Growing up in a tourist destination: developing an environmental sensitivity

Abstract

This paper explores how the socio-cultural milieu of a community may foster a sense of environmental stewardship among children and young people. Ethnographic fieldwork, carried out in a popular tourist destination in Australia, revealed that the overt impacts of tourism activity such as littering provoke negative feelings among children and young people; these perceptions can in turn translate into a sensitivity towards the environment. While debated in some circles, a Significant Life Experiences (SLE) lens is useful in understanding children and young people’s lived experiences of – and sensitivity to - environmental issues in the communities where they are raised. SLE is employed in this article to explore how a sense of stewardship towards the environment is developed among children and young people growing up in a tourist destination. Findings suggest they actively contribute to protecting the environment in a variety of ways from regular beach clean ups and educating visiting tourists to participating in rallies and anti-development protests.     

Information visualisation: a holistic tool to discover knowledge. Case study – what video-telephone care? What elderly?

Today all parties within the health-care system demand more information and evidence to take more efficient and pinpointed management decisions. Their goal is a better patient and patient-care management. This paper presents an information visualisation approach to discover knowledge for the management of tele-home care for the elderly using the video-telephone: what type of elderly need what type of video-telephone interventions? This document focuses on the synthesis aspects of data mining with a view to knowledge discovery: the global, holistic, synthesis approach. More specifically, it summarises visually the relationships among the types of video-telephony care, among the segments of elderly, and between the types of interventions and the segments of elderly simultaneously. The graphical display allows delineating areas that group elderly with a similar/dissimilar video-telephony care profile. Information visualisation is a promising approach to provide insight into large multidimensional data sets. It fosters knowledge discovery.     

Playing smartphone games while studying: an experimental study on reading interruptions by a smartphone game

Education and Information Technologies - In this study, we investigated whether the use of smartphone games while reading a text reduces learning performance or reading speed. We also examined...     

Examining the requirements for an intergenerational learning game

Intergenerational learning (IGL) has been identified as a viable way to help organizations deal with the problems an ageing worker population brings with it. Information and communications technology (ICT) in its many forms can be utilized to support IGL. This paper investigates the requirements for a game that would help raise stakeholder awareness for IGL, and allow individuals to practice skills related to it. By interviewing members of the European Union (EU)-funded SILVER-project we aim to find out suitable contexts, interventions and mechanisms that allow us to design such a game. Based on the interviews we found out that the game should be easily contextualized so that it works in—or is easily adapted to—different countries and cultures. For example sports or nature could be such contexts. As for mechanisms and interventions we found out that there are many possibilities. We conclude that such a logical combination of mechanisms and interventions that support the selected context must be chosen.     

Are serious video games something more than a game? A review on the effectiveness of serious games to facilitate intergenerational learning

Aging diversity in organizations creates potential challenges, particularly for knowledge management, skills update and skills obsolescence. Intergenerational learning (IGL) involves knowledge building, innovation and knowledge transfer between generations within an organization (Ropes 2011). Serious games refer to the use of computer games in raising awareness about educational topics, acquiring new knowledge and skills by enabling learners to engage and participate in situations that would otherwise be impossible to experience (Corti 2006). Although learning with the use of serious games is similar to traditional learning in several cognitive respects, there are noted differences in the learning style and structure of learning using serious games. The success of learning using serious games lies in the actual involvement of a participant playing the game, which in turn, creates increased cognitive links with real-life situations allowing the individual to make relevant associations, to use mnemonic strategies with the facilitation of multi-dimensional educational aids (e.g., visual, auditory). Some of the beneficial aspects of learning with the use of serious games include the elevation of several cognitive skills, which are directly or indirectly implicated in the learning process. Among them are attention and visuo-spatial abilities, memory and motor skills. However, several barriers have been noted that fall into two general categories: a) health issues (e.g., cognitive strain, headaches) and b) psychological issues (e.g., social isolation, emotional disturbances). Since the training conditions are learner-centered and highly determined by the individual, there is increased need for evaluating the learning outcomes using specific success indicators. Examples of games that are designed to facilitate IGL are scarce, while there are no examples of IGL games in most EU countries. The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the current literature of theories on learning through serious games in adults and the elderly with reference to the cognitive mechanisms implicated, benefits and barriers in learning using new technologies in different generations. Secondly, this paper reviews the existence of serious games designed to facilitate IGL in Europe, as well as the characteristics of serious games in raising awareness that could be used to facilitate IGL. In doing so, specific focus is placed on the development of success indicators that determine the effectiveness of serious games on raising awareness on IGL.     

Expatriate academics and transnational teaching: the need for quality assurance and quality enhancement to go hand in hand

ABSTRACT

In the past two decades, transnational education has been increasing and so has the need for staff to teach on these programmes. This study sought the views of non-Anglophone expatriate academics teaching transnationally in Oman by means of a survey and follow-up interviews. It highlights the challenges that they face in a teaching and learning environment that is academically and culturally new to them. These challenges relate mostly to the students, as they need extensive structured guidance, and to maintaining programme quality in meeting the learning outcomes, particularly critical thinking and writing in English. Teaching adaptation and quality assurance were less challenging. Findings indicate that for a more enhanced teaching and learning environment, both the provider and host institution need to continuously invest in face-to-face professional development addressing the challenges expatriate academics experience, and that the sole focus on quality assurance by provider universities is not sufficient to create this.     

Teacher training for secondary education and graduates’ entrance into the teaching profession

This study focuses on the relationship between teacher education and graduates’ intended and actual entrance into teaching. Moreover, it explores how this relationship differs for two types of initial teacher training for secondary education. A hypothetical model of graduates’ entrance into the teaching profession comprising empirically grounded variables was developed. Besides teacher education related variables, other factors (e.g., motivation and labour market) were included. Data for this study were based on a sample of 370 graduates qualified for teaching in secondary education. Logistic regression analysis indicates that intention to enter teaching, preparedness for teaching, employment opportunities and type of teacher training explain 43% of the variance in actual entrance into teaching. Furthermore, path analysis was applied to test the hypothetical pattern of (inter)relationships between the variables. Results are largely consistent across the two types of teacher training showing a small, although statistically significant, contribution of teacher education above other antecedents of graduates’ intention to enter teaching.     

Primary School Teachers’ Understanding of Science Process Skills in Relation to Their Teaching Qualifications and Teaching Experience

This study investigated the understanding of science process skills (SPS) of 329 science teachers from 52 primary schools selected by random sampling. The understanding of SPS was measured in terms of conceptual and operational aspects of SPS using an instrument called the Science Process Skills Questionnaire (SPSQ) with a Cronbach’s alpha reliability of 0.88. The findings showed that the teachers’ conceptual understanding of SPS was much weaker than their practical application of SPS. The teachers’ understanding of SPS differed by their teaching qualifications but not so much by their teaching experience. Emphasis needs to be given to both conceptual and operational understanding of SPS during pre-service and in-service teacher education to enable science teachers to use the skills and implement inquiry-based lessons in schools.