Factors influencing learner driver experiences [Road Safety Grant Report 2009-003]

When compared with more experienced drivers, new drivers have a higher crash risk. This study examined the experiences of learner drivers in Queensland and New South Wales in order to develop an understanding of the factors that influenced them while learning to drive. This will enable the development of more effective licensing systems. The research was informed by a number of heoretical perspectives, particularly social learning theory. Participants were recruited from driver licensing centres as soon as they passed their practical driving test to attain a provisional licence. Of those approached, 392 new drivers from capital cities and regional locations in Queensland and New South Wales completed a 35 minute telephone interview that collected information on a range of personal, social, environmental and socio-demographic factors. Participants were obtaining their licence before several changes to the licensing systems in both Queensland and New South Wales were made in 2007. Several implications for countermeasure development resulted from this research. These included ensuring licensing authorities carefully consider mandating a minimum number of hour of practice as it may inadvertently suppress the amount of practice that some learners obtain. Licensing authorities should consider the use of logbooks for learner drivers, even if there is no minimum amount of supervised practice required as it may assist learners and their supervisors structure their practice more effectively. This research also found that the confidence of learner drivers increases between when they first obtain their learner licence and when they obtain their provisional licence. This is an important issue requiring further attention by licensing authorities

Differentiation in Teaching Reading Comprehension and Motivation of Students

From introduction: Meeting the needs of all the students in a classroom is probably one of the biggest challenges teachers face today. Teachers are given goals by the federal government through the No Child Left Behind Act, and by the standards set forth by the state of New York. In addition, local school districts also have initiatives they want teachers to focus on to help students meet these standards. The amount of curriculum teachers have to cover can limit how they go about teaching it. Helping teachers connect to the students can seem daunting as they are faced with all the varied learners within their classrooms. Can the way the teachers teach the curriculum affect the students\u27 desire to learn the curriculum? Teachers try to engage their students through many different styles of instruction. Is there one style specific to each student\u27s needs which, if applied, will make learning more meaningful for him/her

Everyone loves select committees these days, but have they really changed?

The Wright reforms have been widely credited with reinvigorating select committees. Stephen Bates, Mark Goodwin (University of Birmingham) and Steve McKay (University of Lincoln) take issue with this assumption. They found the reforms have made little or no difference to MP turnover and attendance, which are driven by the parliamentary cycle. When MPs are jostling for payroll vote positions and trying to keep up with constituency duties and votes in the Chamber, select committees are likely to suffer

Parliamentary select committees: are elected chairs the key to their success?

Analysis of changes to House of Commons Select Committees

Elected chairs do not seem to have brought a new kind of parliamentarian to select committees

The Wright reforms have been widely credited with revitalising Parliamentary Select Committees. However, drawing on their research, Mark Goodwin, Stephen Bates and Steve McKay question whether the reforms have improved rates of turnover, attendance or gender balance. They write that commentators and MPs should avoid complacency in assuming that the reforms are a sufficiently powerful mechanism to drive improvement

The Stanford Organ: A Synthesis of Views, The Stanford Eclectic Tunings

Presents a compromise of previously published views regarding the tunings of the Fisk organ in Stanford\u27s Memorial Church (Palo Alto, California). Proposes new meantone and well-tempered tunings, illustrated with examples from Renaissance and Baroque repertoire