Fly-in / fly-out working arrangements: Employee perceptions of work and personal impacts

During the resources boom in Western Australia, the remoteness and nature of work contracts led to an increase in the use of fly-in fly-out (FIFO) working arrangements. The associated compressed work periods, alternating patterns of residence, and the harsh worksite living conditions were compensated for by high wages. The combination of these factors led to controversy around whether employees were committed to their employers (Walford, 2012), if their working arrangements conflicted with family arrangements, and the impact on their mental health (Education and Health Standing Committee, 2015). This thesis explored the impact of FIFO working arrangements on workers in each of these areas using correlations and path analyses. The resources boom (circa 2012) provided the opportunity to survey FIFO workers (n = 980; 75.6% male) across Australia by a cross-sectional online or paper survey. A convenience sample was recruited through multiple methods including social media, radio, and snowballing. Affective commitment and normative commitment were strongly predicted by perceptions of organisational support. Preference for a different roster had a small but significant impact on employees’ intent to leave their jobs. Employees’ preference for a different roster was positively associated with their perceptions of work-family conflict (WFC), which was also positively associated with poorer mental health outcomes. When work and personal factors were combined, preference for another roster was related to higher WFC and subsequently many organisational and individual outcomes, while high continuance commitment was related to poorer mental health outcomes. The implications of the findings of this thesis are that organisations should focus on enabling choice of roster as well as improving perceived support in order to increase affective commitment and reduce turnover intent and perceptions of WFC, which is likely to lead to better mental health outcomes for their employees

Reaching the end : an exploration of attachment and existential theory as a path to assist in the dying process

In this exploration I will utilize the theory of Attachment as well as Existential Theory to assist in expounding upon available paths to assist elderly individuals in their journey at the end of life. I will present an overview of the two selected theories of Attachment as well as Existential Theory and argue that such approaches honor the venerable end stage of life. A discussion pertaining to these two theories will shed light on the question of how a clinician can seek to improve the quality of life for an individual during the end of life process and therefore assist in the experience of a good death. The intent of this endeavor is to lend attention to a population that is often neglected as well as forgotten and additionally explore the phenomenon of death, which is also a typically ignored experience, and considered to be taboo within western society

Design for Relationship Break Ups:Curation of Digital Possessions

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.Individuals in a romantic relationship will typically have a substantial number of digital possessions associated with that relationship; sometimes even creating digital possessions connected to their relationship before meeting in real life. These digital possessions connect partners by contributing to their digital identities as ‘individuals in a relationship’; they are an important part of a digital connection between partners, and actively contribute to the maintenance of that connection. If a romantic relationship ends in a break up, separation, or divorce, the digital possessions that once connected partners in a positive way become responsible for maintaining a connection that no longer accurately reflects the ex-partners’ relationship status. The persistence of digital possessions means that until they are managed or curated in some way, those digital possessions will continue to connect ex-partners in a digital context. The tools and options available to ex-partners when it comes to managing and curating their digital possessions in the context of a relationship break up are limited, and often do not support the specific intent of the individual. In this doctoral thesis, I investigated the ways in which technology could support individuals in managing and curating their digital possessions associated with a past relationship, after that relationship has ended. Through four qualitative studies, this research (1) introduced and evaluated eight prototype grammars of action aimed at supporting individuals to manage and curate their digital possessions in the context of a break up; (2) presented a reproducible method for identifying design dimensions to guide the development of those grammars of action across different life transitions; (3) demonstrated an understanding of the ways in which individuals’ attitudes towards digital possessions may be ‘tainted’ after a break up; and (4) demonstrated the current technical limitations individuals are confronted with when curating and managing digital possessions post-break up

Australian birth fathers of adopted children : their perspectives, feelings, and experiences about the adoption of their child

This thesis investigates the relatively unexplored subject of the experiences of Australian men who have experienced their biological child being adopted. Further, it also examined their role, involvement, and inclusion in the adoption process, and how the adoption has impacted them long-term. The study also explored their relationships with the birth mother, the conception of their child, the pregnancy, coping before and after the birth and their participation, or lack thereof, in decision making related to the subsequent adoption of their child. The impact of later contact and reunions, and the subsequent relationship with their adopted child were investigated. Their responses to State and National Apologies for past Forced Adoption policies were also investigated. The study also provides theoretical concepts for understanding the issues linked to adoption and the relinquishment of a child. These concepts provide a holistic understanding of how different psychosocial factors influenced birth fathers’ lives, choices, and experiences. A mixed methodological approach utilizing a concurrent triangulation design was used to compare data from in-depth qualitative interviews and qualitative responses from completed surveys. An interpretivist model informed by a hermeneutic phenomenological approach enhanced the extraction and analysis of data to respond to the research questions. The findings highlight the long-term permanent impact of the adoption events on both the birth fathers and the adoptees. The lack of acknowledgement of their fatherhood on the birth certificate emerged as a significant issue of dissatisfaction. Their exclusion, invisibility and disenfranchisement compounded their often-negative experiences. Contact and reunion were identified as issues of importance and could help alleviate complicated grief and ambiguous loss. The difference between forced adoptions in the past and its ongoing effects, in contrast to the position of a minority of fathers who experienced a more open adoption, has implications for current adoption policy in Australia and around the world. This thesis contributes helpful insights to assist governments and policy makers in future adoption direction and practices

Designing personalised, authentic and collaborative learning with mobile devices: Confronting the challenges of remote teaching during a pandemic.

This article offers teachers a digital pedagogical framework, research-inspired and underpinned by socio-cultural theory, to guide the design of personalised, authentic and collaborative learning scenarios for students using mobile devices in remote learning settings during this pandemic. It provides a series of freely available online resources underpinned by our framework, including a mobile learning toolkit, a professional learning app, and robust, validated surveys for evaluating tasks. Finally, it presents a set of evidence-based principles for effective innovative teaching with mobile devices

Research-Informed Teaching in a Global Pandemic: "Opening up" Schools to Research

The teacher-research agenda has become a significant consideration for policy and professional development in a number of countries. Encouraging research-based teacher education programmes remains an important goal, where teachers are able to effectively utilize educational research as part of their work in school settings and to reflect on and enhance their professional development. In the last decade, teacher research has grown in importance across the three i’s of the teacher learning continuum: initial, induction and in-service teacher education. This has been brought into even starker relief with the global spread of COVID-19, and the enforced and emergency, wholesale move to digital education. Now, perhaps more than ever, teachers need the perspective and support of research-led practice, particularly in how to effectively use Internet technologies to mediate and enhance learning, teaching and assessment online, and new blended modalities for education that must be physically distant. The aim of this paper is to present a number of professional development open educational systems which exist or are currently being developed to support teachers internationally, to engage with, use and do research. Exemplification of the opening up of research to schools and teachers is provided in the chapter through reference to the European Union-funded Erasmus + project, BRIST: Building Research Infrastructures for School Teachers. BRIST is developing technology to coordinate and support teacher-research at a European level

ポストコロニアル・台湾の「日本」表象：記憶と国家アイデンティティ

筑波大学 (University of Tsukuba)201

Return with Honor: An Investigation of the Reentry Experiences and Discourses of Returning Missionaries in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Reentry is one of the most difficult and important periods of a traveler’s journey – a time to reflect on and integrate new experiences, identities, and perspectives into life at home. This period is often bittersweet and marked by a host of challenges and symptomology. Religious language and practice may function to alleviate or exacerbate these routine reentry challenges, or introduce a host of new concerns. Situated in the nexus of religion and tourism, the purpose of this critical-constructive qualitative inquiry is to (a) investigate the experiences and discourses of returning missionaries in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and (b) explore how these experiences and discourses influence the well-being and religious commitments of emerging adults. Primary data were collected via interviews with fulltime missionaries (n = 16) who had returned to a southeastern stake of the Church between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2016. Additional data were collected from social media posts; archival membership data; news stories; Church sermons, periodicals, handbooks, curriculum, and multimedia; and scholarly literature crossing a range of disciplines. These additional data points were used to inform discourse analyses and contextualize responses. Review of the literature, coupled with results from multiple layers of analysis (i.e., Willson\u27s approach to narrative analysis, Braun and Clarke\u27s approach to thematic analysis, Gees\u27 building tasks of critical discourse analysis), provide evidence that religious and secular discourses influence reentry via multiple points across the missionary cycle (i.e., recruitment, training, departure, mission, and return) and subsequently alter or anchor their religious identity and commitments. Specifically, feelings of alienation, loss, interpersonal discontent, and anxiety may be a product of or worsened by discourses related to the Significance placed on the mission, the Practice of dating and marriage, Identification as a returned missionary, the Sign Systems that privilege returned missionary knowledge and contributions, the Politics that make priesthood advancement and temple marriage more likely realities for returned missionaries, and the Relationships and Connections sacrificed via the adoption of alternative social discourses that elevate individual autonomy and engage with anti-Mormon ideals. As Church leaders prepare missionaries for and help them respond to the challenges of reentry and the transition to adulthood, they may wish to more intentionally steer the discourse of reentry via Church sermons, trainings, and more proactive social and multimedia campaigns. Church leaders also need to balance organizational goals (i.e., retention) with individual needs (i.e., the well-being of emerging adults). More broadly, reentry scholars and practitioners may wish to look beyond outdated anthropological theories of cross-cultural adjustment (i.e., theory of reverse culture shock, cultural identity theory) to enrich understandings of reentry. For example, evidence from this study indicated that the theory of place attachment, social comparison theory, and human development scholarship may all help explain the challenges and opportunities associated with reentry

Crafting a Narrative Inheritance: An HCI Design Framework for Family Memory

This dissertation describes a research agenda for designing technologies to support and enhance intergenerational family memory. I employ an interpretivist, mixed methods approach combining ethnographic inquiry and research-through-design to understand the practices and values enacted in this context. These insights are linked to design through the concept of a narrative inheritance. Narrative inheritance frames family memory as a collective accomplishment among family members, both a negotiated process and a mediated product continually reconstructed across generations. To consider the implications of this negotiation and mediation for design, I include an analysis of three “wicked problems” facing those who seek to pass on family memories across generations: anticipating future audiences, curating large-scale collections, and negotiating dissonant values across many family members. The problems highlight the sociotechnical nature of family memory and values at work that influence design decisions and outcomes. This work includes three studies employing ethnographic methods to investigate cross-generational memory sharing practices, focusing especially on the crafting of family stories and the challenges of managing the mementos and heirlooms which mediate family memory. The concluding two studies employ design prototypes as generative artifacts to elucidate and work out the socio-technical values and tensions which become embedded in design for intergenerational family memory. The insights gained from the ethnographic and design work in this thesis will help designers better understand the accomplishment of family memory in light of complex “wicked” problems, leading to more nuanced and engaging designs for real-world use. The work presented in this dissertation makes the following contributions: 1) Identifies the practices enacted by families sharing memories with future generations, especially navigating mediation dilemmas, 2) Develops an understanding of how recipients of shared family memories respond to and interpret incompleteness (of narratives) and overabundance (of artifacts), 3) Explores the design space of collective, multi-lifespan systems for passing on a family’s “narrative inheritance” 4) Develops a design framework for technologies for a “narrative inheritance” that helps designers identify and navigates the multiple consonant and dissonant values of intergenerational family memory.PHDInformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140877/1/jazzij_1.pd