The Future of Higher Education in Australia: Ten Years On

During 1975 a group of Monash University academics, who became nicknamed the “crystal ballgazers” began to meet with the aim of forecasting the future of higher education in Australia in the nineteen eighties and nineties. The predictions were published and by 1983 many of the forecasts had already proved remarkably accurate — and few, if any, of the pro‐active strategies that were suggested as a way of influencing the future had been adopted.

This paper provides two retrospective analyses of that work. in the first we present some of the actual forecasts and their accord with reality, and then juxtapose the reasons for our forecasts upon the reasons being proposed now for the trends that have emerged. In the second analysis, we examine the failure of the work to influence the power brokers in Australian higher education to adopt a longer term and a more pro‐active planning role.     

Hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis of the Flow State Scale in exercise

In this study, we examined the factor structure and internal consistency of the Flow State Scale using responses of exercise participants. This self-report questionnaire consists of nine subscales designed to assess flow in sport and physical activity. It was administered to 1231 aerobic dance exercise participants. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to test three competing measurement models of the flow construct: a single-factor model, a nine-factor model and a hierarchical model positing a higher-order flow factor to explain the intercorrelations between the nine first-order factors. The single-factor model showed a poor fit to the data. The nine-factor model and the hierarchical model did not show an adequate fit to the data. All subscales of the Flow State Scale displayed acceptable internal consistency (alpha > 0.70), with the exception of transformation of time (alpha = 0.65). Collectively, the present results do not provide support for the tenability of the single-factor, nine-factor or hierarchical measurement models in an exercise setting.     

Diversity on Display: Framing in the Gay Perspective Radio Program

This study explores the archived content of Gay Perspective, a 1970s radio program in Milwaukee as it frames LGBTQIA+ (queer) rights in a historical context. Gay Perspective was produced by the Gay People’s Union (GPU). The group was considered politically “moderate,” emphasizing educational and legal action through their engagement with radio and magazines. Gay Perspective focused much of its energy on trying to demonstrate the need for rights and attempts to demonstrate how the queer community’s members could be functioning members of mainstream society. Gay Perspective is a cultural artifact that not only allows for the examination of gay identity in a different era, but also demonstrates the struggles social movements face in trying to gain access to media. The program provided a public voice to a radically underserved group, a group that was struggling with its own identity. By trying to build a community through radio, sharing resources and experiences, the program found some limited success in airing the GPU’s message of tolerance. Applying the analysis through 3 frames, Cultured, Diversity, and Assimilation, this article explores how segments of the LGBTQIA+ community framed the discussion of gay rights in the 1970s and discusses how those frames have (and haven’t) changed in 2018.     

Bias and Bias Correction Method for Nonproportional Abilities Requirement (NPAR) Tests

Test items must often be broad in scope to be ecologically valid. It is therefore almost inevitable that secondary dimensions are introduced into a test during test development. A cognitive test may require one or more abilities besides the primary ability to correctly respond to an item, in which case a unidimensional test score overestimates the primary ability and creates interpretability problems. In this article, we demonstrate the nonproportional abilities requirement, a phenomenon with which secondary abilities are more required for difficult items. A novel and practical method for correcting bias in the primary ability is proposed and illustrated using a real data set from an international assessment. Simulation data are also used to evaluate the performance of the method.