An ecology of centre-based child care

The studies in the thesis were derived from a program of research focused on centre-based child care in Australia. The studies constituted an ecological analysis as they examined proximal and distal factors which have the potential to affect children's developmental opportunities (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The project was conducted in thirty-two child care centres located in south-east Queensland. Participants in the research included staff members at the centres, families using the centres and their children. The first study described the personal and professional characteristics of one hundred and forty-four child care workers, as well as their job satisfaction and job commitment. Factors impinging on the stability of care afforded to children were examined, specifically child care workers' intentions to leave their current position and actual staff turnover at a twelve month follow-up. This is an ecosystem analysis (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983), as it examined the world of work for carers; a setting not directly involving the developing child, but which has implications for children's experiences. Staff job satisfaction was focused on working with children and other adults, including parents and colleagues. Involvement with children was reported as being the most rewarding aspect of the work. This intrinsic satisfaction was enough to sustain caregivers' efforts to maintain their employment in child care programs. It was found that, while improving working conditions may help to reduce turnover, it is likely that moderate turnover rates will remain as child care staff work in relatively small centres and they leave in order to improve career prospects. Departure from a child care job appeared to be as much about improving career opportunities or changing personal circumstances, as it was about poor wages and working conditions. In the second study, factors that influence maternal satisfaction with child care arrangements were examined. The focus included examination of the nature and qualities of parental interaction with staff. This was a mesosystem analysis (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983), as it considered the links between family and child care settings. Two hundred and twenty-two questionnaires were returned from mothers whose children were enrolled in the participating centres. It was found that maternal satisfaction with child care encompassed the domains of child-centred and parent-centred satisfaction. The nature and range of responses in the quantitative and qualitative data indicated that these parents were genuinely satisfied with their children's care. In the prediction of maternal satisfaction with child care, single parents, mothers with high role satisfaction, and mothers who were satisfied with the frequency of staff contact and degree of supportive communication had higher levels of satisfaction with their child care arrangements. The third study described the structural and process variations within child care programs and examined program differences for compliance with regulations and differences by profit status of the centre, as a microsystem analysis (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Observations were made in eighty-three programs which served children from two to five years. The results of the study affirmed beliefs that nonprofit centres are superior in the quality of care provided, although this was not to a level which meant that the care in for-profit centres was inadequate. Regulation of structural features of child care programs, per se, did not guarantee higher quality child care as measured by global or process indicators. The final study represented an integration of a range of influences in child care and family settings which may impact on development. Features of child care programs which predict children's social and cognitive development, while taking into account child and family characteristics, were identified. Results were consistent with other research findings which show that child and family characteristics and child care quality predict children's development. Child care quality was more important to the prediction of social development, while family factors appeared to be more predictive of cognitive/language development. An influential variable predictive of development was the period of time which the child had been in the centre. This highlighted the importance of the stability of child care arrangements. Child care quality features which had most influence were global ratings of the qualities of the program environment. However, results need to be interpreted cautiously as the explained variance in the predictive models developed was low. The results of these studies are discussed in terms of the implications for practice and future research. Considerations for an expanded view of ecological approaches to child care research are outlined. Issues discussed include the need to generate child care research which is relevant to social policy development, the implications of market driven policies for child care services, professionalism and professionalisation of child care work, and the need to reconceptualise child care research when the goal is to develop greater theoretical understanding about child care environments and developmental processes.

Some applications of logic to feasibility in higher types

While it is commonly accepted that computability on a Turing machine in polynomial time represents a correct formalization of the notion of a feasibly computable function, there is no similar agreement on how to extend this notion on functionals, that is, what functionals should be considered feasible. One possible paradigm was introduced by Mehlhorn, who extended Cobham's definition of feasible functions to type 2 functionals. Subsequently, this class of functionals (with inessential changes of the definition) was studied by Townsend who calls this class POLY, and by Kapron and Cook who call the same class basic feasible functionals. Kapron and Cook gave an oracle Turing machine model characterisation of this class. In this article, we demonstrate that the class of basic feasible functionals has recursion theoretic properties which naturally generalise the corresponding properties of the class of feasible functions, thus giving further evidence that the notion of feasibility of functionals mentioned above is correctly chosen. We also improve the Kapron and Cook result on machine representation.Our proofs are based on essential applications of logic. We introduce a weak fragment of second order arithmetic with second order variables ranging over functions from NN which suitably characterises basic feasible functionals, and show that it is a useful tool for investigating the properties of basic feasible functionals. In particular, we provide an example how one can extract feasible programs from mathematical proofs that use nonfeasible functions.

Evaluating the effect of a patient education brochure on patients’ expectations and satisfaction with emergency department service

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to assess the capacity of a written intervention, in this case a patient information brochure, to improve patient satisfaction during an Emergency Department (ED) visit. For the purpose of measuring the effect of the intervention the ED journey was conceptualised as a series of distinct areas of service comprising waiting time, service by the triage nurse, care from doctors and nurses and information giving Background of study: Research into patient satisfaction has become a widespread activity endorsed by both governments and hospital administrations. The literature on ED patient satisfaction has consistently indicated three primary areas of patient dissatisfaction: waiting time, nursing care and communication. Recent developments in the literature on patient satisfaction studies however have highlighted the relationship between patients. expectations of a service encounter and their consequent assessment of the experience as dissatisfying or satisfying. Disconfirmation theory posits that the degree to which expectations are confirmed will affect subsequent levels of satisfaction. The conceptual framework utilised in this study is Coye.s (2004) model of disconfirmation. Coye while reiterating satisfaction is a consequence of the degree expectations are either confirmed or disconfirmed also posits that expectations can be modified by interventions. Coye.s work conceptualises these interventions as intra encounter experiences (cues) which function to adjust expectations. Coye suggests some cues are unintended and may have a negative impact which also reinforces the value of planned cues intended to meet or exceed consumer expectations. Consequently the brochure can be characterized as a potentially positive cue, encouraging the patient to understand processes and to orient them in what can be a confronting environment. Only a limited number of studies have examined the effect of written interventions within an ED. No studies could be located which have tested the effect of ED interventions using a conceptual framework which relates the effect of the degree to which expectations are confirmed or disconfirmed in terms of satisfaction with services. Method: Two studies were conducted. Study One used qualitative methods to explore patients. expectations of the ED from the perspective of both patients and health care professionals. Study One was used in part to direct the development of the intervention (brochure) in Study Two. The brochure was an intervention designed to modify patients. expectations thus increasing their satisfaction with the provision of ED service. As there was no existing tools to measure ED patients. expectations and satisfaction a new tool was also developed based on the findings and the literature of Study One. Study Two used a non-randomised, quasi-experimental approach using a non-equivalent post-test only comparison group design used to investigate the effect of the patient education brochure (Stommel and Wills, 2004). The brochure was disseminated to one of two study groups (the intervention group). The effect of the brochure was assessed by comparing the data obtained from both the intervention and control group. These two groups consisted of 150 participants each. It was expected that any differences in the relevant domains selected for examination would indicate the effect of the brochure both on expectation and potentially satisfaction. Results: Study One revealed several areas of common ground between patients and nurses in terms of relevant content for the written intervention, including the need for information on the triage system and waiting times. Areas of difference were also found with patients emphasizing communication issues, whereas focus group members expressed concern that patients were often unable to assimilate verbal information. The findings suggested the potential utility of written material to reinforce verbal communication particularly in terms of the triage process and other ED protocols. This material was synthesized within the final version of the written intervention. Overall the results of Study Two indicated no significant differences between the two groups. The intervention group did indicate a significant number of participants who viewed the brochure of having changed their expectations. The effect of the brochure may have been obscured by a lack of parity between the two groups as the control group presented with statistically significantly higher levels of acuity and experienced significantly shorter waiting times. In terms of disconfirmation theory this would suggest expectations that had been met or exceeded. The results confirmed the correlation of expectations with satisfaction. Several domains also indicated age as a significant predictor with older patients tending to score higher satisfaction results. Other significant predictors of satisfaction established were waiting time and care from nurses, reinforcing the combination of efficient service and positive interpersonal experiences as being valued by patients. Conclusions: Information presented in written form appears to benefit a significant number of ED users in terms of orientation and explaining systems and procedures. The degree to which these effects may interact with other dimensions of satisfaction however is likely to be limited. Waiting time and interpersonal behaviours from staff also provide influential cues in determining satisfaction. Written material is likely to be one element in a series of coordinated strategies to improve patient satisfaction during periods of peak demand.

Improving reflective writing in higher education : A social semiotic perspective

Reflective skills are widely regarded as a means of improving students’ lifelong learning and professional practice in higher education (Rogers 2001). While the value of reflective practice is widely accepted in educational circles, a critical issue is that reflective writing is complex, and has high rhetorical demands, making it difficult to master unless it is taught in an explicit and systematic way. This paper argues that a functional-semantic approach to language (Eggins 2004), based on Halliday’s (1978) systemic functional linguistics can be used to develop a shared language to explicitly teach and assess reflective writing in higher education courses. The paper outlines key theories and scales of reflection, and then uses systemic functional linguistics to develop a social semiotic model for reflective writing. Examples of reflective writing are analysed to show how such a model can be used explicitly to improve the reflective writing skills of higher education students.

Reconfiguring the higher education value chain

Forces of demand and supply are changing the dynamics of the higher education market. Transformation of institutions of higher learning into competitive enterprise is underway. Higher education institutions are seemingly under intense pressure to create value and focus their efforts and scarce funds on activities that drive up value for their respective customers and other stakeholders. Porter’s generic ‘value chain’ model for creating value requires that the activities of an organization be segregated in to discrete components for value chain analysis to be performed. Recent trends in higher education make such segregation possible. Therefore, it is proposed that the academic process can be unbundled into discrete components which have well developed measures. A reconfigured value chain for higher education, with its own value drivers and critical internal linkages is also proposed in this paper.

Critical thinking and organisation theory : embedding a process to encourage graduate capabilities

The need for the development of effective business curricula that meets the needs of the marketplace has created an increase in the adoption of core competencies lists identifying appropriate graduate skills. Many organisations and tertiary institutions have individual graduate capabilities lists including skills deemed essential for success. Skills recognised as ‘critical thinking’ are popular inclusions on core competencies and graduate capability lists. While there is literature outlining ‘critical thinking’ frameworks, methods of teaching it and calls for its integration into business curricula, few studies actually identify quantifiable improvements achieved in this area. This project sought to address the development of ‘critical thinking’ skills in a management degree program by embedding a process for critical thinking within a theory unit undertaken by students early in the program. Focus groups and a student survey were used to identify issues of both content and implementation and to develop a student perspective on their needs in thinking critically. A process utilising a framework of critical thinking was integrated through a workbook of weekly case studies for group analysis, discussions and experiential exercises. The experience included formative and summative assessment. Initial results indicate a greater valuation by students of their experience in the organisation theory unit; better marks for mid semester essay assignments and higher evaluations on the university administered survey of students’ satisfaction.

Craft, process and art : teaching and learning music composition in higher education

This paper explores models of teaching and learning music composition in higher education. It analyses the pedagogical approaches apparent in the literature on teaching and learning composition in schools and universities, and introduces a teaching model as: learning from the masters; mastery of techniques; exploring ideas; and developing voice. It then presents a learning model developed from a qualitative study into students’ experiences of learning composition at university as: craft, process and art. The relationship between the students’ experiences and the pedagogical model is examined. Finally, the implications for composition curricula in higher education are presented.

Subjective blur limits for higher order aberrations

Purpose: We compared subjective blur limits for defocus and the higher-order aberrations of coma, trefoil, and spherical aberration. ---------- Methods: Spherical aberration was presented in both Zernike and Seidel forms. Black letter targets (0.1, 0.35, and 0.6 logMAR) on white backgrounds were blurred using an adaptive optics system for six subjects under cycloplegia with 5 mm artificial pupils. Three blur criteria of just noticeable, just troublesome, and just objectionable were used.---------- Results: When expressed as wave aberration coefficients, the just noticeable blur limits for coma and trefoil were similar to those for defocus, whereas the just noticeable limits for Zernike spherical aberration and Seidel spherical aberration (the latter given as an “rms equivalent”) were considerably smaller and larger, respectively, than defocus limits.---------- Conclusions: Blur limits increased more quickly for the higher order aberrations than for defocus as the criterion changed from just noticeable to just troublesome and then to just objectionable.