Empowering practitioners to critically examine their current practice

A Self-Assessment Manual (SAM) for early childhood practitioners has been developed around the previously reported framework (Raban, Waniganayake, Deans, Brown & Reynolds, 2003a), and this has been piloted in a number of early childhood settings. When engaging in self reflection using SAM, practitioners collaborate with mentors from the Early Childhood Consortium Victoria (ECCV) to consider their past, present and future professional experiences. This process empowers practitioners to critically examine their current practice and plan for their future professional development in a more systematic way. SAM is seen here to serve dual purposes: on the one hand, it is an evaluative instrument that can direct professional development of individual practitioners. On the other hand, it is a research tool aimed at identifying theoretical assumptions underpinning professional practice, and allows a longitudinal approach to mapping professional growth and development. Either way, it has the potential to enhance the quality of early childhood experiences for preschool children regardless of the settings in which they may find themselves. This paper presents a formative evaluation of this work and discusses its potential for professional development planning.

Researching effective teaching and learning in science : The science in schools research project

In 2000 a consortium headed by Deakin University was funded by the Victorian Department of Education, Employment and Training to develop a model of effective teaching and learning for science in schools from P-10. Initially working with 27 study schools, the Project has continued in 2001 with 126 participating schools. This paper will discuss the model for school and classroom change that we have been developing, with a particular focus on the change strategies being used by the research team and in the participating schools. Central to the model has been the appointment in each school of a SiS (Science in Schools) coordinator with time release and additional funding for resources. The Coordinator has used strategies including mapping each participating teacher against the eight components of effective teaching and learning (the SiS components); student preferences surveying; auditing of curriculum, resources and school policy; and team planning of priorities, actions, implementation and monitoring strategies. The emphasis has been on school ownership of the change process and the school leadership has been identified as central to its success. As well as focusing on actions in schools the paper will also discuss the research process from the research team's perspective.
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Extensive, economical and elegant : the habitus of gentility in early nineteenth century Sydney

This paper challenges the modern expectation that mahogany furniture and silver cutlery were self-evident indicators of gentry status in colonial Sydney through close analysis of a bundle of middle class household inventories of the 1840s. They are considered as evidence of habitus--the structuring interaction of mentality with the material world--in order to demonstrate the active principle of consumption in the claim or assertion of bourgeois standing, which was particularly lively in the colony. A range of competences can he seen in the practice of gentility, which suggests that the possession of rosewood rather than mahogany, or imitation silver rather than sterling, was a variation shaped not merely by wealth but by cultural capital. This exposes strands of contingency, competition and compromise in middle class expression.

Perceived conditions of workers in different organizational settings

Purpose: – Research into office design and its effect on employee satisfaction and performance has attracted considerable contemporary research interest. However, most studies have tended to concentrate on the impact of the built environment on human performance, ignoring the actual needs of employees working in different organizational settings. This paper hence aims to investigate the nature and extent of occupant satisfaction with the built environment in different organizational settings in Australia for a range of climates.

Design/methodology/approach: – A survey was conducted in Australia from 2004-2005, comprising 41 buildings, including six government buildings, 14 educational buildings and 21 commercial buildings. The Kruskal-Wallis H test was used to explore whether there are differences in the mean ranking of office environment satisfaction amongst the three organizational settings, and the Mann-Whitney U test was employed to further test whether there are differences in the mean ranking of office environment satisfaction between any two groups.

Findings: – Significant differences were found in aspects of air, temperature, space suitability, flexibility, usability and controllability. Employees in commercial settings seem to be more satisfied with their physical work environment than employees in other organization types. Employees in educational settings showed the highest satisfaction with most variables in the workspace design and management category. Government employees showed a lower level of satisfaction with their physical work environment and workspace design and management.

Originality/value: – Moreover, the government and educational groups showed more similarity with each other, while the commercial group displayed significant difference.

Conversations with the public : the role of journalists and public relations practitioners in creating civil discourses in non-metropolitan settings

This research deconstructs the relationship between journalists and public relations practitioners operating in non-metropolitan contexts. In identifying the specific differences in the way this relationship is defined within these contexts the research highlights the impact of these differences on the conversations  these media professionals have with their publics. Ultimately this relationship is see to be a key definer of the nature of the civil discourses within these non-metropolitan communities.

Compositional connections : temple form in early Southeast Asia

The temples of Southeast Asia are remarkable and intriguing in their architecture, in that they are obviously derivative from Indic canon and yet
profoundly original and different from the corpus of the subcontinent. Further, the regional nuances of these temples, whether in Java, Cambodia or Champa, defy obvious and linear connections within these traditions and with the pan-Indic corpus. While epigraphists, Sanskritists and historians have made significant connections between these temple building traditions, much work remains to be done on the compositional and architectural linkages along the trading routes of South and Southeast Asia. This paper is an early attempt at understanding the compositional connections, as evident in the temple forms of early southeast Asia. To elucidate the complex material, the authors deploy a comparative method on two levels. Between ideal notions of the Hindu temple and shared cosmogony on one hand and individual temples as a realization of the ideal on the other. The consideration of the compositional material yields some surprisingly rich and varied connections. For example, the affinities between 7th century cellas in Cambodia and early Gupta models from central India are difficult to ignore. Further, the linkages between these cellas and the early Deccan experiments in structural stone raise questions about both idioms. The range of experimentation in Cambodia
(in plan forms, superstructure and construction methods are discussed with reference to their Indic antecedents. The findings of the paper raise questions about the relation between temple and treatise; between theory and practice and between the individual temple and its collective corpus.

The animal other : horse training in early modernity

This historical sociological analysis of the training of horses for competition in early modernity draws from the sociology of the body to suggest that animals as we know them are constructed through human social processes. Contemporary horse-care publications are used to demonstrate how equine bodies were shaped through an application of humoral physiological theory. That is, they were made suitable for the human requirements of the time through preparatory procedures informed by models of somatic functioning used widely to understand humans and animals alike. The broader issue canvassed here is that ‘embodiment’ should include animal as well as human bodies. Through selective breeding, raising and care, animals have bodies that are shaped to human requirements – they embody human social processes.

An examination of the 'gold standard' diagnosis of major depression in aged-care settings

Objectives: Individual clinical interviews are typically viewed as the “gold standard” when diagnosing major depressive disorder (MDD) and when examining the validity of self-rated questionnaires. However, this approach may be problematic with older people, who are known to underreport depressive symptomatology. This study examined the effect of including an informant interview on prevalence estimations of MDD in an aged-care sample.

Design: The results of an individual clinical interview for MDD were compared with those obtained when an informant interview was incorporated into the assessment. Results from each diagnostic approach were compared with scores on a self-rated depression instrument.

Setting: Low-level aged-care residential facilities in Melbourne (equivalent to “residential homes,” “homes for the elderly,” or “assisted living facilities” in other countries).

Participants: One hundred and sixty-eight aged-care residents (mean age: 84.68 years; SD: 6.16 years) with normal cognitive functioning.

Measurements: Individual clinical interviews were conducted using the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition Axis I Disorders. This interview was modified for use with staff informants. Self-reported depression was measured using the Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15).

Results: The estimated point prevalence of MDD rose from 16% to 22% by including an informant clinical interview in the diagnostic procedure. Overall, 27% of depressed residents failed to disclose symptoms in the clinical interview. The concordance of the GDS-15 with a diagnosis of MDD was substantially lower when an informant source was included in the diagnostic procedure.

Conclusion: Individual interviews and self-report questionnaires may be insufficient to detect depression among older adults. This study supports the use of an informant interview as an adjunct when diagnosing MDD among cognitively intact aged-care residents.

‘To exercise a beneficial influence over a man’ : marriage, gender and the native institutions in early colonial Australia

This chapter examines understandings of marriage among missionaries and humanitarians connected with two early colonial ‘Native Institutions’. A comparison of the Parramatta Native Institution in New South Wales and the Albany Native Institution in Western Australia demonstrates that concerns about marriage were central in discussions about the formation and maintenance of these Institutions. Both of these Institutions were established and supported by British evangelicals, who had brought with them to Australia powerful assumptions about gender roles, particularly in
marriage. These assumptions influenced their decisions regarding the children who resided in the Native Institutions. Within specific colonial contexts, however, the assumptions of humanitarians and missionaries did not remain static, and debates over the futures of the Aboriginal children they sought to educate reveal complex and shifting hierarchies of race, gender and class.

The validation of an Australian sign language instrument for outcome measurement of adults in mental health settings

Objective: There are currently no adult mental health outcome measures that have been translated into Australian sign language (Auslan). Without a valid and reliable Auslan outcome measure, empirical research into the efficacy of mental health interventions for sign language users is unattainable. To address this research problem the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS), a measure of general functioning, was translated into Auslan and recorded on to digital video disk for use in clinical settings. The purpose of the present study was therefore to examine the reliability, validity and acceptability of an Auslan version of the ORS (ORS-Auslan).
Method: The ORS-Auslan was administered to 44 deaf people who use Auslan as their first language and who identify as members of a deaf community (termed ‘Deaf’ people) on their first presentation to a mental health or counselling facility and to 55 Deaf people in the general community. The community sample also completed an Auslan version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21).
Results: t-Tests indicated significant differences between the mean scores for the clinical and community sample. Internal consistency was acceptable given the low number of items in the ORS-Auslan. Construct validity was established by significant correlations between total scores on the DASS-21-Auslan and ORS-Auslan. Acceptability of ORS-Auslan was evident in the completion rate of 93% compared with 63% for DASS-21-Auslan.
Conclusions: This is the only Auslan outcome measure available that can be used across a wide variety of mental health and clinical settings. The ORS-Auslan provides mental health clinicians with a reliable and valid, brief measure of general functioning that can significantly distinguish between clinical and non-clinical presentations for members of the Deaf community.

Game-centred models and teaching in culturally diverse settings

This presentation draws on the observations and experiences that we, as teacher educators, have had using Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) as a pedagogical tool with generalist pre-service teachers in two different sites: Malaysia and Australia. TGfU is a game-centred pedagogy in which students learn the „Why‟ of game playing before the „How‟ of the skills associated with the game. This concept is based on a student-centred approach to learning. The benefit of this pedagogy to generalist teachers is the notion that they are not required to be a master of many sports. This narrative relates the observations and experiences of teacher educators of Malaysian and Australian generalist pre-service teachers confronted with teaching and learning TGfU for the first time in their culturally specific contexts. The two key issues arising from teaching the TGfU model were: the disparity in the cohorts‟ experiences arising from institutionalised conceptions by the pre-service teachers of what and how learning occurs in physical education; and the pre-service teachers‟ difficulty with implementing the TGfU model in a practical situation. Crossing the cultural divide for the Malaysian and Australian pre-service teachers required them to explore more fully the range of approaches to teaching and to recognise a more student-centred approach as a valid and authentic tool. As both teachers and observers of this process, our intention was to examine the two cohorts‟ learning and subsequent teaching with the aim of developing better understandings of the challenges when teaching TGfU in tertiary settings.