A Destination of Choice for All

Making a difference where it counts is important to the Campaspe Regional Library service in Echuca, Australia. Creating strong community connections to work together to make our library space a destination of choice for all. The library team have worked specifically over a number of years to improve the environment and to provide inclusive and welcoming services and programs, particularly for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This article provides an overview of the Being Connected: Libraries and Autism project that was conducted during 2014–2016, plus the additional programs and the strong community partnerships that have been developed since the completion of the project.     

‘I could do with a pair of wings’: perspectives on physical activity,bodies and health from young Australian children

There is little research that reports children's perspectives on physical activity, bodies and health. This paper, drawn from a larger multi-method study on physical activity in the lives of seven- and eight-year-old Australian children, attempts to ‘give a voice’ to 13 children's views. Interviews focused on children's activity preferences and related decision making and motivations pertaining to these activities, as well as how they thought about the relationships between physical activity, health and their bodies. Data suggest some tensions surrounding the importance of fun for children alongside their awareness of ‘healthist’ discourses that require self-monitoring and improvement.     

Blood and Bones: The Influence of the Mass Media on Australian Primary School Children’s Understandings of Genes and DNA

Previous research showed that primary school children held several misconceptions about genetics of concern for their future lives. Included were beliefs that genes and DNA are separate substances, with genes causing family resemblance and DNA identifying suspects at crime scenes. Responses to this work ‘blamed’ the mass media for these misunderstandings. This study aimed to determine whether that blame had any foundation by examining the media habits and conceptions about genes and DNA of Australian children. With little prior research considering the influence of entertainment mass media on children’s academically relevant knowledge, this was an exploratory study with a mixed modes design. Data were collected by detailed media questionnaires and face-to-face interviews with 62 children aged 10–12 years, and subjected to content and thematic analysis. Specific mass media examples children reported using were examined for genetics content. Results indicate 5 h/day of media use, mostly television including crime shows, and that children perceived television to be their main source of information about genetics. Most children (89 %) knew DNA, 60 % knew genes, and more was known about uses of DNA outside the body such as crime solving or resolving family relationships than about its biological nature and function. Half believed DNA is only in blood and body parts used for forensics. These concepts paralleled the themes emerging from the media examples. The results indicate that the mass media is a pervasive teacher of children, and that fundamental concepts could be introduced earlier in schools to establish scientific concepts before misconceptions arise.     

Attachment,self-esteem and test anxiety in adolescence and early adulthood

The purpose of this study was to assess how attachment dimensions (anxiety and avoidance), self-esteem, and three subscales of test anxiety – cognitive obstruction, social derogation and tenseness are related in two age groups: adolescents and college students. Participants (N?=?327) completed relevant questionnaires. Results showed that college students revealed higher test anxiety than did high school students on the cognitive obstruction and tenseness scales, whereas high school students revealed higher social derogation than college students. Anxious attachment was related to all three sub-scales of test anxiety and avoidant attachment was related to cognitive obstruction among college students and to tenseness among high school students. Most of the correlations between anxious attachment and test anxiety were mediated by self-esteem among high school students. The mediation ability of self-esteem was weaker among college students.     

Stimulating positive emotional experiences in mathematics learning: influence of situational and personal factors

The study aims to assess the relative importance of a large number of variables for predicting students’ positive-activating emotions during mathematics learning. Participants were 668 first-year upper secondary school students from 33 schools of different sizes and locations. Two questionnaires were distributed, one assessing students’ perceptions and beliefs about their learning situation in mathematics in general, and the other assessing the characteristics of a particular mathematics lesson and the students’ emotional experiences during this lesson. Single-construct and multivariate models for predicting students’ emotions were computed. The results show that the multivariate models were the most efficient, predicting as much as 59 % of the variance in students’ emotional experiences. The two most important constructs were students’ type of motivation and perceived degree of learning, which together predicted 48 % of the students’ emotions. Single-construct models predicted, at most, 36 %. The relative and absolute predictive ability of different motivational constructs are reported. The relationships between constructs and their implications for teaching are discussed.     

Training Teachers to Select Educational Computer Software: results of a formative evaluation of an Open University pack

In this paper we consider the problem of training teachers to select suitable educational programs to use in their classroom. We argue that selecting good programs is difficult, requiring both skill and experience, and that training teachers to do this has been largely neglected, both by the available literature and by in-service training courses. We describe an Open University course (Open University Press, 1984) which addresses this issue and report on a formative evaluation of an activity within the course in which teachers examined three commercially available educational software packages.
We conclude by emphasizing the importance of a sound framework in which teachers can develop selection skills so that they can go beyond the superficial technical features of the programs to consider whether the underlying pedagogy is sound and suited to their needs.     

Comparing Institutional Relationships with Academic Departments: A Study of Five Academic Fields

Research in Higher Education - Any effort to understand academic departments would be facilitated by a better understanding of its relationship between its two larger spheres: the institution and...     

School toilets: queer,disabled bodies and gendered lessons of embodiment

ABSTRACT

In this paper we argue that school toilets function as one civilising site [Elias, 1978. The Civilising Process. Oxford: Blackwell] in which children learn that disabled and queer bodies are out of place. This paper is the first to offer queer and crip perspectives on school toilets. The small body of existing school toilet literature generally works from a normative position which implicitly perpetuates dominant and oppressive ideals. We draw on data from Around the Toilet, a collaborative research project with queer, trans and disabled people (aroundthetoilet.wordpress.com) to critically interrogate this work. In doing this we consider ‘toilet training’ as a form of ‘civilisation’, that teaches lessons around identity, embodiment and ab/normal ways of being in the world. Furthermore, we show that ‘toilet training’ continues into adulthood, albeit in ways that are less easily identifiable than in the early years. We therefore call for a more critical, inclusive, and transformative approach to school toilet research.