The Integrated Model of Sport Confidence: A Canonical Correlation and Mediational Analysis

The main purpose of the study was to examine crucial parts of Vealey’s (2001) integrated framework hypothesizing that sport confidence is a mediating variable between sources of sport confidence (including achievement, self-regulation, and social climate) and athletes’ affect in competition. The sample consisted of 386 athletes, who completed the Sources of Sport Confidence Questionnaire, Trait Sport Confidence Inventory, and Dispositional Flow Scale-2. Canonical correlation analysis revealed a confidence-achievement dimension underlying flow. Bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals in AMOS 20.0 were used in examining mediation effects between source domains and dispositional flow. Results showed that sport confidence partially mediated the relationship between achievement and  self-regulation domains and flow, whereas no significant mediation was found for social climate. On a subscale level, full mediation models emerged for achievement and flow dimensions of challenge–skills balance, clear goals, and concentration on the task at hand.

Developing Abu Dhabi's solid waste sustainability index (ADSWMI)

Fast urbanization and population and economic growth led to increased solid waste generation in Abu Dhabi in the last decades. Abu Dhabi generates 5.8 kg of municipal waste per day per person. This is well above the world average of 1.2 kg per day per person. Treatment and destination of the municipal solid waste is also problematic. Only 3.5% of the total municipal solid waste generation is recycled, and the remaining waste is disposed in landfills which are technically not adequate. In this context, sustainability indicators can play an important role in supporting decision makers in planning and managing the solid waste system. In this study, the waste management system in Abu Dhabi Emirate was analyzed through the implementation of a set of proposed sustainability indicators. The DSR Driving force-State-Response approach was used as the methodology to develop a framework for the context of Abu Dhabi. Twenty indicators, based on literature review and benchmarking, were divided into five categories: quantity & composition, environmental controls & resource management, construction & demolition waste, financial sustainability, and governances & policies. These indictors can be a baseline to assist decision makers to develop an integrated waste management system able to meet the high international standards and target in the field.

A framework to determine if Australia's suburbs have ever been sustainable

Australia is a suburban society. It has been since Europeans came. Unlike many other urban societies at the time, there was no existing hard infrastructure to provide the essential needs of human urban life - clean water, food, shelter and waste management. These had to be met by individual residents in the emerging cities and towns until infrastructure could be provided to local communities by Government. This reality led to Governor Phillip establishing the block size in Sydney as being large enough to provide food and treat waste within its boundaries. The block dimensions were a major influence on Australia’s urban form for the next two centuries and with social developments not only led to low density urban form, but also fostered a strong connection with the backyard and a societal love of gardening at home. Despite a push to densification in the past two decades, low density suburban form is physical and cultural and is likely to be dominant for the foreseeable future. Gardening at home is also likely to continue to be a favourite pass time. While some Australian research has started to explore the role of backyards and gardening in increasing urban sustainability, little work has been done on to what extent the suburban block has and can meet the core needs of people. Even less has been done on determining the impact of suburbs on underlying ecosystem services that provide these core needs. This paper provides a brief history of backyards in suburban Australia, a conceptual framework for assessing the sustainability of Australian suburbs over time and a description of the major ecosystem types in what is now urban Geelong at the time of European settlement. It provides the foundation for future sustainability assessments of the residential block in various periods of suburban development in Geelong.

Advancing community engagement practice for strategic urban planning : learning from allied and remote disciplines

Urban planning has the potential to draw on allied and remote disciplines to improve community consultation processes for strategic planning projects. Urban design and landscape architecture have quantitative and qualitative methods which can be utilised to visualise different options of urban intensification which may fit within communities’ expectations of change. Furthermore political science has long used scientifically established psychometric techniques to collect data from broad sections of the population, analysing demographic profiles of communities and understanding their perceptions and attitudes. By appropriating quantitative and qualitative methods from other disciplines, urban planning policies can be developed which may reflect communities’ aspirations of amenity and neighbourhood character. The aim of this paper is to assist local government urban planners with their community engagement practice in order to form policies which are acceptable to the affected communities. The paper draws on Victoria as a case study of community engagement practice, examines research methods from allied and remote disciplines and proposes a community engagement framework which introduces rigour within the community engagement process.

Assessing for work integrated learning experiences : a pre-service teacher perspective

A critical aspect of the debate about work integrated learning in the university context is the blurring of boundaries and responsibilities in terms of student learning. In an Australian pre-service teacher education program this blurring of boundaries is apparent in stakeholder tensions about the nature and role of assessment during the practicum. In the study reported in this paper students responded positively to the content of assessment tasks but maintained that their efforts to implement the associated planning in the workplace were stymied because of disparate understandings between university and school staff about the purpose of the task.

Developing a multi-scale visualisation framework for use in climate change response

Climate change is predicted to impact countries, regions and localities differently. However, common to the predicted impacts is a global trend toward increased levels of carbon dioxide and rising sea levels. Governments and communities need to take into account the likely impacts of climate on the landscape, both built and natural. There is a growing and significant body of climate change research. Much of this information produced by domain experts for a range of disciplines is complex and difficult for planners, decision makers and communities to act upon. The need to communicate often complex scientific information which can be used to assist in the planning cycle is a key challenge. This paper draws from a range of international examples of the use of visualisation in the context of landscape planning to communicate climate change impact and adaptation options within the context of the planning cycle. Missing from the literature, however, is a multi-scalar approach which allows decision makers, planners and communities to seamlessly explore scenarios at their special level of interest, as well as to collectively understand what is driving these at a larger scale, and what the implications are at ever more local levels. Visualisation tools such as digital globes provide one way to bring together multi-scaled spatial–temporal datasets. We present an initial development with this goal in mind. Future research is required to determine the best tools for communicating particular complex scientific data and also to better understand how visualisation can be used to improve the landscape planning process.

A modelling framework for optimisation of commodity production by minimising the impact of climate change

The agricultural sector is vulnerable to the impact of climate change due to decreasing rainfall, increasing temperature, and the frequency of extreme weather events. A modelling framework was developed and applied to identify issues, problems and opportunities arising in regional agricultural systems as a consequence of climate change. This integrated framework blends together land suitability analysis, uncertainty analysis and an optimisation approach to establish optimal agricultural land-use patterns on a regional scale for current and possible future climate scenarios. The framework can also be used to identify (i) regions under threat of productivity decline, and (ii) alternative crops and their locations that can cope better with changing climate. The methods and contents of the framework are presented by means of a case study developed in the South West Region of Victoria, Australia. The results can be used to assess land suitability in support of optimised crop allocations across a local region, and to underpin the development of a regional adaptation policy framework designed to reduce the vulnerability of the agriculture sector to the impacts of climate change.

Categorization of disaster decision support needs for the development of an integrated model for DMDSS

The wide variety of disasters and the large number of activities involved have resulted in the demand for separate Decision Support System (DSS) models to manage different requirements. The modular approach to model management is to provide a framework in which to focus multidisciplinary research and model integration. A broader view of our approach is to provide the flexibility to organize and adapt a tailored DSS model (or existing modular subroutines) according to the dynamic needs of a disaster. For this purpose, the existing modular subroutines of DSS models are selected and integrated to produce a dynamic integrated model focussed on a given disaster scenario. In order to facilitate the effective integration of these subroutines, it is necessary to select the appropriate modular subroutine beforehand. Therefore, subroutine selection is an important preliminary step towards model integration in developing Disaster Management Decision Support Systems (DMDSS). The ability to identify a modular subroutine for a problem is an important feature before performing model integration. Generally, decision support needs are combined, and encapsulate different requirements of decision-making in the disaster management area. Categorization of decision support needs can provide the basis for such model selection to facilitate effective and efficient decision-making in disaster management. Therefore, our focus in this paper is on developing a methodology to help identify subroutines from existing DSS models developed for disaster management on the basis of needs categorization. The problem of the formulation and execution of such modular subroutines are not addressed here. Since the focus is on the selection of the modular subroutines from the existing DMDSS models on basis of a proposed needs classification scheme.

Strategic arts framework : Maribyrnong City Council

A strategic framework for arts and cultural development for the Maribyrnong City Council, prepared by consultant researchers at Deakin University. The framework acknowledges that Maribyrnong is a municipality on the cusp of great demographic and economic change, and that arts and culture are both the driver and potential victim of this change. Arts and culture must be an urgent priority for Council.

This framework forms the basis for future planning of arts and cultural development in the City of Maribyrnong, and sits under the strategic directions identified in the Maribyrnong City Council Plan. This framework is based on new research into the environment in which arts and culture occurs in Maribyrnong and the strategic role Council plays in supporting this sector.

SMEDIA: Designing to create a social and dynamic learning framework

This article discusses the design of social networking sites created through a PhD action research study. Social and participatory media was used as an active, flexible and motivating learning management system. The study investigated ways in which a social learning framework could be designed for students aged 13 to 16 and aimed to encourage student knowledge growth through peer-to-peer interaction while supporting both formal and informal learning. New literacies and multimodality were infused into the design. It was found that the practitioner-researcher’s cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting, action research, provided a mechanism for scaffolding the redesign of curriculum content and instruction. Social media in education can be dynamic, interactive and appreciated (SMEDIA) by the students.

Infusing instructional design principles into an active student-centred social learning framework

Social and participatory media offer a plethora of ways for students to communicate, collaborate, and learn in schools. Using a social learning approach, Casey (2013a) investigated ways that social media could be integrated into Australian public high school classrooms to enhance student learning. In the process, she developed a social learning framework as discussed in Casey (2013b). Similarly, Davidson-Shivers and Hulon (2013; Hulon & Daidson-Shivers, 2013) suggest ways to employ ID principles to prepare college instructors and pre-service teachers to integrate technology into classrooms. Prior to that, Davidson-Shivers with Rasmussen (2006) developed an instructional design (ID) model for creating effective Web-based learning environments. Through collaboration, Casey and Davidson-Shivers consider a wide range of social learning and instructional design principles and approaches to help develop frameworks for new media integration that can work within varying levels of education.

Warrnambool and Corangamite land suitability decision framework study: technical report

The Warrnambool-Corangamite Land Suitability and Decision Making Framework (the Project) is a joint project between the Corangamite Shire Council (CSC), the Warrnambool City Council (WCC), the Victorian Local Sustainability Accord, and Deakin University.
The Project was developed with the objective to establish a land suitability and decision-making framework for the WCC and CSC that can be applied to improve the basis for regional and local planning. The Project aims to improve approaches to regional planning to preserve highly productive agricultural land, protect and enhance the environment, whilst supporting sustainable regional development and settlement.

Leading WIL: A distributed leadership approach to enhance work integrated learning : final report 2014

Work Integrated Learning (WIL) provides rich, relevant learning through a partnership between universities and employers. Through a collaborative approach to building knowledge, the capability and capacity of experienced WIL leaders in the university and orkplace will be enhanced for improved student outcomes. Having established how and where WIL leadership is situated, the project will identify the critical challenges to WIL leadership capabilities and structures. Through institutionally-based Master Classes that model and employ a distributed learning approach, through national Communities of Practice and a WIL Leadership Summit, a framework and guidelines to support WIL leadership capacity building nationally will be developed, trialled and validated. The project will draw upon expertise and experiences of staff from five Australian universities, each with a demonstrated strong WIL commitment. The distributive leadership approach to WIL will be developed and tested within employer-based individual disciplines. The framework and guidelines will be sustained nationally through the key WIL professional association, the Australian Collaborative Education Network.

Science teacher educator partnerships with schools (STEPS): developing an interpretive framework for primary science teacher education

The STEPS Project responds to international concern about primary teachers’ lack of science knowledge and confidence to teach science, and recent questioning of the effectiveness of traditional approaches to teacher education. The project reviews and builds on established, innovative and successful practices at five universities, to develop and promote a framework supporting school‐based approaches to pre‐service teacher education. This paper will outline the processes involved in developing an Interpretive Framework, which will be a key outcome of the project. The Interpretive Framework identifies key elements to assist teacher educators in planning, implementing and sustaining school-based approaches to teacher education.

An integrated approach to workplace mental health : an Australian feasibility study

We developed and implemented an integrated workplace mental health promotion intervention combining job stress reduction with a workplace mental health literacy program. The intervention was evaluated using an uncontrolled design, with organizationorganisation-wide census employee surveys of working conditions and mental health literacy pre-intervention, followed by a 1-year action planning and intervention period, then a post-intervention survey. All employees were invited to be surveyed, and all respondents were included in analysis, independent of participation in intervention activities or employment status (44% response rate at baseline, 37% at final). No significant changes were observed in the targeted psychosocial working conditions – job control, job demands, and social support at work. In contrast, significant improvements in some aspects of mental health literacy were observed, particularly in helping behaviours. Acknowledging the limitations of this being an uncontrolled pilot study, our results suggest that it is feasible to integrate job stress and mental health literacy intervention, as well as evidence of sustained improvements in mental health literacy and the need for more intensive and sustained efforts to improve psychosocial working conditions.