Stability of the learning and development survey : findings for mature aged local government and private healthcare organisations.

This article investigates work related learning and development amongst mature aged workers from a lifespan developmental psychology perspective. The current study follows on from research regarding the construction and revision of the Learning and Development Survey (LDS; Tones & Pillay, 2008). Designed to measure adaptive development for work related learning, the revised LDS (R-LDS) encompasses goal selection, engagement and disengagement from individual and organisational perspectives. Previous survey findings from a mixed age sample of local government workers suggest that mature aged workers aged over 45 years are less likely to report engagement in learning and development goals than younger workers, which is partly due to insufficient opportunities at work. In the current paper, exploratory factor analysis was used to investigate responses to the R-LDS amongst two groups of mature aged workers from a local government (LG) and private healthcare (PH) organisation to determine the stability of the R-LDS. Organisational constraints to development accounted for almost a quarter of the variance in R-LDS scores for both samples, while remaining factors emerged in different orders for each data set. Organisational opportunities for development explained about 17% of the variance in R-LDS scores in the LG sample, while the individual goal disengagement factor contributed a comparable proportion of variance to R-LDS scores for the PH sample. Findings from the current study indicate that opportunities for learning and development at work may be age structured and biased towards younger workers. Implications for professional practice are discussed and focus on improving the engagement of mature aged workers.

The relationship between construction firm strategies and innovation outcomes

Survey results provide a preliminary assessment of the relative contribution of a range of tactical business strategies to innovation performance by firms in the Australian construction industry. Over 1,300 firms were surveyed in 2004, resulting in a response rate of 29%. Respondents were classified as high, medium or low innovators according to an innovation index based on the novelty and impact of their innovations and their adoption of listed technological and organizational advances. The relative significance of 23 business strategies concerning (1) employees, (2) marketing, (3) technology, (4) knowledge and (5) relationships was examined by determining the extent to which they distinguished high innovators from low innovators. The individual business strategies that most strongly distinguished high innovators were (1) ‘investing in R&D’, (2) ‘participating in partnering and alliances on projects’, (3) ‘ensuring project learnings are transferred into continuous business processes’, (4) ‘monitoring international best practice’, and (5) ‘recruiting new graduates’. Of the five types of strategies assessed, marketing strategies were the least significant in supporting innovation. The results provide practical guidance to managers in project-based industries wishing to improve their innovation performance.

Measuring and supporting quality of life

It is widely acknowledged that “quality of life” (QoL) is an imprecise concept, which is difficult to define (Arnold, 1991; Ball et al., 2000; Bury & Holme, 1993; Byrne & MacLean, 1997; Guse & Masesar, 1999; McDowell & Newell, 1996). McDowell and Newell (1996) described the term as “intuitively familiar” (p.382), suggesting that everyone believes that they know what it means; while, in reality its meaning differs from person to person. Recent years, have seen steadily increasing interest in the study and measurement of QoL related to human services, which reflects greater importance being attached to accountability in its widest sense. Anecdotally, many care staff will indicate that ensuring good QoL for their clients is important to them, but how can we ascertain whether we are achieving positive QoL outcomes, and given the complexities of the concept and its measurement, how can we best incorporate QoL assessment into everyday practice? This chapter will explore the issues of QoL definition and measurement, particularly as they pertain to aged care. It will consider many measurement tool options, and provide advice on how to choose an appropriate instrument for your circumstances. Issues of quality of care and their relationship to QoL will also be considered, and the chapter will conclude with a discussion on the integration of QoL assessment into practice. Because residential aged care constitutes a living environment as well as a care environment, QoL is considered particularly pertinent in this context, and as such, it will provide much of the focus for the chapter

End-of-life decision making for older people

This chapter deals with the increasing issues surrounding end-of-life decision making. As the life trajectory for older people changes, the need for open discussion about their health problems and treatment becomes more critical. Acceptance of the ageing process itself is often not easy so the matter of a good death is even more distressing for some people to consider. The vignette provides an excellent discussion on the need for open dialogue with the older person and their families, whether they are acutely ill or have chronic health problems. How a person wishes to be treated when quality of life is not going to improve, no matter what interventions are put in place, seems essential for person-centred care. The issue of competency is one that must be determined before any decision is made by any person involved in care.

Difference-based meta-analytic procedures for between-participant and/or within-participant designs : a tutorial review for sports and exercise scientists

The aim of this paper is to provide a contemporary summary of statistical and non-statistical meta-analytic procedures that have relevance to the type of experimental designs often used by sport scientists when examining differences/change in dependent measure(s) as a result of one or more independent manipulation(s). Using worked examples from studies on observational learning in the motor behaviour literature, we adopt a random effects model and give a detailed explanation of the statistical procedures for the three types of raw score difference-based analyses applicable to between-participant, within-participant, and mixed-participant designs. Major merits and concerns associated with these quantitative procedures are identified and agreed methods are reported for minimizing biased outcomes, such as those for dealing with multiple dependent measures from single studies, design variation across studies, different metrics (i.e. raw scores and difference scores), and variations in sample size. To complement the worked examples, we summarize the general considerations required when conducting and reporting a meta-analysis, including how to deal with publication bias, what information to present regarding the primary studies, and approaches for dealing with outliers. By bringing together these statistical and non-statistical meta-analytic procedures, we provide the tools required to clarify understanding of key concepts and principles.

Assessment and curriculum reform in China : the college English test and tertiary English as a foreign language education.

Educational assessment was a worldwide commonplace practice in the last century. With the theoretical underpinnings of education shifting from behaviourism and social efficiency to constructivism and cognitive theories in the past two decades, the assessment theories and practices show a widespread changing movement. The emergent assessment paradigm, with a futurist perspective, indicates a deviation away from the prevailing large scale high-stakes standardised testing and an inclination towards classroom-based formative assessment. Innovations and reforms initiated in attempts to achieve better education outcomes for a sustainable future via more developed learning and assessment theories have included the 2007 College English Reform Program (CERP) in Chinese higher education context. This paper focuses on the College English Test (CET) - the national English as a Foreign Language (EFL) testing system for non-English majors at tertiary level in China. It seeks to explore the roles that the CET played in the past two College English curriculum reforms, and the new role that testing and assessment assumed in the newly launched reform. The paper holds that the CET was operationalised to uplift the standards. However, the extended use of this standardised testing system brings constraints as well as negative washback effects on the tertiary EFL education. Therefore in the newly launched reform -CERP, a new assessment model which combines summative and formative assessment approaches is proposed. The testing and assessment, assumed a new role - to engender desirable education outcomes. The question asked is: will the mixed approach to formative and summative assessment provide the intended cure to the agony that tertiary EFL education in China has long been suffering - spending much time, yet achieving little effects? The paper reports the progresses and challenges as informed by the available research literature, yet asserts a lot needs to be explored on the potential of the assessment mix in this examination tradition deep-rooted and examination-obsessed society.

Interview with Dr. Young-Ki Paik, President of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO): Pharmacoproteomics and the approaching wave of “Proteomics Diagnostics”

Dr. Young-Ki Paik directs the Yonsei Proteome Research Center in Seoul, Korea and was elected as the President of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) in 2009. In the December 2009 issue of the Current Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine (CPPM), Dr. Paik explains the new field of pharmacoproteomics and the approaching wave of “proteomics diagnostics” in relation to personalized medicine, HUPO’s role in advancing proteomics technology applications, the HUPO Proteomics Standards Initiative, and the future impact of proteomics on medicine, science, and society. Additionally, he comments that (1) there is a need for launching a Gene-Centric Human Proteome Project (GCHPP) through which all representative proteins encoded by the genes can be identified and quantified in a specific cell and tissue and, (2) that the innovation frameworks within the diagnostics industry hitherto borrowed from the genetics age may require reevaluation in the case of proteomics, in order to facilitate the uptake of pharmacoproteomics innovations. He stresses the importance of biological/clinical plausibility driving the evolution of biotechnologies such as proteomics,instead of an isolated singular focus on the technology per se. Dr. Paik earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Missouri-Columbia and carried out postdoctoral work at the Gladstone Foundation Laboratories of Cardiovascular Disease, University of California at San Francisco. In 2005, his research team at Yonsei University first identified and characterized the chemical structure of C. elegans dauer pheromone (daumone) which controls the aging process of this nematode. He is interviewed by a multidisciplinary team specializing in knowledge translation, technology regulation, health systems governance, and innovation analysis.

Report on Innovation Working Group : The Mathematics Education into the 21st Century Project. Dresden, Saxony

This document reports on the Innovations Working Group that met at the 10th International Conference “Models in Developing Mathematics Education” from the 11-17th September 2009 in Dresden, Saxony. It briefly describes the over arching and consistent themes that emerged from the numerous papers presented. The authors and titles of each of the papers presented will be listed in Table 2.

Humanistic science education : moves from within and challenges from without

For a number of years now it has been evident that the major issue facing science educators in the more developed countries of the world is the quantitative decline in enrolments in the senior secondary sciences, particularly the physical sciences, and in the number of higher achieving students applying for places in universities to undertake further studies in science. The deep malaise in school science to which these quantitative measures point has been elucidated by more qualitative studies of the students’ experience of studying science in secondary school in several of these countries (Sweden, Lindahl (2003); England, Simon and Osborne (2002); and Australia, Lyons (2005)). Remarkably concordant descriptions of these experiences can be summarized as: School science is: • transmission of knowledge from the teacher or the textbook to the students. • about content that is irrelevant and boring to our lives. • difficult to learn in comparison with other subjects Incidentally, the Australian study only involved consistently high achieving students; but even so, most of them found science more difficult than other more interesting subjects, and concluded that further science studies should be avoided unless they were needed for some career purpose. Other more representative confirmations of negative evaluations of the science curricula across Australia (and in particular states) are now available in Australia, from the large scale reviews of Goodrum, Hackling and Rennie (2001) and from the TIMSS (2002). The former reported that well under half of secondary students find the science at school relevant to my future, useful ion everyday life, deals with things I am concerned with and helps me make decisions about my health.. TIMSS found that 62 and 65 % of females and males in Year 4 agree with I like learning science, but by Year 8 only 26 and 33 % still agree. Students in Japan have been doubly notably because of (a) their high performance in international measures of science achievement like TIMSS and PISA and (b) their very low response to items in these studies which relate to interest in science. Ogura (2003) reported an intra-national study of students across Years 6-9 (upper primary through Junior High); interest in a range of their subjects (including science) that make up that country’s national curriculum. There was a steady decline in interest in all these subjects which might have indicated an adolescent reaction against schooling generally. However, this study went on to ask the students a further question that is very meaningful in the Japanese context, If you discount the importance of this subject for university entrance, is it worth studying? Science and mathematics remained in decline while all the other subjects were seen more positively. It is thus ironic, at a time when some innovations in curriculum and other research-based findings are suggesting ways that these failures of school science might be corrected, to find school science under a new demands that come from quite outside science education, and which certainly do not have the correction of this malaise as a priority. The positive curricular and research findings can be characterized as moves from within science education, whereas the new demands are moves that come from without science education. In this paper I set out these two rather contrary challenges to the teaching of science as it is currently practised, and go on to suggest a way forward that could fruitfully combine the two.

Mandates: An Australian example at the Queensland University of Technology

This presentation describes a situation where an open access mandate was developed and implemented at an institutional level, in this case, an Australian University. Some conclusions are drawn about its effect over a five year period of implementation.

An exploratory study of innovation effectiveness measurement between Australian and Thai SMEs

The advantages of using a balanced approach to measurement of overall organisational performance are well-known. We examined the effects of a balanced approach in the more specific domain of measuring innovation effectiveness in 144 small to medium sized companies in Australia and Thailand. We found that there were no differences in the metrics used by Australian and Thai companies. In line with our hypotheses, we found that those SMEs that took a balanced approach were more likely to perceive benefits of implemented innovations than those that used only a financial approach to measurement. The perception of benefits then had a subsequent effect on overall attitudes towards innovation. The study shows the importance of measuring both financial and non-financial indicators of innovation effectiveness within SMEs and discusses ways in which these can be conducted with limited resources.

Innovation implementation effectiveness : a multiorganizational test of Klein Conn and Sorra’s model.

In an empirical test and extension of Klein Conn and Sorra’s model of innovation implementation effectiveness, we apply structural equation modelling to identify the generalizability of their data-modified model in comparison with their theorised model. We examined the implementation of various types of innovations in a sample of 135 organizations. We found that the data supported the original model rather than the data-modified model, such that implementation climate mediated polices and practices and implementation effectiveness, while implementation effectiveness partially mediated the relationship between implementation climate and innovation effectiveness. Furthermore, we extend their model to suggest that non-financial resources availability plays a critical role in implementation policies and practices.

An empirical study : a role of financial and non-financial performance measurement and perceived innovation effectiveness

Practitioners and academics often assume that investments in innovation will lead to organizational improvements. However, previous research has often shown that implemented innovations fail to realise these potential improvements. On the other hand, organisation, perhaps, has been growing and productive because of the innovation, but traditional measurements have failed to capture that growth. In order to help organizations capture their innovation performance effectively, this study examined the organizations which employ different types of performance measurement and their perception of innovation effectiveness.

Audience and Market Foresight Trends and Foresight in Digital Media

This report provides an overview of trends in digital media over the period from 2009-2015. It applies scenario analysis to provide foresight on macro trends in the economy, politics, society and culture that will impact upon digital media market development in Australia, and the prospects for growth in online and digital media industries. It considers developments in the diffusion of innovations in advertising and marketing, mobile media, user-created content, and legal issues for consumers engaging in online transactions.

Challenges in implementing evidence-based practice into mental health services

This paper highlights challenges in implementing mental health policy at a service delivery level. It describes an attempt to foster greater application of recovery-orientated principles and practices within mental health services. Notwithstanding a highly supportive policy environment, strong support from service administrators, and an enthusiastic staff response to training, application of the training and support tools was weaker than anticipated. This paper evaluates the dissemination trial against key elements to promote sustained adoption of innovations. Organisational and procedural changes are required before mental health policies are systematically implemented in practice.