A workplace intervention designed to interrupt prolonged occupational sitting: Self-reported perceptions of health from a cohort of desk-based employees over 26 weeks
- Authors: Mainsbridge, Casey , Cooley, Dean , Fraser, Sharon , Pedersen, Scott
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Workplace Health Management Vol. 9, no. 2 (2016), p. 221-237
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- Description: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of a workplace intervention designed to interrupt prolonged occupational sitting time (POST) and its impact on the self-reported health of a cohort of desk-based employees. Design/methodology/approach - In total, 43 participants received an interactive computer-based software intervention for 26 weeks. For the first 13 weeks the intervention passively prompted the participants to interrupt POST and perform brief bouts of non-purposeful movement. The second 13 weeks involved the passivity of the intervention being removed, with the intervention only accessible voluntarily by the participant. This approach was adopted to determine the sustainability of the intervention to change workplace health behaviour. Findings - ANOVA results revealed a significant interaction between group and test occasion, F(2, 42)=2.79, p<0.05, such that the experimental group increased their total health from pre-test to post-test (13 weeks), and to second post-test (26 weeks) with a medium effect size of Cohen's d=0.37. Research limitations/implications - An action research approach was implemented for this study, and hence the participants were organised into one group. Based on a communitarian model, the intervention aimed to monitor how desk-based employees adapted to specific health behaviours, and therefore a control group was not included. Practical implications - Passively prompting desk-based employees to interrupt POST and perform non-purposeful movement at work improved self-reported health. Participant perceptions of health were maintained following the removal of the passive feature of the intervention. Social implications - Interventions predicated on a social ecological model that modify how employees interact with the workplace environment might provide a framework for health behaviour change in populations where sitting is customary. Originality/value - The passive approach used in this study removed the individual decisionmaking process to engage in health behaviour change, and established a sustainable effect on participant health. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Building STEM in Schools: An Australian Cross-case Analysis
- Authors: Falloon, Garry , Stevenson, Michael , Beswick, Kim , Fraser, Sharon , Geiger, Vincent
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Educational Technology Vol. 24, no. 4 (2021), p. 110-122
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- Description: The Principals as STEM Leaders (PASL) project was an Australian Government-funded national research and professional learning programme for principals, aimed at building STEM leadership capacity. The project involved cluster-based delivery of six learning modules and generation of case studies outlining schools' different approaches to STEM education and STEM leadership. This article analyses factors contributing to the development of four contrasting schools' STEM profiles, identifying the unique approaches and leadership strategies each adopted in designing STEM curriculum for meeting the learning needs of their diverse students. It positions these schools' endeavours within the broader PASL professional learning programme, adding to the limited body of empirical work detailing different approaches schools take to the
Educational leaders’ perceptions of STEM education revealed by their drawings and texts
- Authors: Hatisaru, Vesife , Falloon, Garry , Seen, Andrew , Fraser, Sharon , Powling, Markus , Beswick, Kim
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology Vol. 54, no. 8 (2023), p. 1437-1457
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- Description: This study explored school principals' and teacher educators' perceptions of STEM education based on how they described STEM as a discipline, their understanding of the nature of teaching and learning of STEM, and the capabilities of a STEM-educated person. Data were generated through the Draw a STEM Learning Environment (D-STEM) instrument comprising drawn and written descriptions where participants drew a picture of a STEM learning environment and completed five prompt statements about what STEM is and how an individual develops personal STEM capability. The Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) specialization codes were used for data analysis (198 individual response items in total) to understand how the participants perceive STEM education. Almost half the participant responses indicated knowledge-code perceptions with a smaller but significant number (approximately a third of responses) indicating knower-code perceptions. The remaining responses showed élite-code perceptions, indicating a small proportion of participants valued the development of both disciplinary knowledge/practices and generic skills/attributes in STEM education. We posit that curriculum structure and reporting requirements influence these perceptions. Further research in relation to the influence of such understandings on enacted curriculum is warranted. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Shaping science, technology, engineering and mathematics curriculum in Australian schools: An ecological systems analysis
- Authors: Falloon, Garry , Powling, Markus , Fraser, Sharon , Hatisaru, Vesife
- Date: 2022
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: The Australian journal of education Vol. 66, no. 2 (2022), p. 171-195
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- Description: Improving young people's engagement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is being promoted worldwide as a means of addressing projected shortfalls in expertise needed to further nations' economic, social and environmental goals. Responding to this, schools are reforming traditional discipline-based curricula into interdisciplinary approaches based on problem and project-based designs, to make STEM learning more relevant and meaningful for students. This study drew on a dataset of 449 Australian principal and teacher interviews, to identify factors influencing STEM curriculum in their schools. It utilised Ecological Systems Theory to build understanding relating to the influence of activities and outputs originating at macro, exo and meso system levels, on STEM curriculum and practices in classrooms. Results demonstrated how many innovative schools were able to successfully leverage community, business and national resources to enhance their STEM curriculum, while others struggled due to limitations imposed by geographic or socio-economic factors, or limited access to resources, expertise or advice. Central to achieving this was the powerful influence of principals' and teachers' 'proximal processes and developmental assets' in establishing effective and engaging interdisciplinary STEM curricula, despite constraints imposed by, at best, ambiguous national and state curriculum and policies, rigid assessment regimes and compliance-focused reporting requirements.
The effect of a computer-based workplace health and wellbeing program on workplace health culture
- Authors: Mainsbridge, Casey , Cooley, Dean , Pedersen, Scott , Fraser, Sharon , Cosgrove, Michael
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 2011 Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, 27 November - 1 December 2011, Hobart, Tasmania, pp. 1-14.
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- Description: Increasingly workplaces have become the primary site for health and wellbeing education for adults. The current zeitgeist for this education is the workplace health and wellbeing program (WHWP). Advocates of WHWP list a plethora of outcomes associated with their implementation. Nonetheless, evaluation of WHWP tend to focus on objective measures such as cardiovascular fitness and participation levels at the expense of less tangible measures such as organisational culture and climate. Common oversights like this often lead to organisations and participants losing interest and disengaging with various WHWPs (McKay et al., 2001). In turn, this leads to false positive results and low sustainability with such programs. We propose that effective evaluation of WHWPs, should incorporate employee perspectives about any changes in workplace health culture.
The effect of an e-health intervention designed to reduce prolonged occupational sitting on mean arterial pressure
- Authors: Mainsbridge, Casey , Cooley, Dean , Fraser, Sharon , Pedersen, Scott
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Vol. 56, no. 11 (2014), p. 1189-1194
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- Description: Objective: To evaluate the effect of a workplace health intervention designed to reduce prolonged occupational sitting on the mean arterial pressure (MAP) of desk-based employees. Methods: This randomized controlled trial involved an experimental group who received an e-health intervention and a control group who did not. The 13-week intervention passively prompted participants to stand and engage in short bouts of office-based physical activity by interrupting prolonged occupational sitting time periodically throughout the workday. Mean arterial pressure was measured at pretest and posttest. Results: Between pretest and posttest the experimental group significantly reduced their MAP, whereas MAP in the control group did not. Conclusions: A workplace e-health intervention designed to reduce prolonged occupational sitting was effective in decreasing MAP in desk-based employees.