Knowledge making by pre-service teachers on a professional placement experience in a remote Australian indigenous community

This paper reports on the preliminary investigations of an emerging program of research in which the authors are engaged. The program aims to generate new understandings for effective teacher education drawing on data from non-Indigenous pre-service teachers who undertook a teaching placement in remote Indigenous schools in Australia. The overall goals of this research gather around the notion of ‘building belonging’. The initial stage of this project sought to enable pre-service teachers to increase their awareness of the places and institutional practices operating within and between remote Indigenous communities and themselves. The twelve participants were interviewed while on three-week placements around Katherine and in Maningrida in the Northern Territory, Australia, during 2012. The paper elaborates various ways in which the remote placement experience began to challenge, positively disrupt, question and even (re) shape their professional learning and identities. Existing literature reporting on the experiences of largely white, middle class pre-service teachers in unfamiliar cultural contexts draws attention to themes of disruption, and the potential for meaningful and transformative professional learning experiences in such contexts (eg Gannon, 2010; Marble, 2012; Phillips, 2011; Ryan & Healy, 2009). Drawing on some of these insights from the literature, our preliminary reading of the data reveal the variety of ways and differing extents to which participants experienced disruptive, or potentially transformative professional learning moments during the placement. We conclude the paper by pointing towards some key areas for further investigation, in order to progress our research program around building belonging between pre-service teachers and remote Indigenous communities.

Is there variation in the response to contact call playbacks across the hybrid zone of the parrot Platycercus elegans?

Learned vocal signals could be important in the formation of prezygotic isolation between two hybridising taxa. This study examined whether vocal variation in the parrot Platycercus elegans facilitates the separation of individuals from two subspecies, P. e. elegans (CR) and P. e. flaveolus (YR). CR and YR have very different plumage coloration, respectively deep crimson and pale yellow, but hybridise where they meet creating an intermediate population (WS). In a factorial design playback experiment, we conducted 108 playback trials on three focal populations (YR, WS, CR), in and around this area of hybridisation, to test if they respond differently to contact calls from their own or another population. We also analysed whether differences in acoustic variables of the stimulus calls predicted the response to the call. We did not find any indication that individuals from the three focal populations responded differently to calls sampled from their own or another subspecies. We did find an effect of two of the five acoustic variables that we used to describe and classify contact calls from the three source populations. Specifically, duration of the stimulus call positively affected the response from individuals from WS and negatively the response from CR, and CR responded more to stimulus calls with a lower peak frequency. Overall, we found no indication that acoustic variation in contact calls on a subspecies level is involved in maintaining plumage colour differences between P. e. elegans and P. e. flaveolus subspecies.

The influence of organisational commitment, job involvement and utility perceptions on trainees’ motivation to improve work through learning

Workplace training is a key strategy often used by organisations to optimise performance. Further, trainee motivation is a key determinant of the degree to which the material learned in a training programme will be transferred to the workplace, enhancing the performance of the trainee. This study investigates the relationship between several components of the Revised Human Resource Development (HRD) Evaluation and Research Model. This model provides a framework for diagnosing and understanding the causal influences of HRD intervention outcomes on training effectiveness. Data were obtained from an online questionnaire completed by 105 employees of various organisations. Findings revealed that affective organisational commitment, job involvement and utility perceptions are predictors of motivation to learn and transfer learning. An interaction effect was found, with increased affective organisational commitment predicting greater motivation to learn when training was of lower perceived utility. These findings suggest that the design and delivery of training should emphasise the relevance and utility of the programme in order to encourage greater trainee motivation and maximise return on investment. Additionally, implementing strategies aimed at promoting organisational commitment would appear beneficial.