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.

Partnerships to promote school to work transitions : evidence from the field

Internationally, vocational education and training (VET) is challenged by increasing skills shortages in certain industries and rapidly changing skill requirements. Rigid and centralised state bureaucracies have proven inadequate to adapt to these challenges. Increasingly, partnerships between schools and industry have been established as a potential strategy to address local labour market demand and to provide school to work transition programs. Drawing on experiences in Australia, this paper reports on a case study of government-let partnerships between schools and industry. The Queensland Gateway schools initiative currently involves over 120 schools. The study aimed to understand how partnerships were constructed in this initiative. Selected partnerships were analysed in terms of the following principles of public-private partnerships – efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and beneficiaries. Although there are some benefits of partnership activities reported by both school and industry stakeholders, little evidence was found that the above underlying principles had been addressed to a significant extent in the Gateway school initiative. Further, these partnerships are often tenuously facilitated by individuals who have limited infrastructure or strategic support. Implications are that project stakeholders have not sufficiently accommodated theoretical perspectives on implementation and management of partnerships. Similar initiatives may be improved if stakeholders are cognisant of the underlying principles supporting successful public-private partnerships.

Serendipitous road trips: Enhancing tourists’ experiences through social interaction

Driving can be a lonely activity. While there has been a lot of research and technical inventions concerning car-to-car communication and passenger entertainment, there is still little work concerning connecting drivers. Whereas tourism is very much a social activity, drive tourists have few options to communicate with fellow travellers. The proposed project is placed at the intersection of tourism and driving and aims to enhance the trip experience during driving through social interaction. This thesis explores how a mobile application that allows instant messaging between travellers sharing similar context can add to road trip experiences. To inform the design of such an application, the project adopted the principle of the user-centred design process. User needs were assessed by running an ideation workshop and a field trip. Findings of both studies have shown that tourists have different preferences and diverse attitudes towards contacting new people. Yet all participants stressed the value of social recommendations. Based on those results and a later expert review, three prototype versions of the system were created. A prototyping session with potential end users highlighted the most important features including the possibility to view user profiles, choose between text and audio input and receive up-to-date information. An implemented version of the prototype was evaluated in an exploratory study to identify usability related problems in an actual use case scenario as well as to find implementation bugs. The outcomes of this research are relevant for the design of future mobile tourist guides that leverage from benefits of social recommendations.

Surveying the field: Primary school teachers’ conceptions of the literacy capabilities of recently graduated primary school teachers

In 2015, ALEA National Council provided funds to support the implementation of a research project which was undertaken by a group of teacher educators and researchers from a range of universities across three Australian states. Stage one of the project, which is reported on here, examined primary school teachers’ perceptions of the personal and professional literacy capabilities of recently graduated primary school teachers. This stage of the project also examined primary school teachers’ perceptions of the impact of initial teacher education on the personal and professional literacy capabilities of recently graduated primary school teachers. The project team, led by Associate Professor Beryl Exley (Queensland University of Technology), included Chief Investigators Dr Eileen Honan (The University of Queensland), Associate Professor Lisa Kervin (University of Wollongong), Associate Professor Alyson Simpson (University of Sydney) and Dr Muriel Wells (Deakin University), with Dr Sandy Muspratt as the Statistical Analyst and Lesley Friend as the Research Assistant with primary responsibility for the publication of the online survey.

Dinamización de las relaciones familia-centro escolar a través de la formación del profesorado en este campo de actuación. 'Enhancing family-school partnerships throug in-service teacher training programs and action-research in this field'.

Resumen basado en el de la publicación. Resumen y título en castellano y en inglés

Travel Report from the first field trip within the SIDA supported project "Mini-grids supplied by renewable energy - improving technical and social feasibility : Including visits to Ihushi Development Center, Tweyambe Secondary School and Mavuno Project in Tanzania. Conducted in April 2011

This report describes the outcome of the first visit to Tanzania, within the project "Mini-grids supplied by renewable energy - improving technical and social feasibility". The trip included visits to three different organizations; Ihushi Development Center (IDC) near Mwanza, TIDESO near Bukoba, and Mavuno Project in Karagwe. At IDC, a brief evaluation of the current power system was done and measuring equipment for long term measurements were installed. At all three locations investigations regarding the current and future electricity demand were conducted and connections to people relevant to the study were established. The report is including as well some technical specifications as some observations regarding organization and management of the technical systems. The trip was including only short visits and therefore only brief introductions to the different organizations, based on observations done by the author. The report is hence describing the author’s understanding of the technical system and social structures after only short visits to each of the organizations, and may differ from observations done at another point in time, over a different time period, or by some other person.This report describes the outcome of the first visit to Tanzania, within the project "Mini-grids supplied by renewable energy - improving technical and social feasibility". The trip included visits to three different organizations; Ihushi Development Center (IDC) near Mwanza, TIDESO near Bukoba, and Mavuno Project in Karagwe. At IDC, a brief evaluation of the current power system was done and measuring equipment for long term measurements were installed. At all three locations investigations regarding the current and future electricity demand were conducted and connections to people relevant to the study were established. The report is including as well some technical specifications as some observations regarding organization and management of the technical systems. The trip was including only short visits and therefore only brief introductions to the different organizations, based on observations done by the author. The report is hence describing the author’s understanding of the technical system and social structures after only short visits to each of the organizations, and may differ from observations done at another point in time, over a different time period, or by some other person.

Assessment of a high school geological field course

Fieldwork is supportive of students’ natural inquiry abilities. Educational research findings suggest that instructors can foster the growth of thinking skills and promote science literacy by incorporating active learning strategies (McConnel et al, 2003). Huntoon (2001) states that there is a need to determine optimal learning strategies and to document the procedure of assessing those optimal geoscience curricula. This study seeks to determine if Earth Space II, a high school geological field course, can increase students’ knowledge of selected educational objectives. This research also seeks to measure any impact Earth Space II has on students’ attitude towards science. Assessment of the Earth Space II course objectives provided data on the impact of field courses on high school students’ scientific literacy, scientific inquiry skills, and understanding of selected course objectives. Knowledge assessment was done using a multiple choice format test, the Geoscience Concept Inventory, and an open-ended format essay test. Attitude assessment occurred by utilizing a preexisting science attitude survey. Both knowledge assessments items showed a positive effect size from the pretest to the posttest. The essay exam effect size was 17 and the Geoscience Concept Inventory effect size was 0.18. A positive impact on students’ attitude toward science was observed by an increase in the overall mean Likert value from the pre-survey to the post-survey.

Earth history field trip for high school science teachers : Jacksonville, Illinois, October 22, 1949 /

Gilbert O. Raasch, Conference director; Principal John Agger, Conference host.

Earth history field trip for high school science teachers : Vienna, Illinois, November 5, 1949 /

Gilbert O. Raasch, Conference director; Principal B.W. Hunsaker, Conference host.

Problems of administration and supervision in modern elementary schools; a syllabus in two volumes. vol. 1-2. Based on an analysis of 472 questionnaires obtained from active elementary school principals in the field,

Mode of access: Internet.

Finkler's field : a story of school and baseball /

Bound in blue cloth; pictorial front cover stamped in white.

A field experiment in the summertime use of open circuit television instruction to bridge the gap between high school and college.

Mode of access: Internet.

Gray's school and field book of botany.

Mode of access: Internet.