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Post-secondary students with ASD
No full textTheoretical thesis.Running title: Post-secondary students with ASD.Includes bibliographical references.Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: A systematic literature review of the experiences of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in post-secondary education -- Chapter 3: Perspectives of university students with Autism Spectrum Disorder -- Chapter 4: Conclusion.The purpose of this thesis was to investigate, from the student perspective, the experiences of post-secondary students with ASD. The benefits and barriers, and the supports made available to students, were analysed, as were the student satisfaction with those supports. A systematic literature review of 23 studies examined the perspectives of 378 post-secondary students with ASD, representing the most comprehensive review conducted to date. The quality of the studies were assessed and interrater reliability conducted at all stages of data collection and coding, increasing confindence in the findings. Most of the studies were qualitatative with small sample sizes, and originated from either the UK or USA, limiting generalisation. Nevertheless, the studies highlighted the diverse problems experienced by students with ASD, and how supports were often inadequate or inappropriate, providing differing benefit to students and illuminating the need for supports to be individualised. Also, the strengths of students, and the benefits they obtained from attending post-secondary education were described. Finally, the theoretical concepts that informed the studies were presented.In response to identified limited survey research, and none from New South Wales (NSW) or the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), a report of an on-line survey of 48 university students with ASD from eight universities acros NSW and the ACT was conducted. The respondents revealed a range of personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as their difficulties coping with loneliness, anxiety, depression sensory sensitivities, and the lack of structure at university. In contrast to prior research (e.g., Cai & Richdale, 2016), only a minority of respondents declared a delay in disclosing to disability services. In spite of this, many respondents declared that they had not used many of the available supports, even though the majority of those who did stated that the supports were helpful. Respondents provided more positive appraisals for academic supports than non-academic supports, and rarely reported that supports were refused. These findings reveal that in addition to individualised supports, there is also a need for transition planning and novel solutions for some students.Thus, this thesis extended the research by updating the only prior review of post-secondary students with ASD. Also, the survey is the largest to date, and the only study from the student perspective of university students with ASD from NSW and the ACT. Moreover, the survey provided a unique perspective from a cohort that had predominantly disclosed their disability to disability services at or prior to enrolment in university courses. It highlighted the possible need to educate students with ASD about the supports that are availabl, and to encourage them to make greater use of them. In addition, it was noted that new approaches may be needed for those who find existing supports inappropriate.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xii, 135 pages) table
1940: Anzacs in England: The historical moment when the 'sons of Anzac' first inhabit the Anzac Legend
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 53-61Introduction -- Chapter 1 'Britishness or Australianness' -aspects of Australian identity and the deployment of the 18th Brigade to Great Britain in 1940. -- Chapter 2'The Thirty-Niners' in England - negotiating The Anzac Legend and the 'digger myth'. -- Chapter 3 How did British perceptions of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force (AIF )reflect aspects of the Anzac Legend and the 'digger myth'? -- ConclusionThis investigation examines the much broader cultural and socio-historical concept of the Anzac Legend and the military traditions of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) encapsulated in the 'digger myth'. The investigation will do this by assessing the extent to which the men of the 6th Division 2nd AIF, specifically the 18th and 25th Brigades, inhabit and negotiate both of these ideals in England in 1940. Societal changes during the inter-war period are assessed as they relate to Australian identity and specifically the notion of 'Britishness'. The men's own self-actualization and the British perception of Anzac is examined using archival material and literature.1 online resource (61 pages
Career choice capability: investigating the concept of agentive career choice with high school students in New South Wales
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 208-247.Chapter One. Introduction -- Chapter Two. Literature review - Career choice capability - defining the grounds across multidisciplinary literature -- Chapter Three. Conceptual framework. Paper One - A question of agency : applying Sen's theory of human capability to the concept of secondary school student career "choice" -- Chapter Four. Methodology quantity or quality? Methodological considerations in measuring human agency -- Chapter Five. Focus groups informing survey design. Paper Two - Focusing on what counts : using exploratory focus groups to enhance the development of an electronic survey in a mixed -methods research design -- Chapter Six. Survey results : personal characteristics of career uncertain students - Paper Three. Who struggles most in making a career choice and why? Findings from a cross-sectional survey of high school students -- Chapter Seven. Survey results : educational experiences of career uncertain students - Paper Four. School based experiences as contributors to career decision-making : findings from a cross-sectional survey of high school students -- Chapter Eight. Survey results : online career guidance - Paper Five. Online career guidance : does knowledge equate to power for high school students? -- Chapter Nine. Conclusion : agentive career choice of high school students : theory and practical reality.Career preference formation is a vital process for individuals living in a modern society such as Australia. Unfortunately, some young people experience greater difficulty in determining their career path than others, which can have negative consequences for their emotional, financial and even physical wellbeing. In addition, prolonged career uncertainty can lead to long-term unemployment, which has a negative effect on the economy. As current solutions seem to have insufficient effects on the problem of some young people's career uncertainty, this doctoral study draws on modern political philosophy to guide an empirical investigation of the career choice 'capability' of youth. The study proposes a conceptual framework, which draws on Amartya Sen's theory of human capability, to examine factors associated with the development of career choice capability. The proposed framework of this study advocates examining the personal and educational resources to date available to students in order to extrapolate the ability of young people to convert those resources into the freedom to achieve desirable careers.The research was conducted with secondary school students in Years 9 to 12 from a range of government and non-government schools in New South Wales, Australia. The study adopted a sequential phase mixed-methods approach, involving five focus groups (n = 23), followed by a large-scale cross-sectional survey (n = 706) investigating the associations between student characteristics, educational experiences and career (un)certainty. Findings reveal that both personal backgrounds and educational experiences are crucial to students' self-perceived career determination capability. Among the personal characteristics, factors such as language background, parental occupation, self-perceptions, and attitudes to school were significant predictors of career (un)certainty. In terms of school based experiences,career uncertain students were more likely to be from non-metropolitan and non-selective schools, tended to report a lack of access to both career education and elective subjects relevant to their needs, indicated less enjoyment from school in general, and in some academic subject areas. Career uncertain students did, however, report liking Sport/PDHPE (Personal Development, Health and Physical Education) to a greater extent than their career certain peers. Provision of online career guidance made no difference in career certainty for the majority of participants, as most were unaware of listed web resources.The thesis concludes with a series of recommendations, including the development of stronger relationships between students, families, schools and local communities in order to facilitate communication flow in relation to student needs and labour demands, and creating strategies for enhancing career opportunities of young people. Another important recommendation derived from the findings of this study is the provision of career education and guidance to students in late primary or early secondary school, prior to their selection of elective subject choices. The thesis also advocates for improved curriculum diversity at a high school level, and clearer indication of the connections between subjects and career pathways.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xxii, 297 pages
The relationship between diet, aging and longevity in an orb-web spider
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 35-37.Table of contents not included.The macronutrient composition of natural diets varies and affects aging and longevity of a variety of taxa. The relationship between diet and longevity is more prominent in model species than wild populations suggesting this may be a laboratory artefact. I applied dietary and protein restriction to understand how diet influences aging and longevity in a non-model species, the orb web spider Argiope keyserlingi. To assess whether longevity and performance vary with the amount and type of food, I set up treatments that manipulated how much food and protein the spiders received in a random assignment. My initial experiment showed that the amount of food (standard vs half the amount of food), did not affect longevity. In a subsequent experiment, I compared the spiders' performance, such as running speed, weight and web area on a weekly basis between a high and low protein feeding treatment. My results showed that there were no significant interactions between the amount of protein in the spiders' diet and its effects on a spiders' lifespan. However, spiders on the low protein diet built significantly smaller webs than their high protein counterparts, but as spiders aged, overall, they built smaller webs. Overall patterns of aging were affected by the duration of the treatment, but diet only affected the web area. In conclusion, my experiments only weakly support the notion that diet affects aging, which is prominently found in model species and less common in wild populations.1 online resource (39 pages
The influence of language, personality, and accountability on accountants' aggressive financial reporting judgments: experimental evidence from China
No full textThesis by publication.Includes bibliographical references.Aggressive financial reporting, which refers to accountants' preference for reporting disclosure that portrays events favourably when accounting treatments are not clearly indicated by the facts, accounting standards and relevant literature, has long been recognized as a critical ethical issue for the accounting profession. The aim of the dissertation is to examine the influence of three factors, namely language, personality, and accountability on Chinese accountants' aggressive financial reporting judgments. These three factors have been selected for examination in the three papers comprising this dissertation because of their importance and relevance both globally and in China. This dissertation is based on the 'thesis by publication', and comprises three separate experimental studies. This dissertation includes an introduction (Chapter 1), three separate experimental studies (Chapter 2-4), and a conclusion (Chapter 5). Specifically, the three papers comprising this dissertation are as follows.The first paper is entitled, "The Influence of Native versus Foreign Language on Chinese Subjects' Aggressive Financial Reporting Judgments". Researchers have suggested that ethical judgments about "right" and "wrong" are the result of deep and thoughtful principles and should therefore be consistent and not influenced by factors, such as language. As long as an ethical scenario is understood, individuals' resolution should not depend on whether the ethical scenario is presented in their native language or in a foreign language. Given the forces of globalization and international convergence, an increasing number of accountants and accounting students are becoming proficient in more than one language and they are required to interpret and apply complex ethical pronouncements issued by various global standard setters both in their native language and in English. There have been calls in the literature to examine whether subjects make systematically different ethical judgments in a foreign language than in their native language. This paper contributes to the literature by drawing on culture, linguistics and psychology research to provide empirical evidence that Chinese subjects are more aggressive in interpreting the concept of control when providing their consolidation reporting recommendations in English than in Simplified Chinese. This paper applied 2x2 within-subject and between-subject randomized experimental design using a sample of Chinese final year undergraduate accounting students at a leading Chinese university, where accounting courses are taught in both Simplified Chinese and English. Students in this study are proxy for entry-level accounting practitioners. This paper provides empirical evidence that Chinese accounting students are more aggressive in interpreting the concept of control when providing their consolidation reporting recommendations in English than in their native language.The second paper is entitled, "Construal of Self and Chinese Accountants' Aggressive Financial Reporting Judgments". This study responds to calls in the literature to examine personality variables which may provide sharper insights into accountants' judgments in applying principles-based International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). This paper contributes to the literature on the global convergence of financial reporting by examining the influence of an important personality variable, construal of self, on Chinese accountants' aggressive financial reporting judgments. A between-subjects quasi-experiment was applied. One hundred and twenty-two Chinese professional accountants were categorized as either independents or interdependents, on the basis of their scores on construal of self scales. Subjects made their consolidation reporting judgments in the manipulated situations based on the financial performance of the investee entity, which refers to the situation where the investee entity makes a significant profit or a significant loss in the reporting period. The findings of this study show that compared to interdependent accountants, independent accountants used the flexibility allowed in the principles-based standards to make more aggressive consolidation reporting judgments. Also, adoption of IFRS may not necessarily ensure consistent judgments even within China.The third paper is entitled, "The Influence of Formal and Felt Accountability on Chinese Accountants' Aggressive Reporting Judgments". This paper extends the literature on accountability by providing causal experimental evidence to show the competing importance of formal and felt accountability in influencing Chinese professional accountants' aggressive financial reporting judgments. Specifically, a between-subject randomized experiment was conducted to examine whether felt accountability influences ethical judgments under two conditions, namely, when formal accountability is imposed and when formal accountability is not imposed. This paper uses a cultural lens to draw on the literature on Confucianism and interdependence to suggest that the Chinese cultural values of harmony within hierarchy and interdependence provide useful insight in understanding accountability. However, faced with intense globalization and international convergence of accounting and accountability, the intensity of these cultural values is changing particularly among professionals in contemporary China. The results show that both accountants who experience greater felt accountability and those who experience lesser felt accountability coexist within contemporary China. The findings support the hypothesis that when formal accountability is imposed, accountants are not likely to make aggressive financial reporting judgments, irrespective of their scores on felt accountability measures. The findings further show that when formal accountability is not imposed, accountants who experience lesser felt accountability are more aggressive in providing their financial reporting judgments, compared to those who experience greater felt accountability.The implications of each paper are as follows. The findings of the first paper have implications for the globalized business world and cross-cultural research by challenging the commonly held assumption that an individual's ethical judgment is consistent in different languages. The findings suggest that systematically different ethical judgments in native and foreign languages needs to be recognized. The second paper provides empirical evidence of the importance of construal of self in examining accountants' aggressive judgments. The findings suggest that it may be premature to assume that adoption of IFRS will lead to comparable financial reporting. The findings are relevant to researchers who are interested in examining personality and cultural influences on accountants' judgments both within and across countries. Companies and organizations may incorporate appropriate strategies to recruit and train independent and interdependent accountants, particularly by addressing the influence of construal of self on aggressive financial reporting judgments. The findings of the third paper have implications for enterprises when designing and developing culturally appropriate accountability mechanisms. The findings also have implications for global standard setters, national regulators and researchers who are interested in examining accountability and cultural influences on accountants' ethical judgments and behaviour both within and between countries.This dissertation makes significant and original contributions to the literature by providing causal experimental evidence on the influence of three important and relevant factors, namely language, personality, and accountability on accountants' aggressive financial reporting judgments in the Chinese national context. The first paper has been published in the Journal of Business Ethics, which is ranked A by the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal ranking. The second paper has been accepted for publication in a forthcoming issue of the Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, which is ranked A by the ABDC. The third paper is under peer review in the Accounting, Organizations and Society journal, which is ranked A* by the ABDC.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xiv, 164 pages
Optimal consumption, investment and insurance strategy applications
No full textThesis by publication.Bibliography: pages 129-143.1. Introduction -- 2. Paper 1 -- 3. Paper 2. -- 4. Paper 3 -- 5. Conclusion -- References.Drawing on the existing literature, a utility-maximising agent is studied in the application of a life-cycle optimal strategy of consumption, investment and insurance to different, and unexplored, scenarios. Key factors, including time inconsistent preferences, an optimal stopping time and a dynamic risk environment,can affect agents' behaviour and thereby influence their financial strategies .In this thesis three research papers are developed to apply optimal strategies in various circumstances.In the first research paper, an optimal portfolio management model with hyperbolic discounting and luxury-type bequest motives is used to explain the annuity puzzle - the low demand for voluntary life annuities. Using hyperbolic discounting, agents' time-inconsistent preferences can be described and measured in the model. Two extreme types of agents' time-inconsistent behaviours, "naïve" behaviour and "sophisticated" behaviour, are then examined and studied. To build a more realistic model, the luxury-type bequest motives are further incorporated into the model. The model in paper 1 is calibrated to Swiss data to obtain numerical results.In the second research paper, the financial planning problem of a retiree seeking to enter a retirement village at a future time is studied. As the retiree is assumed to be utility-driven and would fully annuitise her wealth at the time of entry, her optimal strategy is a solution to problems of both optimal control and optimal stopping. Within the context of dynamic health states, the optimal strategy should include an optimal plan of consumption, investment, bequest and insurance prior to the entry date, and an optimal stopping time to conduct the full annuitisation for entering the retirement village. For a case that has an initial deposit requirement for entering the retirement village, the optimal solution incorporates an American option replication. The model in paper 2 uses Australian data to present our numerical resultsIn the final research paper, an optimal strategy is applied in a dynamic risk environment. Jumps and regime switching are incorporated in the risky asset diffusion to describe the dynamic risk environment. By extending the model in Richard (1975), a system of paired Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations is obtained and solved. Using numerical methods and calibrating to American data, the numerical results of agents' behaviours for different risk environments are obtained.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xviii, 143 pages) graphs, table
High-fidelity simulation : descriptive analysis of student learning styles
No full textBackground: Nurse educators need to be responsive to and understand individual learning styles and characteristics. This responsiveness will contribute to a satisfying and effective high-fidelity simulation. Method: A descriptive post-test design was employed as part of a larger randomized controlled intervention study. Results: The majority of third-year nursing students were divergers (29.8%), and the highest mean score for learning characteristics was for active experimentation. Participants were highly satisfied and agreed effective teaching, and learning strategies were evident in and important for simulation. Conclusions: High-fidelity simulation is valued by third-year nursing students, irrespective of their learning styles and is particularly suited to millennial students. The implementation and design of simulation requires further examination to ensure that it consistently assists students in preparation for professional practice.11 page(s
An uncertain assessment compatible incentive mechanism for eliciting continual and truthful assessments of cloud services
No full textThe evaluation of dynamic performance of cloud services relies on continual assessments from cloud users, e.g., ordinary consumers and testing parties. In order to elicit continual and truthful assessments, an effective incentive mechanism in cloud environments should allow users to provide uncertain assessments when they are not sure about the real performance of cloud services, e.g., when users do not access cloud services on time, rather than providing untruthful or arbitrary assessments. Different from all prior works, we propose a novel uncertain assessment compatible incentive mechanism. Under this mechanism, a user not only has sufficient incentives to continually provide truthful assessments, but also would prefer providing uncertain assessments over untruthful or arbitrary assessments since uncertain assessments can bring more benefits than untruthful or arbitrary assessments. We theoretically analyze the proposed incentive mechanism and evaluate it through simulations under different circumstances. The theoretical analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach. Moreover, the experimental results based on simulations strongly support the results from the theoretical analysis.17 page(s
Gendered responses to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Australia
No full textThis paper presents findings from a gendered analysis of resident responses to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires (wildfires) in Victoria, Australia. One hundred and seventy-three people lost their lives in the bushfires and more than 2000 houses were destroyed. Previous research on Black Saturday has largely focused on issues of resident preparedness and response, with limited consideration of the role of gender in household decisions and actions. This paper examines the gendered dimensions of risk awareness, preparedness and response among households affected by the bushfires. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with over 600 survivors and a questionnaire of 1314 households in fire-affected areas. Analysis revealed that women more often wanted to leave than men, who more often wanted to stay and defend property against the bushfires. Nevertheless, findings suggest that broad-brush characterisations of staying to defend as a masculine response and leaving as a feminine response are misguided. Although some women expressed a strong desire to leave, others were resolute on staying to defend. Equally, while some men were determined to stay and defend, others had never considered it an option. Despite this, the research identified numerous instances where disagreement had arisen as a result of differing intentions. Conflict most often stemmed from men's reluctance to leave, and was most apparent where households had not adequately planned or discussed their intended responses. The paper concludes by considering the degree to which the findings are consistent with other research on gender and bushfire, and the implications for bushfire safety policy and practice.13 page(s
Estimating the effective sample size of tree topologies from Bayesian phylogenetic analyses
No full textBayesian phylogenetic analyses estimate posterior distributions of phylogenetic tree topologies and other parameters using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. Before making inferences from these distributions, it is important to assess their adequacy. To this end, the effective sample size (ESS) estimates how many truly independent samples of a given parameter the output of the MCMC represents. The ESS of a parameter is frequently much lower than the number of samples taken from the MCMC because sequential samples from the chain can be non-independent due to autocorrelation. Typically, phylogeneticists use a rule of thumb that the ESS of all parameters should be greater than 200. However, we have no method to calculate an ESS of tree topology samples, despite the fact that the tree topology is often the parameter of primary interest and is almost always central to the estimation of other parameters. That is, we lack a method to determine whether we have adequately sampled one of the most important parameters in our analyses. In this study, we address this problem by developing methods to estimate the ESS for tree topologies. We combine these methods with two new diagnostic plots for assessing posterior samples of tree topologies, and compare their performance on simulated and empirical data sets. Combined, the methods we present provide new ways to assess the mixing and convergence of phylogenetic tree topologies in Bayesian MCMC analyses.14 page(s