Alan Farley

Mobile Phone-Based Audience Response System and Student Engagement in Large-Group Teaching

Engaging students in large classes is a challenge at the best of times. Teachers are increasingly seeking the help of new technology to keep the attention of their technologically savvy students. VotApedia, a free cell phone-based audience response system, is one such technology. This research aims to assess economics students perceptions of use of VotApedia in helping to achieve deeper learning; to map importance of use of audience response technology for students in promoting engagement and to assess the promotion of a positive and active environment in lectures by use of VotApedia in an Australian University. Using the framework of activity theory, it argues that technologies such as VotApedia use positive feedback loops to facilitate improved student engagement and learning.

Engagement and learning through social software in finance: a retrospective on the Trading Room experience

The introduction of a social software blog space called the Trading Room in an undergraduate finance unit generated a great deal of activity to support student learning. A subsequent evaluation of this innovation, viewed through the lens of Activity Theory, demonstrated that students perceived high value in the opportunity it provided for them to reaffirm theories, obtain individualised feedback and benchmark their work against others. While assessment is generally seen as the carrot and the stick of learning; students in the study reported that they would still participate in reading and posting to the Trading Room even if there was no assessment requirement. Students did not see any value in the environment as a purely social space, reporting that they saw it primarily as a professional educational community. It would appear that just as there are different communities in the real world social space, there are also different types of communities in the online space.

Convergence or divergence? Corporate climate-change reporting in China

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate the extent international and domestic guidelines have influenced the content of corporate environmental reporting (CER) in the context of China’s radical institutional transition from bureaucratic secrecy to openness, marked by the first nationwide guidelines on Open Government Information (OGI) and Open Environment Information (OEI), effective in 2008. Design/methodology/approach - The study develops a research instrument that captures international and Chinese national guidelines pertaining to environmental information disclosure. This instrument is used to analyse 471 reports of leading 100 listed Chinese companies for the critical period between 2006 and 2010. Chi-square test statistics are used to analyse the significance of differences in reporting items supported by Chinese guidelines versus those supported by international reporting guidelines only. Findings - Partial convergence in climate-change reporting co-exists with divergent China specific interpretation of climate change. The coercive institutional influences of the Chinese government’s guidance in OGI and OEI led to the rapid growth of CER in 2008 compared to 2006, despite compliance being voluntary. Originality/value - The study is innovative in explicitly measuring any changes in reporting relative to the potential for additional reporting. Such a method more accurately evaluates the effect of institutional influences on reporting. The study provides a fresh profile of the content and the reporting medium of CER, with a particular focus on climate change in the Chinese context. The findings highlight research into CER based on annual reports risks results being incomplete and misleading. Findings have practical implications for policy makers in other emerging economies.