An investigation of moderation practices within a faculty of education

Moderation of student assessment is a critical component of teaching and learning in contemporary universities. In higher education, moderation is usually governed by university-wide policies and practices. However, in Australia, moderation processes will now be guided by the new national university accreditation authority, Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). In light of this reform, the purpose of this qualitative study was to identify and analyse current moderation practices operating within a faculty of education at a large urban university in eastern Australia.

The impact of professional development on early childhood educators’ confidence, understanding and knowledge of education for sustainability

In recent times, Australia has recognised and enacted a range of initiatives at service, system and community levels that seek to embed sustainability into the early childhood sector. This paper explores the impact of a professional development (PD) session that provided opportunities for early childhood educators to learn and share ideas about the theory and practice of sustainability generally and early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) specifically. The PD was entitled ‘Living and Learning about Sustainability in the Early Years’ and was offered on three occasions across Tasmania. A total of 99 participants attended the three PD sessions (one 5 hour; two 2 hour). The participants had varying levels of experience and included early childhood teachers, centre based educators and preservice teachers. At the start and end of the PD, participants were invited to complete a questionnaire that contained a series of likert scale questions that explored their content knowledge, level of understanding and confidence in regards to ECEfS. Participants were also asked at the start and end of the PD to ‘list five words you think of when you consider the word sustainability.’ A model of teacher professional growth was used to conceptualise the results related to the changes in knowledge, understanding and confidence (personal domain) as a result of the PD related to ECEfS (external domain). The likert-scale questions on the questionnaire revealed significant positive changes in levels of knowledge, understanding and confidence from the start to the end of the PD. Differences as a function of length of PD, level of experience and role are presented and discussed. The ‘5 words’ question showed that participants widened their understandings of ECEfS from a narrow environmental focus to a broader understanding of the social, political and economic dimensions. The early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector has been characterised as having a pedagogical advantage for EfS suggesting that early childhood educators are well placed to engage with EfS more readily than might educators in other education sectors. This article argues that PD is necessary to develop capability in educators in order to meet the imperatives around sustainability outlined in educational policy and curriculum documents in ECEC.

Moderation practices in a faculty of education : the four discourse model

Moderation of student assessment is a critical component of teaching and learning in contemporary universities. In Australia, moderation is mandated through university policies and through the new national university accreditation authority, Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency which began operations in late January 2012 (TEQSA, 2012). The TEQSA requirement to declare details of moderation and any other arrangements used to support consistency and reliability of assessment and grading across each subject in the course of study is a radical step intended to move toward heightened accountability and greater transparency in the tertiary sector as well as entrenching evidence-based practice in the management of Australian academic programs. In light of this reform, the purpose of this project was to investigate and analyse current moderation practices operating within a faculty of education at a large urban university in Queensland, Australia. This qualitative study involved interviews with the unit coordinators (n=21) and tutors (n=8) of core undergraduate education units and graduate diploma units within the faculty. Four distinct discourses of moderation that academics drew on to discuss their practices were identified in the study. These were: equity, justification, community building, and accountability. These discourses, together with recommendations for changes to moderation practices are discussed in this paper.

Exploring differences in driving behaviour across age and years of education of taxi drivers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Despite statistics indicating that the African region has the highest road traffic fatality rate globally, there is limited scientific literature identifying the determinants of driving behaviour. In this study, we explore differences in self-reported driving behaviour across age groups and years of education in a population of 213 drivers from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We hypothesize that younger, less educated drivers will report engaging in more unsafe driving behaviours compared to older, more educated drivers. Contrary to expectations, we found the opposite effect, whereby older, more educated drivers reported engaging in more unsafe driving behaviours than younger, less educated drivers. We explain these findings by describing key characteristics of the sample and cultural ideologies of the region. The findings of this study offer some practical guidance for intervention to address the burden of road traffic injury and death in the African region.

Attracting and retaining specialist teachers and non-teaching professionals in Queensland secondary schools : a report to the Queensland Department of Education and Training

This report provides the Queensland Department of Education and Training (DET) with independent evidence based data to enable the identification of barriers and enablers to effective attraction and retention of suitably qualified people to specialist teaching and non‐teaching roles in Queensland secondary schools. The scope of this report is to consider the strategic imperatives, trends, and drivers as they apply to the recruitment and retention of specialised teachers and non‐teaching professionals. The research was specifically designed to inform DET on innovative and novel strategies to recruit and retain staff within Education Queensland in areas specifically identified as at risk of experiencing shortages in the near future. Those areas considered to be at risk of experiencing shortages included: • Teaching principals • Specialist teachers in mathematics, science, industrial technology and design, and special education • Non‐teaching professional roles, such as speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and registered nurses providing services in schools to students with special needs.

The effect of education programs on paratransit demand of people with disabilities

We describe a passenger education program to encourage responsible use of paratransit by people with disabilities. We use state-of-the-art econometric techniques to evaluate its success. We find that it has moderate effects on demand for transportation but large effects on how passengers use the transportation. In particular, passengers are more responsible about meeting the transportation at the curb rather than waiting for help inside their home. Cost-benefit analysis of the program suggests that it is a long-term worthwhile activity.

Examining early childhood education through the lens of education for sustainability : revisioning rights

This chapter calls for rethinking about the rights base of early childhood education. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (UNICEF1989) has been seen as an important foundation internationally for early childhood education practise. In this paper, I argue that whilst the UNCRC (1989) still serves its aspirational purpose, it is an inadequate vehicle for enacting early childhood education in the twenty-first century given the pressing challenges of sustainability. The UNCRC emerged from an individual rights perspective, and despite attempts to broaden the rights agenda towards greater child participation and engagement, these approaches offer an inadequate response to global sustainability concerns. In this chapter, I propose a five dimensional approach to rights that acknowledges the fundamental rights of children as espoused in the UNCRC and the call for agentic rights as advocated more recently by early childhood academics and practitioners. Additionally, however, discussion of collective rights, intergenerational rights and bio/ecocentic rights are forwarded, offering a expanded way to think about rights with implications for how early childhood education is practised and researched.

The importance of good data, analysis and interpretation for showing the economics of reducing healthcare-associated infection

To the Editor—In a recent review article in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, Umscheid et al1 summarized published data on incidence rates of catheter-associated bloodstream infection (CABSI), catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), surgical site infection (SSI), and ventilator- associated pneumonia (VAP); estimated how many cases are preventable; and calculated the savings in hospital costs and lives that would result from preventing all preventable cases. Providing these estimates to policy makers, political leaders, and health officials helps to galvanize their support for infection prevention programs. Our concern is that important limitations of the published studies on which Umscheid and colleagues built their findings are incompletely addressed in this review. More attention needs to be drawn to the techniques applied to generate these estimates...

The economics of credence goods : an experiment on the role of liability, verifiability, reputation and competition

Credence goods markets are characterized by asymmetric information between sellers and consumers that may give rise to inefficiencies, such as under- and overtreatment or market breakdown. We study in a large experiment with 936 participants the determinants for efficiency in credence goods markets. While theory predicts that liability or verifiability yield efficiency, we find that liability has a crucial, but verifiability at best a minor, effect. Allowing sellers to build up reputation has little influence, as predicted. Seller competition drives down prices and yields maximal trade, but does not lead to higher efficiency as long as liability is violated. (JEL D12, D82)

Case Study 4: Education Doctoral Student - "An Exploratory Study of Online Social Networking within a Doctorate of Education Program"

Introduction The professional doctorate is specifically designed for professionals investigating real-world problems and relevant issues for a profession, industry, and/or the community. The focus is scholarly research into professional practices. The research programme bridges academia and the professions, and offers doctoral candidates the opportunity to investigate issues relevant to their own practices and to apply these understandings to their professional contexts. The study on which this article is based sought to track the scholarly skill development of a cohort of professional doctoral students who commenced the course in January 2008 at an Australian university. Because they hold positions of responsibility and are time-poor, many doctoral students have difficulty transitioning from professional practitioner to researcher and scholar. The struggle many experience is in the development of a theoretical or conceptual standpoint for argumentation (Lesham, 2007; Weese et al., 1999). It was thought that the use of a scaffolded learning environment that drew upon a blended learning approach incorporating face to face intensive blocks and collaborative knowledge-building tools such as wikis would provide a data source for understanding the development of scholarly skills. Wikis, weblogs and similar social networking software have the potential to support communities to share, learn, create and collaborate. The development of a wiki page by each candidate in the 2008 cohort was encouraged to provide the participants and the teaching team members with textual indicators of progress. Learning tasks were scaffolded with the expectation that the candidates would complete these tasks via the wikis. The expectation was that cohort members would comment on each other’s work, together with the supervisor and/or teaching team member who was allocated to each candidate. The supervisor is responsible for supervising the candidate’s work through to submission of the thesis for examination and the teaching team member provides support to both the supervisor and the candidate through to confirmation. This paper reports on the learning journey of a cohort of doctoral students during the first seven months of their professional doctoral programme to determine if there had been any qualitative shifts in understandings, expectations and perceptions regarding their developing knowledge and skills. The paper is grounded in the literature pertaining to doctoral studies and examines the structure of the professional doctoral programme. Following this is a discussion of the qualitative study that helped to unearth key themes regarding the participants’ learning journey.

A little learning is a dangerous thing: Factors influencing the increased identification of special educational needs from the perspective of education policymakers and school practitioners

This article considers the increased identification of special educational needs in Australia’s largest education system from the perspectives of senior public servants, regional directors, principals, school counsellors, classroom teachers, support class teachers, learning support teachers and teaching assistants (n = 30). While their perceptions of an increase generally align with the story told by official statistics, participants’ narratives reveal that school-based identification of special educational needs is neither art nor science. This research finds that rather than an objective indication of the number and nature of children with SEN, official statistics may be more appropriately viewed as a product of funding eligibility and the assumptions of the adults who teach, refer and assess children who experience difficulties in school and with learning.

Comparing the effectiveness of education and technology in reducing wood smoke pollution: A field experiment

This study describes a field experiment assessing the effectiveness of education and technological innovation in reducing air pollution generated by domestic wood heaters. Two-hundred and twenty four households from a small regional center in Australia were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: (1) Education only – households received a wood smoke reduction education pack containing information about the negative health impacts of wood smoke pollution, and advice about wood heater operation and firewood management; (2) SmartBurn only – households received a SmartBurn canister designed to improve combustion and help wood fires burn more efficiently, (3) Education and SmartBurn, and (4) neither Education nor SmartBurn (control). Analysis of covariance, controlling for pre-intervention household wood smoke emissions, wood moisture content, and wood heater age, revealed that education and SmartBurn were both associated with significant reduction in wood smoke emissions during the post-intervention period. Follow-up mediation analyses indicated that education reduced emissions by improving wood heater operation practices, but not by increasing health risk perceptions. As predicted, SmartBurn exerted a direct effect on emission levels, unmediated by wood heater operation practices or health risk perceptions.