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Disruptive technologies, emerging global markets, and uncertain workforce requirements are driving the need for skilled graduates. This research developed a framework for collaboration between stakeholders to ensure work-ready graduates and sustained economic growth. A mixed-methods, multiple case study research design was deployed to gather data from graduates, employers, staff, students, and professional body representatives across three disciplines. The Australian course experience questionnaire generated 476 graduate responses and 1,175 comments. The graduate employability surveys collected responses from 88 graduates, 51 employers and 34 teaching staff. SPSS and Excel functions were used for quantitative data analysis and NVivo for thematic analysis. A cross-case analysis of the three case studies revealed consistency in stakeholder perceptions of domains perceived as important for graduate employability with collaborative partnerships emerging as integral to actualizing the domains. Findings from this research challenge conventional university approaches to brokering and maintaining partnerships and suggests a holistic engagement framework for stakeholders.

The "Children's Engagement Behaviour Framework" was developed to describe young children's engagement with science exhibits and how their behaviour is related to learning about the exhibits. The "Framework" was synthesised from frameworks in research literature related to family learning and the nature of play. It describes three categories of epistemic behaviour and two categories of ludic play behaviour. Field-testing in a playgroup environment where young children engaged with science exhibits revealed that its five categories effectively captured the range of engagement behaviours children displayed. The "Framework" was used to code video-recordings of 20 children in five further playgroups, categorising 89 child-exhibit interactions lasting at least 30 s. The inter-coder agreement was 93% and differences were easily resolved. The highest level of epistemic behaviour was recorded at each exhibit and 29 instances of ludic behaviour occurred. Children were interviewed using stills from their video-recording to stimulate discussion about exhibits. Epistemic behaviour was strongly related to learning about how the exhibit worked but ludic behaviour had no relationship with such learning. This research has demonstrated the relationship between observable epistemic behaviour and learning and provided a "Framework" for research into the engagement behaviour of young children. Practical applications of the "Framework" are discussed.

This research explored how young children's research participation can be enhanced when an interactive narrative approach is embedded within research to enhance children's consent to participation and their understanding of the research process. The context for this research was a 1-h, science outreach programme delivered into Australian playgroups. An interactive digital story was devised to inform nine children (aged 3-4 years) about the purposes of the research. Across a period of 11-16 weeks and across three occasions, an informing story about the research was used with the children to elicit their descriptions and explanations about their research role. Data gathered from semi-structured interviews with parents and audio- and video-recorded conversations with children also aided in the analyses to understand how children perceived their role as a research participant. Through cross-case analysis, six aspects of meaningful research participation were identified from children's and parents' responses: engagement, journeying, authenticity, consequence, ownership, and identity. The research extends current knowledge about young children's rights to understand their participatory role in research and about the considerations that can be put in place to ensure participation is personally meaningful to children.

There is a need to identify young gifted children so that their cognitive and socio-emotional needs may be better met by teachers and schools. This study reports on Australian teachers' perceptions of the benefits and limitations associated with the use of a multiple assessment instrument process for identifying intellectually gifted 6- and 7-year-old children in the classroom. The process included the use of the Gifted Characteristics Parent Questionnaire (GCPQ), the Gifted Characteristics Teacher Questionnaire (GCTQ), Achievement in the Early Years Test (AEY Test), and Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices. Thirteen teachers from six metropolitan schools in an Australian city completed a Post Implementation Questionnaire to obtain their views on the implementation of the classroom-based identification process for gifted children. Data from five, multiple part open-ended questions were analysed using both thematic analysis techniques and content analysis. The findings of the study indicated several teachers' perceived benefits, including the capacity for the process to focus teachers on the individual child as a learner, and for the information collected by the various instruments to inform and direct teaching. The majority of teachers (85%) supported the formal testing format used in the AEY Test. Some limitations of the process related to equity of access for families with low English literacy levels and perceived subjectivity by both parents and teachers. This study suggested that a classroom-based, whole of population process for identifying gifted children could be effectively administered by teachers, in their classrooms, in a time- and cost-effective way with direct application to teaching and learning programs.

This paper introduces a hierarchical model of children's (3- to 8-year olds) research participation rights that builds on work by Roger Hart and integrates key participation rights drawn from UNCRC Article 12: information, understanding, voice, and influence. It provides insight into the various levels of information that can be provided to children, the understanding that results, the scope given to them to express their views, and the degree to which their voices ultimately exert influence in research contexts. Each of these four elements plays a unique role in upholding and enhancing children's rights in research and emphasises the need for rights to be woven into the fabric of a research project from its conception. Considering children's rights of research participation in a more integrated manner, as suggested by the hierarchy, has the potential to improve participation experiences for children and to value them as citizens with meaningful rights.

The diversity, originality and significance of early childhood research is reflected in this latest edition of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. Eight papers on eight very different topics are [...]

Ideas about ethical research with young children are evolving at a rapid rate. Not only can young children participate in the informed consent process, but researchers now also recognize that the process must be meaningful for them. As part of a larger study, this article reviews children's rights and informed consent literature as the foundation for the development of a new conceptual model of meaningful early childhood informed consent. Based on this model, an "interactive narrative" approach is presented as a means to inform three- to eight-year-old children about what their participation might involve and to assist them to understand and respond as research participants. For use with small groups, this approach revolves around a storybook based on research-related factual images delivered via interactive (re)telling. This narrative approach to informed consent is unique in its holistic design which seeks to address the specific needs of young children in research.

The case for integrating generic skills in university accounting programmes is well documented in the literature, but the implementation of strategies designed to teach generic skills in the context of accounting courses has posed ongoing challenges for academics and course administrators. The imperative for generic skills in accounting programmes derives from an economic view of the role of universities, reflecting the views of government and employers who perceive graduates as economic assets to business and the economy. It is argued that the role of universities extends beyond the economic imperative to encompass a greater social and cultural role. This paper traces the historical evolution of the generic skills discourse with an emphasis on accounting and places it in the broader context of the social and economic roles of universities in an era of transformation in the sector. The generic skills discourse, however, transcends disciplinary boundaries and international borders. The new knowledge economy, emerging as a result of technological advancement, needs graduates across disciplines with flexible mindsets and transferable skill sets, capable of innovating and adapting to a dynamic work environment. Consequently, universities must develop the transferable, generic skills required by graduates to advance their careers and contribute to economic innovation and social development. The generic skills debate must, therefore, be addressed from a systemic perspective, reaching beyond national and disciplinary borders. The lessons learned from the generic skills debate in accounting have wider interdisciplinary application for university policy-makers and educators facing the challenges of a new era in higher education.

This paper describes the implementation of a flipped approach by two lecturers teaching different postgraduate education courses at an Australian university. Case studies, written as chronological stories, were developed with data collected from email correspondence between the two lecturers as critical friends, as well as from student feedback in the form of face-to-face discussions, online discussions, emails, mind maps, multimodal discussion boards and end-of-semester university surveys. Over a period of 2 years, both lecturers moved from an initial focus on technology and organisation to a focus on pedagogy, while coming to see themselves as (re-)designers of learning. Technologically, the need for time to select and learn to work with appropriate software emerged as a key theme. Organisationally, the need for time to plan and to identify lecturer expectations of students emerged as key themes. Pedagogically, a shift occurred towards a "listening pedagogy" on the part of the lecturers, and towards more active and engaged learning on the part of the students. It was found necessary to ensure a close fit between what to present in flipped mode, what to do in class time, and how to assess students formatively and summatively.

Mobile handheld devices are spreading rapidly in education. iPads, especially, are increasingly being adopted by different educational sectors, but there is currently little empirical evidence on whether, or how, they facilitate student learning. This paper reports on how iPads contributed to pre-service teachers' learning, including their learning about teaching. Case studies of eight pre-service teachers were developed based on semi-structured interviews and non-participant observations to determine how they used the iPad 2 in their learning. Focus group interviews of the larger cohort were also used to support findings. It was found that iPads supported pre-service teachers' learning in four ways: developing understanding of content, developing understanding of pedagogy, staying connected, and staying organised. More broadly, iPads helped them develop a new sense of learning spaces and learning networks. Three types of obstacles to using iPads as learning tools were also identified: device limitations, time limitations, and attitudinal limitations. Based on these findings, recommendations are made for developing pedagogical best practice for the use of iPads. These recommendations are relevant to pre-service teacher education in particular but also to higher education in general.