An examination of the influences on ‘green’ mobile phone purchases among young business students: an empirical analysis

This article examines the determinants of eco-friendly electronic good consumption among students at a large Australian university who have been exposed to a marketing campaign, Mobile Muster. Empirical research generally shows younger consumers to be less concerned about the environment. Similar studies demonstrate that peer pressure has a large role to play. Accordingly, using the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior, this study examines subjective norms, attitudes, perceived control, environmental concern, altruism, risk aversion, price consciousness, involvement, branding, environmental knowledge, and their relationship with purchase intentions. It is the first study to examine these effects on the purchase of eco-friendly phones, a product of high personal relevance to these consumers. Mediation effects were also assessed. Results showed that subjective norms (friends/experts) can increase intentions and mediate the relationship between information and intentions. Involvement emerged as a significant influencer on intentions, presenting new findings for the literature. Moreover, higher levels of objective knowledge increased intentions. This supported the significant role of the Mobile Muster scheme in dispersing knowledge. These findings are of practical value to educators, allowing them to determine factors that influence consumer knowledge and norms with the aim of enabling students to form more ecological relevant purchase intentions.     

The attitude of civil engineering students towards health and safety risk management: a case study

The highest rate of accidents and injuries in British industries has been reported by the construction industry during the past decade. Since then stakeholders have recognised that a possible solution would be to inculcate a good attitude towards health and safety risk management in undergraduate civil engineering students and construction professionals. Consequently, the four accreditation bodies that accredit construction degrees have improved coverage of health and safety risk management. The key issue has now shifted to ensure that Higher Education Centres deliver these requirements. This paper demonstrates innovative assessment methods that have been used to inculcate a safety conscious attitude into undergraduate civil engineering students, and to improve their knowledge of health and safety risk management. Surveys were administered to the students before and after they were subjected to innovative assessment techniques over two semesters in the construction management units. The analyses of the results of the surveys are provided to demonstrate the degree of improvement in the attitude of the students towards, and their knowledge of, health and safety risk management.     

The decision to send local children to international schools in Hong Kong: local parents’ perspectives

This article reports the findings of a qualitative study that investigates why some local Hong Kong parents decide to give up local education and send their children to international schools in Hong Kong. Data were gathered from 25 parents across eight selected school sites grouped as four cases based on the continental origins of those international schools. Data were analyzed by applying the inductive data analysis model of Miles and Huberman (Qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook. Sage, London 1994). Ten propositions were developed within four emergent fields. The propositions developed led to recommendations for practice and for future studies, which may have the potential to influence changes to education policy to better meet the needs of local Hong Kong students.     

Effect of suction change on water content and total volume of an expansive clay

A laboratory study was carried out on both natural and compacted specimens to investigate the complex soil-water interaction in an unsaturated expansive clay. The laboratory study includes the measurement of soil-water characteristic curves, 1D free swelling tests, measurement of swelling pressure and shrinkage tests. The test results revealed that the air-entry value of the natural specimen was quite low due to cracks and fissures present. The hydraulic hysteresis of the natural specimen was relatively insignificant as compared with the compacted specimen. Within a suction range 0 to 500 kPa, a bilinear relationship between free swelling strain (or swelling pressure) and initial soil suction was observed for both the natural and compacted specimens. As a result of over-consolidation and secondary structures such as cementation and cracks, the natural specimens exhibited significant lower swelling (or swelling pressure) than the compacted specimen. The change of matric suction exerts a more significant effect on the water phase than on the soil skeleton for this expansive clay.     

Virtual teamwork: students studying about ethics in an online environment

The fundamental concepts of ethics: value, obligation and responsibility are what many of us use in our everyday decision‐making on issues that affect our lives. Students in the coursework unit ‘Science and technology in contemporary society’ learn about these concepts in relation to science and technological research and development. The learning takes place in small teams within an online learning environment. This research study reports on a case study that investigated the nature of the collaboration by virtual team members undertaking semi‐structured online tasks to develop an understanding of the topic on ethics in the coursework unit. Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of this type of learning, the types of collaboration that took place between virtual team members and an analysis of the quality of the completed tasks resulting from the virtual teamwork are presented in this paper. Factors affecting the success of the learning experience are also discussed.     

Relationship between affect and achievement in science and mathematics in Malaysia and Singapore

Background : The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assesses the quality of the teaching and learning of science and mathematics among Grades 4 and 8 students across participating countries.

Purpose : This study explored the relationship between positive affect towards science and mathematics and achievement in science and mathematics among Malaysian and Singaporean Grade 8 students.

Sample : In total, 4466 Malaysia students and 4599 Singaporean students from Grade 8 who participated in TIMSS 2007 were involved in this study.

Design and method : Students’ achievement scores on eight items in the survey instrument that were reported in TIMSS 2007 were used as the dependent variable in the analysis. Students’ scores on four items in the TIMSS 2007 survey instrument pertaining to students’ affect towards science and mathematics together with students’ gender, language spoken at home and parental education were used as the independent variables.

Results : Positive affect towards science and mathematics indicated statistically significant predictive effects on achievement in the two subjects for both Malaysian and Singaporean Grade 8 students. There were statistically significant predictive effects on mathematics achievement for the students’ gender, language spoken at home and parental education for both Malaysian and Singaporean students, with R ² = 0.18 and 0.21, respectively. However, only parental education showed statistically significant predictive effects on science achievement for both countries. For Singapore, language spoken at home also demonstrated statistically significant predictive effects on science achievement, whereas gender did not. For Malaysia, neither gender nor language spoken at home had statistically significant predictive effects on science achievement.

Conclusions : It is important for educators to consider implementing self-concept enhancement intervention programmes by incorporating ‘affect’ components of academic self-concept in order to develop students’ talents and promote academic excellence in science and mathematics.     

Bridging distance between actual and potential development: A case of using ICT mediated consultation tool

It is an ongoing challenge in higher education context to design appropriate learning tasks for students that balances the diversity in student knowledge and variable skills with student’s potential to learn under guidance. Obtaining feedback from students on what they know is made more complicated when students are passive during learning activities. In this paper we report on a project that ran over 2 years in which 67 students (28 in 2005; 39 in 2006) from culturally diverse socio-historical backgrounds used an anonymous knowledge sharing tool, the dynamic frequently asked questions (DFAQ) to engage with authentic learning tasks in an Organisational Learning Module. The module was part of the Organisational Psychology honours degree programme at a higher learning institution. The students used the DFAQ tool to consult with both peers and faculty staff. DFAQ is a special purpose web-based tool with a Short Message Services (SMS) interface. A thematic analysis was conducted on students’ experiences gathered from focus group discussions. Artefacts from DFAQ are also analysed. The paper reports that DFAQ mediated the educator’s access to the students’ level of understanding and the potential to learn under guidance. The DFAQ tool therefore allowed the educator to provide students with appropriate guidance that met individual students’ knowledge gaps. The paper concludes that DFAQ mediated access to the gap between actual and potential development, stimulated knowledge sharing, peer learning and impacted on pedagogical designs of learning tasks.     

Retrieval Practice Enhances Analogical Problem Solving

The impact of retrieval practice on analogical-problem-solving performance was investigated using a complex, educationally relevant task. Participants studied a statistical hypothesis testing scenario and practiced recalling the material or repeatedly studied it. Participants then completed a final test either 5 minutes or 1 week later involving a novel hypothesis-testing scenario that shared an intermediate procedural strategy and superficial and structural similarity with the study scenario but that differed at a specific procedure level. When the final test was given after 5 minutes, no differences in performance were observed across conditions (d = 0.01). Crucially, on the delayed test, retrieval practice produced superior performance than did repeated studying (d = 0.81), whereby participants were better at applying learned knowledge to solve a novel problem.     

The social practice of learning: a craft for the 21st century

This article argues that the social practice of learning (SPL), involving life-long learning, meta-learning, deep reflection, and dialogue in a community, should be the distinguishing knowledge base of schools in the twenty-first century. This article also analyses the strategies and challenges of the recent education reforms in Singapore through the lens of an SPL education paradigm. Although the Singapore government has done much to train teachers, trim syllabi and introduce new ways of teaching and learning, such as project work, the real challenge is to go beyond the provision of structural changes to the substance of the epistemological reform.