Australian teachers and the learning environment: an analysis of teacher response to TALIS 2013

Abstract: The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the first international survey programme to focus on the learning environment and the working conditions of teachers in schools. The overarching aim of TALIS is to provide robust, policy relevant indicators and analysis on teachers and the learning environment for an international audience. It aims to provide an opportunity to examine best practice in education systems around the world, to allow countries to identify other education systems facing similar challenges to their own and to learn from other policy approaches. TALIS provides internationally comparable information in the areas of teacher demographic characteristics, school leadership, teacher professional development, systems of feedback and appraisals for the teaching workforce, school effectiveness, and teacher practices and beliefs. As was the case for the 2008 cycle of TALIS, the Department of Education (formerly DEEWR) again commissioned the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) to oversee and conduct the implementation of TALIS 2013 in Australia. In Australia, over 2000 teachers and 149 principals in 149 schools comprised the ISCED 2 sample. In the Australian context, ISCED 2 teachers are defined as teachers of students in lower secondary education or, more specifically, teachers of students in Years 7, 8, 9 or 10

Patients' attitudes to discontinuing not-indicated long-term antidepressant use:Barriers and facilitators

Contains fulltext : 208034.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Withdrawal of unnecessary antidepressant medication:a randomised controlled trial in primary care

Background: Antidepressant use has increased exponentially in recent decades, mostly due to long continuation.Aim: To assess the effectiveness of a tailored recommendation to withdraw antidepressant treatment.Design &amp; setting: Randomised controlled trial in primary care (PANDA study) in the Netherlands.Method: Long-term antidepressant users (≥9 months) were selected from GPs prescription databases. Patients were diagnosed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Long-term users without indication for maintenance treatment (overtreatment) were selected. The intervention consisted of disclosure of the current psychiatric diagnosis combined with a tailored treatment recommendation. Patients were followed for 12 months.Results: The study included 146 participants from 45 family practices. Of the 70 patients in the intervention group, 34 (49%) did not comply with the advice to stop their antidepressant medication. Of the 36 (51%) patients who agreed to try, only 4 (6%) succeeded. These figures were consistent with the control group, where 6 (8%) of the 76 patients discontinued antidepressant use successfully. Patients who were recommended to discontinue their antidepressant medication reported a higher relapse rate than the control group (26% versus 13%, P = 0.05).Conclusion: Changing inappropriate long-term antidepressant use is difficult.</p

A Multicenter, Long-Term Study on Arrhythmias in Children with Ebstein Anomaly

To assess the prevalence, history, and treatment of arrhythmias, in particular preexcitation and Wolff–Parkinson–White (WPW) syndrome, in patients with Ebstein anomaly (EA) during childhood and adolescence, we performed a multicenter retrospective study of all consecutive live-born patients with EA, diagnosed, and followed by pediatric cardiologists between 1980 and 2005 in The Netherlands. During a follow-up after EA diagnosis of 13 years 3 months (range: 6 days to 28 years 2 months), 16 (17%) of the 93 pediatric EA patients exhibited rhythm disturbances. Nine patients showed arrhythmic events starting as of the neonatal period. Supraventricular tachycardia was noted in 11 patients. One patient died in the neonatal period due to intractable supraventricular tachycardia resulting in heart failure and one patient died at 5 weeks of age most probably due to an arrhythmic event. The 14 surviving patients all show preexcitation, albeit 4 of them intermittently, and all have a right-sided accessory pathway location. Nine patients underwent catheter ablation of an accessory pathway. Only four patients are currently on antiarrhythmic drugs. The 17% prevalence of rhythm disturbances in pediatric EA patients, most commonly supraventricular arrhythmias, is significantly lower than in adult EA patients. Life-threatening rhythm disturbances are not frequent early in life. Symptomatic patients are well treated with radiofrequency catheter ablation

Australian teachers and the learning environment : an analysis of teacher response to TALIS 2008 : final report

The Department of Education, Science and Training commissioned the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) to undertake the Australian component of the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). TALIS is one of the first international surveys to focus on the learning environment and the working conditions of teachers in schools. TALIS was conducted in 24 OECD and OECD-partner countries in 2007 and 2008, though internationally comparable results were reported for only 23 countries due to requisite sampling standards for publication. This first survey is part of a planned programme of surveys which will examine various levels of schooling over time and provide participating countries with an opportunity to measure various policy issues associated with teaching and learning management. This report provides detailed analyses of teachers’ self-reported practices, activities, beliefs and attitudes; teacher appraisal systems; impacts of school policies on the teaching and learning environment; and pathways to effective school leadership

Australian teachers and the learning environment: An analysis of teacher response to TALIS 2013: Final Report

The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the first international survey programme to focus on the learning environment and the working conditions of teachers in schools. The overarching aim of TALIS is to provide robust, policy relevant indicators and analysis on teachers and the learning environment for an international audience. It aims to provide an opportunity to examine best practice in education systems around the world, to allow countries to identify other education systems facing similar challenges to their own and to learn from other policy approaches. TALIS provides internationally comparable information in the areas of teacher demographic characteristics, school leadership, teacher professional development, systems of feedback and appraisals for the teaching workforce, school effectiveness, and teacher practices and beliefs. As was the case for the 2008 cycle of TALIS, the Department of Education (formerly DEEWR) again commissioned the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) to oversee and conduct the implementation of TALIS 2013 in Australia. In Australia, over 2000 teachers and 149 principals in 149 schools comprised the ISCED 2 sample. In the Australian context, ISCED 2 teachers are defined as teachers of students in lower secondary education or, more specifically, teachers of students in Years 7, 8, 9 or 10

ICT in the Teaching of Science and Mathematics in Year 8 in Australia: report from the IEA Second International Technology in Education Study (SITES) survey

The IEA Second International Technology in Education Study (SITES) is an international comparative research program studying the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in education. Its central focus is on understanding how ICT affects the way teaching and learning takes place in schools. In many educational systems there is a desire to use ICT to support changes in teaching and learning and policies have been implemented to promote the use of ICT by equipping schools with computers and network connections, training teachers in the use of ICT and providing digital resources. Although there is a growing body of research on the educational effects of ICT, much of it is based on intensive studies of small samples. SITES, however, surveyed large representative samples of schools using questionnaires with established psychometric properties so that variations within, and among, countries in the links between ICT and pedagogy could be investigated. The SITES project was conducted internationally in 22 countries during 2006 and then implemented in Australia as a comparison study in 2007