Kristin Warr Pedersen, Emma Pharo, Corey Peterson and Geoffrey Andrew Clark
The purpose of this paper is to profile the development of a bicycle parking hub at the University of Tasmania to illustrate how the Academic Operations Sustainability Integration…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to profile the development of a bicycle parking hub at the University of Tasmania to illustrate how the Academic Operations Sustainability Integration Program promotes real change through the engagement of stakeholders from across an institution to deliver campus sustainability. This case study outlines one example of how place-based learning initiatives focused on campus sustainability challenges have delivered authentic education for sustainability in the Australasian higher education setting.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study outlines the process through which a cross-disciplinary place-based learning initiative was designed, implemented and evaluated over a three-year period. The evaluation of the project was designed to assess the impact of this education for sustainability approach on both operational and student learning outcomes, and to make recommendations on the continuation of place-based learning initiatives through the Academic Operations Sustainability Integration Program.
Findings
This case study illustrates how learning can be focused around finding solutions to real world problems through the active participation of staff and students as members of a learning community. This experience helped the authors to better understand how place-based learning initiatives can help deliver authentic education for sustainability and the success factors required for engaging staff and students in such efforts.
Originality/value
The case study highlights an example of an education for sustainability initiative that was mutually driven by the operational and learning objectives of an institution, and specifically the ways in which the engagement of staff and students from across an institution can lead to the successful integration of these two often disparate institutional goals.
Details
Keywords
Sandra Murray, Corey Peterson, Carmen Primo, Catherine Elliott, Margaret Otlowski, Stuart Auckland and Katherine Kent
Food insecurity and poor access to healthy food is known to compromise tertiary studies in university students, and food choices are linked to student perceptions of the campus…
Abstract
Purpose
Food insecurity and poor access to healthy food is known to compromise tertiary studies in university students, and food choices are linked to student perceptions of the campus food environment. The purpose of this study is to describe the prevalence, demographic and education characteristics associated with food insecurity in a sample of Australian university students and their satisfaction with on-campus food choices.
Design/methodology/approach
An online, cross-sectional survey conducted as part of the bi-annual sustainability themed survey was conducted at the University of Tasmania in March 2020. A single-item measure was used to assess food insecurity in addition to six demographic and education characteristics and four questions about the availability of food, affordable food, sustainable food and local food on campus.
Findings
Survey data (n =1,858) were analysed using bivariate analyses and multivariate binary logistic regression. A total of 38% of respondents (70% female; 80% domestic student; 42% aged 18–24 years) were food insecure. Overall, 41% of students were satisfied with the food available on campus. Nearly, half (47%) of food insecure students were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the availability of affordable food on campus. A minority of students were satisfied with the availability of sustainable food (37%) and local food (33%) on campus.
Originality/value
These findings demonstrate a high prevalence of food insecurity and deficits in the university food environment, which can inform the development of strategies to improve the food available on campus, including affordable, sustainable and local options.
Details
Keywords
Anna Wrobel, Kim Beasy, Terese Fiedler, Alana Mann, Brigid Morrison, Nick Towle, Graham Wood, Richard Doyle, Corey Peterson and Silvana Bettiol
Higher education institutions are embedding education for sustainability in curricula, but there are many challenges slowing the process down.
Abstract
Purpose
Higher education institutions are embedding education for sustainability in curricula, but there are many challenges slowing the process down.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses reflections from stakeholders across eight disciplines to identify themes supporting EfS integration across disciplines, using collaborative autoethnography.
Findings
The paper highlights unique challenges and opportunities in embedding sustainability education and potential institutional pathways to enable interdisciplinary approaches to embedding EfS.
Originality/value
The paper highlights unique challenges and opportunities in embedding sustainability education and the role of institutional support in overcoming differing worldviews.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to report how the use of a direct and an inverse task gave students an opportunity to discern the structure of a distributive law that they could…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report how the use of a direct and an inverse task gave students an opportunity to discern the structure of a distributive law that they could apply to expand or to factorise algebraic expressions. The paper discusses a teaching sequence (of about 40 minutes) in a Grade 8 (14-15 year-olds) algebra class and it focusses on how the use of inverse tasks opens the dimension of variation. For instance, if the distributive law has always been used as a(b+c), factorising the expressions ab+ac means opening up the dimension of distributive law. The analysis showed that two central processes, transformation and variation, improved communication in the classroom.
Design/methodology/approach
The data used come from a longitudinal study conducted in Sweden. The methodology is grounded in educational design research. Two secondary school teachers conducted a lesson with variation theory as a guiding principle, supervised by a researcher. The relationship between teaching and learning was analysed in the enacted object of learning. The critical aspect for students’ learning was identified by asking questions to probe the students’ understanding.
Findings
The use of a direct and an inverse task gave the students an understanding of the structure of the distributive law that they could apply to expand or to factorise algebraic expressions. The teacher opened up a dimension of variation by similarity that gave the students the opportunity to discern the commonality in direct and inverse tasks as well as to relate the direct and inverse tasks to each other. Without an identification of similarity that might help students to compare underlying meanings, or to match one representation to another, students may not experience variations because there is not concordance among the relationships between the representations.
Research limitations/implications
Teachers can produce new knowledge as well as communicate successfully in the classroom when creating teaching activities that promote the discernment of similarity and difference that might help students to compare underlying meanings, or to match one representation to another.
Practical implications
The study represents an example of research which has the aim of improving teachers’ practices by using research results from mathematics education whilst keeping in mind that learning must be improved.
Social implications
The central educational problem is to have students make sense of sophisticated ways of reflecting on the general laws used in mathematics in relation to the algebraic ways of acting and reflecting. Variation theory sees learning as the ability to discern different features or aspects of what is being learned. It postulates that the conception one forms about the object of learning is related to the aspects of the object one notices and focusses upon.
Originality/value
The commutative law for algebraic generalisations is not characterised by the use of notations but, rather, by the way the general is dealt with. Algebraic generalisations entail: the grasping of a commonality related to the discernment of whole-parts relationships, the generalisation of this commonality to two types of transformations: treatments and conversions, and the formation of direct and inverse tasks that allows one to discern the relationship between the whole, the parts, the relations between the parts, the transformation between the parts and the relationship between the parts and the whole.
Details
Keywords
Sheri Stover and Corey Seemiller
The world is a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment (Carvan, 2015) that calls for leaders who can effectively navigate the complexity of leadership…
Abstract
The world is a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment (Carvan, 2015) that calls for leaders who can effectively navigate the complexity of leadership today. Students of leadership studies must not only learn leadership information content, but also be able to effectively implement the content and process, requiring deep approaches to their learning (Petrie, 2014). This quantitative research study used the ASSIST Inventory to measure approaches to learning (surface, deep, or strategic) for students enrolled in an Organizational Leadership undergraduate program. Students showed a preference for deeper approaches, though, many continue to use surface approaches, which may lead to shallow understandings and the inability to put content into practice. Specific strategies are provided for instructors to help students move toward deeper approaches.
Corey Shdaimah and Chrysanthi S. Leon
Very little research has examined how prostitute women relate to each other. Drawing on interviews, focus groups, and observations with 76 women engaged in street-level…
Abstract
Very little research has examined how prostitute women relate to each other. Drawing on interviews, focus groups, and observations with 76 women engaged in street-level prostitution in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and a mid-Atlantic state, we show how prostitute women provide mutual assistance both to meet their basic needs and as part of their ethical norms, in contrast to the stigmatized characterizations of prostitute women as morally deficient. Women’s relationships offer them concrete support and encouragement while simultaneously producing a counter-narrative that challenges their stigmatized identities.
Details
Keywords
Dawn Iacobucci, Marcelo L. D. S. Gabriel, Matthew J. Schneider and Kavita Miadaira Hamza
This chapter reviews marketing scholarship on environmental sustainability. The literature covers several themes of both consumer behavior and firm-level topics. Consumer issues…
Abstract
This chapter reviews marketing scholarship on environmental sustainability. The literature covers several themes of both consumer behavior and firm-level topics. Consumer issues include their assessment of efficacy and the extent to which they are aware and sensitive to environmental issues. Numerous interventions and marketing appeals for modifying attitudes and behaviors have been tested and are reported. Consumers and business managers have both been queried regarding attitudes of recycling and waste. Firm-level phenomena are reflected, including how brand managers can signal their green efforts to their customers, whether doing so is beneficial, all in conjunction with macro pressures or constraints from industry or governmental agencies. This chapter closes with a reflection on the research.
Details
Keywords
Paul Sergius Koku and Hannah Emma Acquaye
The purpose of this paper is to examine the mental state and the disposition of those who have fallen on hard times during the recent financial crisis and have had their homes…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the mental state and the disposition of those who have fallen on hard times during the recent financial crisis and have had their homes foreclosed on or their automobiles repossessed. It also proposes an alternative process for dispossessing individuals that preserves the mental health of such individuals and the banks’ reputation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses the hermeneutics approach to analyze the predicament of those whose homes have been foreclosed on or whose properties have been repossessed by financial institutions to better understand their predicament.
Findings
Those whose homes have been foreclosed on or whose properties have been repossessed by financial institutions are traumatized. They feel victimized, bitter, helpless and hopeless and have poor mental state. The study draws on theories in counseling psychology to propose an alternative approach to making loans that take long time to be repaid (long-term loans), and for repossessing personal properties such as automobiles and for foreclosing on real property (homes).
Research limitations/implications
As a qualitative study based on a small sample, the findings of the study are limited to only those who have been studied. A further study that leads to a generalized result will be useful.
Practical implications
The study develops a practical framework that could be useful to financial institutions in making long-term loans and to foreclose on delinquent loans (i.e. to dispossess individuals).
Social implications
The proposed strategy, if implemented, could have a significant positive impact on the mental well-being of those who have fallen on financial hard times.
Originality/value
To the best of the knowledge, this is the first marketing paper that has explored the mental health of those who have defaulted on loans, and has proposed an alternative approach to making long-term loans that not only preserves the mental health of banks’ customers, but also protects the reputation and market share of banks.