Objective: To explore young people's perceptions of pedometers and investigate behaviours exhibited while being monitored. Design: Qualitative design using six focus groups with participants (mean age 14.7 years). Setting: Study participants (n = 24) were randomly selected from a previous study of 123 young people aged 14-15 years from three…

This paper describes the support that Australian early career teachers are accessing through private groups within social media. It presents findings from 22 interviews with teachers who indicated that Facebook was a source of support. Participants describe using private online groups for: (a) support during casual employment; (b) accessing…

The way an improviser practices is a vital and significant aspect to a musician's means and capacities of expression. Expert music performers utilize extensive self-regulatory processes involving planning, strategic development, and systemized approaches to learning and reflective practice. Scholars posit that these processes are constructivist…

The James Cook University (JCU) Biomedical Science students struggle with their first year and "second-choice-syndrome" as evidenced by high inter-degree transfer rates and low primary degree completions despite the cohort having high subject or unit grade point averages. This project evaluated the impact of two extracurricular support…

This qualitative study reports on findings from interviews with ten academics in an Australian university six to twelve months following academic workforce reshaping and the widespread introduction of teaching academic roles. The research aimed to determine how the workforce reshaping impacted on the capacity of academics with teaching…

In chemistry curricula, both the role of the laboratory program and the method of assessment used are subject to scrutiny and debate. The ability to identify clearly defined competencies for the chemistry laboratory program is crucial, given the numerous other disciplines that rely on foundation-level chemistry knowledge and practical skills. In…

The diversity of student populations globally is increasing more rapidly than the diversity of the teaching workforce. Concerns are that beginning teachers are ill-prepared to meet the needs of the diversity of students in their classrooms. This lack of preparedness has been partially attributed to inadequate preparation within teacher education…

The ePortfolio presents itself as potentially a highly useful assessment tool for students, encouraging self-reflection and the development of both clinical skills and theoretical knowledge by students identifying strengths and gaps in knowledge. A survey of students after the completion the inaugural Emergency Health ePortfolio program revealed…

How can universities ensure that strategic aims to integrate research and teaching through engaging students in research-based experiences be effectively realised within institutions? This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative study exploring academics' perceptions of the challenges and barriers to implementing undergraduate research.…

Although there is no universal agreement that students should learn programming, many countries have reached a consensus on the need to expose K-12 students to Computational Thinking (CT). When, what and how to teach CT in schools are open questions and we attempt to address them by examining how well students around the world solved problems in…

Good critical thinking is important to the development of students and a valued skill in commercial markets and wider society. There has been much discussion regarding the definition of critical thinking and how it is best taught in higher education. This discussion has generally occurred between philosophers, cognitive psychologists and education…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present approaches effectively used by a large multi-campus Australian university to improve the research student experience as a direct result of their feedback. These approaches include: identifying trends in the research student experience and areas needing improvement through the Research Student…

Currently, team supervision in doctoral studies is widely practised across Australian universities. The interpretation of 'team' is broad and there is evidence of experimentation with supervisory models. This paper elaborates upon a taxonomy of team modes and power forms based on a recent qualitative study across universities in a number of states…

Preservice teachers graduate from an education system that shapes their mathematical understandings, beliefs and attitudes, and then re-enter that system to shape their own students' mathematical understandings, beliefs, and attitudes. Unfortunately, many of our future teachers have developed negative attitudes symptomatic of a self-perpetuating…

The concept of "advanced skills" for vocational education and training (VET) teachers is a little-debated topic in the discourse about quality in Australian VET, yet arguably what makes for a "good" VET teacher ought to be a prominent issue. There has however, been some sporadic interest in the topic with Mitchell, in…