Academic literature on the topic 'CQUniversity Australia'

To bookend the 6th Biennial National Association of Enabling Educators of Australia (NAEEA) Conference, five invited speakers joined a panel on the future directions of enabling education locally and globally: David Bull, founding and outgoing Chair of the Association and also the Director of the University of Southern Queensland’s Open Access College, Australia; Professor Mike Osborne, Director of the Centre for Research and Chair of Adult and Lifelong Learning (CR&DALL) at the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom; Professor Karen Nelson Pro Vice-Chancellor (Students) at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia; Professor Norm Sheehan, a Wiradjuri man and Director of Gnibi College at Southern Cross University, Australia; Associate Professor Nick Zepke Massey University, New Zealand. The panel discussion was facilitated by Karen Seary, Associate Dean at CQUniversity and recently elected Chair of the NAEEA. The panellists encouraged NAEEA members to strengthen enabling practice through a robust approach to research and documenting their practice whilst focusing on students and their success. The following excerpts were taken from a transcription of the panel by the authors, who have made all attempts to ensure the accuracy of information presented.

Personal characteristics contributing to success in higher education has become an important area of focus in recent years. Duckworth’s (2007) grit framework shows positive correlations with a range of academic outcomes. This article explores the characteristics of grit in a study of female students who identified as mothers during their enrolment in an enabling program at CQUniversity Australia. Data was gathered from 284 participants and findings suggest that despite mothers facing competing challenges that conflict with study; demonstrating grit-ability is what enables success. The courage to begin; conscientious determination to achieve; resilience to overcome obstacles; endurance to persist; and striving for excellence were identified as key contributors to positive academic outcomes and personal fulfilment. Framework Methodology underpinned this thematic analysis using the grit terms of reference to examine survey responses. These findings highlight the relevance of grit as desirable student characteristics for experiencing success in enabling education.

To explore the mathematics learning experiences of those more likely to come from non-traditional educational backgrounds, ten students studying one or two maths units in the Skills for Tertiary Education Preparatory Studies (STEPS) at CQUniversity Australia were interviewed. The aim was to investigate how these students learnt to become self-directed learners during their preparation for their intended undergraduate study. Using grounded theory methodology, data were analysed within the theoretical framework of andragogy, namely, adult learning. Analysis of data indicated that students were able to learn how to become self-directed learners when lecturers ‘tailored’ teaching to the students’ needs, taking into consideration their state of mind, ability to plan their work, developing adeptness at engaging in mathematical activities, and assistance received in evaluating their own learning outcomes. In practice, findings of this study provide some insight into how enabling mathematics lecturers can tailor activities to best meet the needs of their students. Further, the development of self-directed learning skills in the context of mathematics has potential to benefit these students in all their university study.

Attrition remains an ongoing issue in enabling programs and the broader higher education sector. For more than 31 years, CQUniversity (Central Queensland University) Australia’s Skills for Tertiary Education Preparatory Studies (STEPS) program has prepared students for university, many of whom are from one or more Australian Government target equity groups. A 2012 CQUniversity institutional review of STEPS resulted in significantly improved retention, yet attrition rates in STEPS are still of concern. Qualitative research conducted in 2016-17 with 23 students who withdrew from STEPS between 2013 and 2015, and 10 Access Coordinators located across those CQUniversity campuses offering STEPS, have provided valuable insights into reasons for continued attrition. Based on suggestions from students and Access Coordinators, recommendations to address attrition have resulted, the intention being to increase student success and satisfaction, and improve retention in STEPS.

IntroductionProlonged sitting and inadequate sleep are a growing concern in society and are associated with impairments to cardiometabolic health and cognitive performance. However, the combined effect of prolonged sitting and inadequate sleep on measures of health and cognitive performance are unknown. In addition, the circadian disruption caused by shiftwork may further impact workers’ cardiometabolic health and cognitive performance. This protocol paper outlines the methodology for exploring the impact of simultaneous exposure to prolonged sitting, sleep restriction and circadian disruption on cardiometabolic and cognitive performance outcomes.Methods and analysisThis between-subjects study will recruit 208 males and females to complete a 7-day in-laboratory experimental protocol (1 Adaptation Day, 5 Experimental Days and 1 Recovery Day). Participants will be allocated to one of eight conditions that include all possible combinations of the following: dayshift or nightshift, sitting or breaking up sitting and 5 hour or 9 hour sleep opportunity. On arrival to the laboratory, participants will be provided with a 9 hour baseline sleep opportunity (22:00 to 07:00) and complete five simulated work shifts (09:00 to 17:30 in the dayshift condition and 22:00 to 06:30 in the nightshift condition) followed by a 9 hour recovery sleep opportunity (22:00 to 07:00). During the work shifts participants in the sitting condition will remain seated, while participants in the breaking up sitting condition will complete 3-min bouts of light-intensity walking every 30 mins on a motorised treadmill. Sleep opportunities will be 9 hour or 5 hour. Primary outcome measures include continuously measured interstitial blood glucose, heart rate and blood pressure, and a cognitive performance and self-perceived capacity testing battery completed five times per shift. Analyses will be conducted using linear mixed models.Ethics and disseminationThe CQUniversity Human Ethics Committee has approved this study (0000021914). All participants who have already completed the protocol have provided informed consent. Study findings will be disseminated via scientific publications and conference presentations.Trial registration detailsThis study has been registered on Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (12619001516178) and is currently in the pre-results stage.

Whilst agriculture is Australia’s fastest growing industry, the negative perception of career opportunities by high school students and the lack of educator confidence in teaching about food and fibre concepts is a major issue currently faced by the sector. The Teacher Farm Experience (TeacherFX), a joint program of Rabobank’s Western Australia Client Council and CQUniversity Australia, aims to increase awareness, knowledge and appreciation of the agricultural industry. This free two-day program designed for teachers entailed visiting four farms in the Great Southern region of WA on the first day and professional learning on the second day. Pre- and post- event surveys were conducted to gain baseline information on the participants, their perceptions of agriculture, quality of learning materials and reaction to the experience. Additional support in the form of professional development and networking opportunities was identified as required to assist teachers to implement learnings from TeacherFX. Event survey results were overwhelmingly positive, with 100% of teachers recommending their colleagues attend a future event. However, whether this positive result will translate to change in the classroom is unknown. Additional research needs to be conducted to measure the long-term impact of the program.

<p>Editor-in-C hief Haluk Soran, Near East University, Cyprus Co-editors Serap Ozbas, Near East University, Cyprus Nazim Kasot, Near East University, Cyprus Editorial Board Engin Baysen, Near east University, Cyprus M. Necdet Alpaslan, Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey Mehmet Karamanoglu, Middlesex University, UK Murat Sonmez, Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus, Cyprus Nehir Varol, Ankara University, Turkey Serife Gunduz, Near East University, Cyprus Owner and Publisher SciencePark Science, Organization and Counseling LTD.</p><p>Publisher Contact SciencePark Science,</p><p>Organization and Counseling LTD.</p><p>13 Subat Street, No: 17, 99030 Kyrenia – Cyprus</p><p>E-mail: info@sproc.org</p><p>Tel: +90 5338366993 Fax: +90 3928157195 www.sproc.org</p><p>Editorial Contact Serap Ozbas</p><p>Near East University</p><p>Department of Science Education Nicosia, Cyprus</p><p>E-mail: wjer.editor@awer-center.org</p><p>Tel: +90 392 6802000 – 110</p><p>Sponsor World Journal of Environmental Research is an academic journal which is sponsored by Near East University and University of Kyrenia. Frequency Bi-annual Technical Staff Meltem Haksiz Vasfi Tugun Proofreading Academic Proofreading www.academicproofreading.com Cover Design Hasan Ozdal Azmiye Yinal Publishing Language All Manuscripts must be in English language. Abstracting/Indexing Google Scholar and AWER Index Issue Publishing Date May 2015 DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.18844/wjer.v5i2 International Advisory Board A. M. Abd El-Aty, University of Cairo, Egypt Afet Arkut, Cyprus International University, North Cyprus Aşkın Kiraz, Near East University, North Cyprus Bekbolet Miray, Bogazici University, Turkey Belgiorno Vincezo, University of Salerno, Italy Christian Onof, Imperial College London, UK Christos Zerefos, University of Athens, Greece Cardana Rincon, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia C. Jr. Ballesteros Florencio, University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines Deniz Dolgen, Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey Dimitris Komilis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece Ergun Gide, CQUniversity Sydney, Australia Gerasimos Lyberatos, National Technical University of Athens, Greece Guillermo San Miguel, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain Henny van Lanen, Wageningen University, Netherlands Howard. S. Wheater, University of Saskatchewan, Canada İlkay Salihoğlu, University of Kyrenia, North Cyprus Jia Qian Jiang, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK Jesus Garcia Lobardo, Universidad de Alcala, Spain Li Fengting, Tongji University, China Mikdat Kadıoglu, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey Nikos Thomaidis, University of Athens, Greece Nehir Varol, Ankara University, North Cyprus Steven M Ross,, Johns Hopkins University, USA Sven Wagner, Sails for Science Foundation, Germany Serife Gündüz, Near East University, North Cyprus Thorsten Wagener, University of Bristol, UK T. Hıguchi, Yamaguchi University, Japan Note: All members of international advisory board articles' indexed in SSCI. Important Information During review process we use iThenticate plagiarism software. So, it is recommended to the authors should scan with iThenticate plagiarism or other free plagiarism software of their manuscripts. © 2015 SciencePark Science, Organization and Counseling LTD. All rights reserved. The ideas published in the journal belong to the authors.</p>

<p>Editor-in-C hief Haluk Soran, Near East University, Cyprus Co-editors Serap Ozbas, Near East University, Cyprus Nazim Kasot, Near East University, Cyprus Editorial Board Engin Baysen, Near east University, Cyprus M. Necdet Alpaslan, Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey Mehmet Karamanoglu, Middlesex University, UK Murat Sonmez, Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus, Cyprus Nehir Varol, Ankara University, Turkey Serife Gunduz, Near East University, Cyprus Owner and Publisher SciencePark Science, Organization and Counseling LTD.</p><p>Publisher Contact SciencePark Science, Organization and Counseling LTD.</p><p>13 Subat Street, No: 17, 99030 Kyrenia – Cyprus</p><p>E-mail: info@sproc.org</p><p>Tel: +90 5338366993 Fax: +90 3928157195 www.sproc.org</p><p>Editorial Contact Serap Ozbas</p><p>Near East University Department of Science Education Nicosia, Cyprus </p><p>E-mail: wjer.editor@awer-center.org</p><p>Tel: +90 392 6802000 – 11 Sponsor World Journal of Environmental Research is an academic journal which is sponsored by Near East University and University of Kyrenia. Frequency Bi-annual Technical Staff Meltem Haksiz Vasfi Tugun Proofreading Academic Proofreading www.academicproofreading.com Cover Design Hasan Ozdal Azmiye Yinal Publishing Language All Manuscripts must be in English language. Abstracting/Indexing Google Scholar and AWER Index Issue Publishing Date December 2015 DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.18844/wjer.v5i2 International Advisory Board A. M. Abd El-Aty, University of Cairo, Egypt Afet Arkut, Cyprus International University, North Cyprus Aşkın Kiraz, Near East University, North Cyprus Bekbolet Miray, Bogazici University, Turkey Belgiorno Vincezo, University of Salerno, Italy Christian Onof, Imperial College London, UK Christos Zerefos, University of Athens, Greece Cardana Rincon, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia C. Jr. Ballesteros Florencio, University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines Deniz Dolgen, Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey Dimitris Komilis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece Ergun Gide, CQUniversity Sydney, Australia Gerasimos Lyberatos, National Technical University of Athens, Greece Guillermo San Miguel, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain Henny van Lanen, Wageningen University, Netherlands Howard. S. Wheater, University of Saskatchewan, Canada İlkay Salihoğlu, University of Kyrenia, North Cyprus Jia Qian Jiang, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK Jesus Garcia Lobardo, Universidad de Alcala, Spain Li Fengting, Tongji University, China Mikdat Kadıoglu, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey Nikos Thomaidis, University of Athens, Greece Nehir Varol, Ankara University, North Cyprus Steven M Ross,, Johns Hopkins University, USA Sven Wagner, Sails for Science Foundation, Germany Serife Gündüz, Near East University, North Cyprus Thorsten Wagener, University of Bristol, UK T. Hıguchi, Yamaguchi University, Japan </p><p>Note: All members of international advisory board articles' indexed in SSCI. <br />Important Information During review process we use iThenticate plagiarism software. So, it is recommended to the authors should scan with iThenticate plagiarism or other free plagiarism software of their manuscripts. <br />© 2015 SciencePark Science, Organization and Counseling LTD. All rights reserved. The ideas published in the journal belong to the authors.</p>

Since computers have become widely used, programming has become a critical skill, as indicated by a recent push by many governments to make it a core part of the secondary school curriculum. Programming languages are built upon English language words and phrases like “for” and “while”, as well as concepts framed in English, like the idea of an “if” statement, representing a choice. It is possible that this could make learning an English-based programming language for non-English language speakers especially challenging. So, what solutions could be developed to solve the problem? With this question in mind, this research investigates non-English language speakers’ grasp of programming. This research started with the question of whether or not needing to understand English would be an extra challenge for students learning programming. Experience from the researcher’s own practice suggested that this was the case; however, what did the literature indicate? An extensive literature review revealed that, in actuality, the literature did not say much. While many focused on solutions to teaching programming, and some researchers focused on the problems that led to these solutions, very few researchers made any distinction between the language capabilities of novices. Even among those projects that were conducted in non-English speaking countries, little attention was given to the demographics of the cohort of participants, and what this meant to the results presented. Based on the literature, this research study highlights issues that directly influence beginners learning programming, looking particularly at the difficulties faced by those that do not have English as a first language. So, the task became to determine whether English was an issue in learning programming or not. A major contribution of this work to the theory and the literature is the observation that issues with programming are different for English language speakers and non-English language speakers. This is something that has not been sufficiently highlighted in the literature in the past. The other contribution of this work is to practice, with the suggestion that strategies such as guidebooks and block programming can help to solve the problems with error messages and syntax for all students. Future work in the area should build upon this contribution, looking to expand experiments on how to solve this issue for non-English language speakers through interventions like those that were trialled. In this way, a greater uptake of programming by all students, both English language speakers and non-English language speakers, can be achieved.

Distance education has been used in various forms since the 1800s. The progression of distance education has seen the paper-based system replaced by modern computing technology for a more effective approach. CQUniversity has a long history of offering distance education across a wide range of disciplines. The Bachelor of Paramedic Science is one of the health-related undergraduate courses offered by distance since 2011. At the time, CQUniversity was the only Australian university that offered an entire pre-employment undergraduate course in paramedicine in a distance mode. Currently, there remain only two universities offering a distance course. Rather than using a standard approach of on-campus lectures and tutorials, CQUniversity uses a blended learning mode which incorporates online (distance) and face-to-face components to the unit. A student enrolled in the blended mode of study views all lectures and resources through a learning management system in an online environment at a time and in a place that suits the student’s personal circumstances. In addition to the online management system, blended learning students travel to a university campus to attend an intensive teaching block known as a residential school for several days during the study term. The residential school activities include tutorials to learn and practise clinical skills, simulated paramedic scenarios and practical assessments. This research is concerned with the perceptions of the end user of this non-traditional blended learning approach to paramedic education, the students undertaking the ‘Foundations of Paramedic Clinical Practice’ unit. The unit is the first of the clinical units in the undergraduate course and teaches basic patient care assessments and life-saving skills and procedures. It is essential students can gain the knowledge and skills in this unit as it provides an integral foundation for more advanced skills and procedures later in the course.

Particulate matter emission is one of the major air pollution problems of coal fired power plants. Fine particulates constitute a smaller fraction by weight of the total suspended particle matter in a typical particulate emission, but they are considered potentially hazardous to health because of the high probability of deposition in deeper parts of the respiratory tract. Electrostatic precipitators (ESP) are the most widely used devices that are capable of controlling particulate emission effectively from power plants and other process industries. Although the dust collection efficiency of the industrial precipitator is reported as about 99.5%, an anticipation of future stricter environmental protection agency (EPA) regulations have led the local power station seeking new technologies to achieve the new requirements at minimum cost and thus control their fine particulate emissions to a much greater degree than ever before.

This study aims to identify the options for controlling fine particle emission through improvement of the ESP performance efficiency. An ESP system consists of flow field, electrostatic field and particle dynamics. The performance of an ESP is significantly affected by its complex flow distribution arising as a result of its complex internal geometry, hence the aerodynamic characteristics of the flow inside an ESP always need considerable attention to improve the efficiency of an ESP. Therefore, a laboratory scale ESP model, geometrically similar to an industrial ESP, was designed and fabricated at the Thermodynamics Laboratory of CQUniversity, Australia to examine the flow behaviour inside the ESP. Particle size and shape morphology analyses were conducted to reveal the properties of the fly ash particles which were used for developing numerical models of the ESP.

Numerical simulations were carried out using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code FLUENT and comparisons were made with the experimental results. The ESP was modelled in two steps. Firstly, a novel 3D fluid (air) flow was modelled considering the detailed geometrical configuration inside the ESP. A novel boundary condition was applied at the inlet boundary of this model to overcome all previous assumptions on uniform velocity at the inlet boundary. Numerically predicted velocity profiles inside the ESP model are compared with the measured data obtained from the laboratory experiment. The model with a novel boundary condition predicted the flow distribution more accurately. In the second step, as the complete ESP system consists of an electric field and a particle phase in addition to the fluid flow field, a two dimensional ESP model was developed. The electrostatic force was applied to the flow equations using User Defined Functions (UDF). A discrete phase model was incorporated with this two dimensional model to study the effect of particle size, electric field and flue gas flow on the collection efficiency of particles inside the ESP. The simulated results revealed that the collection efficiency cannot be improved by the increased electric force only unless the flow velocity is optimized.

The CFD model was successfully applied to a prototype ESP at the power plant and used to recommend options for improving the efficiency of the ESP. The aerodynamic behaviour of the flow was improved by geometrical modifications in the existing 3D numerical model. In particular, the simulation was performed to improve and optimize the flow in order to achieve uniform flow and to increase particle collection inside the ESP. The particles injected in the improved flow condition were collected with higher efficiency after increasing the electrostatic force inside the 2D model. The approach adopted in this study to optimize flow and electrostatic field properties is a novel approach for improving the performance of an electrostatic precipitator.

This chapter focuses on aspects that contribute to successful online learning in the Skills for Tertiary Education Preparatory Studies (STEPS) bridging program at CQUniversity in Australia. The program, which aims to instill the aptitudes, values and attitudes for effective university study in interrupted adult learners, has been running for 22 years and has had an online component for off campus students since 2006. Among the challenges involved in developing the online program have been promoting the value of critical reflection, recognizing the importance of learning as process to complement a focus on learning as product, and configuring an effective constructive alignment between factors shaping the learning and teaching process. The role of teachers’ reflective practices and students’ use of an online discussion forum in meeting these challenges is explored.