From barrier elimination to barrier negotiation : a qualitative study of parents' attitudes about active travel for elementary school trips

This paper examines parents' responses to key factors associated with mode choices for school trips. The research was conducted with parents of elementary school students in Denver Colorado as part of a larger investigation of school travel. School-based active travel programs aim to encourage students to walk or bike to school more frequently. To that end, planning research has identified an array of factors associated with parents' decisions to drive children to school. Many findings are interpreted as ‘barriers’ to active travel, implying that parents have similar objectives with respect to travel mode choices and that parents respond similarly and consistently to external conditions. While the conclusions are appropriate in forecasting demand and mode share with large populations, they are generally too coarse for programs that aim to influence travel behavior with individuals and small groups. This research uses content analysis of interview transcripts to examine the contexts of factors associated with parents' mode choices for trips to and from elementary school. Short, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 65 parents from 12 Denver Public Elementary Schools that had been selected to receive 2007–08 Safe Routes to School non-infrastructure grants. Transcripts were analyzed using Nvivo 8.0 to find out how parents respond to selected factors that are often described in planning literature as ‘barriers’ to active travel. Two contrasting themes emerged from the analysis: barrier elimination and barrier negotiation. Regular active travel appears to diminish parents' perceptions of barriers so that negotiation becomes second nature. Findings from this study suggest that intervention should build capacity and inclination in order to increase rates of active travel.

Risk and school science education

In this paper I consider a role for risk understanding in school science education. Grounds for this are described in terms of current sociological analyses of the contemporary world as a ‘risk society’ and recent public understanding of science studies where science and risk are concerns commonly linked within the wider community. These concerns connect with support amongst many science educators for the goal of science education for citizenship. From this perspective scientific literacy for decision making on contemporary socioscientific issues is central. I argue that in such decision making risk understanding has an important role to play. I examine some of the challenges its inclusion in school science presents to science teachers, review previous writing about risk in the science education literature and consider how knowledge about risk might be addressed in school science. I also outline the varying conceptions of risk and suggest some future research directions which would support the inclusion of risk in classroom discussions of socioscientific issues.

Using self-report anger assessments in school settings

Students who experience high levels of anger both in and out of school are at risk of exhibiting multiple negative developmental outcomes including poor school performance, peer problems, behavioral difficulties, and concurrent emotional distress. Given this developmental trajectory, it is important for mental health professionals working within school settings to accurately identify those students manifesting anger-related problems at an early age. This chapter provides an overview of instruments designed to assess levels of anger and associated cognitive and behavioral manifestations in children and youth. Among those instruments highlighted is the Multidimensional School Anger Inventory (MSAI)specifically designed to measure anger, hostility, and aggressive behavioral expression in school settings. The role of anger assessment in developing appropriate early intervention and anger management treatment plans is also discussed.

A process evaluation of a comprehensive school based injury prevention program

A process evaluation enables understanding of critical issues that can inform the improved, ongoing implementation of an intervention program. This study describes the process evaluation of a comprehensive, multi-level injury prevention program for adolescents. The program targets change in injury associated with violence, transport and alcohol risks and incorporates two primary elements: an 8-week, teacher delivered attitude and behaviour change curriculum for Grade 8 students; and a professional development program for teachers on school level methods of protection, focusing on strategies to increase students’ connectedness to school.

The power of historical causal components involved in engaging at risk youth at three alternative schools

This article addresses the causal powers associated with the social phenomena of alternative schooling for youth at risk. It stems from a doctoral thesis, Alternative Schooling Programs for At Risk Youth – Three Case Studies which addresses wider issues integral to alternative schooling: youth at risk, alternative schooling models, and literacy. This article explores one aspect of alternative schooling: the historical causal factors involved in the establishment and continuance of three alternative case study models in Queensland, Australia. By adhering to Bhaskar’s transformational model of social activity (TMSA) , social structures and individuals will be analytically distinguished to uncover their separate causal powers and how these have effected the establishment and continuance of three alternative schools.

Mathematical modelling of tumour-induced angiogenesis

The growth of solid tumours beyond a critical size is dependent upon angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels from an existing vasculature. Tumours may remain dormant at microscopic sizes for some years before switching to a mode in which growth of a supportive vasculature is initiated. The new blood vessels supply nutrients, oxygen, and access to routes by which tumour cells may travel to other sites within the host (metastasize). In recent decades an abundance of biological research has focused on tumour-induced angiogenesis in the hope that treatments targeted at the vasculature may result in a stabilisation or regression of the disease: a tantalizing prospect. The complex and fascinating process of angiogenesis has also attracted the interest of researchers in the field of mathematical biology, a discipline that is, for mathematics, relatively new. The challenge in mathematical biology is to produce a model that captures the essential elements and critical dependencies of a biological system. Such a model may ultimately be used as a predictive tool. In this thesis we examine a number of aspects of tumour-induced angiogenesis, focusing on growth of the neovasculature external to the tumour. Firstly we present a one-dimensional continuum model of tumour-induced angiogenesis in which elements of the immune system or other tumour-cytotoxins are delivered via the newly formed vessels. This model, based on observations from experiments by Judah Folkman et al., is able to show regression of the tumour for some parameter regimes. The modelling highlights a number of interesting aspects of the process that may be characterised further in the laboratory. The next model we present examines the initiation positions of blood vessel sprouts on an existing vessel, in a two-dimensional domain. This model hypothesises that a simple feedback inhibition mechanism may be used to describe the spacing of these sprouts with the inhibitor being produced by breakdown of the existing vessel's basement membrane. Finally, we have developed a stochastic model of blood vessel growth and anastomosis in three dimensions. The model has been implemented in C++, includes an openGL interface, and uses a novel algorithm for calculating proximity of the line segments representing a growing vessel. This choice of programming language and graphics interface allows for near-simultaneous calculation and visualisation of blood vessel networks using a contemporary personal computer. In addition the visualised results may be transformed interactively, and drop-down menus facilitate changes in the parameter values. Visualisation of results is of vital importance in the communication of mathematical information to a wide audience, and we aim to incorporate this philosophy in the thesis. As biological research further uncovers the intriguing processes involved in tumourinduced angiogenesis, we conclude with a comment from mathematical biologist Jim Murray, Mathematical biology is : : : the most exciting modern application of mathematics.

A prospective study investigating the impact of school belonging factors on negative affect in adolescents

School belonging, measured as a unidimensional construct, is an important predictor of negative affective problems in adolescents, including depression and anxiety symptoms. A recent study found that one such measure, the Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale, actually comprises three factors: Caring Relations, Acceptance, and Rejection. We explored the relations of these factors with negative affect in a sample of 504 Australian grade 7 and 8 students who completed the PSSM and Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) at three time points. Each school belonging factor contributed to the prediction of negative affect in cross-sectional analyses. Scores on the Acceptance factor predicted subsequent negative affect for boys and girls, even controlling for prior negative affect. For girls, the Rejection factor was also significant in the prospective analysis. These findings have implications for the design of interventions and are further confirmation that school belonging should be considered a multidimensional construct.

The Impact of Parental Attachment on Adolescent Perception of the School Environment and School Connectedness

The extent to which students feel accepted, valued, respected and included in the school has recently surfaced as one of the most important predictors of adolescent mental health (particularly depressive symptoms). The school environment is an established predictor of school connectedness, but we set out to examine whether parental attachment predicts both adolescents' perception of the school environment and school connectedness. A study of 171 high school students from years 8 to 12 showed that parent attachment strongly predicted both. We also confirmed that the relationship between parent attachment and school connectedness is not a direct one but that parent attachment influences individual differences in the way adolescents perceive the school environment, which in turn influences school connectedness. This finding shows how multiple systems might be interlinked in influencing wellbeing in adolescents, and confirms the importance of intervening at the double level of both the family and the school system.

Book review : "Carbon Capture and Storage Emerging Legal and Regulatory Issues" edited by Ian Havercroft, Richard Macrory, Richard B Stewart, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2011

As the international community struggles to find a cost-effective solution to mitigate climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, carbon capture and storage (CCS) has emerged as a project mechanism with the potential to assist in transitioning society towards its low carbon future. Being a politically attractive option, legal regimes to promote and approve CCS have proceeded at an accelerated pace in multiple jurisdictions including the European Union and Australia. This acceleration and emphasis on the swift commercial deployment of CCS projects has left the legal community in the undesirable position of having to advise on the strengths and weaknesses of the key features of these regimes once they have been passed and become operational. This is an area where environmental law principles are tested to their very limit. On the one hand, implementation of this new technology should proceed in a precautionary manner to avoid adverse impacts on the atmosphere, local community and broader environment. On the other hand, excessive regulatory restrictions will stifle innovation and act as a barrier to the swift deployment of CCS projects around the world. Finding the balance between precaution and innovation is no easy feat. This is an area where lawyers, academics, regulators and industry representatives can benefit from the sharing of collective experiences, both positive and negative, across the jurisdictions. This exemplary book appears to have been collated with this philosophy in mind and provides an insightful addition to the global dialogue on establishing effective national and international regimes for the implementation of CCS projects...

Action research as foresight methodology

To the action researcher, who laboriously spends his or her hours working within the local contexts of communities or organisations to co-generate meaningful research, and who’s theories are hardened on the anvil of creating meaningful social change; futures studies might seem the discipline the most peripheral to its interests, and the most ill equipped to deal with the local and intimate domain of community existence. To the futurist, who laboriously spends his or her hours understanding the nuances of history and social change, who through persistent work, begins to make sense of the weak signals and the subtle shifts, action research would seem as simply an auxiliary field, inappropriate for understanding the greater scheme. I invite the reader, however, whether they belong to one camp or the other, to let go of their respective disciplinary perspectives, and see both belonging to each other. [Introduction] .

Voices of experience : opportunities to influence creatively the designing of school libraries

Using a critical ethnographic approach this study investigates the potential for multiple voices of experience, of educators, designers/architects, education facility planners and students/learners, to influence creatively the designing of school libraries. School libraries are considered as social and cultural entities within the contexts of school life and of wider society. It is proposed that school library designing is a social interaction of concern to those influenced by its practices and outcomes. School library designing is therefore of significance to educators and students as well as to those with professionally accredited involvement in school library designing, such as designers/architects and education facility planners. The study contends that current approaches to educational space designing, including school libraries, amplify the voices of accredited designers and diminish or silence the voices of the user participants. The study is conceptualised as creative processes of discovery, through which attention is paid to the voices of experience of user and designer participants, and is concerned with their understandings and experiences of school libraries and their understandings and experiences of designing. Grounded theory coding (Charmaz) is used for initial categorising of interview data. Critical discourse analysis (CDA, Fairclough) is used as analytical tool for reflection on the literature and for analysis of the small stories gathered through semi-structured interviews, field observations and documents. The critical interpretive stance taken through CDA, enables discussions of aspects of power associated with the understandings and experiences of participants, and for recognition of creative possibilities and creative influence within and beyond current conditions. Through an emphasis on prospects for educators and students as makers of the spaces and places of learning, in particular in school libraries, the study has the potential to inform education facility designing practices and design participant relationships, and to contribute more broadly to knowledge in the fields of education, design, architecture, and education facility planning.

How was school today?

What I want to do in this Column, is to paint a picture of the current BPM education portfolios that are offered globally by universities active in the BPM space. To do so, I will draw on work I was involved in that reviewed the BPM teaching capacities of five universities in the United States, Europe, Africa and Australia. My ambition is to complement the listings in the BPTrends Academic Program with a more comprehensive and in-depth discussion of a selected set of universities. Let us explore how BPM capability development is implemented and offered in different universities around the globe.

Investigating higher education and secondary school web-based learning environments using the WEBLEI

Classroom learning environments are rapidly changing as new digital technologies become more education-friendly. What are students’ perceptions of their technology-rich learning environments? This question is critical as it may have an impact on the effectiveness of the new technologies in classrooms. There are numerous reliable and valid learning environment instruments which have been used to ascertain students’ perceptions of their learning environments. This chapter focuses on one of these instruments, the Web-based Learning Environment Instrument (WEBLEI) (Chang & Fisher, 2003). Since its initial development, this instrument has been used to study a range of learning environments and this chapter presents the findings of two example case-studies that involve such environments.

Integrating complementary and alternative therapies into psychological practice : A qualitative analysis

Although complementary and alternative therapies (CATs) are utilised widely for treating psychological disorders, little research has examined psychologists' beliefs about integrating CAT into psychological practice. Six practicing psychologists and six psychology students were interviewed about their CAT integration beliefs, in particular integrating CAT into clinical practice via recommending CATs, offering referrals to CAT practitioners, or undertaking training to utilise CATs within psychological practice. Guided broadly from a theory of planned behaviour perspective, participants raised a number of costs and benefits, discussed referent groups who would influence their decisions, and suggested motivators and barriers for integration. A number of additional themes were raised, including risks, such as the possibility of litigation and the need for clear Society guidelines, as most participants were unclear about what constitutes appropriate practice. Identifying these themes serves as an important initial step to informing discussion and policy for this emerging practice issue within psychology.

Research process management

Though the value of a process-centred view for the understanding and (re-)design of corporations has been widely accepted, our understanding of the research process in Information Systems (IS) remains superficial. A process-centred view on IS research considers the conduct of a research project as a sequence of activities involving resources, data and research artifacts. As such, it helps to reflect on more effective ways to conduct IS research, to consolidate and compare diverse practices and to complement the focus on research methodologies with research project practices. This paper takes a first step towards the discipline of ‘Research Process Management’ by exploring the features of research processes and by presenting a preliminary approach for research process design that can facilitate modelling IS research. The case study method and the design science research method are used as examples to demonstrate the potential of such reference research process models.