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Purpose: The aim of this study was to develop, implement, and evaluate a 16-lesson integrated physical education program focusing on Indigenous games: Education, Movement, and Understanding (EMU). Method: The study aligned with current physical education, English, and mathematics syllabi and involved 105 children (9-12 years) from two primary schools (Awabakal Country, Australia; 2020). Children participated in sixteen 45-60 min EMU lessons over 8 weeks, with feasibility and preliminary efficacy outcomes assessed via mixed methods. Results: EMU was delivered successfully by the research team, with excellent student and teacher evaluations (M = 4.36--5.0 across 20 items). Improvements resulted for children's cardiorespiratory fitness (d = 0.37, p = 0.001), enjoyment of sport (d = 0.27, p = 0.024), physical self-perceptions (d = 0.27, p = 0.043), and academic achievement (spelling d = 0.91, addition d = 0.40, subtraction d = 0.53, and division d = 0.68). No significant changes in wellbeing or multiplication scores resulted. Conclusion: Our results provide support for the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of EMU as a beneficial and enjoyable integrated primary school physical education program.

This research investigated social interactions within small significant networks across a range of higher education settings to determine their role in supporting improvements to assessment. Thirty-four academic staff from three higher education settings (Australia, Canada and Sweden) provided assessment change examples and drew network diagrams to explain their interactions. Significant social interactions were defined as engaged exchanges between people who trust and respect each other, around topics that hold common value. They led to an emotional response, promoted reflection and resulted in action and/or a shift in thinking. Significant social interactions were demonstrated to be effective in supporting changes in assessment practices. The qualitative findings were supplemented with quantitative investigation of the relational ties within the networks. The most significant relational ties related to changes in the assessment were the value of the interactions (d = 0.64) and the similarity between individuals (d = 0.50). Authors recommend that leaders in higher education heed lessons learned about how value was generated within networks and utilized for improvement activities. It is suggested that the following positive change-oriented behaviours be developed and actively encouraged: Building of diverse networks; appreciating reciprocity; forging trust; creation of time and space for significant social interactions; and external recognition of the shift toward quality assessment practices. This study builds on existing literature for improving teaching and assessment in higher education, and particularly highlights the benefits of informal academic networks and the potential for significant interactions as a mechanism for change toward a quality agenda.

A series of worldwide projects concerning assessment, student outcomes and quality in higher education has revealed the need for a change in how higher education institutions assess student outcomes; however, many academics remain unconvinced. The success of assessment change arguably depends on the assessment culture within the institution. This qualitative investigation of assessment cultures draws on the perspectives of 35 academics from Australia, Canada and Sweden. Data were analysed through a socio-cultural lens, with results supporting assessment cultures related to institutional structures and collegial relationships. The results also suggest the existence of assessment microcultures embedded in disciplines. This study provides concurrent validity to previous studies of assessment cultures, evidenced from institutional leadership perspectives, through the analysis of academic practitioners' viewpoints. Synthesis of findings observed that a combination of agency for change and policy levers effectively stimulated change. Included are suggestions to address the perceived barriers of entrenched disciplinary practices, institutional systems and logistical constraints. There is limited empirical research on the impact of assessment culture on assessment practices; this study addresses this shortcoming and provides a new aspect to add to the literature on assessment cultures in higher education.

The Makerspace phenomenon has morphed into three readily identifiable types characterised by accessibility: dedicated, distributed, and mobile. The research presented in this paper describes a type of Makerspace that is defined by its purpose: to improve the confidence and ability of primary education students in STEM education. This approach is innovative and timely given the renewed interest and investment of the federal and state governments into STEM education. A new model of professional learning that is currently being validated in an extended, funded project framed this research that involved 9 female teacher education students and 71 schoolgirls in Years 5 and 6. Whilst a large set of qualitative data was collected, this paper reports on the progress and reflections of the teacher education students, and shares insights into their personal learning and development as teachers.

Purpose: To examine the effects on anxiety of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) among youth with anxiety disorders. Method: Systematic review and meta-analytic procedures were employed to synthesize experimental and quasi-experimental studies authored between 1980 and 2015. Results: The search yielded five studies from five countries reporting results for a total of 188 youth between the ages of 5 and 18 (mean age 13.26) who met criteria for an anxiety disorder. Risk of bias varied across studies. Meta-analytic results suggest a moderate and significant effect (g = 0.62; 95% confidence interval = [0.20, 1.04], p = 0.004). Heterogeneity was moderate (I2= 47.22) and not statistically significant (Q = 7.58, df = 4, p = 0.11), thus moderator analyses were not warranted. Discussion: The findings of this review suggest that MBIs for the treatment of anxiety in youth with anxiety disorders are effective.

"Makerspace" has been lauded as a new way forward to create communities, empower students and bring together enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels "to tinker" and create. Makerspace education has been touted as having the potential to empower young people to become agents of change in their communities. This paper examines how a "Makerspace" approach can capture the imagination and creativity of female primary school students, and engage them in integrated STEM-based projects. The study scaffolded female tertiary undergraduate students to mentor small groups of girls to complete a project in a STEM "Makerspace" situated in classrooms. The data generated and analysed from this study were used to determine how "Makerspace" STEM-based projects were enacted, how they engaged and supported the girls' learning, and considers the future of a "Makerspace" approach as a way to progress integrated STEM education.

This article aims to theorise a storyline account of a collaborative three-year action research project into schooling re-engagement using a Bourdieusian framework. In the article we discuss how we (two teachers and a social worker) developed an alternative senior secondary school that re-engaged a sizable minority of marginalised young people back into formalised learning and consider how this school became a significant and sustainable educational alternative. Our work during this developmental period drew us into community-based activism enacting socially just curricular and pedagogical experiments. Through networked political action for schooling justice in concert with critical friends (our university partners), the marginalised young people we worked with and supportive regional youth stakeholders, we reconstructed our professional habitus as professionals into a more enabling rendering and strived to proffer through our relational, pedagogical and curricular work with students more of a transformative habitus. Our curricular and activist work inside the community extended the field of schooling relations into a more socially just orientation. This more enabling community field merged with our schooling field and enabled us to source political capital engendering secure, recurrent school funding and a purpose-built schooling facility. We claim that the market logics of schooling significantly influenced our beginning enrolment growth trajectory, and discuss how these logics compromised our ability to break through Bourdieu's notion of the 'destiny effect'. Since its inception in 2003, the Second Chance Community College has offered a comprehensive senior secondary schooling programme for more than 1000 young people. Throughout its 12-year history, the majority of students have gone on to secure work, apprenticeships and tertiary study but only 10% of students have successfully completed their final year of schooling.

This article reports on selected results of a comprehensive survey of children's reading in England, carried out online in 2005 by the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature at Roehampton University. With 4182 responses from children living in England aged from 4 to 16 years, the survey is a follow-up to a similar study completed in 1996. The article concentrates on those issues included in the survey which are of particular interest to children's librarians, specifically questions relating to borrowing books, choosing books, reading recommendations, book reviews, school libraries and classroom book corners. (Contains 20 tables and 5 figures.)

This article is based on a collaborative evaluation of the implementation of a Libraries and Knowledge Centre (LKC) model in three remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. It outlines the context in which LKC services are being implemented, provides a brief description of the LKC model, and discusses some strengths of the model to deliver relevant and sustainable services to Indigenous communities in these changing times. The article highlights some of the more challenging issues that emerge in such a complex knowledge and information context, as well as issues relating to the broader challenges in delivering sustainable services in remote Indigenous communities in the current policy context. (Contains 19 notes.)

This paper seeks to identify and explore the differences of Indigenous approaches to historical practice. Why is history so important to Indigenous Australia? History is of crucial importance across the full spectrum of Indigenous understanding and knowledge. History belongs to all cultures and they have differing means of recording and recalling it. In essence, the paper explores the undercurrents of Australian history and the absence for so long of an Aboriginal place in that history, and the process over the past 40 years in correcting that imbalance. During the 1960s and 1970s the Aboriginal place in Australian history for so long erased, overlooked or ignored was suddenly a topic worthy of wider attention and importance. But despite all that has been published since, we have not realistically even touched the surface of what is buried within both the archives and oral memory. And quite clearly what has been recovered remains largely embedded within a white viewpoint of the past.

Governance systems are complex adaptive systems where multiple components interact extensively. This is the case for governance of the blue economy, focused on sustainable development of marine resources. Here, the relevant policy and legislative arrangements are fragmented, and marine uses, activities and resources are generally managed on a sectoral basis by independent entities from multiple jurisdictions. In Australia, for example, complex arrangements have created uncertainty in relation to what, when, how, and by whom blue economy activities are possible. Network approaches to map and analyse complex systems could potentially improve our understanding and facilitate management of policy and legal complexity. Yet, there are few studies that have adopted such approaches in ocean governance. Our research demonstrates the application of an innovative approach based on network graphs and text mining to analyse a policy and legislative system associated with Australia's blue economy (i.e., policy and legal arrangements applicable to the coastal and marine areas within the seaward boundaries of the continental shelf around the State of Tasmania). Using a database of over 2000 international, federal, state policy and legislative arrangements, cross-sector analyses were undertaken to identify potential gaps and overlaps that may hinder the deployment of blue economy activities, particularly those relating to integrated seafood and energy production systems. Our graphs allowed quick and easy visualisation of policy and legislative clusters around government entities, relationships between those entities and clusters, as well as potential gaps and overlaps in the existing policy and legislative landscape. Results point to a lack of integration and a need for fit-for-purpose policy and legislation, particularly for the development of co-located blue economy activities. Our approach may be used in research of other complex governance settings to inform policymaking as well as for communication and educational purposes. • Our network approach facilitates understanding of policy and legal complexity. • The blue economy policy and legislative system in Tasmania, Australia, is analysed. • Results show a need for greater integration and fit-for-purpose legislation. • Regulatory complexity and fragmentation is very high for co-located activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aboriginal involvement in World War I is at once complex and full of contradictions. During the Great War, many Aboriginal people and communities were keen to enlist and supportive of the war effort while others spoke out against conscription and the war. It is important to trace Aboriginal voices both during and after the war to comprehend what Aboriginal people had to say about the conflict. This article seeks to provide answers to some of these tantalising issues, and snapshots of the Aboriginal WWI experience. These complex stories will fill gaps in the mythic Australian First World War narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The expansion of commercial air travel in Australia after the Second World War caused significant changes to women's fashion and its marketing in this country. The developing technology of aeroplanes as commercial carriers meant European clothes and ideas reached Australia increasingly rapidly. A longterm sense of stylistic inferiority diminished and the sometimes unquestioning acceptance of imported style was challenged. As post-war retailers expanded their product range, they sought possibilities to market Australian designed and made garments both in Europe and the US. Using co-marketing with the airline industry in particular, retailers began to foster a new confidence amongst middleclass women that by wearing local attire they could participate in a worldwide network of stylish production and consumption. For a brief period, Australian, US and European-made fashions were in serious competition. This article suggests promotional images featuring the connectivity between the technology of air transport and fashion after the Second World War mark a discrete moment in the representation of women in this country as mature and stylishly dressed global travellers, prior to a vigorously emerging youth market by the mid-1960s. It also posits the idea that, although representational stereotypes of Australian women as homemakers remained intact, the use of technological settings of airline travel in fashion photography created a new and cosmopolitan narrative that ran counter to the ideal of domesticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the life and work of Australian journalist and scholar Percy Haslam. Haslam was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, and became interested in Aboriginal people and culture at a young age. He became an associate editor for the newspaper "Newcastle Herald," began advocating for the political rights of Aboriginal Australia, and was involved in studying the Awabakal people. An archive of his work is located at the Auchmuty Library of the University of Newcastle.

Abstract: We review the environmental challenges, cultures and institutions in Australia that have allowed the concept of ecosystem services to be tested and adapted. In some instance the nation has embraced the opportunities offered with ecosystem services forming the core of several large-scale reforms and collaborations that have considered dependence of humans on ecosystems. In other ways, however, the opportunities have been overlooked as Australia lacks effective institutions to consider human–environment interactions holistically and strategically. The term “ecosystem services” appears widely but it is mostly used superficially: often with reference to only a few services. The full suite of services, benefits and beneficiaries if humans and the natural environment are to coexist in the long-term have not been systematically included in decision making and management. Insights are distilled that may be useful in the application of ecosystem services in other parts of the world. Stable and well-funded regional natural resource and river basin management institutions have vital roles. Governance reforms at the national and state (provincial scales) are also needed to apply ecosystem service frameworks and improve accountability for implementation of policy agreements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objective: More than 95% of melanomas in Australia are caused by UV radiation from the sun. Young adults are particularly at risk, with 18-24-year-olds spending more time in the sun and protecting their skin less than older adults. A new mass media campaign was delivered in New South Wales, Australia, to motivate this hard-to-reach group to protect their skin from harmful UV radiation. This paper shares learnings from this campaign for public health educators working across diverse fields., Program: Guided by audience research and testing, the campaign combined fear-based and self-efficacy messaging. UV radiation was portrayed as arrows descending from the sky, transforming it into a visible and ever-present threat. High-reach channels such as cinema, outdoor advertising, online videos, audio apps and social media were used to reach the audience., Methods: The campaign was evaluated through an online tracking survey (n = 750, 18-24-year-olds) measuring prompted recognition, message take-out, key diagnostics, and self-reported sun protection intentions and behaviours., Results: The evaluation found that 57% of survey participants recognised the campaign when prompted. Among those that recognised the campaign, 76% said they had used sun protection when outdoors over the summer campaign period (vs 64% of non-recognisers, p < 0.05), and 45% said they had adopted at least three of the five sun protection behaviours (Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek and Slide) 'always' or 'often' (vs. 36% of non-recognisers, p < 0.05)., Lessons Learnt: A mass-media campaign that aimed to elicit emotional (fear) and cognitive (perceived efficacy) responses and which drew upon social and heuristic cues was associated with greater self-reported sun protection among the target audience. Delivering a combination of message strategies simultaneously within a campaign tailored to young adults may be more effective than adopting a more singular focus., Competing Interests: None declared.

The chemical recovery of a defaced serial number is a common forensic science practice, however it is not understood how proficient experts perform in correctly identifying recovered serial numbers. Understanding the accuracy of experts and how they compare to novices in character recognition can help to establish a baseline for this expertise. In this study an expert-novice comparison assessment was completed involving 118 test plates, each stamped with six randomised alphanumeric characters. The plates were defaced and chemically recovered before being viewed by multiple participants over six time intervals. A total of 3169 character inspections were completed. An assessment of confidence and error rates were calculated for both expert (trained) and novice (untrained) participants. Errors were counted when a participant interpreted a different character to that of the ground truth and believed the result was accurate for reporting. The results showed a similar (2.3 % and 2.4 %) error rate for the cohorts, however a statistical difference in confidence levels was recorded, demonstrating the more conservative nature of experts. This study aims to assist in validating practitioner interpretations, through addressing some forensic science criticisms, such as establishing error rates to routine scientific practices., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In sexual assault cases, lubricant trace evidence may supplement biological evidence, or may be the primary physical evidence where biological evidence is unavailable. This study considered a total of 50 lubricants from condoms and personal lubricant products available in Australia. Differentiation of the samples was attempted using fluorescence examination, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (DRIFTS), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, and pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Eleven of the samples were uniquely identified by the analysis scheme, while the remainder of the samples were separated into nine groups. As a result of this study, a recommended protocol for the detection and analysis of an "unknown" biological swab was produced.

Frequency figures of the fibre population on textile cinema seats were measured in Sydney, Australia, in winter. Sixteen seats were analysed from a very popular cinema complex, with 3025 fibres classified according to colour, generic class and fluorescence properties (100 grey-black cotton fibres only). The recovered fibres were mostly natural fibres (84%) with cotton the most common generic type (70%). On the contrary, man made fibres were relatively rare (15%) with rayon constituting the majority of these (51%). The most common colour/generic class combinations were grey-black cotton (33%) and blue cotton (30%) accounting for 63% of the total population. All other frequencies were below 5%, most below 1% using only the two properties of colour and generic class. Fluorescence properties were found to be very discriminating as far as grey-black cotton fibres were concerned. These features are considered and discussed and in particular, to emphasise the significance of fibres as evidence of contact.