Search

Learning is an important aspect of active ageing, yet older people are not often included in discussions of the issue. Older people vary in their need, desire, and ability to learn, and this is evident in the context of technology. The focus of the data analysis for this paper was on determining the place of learning and technology in active ageing. The paper describes results from 2,645 respondents aged from 50 to 74þ years, in Australia, to a 178-item variable postal survey. The survey measured aspects of learning;, work; social, spiritual and emotional status; health; vision; home; life events; and demographics. There was also an open-ended question about being actively engaged in life. Ordinal regression analysis showed that interest in learning, keeping up to date, valuing communication, being younger, and being male are predictors of learning about technology. The results are at variance with an earlier analysis of our data which showed that women are generally more interested in learning. The open statements contained mentions of learning about technology for the purposes of communication, learning, family links, keeping up to date, enjoyment, staying mentally alert, and just using the computer. These results are discussed in terms of the subtle but important differences between needing and wanting to learn about technology and the opportunities for such learning by older people.

Lifelong learning has developed enormously as a distinct area of study within education in recent years not least because numerous governments and educational strategists have become very vocal supporters of new ways of learning throughout all stages of life. This up-to-the-minute guide to the topic brings together new writing from some of the leading thinkers in the field to offer a broad ranging and detailed snapshot of the position to date. The book provides a critical summary of current developments in understanding adult learning and the social context in which they are located. This provides a background for the framing of issues and the problems that emerge in institutional and non-formal contexts of lifelong learning. Students undertaking courses of study in this area as well as a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate students in a variety of professional areas will find the material essential reading.

This book provides a comprehensive discussion of the relationship between higher education and working life from three different perspectives: society, higher education and the world of work. The purpose of the volume is twofold: first, to critically analyse the relationship between higher education and working life, and second, to offer material that helps university teachers develop their teaching in a way that their students will be better prepared for challenges of the continuously changing world. The chapters discuss the interplay between education and work both from the societal point of view and from the pedagogical perspective. The book is divided in three sections. The first section is concerned with higher education as a part of society, giving a broader context for more pedagogically oriented chapters. Section two focuses on transition from higher education to work and the interaction of work and learning in higher education. The third section focuses on changing workplace environments and the role of universities in promoting work based learning. Practical examples of work-related project learning and other practice oriented teaching and learning methods are examined. Also, e-learning solutions carried out through industry-university collaboration are presented. It, thus, examines relationship between higher education and working life from multiple perspectives; and aims to help teachers better prepare students for the working world, using practical examples to clarify points raised in chapters.

This chapter is contextualised in globalisation, new capitalism, knowledge and change in the workplace. There is a great deal of current literature describing globalisation and the new capitalism. It is asserted that economic competitiveness in the workplace now depends on new skills, knowledge and technological change. This has implications for workers in terms of constant learning and adapting to change. In this chapter, we describe conceptions of learning and work and the experience of change through the voices of workers. The conceptions of learning and work are based on a study in two workplaces of older and younger workers. The perspectives of change, adaptations to it and descriptions of learning paths are also derived from the interviews. The implications of the findings for the provision by universities of opportunities for further learning are also considered.

Learning is an important aspect of aging productively. This paper describes results from 2645 respondents (aged from 50 to 74 + years) to a 165-variable postal survey in Australia. The focus is on learning and its relation to work; social, spiritual, and emotional status; health; vision; home; life events; and demographic details. Clustering analysis showed that learning and health were most important. The relationship between variables was then investigated using the Gamma test by age, and factor and regression analyses. Of the respondents, 6% discussed learning in the open statement on the questionnaire. Implications are drawn from the results for learning.

Background: This project was conducted to investigate whether the concerns that researchers have about including terminally ill patients in research were shared by a sample of terminally ill patients.----- Methods: Twenty-two patients admitted to a hospice participated in semistructured interviews; 18 patients had advanced malignant disease and 13 were women; their ages ranged from 28 to 93 years. The interview transcripts were analysed for common themes and particular attention was paid to the reasons patients gave for their views.----- Results: All the patients wanted to participate in research. Patients advanced one or more of several reasons for participation, the commonest being altruism, enhancement of a sense of personal value, the assertion of persisting autonomy and the value they placed on a commitment by doctors to optimising care by research. They rejected the view that their consent might be non-autonomous and put forward consistent views about what they considered relevant to consent.----- Conclusions: Our patients did not share the concerns of ethicists about the difficulties and hazards of research with the terminally ill. These patients’ views are not reflected in the professional consensus.

Background: Terminally ill patients frequently express concerns about what dying will be like: how their bodies may change as disease progresses, how medication may alter the effect of these changes and whether and how their preferences will be respected as they become more ill.----- Methods: Thirty-six patients admitted to a hospice were interviewed and 18 carers of patients of the Palliative Care service,whohad died participated in focus groups. Thirty-three patients had advanced malignant disease, 13 were women; their mean age was 68 years (range 44–92 years).----- Results: The areas of concern consistently identified by patients were (i) privacy and autonomy, principally in regard to families, (ii) a lack of information about physical changes and medication use as death approached and (iii) the desire to shorten life, which was expressed by all patients. Carers recalled problems accessing services and support and had needed more help with practical issues such as medication timing and dose. They believed that not enough information about the patients’ illnesses had been given to them and they were insistent that carers should have information against the wishes of patients.----- Conclusion: Some of the patients’ and carers’ concerns can be readily addressed. Others, particularly access to confidential information, cannot be addressed without a realignment of professional ethical standards and community expectations. The patients’ discussions of their desire to shorten life may have implications for the debate on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

Children who are poorly motivated at school are at risk of academic underachievement and a range of other adverse social, economic and health outcomes. Attributions of laziness, reflected in comments about children needing to "try harder" and "make more effort" may mask specific cognitive and learning characteristics that explain low motivation in many children. This paper reports preliminary findings from an ongoing study of "lazy" children in the early years of primary school. In order to investigate possible explanations for low academic motivation such as learning difficulties, anxiety disorders, intellectual impairment, attentional problems and giftedness, children were assessed using appropriate psycho-educational instruments, tasks and questionnaires. The discussion focuses on developing a deeper understanding of academic motivation in the early school years through illustrative profiles of poorly motivated children.

The concept of older adults contributing to society in a meaningful way has been termed ‘active ageing’. Active ageing reflects changes in prevailing theories of social and psychological aspects of ageing, with a focus on individuals' strengths as opposed to their deficits or pathology. In order to explore predictors of active ageing, the Australian Active Ageing (Triple A) project group undertook a national postal survey of participants over the age of 50 years recruited randomly through their 2004 membership of a large Australia-wide senior's organisation. The survey comprised 178 items covering paid and voluntary work, learning, social, spiritual, emotional, health and home, life events and demographic items. A 45% response rate (2655 returned surveys) reflected an expected balance of gender, age and geographic representation of participants. The data were analysed using data mining techniques to represent generalizations on individual situations. Data mining identifies the valid, novel, potentially useful and understandable patterns and trends in data. The results based on the clustering mining technique indicate that physical and emotional health combined with the desire to learn were the most significant factors when considering active ageing. The findings suggest that remaining active in later life is not only directly related to the maintenance of emotional and physical health, but may be significantly intertwined with the opportunity to engage in on-going learning activities that are relevant to the individual. The findings of this study suggest that practitioners and policy makers need to incorporate older peoples' learning needs within service and policy framework developments.

This paper is a discussion of the relationships between and within conceptions of teaching and learning in schools and universities. It becomes apparent that generally and statistically there is congruence between conceptions of learning and approaches to it and between conceptions of teaching and strategies at all levels and across contexts. There is also generally congruence between conceptions of teaching and learning. However when one looks closely at some studies, it is possible to determine pockets of dissonance in the relationships. This is important to recognise because it influences teaching and learning and outcomes for students and teachers. There are also similarities and differences across cultural contexts, discipline areas and levels of education.

Conceptions of learning and strategies used by 15 Indigenous students in three Australian universities were studied longitudinally over three years. Their academic achievements were good, but at a high cost in terms of time and effort. In spite of the fact that almost half of the students expressed higher-order (qualitative) conceptions of learning in the first year and more in the second and third years, all of the students reported using highly repetitive strategies to learn. That is, they did not vary their way of learning, reading or writing in the beginning of their studies and less than half of them did so at the end of the three years. It is argued that encountering variation in ways of learning is a prerequisite for the development of powerful ways of learning and studying.

Industry today is driven by information, global competition and knowledge. These factors have led to continual changes in workplaces as organisations strive to remain viable. This study examined the nature of changes that occurred in two distinct organisations in Australia over two years. It also examined how workers are adapting to those changes in terms of learning, and considered what implications there are for higher education. The participants constituted 18 workers from a medical service industry and 19 workers from an engineering organization. The data were analysed qualitatively and results indicated several categories of change. It was also apparent that while much learning was occurring in the workplace, there was very little direct association between workplace learning and higher education for the workers in this study although several have degrees or have organised their own further study. Suggestions are made regarding the current practices in universities and workplace learning and for better collaboration. For example, universities need to develop closer ties with industry and curriculum models that prepare workers for ongoing changes in the workplace should be developed.

In the present study, the personal epistemological beliefs of group leaders in toddler child care programs are investigated. Epistemological beliefs are beliefs about knowing and learning. It is considered that the quality of these beliefs is influenced by educational experiences. In this study, such beliefs are assumed to be mediating factors in the nature and quality of child care practice. Six caregivers in toddler programs (children aged 18 months to 3 years) in Australia were videoed within their programs and subsequently asked to describe their personal epistemological beliefs as well as their beliefs about how children learn. In the interviews, excerpts from the video were presented and the caregivers asked to reflect on their practices. The interview data for each caregiver were analysed to ascertain the nature of the personal epistemological beliefs and the nature of beliefs about children’s learning. The manner in which caregivers’ reflective responses about their practices observed in the video aligned with caregivers’ personal epistemologies and their beliefs about children’s learning was also considered. Two caregivers, who held relativistic beliefs, also held strong constructivist perspectives about children’s learning that aligned with how they reflected on their practices. The other caregivers evidenced mixed or multiplistic epistemological beliefs. They described learning by children as an active or modelling process. These caregivers’ reflections on practice were congruent with their personal epistemologies and beliefs about children’s learning in viewing their educative role as a guide or a model for the children. Implications for how the exploration of personal epistemologies about knowing and learning can inform and enhance professional development programs are discussed.

Twenty-nine student teachers from a large metropolitan university in Queensland, Australia were interviewed at the beginning (Time 1) and end (Time 2) of a year-long graduate diploma in education to investigate the nature of their knowledge about learning and changes in such knowledge over the year. At Time 1 and Time 2 most students thought learning should be meaningful and preferred to use transformative learning approaches. However, students indicated a willingness to engage in reproductive approaches to learning if the content to be learned was uninteresting, workloads were high, or assessment was examination-focussed. The results also indicated that while many students did not experience significant changes in their knowledge about learning over the year, they believed that transformative learning had become more of a focus for them. Investigating student teachers’ knowledge about learning has implications for effective learning in teacher education programs.

Health is considered to be a fundamental human right and developing a better understanding of health is assumed to be a global social goal (Bloom, 1987). Yet many third-world countries and some sub-populations within developed countries do not enjoy a healthy existence. The research reported in this paper examined the conceptions of health and conceptions of illness for a group of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Papua New Guinea university students studying health science courses. Results found three conceptions of health and three conceptions of illness that indicated these students held a mix of traditional/cultural and Western beliefs. These findings may contribute to overcoming the dissonance between traditional and Western beliefs about health and the development of health care courses that are more specific to how these students understand health. This may also serve to improve the educational status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and potentially improve the health status within these communities.

In this paper, a core-peripheral beliefs framework is used to present a structure for conceptualising epistemological beliefs, or beliefs about the nature and acquisition of knowledge. Using this framework, the structure of the epistemological belief system is seen as comprising both core beliefs about knowing and peripheral beliefs about learning. Core beliefs about knowing are central and connected to most other beliefs whereas peripheral beliefs about learning and teaching are derived from these core beliefs and are more easily reflected upon and changed. The two distinct literatures related to developmental epistemological beliefs and student learning research are therefore integrated and discussed in this paper to provide a theoretical basis for future studies.

This paper presents a phenomenographic analysis of the conceptions of teaching and learning held by a sample of 16 secondary school teachers in two Australian schools. It provides descriptions of four categories, derived from pooled data, of the ways in which these teachers thought about teaching and about learning, their teaching strategies, and their focus on student or content. The categories for teaching and learning are described with each teacher allocated to the category most typical of their conceptions of teaching and of learning. The lack of congruence, in some cases, between the conceptions of teaching and of learning held by these teachers is discussed.

The majority of studies on conceptions of learning have investigated learning from an instructional perspective involving university students from education programs. As such, these studies have not included other sources of variation that may arise from learners having a broader picture of learning which includes classroom instruction but is not limited to it, and have conceptions of learning that are mediated by context and work experience. This paper reports a study that extends the scope for studies in conceptions of learning by considering general and subject specific conceptions of learning, as well as comparing conceptions of learning of learners who have had at least 2 years of work experience and those who have come directly from school.

This paper describes an investigation of conceptions of learning held by 22 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from three universities in Queensland, Australia. Other areas investigated were students' experiences of informal learning, their reasons for studying and the strategies they used to learn. Research into conceptions of learning is gaining impetus and current beliefs include the premise that approaches to learning adopted by university students, and hence learning outcomes, are closely related to their conceptions of learning. There is substantial research focused on Aboriginal learning styles in early childhood and primary school which indicates that Aboriginal children prefer to learn in a practical way as well as through observation and imitation and trial and error. Very little research has focused specifically on Aboriginal university students' conceptions of learning. Results of this study found that these students view and approach formal university learning in much the same way as other university students and most hold quantitative conceptions of learning. The most interesting result was the difference between students' conceptions of formal learning and their experiences of informal learning. Many students' experiences of informal learning were grounded in practical activities or exhibited a cultural focus, however, most formal learning is not dependent upon practical or cultural knowledge. It is proposed that formal learning for Indigenous students recognise and include an Indigenous perspective such as integrating, where appropriate, practical strategies for learning. We also suggest that Indigenous students be helped to develop conceptions that will enable them to learn formal, theoretical material successfully.

Infant caregivers in centre-based child care were videotaped as they interacted with the children during routine and non-routine activities. During a subsequent interview, the video provided a stimulus for discussion and reflection on practices. Caregivers were also asked to write about their beliefs on good practice in caring for infants. Transcripts of the interviews and the written statements were then analysed for evidence of nave and informed beliefs about caregiving. Most caregivers held nave beliefs and only one caregiver had an informed understanding of professional practice with infants. The usefulness of the analytical framework used in this research is discussed as a means for understanding caregiving practices. It has important implications for approaches to initial professional education of early childhood teachers and for professional development programmes.

Infant caregivers in centre-based child care were videotaped as they interacted with the children during routine and non-routine activities. During a subsequent interview, the video provided a stimulus for discussion and reflection on practices. Caregivers were also asked to write about their beliefs on good practice in caring for infants. Transcripts of the interviews and the written statements were then analysed for evidence of naïve and informed beliefs about caregiving. Most caregivers held naïve beliefs and only one caregiver had an informed understanding of professional practice with infants. The usefulness of the analytical framework used in this research is discussed as a means for understanding caregiving practices. It has important implications for approaches to initial professional education of early childhood teachers and for professional development programmes.

Research suggests that students’ approaches to learning and learning outcomes are closely related to their conceptions of learning. This paper describes a phenomenographically inspired investigation into conceptions of formal learning held by 22 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from three Australian universities in Queensland; experiences of informal learning, reasons for studying and strategies used to learn were also investigated. The attrition rate for these students in tertiary education is higher than that of any other group of students. It was hoped that information gained may delineate factors that contribute to high attrition rates and therefore inform courses of action that may lead to improved teaching and learning practices for these students. Additionally, success in tertiary education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students may increase their involvement in mainstream society. Results showed that they view and approach university learning in much the same way as other university students. It was also apparent that, generally, the strategies these students used did not match the conceptions of learning they held. An interesting result was the difference between the conceptions of formal learning and explanations of informal learning

Conceptions of learning, as well as other associated aspects of prior knowledge, are theoretically important factors in influencing the manner in which the content and context of learning are engaged. The present study reports on: (a) the operationalisation of some of these factors aimed at isolating sources of explanatory variation that can be used for modelling purposes; and (b) a conservative exploration of the discriminatory power of, and exhibited patterns of association between, such sources of variation as have been isolated. Based on a conservative analytical approach, the results of the present study do not support a single clearly defined empirical model of conceptions of learning and associated constructs. Instead, there is consistent evidence that underlying empirical structures appear to be sensitive to the response context and other factors.

Learning to operate algebraically is a complex process that is dependent upon extending arithmetic knowledge to the more complex concepts of algebra. Current research has shown a gap between arithmetic and algebraic knowledge and suggests a pre-algebraic level as a step between the two knowledge types. This paper examines arithmetic and algebraic knowledge from a cognitive perspective in an effort to determine what constitutes a pre-algebraic level of understanding. Results of a longitudinal study designed to investigate students' readiness for algebra are presented. Thirty-three students in Grades 7, 8, and 9 participated. A model for the transition from arithmetic to pre-algebra to algebra is proposed and students' understanding of relevant knowledge is discussed.

Preservice teacher education students are likely to have acquired naive beliefs about learning and teaching, that need to be integrated with theoretically informed beliefs, if they are to function effectively in classrooms. This study explored the nature of such integration using a sample of Graduate Diploma in Education students engaged in an educational psychology subject which was designed to help students develop constructivist beliefs and approaches to learning. Investigation of students' journal entries, written statements, and stimulated recall interviews related to videotaped practice teaching sessions, revealed that students were able to integrate prior beliefs with the theoretical content of the course, enabling them to describe, and in some cases, evidence informed conditional knowledge.

This paper focuses on the analysis of learning journals maintained by 27 Graduate Diploma in Education students while undertaking a 1-year course of study in a subject in human development and learning. The learning journals yielded four types of information: (1) students' perceptions of the subject (its structure, style, assessment); (2) students' understandings of and reflections on the theoretical content presented in the subject (informed knowledge); (3) students' connection of theory with practical teaching experiences; and (4) indications of their development as learners and teachers. Analysis of this information indicated students' movement from naive to informed views on teaching and learning through declarative (knowing what) and procedural (knowing how) knowledge about teaching and learning in the early parts of the subject to conditional knowledge (knowing when and why) through the remainder of the subject. Students tended to see theory as being unrelated to practice until the first practice teaching session when many students' journal entries exhibited evidence of theory and practice becoming connected. Journal entries during the second practice teaching experience provided extensive evidence of the development of conditional knowledge. There is also substantial evidence of students developing meta-cognitive thinking through the course of the subject.