This article addresses the position of community art practices and the role of practitioners in urban cracks. Community art practices raise possibilities for a reconceptualisation of the concept of community and an extension of the concept of art in public space. Urban cracks are conceptualised as spatial, temporal and relational manifestations of…

Moral ideals are strongly ingrained within society and individuals alike, but actual moral choices are profoundly influenced by tangible rewards and consequences. Across two studies we show that real moral decisions can dramatically contradict moral choices made in hypothetical scenarios (Study 1). However, by systematically enhancing the…

Background: Children are motivated to engage in stereotypic and repetitive behaviours for a number of reasons. Their motivation seems to change according to context, but little empirical evidence supports that observation. Interventions designed to reduce the behaviours may be improved by an increased understanding of the interaction between…

We investigated the impact of contextual constraint on the integration of novel word meanings into semantic memory. Adults read strongly or weakly constraining sentences ending in known or unknown (novel) words as scalp-recorded electrical brain activity was recorded. Word knowledge was assessed via a lexical decision task in which recently seen…

The introduction of an Australian curriculum is likely to have a widespread and long-term impact on schools, teachers and students, and yet there has been a swift and an almost unquestioning acceptance of its introduction by the Australian public and by educators. This paper will use theoretical frameworks informed by Gramsci's cultural hegemony…

The purpose of the current study was to develop and test a method for assessing the effect of outdoor activity context on level of physical activity in preschool children. The Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children was used to define the test conditions and various levels of physical activity within a multielement design.…

In this paper we argue that human rights approaches for intellectually disabled people have failed to recognise the complexity of rights claims made by and on behalf of this group. Drawing on a research project into discourses of education for intellectually disabled people in the Eastern Cape, South Africa we discern three rights discourses;…

To address the needs and interests of primary stakeholders in a writing program, this article presents a model of "grassroots" assessment that involves instructors from all ranks as well as students in the development, facilitation, and interpretation of assessment results. The authors describe two assessment plans that measured student…

When school boards are confronted with the challenge of unfamiliar, changing contexts, opportunities and governance responsibilities, they have to be able to respond appropriately. The research reported in this paper investigated the response of five Western Australian primary school boards to such situations. It analyses interview data from 49…

Swinburne University of Technology has experienced tremendous growth in open access online learning and as such is typical of the many Australian institutions that have ventured into online tertiary education. While research in online education continues to expand, comparatively little investigates students' enrolment and attrition. This research…

An inquiry-based, cross-course, collaborative structure is being implemented toward a graduate program's goals of using project-based learning as a consistent, core learning experience in each course cycle. This paper focuses upon the course collaborative structure and the two key forms of assessment used in each collaborative cycle: a progressive…

In three experiments, we examine the effects of semantic context and word concreteness on the mapping of existing meanings to new words. We developed a new-word-learning paradigm in which participants were required to discover the meaning of a new-word form from a specific verbal context. The stimulus materials were manipulated according to word…

This paper reports on a study of primary contextualization processes during science immersion trips and the resultant student learning. Four High School Ecology classes (n?=?67) and teachers participated. Through a pre-/post-assessment of science concept knowledge (Pathfinder Network Modeling) and follow-up interviews with students, it was…

Since many studies that use video to support teacher learning are situated in strongly guided contexts and encourage particular kinds of thinking, we still know very little about how more loosely guided contexts can support teachers to think about the dilemmas of practice associated with their own goals by reflecting about video. This study…

This article details the administration and results of an experiment conducted to assess the impact of three video game design concepts upon learning outcomes. The principles tested include game aesthetics, player choice, and player competition. The experiment participants were asked to play a serious game over the course of a week, and the…