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The academic study of harsh vocals has been gaining traction of late, as the physiology (Eckers et al., 2009), creative attributes (Di Lorenzo & Trantino, 2016) and socio-political ramifications (Heesch, 2019) of usage have been covered in some depth by existing literature. However, formalised pedagogical study around the technique is somewhat lacking, as each vocalist has a unique path to the style and it is highly unlikely to be the result of formal training. In Australia this situation is exacerbated by the relative isolation of the individuals learning due to its small population, large geographic size and relative lack of popularity of heavy metal. This research involved interviewing five active harsh vocalists about their journey to learning and revealed that individuals were unlikely to engage in formal training and were more likely to experiment, seek access to information online and engage with strategies from other vocal styles in order to develop their own sound.

This article argues that it is necessary to develop new approaches to media and information literacy (MIL) education to respond to information seeking on YouTube. The article draws on data from a survey of adult Australians (N=3,510), focusing on their media literacy attitudes, experiences, and needs. A subset of this data focuses on respondents who use YouTube to seek information for a purpose. The article interrogates the data to ask who uses YouTube to access information when they need to make a decision; how these adults' critical dispositions compare to people who do not use YouTube to seek information; and what level of media ability they have compared to other groups. A total of 45% of adult Australians had used YouTube to seek information and make a decision in the month prior to completing the survey. While this group shared a critical disposition towards media and information, they lacked confidence in their own media abilities. We argue that it is necessary to develop new MIL approaches to assist this group. In addition, we argue that this group is more likely to respond to MIL initiatives that are available on YouTube itself and are unlikely to seek MIL learning in community institutions like libraries or community centres.

The use of non-academic sources of health information is popular among both the public and exercise professionals. However, the quality of this information varies and without the application of critical thinking skills, may lead to misconceptions forming. This research aimed to compare the knowledge, presence of misconceptions, and critical thinking ability of vocational education and training (VET) fitness students at the beginning and end of their training, and qualified personal trainers (PTs). It also examines differences in the sources of information used by students and professionals. An Exercise Science Knowledge Survey was developed to assess knowledge and misconceptions about ten areas of exercise and nutrition. VET students were assessed at the beginning and end of a personal training qualification and PTs were surveyed once. Though VET students' knowledge improved and misconceptions decreased from pre- to post training, PTs did not differ from post-VET students in knowledge, misconceptions, or critical thinking ability. PTs reported using more varied sources of information and were more likely to trust reliable sources. Critical thinking ability correlated with higher knowledge scores and lower misconception scores. Instruction in critical thinking should be embedded at lower levels of VET, and exercise professionals should be encouraged to undertake higher levels of study.

The number of Saudi female international students (SFISs) pursuing higher degrees in Western countries has increased dramatically. Many are faced with unusual challenges, especially acting without a male's permission, interacting with males, and using an open, free Internet. This article proposes that SFISs experience a "digital shift" whereby their cultural, educational, and digital backgrounds impact their information-seeking behavior in Australia. The study used a qualitative interpretivist methodology, interviewing a diverse group of SFISs studying in Australia, to better understand this impact on their everyday information needs and use of information sources. Findings indicate that SFISs' imperfect online search skills, exacerbated by English language deficiency, increase their challenges. Recommendations for supporting SFISs are offered for institutions and service providers.

Background: Bridging the research-practice gap in autism communication services is an identified priority for improving services. Limited research has investigated the views of practitioners regarding this research-practice gap. Investigation of the barriers experienced and facilitators used in clinical practice may assist to identify scalable and sustainable strategies to increase use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in the delivery of communication services to children with autism. Aims: To elucidate how Australian speech pathologists engage with external evidence and how communication outcomes are measured to demonstrate the effectiveness of service provision to children with autism. Methods & Procedures: A total of 15 Australian speech pathologists, with experience ranging from less than 1 to more than 16 years, participated in three focus groups. Data from focus groups were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis within an interpretive phenomenological paradigm. Outcomes & Results: Seven themes were identified. Participants reported on the diversity of individuals with autism, their experiences of resource constraints, seeking collegial advice and accessing a diverse range of evidence sources, the role of clinical expertise in translating evidence to practice, the barriers experienced in outcome measurement and use of stakeholders to facilitate data collection to demonstrate outcomes. Conclusions & Implications: Individual practitioner skill and beliefs are facilitators to translating research to practice. Interventions to improve clinician use of EBP should address the skill and belief barriers, aiming to increase a clinician's EBP self-efficacy and increasing their expectation that investing in EBP activities will result in improved services for children with autism. Modelling and reflective practice are two strategies that may have an application as interventions to improve EBP use in clinical practice.

International students' capacity to undertake a digital journey to embrace new digital resources has real life implications in terms of their ability to adjust to their new environment. This article explores links between international students' use of online social networking sites and their social networks, including drawing on digital resources beyond only those from their home country. Given the increased focus on online learning and engagement with students in higher education, there is an even greater need to examine students' digital journeys, in terms of their capacity to navigate both their academic worlds and everyday lives abroad. This article demonstrates that students continue to use a range of online sources from their home countries, even as they transition to their new lives in Australia. This has implications for the way institutions communicate with international students more broadly.

Across Australia, students at regional, rural and remote high schools are considerably less likely to go to university than their metropolitan counterparts. One of the ways in which universities try to help to bridge this gap is to organise visits to such schools, with the purpose of familiarising students with the idea of university and encouraging them to consider going on to university after school. These visits range in purpose, from direct marketing to a genuine effort to widen access to university more generally. The key purpose of university visits is not always made explicit to the schools or the students, leading to a mismatch between university intentions and school and student expectations. Recent research with regional high schools in South Australia, using a mixed-methods approach, reveals the impact of this mismatch, with university visits being regarded by students and schools as, at best, disappointing and, at worst, as nothing more than marketing exercises and hence to be treated with suspicion. These research findings are discussed, and recommendations made for ways in which university visits may be more effectively geared towards meeting the needs of students, schools and parents. This paper recommends that universities work more closely with regional schools, parents and communities more broadly, with a greater emphasis on providing useful, practical information about what 'going to university' entails. We argue that, through this, more regional students may consider university as a viable post-school option.

Introduction: Students increasingly depend on Web search for educational purposes. This causes concerns among education providers as some evidence indicates that in higher education, the disadvantages of Web search and personalised information are not justified by the benefits. Method: One hundred and twenty university students were surveyed about their information-seeking behaviour for educational purposes. We also examined students' information access while using Web search, through twenty-eight one-on-one study sessions. Analysis: Survey participants ranked their preference towards different information resources on a 5-point Likert scale. Given equal exposure to the first five standard pages of the search results during the study sessions, students' explicit and implicit feedback was used to evaluate the relevance of the search results. Results: First, most participating students declared that they use Google search engine as their primary or only information-seeking tool. Second, about 60% of the clicked result links during the study sessions were located in pages 2+ of the search results without personalisation influencing the relevance of the top-ranked search results. In real-life scenarios pages 2+ of the search results receive only ~10% of the clicks. Students also expressed more satisfaction with the relevance of non-personalised over personalised search results. These differences presented a missed information opportunity, an opportunity bias, for students.

This qualitative case study provides fresh understandings about first year undergraduate international students' library and information use at an Australian university, and their associated information literacy learning needs. The findings provide evidence to inform the development of library spaces and information literacy responses that enhance international students' transition and learning. The study was conducted in 2015 as part of a project that simultaneously investigated the same topic at three US universities. This paper presents the case study context, reviews relevant literature and identifies gaps in research about international students' library use and information literacy, and outlines the qualitative methodology--questionnaire, interviews and thematic analysis. The findings reveal international students' lived experiences of using the library and information, in general and for assignments. After presenting the students' recommendations to the library, the paper discusses the wider implications of the findings for university libraries and information literacy innovation.

To properly understand sex education, it is important to consider the informal education that takes place outside the classroom. Students often seek out other resources to supplement the education they receive in school, especially to cover topics which are absent or underdeveloped in the formal sex education curriculum. A key resource for this, especially among young women, is the magazine advice column. Advice columns create a direct interaction between the reader and the magazine and encourage the disclosure of intimate, confidential information, making them a ready medium for the production and consumption of sex education. This study uses the advice columns in "Dolly," a popular Australian magazine, to investigate adolescents' concerns about normality. This research is based on a corpus of 88,000 words, with data from advice columns published 20 years apart (mid-1990s and mid-2010s), which is analyzed using keywords and concordancing. This is a unique corpus study in that it considers similarity as well as difference in the data by investigating the recurring concern with normality that is evident in both decades of the corpus.

There is an increasing focus on notions of feedback in which students are positioned as active players rather than recipients of information. These discussions have been either conceptual in character or have an empirical focus on designs to support learners in feedback processes. There has been little emphasis on learners' perspectives on, and experiences of, the role they play in such processes and what they need in order to benefit from feedback. This study therefore seeks to identify the characteristics of feedback literacy -- that is, how students understand and can utilise feedback for their own learning -- by analysing students' views of feedback processes drawing on a substantial data set derived from a study of feedback in two large universities. The analysis revealed seven groupings of learner feedback literacy, including understanding feedback purposes and roles, seeking information, making judgements about work quality, working with emotions, and processing and using information for the benefit of their future work (31 categories in total). By identifying these "realised" components of feedback literacy, in the form of illustrative examples, the emergent set of competencies can enable investigations of the development of feedback literacy and improve feedback designs in courses through alignment to these standards.

Information skills are essential in business contexts where information is plentiful and selecting, synthesizing and leveraging that information in decision making provides the competitive advantage. Information literacy is considered to be one of the most important graduate attributes, but do academic information skills translate into the business context? What information skill sets should educators focus on providing students to best equip them for the workplace? Interviews were conducted with employers and recent graduates working in Western Sydney. These conversations identified specific information tools, techniques and processes, which can inform practical curriculum innovations to assist business graduates to be work ready.

Introduction: Use of the Internet for open Web searches is common among university students in academic learning tasks. The tools used by students to find relevant information for online assessment tasks were investigated and their information seeking behaviour was documented to explore the impact on assessment design. Method: A mixed methods approach was followed, using recorded observations of online sessions and retrospective interviews. Ten students who recently started university undertook two online assessment tasks where all online interactions were digitally recorded, followed by retrospective interviews to gain insight into their behaviour. Analysis: The observations were analysed together with the interview responses to develop categories and themes of information tools usage, with a particular focus on assessment design in higher education. Results: Most participants preferred to seek information using basic tools and approaches, and did not maximise the capacity of information tools to improve quality and synthesis of discovered information. These novice readers showed a need for instruction in speed reading and information tool usage to improve their learning. Conclusions: Findings suggest that improvement in assessment design and subsequent student learning may be achieved by providing guidance to university students in information tools usage during the design of learning tasks.

Understanding the ways that international students seek information and help in the host country is essential for improving academic, social, cultural, and welfare support for this student cohort. However, there is a dearth of literature that documents how international students in the vocational education and training (VET) sector do so. This paper aims to fill this gap. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 Chinese international students undertaking diploma and associate degree programs in Australia, this research shows that the ways in which Chinese international students seek help prior to their departure and after their arrival at the host country, largely depends on the nature of the issues they confront. The data also reveals that students' use of education agents is not limited to the pre-departure stage, as is indicated in the existing literature, but throughout their journey in the host country. Notably, the role of agents has become increasingly important in Chinese international students' decision-making processes during their transition from diploma to associate degree and higher education programs.

Teaching information verification skills has become increasingly important in the current post-truth era. Through surveys and interviews with teenagers and young adults in the Middle East and United States, this study explores the changing patterns of social media use for news and actions they take to verify news stories online. Findings show younger students are moving toward more visual platforms, such as Instagram, and private messaging apps to get news. Information verification activities, however, are more frequently practiced by older people who use Facebook and Twitter. Implications for journalism and mass communication curricula are discussed.

Universities are increasingly utilising social media for student recruitment, the most highly used channel for prospective students. However, research on information gathering and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM)-seeking behaviours on social media is generally absent. This paper explores the information sought by prospective students on social media, by analysing data from actual conversations on Quora, a social media question-and-answer site. Content analysis of 865 questions was conducted to examine the information regarding the factors students seek when selecting a university. The findings report information requirements on five major dimensions, namely reputation, career prospect, learning and leaching, administration and student life. This paper contributes to higher education literature by revealing the university information search factors students most commonly seek on social media, utilising a unique data source derived from actual online questions. Through understanding the eWOM-seeking behaviours of prospective students, universities can more accurately target their social media content.

Purpose: Health literacy is a key international public health goal. Conceptualising health literacy as an asset highlights the importance of fostering a health literate youth for the benefit of future generations, yet research has predominantly focused on examining adults' and older adolescents' health literacy. This presents a gap for child-centred studies with younger populations. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings from a qualitative study that explored health literacy, in a nutrition context (i.e. nutrition literacy), from primary school children's perspectives. Design/methodology/approach: The study examined children's experiences in accessing, understanding and interacting with nutrition information. In doing so, the research employed a socio-ecological framework to understand facilitators and barriers that can influence children's nutrition literacy. Preadolescent boys and girls aged 11-12 years were invited to take part in the study. At the time of recruitment, students were attending one of three state government schools in a socioeconomically disadvantaged region of metropolitan South Australia. A series of focus groups and individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 38 participants. Interview data were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic techniques. Findings: Children demonstrated that they accessed and interacted with a variety of sources of nutrition information. Nutrition understandings were derived from the home, school and media environments. Parents and teachers were cited as key influences on children's interactions with nutrition information and children particularly emphasised the trust placed in their teachers as health "experts." While the home and school environments emerged as potential settings to develop children's nutrition literacy skills, the children's narratives also alluded to potential barriers surrounding nutrition literacy. Originality/value: This study provides further insight into children's nutrition literacy. While functional nutrition literacy remains a fundamental starting point, children are interested in opportunities to develop more interactive skills, such as those related to cooking. Opportunities also exist to foster more critical competencies. This research thereby highlights the importance of more integrated strategies to promote nutrition literacy among this population group across multiple settings.

The article reports phase 2 of a two-year study, dubbed the Smart Information Use project, the focus of which was appropriate seeking and use of information by students at various stages of their high school education, along with the avoidance of plagiarism. In four Australian high schools, teacher librarians and classroom teachers developed and trialed strategies to teach students how to avoid plagiarism. Each school used action research and one of two pedagogical approaches, referred to as "instructional practice" and "inquiry learning." University researchers undertook evaluation using an interpretivist/constructivist framework. Students, teachers, and teacher librarians were interviewed, mostly in focus groups. The strategies used in both approaches are described, along with the findings of the evaluation. Both approaches were found to help students to avoid plagiarism. The discussion section includes student and teacher predictions about changes in future practice, the importance of student engagement with topics, and assessment issues. The conclusion discusses the lessons learned, focusing particularly on the need for a whole-school policy if plagiarism is to be counteracted. Good collaboration between teachers and teacher librarians is crucial. The two pedagogical approaches, taken together, provide a powerful repertoire of ideas that can be implemented over time in any secondary school anywhere. (Contains 2 tables.)

This study examined the views of year 7 students, teacher librarians, and teachers in three state secondary schools in rural New South Wales, Australia, on information literacy and transfer. The aims of the study included the development of a grounded theory in relation to information literacy and transfer in these schools. The study's perspective was sociocultural, and grounded theory was adopted as the method. This paper presents a critical evaluation of the advantages and limitations of grounded theory. The key findings of the study are outlined and discussed. The findings are related to the extent to which students valued information literacy practices and the factors involved in determining whether students were likely to transfer information literacy practices across time and school subjects. The study identified three groups of students: (1) a minority, who were engaged in their own learning, valued information literacy practices, and were likely to transfer these practices; (2) a majority, who could potentially be engaged in their own learning and who valued information literacy practices in principle, but were unlikely to transfer these practices without intervention by a teacher or teacher librarian; and (3) a very small minority, who failed to grasp the concepts of learning or information literacy practices and could not transfer such practices. The study also found that the lack of a culture of transfer in the schools was a significant hindrance in developing students as transferrers. The findings are discussed and a grounded theory of information literacy and transfer is presented. (Contains 3 figures.)

Physiology courses are considered to be challenging for students to master due to the highly conceptual nature of the discipline and the substantial cognitive effort required to understand disciplinary knowledge. Students must choose appropriate learning strategies to develop their understanding, as their choices may influence both their understanding and their academic achievement. The primary aim of this study was to develop an understanding of why students experience difficulties with physiology and how they respond when facing the challenge of learning this discipline. Undergraduate allied health students (n=231) studying physiology were asked to identify the topics they had difficulty understanding, the strategies they used to deal with that difficult knowledge, and the reasons for their difficulties. Consenting students' responses were subjected to inductive and deductive thematic analyses, and their performance on examinations were collated. Students reported that they found physiology difficult due to their lack of familiarity with it and the level of detail required. To aid their understanding of difficult topics, students commonly reported reviewing information, seeking further information, and seeking social assistance, with more high-achieving students reporting reviewing records, and fewer reporting seeking social assistance than poor achieving students. Most notably, a disconnect was found between students' reporting of difficult modules and their academic achievement on those modules, with students who cited difficulties performing equally well, if not better, than those who do not. Importantly, these findings suggest that students, in recognizing their difficulties and the reasons for them, can implement effective learning strategies to overcome them.

This paper reports on a study that investigated the range of institutional support needs of international students at one Australian university with a view to increasing understanding of their needs and the ways in which support was provided. The study involved a number of data collection methods including focus groups, key informant interviews and a larger scale survey, undertaken in an inductive and sequential process. The results indicated that the levels of awareness about services differed, that lack of knowledge of how to access a service and finding information about it were key reasons for non-use, and that the helpfulness of staff impacted on the perception of services as useful. The paper concludes by recommending a reconsideration of current practices to move towards a model of student support service provision in which the student is at the centre.

Studying via the Internet using information tools is a common activity for students in higher education. With students accessing their subject material via the Internet, studies have shown that students have difficulty understanding the complete purpose of an assessment which leads to poor information search practices. The selection of relevant information for particular learning assessments is the topic of this paper as it describes a case study that focuses on the information tool use of a small group of participants and is a continuation of similar research studies. The study and discussed research findings point to the benefit of students use of a visualisation tool to provide relevant learning cues and to transition to improved engagement with online assessment.

The article reports phase 1 of a two-year study that focused on seeking and use of information by students at various stages of their secondary education. The project used a large qualitative sample selected from four Australian schools and was undertaken during 2006 as part of a wider project concerned with using information creatively and effectively to minimize plagiarism. The field work included observation of students undertaking an assignment, two interviews with students, and the analysis of the completed assignments. Topics covered and reported, in the context of the available literature, include: preferences for information sources, self-perception of information skills, help from other people, trust in and perceived reliability of sources, attitudes to information seeking, recording and use of information, and attribution of information sources. Criteria for good practice include the avoidance of plagiarism by students, general attitudes to information seeking and use, and awareness of the need for an evaluative, critical approach to information. The responses of the students who plagiarised most are examined towards the end of the article. The discussion and conclusion explore the issues in greater depth, provide recommendations for future improvements, and outline the remaining two phases of the project. (Contains 1 table.)

Introduction: The paper describes an interim model for understanding the influences on information use in relation to plagiarism, with a focus on secondary school students. Available literature mostly focuses on the tertiary level and on quantifying the extent of plagiarism, with limited availability of theory or empirical research focussing on information use, learning and plagiarism. Theoretical context: Possible theoretical bases for the model are considered, and the reasons for choosing Williamson's (2005) modified ecological model, as the basis, are outlined. Empirical Research: The data from a pilot study, using ethnographic techniques in a constructivist framework, contributed to the development of the interim model. The study was undertaken with Year 11 students in an Australian country high school. The data analysis from this study was influenced by constructivist grounded theory. Themes and categories were developed from this analysis. Model Development: The themes and categories, together with the gaps in understanding as revealed by the pilot research experience, were used to modify Williamson's ecological model to provide a diagrammatic representation suited to the topic of information use and plagiarism. The themes, encompassing a number of categories which might provide understanding about influences on information use in relation to plagiarism, are people, practices, attitudes and technology. Conclusion: Developing the model gave the researchers new insights at a crucial stage when they were about to embark on a major study, building on their pilot project. Although the target group for the research is secondary school students, the model is applicable to any group of information users.

Introduction: Reports findings from research in progress investigating judgment and decision making during information seeking in the workplace, in particular, the assessment of enough information. Characteristics of this judgment and the role of context in shaping it are framed against theories of human judgment and decision making. Method: Thirty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with public sector policy workers in Australia. Two interviews were carried out, the first with individual participants and the second, a joint interview with two participants. Interviews were taped and transcribed and inductive data analysis carried out. Findings: Findings discussed in this paper focus on contextual factors that frame policy workers' judgment and decision making while information seeking, factors including ill-structured problems, shifting goals, time stress and action-feedback loops. Also revealed was the importance of developing a framework, against which the judgment of enough information can be made, and the fluid and iterative nature of these judgments. Conclusion: The contextual factors reported show similarities with those identified by naturalistic decision making researchers, suggesting this new field of decision theory has much to offer researchers into information seeking in context.

Background: A range of indicators point to an international increase in the prevalence of performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs) use, predominantly among young men. Attention to PIEDs-related benefits, adverse health effects, information and health service access are needed. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 605 men who inject PIEDs was conducted at nine primary needle and syringe programme locations across five local health districts in Sydney. Results: Among anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) users (n = 564), anger, rage or irritability (27%, 95%CI: 23.4-30.6) and sexual or genital problems (26.4%, 95%CI: 22.9-30.0) were the most commonly reported adverse health effects. Taking regular, longer breaks between AAS cycles were associated with reduced reports of some adverse effects. Approaching two-thirds of participants had told a doctor about using PIEDs (63.1%, 95%CI: 59.1-67.1). However, as length of time since first injecting PIEDs increased, participants' perceptions of doctors as reliable information sources decreased (rho = -0.10, p = 0.04). Reliance on lay information sources was very common, particularly among people who spoke languages other than English. Conclusions: This study supports providing information on cycle lengths and break periods as part of standard PIEDs-related harm reduction guidelines. Safe injecting and dosage education through peer networks or steroid clinics may be useful strategies.

This paper examines the preferred sexuality education sources of older Australian adults in later life. Drawing on findings from qualitative interviews with 30 men and 23 women aged 60 years and older, we consider the sources that participants currently use, or would like to use, in seeking information about sex. Where relevant, we examine participants' experiences of learning about sex in later life using different sources, and the impact these had on their sexual expression, pleasure and well-being. Preferred sources of information include the Internet, the media, health care providers, books and workshops or discussion groups. A substantial number of participants did not actively seek information on sex. For those who had, these educational endeavours could profoundly shape their sexual practices. As such, learning about sex should be viewed as a lifelong endeavour. Our findings carry important implications for the development and delivery of sexuality education for older adults.

This study tested the effects of the modality of reading formats (electronic vs. print), online reading habits (engagement in different online reading activities), use of cognitive strategies, metacognitive knowledge, and navigation skills on printed and electronic reading literacy across regions. Participants were 31,784 fifteen-year-old students (50.78% female) from 19 countries and economies in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment database. Results showed that students exhibited better reading literacy in the print environment. Moreover, information-seeking activities, control strategies, knowledge of metacognitive strategies, and navigation skills positively predicted reading literacy in both print and electronic formats for all regions, whereas social reading activities negatively predicted reading literacy in print and were most harmful for the Asian region in both formats. Memorization strategies were negatively associated with reading literacy in both formats for Australasian, Western and Eastern EU, and South American regions, but not for the Asian region. Online reading habits, regardless of types, had no impact on reading literacy in both formats for the South American region. The study findings provided suggestions for literacy instruction in the e-learning era across different regions.

This study sought to analyze and evaluate the accessibility, availability and quality of online information regarding the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and hearing loss. The most common search engine keyword terms a caregiver may enter when conducting a web search was determined using a keyword search tool. The top websites linked with each keyword term were then evaluated using a subjective quality rating tool. It was found that only 8% of the websites evaluated referred users directly to the NDIS. The majority of websites (70%) scored in the fair range for overall quality with 15% of websites scoring poorly and 15% of websites scoring highly. However, the hierarchy in which websites were presented on Google when a search string was typed into the search bar was not necessarily associated with the highest quality website appearing first. Overall, whilst the quality of information regarding the NDIS was of a fair quality, the accessibility to this information by caregivers was found to be poor.

Universities globally are showing increased interest in the potential of social media as a marketing recruitment tool. This paper explores how and why potential postgraduate business students looking to study internationally use social media in their educational decision-making process. Due to a lack of existing research, this study adopted an exploratory approach, gathering data through in-depth interviews with 12 postgraduate international students at an Australian university. The findings indicate that besides Facebook and YouTube, students are using blogs in their study search. The two most common reasons for social media usage are finding out about student life and reading reviews from former students. In the decision-making process, social media is mostly used in the information search and evaluation stages. Students' use of social media also varies across source countries. Our findings are a good information source for education marketers who need to engage more actively with social media.

The oz-Teachers listserv, an email list for teachers, ran continuously for 20 years, from 1995 to 2015. It provided the technical infrastructure for professional communication with the majority of its members being Australian teachers based in classrooms across the country. An analysis of the list archives provides us with interesting insights as to how teachers learn from and within communities of their peers and how such communities offer social and educational affordances to allow teachers to generate and enhance their own learning. This paper begins with a brief review of the response to the announcement of the list's closure. It then moves to a report of the types of communication which emerged from the list over time with comparisons drawn from extant research, namely, an early analysis of email lists and a more contemporary study of teacher communication through microblogging. We identified 14 categories with eight of these being paired, namely, as asking/seeking and responding/giving. The key finding of this analysis was that the list, and its professional discussions, were sustained through reciprocity and collective intelligence, that is, sharing of information and resources and that this was evident through the life of the listserv.

The need for twenty-first century information skills in engineering practice, combined with the importance for engineering programmes to meet accreditation requirements, suggests that it may be worthwhile to explore the potential for closer alignment between librarians and their work with information literacy competencies to assist in meeting accreditation standards and graduating students with high-level information skills. This article explores whether and how information use skills are reflected in engineering programme accreditation standards of four countries: Canada, the USA, the UK, and Australia. Results indicate that there is significant overlap between the information use skills required of students by engineering accreditation processes and librarians' efforts to develop information literacy competencies in students, despite differences in terms used to describe these skills. Increased collaboration between engineering faculty and librarians has the potential to raise student information literacy levels and fulfil the information use-related requirements of accreditation processes.

Family day-care (FDC) educators work autonomously to provide care and education for children of mixed ages, backgrounds and abilities. To meet the demands and opportunities of their work and regulatory requirements, educators need access to context-relevant and high quality information. No previous research has examined how and where these workers access information. This study aimed to explore how and where FDC educators access information on children's social and emotional well-being. Data on information-seeking by educators was collected using focus groups and individual interviews. We found that educators use a range of networks to source information on children's social and emotional well-being. Information networks comprise other educators, FDC coordination staff, external health and childhood professionals, and the Internet. The availability, quality and personal costs associated with different sources have implications for educators and the collective capacity of FDC to respond to changing evidence and government requirements.

Place: what a great theme for an English teacher's conference, in this official Year of Reading. It's such a conceptually rich and emotionally resonant topic through which to explore the many pleasures and challenges of reading; for teachers, and for students. For place is not only a physical location; it is also a powerful idea and a powerfully lived experience. People forge their various identities--familial, cultural, sexual, vocational--in particular places. Places also have histories. Place can also be about the pleasure of recognition. The fiction of Tim Winton and Robert Drewe, for example, relies heavily on this kind of appeal. Readers recognise a beach or river, coastline or street, and experience a sense of personal connection, even ownership. While this sense of recognition, which gives value to the local and regional, is an important means of contesting the cultural cringe, it is also a parochial and deeply reassuring kind of pleasure, and is surely one of the reasons for the enduring popularity of these writers. But books can also imaginatively transport individuals to unknown or unfamiliar places, and in so doing educate, exhilarate or utterly confound them. Representations of place are always perspectival, mediated by the observer's values, beliefs, history, his or her position in different systems of power. The ideological nature of place is a crucial issue, precisely because it raises these important ethical and political questions about identity.

When adults repeat questions, children often give inconsistent answers. This study aimed to test the claim that these inconsistencies occur because children infer that their first answer was unsatisfactory, and that the adult expects them to change their answer. Children aged 4, 6, and 8 years (N= 134) were asked about vignettes in which an adult repeated a question, with manipulation of the adult's overt dissatisfaction (high vs. low pressure) and knowledge about the information sought. On a separate occasion, the children were given an unrelated event recall interview containing repeated questions. All age groups showed sensitivity to adult dissatisfaction, interpreting question repetition as an implicit request for answer change more frequently in the high than in the low-pressure vignettes. Overall, however, these "change-expected" interpretations were least frequent in the younger children, who were the most prone to shifting. Also there was no evidence that these interpretations were associated with more frequent shifting in the recall interview. The results do not provide clear support for a simple conversational inference account of shifting, especially in younger children. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 1 footnote.)

This paper reports on an empirical study that explores the ways students approach learning to find and use information. Based on interviews with 15 education students in an Australian university, this study uses phenomenography as its methodological and theoretical basis. The study reveals that students use three main strategies for learning information literacy: 1) learning by doing; 2) learning by trial and error; and 3) learning by interacting with other people. Understanding the different ways that students approach learning information literacy will assist librarians and faculty to design and provide more effective information literacy education. (Contains 2 tables.)

Social media networks have emerged as a powerful tool in allowing collaboration and sharing of information during times of crisis (Axel Bruns, The Centre for Creative Industries Blog, comment posted January 19, 2011). The 2011 Queensland floods provided a unique opportunity to explore social media use during an emergency. This paper presents the findings of a pilot study that explored the information experiences of people using social media during the flooding of the Brisbane River. Analysis of data from four interviews supported the emergence of four categories of information experience. Examination of the categories revealed the way in which individuals experienced social media and the point of the flooding at which each category of experience occurred. Information regarding individuals' use of social media has the potential to inform the development of social media platforms that can provide relevant and accessible information for the general public in the event of a natural disaster.

Background: Teenagers need information about their changing bodies. Many young people do not receive adequate or accurate puberty/sexuality education from their parents or school, so many teenagers are going online to have their sexuality questions answered. Purpose: This research examines teenagers' web questions on sexuality, and an example of the puberty and sexuality education content that some may learn in school. It looks for evidence of heteronormative conceptualisations of gender and sexuality, using a theoretical framework based on the Four Discourses of Sexuality Education. Sample: This includes the web questions (n = 200) of an evenly gendered sample of 13-15-year-old students (n = 180) from four English-speaking nations, namely UK, USA, Canada and Australia, selected from a reputable puberty/sexuality education site, and, for comparison, an example of an age-representative public school Health and Physical Education (HPE) puberty/sexuality education curriculum. Method: A gendered and narrative-thematic Content Analysis was undertaken, using the Four Discourses theoretical framework, on the students' sexuality web questions, and also on the school HPE curriculum. Results: The discourse of Victimisation was evident in nearly half of all students' web questions, and over a third of the HPE curriculum. The discourse of Individual Morality was present in a quarter of both students' questions and the curriculum, while the discourse of Desire was evidenced in a fifth of students' questions and almost a third of curriculum content. Somewhat surprisingly, the discourse of Violence was present in 9% of exclusively female students' web questions, and in 12% of the curriculum. Conclusion: It is recommended that the sampled HPE curriculum, and similar curricula in these sampled students' countries, need explicitly to address gender differences in students' metacognition and conceptualisations of puberty and sexuality. This may enable students to embrace their entitlement to sexual subjectivity, in education and across the lifespan, thus helping to ensure students' healthy, positive and purposeful life outcomes. (Contains 2 figures.)

This study explored 1) whether there were any differences in the way medical students used library resources under problem-based learning (PBL) and scenario-based learning (SBL) curricula; and 2) what improvements the library could make to facilitate its use by medical students using the different curricula. Twenty medical students selected from two different medical universities in different countries were interviewed in depth. The study found that a) PBL and SBL students used the library significantly differently; b) SBL students presented a wider range of demands and behaviors in seeking information; c) more PBL students preferred using solely electronic resources to solve PBL problems; and d) more SBL students preferred using textbooks in their study and to solve the problems. It is concluded that the characteristics of the two learning approaches affect the medical students in their uses of library resources. The library staff must interact differently with students depending on the curriculum they are following. The study suggests several directions ("SHELTER") to the library and recommends it to provide service targeting students' needs after exploring the following three dimensions of the curriculum: students' perceptions of the library's collection related to the curriculum, course requirements for gathering information, and the librarian's role in the curriculum. When new reforms are initiated it is necessary for the library to undertake a comprehensive review and to gain understanding of the curriculum at the outset. (Contains 1 figure.)