End of an era: the collapse of the ‘buffer’ approach to the governance of Australian tertiary education

For almost thirty years Australian tertiary education was administered by independent statutory commissions of one sort or another. They were based on the buffer principle of having an intermediate organisation between governments and institutions; a format that owed its origins to the British UGC model. The most recent of the commissions - the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission (CTEC) - was established in 1977 and made responsible for all sectors of post-secondary education. For the first eight years or so of its existence CTEC functioned as a relatively self-contained entity in the commonwealth bureaucratic arena and enjoyed a very high degree of authority over the development of the nation's colleges and universities. It earned an impressive reputation for stability, coherence and high standards in policy-making. During the mid-1980s, however, policies introduced by the newly elected Hawke Labor government to counter a rapidly deteriorating economic climate had a significant impact on tertiary education as a whole and on CTEC in particular. Under Labor, tertiary education came to be viewed as a vital infrastructure resource for industrial development. Federal government departments, which had previously taken little interest in tertiary education, became actively involved in the affairs of universities and colleges. This involvement eventually undermined the viability of CTEC's role. First, a variety of demands were imposed upon the Commission which it found impossible to meet. As a consequence it was depicted as unresponsive and incompetent. Second, a number of agencies developed new policy initiatives in the tertiary education sphere over which CTEC had no control. The outcome was a fragmented and confused policy environment. Third, initiatives introduced by departments provided fresh sources of external funds for institutions. The sudden availability of this finance created divisions within the tertiary education community which seriously compro-mised the Commission's planning procedures. By mid-1987 the combined influence of these developments had substantially attenuated CTEC's effectiveness as a policy-making body. At the end of 1987, as part of a wide-ranging series of reforms, the government decided to disband the Commission and transfer most of its functions to a newly created super department. The presiding minister now possesses direct control over the activities of universities and colleges. This situation amounts to a significant change in the style of policy formulation and implementation in Australian tertiary education.     

Show me the money! An empirical analysis of mentoring outcomes for women in academia

This paper discusses and comprehensively evaluates a mentoring scheme for junior female academics. The program aimed to address the under‐representation of women in senior positions by increasing participation in networks and improving women’s research performance. A multifaceted, longitudinal design, including a control group, was used to evaluate the success of mentoring in terms of the benefits for the women and for the university. The results indicate mentoring was very beneficial, showing that mentees were more likely to stay in the university, received more grant income and higher level of promotion, and had better perceptions of themselves as academics compared with non‐mentored female academics. This indicates that not only do women themselves benefit from mentoring but that universities can confidently implement well‐designed initiatives, knowing that they will receive a significant return on investment.     

ADHD Coaching With College Students: Exploring the Processes Involved in Motivation and Goal Completion

College students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often experience increased academic difficulties, which can negatively impact graduation rates, employment, self-esteem, and mental health. ADHD coaching assists students with ADHD to reduce such difficulties. The present study evaluated the processes involved in ADHD coaching by examining undergraduate and graduate level students (n = 23) who attended individualized ADHD coaching sessions for 8 weeks. Specifically, the study examined the types of goals established, the use of weekly objectives (tasks to be completed), barriers to task completion, the use of incentives and consequences to increase motivation, and the role of task enjoyment and therapeutic benefit on task completion. The most common goals involved time management and academic performance. Results showed a significant effect for use of incentives/consequences on weekly task completion. Therapist-coach ratings were predictive of task completion, while client ratings were not. The primary barriers to task completion were lack of motivation and poor time management.     

Participation in education among older people

National random sample data on 4254 people in four adult age categories were analyzed with regard to enrollments in different kinds of education settings, enrollment motives, and barriers to enrollment. Further analysis compared participants to nonparticipants. Most adult enrollments were at the college or university level before age 40, in other settings thereafter, and instrumental motives were predominant across the lifespan. Lack of time and interest were major barriers to enrollment among older people, and those enrolled generally had higher prior educational attainments, were younger, and lived in urban or suburban locations.This research was supported in part by a grant from the Institute of Gerontology.     

Restructuring of mainstream sociometry with learning disabled and nonhandicapped students

Sociometric ratings assigned by and to 50 elementary school students with learning disabilities and 50 nonhandicapped elementary school students (in matched pairs) were compared in this study. In addition, traditional sociometric status applied to social impact and social preference was also examined. Results showed that the matched pairs did not differ significantly in assigned status to their peers, but differed significantly in acceptance and rejection received from their shared classmates. Students with learning disabilities and nonhandicapped students differed significantly in social preference, but not in social impact.     

说声"谢谢"就好

呵斥别人出于善意的良言,只会使我们自己的形象大打折扣。何不学着感恩?感恩的心,感谢有你,伴我一生。     

Effects of ICT: Do we know what we should know?

Many decades after the introduction of ICT into classrooms there are still unanswered questions about the impact of technology in the long and short term on students’ learning, and how it has affected simple and complex learning tasks. These are important for (a) forming government policies; (b) directing teacher education programmes: (c) advancing national curricula; (d); designing or reforming classroom implementation and (e) analysing costs and benefits. While a plethora of studies has been conducted on the effects of ICT in education, major policy and methodological problems have precluded an unambiguous answer to such questions as:—“Does the way in which ICT is implemented have a major/minor impact on students’ knowledge and understanding?” and “Does the impact affect the surface or deep structure of students’ thinking and acting?” To date we have had no large-scale longitudinal studies of ICT’s impact in education such as we have in the form of studies of earlier major curriculum development projects. Nor have we had many comprehensive studies of the complex interactions between various types of ICT implementation and the effects of other factors such as school-based interventions, socio-economic status and school expenditures which have been shown to have a greater impact on education compared with other previous innovations in education. Furthermore we do not know if previous research studies have used research methods that matched learning objectives to instruments/procedures. Many previous studies are vague as to the actual measures used but we can infer that standardized tests were a frequent measure. In other instances, ad hoc analyses, with criteria that may have varied from analyst to analyst and were not “blind” analyses were certainly used to measure “success.” All of these limitations and uncertainties and many more point to the need for a thorough, rigorous, and multifaceted approach to analysing the impact of ICT on students’ learning. This paper draws on previous research evidence to identify relevant research strategies to address the gaps in our knowledge about ICT and students’ learning explained above.     

Measuring the value and impact of health library and information services: past reflections, future possibilities

Objectives: To summarize the context, history and results of research studies conducted on the value and impact of health library and information services by the author since 1975 and to use this as a basis for examining ongoing developments related to evaluation research. To provide a comprehensive bibliography of library value and impact studies. Methods: Literature review and background based on personal involvement in the studies under discussion. Results: The author's studies demonstrate an ongoing evolution of value and impact studies since the mid‐1970s. In health sciences libraries, the approach taken to measuring value and impact has been strongly influenced by the type of research being conducted in the health sciences field as a whole. As a result, health sciences library researchers have become early adopters of methods that incorporate outcome and impact measures and rigorous research designs, and the concept of evidence‐based library and information practice. The paper recommends that a range of research approaches from various disciplines be used to guide future evaluation research. Conclusions: Value and impact studies will continue to be important resources for evidence‐based practice as health information professionals deal with evolving user needs and new ways of delivering information to a variety of audiences.     

Hope,Friends, and Subjective Well‐Being: A Social Network Approach to Peer Group Contextual Effects

Research on adolescence has previously shown that factors like depression and burnout are influenced by friendship groups. Little research, however, has considered whether similar effects are present for variables such as hope and subjective well‐being. Furthermore, there is no research that considers whether the degree of hope of an adolescent's friends is associated with well‐being over the individual's level of hope. Data were collected in 2012 from a sample of 15‐year‐olds (N = 1,972; 62% Caucasian; 46% identified as Catholic; 25% had professional parents) from the East Coast of Australia. Findings suggest that individuals from the same friendship group were somewhat similar in hope and well‐being. Multilevel structural equation modeling indicated that friendship group hope was significantly related to psychological and social well‐being.