Development of an innovative technology based youth passenger safety program - an evidence-based approach

Young drivers are overrepresented in motor vehicle crash rates, and their risk increases when carrying similar aged passengers. Graduated Driver Licensing strategies have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing fatalities among young drivers, however complementary approaches may further reduce crash rates. Previous studies conducted by the researchers have shown that there is considerable potential for a passenger focus in youth road safety interventions, particularly involving the encouragement of young passengers to intervene in their peers’ risky driving (Buckley, Chapman, Sheehan & Davidson, 2012). Additionally, this research has shown that technology-based applications may be a promising means of delivering passenger safety messages, particularly as young people are increasingly accessing web-based and mobile technologies. This research describes the participatory design process undertaken to develop a web-based road safety program, and involves feasibility testing of storyboards for a youth passenger safety application. Storyboards and framework web-based materials were initially developed for a passenger safety program, using the results of previous studies involving online and school-based surveys with young people. Focus groups were then conducted with 8 school staff and 30 senior school students at one public high school in the Australian Capital Territory. Young people were asked about the situations in which passengers may feel unsafe and potential strategies for intervening in their peers’ risky driving. Students were also shown the storyboards and framework web-based material and were asked to comment on design and content issues. Teachers were also shown the material and asked about their perceptions of program design and feasibility. The focus group data will be used as part of the participatory design process, in further developing the passenger safety program. This research describes an evidence-based approach to the development of a web-based application for youth passenger safety. The findings of this research and resulting technology will have important implications for the road safety education of senior high school students

Digital Youth in Digital Schools: Literacy, Learning, and all That Noise

Educational researchers, practitioners, and policymakers face increasing pressure to determine the role of new media in America\u27s schools. Despite widespread agreement that digital media are transforming how young people learn and communicate, little evidence exists that digital media have markedly changed how we do school. In the last decade, extensive research focused on increasing access to and integrating technology in schools, suggesting that digital media support new contexts for knowledge development. Yet little empirical research examined how adolescents actually engage digital media in their everyday lives in schools. In a two-year study in a Philadelphia public high school, I researched what it means for literacy learning when youth attend a digitally comprehensive school, and what happens when we shift our focus away from new media as discrete tools, and instead consider them as part of the social and cultural fabric of doing school. I followed and learned from tenth-graders in English and History classes taught by the same teacher. Through the theoretical frames of socio-cultural constructions of literacy, youth culture, and media ecologies, I examine three interrelated dimensions significant to adolescents\u27 experiences as students in what I call a new culture of literacy learning: (1) Noise, (2) Navigation, and (3) Negotiation. Noise refers to the intense, multilayered, and highly saturated nature of this context. Navigation represents the range of moves, tools, and roles that adolescents engaged to accomplish their intellectual work in these classrooms. Negotiation illustrates how adolescents leveraged digital media to participate with others. The findings can support the work of teachers to redesign classrooms that harness digital media to cultivate adolescents\u27 literacies and foster meaningful participation. This study raises questions for educators, researchers, and policymakers about how to assess literacies that are multimodal, fluid, and collaborative. My results also can contribute to conversations about designing new ways to study adolescents\u27 literacies within and across the dynamic contexts associated with digital media. Finally, this study suggests that we will need new theoretical frameworks to understand adolescents\u27 literacy work in schools

An historical survey of methods used in evaluating and selecting intermediate and secondary school reading materials

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1945. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Same in the Sea and Other Stories

This thesis is comprised of five novel chapters and two short stories that explore individuals’ interactions with their families and with the world around them. These interactions are not limited to physical interactions and verbal exchanges; they also include meditations on how the individual fits within the family and within the world at large. These stories also include interactions with the quirky, strange, and borderline fantastical as a way of displaying and relating to the individual’s feeling of personal strangeness by finding a similar strangeness in the outside world

Youth Bear Witness to Mentoring of the Black Church for College Readiness

This dissertation in practice examines the college readiness of five African American high school male students in urban schools in Pittsburgh, PA based on their participation in a middle school mentoring program sponsored by an urban Black church. Situated within Michael Dantley’s critical spirituality theory and critical race theory, the author analyzed youths’ counter-narrative experiences of being mentored for college readiness in the Black church. The students had informal conversations with the researcher using a grounded theory approach to the semi-structured interview format. Students found mentors to be relatable advocates to their lived experiences in schools. In addition, the mentoring program provided students motivation for future aspirations to attend college. Finally, faith inspired students for success in school; even as they continued to grow in understanding the fullness of what faith means for their lives

Alien Registration- Buckley, Mary Agnes (Rumford, Oxford County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/13500/thumbnail.jp

An Analyses of the Institution of the Catholic Church from the Perspective of New Institutional Economics and as a \u27Carrier of History\u27 (David, 1994) in the Handling and Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse, Given its Role as a Social Institution within Wider Irish Society

This paper analyses the institution of the Catholic Church from the perspective of new institutional economics and as a “carrier of history” (David, 1994). This paper surveys the relevant body of literature and applies it directly to the problem of the lack of reporting of and the improper handling of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, given its role as a social institution within wider Irish society

The Irish legislative gender quota: The first election

In 2012 legislative gender quotas were introduced as part of the Fine Gael/Labour coalition government’s political reform agenda. The legislation specifies that payments to political parties ‘shall be reduced by 50 per cent, unless at least 30 per cent of the candidates whose candidatures were authenticated by the qualified party at the preceding general election were women and at least 30 per cent were men’. The 30 per cent gender threshold came into effect at the 2016 general election. Research demonstrates that gender quotas work to increase women’s political descriptive representation, but to do so, political parties must engage with them in ‘goodwill’, be ‘well intentioned’ or place women in ‘winnable seats’. This article examines if this was the case at the 2016 general election. Using statistics, as well as drawing from interviews with party strategists, the article assesses the impact of gender quotas on women’s candidate selection and election. We conclude that parties did embrace the spirit of the gender quota law but resistance remains

Modelling the Marginal Abatement Cost of Mitigating Nitrogen Loss from Agricultural Land

working paperWith the deadline identified by the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) approaching in 2015 there is increasing pressure on policymakers to introduce new regulations to achieve water quality targets. Agriculture is one of the contributors of diffuse pollution entering watercourses and will come under pressure to reduce pollutant loads. This paper produces Marginal Abatement Cost (MAC) Curves for eight policy measures that could potentially reduce nitrate leaching from agricultural land on Irish dairy farms. These include: 1) reduction of fertiliser application by 10%; 2) reduction of fertiliser application by 20%; 3) livestock unit reduction to limit organic N to 170 kg ha-1; 4) reduction of livestock units by 20%; 5) change of feed mix to reduce cow dietary N intake; 6) fencing off watercourses to introduce a buffer zone; 7) improved dairy cow genetic merit by introducing higher performing dairy breeds; 8) more efficient slurry application. Results from this study indicate that there will be reductions in farm gross margins across nearly all policy measures. However, MAC and the ranking of MAC vary across individual farms and aggregate MAC does not reflect the heterogeneity of impacts across individual farms. This paper shows that any measure introduced in a “one size fits all command-control” fashion will not yield efficient economic results