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A qualitative analysis of radiation therapy students' professional placement journals
No full textPurpose: Student experience on clinical placement is not well captured with traditional program evaluation tools. This study aims to complete a qualitative analysis of the reflective clinical journals completed during professional placement by radiation therapy (RT) students in order to uncover the issues that affect students on placement and how these change as the student's progress through the program. Materials and methods: A qualitative descriptive analysis (QDA) was undertaken on the descriptive content of student journals completed by 97 students over 3 consecutive years while undertaking professional placement in Radiation Oncology Treatment Centres within Australia. Two coders used a QDA sourcebook specifically designed for the research to independently analyse the descriptive content of the reflective journals for four main categories and 18 subcategories.
Results: The result revealed a statistically significant increased tendency to discuss clinical environment and a decreased tendency to discuss the patient, 92·9–12·5% (coder 1) and 85·7–18·8% (coder 2), as they progressed through the program. Conclusions: The results of this study showed some similarities with studies completed in other health professions; however, the breadth of issues explored within the content of these RT student journals demonstrates the true diversity of the RT student experience on professional placement
Book review: Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey
No full textReview of: Modern bodies : Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey by Julia L. Foulkes. Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, 2002. ISBN: 0807853674
"I want to be just like you": Barbie Magazine and the production of the female desiring subject
No full textDrawing on Foucauldian notions of power relations, I argue in this paper that Barbie: The Magazine for Girls (hereafter referred to as Barbie Magazine) acts as a site for the operation of disciplinary power practices. Barbie Magazine seeks to organise, normalise, and categorise the bodies of its young female readers, presenting appropriate gestures, acts, appearance, behaviour, and adornment. The Barbie doll becomes the essential tool for the fulfilment of an appropriate female subject: there is a conflation between becoming female and owning a Barbie, or lots of Barbies. The ultimate aim is a subject positioning and understanding of the desiring self in which the body of the young girl is intimately linked with the appendage of the Barbie doll. Readers of Barbie Magazine are not just learning about domesticity but about becoming acculturated as properly female through living life like Barbie. This promotion of the Barbie lifestyle represents a colonisation of the bodies of young girls by the artificial, sterile, and stereotypical
μ-CT-based finite element analysis on imperfections in open-celled metal foam: mechanical properties
No full textThis study digitally identifies and repairs defects produced in the manufacturing of an open-cell metal foam for the first time. Finite element calculations are based on microcomputed tomography data of actual samples. The effective Young’s modulus and 0.2% offset yield strength are calculated and equivalent plastic strain is used to identify weakness within the material. In areas of high plastic deformation, the structure is digitally repaired locally and the calculations are repeated in order to quantify the change in material properties
Fostering NSW recruitment program: final evaluation report: June 2014 - December 2017
No full textIn 2012, the Fostering NSW foster care recruitment program was auspiced by the peak body Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies (ACWA), in order to recruit foster carers for organisations in NSW that provided out of home care. The program was funded by the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (FACS). The transfer of the brand and program to an NGO was a ‘first’, the department previously undertaking this role. This evaluation covers the period of 2014-2017. An earlier evaluation was undertaken for the period 2012 – 2013. The intent of this program was to manage a state wide campaign for the recruitment of foster carers; increase the number of inquiries to Fostering NSW website, and for the program to refer enquirers to accredited agencies who would then assess, train and authorise new carers. The main strategies used by the program was a reliance on public relations and social media. Possible the first of its kind in the world, the program relied on a mixture of public relations and social media. The Fostering NSW Facebook community formed around discussions about fostering, reached 41,000 members by the end of the program. ACWA adopted the strategy of an ongoing multimedia campaign with ‘bursts’ of paid advertising. Using this strategy, the Fostering NSW program was largely successful in a achieving its key objectives of: Raising awareness about the need for foster carers. ; Creating positive social norms around fostering. ; Increasing visits to the Fostering NSW website and enquiry line. ; Increasing the number of applications to become a carer and ultimately, the number of authorised carers. ; Strengthening the non-government agencies’ capacity to recruit, authorise and retain carers. In the 5 years of the program between May 2013 and May 2018, there were 549,784 visits to the Fostering NSW website – an average of 9,163 per month and trending upwards over time. 11,030 online and telephone enquiries about becoming a foster carer were received and 4,980 of these were referred or passed on to service providers as ‘warm leads’ for follow up. As with website visits, data collected on the number of enquiries and referrals handled by Fostering NSW shows a steady increase year-on-year as awareness and audience penetration grew. Data collected by the Office of the Children’s Guardian for the NSW Carers Register introduced in 2016 shows that the number of authorised carers increased by 1,674 between June 2016 and June 2017 but only by another 163 between June 2017 and June 2018. This drop in the previous pattern of increasing authorisations over the last year is discussed and thought to be related to a number of significant environmental changes including the commencement of a procurement cycle for the sector
Alessandro Scarlatti, Four Sonate a Quattro: two violins, viola and violoncello
No full textThis publication is the first critical complete edition of a newly discovered set of Sonatas for Two Violins, Viola, and Violoncello (arguably 'the first string quartets') by Alessandro Scarlatti in the highly regarded series published by Edition HH, Oxon. Intensive research on score and parts has resulted in a major re-assessment of this set of works. It is aimed to interest leading international string performers on period instruments in performing and recording the works. An account of the detective work behind the edition is given in a newly published article, Rosalind Halton and Michael Talbot, ''Choice Things of Value: the mysterious genesis and character of the VI Concertos in Seven Parts attributed to Alessandro Scarlatti', Eighteenth Century Music, March 2015, pp.9-32. ‘The Earliest String Quartets ‘ - the great Scarlatti scholar Edward Dent called these works. Surprisingly they have not been published until now, and are known mainly in an English Concerto Grosso arrangement published by Benjamin Cooke nearly 20 years after the composer’s death. The primary source for this new edition is the set of parts in the Santini Collection, Münster, named respectively ‘Violino Primo, Violino Secondo, Violetta, and Violoncello’, suggesting one-a part performance, particularly as each part carries the further term ‘senza Cembalo’. The edition restores movements omitted or modified in the English Concerto publication, notably the substantial and virtuosic Allegro movements in 3/4 in No. 2, 3 and 4 that form the central core of the works
Struggles and strategies: does social class matter in higher education
No full textThis report explores to what extent universities, as providers of high skill credentials, add value to the social and cultural capital, resources, networks and strategies of students through their transitional experiences and processes. It investigates whether a student’s background—such as belonging to one or more equity group as identified by Australian policy—impacts their graduate transitions; how they imagine, perceive and navigate university to work transitional processes; and how social inequalities shape and constrain their access to and transition from university to segmented labour markets. This report moves beyond simple categories, such as socio-economic status, to develop an understanding of the multi-layered and nested equity issues informing students’ experiences and practices. The preference for a clear-cut quantification of issues related to equity and disadvantage risks missing how these are played out in everyday lives. Students who experience disadvantage do not do so through a homogeneous experience, but must endure it in its inter-personal forms, whether through banal day-to-day activities or through structured forms of social closure. Theories of social class and intersectionality, especially feminist readings, allow for greater attention to the nuanced and emotional ways that class and inequalities more broadly are constructed and enforced. We take these as a much needed, and stronger way to understand universities in the era of widening participation. The report identifies that student ‘backgrounds’ are not shed as they enter university or adulthood, but instead influence their views and what they see as plausible and meaningful opportunities and strategies. Furthermore, structures of class (and its intersections with other inequalities such as gender) are embedded in social institutions such as universities. At every stage, from access, undergraduate study, and (sometimes after many delays) graduation, students are enmeshed within structures and trajectories that present certain paths and possibilities as more or less likely to be successful. We have found that many students from working class backgrounds will see a university degree itself as being enough for a pathway into a meaningful graduate position, but often misrecognise the scope and extent of competitive advantage required in a heavily saturated graduate labour market. Students from privileged backgrounds, in contrast, often have greater access to competitive forms of knowledge and networks that provide more opportunities to produce strategies for securing graduate employment. Through understanding these issues we offer recommendations designed to support students from all social groups throughout their undergraduate study and into their transitions to graduate labour markets
Hunter Horizons: Navigating the future of work and workplaces in our region
No full textThis report explores findings from Regions Matter, the flagship research program of the Institute for Regional Futures at the University of Newcastle. Its purpose is to fill the knowledge gaps regarding what is impacting sustainable growth and prosperity in regional Australia, and specifically the Hunter and Central Coast Regions. Regions Matter examines community attitudes regarding who we are and why we choose to live and work in regional Australia, and how the activities of governments, industries and communities themselves shape the lives of regional Australians. The Institute for Regional Futures recognises the significant social, cultural, spatial and economic contribution of regional Australia to the nation and is invested in realising its vast potential. Based in the Hunter, the Institute is of and for regions, with a focus on delivering interdisciplinary impact research on regions and regionalism nationally and internationally. The work of the Institute builds on the 60-plus year history of the Hunter Research Foundation Centre
Girls in Maths research project: extension report
No full textThe 2017 Girls in Maths Project was a research study designed to investigate the underrepresentation of girls’ in Higher School Certificate (HSC) mathematics courses. This project was conducted in three phases involving: (1) analysis of girls’ representation in mathematics, using HSC enrolment data; (2) analysis of girls’ aspirations for careers requiring high level mathematics, using the existing Aspirations Longitudinal Study dataset; and (3) analysis of any systemic factors that discourage girls from enrolling in high level mathematics, by conducting and analysing interviews. The project found that girls were less likely than boys to enrol in high level mathematics courses during Years 11 and 12, and less likely to aspire to careers that require participation in high level mathematics during secondary school. Additionally, the project identified several issues that discourage interested girls from undertaking high level mathematics subjects, particularly: higher workload, inadequate ATAR compensation, competitive university entrance procedures, the removal of high level mathematics as a prerequisite for entry to certain degrees, and perceptions of high level mathematics as only necessary for certain career paths. The research reported here builds upon these results, in an extension to the third phase of the 2017 Girls in Maths Project. The aim of this extension was to continue investigating the range of factors that enable or constrain aspirations for, and participation in, mathematics by interviewing an additional 50 participants including secondary students (male and female), their parents, mathematics teachers and careers advisers. This additional research was designed to ensure the credibility and trustworthiness of findings by confirming, expanding, or challenging insights into both the declining participation and the consistent underrepresentation of girls within intermediate and advanced mathematics across NSW
Girls in mathematics: final report
No full textThis project drew upon state-wide HSC and university enrolment data, Aspirations Longitudinal Study survey data, and semi-structured interviews with students, teachers and parents to investigate the decision-making process surrounding girls’ participation in high level mathematics. Through our investigation we provided a detailed account of: (1) girls’ and boys’ participation in high level HSC mathematics; (2) the aspirations of girls in secondary school for careers requiring high level mathematics; and, (3) factors that influence students’ decisions to/not to participate in high level mathematics