The wheel has already been invented: Facilitating students' use of existing mechanics resources

Weve been teaching engineering mechanics to first year engineering students for a long time, yet at many engineering faculties around the world there are still significant failure rates⋯ Educators have tried many different approaches to address persistent high failure rates in first year engineering mechanics courses. These approaches often involve the development of new mechanics learning resources in a variety of styles depending on the perceived learning obstacle. As part of a project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council on addressing student learning diversity in engineering mechanics we have developed a framework for reviewing these existing learning resources. This framework has been used to create a database of references to resources, categorising them by attributes such as topics covered and depth of coverage, suitable student learning styles, appropriate learner levels, copyright and accessibility issues. While it is anticipated that academics will use the database to complement their normal subject delivery, it has been developed with student users as the main target audience. Student focus groups have shown that independent study can be ineffective, particularly after hours when assistance is unavailable. The aim of this database is to encourage students to be proactive in improving the quality of their learning by assisting them to select learning resources best suited to their needs, in both content and style of delivery. In this paper we describe the elements of the framework used to review engineering mechanics resources, the resultant database of resources, and the planned evaluation of its effectiveness in improving learning outcomes. The authors intend to demonstrate use of the database at the conference. © 2010 Goldfinch & Gardner

Shotgun Proteomics Identifies Serum Fibronectin as a Candidate Diagnostic Biomarker for Inclusion in Future Multiplex Tests for Ectopic Pregnancy

Ectopic pregnancy (EP) is difficult to diagnose early and accurately. Women often present at emergency departments in early pregnancy with a 'pregnancy of unknown location' (PUL), and diagnosis and exclusion of EP is challenging due to a lack of reliable biomarkers. The objective of this study was to identify novel diagnostic biomarkers for EP. Shotgun proteomics, incorporating combinatorial-ligand library pre-fractionation, was used to interrogate pooled sera (n = 40) from women undergoing surgery for EP, termination of viable intrauterine pregnancy and management of non-viable intrauterine pregnancy. Western blot was used to validate results in individual sera. ELISAs were developed to interrogate sera from women with PUL (n = 120). Sera were collected at time of first symptomatic presentation and categorized according to pregnancy outcome. The main outcome measures were differences between groups and area under the receiver operating curve (ROC). Proteomics identified six biomarker candidates. Western blot detected significant differences in levels of two of these candidates. ELISA of sera from second cohort revealed that these differences were only significant for one of these candidates, fibronectin. ROC analysis of ability of fibronectin to discriminate EP from other pregnancy outcomes suggested that fibronectin has diagnostic potential (ROC 0.6439; 95% CI 0.5090 to 0.7788; P>0.05), becoming significant when 'ambiguous' medically managed PUL excluded from analysis (ROC 0.6538; 95% CI 0.5158 to 0.7918; P<0.05). Fibronectin may make a useful adjunct to future multiplex EP diagnostic tests

Political Entrepreneurship in the Field of Māori Sovereignty in Aotearoa New Zealand

Individual actors have the potential to shape political outcomes through creative use of opportunities. Political entrepreneurship identifies how such actors recognise and exploit opportunities, for personal or collective gain. The existing literature focuses on individuals operating within institutional settings, with less attention paid to other types of actors. In this article, I argue for an expansion of the political entrepreneurship framework, by considering individuals in the electoral and protest arenas. An examination of the field of Māori sovereignty, or tino rangatiratanga, in Aotearoa New Zealand allows exploration of prominent actors’ innovative strategies and practices. The findings highlight the actors’ reliance on identity in mobilising support within the community, to press claims. Broadening the application of political entrepreneurship demonstrates the roles of social, cultural and political capital in influencing outcomes, by identifying opportunities available to individuals embedded in the community and according to the context of the arena

Sport policy convergence: a framework for analysis

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in European Sport Management Quarterly on 30th April 2012, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/16184742.2012.669390The growth in the comparative analysis of sport management processes and policy has led to an increased interest in the concept of convergence. However, the concept is too often treated as unproblematic in definition, measurement and operationalisation. It is argued in this paper that a more effective framework for examining claims of convergence is one that analyses the concept in terms of seven dimensions which can be explored through a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. It is also argued that a deeper understanding of the process of convergence can be gained by operationalising the concept in the context of a selected range of meso-level theories of the policy process or of specific aspects of the process. The proposed analytic framework provides not only a definition of convergence but also the basis for a more nuanced investigation of hypotheses of convergence

Pessimism as an Information System Management Tool in the Public Sector: Lessons from the INCIS Fiasco in the New Zealand Police Force

TR-COSC 02/0

Leadership and Institutional Reform: Engineering Macroeconomic Policy Change in Australia

This article seeks to enhance the actor perspective on major policy reforms. It builds upon the literature on “policy entrepreneurs” and addresses its explanatory vagueness by specifying five hypotheses outlining the actions that proponents of major policy change need to take in order to be effective in forging departures from existing, path‐dependent policies and to overcome entrenched opposition to reforms. These hypotheses on “reformist political leadership” (after Blondel) are applied to the four attempts to reform key aspects of macroeconomic policy in Australia under the first two Labor governments led by Robert J. Hawke

Characterising the learning dispositions of first year engineering students

The increased adoption of blended learning designs such as flipped instruction by STEM academics has brought learning benefits for many students; however, it relies heavily on students being able to take much more responsibility for their own learning than in traditional lecture-based subjects (Reidsema et al 2017). Previous studies (Willey & Gardner 2015, 2014a, 2014b, Gardner et al. 2014, Willey et al. 2014) of students in two different engineering majors at the University of Technology Sydney have shown that students who perform poorly in flipped learning environments typically do not demonstrate the agency and self-efficacy necessary to take responsibility for their own learning and hence have difficulty achieving the cognitive changes expressed as learning outcomes in subjects. Poor self-efficacy, that is a competence belief about one’s capability to execute a particular action and achieve a particular goal, has been linked to attrition in previous research: Many different factors underpin attrition decisions in any one institution and for any one individual, for whom attrition usually results from the aggregation of diverse factors rather than 'the straw that broke the camel's back'. The only attrition triggers which span most universities and years of study are lack of clear reasons for being at university or academic self-efficacy (Willcoxson et al 2011)[6]. Crick and Goldspink (2014) refer to the link between learning dispositions, agency and identity and how students’ thinking about these concepts, such as self-efficacy, frames their future learning trajectories. While university programmes generally address knowledge generation, Crick et al (2015) argue that forming a learning identity is also “pedagogically significant”. The research of Thomas (2013) reports that ...students often experience stress, uncertainty and use ineffective learning strategies when they are not supported to understand how to direct their own learning... findings suggest that learners can demonstrate increases to cognitive and metacognitive functioning, as well as self-efficacy through engagement with a program to support self-regulated learning... However, Thomas (2013) also found that there are “significant challenges to encouraging all students to engage with such a program”. Buckingham Shum and Crick (2012) point out that the development of self-regulation and self-efficacy impacts not just student performance at university but also their performance in the workplace: Theoretical and empirical evidence in the learning sciences substantiates the view that deep engagement in learning is a function of a complex combination of learners’ identities, dispositions, values, attitudes and skills. When these are fragile, learners struggle to achieve their potential in conventional assessments, and critically, are not prepared for the novelty and complexity of the challenges they will meet in the workplace, and the many other spheres of life which require personal qualities such as resilience, critical thinking and collaboration skills

Student perceptions of complexity in engineering education

The complex and socially connected nature of modern engineering practice is well documented, motivating new approaches to engineering education across the globe. The challenge now is to bring about change at scale to traditional curricula [1]. The University of Sydney has implemented a core program designed to improve students' learning and preparation for professional practice. The program seeks to help students develop an appreciation of complexity in engineering practice and illustrate its interdisciplinary, connected nature. The program serves a cohort of ~800 commencing students annually and is delivered within the bounds of a traditional program structured in units of study. Standardised student satisfaction survey results have been below or well below faculty average, indicating that on this measure, a majority of students are not satisfied with their learning experience. To better understand why, student comments on these surveys were analysed through the lens of the Cynefin framework, a sense-making tool that provides a useful characterisation of complexity experienced in professional engineering [2, 3]. Analysis suggest students may be aligned along a continuum between two positions in regard to the perceived degree of complexity in the learning experience: Comfortable with complexity - Those who recognise and adopt strategies needed to succeed in complex projects; and, Resistance to complexity - Those who see the learning design as unsupportive and unnecessarily ambiguous. The results highlight issues around student perspectives of what 'learning' is, as well as structural issues existing within standardised student satisfaction surveys, each of which pose potential barriers to curriculum reform