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AbstractHealth literacy is essential for students to access, comprehend, and utilize health information. Defined as a socially derived practice that connects individuals to various information sources, aiding their decision-making relating to health and wellbeing, research indicates that health literacy is linked to better health outcomes and longevity, and when cultivated in children and adolescents, promotes lifelong healthy behaviors. A crucial aspect of health literacy for young people is digital health literacy (DHL), which involves skills to source, understand, and assess the credibility of online health information. DHL is vital as the global digital landscape evolves. With young people increasingly using the internet primarily to find information, the online space functions as a significant resource for health information. This qualitative research employs surveys and think aloud interviews to explore how students currently evaluate online information from online video-sharing sites. An inductive approach using an instrumental qualitative case study design was chosen to deeply understand the strategies and approaches students use to evaluate online information accessed via these platforms. Findings indicate that although students may recognize the risk of misleading information on social media, they may lack comprehensive strategies to assess credibility. School library professionals, in collaboration with teachers, can play a crucial role in developing students’ DHL by leveraging their expertise in information literacy. Further research is necessary to determine the generalizability of these findings and enhance students’ abilities to navigate and evaluate the complex digital information landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While library professionals working in academic contexts are likely to have knowledge of 'predatory' journals and related implications for guiding student information seeking, school and public library professionals may be less familiar with this phenomenon. This article draws on a broad body of research to explore the factors that enable predatory journals to thrive, some of which arise from inequities in current 'legitimate' academic publishing practices. While this article highlights the complexities involved when guiding students and clients to make robust information seeking choices in relation to predatory journals, some key implications for professional practice emerge from the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst there exists a plethora of research about the benefits of reading aloud on children's literacy development and a range of government reports highlighting the positive investment return on early intervention strategies such as reading aloud, most literature is presented from an adult perspective. Limited research exists on children's attitudes toward being read to at home or school or the frequency of reading aloud practices that occur within these contexts. This mixed method study examines reading aloud practices in schools (N=21) and homes (N=220). It captures the attitude toward reading aloud practices from the viewpoint of 220 children aged between 6-12 years of age (Grade 1-6) across a representative range of diverse school contexts in Western Australian. The findings identify specific reading aloud practices, patterns of frequency and perceived barriers to reading aloud in the classroom and at home. The study provides support for the practice of reading aloud to be continued past the period of acquisition and independent reading. It raises concern about the low frequency of reading aloud practices at home and school and the early signs of a literacy. It also highlights the limited attention to affective domains of reading that occur in schools.

There is an increasing expectation that early career researchers (ECRs) be active in communicating their research to diverse audiences both within and beyond academia. However, with limited time and an academic environment that disproportionately values certain research outputs over others, ECRs may struggle to build their expertise and confidence in communicating research to a diverse array of audiences. Applying self-efficacy theory as a framework, this study investigates the first-hand experiences of ECRs in research communication, with a specific interest in their perceptions of their own communication skills, how these skills are developed, and how their self-beliefs impact their practices. Through semi-structured interviews with 30 ECRs in Australia and Japan, we found that hands-on engagement is vital for building self-efficacy, but that much more engagement and confidence was reported in communicating to academic audiences, such as through journal articles. While most ECRs expressed a desire to engage more with audiences outside of academia, not all were active, and many reported a lack of self-belief. Barriers identified include a lack of training, experience, opportunity to observe peers, encouragement, and feedback. Further, the potential for negative backlash from online and unknown public audiences is also a concern. We also note that for researchers who may not possess strong English language skills, interactive styles of communication may prove more challenging than more 'passive' forms. Our findings suggest that the focus of ECR communication skill development could be broadened, with less emphasis on specific types of outputs, and more emphasis on how to tailor communication to suit different audiences and channels. Providing an encouraging environment, opportunities to observe others, and opportunities to engage directly with support and feedback, may also be effective in building ECRs' self-efficacy.

Reading for pleasure is an undervalued but highly beneficial practice conferring a range of educative and socio-emotional advantages. School librarians may play a key role in supporting reading for pleasure and associated literature advocacy; however, relatively little is known about how reading for pleasure may be valued within the job description of contemporary school librarians. It cannot be assumed that reading for pleasure is positioned as a valued aspect of the school librarians' educative role in the United States and Australia, given factors such as evolving demands placed on the profession. Through hybrid content analysis of job description documents, this article explores which aspects of the current school librarian role are related to supporting reading for pleasure, comparing expectations between nations. While there are some similarities in the nature of the reading for pleasure role in the United States and Australia, Australian school librarians are far more likely to be expected to foster reading for pleasure.

The needs of struggling literacy learners beyond the early years of schooling warrant greater attention. For struggling literacy learners to attain their academic, vocational, and social goals, schools should position literacy as a whole school priority and enhance opportunities for student literacy learning across all learning areas. However, it is not known if literacy is typically supported as a whole school commitment in contemporary secondary schools. This paper draws on survey data from the Australian nation-wide 2019 "Supporting Struggling Secondary Literacy Learners" (SSSLL) project. Findings suggest that many mainstream secondary school teachers do not perceive that there is a whole-school approach to support struggling literacy learners in their schools, or that there are adequate strategies and supports to meet the needs of struggling literacy learners in their schools. Findings also suggest that regardless of place, school leadership commitment to ensuring that struggling literacy learners have their literacy skills developed across all learning areas may be crucial to the realization of a supportive whole-school culture for struggling literacy learners.

The Thesis by Publication is garnering increasing interest across nations and disciplines. However, more needs to be learned about institutional and supervisory support for this thesis mode to ensure that doctoral candidates pursuing this approach enjoy the best possible outcomes. This paper draws on data from 246 recent successful doctoral candidates who took part in the "2018-2019 PhD candidates' motivations, experiences, and opinions of the thesis by/with publications" study. Findings suggest that perceived institutional support may be more common than supervisory support, and initial institutional support may be eclipsed by ongoing support. Findings suggest that more can be done to support students intending to embark on Thesis by Publication at induction, and that high quality supervisory support can be perceived as integral to candidate success in most cases. However, high dependence on supervisory support paired with comparatively limited institutional support can place workload pressure and increased accountability on supervisors, and may raise ethical implications that require close consideration.

Understanding how social influences can foster avid book reader identification is a key research goal that warrants further investigation beyond a limited early-years lens. The author's 2015 International Study of Avid Book Readers (ISABR) explored, as one of its key research questions, the influence positive social agents can have on avid book readers, relying on the retrospective reflections of respondents from a range of countries and supporting quantitative data to explore this research focus. Early influences were examined, with data suggesting that maternal instruction is the most prevalent source of early reading teaching. Most respondents (64.3 percent) were the recipients of positive influence from a social agent. Indirect avid reader influence, author influence, fostering access, shared social habit, reading for approval, recommendations and supporting choice, and exposure to reading aloud were recurring mechanisms of influence. The multiple mechanisms of influence identified constitute opportunities for engagement and subsequent intervention by literacy advocates, including librarians.

As struggling Australian students may not typically receive additional support beyond the mainstream English classroom, more needs to be understood about the staffing and resourcing challenges that may impede secondary English teachers seeking to support these students. Data from the 2019 "Supporting Struggling Secondary Literacy Learners" project are explored, presenting views from N = 315 Australian secondary English teachers. Respondents disagreed that they have adequate time and resourcing to meet the needs of these students; public schools were perceived to be particularly poorly resourced. Our analysis found perceived deficiency to be compounded; those with insufficient support staff also appeared to have insufficient resources. While efforts to improve students' literacy skills often target teacher education, it may be unrealistic to expect improvement in the performance of Australia's struggling literacy learners without greatly increasing provision of support staff and material resourcing.

Contemporary early career researchers (ECRs) must share their research findings with both academic and non-academic audiences in order to advance their careers. With university organisational factors potentially both demanding and inhibiting ECR research dissemination, more needs to be known about ECRs' perceptions and experiences of the benefits and challenges of sharing research for diverse audiences. This article investigates ECRs' perceptions of sharing research with academic and non-academic end-users, drawing on perspectives from 30 ECRs in Australia and Japan. Findings hold cross-contextual and disciplinary salience. Benefits of sharing research with the academic community included collaboration and networking, exposure and career development, contribution to knowledge, and learning and feedback. We found that sharing research with non-academic end users offered benefits in relation to end user utility, social change, securing future funding, and knowledge mobilisation. However, respondents also identified a range of notable barriers that constrained their capacity to share their research within academia and beyond. Findings can be used to support ECRs' skills and knowledge development in sharing research with diverse audiences.

It is no longer sufficient for higher education providers to solely focus on fostering academic research communication skills in their doctoral candidates, as a broader skillset is needed to communicate research effectively to diverse audiences. Such knowledge mobilisation facilitates research impact beyond academia and is linked to funding opportunities and career advancement. This paper draws upon qualitative interview data from 30 early career researchers (ECRs) based in both Australia and Japan, exploring how their experiences during doctoral candidature prepared them to produce research outputs for both academic and non-academic audiences. It also sought to capture their perceived overall knowledge and skills in producing these academic research outputs for diverse audiences. Findings suggest that preparedness for producing research outputs for the academic community during doctoral candidature are shaped by supervision, self-direction and experience. Far less support for producing research outputs for non-academic users may be provided during doctoral candidature. ECRs' perception of capability for academic research output production stems from benchmarking against personal prior performance, and colleagues in the field. Capability for non-academic research output production may be much lower than for academic research output production, with ECRs' professional experiences beyond academia supporting development of these skills.

The primary research output of a contemporary doctoral journey is no longer limited to a traditional thesis. Amongst other possibilities, current doctoral candidates may choose to produce a Thesis by Publication (TBP). However, very little is known about the factors shaping doctoral candidates' decisions to adopt a TBP approach during their doctoral journey. This paper reports on quantitative and qualitative data collected in 2018 and 2019 from 246 recent doctoral graduates from Australian universities who completed a TBP. It reports on data exploring when candidates made the decision to select this option, who influenced their decision, and their reasons for choosing the TBP approach. We found that candidates typically adopted a TBP approach early, strongly influenced by their supervisors, to meet vocational, promotional and process goals. The study has implications for administrators, supervisors and candidates in selecting the thesis mode that suits the unique needs of each candidate.

While qualified school librarians can have a positive influence on children's literacy attainment, very little consideration is given to the educative role of librarians in schools. Lack of attention on these librarians' educative capacity may be due to a devaluing of the educational contribution of school librarians, and it can be argued that school libraries are poorly valued in current times, as evidenced in cuts to budgets and staffing. While school librarians may foster literacy and literature learning through a range of strategies, and for diverse purposes, perhaps their most expected contribution relates to the fostering of literacy and literature learning through wide reading and reading engagement in students. However, little is known about the specific barriers that librarians in schools may encounter in achieving these goals in the current school environment. Research from teacher librarians at 30 Australian schools is drawn upon to explore barriers to children's literacy and literature learning in school libraries. Recurring barriers were limited time and competing demands, crowded curriculum, low teacher valuing, low student engagement, skills and motivation, issues with parental support, limited space and constrained budget. These findings provide a valuable foundation for future inquiry in this under-researched space.

The initial and ongoing professional education of teachers to prepare them to support students' literacy development warrants research attention. The importance of meeting the needs of struggling literacy learners in secondary school does not diminish as students move through the years of schooling. This paper reports on data from the 2019 Supporting Struggling Secondary Literacy Learners mixed-methods project, which sought to explore the challenges of meeting the needs of struggling literacy learners in Australian secondary schooling, from the perspectives of teachers of mainstream English classrooms. Adequacy of initial teacher education to support struggling literacy learners seems to have been low for the majority of teachers, and for both recent and earlier graduates. Where gaps were indicated, qualitative data provided valuable insights. Findings can be used to inform initial teacher education programmes and ongoing professional development opportunities, to ensure that such learning experiences are reflective of current teacher needs.

Although teacher librarians play a role as literacy and literature educators in schools, little research attention is given to this role. In addition, the use of book discussion in school libraries to enhance reading engagement is not often closely considered as an educative practice. This paper draws on qualitative research findings from interviews with teacher librarians in 30 Australian schools to explore how these educators stimulate book discussion to foster reading for pleasure as part of their professional practice. This paper finds teacher librarians stimulate book discussion to foster reading for pleasure in a variety of ways, and for diverse reasons, with an overarching goal being the promotion of reading for pleasure. A range of approaches to discussion around books emerge from the data, including peer to peer, teacher to student, and other diverse interplays. Teacher librarians actively promote reading as a social practice and encourage students to value reading for pleasure.

Mentoring is a unique educative workplace relationship which holds the potential to support the skill, knowledge, social and emotional needs of both new and experienced staff members. As promotion of mentoring in the nursing workplace can improve workforce retention and cohesion, understanding of nurse managers' perceptions of the barriers to the mentoring of early career researchers in hospitals can offer insights that enhance the efficacy of mentoring in these dynamic contexts. In-depth interviews with 20 nurse managers were conducted to identify these barriers, with interpersonal conflict, competing priorities for time and financial resources, and lack of training emerging as recurring themes raised by participants. We explore how these barriers can be mitigated to strengthen the contemporary mentoring quality and opportunity in acute care hospitals.

In the current field of doctoral education, there is a range of possible approaches presented to doctoral candidates. The Thesis by Publication (TBP) is an option increasingly offered by universities around the world and adopted by candidates in diverse fields. As the approach gains in popularity in response to the demands of modern academia, there is a need to better understand the limitations and possibilities associated with completing a TBP. This paper reports on a survey of 246 recently conferred doctoral candidates from Australian universities, who shared their personal experiences of successfully completing a TBP, with particular focus on the challenges and benefits. The challenges of ensuring thesis cohesion, time pressures, managing the publishing journey, and issues with supervisory and/or university support emerged as notable recurring themes. Positives included efficiency, accessibility and dissemination of findings, feedback, skills for research, career and reputation, emotion and motivation, and ease of examination. These findings have associated implications for candidates seeking to make informed choices about the approach that best suits their needs. They can also inform supervisors desirous of supporting students to harness the benefits and overcome the challenges of the TBP, and support institutions in the provision of informed and responsive guidelines and training opportunities for TBP.

Struggling literacy learners are typically low achievers with poor engagement in literacy learning, and the gap between struggling and capable students widens as children move through the years of schooling. Literacy research and interventions for struggling literacy learners typically focus on the primary school years. The 2019 Supporting Struggling Secondary Literacy Learners mixed-methods project collected qualitative data on teacher perceptions of the barriers experienced by their struggling literacy learners in Australian mainstream secondary English classrooms. Recurring barriers included literacy skill gaps and English as an additional language status, absenteeism, home factors, student attitudes and engagement, school and systems factors, and learning difficulties and disabilities influencing learning. This project found high agreement with diverse individual and group level barriers, and diverse learner barriers were negatively associated with perceived adequacy of time to meet the needs of struggling literacy learners.

Children's attitudes towards, and frequency of recreational reading influence their reading skill level. The aim of this study was to determine the relative influence of research-supported intrinsic and extrinsic variables that can shape this attitude and practice, and to investigate the use of artificial neural network as an adjunct approach in such analysis. Data from 997 Australian students in primary Years 4 and 6 were analysed to examine the influence of 10 variables on reading frequency and attitudes. Data were subject to analysis using artificial neural network, binomial logistic regression and linear regression. The results from the three methods of analysis indicate that library visitation, perception of importance and early literacy are the top three ranked variables in artificial neural network, with all three also significant (p < 0.001) in binomial logistic regression and linear regression. Providing students regular opportunity for library visitation may be a valuable intervention for educators and parents seeking to enhance children's reading frequency and attitudes.

Reading aloud to children is considered one of the most highly effective strategies for fostering a range of literacy skills, both at home and within contemporary classrooms. However, little is known about teachers' attitudes toward reading aloud, their self-reported frequency of engagement in the practice and what may pose as contemporary barriers to the practice. The 2016 "Western Australian Study in Reading Aloud" (WASRA) collected data from over 100 teachers at 14 Australian schools. The WASRA reveals tensions in translating reading aloud practices into daily practice due to reported lack of time and high curriculum demands. The findings suggest that primary school teachers typically enjoy reading aloud to children, though fewer enjoyed reading themselves. Recommendations are provided to address time and curriculum demands purported as being inhibitors of daily reading practices. These recommendations go some way to help mitigate against literacy inequities within our primary classrooms and in so doing encourage provision of daily reading opportunities for teachers and reading aloud practices.