Using Visual Methods in Careers Education and Guidance

This article describes how visual methods, particularly photography, can be used in the context of careers education and guidance. It begins by acknowledging that this context is undergoing rapid change given the policy agendas of lifelong learning and social inclusion. However, although these policy agendas continue to emphasize the importance of self-knowledge in managing career development, this represents an area of continuing difficulty in terms of curriculum design and delivery. In recognizing this dilemma the article suggests that visual methods can provide careers educators, guidance practitioners, and their clients with the means to engage 'self' in the processes of career learning and planning.     

Pre-training perceived wellness impacts training output in Australian football players

The impact of perceived wellness on a range of external load parameters, rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and external load:RPE ratios, was explored during skill-based training in Australian footballers. Fifteen training sessions involving 36 participants were analysed. Each morning before any physical training, players completed a customised perceived wellness questionnaire (sleep quality, fatigue, stress, mood and muscle soreness). Microtechnology devices provided external load (average speed, high-speed running distance, player load and player load slow). Players provided RPE using the modified Borg category-ratio 10 RPE scale. Mixed-effect linear models revealed significant effects of wellness Z-score on player load and player load slow. Effects are reported with 95% confidence limits. A wellness Z-score of ?1 corresponded to a ?4.9 ± 3.1 and ?8.6 ± 3.9% reduction in player load and player load slow, respectively, compared to those without reduced wellness. Small significant effects were also seen in the average speed:RPE and player load slow:RPE models. A wellness Z-score of ?1 corresponded to a 0.43 ± 0.38 m·min^?1 and ?0.02 ± 0.01 au·min^?1 change in the average speed:RPE and player load slow:RPE ratios, respectively. Magnitude-based analysis revealed that the practical size of the effect of a pre-training perceived wellness Z-score of ?1 would have on player load slow was likely negative. The results of this study suggests that monitoring pre-training perceived wellness may provide coaches with information about the intensity of output that can be expected from individual players during a training session.     

Intrinsic reinforcing properties of putatively neutral stimuli in an instrumental two-lever discrimination task

Four experiments examined the influence of a stimulus presented after one response in a two-lever choice task. In Experiment 1, food-deprived rats trained on a concurrent variable-interval extinction schedule responded more often on the extinction lever when such responding periodically produced a visual stimulus than when it did not. In Experiments 2 and 3, a similar signal-induced enhancement effect was found even when food was delivered randomly with respect to responding on both levers or when no food was presented. In Experiment 4, a response-contingent visual stimulus elevated responding to the lever on which it was presented, but an auditory cue suppressed responding. These findings indicate that visual stimuli may possess intrinsically reinforcing properties for rats.     

Changes in science classrooms after experiencing an international professional staff development program

This professional development program was designed to prepare science teachers to be more student-centered and to implement newer goals for science instruction. These goals are to improve science teaching in ways that promote broader and longer-lasting learning. Secondary school science teachers in Korea are expected to follow a rigid national curriculum with large classes - often with more than 50 students. This study focuses on feedback and follow-up interaction with teacher participants who were enrolled in a month-long workshop in the U.S. before returning to Korea to implement the new ideas. Assistance was offered to help teachers develop teaching modules which were more constructivist while also assisting with assessment efforts that provided further evidence of use of the new teaching practices and their effect on student learning. Student mastery of concepts and improvement in student creativity were two aspects of the summer workshop experiences and these were evaluated to illustrate workshop effects on teacher participants in their actual classrooms. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Temperamental Origins of Child and Adolescent Behavior Problems: From Age Three to Age Fifteen

We assessed relations between early temperament and behavior problems across 12 years in an unselected sample of over 800 children. Temperament measures were drawn from behavior ratings made by examiners who observed children at ages 3, 5, 7, and 9. Factor analyses revealed 3 dimensions at each age: Lack of Control, Approach, and Sluggishness . Temperament dimensions at ages 3 and 5 were correlated in theoretically coherent ways with behavior problems that were independently evaluated by parents and teachers at ages 9 and 11, and by parents at ages 13 and 15. Lack of Control was more strongly associated with later externalizing behavior problems than with internalizing problems; Approach was associated with fewer internalizing problems among boys; and Sluggishness was weakly associated with both anxiety and inattention, especially among girls. Lack of Control and Sluggishness were also associated with fewer adolescent competencies. These results suggest that early temperament may have predictive specificity for the development of later psychopathology.     

Doing what it says on the tin? A psychometric evaluation of the Assessment Experience Questionnaire

The Assessment Experience Questionnaire has been widely used to measure conditions of learning from assessment. It is one of three methods used in the ‘Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment’ research process, originally funded by the Higher Education Academy to explore programme assessment patterns, and now used extensively in universities in the United Kingdom. Given the growth of assessment and feedback research over the last decade, the Assessment Experience Questionnaire is ripe for revision. Critics have queried its theoretical and statistical robustness. This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Assessment Experience Questionnaire, as the first step in the process of strengthening the instrument. Specifically, we examined the validity of the questionnaire with a sample of final year undergraduate students from eight UK universities (n?=?633). Results were mixed, confirming that the questionnaire has some value, but indicating that not all sub-scales possess adequate psychometric properties to underpin confident conclusions. As a result, we have embarked on a process of making conceptual modifications to the Assessment Experience Questionnaire, both to update the theoretical constructs, and to ensure stronger overall validity.     

Trends in the Educational Placement of Students with Disabilities in New South Wales

This paper reports the results of an analysis of trends in the placement of students with intellectual, physical, sensory, or behavioural disabilities in New South Wales for the period 1986 to 1994. Although there was a general trend of movement of students from special schools to support classes, there were some major differences across disability groups. The results are discussed in relation to current special education policy in New South Wales and the philosophy of including students with a disability in regular schools and classes.     

Openness and reciprocity: Indigenous community requirements for hosting university students*

ABSTRACT

Although there is a substantial literature critical of the colonising discourses of higher education in both teaching and learning and research, there has been relatively little commentary about work integrated learning (WIL) from an Indigenous perspective. Currently, the higher education discourse of WIL is dominated by a teaching and learning perspective, which focuses almost entirely on the benefits to the student and/or the educational institution. This leaves the Indigenous community experience invisible and continues to reinforce a neo-colonial relationship between higher education providers and Indigenous people. This article reports the findings of a study undertaken in partnership with the Aboriginal community of Cherbourg in Queensland, Australia, which sought to understand the community experience of students undertaking WIL within Cherbourg. Twenty yarns, undertaken by a research assistant employed from the community, provided the basis for identifying key meanings and requirements of the community in their hosting of higher education students. The recent experience of students by the community was found to be positive with reciprocity, openness and practical benefit over time being central concerns. The study concludes that WIL with Indigenous agencies and communities requires decolonising, temporal and relational frames to be employed in the process of negotiating the purpose and processes of higher education student engagement.