National Career Development Association (NCDA) is excited to release the re-imagined 7th edition of their influential guide to career assessment. Re-conceptualized and renamed to "A Comprehensive Guide to Career Assessment," the "Guide" contains important information career counselors, educators, and practitioners will find…

Support for reflective practice (Dewey, 1910; Schon, 1983) as a way of reviewing, articulating and informing practice, is well-established within teacher education and research, though there is still much to learn from the individual experience of the practitioner who grapples with the reflective process. This paper highlights the deliberations of…

This issue of the Australian Early Childhood Association Research in Practice Series provides staff management strategies for directors and others involved with the management of early childhood settings and suggests ways to effectively delegate authority and tasks in order to reduce administrative pressures and workload. The booklet presents…

Thirteen papers and a speech address the theme of who makes education policy in Australia. Kwong Lee Dow's address assesses national planning in uncertain times and urges flexibility. John Steinle outlines the operation of Australian policy-making and recommends developing think tanks. Edward Holdaway analyzes the complex relationship between…

Outlines the study of a curriculum development project, analyzing the decision-making processes involved in each phase and raising questions about the general process of curriculum development. (MD)

The content theories of motivation yielded four criteria by which alternative promotion structures in New South Wales (Australia) high schools could be evaluated. Although the existing promotion system failed to satisfy any of these criteria, the three alternatives present certain weaknesses or obstacles preventing their implementation. Includes…

The administration of the Department of Education in Victoria (Australia) went through many organizational structural changes in the period 1970-1986. This paper describes the sequence of these changes, identifies the persons and more general social forces behind them, and details their major effects on various levels of the educational system.…

Discusses the decentralization of educational administration in Victoria. Examines the change from central to local selection of principals as a possible example of more democratic structures where greater collaboration and participation have been incorporated into the decision-making process. (53 references) (MLF)

Leadership was the primary issue when the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences (Victoria, Australia) introduced academic governance regulations in 1978. The issue resurfaced in 1982, prompting a regulations review. This paper analyzes review findings and relates them to contemporary theory viewing leadership as a relationship between leaders and…

Explores some legal issues and principles relevant to university administrators' decision-making processes, focusing on three areas: discretion (i.e., level at which a decision is made); procedural fairness (when it is required, what it applies to, rules, and biases); and review of decisions. Emphasis is on the Australian context. (MSE)

A study compared China with the United States, Canada, Australia, and Austria on two aspects of college planning: planning capability consisting of human factors (commitment, participation, coordination) and technology; and planning capacity consisting of system openness and options, decision making, planning authority, and other administrative…

Australian higher education institutions must recognize the areas in which responsibility for decision making rests with collegiality and where it rests with faculty unions. Both have valid roles within the university community, but they should not overlap. Salary decisions should also be decentralized to preserve institutional autonomy and…

Budgeting and resource allocation systems that work for one institution may not work well for another. Each institution's procedures should meet its specific requirements and characteristics, even when that means adapting or drawing on other systems. (MSE)

Using 1990 survey data on New South Wales (Australia) universities, this study examined women's location and status within the organizational hierarchy. Results are reported and some issues surrounding women's relative absence in central decision-making management positions are explored. Discussion is set within the context of feminist research on…

An experimental program at the University of Woollongong (Australia) identified a quality management framework, developed indicators of institutional performance, created a database for user-defined information needs, and provided access to information at all institutional levels. The project explored use of performance indicators and demonstrated…