Regenerating the academic workforce: the careers, intentions and motivations of higher degree research students in Australia

Abstract The main findings of this report are based on the outcomes from the National Research Student Survey (NRSS) conducted in June 2010 across 38 of the 39 universities in Australia. In total 11,710 Higher Degree by Research students (those enrolled in PhD and masters by research degrees, also referred to simply as ‘research students’ in this report) responded to the NRSS, providing a 25.5 per cent response rate across the country. These response numbers represent the largest collection of survey responses from research students ever undertaken in Australia. The report primarily explores the career intentions and motivations of these students. It provides particular emphasis on the interests of Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students (referred to in this report as ‘research students’) in following an academic career on completion of their degree and the support they have received in terms of preparation for university teaching during their candidature. In the context of growing student enrolments and the large numbers of predicted retirements associated with an ageing academic workforce there is a need to examine the career intentions of research students. This report explores the extent to which the current cohort of research students may be a source of replenishment for the academic profession in the context of an ageing academic workforce. It is important to remember that the traditional notion of an academic being someone who has made a linear transition from school to university, to a HDR and on to academia is outdated. Research students come to the HDR from a diverse variety of professional backgrounds and have equally diverse aspirations for their careers after gaining their qualification. Some research students m y already be working in universities in an academic capacity. Many intend to use their research degree as a springboard to a career outside of the university sector. Others undertake a research degree out of interest in the subject matter and simply for the pleasure of studying at an advanced level. Nevertheless, those research students who aspire to an academic career do represent an important source of future academics. The findings of this report raise a number of crucial issues relating to the research degree in Australian universities, the career aspirations of research students and potential issues for the future of the academic workforce over the coming decade. Recommended Citation Edwards, Daniel; Bexley, Emmaline; and Richardson, Sarah, "Regenerating the academic workforce: the careers, intentions and motivations of higher degree research students in Australia: findings of the National Research Student Survey (NRSS)" (2011). http://research.acer.edu.au/higher_education/2

Sexing the X: How the X Became the “Female Chromosome”

This essay examines how the X became the “female chromosome” and how the association of the X with femaleness influences research questions, models, and descriptive language in human sex chromosome research. I trace how the X is gendered female in scientific and popular discourse; document the contingent technical, material, and ideological factors that led to the feminization of the X during the first decades of sex chromosome research; and track the introduction of the “female chromosome” into human genetics at midcentury. In the second part of the essay, I document the continuing influence of the feminization of the X on genetic research, exemplified by “X chromosome mosaicism” theories of female biology and behavior.History of Scienc

Main Concepts for Two Picture Description Tasks: An Addition to Richardson and Dalton, 2016

Background: Proposition analysis of the discourse of persons with aphasia (PWAs) has a long history, yielding important advancements in our understanding of communication impairments in this population. Recently, discourse measures have been considered primary outcome measures, and multiple calls have been made for improved psychometric properties of discourse measures. Aims: To advance the use of discourse analysis in PWAs by providing Main Concept Analysis checklists and descriptive statistics for healthy control performance on the analysis for the Cat in the Tree and Refused Umbrella narrative tasks utilized in the AphasiaBank database protocol. Methods & Procedures: Ninety-two control transcripts, stratified into four age groups (20–39 years; 40–59; 60–79; 80+), were downloaded from the AphasiaBank database. Relevant concepts were identified, and those spoken by at least one-third of the control sample were considered to be a main concept (MC). A multilevel coding system was used to determine the accuracy and completeness of the MCs produced by control speakers. Outcomes & Results: MC checklists for two discourse tasks are provided. Descriptive statistics are reported and examined to assist readers with evaluation of the normative data. Conclusions: These checklists provide clinicians and researchers with a tool to reliably assess the discourse of PWAs. They also help address the gap in available psychometric data with which to compare PWAs to healthy controls

Petticoat politics in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Britain : female citizenship revealed by the Digital Archive

Analysing the extent of female citizenship in early modern Britain has always been a difficult task. The mass digitization of the established records for political history has enabled an evidence base to be systematically established in order to reveal the extent of women’s participation. The ability to search hitherto inaccessible sources such as newspapers or parliamentary papers has demonstrated that women regularly performed roles as electors or public officeholders, that they attended sittings of Parliament, and that they utilised strategies such as petitioning for political purposes. Digitization also allows the interrogation of sources which, on the face of it, appear less promising for an assessment of the roles women played in the public sphere in this period. An understanding that sites such as the household provide evidence of a burgeoning female political culture has led to the reassessment of female literary outputs. The large-scale digitization of these texts, coupled with the advance of web-based lexical analysis tools, has allowed for a more nuanced interpretation of women and public life. This paper will use the case studies of local newspapers and domestic economy texts to demonstrate methodologies for uncovering evidence of female citizenship in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

A Large-Scale Comparison of Main Concept Production Between Persons with Aphasia and Persons Without Brain Injury

Purpose: The purposes of this study are to provide clinicians and researchers with introductory psychometric data for the main concept analysis (MCA), a measure of discourse informativeness, and specifically, to provide descriptive and comparative statistical information about the performance of a large sample of persons not brain injured (PNBIs) and persons with aphasia (PWAs) on AphasiaBank discourse tasks. Method: Transcripts of 5 semi-spontaneous discourse tasks were retrieved from the AphasiaBank database and scored according to detailed checklists and scoring procedures. Transcripts from 145 PNBIs and 238 PWAs were scored; descriptive statistics, median tests, and effect sizes are reported. Results: PWAs demonstrated overall lower informativeness scores and more frequent production of statements that were inaccurate and/or incomplete. Differences between PNBIs and PWAs were observed for all main concept measures and stories. Comparisons of PNBIs and aphasia subtypes revealed significant differences for all groups, although the pattern of differences and strength of effect sizes varied by group and discourse task. Conclusions: These results may improve the investigative and clinical utility of the MCA by providing descriptive and comparative information for PNBIs and PWAs for standardized discourse tasks that can be reliably scored. The results indicate that the MCA is sensitive to differences in discourse as a result of aphasia

The sexual politics of disability, twenty years on

This paper follows up on qualitative interviews conducted with British disabled people in 1994-6, exploring how people’s lives and relationships have changed over twenty years (n=8). The themes include imagery and identity, access to relationships, social context and attitudes. Ageing brought greater self-acceptance, and also lower salience of impairment; but for some, it also brought co-morbid chronic health issues which made life more complicated. Respondents generally felt that social attitudes to disabled sexuality had not changed sufficiently, but also that UK austerity policies risked undermining hard-won independence and wellbeing

Transition from Plan Driven to SAFe : Periodic Team Self-Assessment

Context: How to adopt, scale and tailor agile methods depends on several factors such as the size of the organization, business goals, operative model, and needs. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) was developed to support organizations to scale agile practices across the enterprise. Problem: Early adopters of SAFe tend to be large multi-national enterprises who report that the adoption of SAFe has led to significant productivity and quality gains. However, little is known about whether these benefits translate to small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Method: As part of a longitudinal study of an SME transitioning to SAFe we ask, to what extent are SAFe practices adopted at the team level? We targeted all team members and administrated a mixed method survey in February, 2017 and in July, 2017 to identify and evaluate the adoption rate of SAFe practices. Results: Initially in Quarter 1, teams were struggling with PI/Release health and Technical health throughout the organization as most of the teams were transitioning from plan-driven to SAFe . But, during the transition period in Quarter 3, we observed discernible improvements in different areas of SAFe practice adoption. Conclusion: The observed improvement might be due to teams merely becoming more familiar with the practices over-time. However, management had also made some structural changes to the teams that may account for the change.Comment: 10, QuASD, Profes 201

A ‘Stain on Silence’: The Registration of Trauma in the Comics Memoirs of Alison Bechdel and Art Spiegelman

The value of comics as a medium for serious literary expression, despite growing popularity and recognition, is still contested. Two of the most successful examples of the medium, Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1986 & 1992) and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006), use differing and similar strategies to narrate the transmission of trauma from parent to child. Maus records the testimony of Spiegelman’s survivor father’s experiences in hiding in Poland and in Auschwitz and Dachau, as well as the process of this testimony and the conflicted relationship between father and son. Fun Home’s traumatic history centres on Bechdel’s artistically ambitious father’s closeted affairs with teenage boys, and his overbearing influence on her own artistry and queer sexuality. This thesis tracks the narrative and graphic registration of trauma in these two memoirs, through their use of archival materials, consideration of the ethical problems of the representation of extremity and history, and treatment of narrative time

Moving Toward Non-transcription Based Discourse Analysis in Stable and Progressive Aphasia

Measurement of communication ability at the discourse level holds promise for predicting how well persons with stable (e.g., stroke-induced), or progressive aphasia navigate everyday communicative interactions. However, barriers to the clinical utilization of discourse measures have persisted. Recent advancements in the standardization of elicitation protocols and the existence of large databases for development of normative references have begun to address some of these barriers. Still, time remains a consistently reported barrier by clinicians. Non-transcription based discourse measurement would reduce the time required for discourse analysis, making clinical utilization a reality. The purpose of this article is to present evidence regarding discourse measures (main concept analysis, core lexicon, and derived efficiency scores) that are well suited to non-transcription based analysis. Combined with previous research, our results suggest that these measures are sensitive to changes following stroke or neurodegenerative disease. Given the evidence, further research specifically assessing the reliability of these measures in clinical implementation is warranted

Cluster Randomised Trials in Cochrane Reviews: Evaluation of Methodological and Reporting Practice

Objective Systematic reviews can include cluster-randomised controlled trials (C-RCTs), which require different analysis compared with standard individual-randomised controlled trials. However, it is not known whether review authors follow the methodological and reporting guidance when including these trials. The aim of this study was to assess the methodological and reporting practice of Cochrane reviews that included C-RCTs against criteria developed from existing guidance. Methods Criteria were developed, based on methodological literature and personal experience supervising review production and quality. Criteria were grouped into four themes: identifying, reporting, assessing risk of bias, and analysing C-RCTs. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was searched (2nd December 2013), and the 50 most recent reviews that included C-RCTs were retrieved. Each review was then assessed using the criteria. Results The 50 reviews we identified were published by 26 Cochrane Review Groups between June 2013 and November 2013. For identifying C-RCTs, only 56% identified that C-RCTs were eligible for inclusion in the review in the eligibility criteria. For reporting C-RCTs, only eight (24%) of the 33 reviews reported the method of cluster adjustment for their included C-RCTs. For assessing risk of bias, only one review assessed all five C-RCT-specific risk-of-bias criteria. For analysing C-RCTs, of the 27 reviews that presented unadjusted data, only nine (33%) provided a warning that confidence intervals may be artificially narrow. Of the 34 reviews that reported data from unadjusted C-RCTs, only 13 (38%) excluded the unadjusted results from the meta-analyses. Conclusions The methodological and reporting practices in Cochrane reviews incorporating C-RCTs could be greatly improved, particularly with regard to analyses. Criteria developed as part of the current study could be used by review authors or editors to identify errors and improve the quality of published systematic reviews incorporating C-RCTs