Teamwork: education for entrants to the environment professions

Numerous reports over recent years emphasise the importance of teamwork training in undergraduate programs in environment education at tertiary level. This paper describes a project undertaken by a team of final year undergraduate environment students from four faculties at RMIT University in Australia working on a multi‐disciplinary environment project in Vietnam. The students clearly gained confidence in teamwork and working as professionals. Importantly, they identified some of the key issues associated with teamwork, and with professional activities. While they had not yet entered professional work, the students demonstrated that they had learnt skills that would be of direct importance to them in the professional conduct of a multi‐disciplinary project. The project also demonstrated that multi‐disciplinary teamwork fits well into environmental projects, and importantly that the experiences are recognised by students as being valuable preparation for their environmental professions.     

Working engineers’ satisfaction with helping people and society through their jobs

ABSTRACT

This research explored the extent that working engineers were satisfied with their ability to help or serve people and/or society through their jobs. Over 450 engineering graduates responded to an online survey, including alumni recently transitioning to the workforce from 16 U.S. institutions and professional volunteers with Engineers Without Borders-U.S.A. Only 18% of the respondents currently working in engineering jobs had some level of dissatisfaction with helping others through their job; this differed by job sector and discipline but not gender or between recent alumni and service-active engineers. Forty per cent cited dissatisfaction with service aspects of their work as a contributing factor for leaving an engineering job. A few seemed to have left engineering careers due to dissatisfaction with their ability to help others. The results point to the importance of aligning personal goals for helping people/society with engineering careers; employers facilitating these connections may reap benefits in employee retention.     

The Influence of Personal Control and Environmental Distraction in Open‐Plan Offices on Creative Outcome

In this study, the researchers developed and tested a new model of how individual perception about the work environment in open‐plan offices (in terms of personal control and environmental distraction) affect creative outcome through environmental satisfaction and social interaction. The partial least squares of structural equation model (PLS‐SEM ) was used to analyze data. The respondents were 238 employees working as programmers and designers in creative mobile industries that are supported by or clustered in creative multimedia companies in a multimedia super corridor in Malaysia. The findings showed that personal control over the work environment has a significant effect on individuals’ satisfaction with the work environment, social interaction, and creative outcome. The results also indicated that environmental distraction has no significant effect on creative outcome. Managers, space designers, and architects can use the knowledge of this study to give building users as much control as they need to positively affect their work behavior and outcome.     

Asian Students: Their Experiences and Perceptions of Australian Universities

ABSTRACT

Australian universities generate substantial incomes from foreign students. Therefore, it is important to obtain information about these students to enable effective overseas marketing and delivery of services.

This study focused on Asian students, who tend to experience difficulty while studying in Australia, with an effective sample of 111 students being drawn from the three South Australian universities.

Reasons for studying in South Australia varied widely, with evidence of four distinct student segments, but no dominant selection criterion in any segment. Roughly one-quarter of respondents had experienced significant problems living in Australia, including communication, homesickness and loneliness. Significant variation was found with study-related difficulties, with four segments again being identified. Only 17% of respondents had experienced a range of serious study-related problems, including communication and pressure of work, but 40% had experienced serious problems involving fear of failure and expectations from home.

Respondents tended to evaluate university services as only moderately satisfactory.     

Barriers and enablers to clinical fieldwork education in rural public and private allied health practice

There is a need to maximise rural clinical fieldwork placement to build health workforce capacity. This study investigated allied health professionals' (AHPs) experience of supervising students as part of work-integrated learning in public and private rural health settings. An anonymous postal questionnaire with 30 questions was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data about the barriers and enablers that AHPs encounter when supervising students in their clinical setting. A total of 113 public and private AHPs from Southwest Victoria, Australia, returned the questionnaire. The AHPs were trained in the disciplines of occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech pathology, dietetics, podiatry or psychology. The majority of respondents (75%) had previously supervised students. Most respondents had only provided fieldwork education in the public sector. Allied health professionals working in public and private sectors had positive experiences with clinical fieldwork education and often had increased job satisfaction while supervising students. They experienced similar enablers to involvement in clinical fieldwork education programs, however the barriers they encountered were different. The findings highlight the differing issues between rural public and private settings that need to be addressed for successful clinical fieldwork education and work-integrated learning. Strategies to address the identified barriers need to be specific to the work conditions of each setting.     

Conceptions and awareness concerning environmental education: a Zimbabwean case‐study in three secondary teacher education colleges

This article reports on a baseline survey, designed to collect information on students' and teachers' conceptions on environmental issues and their involvement in three Zimbabwean colleges of secondary teacher training. The survey was the first step of a research programme designed to evaluate the Secondary Teacher Training Environmental Education Programme (St²eep). It was found that students perceive the environment mainly in terms of biophysical issues whereas teachers also relate the environment to social, economic and political issues. Both students and teachers of environment‐related subjects are significantly more concerned about the environment and are more involved than their fellow students and colleagues of other subjects. Environment‐related subjects are seen as most suitable for inclusion of environmental education by the respondents.     

农村社区环保主体力量的运行机制研究

正确认识环保主体,是确定农村社区环保基本依靠力量的前提。我国农村社区环保的基本主体包括社区农民、乡村精英、环保志愿者、农村社区妇女与幼儿、中小学学生。农村民间环保社团是凝聚、放大环保主体力量的基本组织形式。我国农村社区民间环保社团主要有社区环保委员会与学生环保社团。激活农村社区环保主体力量的实践机制,即环境教育机制、环保活动机制、伦理文化力的保障机制是实现农村社区环保主体力量的关键环节。     

Socially desirable responding in an environmental context: development of a domain specific scale

Numerous studies have pointed to a gap between the attitudes people express about the natural environment and their subsequent behaviors toward that environment. Variables identified within these studies include: how significant others view behaviors related to the attitudes; demographic variables such as sex, age or education; self‐perceived ability to do the attitude‐related behavior; attitude strength; and personal relevance of the attitude. This study proposes the concept of environmental desirability responding (EDR) as another factor which might contribute to the attitude‐behavior discrepancy. The development and construct validation of the Environmentally Desirable Response Scale (EDRS), which is designed to identify the existence and level of EDR, is described. The EDRS contains items designed to measure two types of socially desirable responding – ‘Self‐deception’ and ‘Image management’. A total of 1024 usable data sets were obtained from a sample of respondents in several countries (Japan, the US and Australia). Principal factors and correlation analyses revealed that the EDRS comprises three factors identified as ‘Self‐deception/Assertion of positives’, ‘Image management’ and ‘Self‐deception/Denial of negatives’. Cronbach alpha estimates of reliability for the three factors were .74, .66, and .61. Suggestions for further research regarding the scale and EDR are offered.     

Preparing novice principals in Australia and Turkey: How similar are their needs?

Part of a 13-nation, cross-cultural study of the extent to which principals perceive their pre-appointment experiences had prepared them for the job, the International Study of Principal Preparation (ISPP), this paper compares the responses of novice principals in Turkey and Western Australia. Using a survey based on data from case studies of principals in their first 3 years, the views of 50 Western Australian and 60 Turkish principals were examined in terms of the difficulty of the problems they faced and the extent to which they felt prepared for these problems. Responses were analysed by sex, qualification, age at appointment, school size, and school location. Respondents from both countries found that managing the budget and achieving work/life balance presented challenges for them while working with parents and acquiring adequate resources were not challenging. For Turkish respondents, building positive relationships with staff was more challenging than it was for the Australian respondents. Surprisingly respondents felt well prepared for the tasks they faced, with Australians, females, principals of small schools in rural and remote locations reporting significantly more positive views about their preparation than their counterparts.     

Embedded creative workers and creative work in education

This article is concerned with the many connections between creative work and workers, and education work and industries. Employment in the education sector has long been recognised as a significant element in creative workers’ portfolio careers. Much has been written, for example, about the positive contribution of ‘artists in schools’ initiatives. Australian census analyses reveal that education is the most common industry sector into which creative workers are ‘embedded’, outside of the core creative industries. However, beyond case studies and some survey research into arts instruction and instructors, we know remarkably little about in which education roles and sectors creative workers are embedded, and the types of value that they add in those roles and sectors. This article reviews the extant literature on creative work and workers in education, and presents the findings of a survey of 916 graduates from creative undergraduate degrees in Australia. The findings suggest that education work is very common among creative graduates indeed, while there are a range of motivating factors for education work among creative graduates, on average they are satisfied with their careers, and that creative graduates add significant creative-cultural and creative-generic value add through their work.     

广州番禺区制造业工程技术人才现状的调查

据调查,番禺区制造业工程技术人才主要以已婚男性、青壮年、本科毕业生和外省人士为主。工程师队伍相对较稳定,超过一半的工程师现从事的是第一份工作,有60％多的工程师在现企业工作时间达5年以上;57％的工程师上一份工作地也在番禺,且81．7％工程师表示没有回乡创业的打算;97％的工程师一直在制造业内工作,且88．24％的工程师表示未来将继续在制造业内工作。工程师对现工作的企业及番禺区工作、生活环境均比较满意,且社会保险、住房、配偶就业、落户等方面均比较理想。但如何进一步稳定并发挥工程师的工作积极性与创造性,并提升个体技术能力水平依然是当地人力资源开发工作的重要课题。     

Double Degree Courses: A Viable Proposition for the CAE Sector

Double‐degree courses (studies in which two disciplines are taught in conscious relationship to one another) are almost exclusively a phenomenon of the university sector in Australian tertiary education. This article examines the double‐degree program from the college perspective. It describes a rationale for the approach and suggests why colleges should pursue this type of study program; it describes several organisational models which have been initiated in various institutions both in Australia and overseas; it considers the areas in which such development might take place in a college; it discusses the advantages and limitations of these courses and it highlights some of the difficulties and issues in their implementation.     

Perception of Environmental Problems by Young People in Poland

The perception of environmental problems by young people is of great importance for two reasons: first, in the near future they will have a great influence on the running of business and, second, knowing what they think about environmental issues will help to establish better pro‐environmental education among them. Therefore, studies on the perception of environmental problems among Polish students were undertaken. We intended to characterise and compare the perception of environmental problems by young people from different universities. These were the Environmental Faculty of the University of Maria Curie Sklodowska in Lublin and the Technical Faculty of the Technical University of Lublin. The results of our research showed that students from both schools are aware of environmental problems, but the more pro‐ecological group was students studying protection of the environment.     

Interpretive investigation of the science‐related career decisions of three African‐American college students

Reports published since 1977 indicate that African Americans are underrepresented among Ph.D.‐holding scientists. Although researchers have identified numerous factors that correlate with career choice, they have failed to address students' reasons for choosing or not choosing science and science‐related careers. This study examines the career decisions of three African‐American college students. All three students began college aspiring toward science‐related careers. However, by the end of data collection only one student was working toward a science‐related career. Data were collected by means of eight, open‐ended, 1‐hour interviews conducted over a period of 6 months. Findings indicate that students' interest in a science‐related career is directly related to the degree to which they perceive that career as being supportive of deep‐seated life goals; and that a deeper view of the nature of science better enables students to perceive a science‐related career as supportive of life goals. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 599–621, 2001     

Attitudes to computer-assisted learning amongst business and management students

Computer‐assisted learning (CAL) is becoming ever more important as a method of teaching and facilitating learning in an increasingly overburdened higher education sector in the UK. A number of authors have made pleas for more evaluation and research in the area of CAL. This study set out to evaluate the attitudes to CAL amongst over 300 business and management undergraduates using a questionnaire survey. The survey revealed a positive disposition towards CAL irrespective of age, gender or educational background. In addition respondents were asked to compare the features of CAL with those of other more traditional methods of teaching and learning. Two factors were identified, labelled CAL ‘instructional’ features and CAL ‘tutorial’ features. The instructional features of CAL were rated more highly than its tutorial features. Respondents rated CAL as better than traditional methods in terms of its instructional features and about the same as traditional methods in terms of its tutorial features. Younger respondents rated the instructional features of CAL more highly than did the older respondents. The findings were discussed in terms of their implications for the use of CAL in an expanding system of mass higher education.     

用环境质量指数分析“十一五”期间漯河市环境质量变化

＂环境质量综合指数＂是建设全面小康社会的＂一票否决＂指标,也是衡量地区环境质量的重要指标。环境质量指数是借鉴股价指数及物价指数的分析技术,将其应用于环境保护领域,把环境保护的最终成果以环境质量指数表示。漯河市环境质量指数的监测统计工作已开展10年,＂十一五＂期间漯河市环境质量指数是依据水、空气、噪声质量分指数统计计算,＂十一五期间＂环境质量指数与生产总值同步增长。     

A Model for Fostering the Transfer of Learning in Environmental Education

Environmental education programmes can only deal with some of the environmental issues that people face through their life. People will need, therefore, to transfer learning to new situations. In this article factors that could foster transfer are identified, and collected in a model. This model suggests that work in environmental education should be relevant, started by exploring the previous knowledge of those who learn in order to carry out a new learning process valid for resolving authentic environmental problems, and practising the application of what has been learnt to different cases. It also suggests that related content fields should be consciously used: culture, valuation, performance, reasoning, and communication. In each field resources of different cognitive scope, belonging to specific domains, general domains, and meta‐domain, have been identified. The model appears to be interesting for the theoretical development of environmental education, and could also facilitate the design of tools to analyse, improve and create proposals in this area.     

Adult learning in the context of African‐American women's voluntary organizations‡

The purpose of this research was to examine non‐formal adult education and informal learning within contemporary African‐American women's voluntary organizations. Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 28 women who were members of six different organizations. A semi‐structured interview process was used to elicit their perceptions regarding their (1) involvement in the education of others, (2) learning within the context of performing group membership roles and projects, (3) learning needs, and (4) comparisons of learning in this context with that in more formal educational settings. The findings of the research are discussed in relation to other research on learning in voluntary associations and the workplace. As with other studies of the voluntary association context, respondents did not seem to have given a great deal of prior thought to the nature of their learning within the context, having been more focused on the successful performance of their leadership and service roles than on what is learned from that work. They were none the less able to report numerous examples of how their work helped educate others and how they learned through their experiences. While instances of more systematic non‐formal education (e.g. orientation sessions, lectures and leadership training) were reported, the learning experiences reported more frequently and identified as most valuable seemed to reflect more informal, frequently incidental learning. This significant learning often reflected a perceived change in skills and abilities related to interacting with and working with others toward common goals, or a changing sense of self, in terms of growing self‐confidence and/or sense of connectedness to group members and the community which they sought to serve. Respondents who were quite well educated as a group, nevertheless generally indicated their preferences for the kind of interactive, experiential and situated learning that occurred as an outgrowth of group participation over the more abstract, teacher‐controlled learning they associated with formal education. These findings are discussed in terms of their importance to our understanding of informal learning, particularly that which occurs within the voluntary sector. Exploring this learning in a context specific to African‐American women is also seen as a way of moving beyond the culturally biased sampling often criticized in adult learning research.

     

University‐Industry Research Partnerships in Australia: Extent,benefits and risks

While official reviews have concluded that Commonwealth Government programs to encourage university - industry research links have been largely successful, studies are needed to explore the extent and nature of such partnerships, and their effects within universities. Further, sections of the academic community and major media warn that industry links and university commercialisation efforts threaten traditional research and scientific values, and accepted norms of academic life including academic freedom. Survey data reported in the paper show that, on balance, industry - research links are working reasonably well for Australian science and technology academics. Some 36.7% of respondents in our sample drawn from three major Australian universities received industry research support and this group tended to be better qualified, more senior and more productive in research than academics without such partnerships. Respondents generally were well aware of both the benefits and risks of industry funding. On the positive side, respondents identified the main benefits as the provision of additional resources, support and enhanced career opportunities for students, opportunities to apply basic research results to industrial problems, less red tape than with government funding, and enhanced university prestige. On the negative side, respondents were concerned about threats to research autonomy, undesirable consequences associated with the commercialisation of knowledge, the low intellectual level of some contract work, reduced time of talented researchers available for teaching, and pressures on researchers to spend increased time on commercial activities.     

河南省城镇发展的环境对策

环境问题是制约区域发展可持续性的关键因素之一，城镇发展面临的主要问题是资源和环境基础薄弱，经济发展的可持续性较差。为协调好城镇发展和环境保护、环境建设之间的关系，亟须采取行之有效的环境对策。即从河南省环境功能带保护、城镇环境保护、生态环境建设和人历史环境保护四个方面解决环境问题。