda which responds to the current challenges of large and complex projects in our region? From a research point of view, it was abundantly clear at the forum that many of the issues facing Australian researchers are shared around the world. However, what emerged from the forum as the Australian perspective was a set of themes and research issues that dominate the Australia research agenda.