Role of health-promoting behaviours for on-campus and distance education students

University students are likely to experience high rates of stress, which has the potential to negatively affect academic performance and their experience of study. Research with on-campus students has found positive benefits of health-promoting behaviours such as stress reduction and academic achievement; yet no research has examined these relationships with distance education students (and in comparison with on-campus students). Distance education students are a growing cohort in Australia higher education and elsewhere. This paper aims to redress this imbalance by comparing the relationships between stress, strain and coping, academic outcomes, and health-promoting behaviours in tertiary students (on-campus and distance education students). The study involved 242 on-campus and 399 distance education students at a regional Australian university. A path model was developed comparing both cohorts, and relationships were found to be similar, indicating no significant difference. Online interventions for distance education students which could be used to enhance coping are discussed.     

A Comparison of Special,General and Support Teachers’ Controllability and Stability Attributions for Children’s Difficulties in Learning

The study aimed to explore teachers’ attributions for learner difficulties in their schoolwork. In order to explore their attributions of controllability and stability, three groups of teachers, general mainstream class teachers (N = 39), mainstream learning support teachers (N = 35), and special school teachers (N = 25) were asked to rate vignettes about children’s difficulties. The results showed that the two groups of teachers working in the mainstream settings viewed learners with identified support needs as having less control over their performance than those with no specific support needs, while special school teachers viewed both learner groups similarly. Similar findings were found for teacher attributions of controllability in high‐ and low‐ability learners. Stability attributions across all conditions showed that special school teachers viewed children’s difficulties as more amenable to change than did the two groups of mainstream teachers. The implications of these findings for inclusion in mainstream schools are discussed.     

A collaborative governance approach to improving tertiary education in Papua New Guinea

Tertiary education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is in a critical state, as the sector struggles to address increased demand for student places with severely curtailed capacity. Recent thinking about improving public services in PNG has emphasized “whole of sector” or collaborative governance. Such an approach in tertiary education has the potential to improve the sector’s outcomes within its existing resource constraints. This exploratory paper examines the challenges involved in applying a deliberate collaborative governance approach to tertiary education in PNG. In particular, two theoretical models of collaborative governance are employed to gain insight into possible issues through the consideration of four main criteria: power, incentives, history, and leadership. The paper shows that the challenges to introducing collaborative governance to PNG tertiary education are substantive, and that any effective effort will require committed leadership and a carefully measured strategy that acknowledges the country’s particular circumstances.     

Interface Design and Research Process for Studying the Usability of Interactive Home-Entertainment Systems by Young Children

This study evaluated young children's understanding of and ability to use an input device of the type associated with home-entertainment systems (like videogame players, DVD's, and other interactive systems that connect to a television set). These systems have the potential to serve as a powerful platform for delivering interactive educational programming to young children. However, the input controllers for these systems have proven extremely difficult for young children to use, as they typically require use of very small buttons that are close together, and arrow-based keys or joystick-like devices. To examine the potential for enabling young children to use such hardware devices, three adapted software interfaces were implemented. Eighty-four children, ranging in age from 36 to 59 months and from lower to lower-middle socio-economic status, participated in this study, using one of the three software interfaces to make simple on-screen choices. The results demonstrate that it is possible to enable preschool children to use home-entertainment system control devices, by implementing adapted software interfaces which limit the kinds of inputs and choices that are required. In addition, this study describes and documents a process for conducting usability research with young children using home-entertainment interactive media systems.     

Lack of consistent individual differences in rats on tasks that require response inhibition

Hungry rats performed four different tasks which all required responding to be withheld for food reinforcement to be obtained. The tasks were the following: an omission schedule, a go/no-go procedure, a differential reinforcement of low rate schedule, and a choice task in which the subject could respond for a small immediate reward or a large delayed reward. Each rat experienced each task twice. For each task, the rank ordering of the subjects’ performance on the test and retest was highly consistent, indicating the reliability of the task for measuring a particular “ability.” However, there were no consistencies in the performance of individual rats between tasks. This suggests that claims regarding consistent individual differences in brain-lesioned nonhumans across a range of such tasks are not supported in intact subjects.     

Anchoring the Creative Process Within a Self-Regulated Learning Framework: Inspiring Assessment Methods and Future Research

Creativity supports the advancement of all disciplines, providing both individual and societal benefits. Most individuals can demonstrate and improve their creativity; therefore, understanding the creative process is of particular interest to facilitate deliberate development of creative thinkers. Despite copious research of the creative process, the work tends to be fragmented without a unified, general theoretical foundation. Historically, creative process research has examined the steps that creative people use, while overlooking how people learn these steps and the mechanisms behind the process. This paper proposes to situate the creative process within broader theoretical framework of self-regulated learning (SRL). This merger emphasizes that the creative process can be learned and that creative process strategies may inspire general learning strategies. Further, the SRL framework provides an organizational structure that illuminates gaps in current research and provides inspiration for new measurement techniques. Current assessment methods are often unable to determine how people regulate themselves throughout the creative process, specifically how internal psychological processes, external behaviors, and explicit strategies influence the creative process; however, SRL measurement techniques, like SRL microanalysis interviews, may provide an opportunity to identify intervention casual mechanisms, extend experimental studies, provide consistent variables to compare across disciplines and studies, and help practitioners assess students’ creative process.     

Increasing early childhood preservice teachers’ intercultural sensitivity through the ABCs

While the early childhood student population has become increasingly diverse in the U.S., its teaching force remains primarily European American. The diverse student population demands that early childhood educators possess intercultural sensitivity in order to teach their culturally diverse learners effectively. This study examined the implementation of the ABCs of Cultural Understanding (the ABCs), a multicomponent instructional activity to promote intercultural sensitivity, in a preservice early childhood education course. Twenty-two early childhood preservice teachers participated in the study. The findings suggest the ABCs helped the participants develop intercultural sensitivity and strengthened their awareness and appreciation of other cultures. Despite the positive impact, the findings show most participants were in the early stages of intercultural sensitivity development. It is recommended that consistent exposure to and experiences with assignments like the ABCs are necessary to further promote intercultural sensitivity among preservice teachers.     

Innovative approaches to continuous professional development (CPD) in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Europe: Findings from a comparative review

This article explores innovation as an aspect of in-service continuous professional development (CPD) in ECEC. Based on a literature review and a cross-country analysis conducted in ten European countries, we found that innovation in CPD was understood as a way to improving quality in ECEC. CPD no longer solely deals with practitioners’ knowledge and skills. Rather, it encompasses processes such as critical thinking, reflexivity and co-creation within and across ECEC systems. Two overall approaches to innovation in CPD emerged: one can be characterised as developing in systems that lack a national definition for innovation, where there is nevertheless a growing awareness of the need to finding new solutions for ECEC; and one as highly innovative in systems that have a history, culture and societal tradition of innovation. Also, three additional insights were identified as crucial aspects of CPD in terms of innovation: (a) critical reflection; (b) communities of practice; and (c) a growing focus on politics that address social inequality through ECEC. This analysis contributes to filling the gaps in research on innovative CPD in ECEC at three levels: system (macro), inter-organisational (meso) and individual, organisational (micro). Further research is needed to explore more in-depth the identified approaches to innovation related to CPD and their impact on quality development in European ECEC.