Work-integrated learning has become an integral part of many undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, both in Australia and internationally. Such programs vary in structure, timeframe and discipline type, with concomitant amounts of support, assessment and evaluation. Their value to students, industry partners and higher education institutions,…

Student-staff ratios (SSRs) in higher education have a significant impact on teaching and learning and critical financial implications for organisations. While SSRs are often used as a currency for quality both externally for political reasons and internally within universities for resource allocations, there is a considerable amount of ambiguity…

Mastery of academic writing skills remains one of the greatest challenges for university students, especially in the first year. Amongst the reasons offered for the challenges are lack of clarity about the university's expectations and low levels of teacher feedback on work submitted, a failure to engage, and low levels of contact with teaching…

This study extends previous work of Cain Polidano and Kostas Mavromaras (2010) which showed that vocational education and training (VET) qualifications had a positive effect on the chances of finding work for people with a disability. It teases out this earlier result by looking at whether, for those who already have a disability, completing a VET…

In 2006 a new type of tutorial, called Map Meeting, was successfully trialled with novice first year physics students at the University of Sydney, Australia. Subsequently, in first semester 2007 a large-scale experiment was carried out with 262 students who were allocated either to the strongly scaffolding Map Meetings or to the less scaffolding…

The valuable social and economic contribution of financial counselors receives little public attention, as discourse related to consumer credit and debt invariably focuses on the impacts of consumer defaults for consumers and the broader community. Policy makers and organizations sustaining the work of financial counselors must ensure they care…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is one of a suite of strategies based on the premise that placing students at the centre of the learning process ultimately improves skills, knowledge and understanding. To date, however, there remain relatively few reports on the application of PBL within geography curricula. This paper traces the evolution of a PBL…

The aim of this report is to examine the potential use of information from the Student Outcomes Survey, including the use of student course satisfaction information and post-study outcomes, as a means of determining markers of training quality. In an analysis of the student course satisfaction measures, the authors found there are very small…

Field trips have long been central to geography, but have been subject to assessment of the role of the "field" in teaching. At the same time, academics face barriers to running field trips. Distance education and enhanced educational access for non-metropolitan students represented such an obstacle at an Australian university. These…

Background: This study aimed to explore the factors that predict functioning in families with a child with Down syndrome using a mixed methods design. The quantitative component examined the effect of maladaptive and autism-spectrum behaviours on the functioning of the family while the qualitative component explored the impact of having a child…

PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) was inaugurated in 2001 as a follow-up to International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's 1991 Reading Literacy Study. Conducted every five years, PIRLS assesses the reading achievement of young students in their fourth year of schooling--an important transition…

The 5th World Summit on Media for Children and Youth held in Karlstad, Sweden in June 2010 provided a unique media literacy experience for approximately thirty young people from diverse backgrounds through participation in the Global Youth Media Council. This article focuses on the Summit's aim to give young people a "voice" through…

The aim of the present study was to describe the characteristics of podcast users, compare uptake across courses, examine preferred modes of use and satisfaction, assess the impact of podcasts on lecture attendance, and evaluate reasons for use and non-use. Participants were 273 undergraduate students enrolled in six diverse courses at a large…

World Youth Day, a youth-focused Catholic celebration, is the largest recurring youth event in the world. The 10th International World Youth Day (WYD) was held from 15-20 July 2008, in Sydney, Australia and attenders participated in a week-long series of religious events and activities. Little research in English has been conducted on WYD…

Using data from national socio-economic panel surveys in Australia, Britain and Germany, this paper analyzes the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that, in all three countries, preferences and choices relating to life goals/values, partner's personality, hours of work, social participation…