New Zealand Maori Stories and Symbols: Family Value Lessons for Western Counsellors

Maori stories and symbols offer Westerns counselors a rich heritageof wisdom. This article provides a summary of key Maori mythologyand worldview highlighting the profound significance of sacredgeography—manifested in the marae (meeting ground) andthe wharenui (meeting house)—and family (whenau) imbedded in genealogy (whakapa). The authors then considerrelated significance for contemporary Maori, offer questions andapplications for western counsellors, and acknowledge essentialconsultation from a Maori staff advisor (te kaiurungi).     

A review of ontology based query expansion

This paper examines the meaning of context in relation to ontology based query expansion and contains a review of query expansion approaches. The various query expansion approaches include relevance feedback, corpus dependent knowledge models and corpus independent knowledge models. Case studies detailing query expansion using domain-specific and domain-independent ontologies are also included. The penultimate section attempts to synthesise the information obtained from the review and provide success factors in using an ontology for query expansion. Finally the area of further research in applying context from an ontology to query expansion within a newswire domain is described.     

Women professors and the academic housework trap

Women constitute just over one fifth of full professors in UK higher education and whilst work has emerged in recent years on professors as leaders, there has been comparatively little research about how this under-represented cadre define and practise their role as intellectual leaders. This paper seeks to analyse how women see their role as full professors through autobiographical accounts of their intellectual and career histories via interviews with women professors, and a small comparison group of male professors. A range of freedoms and responsibilities connected with the professorial role are identified along with personal qualities considered central to success. Both female and male professors understand their role principally in terms of research leadership, but women are more likely to emphasise the importance of academic citizenship, especially mentoring, compared to their male counterparts, an obligation that weighs especially heavily on women working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas. While these findings are indicative of the continuing effect of so-called ‘academic housework’ in holding back the academic careers of women, they are also a positive indicator of a commitment to an all-round role as an intellectual leader.     

Dualisms in Higher Education: a Critique of Their Influence and Effect

Dualisms pervade the language of higher education research providing an over‐simplified roadmap to the field. However, the lazy logic of their popular appeal supports the perpetuation of erroneous and often outdated assumptions about the nature of modern higher education. This paper explores nine commonly occurring dualisms: collegiality/managerialism, student‐centred/teacher‐centred, deep learning/surface learning, academics/non‐academics; research/teaching, old universities/new universities, liberal/vocational, public universities/private universities and higher education/further education. Illustrated by reference to a range of international contexts, it is argued that over‐reliance on dualisms among higher education scholars has adverse effects including narrowing the possibilities of research design and inhibiting intellectual advancement within the field.     

The Disengaged Academic: the Retreat from Citizenship

Citizenship education has developed against the backdrop of civic disengagement. However, as attention has focused on the incorporation of citizenship education into the school curriculum, the responsibilities of citizenship incumbent on the academic community within higher education has been largely overlooked. This paper examines the reasons for the apparent decline of academic citizenship through an analysis of three elements of citizenship. It argues that the erosion of academic self‐governance has led to the decline of political literacy in academic life and that a range of other forces, including under‐funded massification and research audit, have damaged social and moral responsibility and the responsibilities implied by community involvement. It is concluded that adjustments to reward and recognition structures and professorial leadership are vital if the academic is not to become increasingly disengaged from the service role.     

Validation of the swimming competence questionnaire for children

ABSTRACT

Two studies were employed to test the reliability and validity of the Swimming Competence Questionnaire (SCQ) among primary school children. Study 1 was a cross-sectional survey in 4959 primary school children. Study 2 was a pre-post-test quasi-experiment among 1609 primary school children who underwent a 20-lesson learn-to-swim programme. In Study 1, exploratory structural equation modelling revealed excellent goodness-of-fit and scale reliability for a two-factor model comprising distance and skill factors, which supported the construct and convergent validity. SCQ scores were significantly and positively correlated with swimming outcomes (i.e., self-efficacy, intention, swimming frequency), which supported SCQ’s concurrent and criterion validity. Average variance extracted for the SCQ factors exceeded cut-off criteria supporting discriminant validity. In Study 2, pre-test SCQ scores correlated significantly and positively with the SCQ scores, self-efficacy, intention, and swimming frequency at post-test, which supported SCQ’s test-retest reliability and predictive validity. Positive intraclass correlation between SCQ scores and coach ratings at post-test provided evidence for SCQ’s inter-rater reliability. SCQ scores significantly improved at post-test, which supported SCQ’s ecological validity. In conclusion, findings indicate that the SCQ is a valid and reliable measure to assess primary school children’s swimming competence, in terms of swimming distance and basic water survival skills.     

A qualitative synthesis of video feedback in higher education

While written and audio feedback have been well-examined by researchers, video feedback has received less attention. This review establishes the current state of research into video feedback encompassing three formats: talking head, screencast and combination screencast. Existing research shows that video feedback has a high level of acceptability amongst both staff and students and may help strengthen student-marker relationships; however, the impact of video feedback on student learning outcomes is yet to be determined. In addition, current evidence is drawn largely from small-scale studies and self-reported data susceptible to the novelty effect. While video feedback appears to be a promising alternative to traditional written feedback for its relative relational richness, the medium continues to be primarily used for information transmission rather than dialogue. Further research is needed to establish how the medium of video influences the feedback process, its potential to facilitate dialogue and its effects on student learning.     

A better start to literacy learning: findings from a teacher-implemented intervention in children’s first year at school

Reading and Writing - This study investigated the feasibility of a teacher implemented intervention to accelerate phonological awareness, letter, and vocabulary knowledge in 141 children (mean age...     

Looking to the future: producing transdisciplinary professionals for leadership in early childhood settings

This paper reports on an Australian initiative Developing and Sustaining Pedagogical Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care Professionals, where academics and professionals shared knowledge, experience and research about transdisciplinary practice. The project aimed to develop an understanding of the strategies and skills early childhood professionals and practitioners required to strengthen pedagogical leadership when working in multi-agency organisations. The conceptual framework underpinning the design, analysis and evaluation of the project was bricolage. Bricolage enabled the researchers, professionals and practitioners and other organisational members to consider the principles of multiplicity, complexity, relationality and criticality. The use of bricolage created an opportunity for a more comprehensive level of analysis to occur. A model of professional development emerged from the analysis of the data and was subsequently used to develop an open source learning website.