Content
Research seminars
Faculty of Arts and Business Research Day
The Faculty Research Day is a series of short workshops/presentations which aim to showcase the ideas and interests of our diverse and engaging Faculty staff and research candidates. Please join us on Thursday 9 February for a day of challenging conversations and dialogues. (It is hoped that this day will be expanded upon in the Faculty's weekly research seminar series, held on Wednesdays, usually 12-2pm during teaching weeks in Semester 1, 2012.)
Students, graduates and members of the public are welcome to attend the Faculty's Research Day.
Thursday 9 February 9.00am-3.30pm, LT6 (Ground Floor, Building K)
Abstracts and Bios
Abstract
The institutional settings and international alliances that have traditionally supported Australian children’s television began to emerge during the 1960s and 70s and have nurtured popular and successful Australian children’s drama ever since. While policy makers implemented quota obligations and institutional supports, successful business models for children’s television production gradually developed, and led to programs such as Skippy, which was successfully exported to 120 countries. However business models for Australian children’s television, and the justifications for the policies that nurtured them, have been undermined by the technological, regulatory and industrial developments of the mid to late 1990s. The carriage of the expression of certain goals of Australian cultural nationalism now lies with transnational super-indies and US corporations, all of which are indirectly accessing government funding designed to support Australia’s production industry.
Bio
Anna Potter spent many years working in commercial television production before moving to Australia and joining the University of the Sunshine Coast. Anna's current research investigates the influence of technological, regulatory and economic change on the production ecology of children’s live action drama in Australia, and internationally.
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To present a ‘work-in-progress’ article for potential publication by the Journal of Geography in Higher Education’s Resources Section.
Abstract
Contemporary sustainability topics in undergraduate geography curricula can be confronting to both lecturers and students in terms of their global to local impact and the multi-scale need for answers. Personal beliefs and values are challenged, critical thinking demanded and creative solutions urgently required. Addressing associated threshold concepts provides opportunities for students to transform their existing understanding and response to these challenges but the journey may be problematic. Students can find themselves stuck in a confusing liminal space, searching for clarity and resolution. This process is not about passive accumulation of knowledge or facts to be regurgitated in an exam. It challenges thoughts, language and self-identity. This paper proposes that a social inquiry pedagogical approach to teaching sustainability provides a flexible learning environment to encourage this student transformational process. A wide range of teaching tools are available in this approach such as case studies examples; problem-based learning; teacher and/or peer discussions; and small group work to analyse values and perspectives or brainstorm and cultivate solutions. Interactive teaching activities are supported by critical reflection, teacher and peer feedback as well as assessment choices. Future opportunities exist to use the social inquiry approach in a blended learning curriculum.
Bio
Christine is a PhD candidate and sessional human geography lecturer/tutor in FAB. Her academic background is in community planning and development with professional experience in local government, private enterprise and research organisations. Research interests include social sustainability, food security, rural and regional issues, and learning and teaching in higher education.
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Abstract
A recent global Gallup survey found that at the average big firm, 67% of people where either not engaged or actively disengaged in their work. This presentation will describe findings based on qualitative (n=23) and quantitative (n=169) data from dragline operators in twelve Australian mine-sites that are linked to employee engagement.
The structure of the data was explored using factor analysis and after data reduction was completed two final factors were extracted. Considerable deliberation led to these factors being labelled 1) Personal Qualities and 2) Cultural-Fit. The total variance explained by these two factors was 56.40%. Proximity analysis was subsequently employed to allow potential organisational categorising around the two-factors.
The results promote the development of a theory suggesting strategies that can bring employees into the zone of engagement (high ZE). High ZE employees are potentially both more satisfied and productive at work. Specific support leaders can provide to enable high ZE in their people and culture is introduced.
Bio
Dr John Whiteoak has a PhD in small group dynamics from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and has been a university teacher since the mid-1990s.
John has published work in several international management journals including Small Group Research and the International Journal of Human Resource Management.
John is also an experienced management consultant and trainer who has worked on projects addressing human resource management, strategy and organisational change issues.
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Abstract
Six FAB faculty illustrate how they have used visual research methods: the purpose, types of methods, and outcomes. A 20 minute discussion follows on the advantages and challenges of visual methods; tips and resources for others wishing to use visual methods; and gaps and future ideas for research.
Bio
Chaired by Dr Claudia Baldwin, Senior Lecturer, who teaches Regional and Urban Planning and researches in coastal and water planning and affordable housing. She has used visual methods to investigate attitudes of diverse communities and build consensus on planning issues.
Cimarron Corpé is a CSIRO doctoral researcher with professional experience in the private and public sectors. His current research uses visual methods to investigate how Sunshine Coast residents construct their sense of place in a changing climate.
Dr Lisa Chandler is an educator, curator and artist. She is a Senior Lecturer in art and design and was foundation director of the University Gallery. Her teaching and research incorporate aspects of visual literacy and visual semiotics.
Sarah Adams is a Canadian researcher with extensive experience in the public and private sectors. Her PhD project uses participatory spatial planning to explore how people conceptualize adaptation to climate change and identify insights, blindspots, and/or barriers within these understandings.
Caroline Osborne is a new PhD candidate working on development and evaluation of wellness indicators for communities. She has worked as a researcher using visual methods to engage seniors about the built environment. Caroline has a previous background in public policy in state government.
Associate Professor Julie Matthews is an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in education, sociology and cultural studies with expertise in postcolonial, Foucauldian and feminist theory and an interest in visual research methods.
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Abstract
Although Multiple Personality (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder) is a recognized psychiatric disorder, patients may yet encounter health professionals who declare that they simply “do not believe in multiple personalities.” This theoretical paper explores the proposal that resistance to the disorder represents a failure to apply an appropriate paradigm from which the disorder should be interpreted. Trauma and sociocognitive explanations of Dissociative Identity Disorder are contrasted. The trauma hypothesis is further differentiated into paradigms in which trauma affects a defence mechanism, and one in which trauma serves to inhibit the normal integration sequence of parallel processes of the self in childhood. This latter paradigm is shown to be broadly consistent with current models of cortical processing in another system, the cortical visual system.
Bio
MARK MANNING is a Senior Lecturer in Management at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He has been a lecturer in psychology at both Griffith University and the University of Western Australia, and a lecturer in research methods at Southern Cross University. He is a registered psychologist, a member of the Australian Psychological Society, and a member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. He has conducted extensive research in the area of neuroscience and the distribution of serial and parallel cortical perceptual processes in humans. More recently his research has examined the organizational climate in the tourism and hospitality industry. He has received over $730,000 in research grant support and has acted as chief investigator on both ARC and ALTC grants. He has published in journals including: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease; Journal of Trauma & Dissociation; Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine; Documenta Ophthalmologica; Theory & Psychology; Vision Research; Perception; European Journal of Marketing; International Journal of Hospitality Management; Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research; International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration; Tourism Analysis; Journal of New Business Ideas & Trends; and the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
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Abstract
The Australian Department of Education, Science and Research defines research as 'creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society' (2005: 7). On the basis of this definition the University of the Sunshine Coast awarded me the Vice Chancellor's medal for 'Outstanding Research' in 2006. I had published few academic papers and was somewhat ignorant of the (vexed) 'tier level' system of rating journals; rather, I constructed myself as an author—well awarded and internationally published, true—but an author nevertheless, with one difference: I taught my creative discipline within the academy.
The purpose of this abstract (which may evolve into a paper) is to seek a venue by which I might draw attention to, and establish respect for, the methodologies used by creative practitioners such as myself within the academy. This 'attention seeking' is perhaps timely: as I write (January, 2012), there are three hundred and forty (340) students enrolled in Creative Writing at USC. I have four (4) Confirmed Doctor of Creative Arts (Creative Writing) candidates; seven (7) Probationary Doctor of Creative Arts (Creative Writing) candidates and one (1) Probationary Masters of Creative Arts (Creative Writing) candidate. This gives me a total of 12 Higher Degree Creative Arts candidates at this university who will be employing Practice Led Research as their Higher Degree by Research methodology. While not claiming that Creative Writing is the only discipline that might employ this methodology, the numbers enrolled in my discipline alone establish the methodology as deserving attention.
In brief (very brief!) Practice Led Research (PLR) is now recognised Internationally as one of the major methodologies utilised in the Creative Arts (Smith and Dean 2009). PLR might be defined as 'referring both to the work of art as a form of research and to the creation of the work as generating insights which might be documented, theorised and generalised' (Smith and Dean 2009: 7). Arnold describes this documentation process as 'dynamic' and articulates the need for equally dynamically recording of the 'iterations observable between exegesis and creative artefact' (Arnold 2007: 3-4).
Brien stresses the need for 'drafting and redrafting' until through a process she refers to as 'reductive-as-research' (Brien 2006: 54), the researcher arrives at completion of the final polished creative artefact. It should be noted, however, that the practitioner of PLR is something of a 'bowerbird' (Brien 2006: 55) when he/she comes to utilising both information and methodologies from other disciples. Smith and Dean (2009: 223) refer to this utilisation as 'scavenger methodology' and sometimes 'bricolage'. Such 'scavenging' implies that the author (say) might utilise historical information and/or certain historical methodologies in creating his/her artefact. (Consider Peter Carey's Booker winning novel True History of the Kelly Gang 2001 as an example: a work of fiction arising from—among other talents—Carey's Historical Research into Kelly's life. ) PLR must also utilise the practitioner's personal observation and intuition, as well as respecting the interconnectivity of the reading/writing/creating experience resulting in publication (Brien 2006: 57). With reference to the production of visual arts artefacts, Petelin specifically refers to this 'practice led outcome' as 'Increasingly in visual art, practice does not merely lead research, but is in fact considered to be the research' (Petelin 2006: 26).
It is hoped that this abstract will prove sufficient to warrant a venue for the dissemination of the multidisciplinary applications of Practice Led Research.
REFERENCES:
Arnold, J. 2006 Practice Led Research: A Dynamic Way to Knowledge, Camberwell: Rockview Press.
Brien, D 2006 'Creative Practice as Research: A Creative Writing Case Study' in Green, L and Haseman, B Practice-led Research, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.
Department of Education, Science and Research 2005, Higher Education Research Data Collection: Specifications for the Collection of 2004 Data, June, www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/online_forms_services/documents/specs2005_pdf.html
Petelin, G 2006 'Visual Art Doctorates: Practice-Led Research or Research per se?' in
Green, L and Haseman, B Practice-led Research, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.
Smith, H and Dean, R 2009 Practice Led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Bio
Dr Gary Crew is Associate Professor (Creative Writing) at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He is an internationally published and awarded author of fiction for both youth and adult audiences. Crew's work is usually written in response to a researched—often historical— nonfiction source. He is recognised internationally for his innovative interpretations of the illustrated or visual text. Crew has two new releases for 2012: the adult graphic novel The Boy who Grew into a Tree (Penguin), designed and illustrated by USC's Dr Ross Watkins and an adult novel, The Architecture of Song (Harper Collins), a narrative based on the miraculous qualities of poetry.
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Abstract
In most arts and communication courses the students’ main vehicle for expression of their research findings is the critical essay, the dissertation or thesis. But in Creative Writing and other practice-based disciplines, the student’s main mode of expression is what Lincoln and Denzin call a ‘performance based’ creative artefact (2003) resulting from what has come to be known as practice-based research. In this paper I will compare practised-based research to traditional qualitative and quantitative or ‘problem-based research’ and give examples of performance based research in two fictional pieces, ‘The Lives of Animals’, a narrative in which J.M. Coetzee uses fictional devices in order to explore issues that are traditionally articulated by conventional forms of critical analysis; and ‘Just a Story’, a student narrative assignment on meta-fiction which itself uses meta-fictional devices to make its point. In these stories, I aim to show how the creative language of the short story can be employed as an alternative form of academic discourse to the conventional essay.
Bio
Paul Williams has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin, and is now Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He has published fiction, young adult novels, a memoir; educational readers, short stories and articles, and his books have been set in schools across Africa. The Secret of Old Mukiwa won the Zimbabwe International Book Fair award for Young Adults in 2001 and Soldier Bluewon Book of the Year in South Africa, 2008. His latest piece is a short story ‘The Absence of Theory’ that uses fiction to explore theoretical issues in Creative Writing workshops (New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, UK, forthcoming 2012).
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Abstract
This presentation puts forward a book proposal I plan to submit in the near future. The book aims to tackle the question of whaling in the context of Australia-Japan relations and beyond. Although much attention is given to the positive and enriching cultural ties between the two countries, whaling remains a site of what I call ‘unpopular culture’. It is an issue which invites contradictions: an increase in Australians liking for and consumption of sushi—a popular Japanese food—coincides with rising anger and protest about Japanese activities in the Southern Ocean. It is one of the few contemporary issues which invoke claims of racism—on both sides. Sometimes even good friends have to confront their blind spots. I expect I will lose friends and encourage enemies with this book.
Bio
Donna Weeks, PhD (email: DWeeks@usc.edu.au)
Donna Weeks is a lecturer in Japanese Studies and International Relations in FAB. Her teaching career is constantly inspired by the keenness and curiosity of the hundreds of students she has taught over the years. Her academic research career has been largely characterised by rejection and failure. Occasional highlights which keep her persisting in this profession include a Harold White Fellowship at the National Library of Australia in 2010, and being selected to present her work at the (US) National Bureau of Asia Research inaugural Asia Policy Assembly in Washington DC in June 2010. In the twilight of her academic career, she plans to pursue the humanities end of the political science spectrum, investigating how 19th century conceptualisations of the social contract might provide insights to 21st century political apathy, confusion and cynicism in Japan and Australia.
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Abstract
Presenting the latest, ongoing research from Engage Research, including Computer games and mental wellbeing, Interactive maps for public engagement, iPad apps to improve Autism outcomes, and ecoGuide location-aware technologies to present engaging narratives about the natural environment.
We hope that colleagues in FAB will join with us to develop these research projects.
Bio
Christian Jones heads up the Engage Research Lab, a team committed to collaborative research to develop educational solutions around social issues that have measurable benefits to the community. Christian is an Associate Professor in Interactive Digital Media, and Associate Dean of Research for FAB.
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More information
For enquiries please contact:
Kelisha Lyndon
Tel: +61 7 5456 5752
Email: klyndon@usc.edu.au
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