A u s t r a l i a n J o u r n a l o f C a r e e r D e v e l o p m e n t Vo l u m e 5 , N u m b e r , Au t u m n 2 0 0 6 I ncreasing focus by both state and federal governments in Australia on the post-school outcomes of students has resulted in a range of developments and policies. These have been aimed at attracting and retaining students in educational settings and equipping them to make choices about their future career and education. The Queensland Certificate of Education (Queensland Studies Authority, 2006)
and the Youth Participation in Education and Training ActThe voices of secondary school students describing their experiences of school-based career counselling services are reported and discussed. Arising from the students' narratives and school-based career counsellors' descriptions of their services, a continuum of service delivery is conceptualised that highlights features of career service delivery models valued by students. Consistent with international research, the valued school career counsellors were those reported by students to spend the majority of their time with individuals and small groups.2003 (Education Queensland, 2003) are examples of state initiatives targeting young people in their final years of secondary study that structure planning for study and post-school options within a specific and prescriptive framework. The Australian federal government's Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) is actively involved in research into, and the shaping of, careers education in schools. It is involved in running pilot programs on a range of at Monash University on June 15, 2015 acd.sagepub.com Downloaded from
In both the academic community and the community at large there has been much talk about the impact of postmodernism on particular fields of study and on our ways of thinking about issues. Very little consideration has been given to how postmodernist thinking potentially impacts on early childhood education. This paper looks at how postmodernist thinking can disrupt traditional beliefs about child development and appropriate practice by asserting a more critical and sceptical approach to knowledge and truth statements. Postmodernism opens out the possibility for multiple points of view, for a plurality of voices to be heard. When taken on board, the impact of postmodernism can be simultaneously daunting and liberating. Early childhood educators need to understand the basic tenets so that they are not left out of the debate.
This study measured the efficiency of use by preschoolers of common input devices including the keyboard, the joystick and the mouse. It also investigated their preferred input device in a free play setting. The manner in which the children interacted with the microcomputers and each other in this setting, including gender factors, was also considered. The subjects in the study consisted of thirty-seven children, of whom fifteen were girls and twenty-two boys, with an average age of four years, seven and a half months. The results indicate that there is a significant difference in efficiency between the three input devices, with the mouse being more efficiently used than the joystick, which in turn is more efficiently used than the keyboard. The between groups interaction of gender with input device is not significant. No pattern of preference was identified for a particular input device. The microcomputers were used extensively during free play, and from the variety of activities available, the boys selected the microcomputer activity significantly more than the girls. The present study demonstrates that unmonitored free-play allows for inequitable access to, and selection of, a microcomputer activity.
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