Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Advertising, Branding, And Pediatric Nutrition, Bridget Kelly

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The factors contributing to overweight and obesity are multifaceted and include a combination of genetic, sociological, and environmental influences. Children's exposure to food marketing is recognized as one such factor contributing to the obesity-promoting environment.

Progressing Physical Geography, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Now and then certain commentators - usually established ones - venture opinion on the current health and prospects for physical geography (either in its own right, in relation to human geography, or relative to some other field of research). In this editorial I want to consider the way that normative arguments about the future of the field are phrased, seen within wider discussions about geography as a whole (its present challenges and future goals). The education of students, I suggest, has been marginalized in published debate despite providing perhaps the most viable of several possible means by which physical geography …

The Return Of Nature?, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Published under the auspices of the journal Theory, Culture & Society, Inhuman Nature is one of the most interesting monographs I have encountered in many years. The questions it raises and the answers it provides are not only relevant to all of human geography's sub-fields (including cultural geography) but to physical geography's component branches as well. This said, Nigel Clark's academic training lies outside geography, and his book's back-cover endorsements come from two sociologists (Myra Hird and Adrian Franklin). But it's not too hard to make direct connections between his plenary analysis of Anglophone social science, the humanities and the …

Editors' Introduction: Human Geography, Derek Gregory, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

When we were invited by Sage to identify published work in human geography that represents what is best and most distinctive about the field it seemed an impossible task (it still does) because there is such a rich volume of material to draw from. We decided to focus on Englishlanguage and to a lesser extent other European contributions, although we are acutely aware of the irony, even the imperialism, of limiting a field like human geography to knowledges rooted in only a fraction of the world. We discuss below the dangers of delimiting Geography as a European or Euro-American science, …

Early Start: Grand Designs For Learning, Ian Brown, Pauline Lysaght

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Paper presented at the London International Conference on Education, 19-22 November 2012, London, UK

Well-designed environments that stimulate intellectual curiosity, encourage social interaction and promote a sense of community, support effective learning across the education spectrum. This paper presents a case study of a multi-functional facility situated at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia that meets this design brief. 'Early Start' will transform teaching, research and community engagement in the higher education sector whilst offering unique learning opportunities to children, young people and their families. Importantly, it also has the potential for addressing social, educational and economic …

Strange Ecology, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Book review: STRANGE ECOLOGY Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2010; 160pp, £29.95 hardcover.

Now and again a book is written that messes with your head. Timothy Morton, Professor of Literature and Environment at the University of California (Davis), has fast made a name for himself as an out-of-the-box thinker.1 His Ecology without nature (2007) challenged readers to forget 'nature' - not, you understand, in the name of a brave new biotechnologised world in which capital entirely swallows-up the natural, but for another cause. The book attracted attention well beyond Morton's disciplinary home-base. In this 'prequel', …

A Framework For Policy Advocacy, Sheldon Gen, Amy Conley Wright

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The practice of policy advocacy has outpaced its theoretical development. Yet the importance of a theoretical grounding for advocacy has increased as advocacy organizations demand measures of efficacy, and theories of policy development need to account for advocates' contributions to the process. This article begins to address these issues by developing a conceptual framework of policy advocacy inputs, activities, and outcomes. Logic models of practitioners' advocacy programs were first synthesized into a general model. Then academic theories from social sciences and especially policy studies were reviewed and applied to hypothesize links between advocacy inputs and activities, and between activities and …

We Can’T Compete On Cheap And Nasty; Let’S Be A Country That Makes High-Quality, Lasting Things, Christopher Gibson

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

WHAT IS AUSTRALIA FOR? Australia is no longer small, remote or isolated. It’s time to ask What Is Australia For?, and to acknowledge the wealth of resources we have beyond mining. Over the next two weeks The Conversation, in conjunction with Griffith REVIEW, is publishing a series of provocations. Our authors are asking the big questions to encourage a robust national discussion about a new Australian identity that reflects our national, regional and global roles.

Does The Shape Of Countries Shape Their Destiny?, Christopher Gibson, Natascha Klocker

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Might the destiny of nations be controlled by the underlying shape of their geography? This is the subject of a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors – political scientists David Laitin, Joachim Moortgat and Amanda Robinson – calculated the area, size and longitude-to-latitude ratio of every country on Earth.

The Elephant In The Chat Room: Will International Students Stay At Home?, Thomas Birtchnell

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today, Wollongong University’s Thomas Birtchnell looks at what online education will mean for the international student market.

All Hail Jugaad? Understanding The Latest Management Fad From India, Thomas Birtchnell

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

What do India’s huge blackouts this month have to do with the latest fad for CEOs? Forget guanxi, the Chinese art of networking; forget the Japanese-inspired disciplinary regime, the Six Sigma way. The latest fad to hit the CEO conference circuit is the Indian notion of jugaad. Its supporters include, amongst others, Saatchi and Saatchi’s CEO Worldwide Kevin Roberts. Borrowing a term for the cobbled-together cars the rural poor drive, this new “Indian way” means throwing out all of the complex and costly organisational burdens that clog up smooth and seamless business: occupational health and safety and risk management just …

Four Visions, Three Dimensions: The Future Of 3d Printing, Thomas Birtchnell, John Urry

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Chances are you’ve heard about 3D printing – or additive manufacturing as it’s otherwise known: a process that turns computer-aided designs into three-dimensional, real-world objects with a range of uses, from a range of materials and on a range of scales. But you’ve probably heard little in terms of the social impact that 3D printing and its associated technologies will likely have. Those possible impacts are exactly what we’re investigating at Lancaster University and the University of Wollongong. We’ve identified four potential scenarios that could eventuate in a world that embraces 3D printing and, crucially, how those scenarios could affect …

Evaluation Of Gesture Based Interfaces For Medical Volume Visualization Tasks, Cam Kirmizibayrak, Nadezhda Radeva, Mike Wakid, John W. Philbeck, John Sibert, James Hahn

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Interactive systems are increasingly used in medical applications with the widespread availability of various imaging modalities. Gesture-based interfaces can be beneficial to interact with these kinds of systems in a variety of settings, as they can be easier to learn and can eliminate several shortcomings of traditional tactile systems, especially for surgical applications. We conducted two user studies that explore different gesture-based interfaces for interaction with volume visualizations. The first experiment focused on rotation tasks, where the performance of the gesture-based interface (using Microsoft Kinect) was compared to using the mouse. The second experiment studied localization of internal structures, comparing …

Correlates Of Children's Time-Specific Physical Activity: A Review Of The Literature, Rebecca M. Stanley, Kate Ridley, James Dollman

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Assessment of correlates of physical activity occurring at different times of the day, locations and contexts, is imperative to understanding children's physical activity behaviour. The purpose of this review was to identify the correlates of children's physical activity (aged 8-14 years) occurring during the school break time and after-school periods. A review was conducted of the peer-reviewed literature, published between 1990 and January 2011. A total of 22 studies (12 school break time studies, 10 after-school studies) were included in the review. Across the 22 studies, 17 studies were cross-sectional and five studies were interventions. In the school break time …

The Health And Development Of Children Born To Older Mothers In The United Kingdom: Observational Study Using Longitudinal Cohort Data, Alastair G. Sutcliffe, Jacqueline Barnes, Jay Belsky, Julian Gardiner, Edward Melhuish

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective To assess relations between children's health and development and maternal age. Design Observational study of longitudinal cohorts. Setting Millennium Cohort Study (a random sample of UK children) and the National Evaluation of Sure Start study (a random sample of children in deprived areas in England), 2001 to 2007. Participants 31 257 children at age 9 months, 24 781 children at age 3 years, and 22 504 at age 5 years. Main outcome measures Childhood unintentional injuries and hospital admissions (aged 9 months, 3 years, and 5 years), immunisations (aged 9 months and 3 years), body mass index, language development, …

Preschool Programs For The General Population, Edward Melhuish, Jacqueline Barnes

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

There are several small-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies in the United States documenting the benefits of curriculum-led experimental preschool programs and "pre-kindergarten" education for long-term educational, occupational and social outcomes for disadvantaged children. In addition a larger-scale quasi-experimental study in Chicago found similar benefits up to age 28 of sustained, publicly-funded early education to subsequent education, socio-economic status, health and crime for a disadvantaged population. Such programs are cost-effective with disadvantaged groups, at risk for poor outcomes, in that the savings outweigh any costs. Besides benefits for disadvantaged groups, there is strong evidence that preschool education, whether or not …

Developing Successful Diversionary Schemes For Youth From Remote Aboriginal Communities, Kate Senior, William Ivory, Richard D. Chenhall, Teresa Cunningham, Tricia Nagel, Robbie Lloyd, Rachel Mcmahon

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This report explores the experiences and aspirations of youth in Wadeye, a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory which has become synonymous with the deviant behaviours of its young people. The research was undertaken over a three year period, and builds upon a previous ten year period of community based research. As such it forms a unique longitudinal study of young people during a period of extreme change in their lives. The research applied a mixed methods approach, utilising ethnography, interviews and the application of a community wide survey. Although young community based people were the primary focus of …

Clinical Speech To Text: Evaluation Setting, Hanna Suominen, Jim Basilakis, Maree Johnson, Linda Dawson, Lief Hanlen, Barbara Kelly, Anthony Yeo, Paula Sanchez

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Failures in information flow from clinical handover are the leading cause of sentinel events in the USA and associated with nearly half of all ad-verse events and over a tenth of preventable adverse events in Australia. Verbal clinical handover provides a good picture of the background clinical history and current state of clinical management of a group of patients cared for by a nurs-ing team. However, all this valuable verbal information is lost after three con-secutive shifts if no notes are taken during handover. When traditional note-taking by hand occurs, less than a third of data is transferred correctly after …

Effect Of The Austenitising Heat Treatment On The Microstructure And Hardness Of Martensitic Stainless Steel Aisi 420, Lilian D. Barlow, Madeleine Du Toit

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

The effect of austenitizing on the microstructure and hardness of two martensitic stainless steels was examined with the aim of supplying heat-treatment guidelines to the user that will ensure a martensitic structure with minimal retained austenite, evenly dispersed carbides and a hardness of between 610 and 740 HV (Vickers hardness) after quenching and tempering. The steels examined during the course of this examination conform in composition to medium-carbon AISI 420 martensitic stainless steel, except for the addition of 0.13% vanadium and 0.62% molybdenum to one of the alloys. Steel samples were austenitized at temperatures between 1000 and 1200 C, followed …

Web 2.0 Adoption And User Characteristics, Jennifer Allyson Dooley, Sandra C. Jones, Donald C. Iverson

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

A literature review and online search were conducted to document the rate of Web 2.0 adoption and to profile user characteristics. Substantial increases over time in reach and growth of the Internet and Web 2.0 by geography, technology, and age were found. Usage of the Internet, blogging, wikis, video sharing, and social networking demonstrates initially high rates among teens and young adults; recent shifts suggest older age categories are now also using Web 2.0. Internet users engage in Web 2.0 for various reasons, such as to seek or create news, entertainment, and even health information. Findings illustrate the potential for …

Creative Unit And Lesson Planning Through A Thematic/Integrated Approach To Teaching Games For Understanding (Tgfu), Paul I. Webb, Philip J. Pearson

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) approach developed by Bunker and Thorpe (1982) involves a different approach to the traditional/technical model of teaching of games. The focus of the model is placing the student or athlete in a game situation where tactics, decision-making and problem solving is critical. The purpose of this paper is to explore a model for unit and lesson planning used for pre-service Physical and Health Education students at an Australian University as part of the movement studies subjects. These subjects included invasion, striking/ fielding, target and net/court games. This paper extends Webb and Pearson's (2008) previous …

Physical Activity During School Recess: A Systematic Review, Nicola D. Ridgers, Jo Salmon, Anne-Maree Parrish, Rebecca M. Stanley, Anthony D. Okely

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Context: Interest has increased in examining the physical activity levels of young people during school recess. Identifying correlates of their recess physical activity behaviors is timely, and would inform school-based physical activity programming and intervention development. The review examined the correlates of children's and adolescent's physical activity during school recess periods. Evidence acquisition: Asystematicsearchofsixelectronicdatabases,referencelists,andpersonal archives identified 53 studies (47 focused on children) published between January 1990 and April 2011 that met the inclusion criteria. Data were analyzed in 2011. Correlates were categorized using the social-ecological framework. Evidence synthesis: Forty-four variables were identified across the four levels of the social- ecological …

Preparing Action Competent Environmental Educators: How Hard Could It Be?, Wendy Nielsen, Peter Andersen, Amy Hurley, Vanessa Sabljak, Amy-Lee Petereit, Vanessa Hoskin, Garry Hoban

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This article describes an interpretive study that evaluated a new subject in teacher education called 'Education for Sustainable Development'. The study evaluated the subject for its ability to prepare pre-service teachers for their roles as environmental educators. We used perspectives in place-based pedagogy and critical thinking to underpin the subject design and our analysis. Data sources include instructor journals, planning documents, interviews with students and student thinking books. Interpretive analysis of the data corpus was a collaborative process that involved both subject instructors and students who took the subject. Themes that emerged from the research were centred around: (1) how …

The Effects Of Regular Long-Term Cannabis Use On Auditory Mismatch Negativity (Mmn), Lisa-Marie Greenwood, Samantha J. Broyd, Rodney J. Croft, Patricia T. Michie, Juanita Todd, Stuart J. Johnstone, Robyn Murray, Nadia Solowij

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the 3rd Biennial Schizophrenia International Research Conference Florence, Italy 14-18 April 2012

The Role Of School Counsellors In Fostering Giftedness: The Australian Experience., Wilma Vialle

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

An African proverb that resonates strongly with educators is that "it takes a whole village to raise a child". The proverb has been the inspiration for at least two books (Cowen-Fletcher 1994; Rodham Clinton, 1996) and countless t-shirt and greeting card designs, but, more importantly, its sentiment acknowledges the collective responsibility we bear for educating our children. Franz Monks has dedicated his long academic career to the field of gifted education and his wide-ranging contributions have epitomized this shared responsibility for ensuring that the gifts and talents of our young people are nurtured. Like many educators who have interacted with …

Breathlessness Is Not A Normal Part Of Aging: Development And Testing Of Asthma Awareness Messages For Older Australians, Sandra C. Jones, Uwana Evers, Donald C. Iverson, Peter Caputi, Sara Morgan, Michele Goldman

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

At least 420,000 Australian adults aged 55 years and over, or one in 10, currently have asthma (Australian Centre for Asthma Monitoring 2008). Asthma is under-diagnosed, often misdiagnosed, and undertreated in the older adult population in Australia (Gibson, McDonald and Marks 2010, Marks and Poulos 2005, Wilson et al 2001) as it is overseas. Contrary to the perception that asthma is a childhood disease, asthma can develop in older adults (Adams and Ruffin 2005). The risk of dying from asthma increases with age (AIHW 2010). While the overall mortality rate has decreased by almost 70% since 1989, much of this …

"I Hope This Can Be Shared With Everyone In Lots Of Schools": A Novel Intervention To Improve Social Skills Of Peers Of Children With Autism, Sandra Jones, Joanne Telenta, Fiona Mckay

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are lifelong developmental disabilities characterised by marked difficulties in social interaction, impaired communication, restricted and repetitive interests and behaviours, and sensory sensitivities (Aspect 2009). While there is considerable debate as to prevalence, Centrelink data shows an estimated prevalence of 62.5 per 10,000 for 6-12 year old children (McDermott et al. 2007). While young children find social situations aversive and prefer to play alone, as these children reach their teens many desire social contact with their peers but lack the ability to form and maintain friendships. Observations in schools demonstrate peer interaction in children with ASDs is …

It's Only Scary If It's About Me Or My Child: Different Responses To Emotional Appeals Targeting Asthma Awareness, Sandra C. Jones, Samantha L. Reis, Karen M. Larsen-Truong

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference, Adelaide, 3-5 Dec 2012

Training Self-Assessment And Task-Selection Skills: A Cognitive Approach To Improving Self-Regulated Learning, Danny Kostons, Tamara Van Gog, Fred Paas

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

For self-regulated learning to be effective, students need to be able to accurately assess their own performance on a learning task and use this assessment for the selection of a new learning task. Evidence suggests, however, that students have difficulties with accurate self-assessment and task selection, which may explain the poor learning outcomes often found with self-regulated learning. In experiment 1, the hypothesis was investigated and confirmed that observing a human model engaging in self-assessment, task selection, or both could be effective for secondary education students' (N=80) acquisition of self- assessment and task-selection skills. Experiment 2 investigated and confirmed the …

Implementation Of A Motivational Climate - Classroom Or Physical Education Teachers: Examination Of Preservice Teachers Ability To Implement A Motivational Climate Within Physical Education, Dana J. Perlman, Kim Mckeen

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences between preservice classroom and physical education teachers ability to implement a motivational climate. A total of 51 preservice teachers were enrolled in an elementary physical education methods course for (a) classroom teachers or (b) physical education specialists. Data were collected using a systematic observation instrument during their course field experience. Analysis of data utilized a one-way MANOVA with follow-up univariate ANOVAs to examine group differences. Results indicated that preservice physical education teachers were significantly more able to apply principles that developed a positive motivational climate.