Investigating the Stress Levels of Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary Pre-service Teachers during Teaching Practicum

This study investigated stress levels of pre-service teachers (PSTs) across three categories of teaching context: early childhood, primary and secondary. This paper focused on exploring the stressors in the completion of tasks in teaching practicum in the three categories of teaching context and an awareness of and access to support systems. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and an online questionnaire were used to measure the nature and level of stress. Significant results were found in relation to the school climate and the stress levels of PSTs across the three different teaching contexts. These findings have implications in terms of understanding different PSTsí stress levels across the three teaching contexts and ways they could be supported to reduce their stress level and achieve better study outcomes

Comparing Stress Levels of Graduate and Undergraduate Pre-Service Teachers Following Their Teaching Practicums

In comparison to undergraduate pre-service teachers (PSTs), graduate PSTs have previously completed a three-year bachelor degree and are enrolled in initial teacher education (ITE) programs to become a teacher. Following a review of literature on teachers’ sense of stress, reflection and identity development, this study compared the stress levels and concerns of graduate PSTs with those of undergraduate PSTs. One hundred and fifty-one graduate and one hundred and fifty-nine undergraduate PSTs participated in this study. The graduate PSTs had significantly higher stress levels than undergraduate PSTs (p \u3c .01). Contributing stressors from both groups’ own demographic background and teaching practicum perspectives were investigated and compared. These findings provide an empirical basis from which to develop appropriate strategies to support both groups of PSTs to manage their stress, develop their identity and personal beliefs and increase their retention in teacher education programs

Gender and Stress levels among Pre-Service Teachers

This study used gender-sensitive research to investigate stress levels and stressors among pre-service teachers. The differences and similarities in stress levels between male and female pre-service teachers were studied. There were five significant findings: 1) both male and female pre-service teachers had high-stress levels; 2) male pre-service teachers had higher stress levels than females; 3) male pre-service teachers\u27 stress has a strong relationship with their ages, while it was not for female pre-service teachers; 4) male pre-service teachers preferred to undertake their placement and commence their teaching career in middle or higher year level sectors, while female students preferred to teach in middle or lower year level sectors; and 5) while male and female students had similar knowledge about available support, their expectations of support were different. These findings can inform future gender-appropriate support mechanisms for pre-service teachers, leading to better retention in their studies and future career

Adapting specifications for reactive controllers

For systems to respond to scenarios that were unforeseen at design time, they must be capable of safely adapting, at runtime, the assumptions they make about the environment, the goals they are expected to achieve, and the strategy that guarantees the goals are fulfilled if the assumptions hold. Such adaptation often involves the system degrading its functionality, by weakening its environment assumptions and/or the goals it aims to meet, ideally in a graceful manner. However, finding weaker assumptions that account for the unanticipated behaviour and of goals that are achievable in the new environment in a systematic and safe way remains an open challenge. In this paper, we propose a novel framework that supports assumption and, if necessary, goal degradation to allow systems to cope with runtime assumption violations. The framework, which integrates into the MORPH reference architecture, combines symbolic learning and reactive synthesis to compute implementable controllers that may be deployed safely. We describe and implement an algorithm that illustrates the working of this framework. We further demonstrate in our evaluation its effectiveness and applicability to a series of benchmarks from the literature. The results show that the algorithm successfully learns realizable specifications that accommodate previously violating environment behaviour in almost all cases. Exceptions are discussed in the evaluation

Scoping current and future genetic tools, their limitations and their applications for wild fisheries management

The overarching goal of this project was to prepare a document that summarises past, present and emerging ways in which research using genetic technology can assist the Australian fishing industry to maintain productive and sustainable harvests. The project achieved the following specific objectives: 1. Documented existing and prospective biotechnologies and genetic analysis tools that are relevant to wild fisheries management, and their availability and application at a national and international level; 2. Documented the FRDC’s past and current investment in biotechnology and genetic tools used in wild fisheries management research; 3. Documented the different biotechnology and genetic tools that are being used in wild fisheries management research in Australia, and the nature and location of key research groups; 4. Described what management question each tool has been used for (e.g. stock structure, biomass estimation, product provenance, disease monitoring); 5. Identified those tools and approaches (existing and future) most likely to deliver significant advances in fisheries management; 6. Identified the potential for collaborations which could improve the focus and impact of work in this area

Torres Strait Finfish Fishery: Spanish Mackerel stock assessment, with data to June 2021. Year one report.

Spanish mackerel, Scomberomorus commerson, sustain an important finfish line fishery within the Torres Strait and are managed as a single stock. In these waters the species have been recorded to live for up to 13 years, weigh in excess of 20 kg and mature from two years of age. The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) commissioned annual updates to the Torres Strait Spanish mackerel stock assessment for three years 2021–2023. This was to monitor biomass estimates that were close to the 20 percent limit reference point for declaring an overfished stock. Across analyses of different fish natural mortality and harvest, the median estimated spawning biomass of Spanish mackerel in 2020 was 29 percent of unfished estimates at the start of the fishery in 1940. The low biomass result was due to the high harvests between 1980 and 2006 and the downturn in Spanish mackerel catch rates 2010–2019. The 2022–2023 recommended biological catch (RBC) of Spanish mackerel for all fishing sectors in the Torres Strait was 95 t based on the median forecast estimate (Table 1). This RBC was forecast to build Spanish mackerel towards a target biomass of 48% within 12 years, and have less than 10% risk of reducing to the 20% biomass limit reference point. The assessment work also initiated the first comparison of the packaged stock assessment software stock synthesis (SS), which was used for assessing Australian east coast and Gulf of Carpentaria Spanish mackerel. The SS estimate of spawning biomass ratio in 2020 was similar compared against the current model developed by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and reported herein. SS performance and results will be further tested in years two and three of this AFMA project, noting that future provision of a streamlined stock assessment is to transition to stock synthesis after TSFFRAG review

Torres Strait Finfish Fishery: Spanish Mackerel stock assessment, with data to June 2021. Year one report.

Spanish mackerel, Scomberomorus commerson, sustain an important finfish line fishery within the Torres Strait and are managed as a single stock. In these waters the species have been recorded to live for up to 13 years, weigh in excess of 20 kg and mature from two years of age. The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) commissioned annual updates to the Torres Strait Spanish mackerel stock assessment for three years 2021–2023. This was to monitor biomass estimates that were close to the 20 percent limit reference point for declaring an overfished stock. Across analyses of different fish natural mortality and harvest, the median estimated spawning biomass of Spanish mackerel in 2020 was 29 percent of unfished estimates at the start of the fishery in 1940. The low biomass result was due to the high harvests between 1980 and 2006 and the downturn in Spanish mackerel catch rates 2010–2019. The 2022–2023 recommended biological catch (RBC) of Spanish mackerel for all fishing sectors in the Torres Strait was 95 t based on the median forecast estimate (Table 1). This RBC was forecast to build Spanish mackerel towards a target biomass of 48% within 12 years, and have less than 10% risk of reducing to the 20% biomass limit reference point. The assessment work also initiated the first comparison of the packaged stock assessment software stock synthesis (SS), which was used for assessing Australian east coast and Gulf of Carpentaria Spanish mackerel. The SS estimate of spawning biomass ratio in 2020 was similar compared against the current model developed by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and reported herein. SS performance and results will be further tested in years two and three of this AFMA project, noting that future provision of a streamlined stock assessment is to transition to stock synthesis after TSFFRAG review

Sustaining productivity of tropical red snappers using new monitoring and reference points

OBJECTIVES: 1. Analyse current monitoring and logbook data sets, as well as survey and other information,to establish whether these data provide sufficient power to develop critical indicators of fishery performance. 2. Provide a risk analysis that examines the use of age structure and catch rate information for development of critical indicators, and response rules for those criteria, in the absence of other fishery information. 3. Develop a monitoring program that uses commercial vessels from the fishery to provide independent data