Are nurse academics technology ready? A mixed methods study of Australian nurse academics’ attitudes to technologies in teaching
- Authors: Browning, Mark
- Date: 2022
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: Technology use in higher education teaching has become widespread and ubiquitous, affecting many areas of teaching and learning (Bond et al., 2020). Nurse education has been impacted by this shift with increasing use of technologies in the classroom (Koch, 2014). Although there has been a large research focus relating to students’ elearning, there has been less focus on the academic and their elearning role, in particular, how academic attitudes influence technology use in teaching (Drysdale et al., 2013; Martin, Polly, et al., 2020). The aim of this study was to explore nurse academics’ attitudes to technology and the influence attitude has on their use of technologies in teaching. There were three objectives: 1) To investigate nurse academics’ attitudes to technology through the Technology Readiness Index 2.0 (TRI 2). 2) To develop an understanding of how and why nurse academics engage with technology through individual interviews. 3) To integrate the quantitative (Objective 1) and qualitative (Objective 2) findings in order to gain a holistic understanding of academics’ use of technologies in teaching. A mixed methods sequential explanatory design consisting of two phases was used to address the aim. The first phase was a survey based on a previously validated, 16 item questionnaire, the Technology Readiness Index 2.0 (TRI 2), which was distributed to Australian nurse academics. The second phase included semi-structured individual interviews focussed on academics’ use and attitudes to technology, incorporating elements from the survey. The Technology Readiness Index 2.0 (TRI 2) was used in this study for the first time with nurse academics. The phase one findings indicate that nurse academics were technology ready, had higher overall TRI mean score than the general population (Parasuraman & Colby, 2015), but with similar outcomes to previous nurse academic research. Of note was that TRI was significantly associated with frequency of technology use, number of technologies used and self-rated confidence to use technology. The findings revealed three main Technology Readiness groups, representing three attitudes to technology in teaching: Explorers, Sceptics and Hesitators. Explorers were found to be innovative, positive and confident in their use of technology; Sceptics showed aversion to technology, were cautious when considering the impact on pedagogy and concerned about the impact on interpersonal skills; Hesitators showed preference for traditional teaching and distrust and were anxious about technology use. Overall, attitudes were found to be complex, based on experience and the potential impact technology may have on nursing students. The groups identified in this thesis explain behaviours and enable institutes to support academics in their engagement with technology. Recommendations include flexible training to meet the needs of academics, the use of simple and reliable technology across TR groups and adjusting workloads to account for the time-consuming nature of technology. There is also a need for academics to consider their attitudes to technology and the impact this may have on their teaching. This thesis demonstrates that technology engagement is not a binary choice but a complex process based on attitudes and other factors.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Applied aspirations : design and applied art at the Ballarat Technical Art School during the early twentieth century
- Authors: Whetter, Elise
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: Applied art and design schools operate at the nexus of art, industry, and education. During the early decades of the twentieth century, the regionally located Ballarat Technical Art School (BTAS) was the leading institution of its kind in Victoria, Australia, amid shifting economic, cultural, and pedagogical conditions. Emerging from a 1907 amalgamation of institutions, and subsequently administrated by the School of Mines Ballarat (SMB), BTAS was equipped with the assets, experience, and historic reputation necessary to surpass its provincial and metropolitan rivals. This micro-historical case-study employs qualitative analysis of primary sources to investigate the aims, outputs, and importance of BTAS, contextualised by the expectations and influences it operated under during the inaugural principalship of artist and educator, Herbert Henry Smith. Smith oversaw the training of designers, craftspeople, artists, and teachers from 1907 until his retirement in early 1940—a period of tumultuous events, fiscal obstacles, and social and cultural debate. The institution was accountable to diverse stakeholders and arbiters of taste, and successive cohorts learned in a contested space between tradition, origination, and modernisation. Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural theory serves to navigate this web of hierarchies, assumptions, and tensions, while secondary sources help contextualise findings. This thesis also discusses the suite of drawing, design and material-based disciplines delivered at BTAS as single subjects, full courses, and supplementary art-trade training. Throughout, featured students provide examples of regionally trained, Australian designer-maker and artist-teacher experiences. BTAS students learned from ambitious and skilled men and women, benefited from strong professional networks, and fostered a notable esprit-de-corps. The school was significant for its contribution to female technical training. The school’s pre-eminent position was modified during the late 1920s, when much art and art-teacher training was re-centred in Melbourne. Yet, the valuable, compelling, and widespread influence of Ballarat Technical Art School graduates resonated for decades.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Audit education in a socialist oriented market economy – the case of Vietnam
- Authors: Dang, Ky
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: The objective of the research project is to contribute to the understanding of the auditing profession in Vietnam. In particular, it provides information on the challenges facing auditors in an emerging economy where economic transformation is in progress and where auditing, as a profession, is under development. Auditors operate in an environment of conflicting priorities where they must maintain independence and objectivity in discharging their responsibilities to stakeholders and society. In Vietnam, the audit profession only came into existence in 1986 when the country embarked on its new economic model. Whilst studies have been conducted on the status of current accounting practice in Vietnam, studies regarding the audit profession have been limited. In this research project an examination of the issues affecting audit quality in Vietnam are investigated and suggestions for changes to address the deficiencies are made. In particular, the project focuses on the relevance and appropriateness of the education of auditors. A national survey of accountants, auditors and accounting academics in Vietnam was undertaken. The survey results indicate that in Vietnam there are deficiencies in audit practices over and above those commonly observed in other countries. These deficiencies are the result of the unique history of Vietnam, the current stage of economic development and the education system for auditors. From an auditing perspective, the slow adaptation of the education system to the new economic environment is having negative effects on accounting graduates and their employment prospects. Although inadequate training was identified as the single most important factor affecting audit quality, the ineffective enforcement regime was also a contributing factor. This research project indicates that there is a need for an overhaul of the current education system in Vietnam and for universities to develop an accounting and auditing curriculum that meets the needs of employers while complying with government’s education objectives and international standards of auditing and accounting.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Building social capital through the delivery of outdoor education at Victorian government schools
- Authors: Keeble, Tony
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: This thesis describes an explanatory sequential mixed-methods research project that investigated the changes to student social capital indicators resulting from an outdoor educational program, Future Maker, delivered to Victorian government school students. A systematic review of literature found minimal evidence of research relating to the change to social capital indicators as a result of programs that deliver outdoor education curriculum. The initial chapters of this thesis explore research on outdoor residential schools and the development of the Future Maker program as an alternative form of outdoor education curriculum design. Quantitative data were gathered from 287 students in the form of the Life Effectiveness Questionnaire (LEQ), over a 12-month period. Students completed the LEQ on three separate occasions: Day 1 of the program, Day 12 of the program, and 6 months after the program. Furthermore, qualitative data were gathered using a semistructured interview process. Twenty-eight students and seven teachers were randomly selected from participating schools to partake in the interviews. The final sections of the thesis present and discuss the findings from the quantitative and qualitative data that provided sufficient evidence that showed a significant increase in effect size for the social capital indicators of communication, relationships, group processing, networking and leadership. Furthermore, the research indicated that the domestic chores undertaken by students on an outdoor education program contributed to how social capital is learnt in an outdoor educational context. Moreover, the research positions outdoor education as a subject with content and pedagogy rather than a discipline and argues that outdoor education as a standalone subject has been sitting in plain sight. Finally, it concluded that a purpose-designed outdoor education program, which is built using a framework for curriculum development, can develop positive indicators for social capital.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Student mobility and transition : setting your compass for success
- Authors: Murrell, Kerry
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: With increasing levels of student mobility within Victorian schools, many educational settings experience frequent changes to their student population. These changes are often met with an ad hoc array of practices implemented by schools in an attempt to adequately manage them. This thesis addresses the impact of student mobility on an educational community and its stakeholders in Victoria, Australia. The research was undertaken in five Victorian government schools that encompassed diverse geographical locations and socio-economic profiles. Key stakeholders include: school principals, teachers and education support staff, mobile students, parents/carers of mobile students, non-mobile students and their families. Each group offered a unique perspective regarding student mobility and transition processes. Participants in this study were involved in interviews and focus groups, and completed a questionnaire. Socio-economic status was identified as a predominant factor in student mobility for both families and schools. This was evidenced by high levels of often unpredictable mobility in socio-economically disadvantaged and significantly disadvantaged participating schools. The participating non-disadvantaged school experienced mobility related specifically to perceived academic gain or parental promotion. Regardless of socio-economic status, each group was reliant on other stakeholders to be successful. No stakeholder groups stood alone as being able to successfully navigate the process of mobility and transition independently. This study, through the thematic analysis of the data collected, has uncovered many actionable and achievable recommendations for families, schools and the education system itself both within Victoria and nationwide. The participants in this research clearly indicated a need for a more strategic and planned approach to mobility. Educational communities must respond proactively in order to provide optimal academic, social and emotional outcomes for students in these circumstances.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Broadening the concept of school: how a re-configuration of school must be inclusive of students who are "put at" a disadvantage
- Authors: Peters, Edward (Keith)
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: This thesis critically examines how students enrolled in state-funded schools can be ‘put at’ a disadvantage. I do this through examining two techniques of exclusion that stimulate student disconnection from school: first, the ways in which standards-based and performativity-driven learning outcomes are implemented to shape how student success is determined. Secondly, I examine how discourses around power control curriculum and student identity instil monological learning structures that normalises standards-based learning outcomes. Challenging this, I allow the voices of my co-researchers, the students in my thesis, to speak back to confront these school-based policies that allow disconnection to occur. Examining school policy and student voice at the point where they intersect allowed me to undertake an evaluation of how schools adversely affect students, and what students say they want from their experience of schooling. The final theme I develop is based on student and agency worker voice and what they say school-based learning should become. Relational learning and learning that develops students ethically emerged as fundamental strengths of what enriching learning transactions should look like. I argue that creating relational learning spaces develop challenging environments that can lead students to ethically understand their identity within complex social and cultural lifestyles. I argue that the ways in which schools are organised to administer time and space must be radically overhauled if this is to be achieved.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Positionality of disengaged students in a rural town
- Authors: Fish, Tim
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: This thesis critically analyses the way disengaged youth participating in an alternative education program are positioned within a small rural town, New Goldfields (a pseudonym), a town of 2,300 people in the Wimmera region of Victoria.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
A public want and a public duty [manuscript] : The role of the Mechanics' Institute in the cultural, social and educational development of Ballarat from 1851 to 1880
- Authors: Hazelwood, Jennifer
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: Mechanics’ Institutes were an integral element of the nineteenth-century British adult education movement, which was itself part of an on-going radicalisation of the working class. Such was the popularity of Mechanics’ Institutes, and so reflective of contemporary British cultural philosophy, that they were copied throughout the British Empire. The Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute, established in 1859, instilled a powerful, male-gendered British middle-class influence over the cultural, social and educational development of the Ballarat city. The focus of this study is to identify and analyse the significance of the contribution made by the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute to the evolving cultural development of the wider Ballarat community, with a particular emphasis on the gender and class dimensions of this influence. This is done within the context of debates about ‘radical fragments’ and ‘egalitarianism’. Utilizing a methodology based on an extensive review of archival records, contemporary newspapers held at the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute, and previously published research, this study was able to show that, during the period from its inception in 1859 to 1880, the Institute became a focal point for numerous cultural, social and educational activities. As one of the few institutions open to all classes, it was in a position to provide a significant influence over the developing culture of the Ballarat community. The study has also identified the use made of the Institute’s School of Design by women and the contribution of these educational classes to preparing women for employment outside their traditional roles of wives and mothers. The thesis argues that despite some early radical elements, the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute initially espoused liberal egalitarian values. By 1880, however, the Institute was more readily identifiable as reflecting British, male, middle-class values.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Multiculturalism : (re) intellectualising teaching
- Authors: Edmonds, George
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: Doctor of Philosphy
Contemporary ways of learning in secondary teacher education : Towards a deeper understanding of teacher learning
- Authors: Brown, Maryann
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: "The focus of this portfolio is an exploration of contemporary ways of learning in secondary teacher education."
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Policies, practices and professional development : A study of curriculum implementation within an Australian high school
- Authors: O'Meara, James
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text: false
- Description: The overall aim of this portfolio is to discuss [...] understanding of the curriculum process surrounding the development of the Health and Physical Education Curriculum and Standards Framework II (HPE CSFII) and its implementation in a Victorian secondary school. The unit of analysis was a group of physical educators from Newviews Secondary College. Throughout 2002, interviews, surveys and document analysis were used to see how 'how and if' the HPE CSFII was being adopted and 'implemented' by the group.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Reading comprehension and a computerised analytic model : theoretical possibility, technical feasibilty and intrinsic limitations
- Authors: Lin, Zheng
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: "This study comprises a formulated approach to the prediction of EFL reading comprehension. Based on a study of the interactions between bottom-up and top-down processing, between different sources of prior knowledge, and between the reader and the writer via the text, a schematic developmental model is devised to account for L2 reading comprehension. According to the model, the EFL, conceptual and sociocultural knowledge that an EFL text involves, and that the EFL reader brings to the reading task, determines the outcome of the EFL reading event."
- Description: Doctor of Philosphy
University education for all : teaching and learning practices for diverse groups of students
- Authors: Ryan, Janette
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: Doctor of Education
The reading/spelling connection : case studies of readers and spellers
- Authors: O'Brien, Terence
- Date: 2000
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text: false
- Description: "The thesis argues that reading and spelling are interdependent and complex processes, and that "good" readers. but "poor" spellers, read in ways which do not assist in their developing spelling repertoires: their reading behaviours contribute to overall text meanings wihout contributing to individual word knowledge. As well, their writing behaviours do not allow for this knowledge to be used, practised, or displayed."
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy