Contract cheating and assessment design: exploring the relationship

This paper reports on findings from a large Australian research project that explored the relationship between contract cheating and assessment design. Using survey responses from 14,086 students and 1147 educators at eight universities, a multivariate analysis examined the influence of a range of factors on the likelihood that different assessment types would prompt considerations of contract cheating in students. Perceptions of likelihood were highest among students who speak a language other than English at home. Perceptions of likelihood were also higher among students who reported there to be lots of opportunities to cheat, and amongst students who were dissatisfied with the teaching and learning environment. Perceptions of likelihood for certain assessment types were also higher in commerce and engineering than in any other discipline. Overall, four assessment types were perceived by students to be the least likely to be outsourced, however these are also the least likely to be set by educators. The analysis indicates that educators are more likely to use these assessment tasks when they report positively on organisational support for teaching and learning.     

Higher Education Student Engagement Scale (HESES): Development and Psychometric Evidence

Research in Higher Education - This study describes the development and validation of the Higher Education Student Engagement Scale (HESES). The psychometric evaluations of the scale included: (i)...     

Schools,student health and family welfare: Exploring teachers’ work as boundary spanners

Young people's health and welfare is an enduring, and sometimes contested, underpinning rationale for compulsory schooling. However, a contemporary culture of austerity and accountability has challenged the capacity of schools to address health-related agendas. This article reports on how four Australian teachers negotiate the network of partnerships within and beyond the school when attempting to solve their students’ particular health and welfare needs. Drawing on interview data collected as part of a larger government-funded project, we reveal the labour-intensive, typically risky and often emotionally charged nature of this work. To better understand this ‘health work’ we drew on the idea of ‘teacher as boundary spanner’ to get a clearer sense of the type of work undertaken within an education sector that operates under the conditions of what Fraser calls progressive neoliberalism. We conclude that there is a compelling need to better support those particular teachers who are, to all intents and purposes, human safety nets called upon to care for some of the most vulnerable children in our schools.     

Delayed Disaster Impacts on Academic Performance of Primary School Children

Social disruption caused by natural disasters often interrupts educational opportunities for children. However, little is known about children's learning in the following years. This study examined change in academic scores for children variably exposed to a major bushfire in Australia. Comparisons were made between children attending high, medium, and low disaster-affected primary schools 2–4 years after the disaster (n = 24,642; 9–12 years). The results showed that in reading and numeracy expected gains from Year 3 to Year 5 scores were reduced in schools with higher levels of bushfire impact. The findings highlight the extended period of academic impact and identify important opportunities for intervention in the education system to enable children to achieve their academic potential.     

Using post‐visit action resources to support family conservation learning following a wildlife tourism experience

Wildlife tourism experiences are often promoted for their ability to enhance visitors’ conservation knowledge, attitudes and behaviour; yet, studies exploring the long‐term influence of such experiences are rare. This research explores the impact of a wildlife tourism experience and post‐visit support on families’ adoption of conservation practices following their visit. In Stage 1, barriers and benefits associated with six conservation practices were identified and incorporated into the design of post‐visit action resources. Two hundred Australian families visiting Mon Repos turtle rookery in Queensland, Australia, were assigned to either a treatment group (given post‐visit support) or a control group (no support). Three months after their visit, families in the treatment group were significantly more likely to report changes in their conservation knowledge; their attitudes towards protecting wildlife and the natural environment; and the frequency with which they picked up litter. Treatment families also adopted significantly more conservation practices than the control group. Implications for wildlife interpretive practice and visitor management at wildlife tourism sites are discussed.     

Campus commons: Transformed by disappointment

Karen E. Hall shares how weathering her own personal storms has helped her to guide her students to the learning opportunities inherent in their challenges.     

High School Internships: Utilizing a Community Cultural Wealth Framework to Support Career Preparation and College-Going Among Low-Income Students of Color

This article investigates the experience of 229 low-income students of color who participated in an innovative high school internship program between 2011 and 2015. Using mixed methods (interviews, observations, and survey), the authors aim to understand the types of knowledge, information, and supports these students develop and expand in relation to careers and the college-going process. The authors draw on students' community cultural wealth to highlight the way the internship program supports students' aspirational, navigational, linguistic, resistant, and social capital.     

One Screen,Many Fingers: Young Children's Collaborative Literacy Play With Digital Puppetry Apps and Touchscreen Technologies

This article examines the digital literacy practices that emerge when young children play together with digital apps on touchscreen devices. Children's collaborative composing with a digital puppetry app on a touchscreen—with many hands all busy dragging, resizing, and animating puppet characters, and many voices making sound effects, narrating, directing, and objecting—appears aimless, chaotic, and in sharp contrast to the orderly matching activities in prevalent letter and word recognition apps that dominate early childhood educational software. The crowded collaboration around a single touchscreen looks messy but produces a complex text built with (a) touches, swipes, and other embodied actions that make up digital literacy practices; (b) sensory or multimodal layers of colorful images, dialogue, sound effects, and movement that make up animated stories; and (c) negotiation and pooling of children's individual story ideas for shared pretense that make up playful collaboration—all contained on a 9.7 inch screen.