John Dekkers

Socio-Economic Factors Affecting Home Internet Usage Patterns in Central Queensland

This paper aims to identify associations between demographic and socioeconomic factors and home Internet use patterns in the Central Queensland region, Australia. It found that people living outside of Rockhampton, male, those with higher education levels, married, those with higher income level, or fully employed tend to use Internet more for work at home; people living in Rockhampton, those within the youngest group (18-24), or with secondary education level or higher tend to use Internet more for education; people living in Rockhampton, those within the youngest group, never married, or une mployed tend to use Internet more for entertainment; males, people within the youngest group, those with lower family income, or either semi-employed or unemployed tend to use Internet more for information search; females, people with no children, or lower family income tend to use Internet more for communication through email; married people tend to use Internet for financial management; and people within 25-39 year old group, with higher education levels tend to use Internet more for on- line purchases. It is suggested that further research should be conducted to monitor the youngest age group in home Internet use for entertainment and information search.

Maximizing the Potential of Mentoring: A Framework for Pre-Service Teacher Education.

Within the professional placement component of pre-service teacher education, mentoring has become a strategy that is used during the practical application of learning to teach. In this paper, we examine mentoring in the pre-service teacher education context by proposing a theoretically based framework for mentoring in this context. Firstly, the nature of mentoring along with mentoring in the context of pre-service teacher education is explored. A mentoring framework that has been developed to enable pre-service teacher educators to maximize the potential use of mentoring during the professional placement component of a pre-service teacher education degree is then proposed.

Factors Affecting Home Internet Use in Central Queensland

This paper reports on a social survey that was conducted in 2001 in Central Queensland, Australia, in order to identify the disadvantaged groups in relation to accessing the Internet from home. The research found that people in younger age groups, with higher education levels, being married , having children at home, owning a house/flat, with the higher income level, or being employed, had higher levels of Internet access from home respectively, compared to their counterparts. Regression analysis found that variation of any factors of education levels, marital status, children at home, income level and employment status may affect the decision to access the Internet from home. It also found that unemployment and low education levels were two major factors detrimentally affecting home Internet access and that seniors (>55 years of age) were disadvantaged because of lack of awareness and capability to use the Internet.

Mentoring triad: an alternative mentoring model for preservice teacher education?

Abstract Within many preservice teacher education programs in Australia, mentoring is used as the overarching methodology for the professional placement. The professional placement is considered to be a key component of learning to teach, and typically a dyad mentoring model is utilized. However, it is reported that many preservice teachers experience a less than successful placement when a dyad model is used. This research explored an alternative mentoring model that placed two preservice teachers with a classroom teacher and investigated the mentoring that transpired. The research examined the interactions that occurred between the triad members, in particular those that took place between the two preservice teachers as peers. A theoretical framework that focused on a holistic mentoring model was utilized to frame the research and analyze the data. It was found that the use of a mentoring triad extended the scope of mentor support that can be provided to preservice teachers.