Merilyn Childs

Exclusionary narratives as barriers to the recognition of qualifications, skills and experience : a case of skilled migrants in Australia

The paper reports on research conducted in Australia with (i) skilled migrants, (ii) public-sector recruiters, and (iii) skilled migrant placement officers (SMPOs), who assisted migrants into employment. Their stories were collected as part of a project, intent on improving recognition processes in higher education and employment by piloting a professional development program. The reported experiences underpin exclusionary narratives that prevent skills recognition and employment commensurate with qualifications and experience. The unsatisfactory nature of formal and informal recognition processes and their relationship to ‘subterranean’ forms of racism is explored.

Not through women's eyes : photo-essays and the construction of a gendered tsunami disaster

Purpose – This paper aims to critically appraise the representation of women through photo‐essays used immediately following the December 26, 2004 tsunami disaster. Through analysis of photo‐essay images published online, the author argues that women were largely represented in the samples as helpless victims who are passive, prone and inhabiting domestic or quasi‐domestic settings. The paper argues that a “disaster genre” has emerged, and that disaster images matter. The disaster community needs to care about the “ethics of seeing”, so that the viewer can “see” women, not simply as domesticated, vulnerable, passive and prone but in their diverse and complex lives and roles.Design/methodology/approach – This paper utilizes methodology developed within the emerging discipline of visual sociology, as applied to a sample of photo‐essays published online by international aid agencies in the weeks following the tsunami disaster. Data sorting of the four visual essays was done in response to three interpretativ...

Transforming Distance Education Curricula through Distributive Leadership

This paper examines a core leadership strategy for transforming learning and teaching in distance education through flexible and blended learning. It focuses on a project centred on distributive leadership that involves collaboration, shared purpose, responsibility and recognition of leadership irrespective of role or position within an organisation. Distributive leadership was a core principle in facilitating the transformation of learning and teaching through a Teaching Fellowship Scheme that empowered leaders across a regional distance education university. In parallel, a design-based research project analysed the perceptions of the Teaching Fellows in relation to blended learning, time/space, peer learning, innovation and equity issues in relation to distance education. Keywords: flexible and blended learning; distributive leadership; design-based research; fellowships; transformative change; transformative learning DOI: 10.1080/09687769.2010.529112

Beyond training : new firefighters and critical reflection

Purpose – This paper aims to initiate a conversation within the disaster community about the applicability of “critical reflection” to the professional work of firefighters. “Critical reflection” is a term commonly used within the nursing and teaching professions. Although it has contested meanings, it generally conveys the sense of purposeful enquiry about ones professional conduct, ethics and decision making. Fire fighting labor is no longer blue collar, and firefighters in western fire fighting agencies require increasingly complex capabilities and accountabilities. Could “critical reflection” be added to post‐incident debrief as a core professional capability?Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on the concept of “critical reflection” as it has been developed within the professional fields of nursing and teaching. It then considers the applicability of and importance of this concept to the professional field of firefighting.Findings – The meanings and applications of “critical reflection” va...

The application of reduced-processing decision support systems to facilitate the acquisition of decision-making skills.

Objective: The study was designed to examine whether the availability of reduced-processing decision support system interfaces could improve the decision making of inexperienced personnel in the context of firefighting. Background: Although research into reduced-processing decision support systems has demonstrated benefits in minimizing cognitive load, these benefits have not typically translated into direct improvements in decision accuracy because of the tendency for inexperienced personnel to focus on less-critical information. The authors investigated whether reduced-processing interfaces that direct users’ attention toward the most critical cues for decision making can produce improvements in decision-making performance. Method: Novice participants made incident command-related decisions in experimental conditions that differed according to the amount of information that was available within the interface, the level of control that they could exert over the presentation of information, and whether they had received decision training. Results: The results revealed that despite receiving training, participants improved in decision accuracy only when they were provided with an interface that restricted information access to the most critical cues. Conclusion: It was concluded that an interface that restricts information access to only the most critical cues in the scenario can facilitate improvements in decision performance. Application: Decision support system interfaces that encourage the processing of the most critical cues have the potential to improve the accuracy and timeliness of decisions made by inexperienced personnel.

Improving the quality of non-emergency leadership : a case study

The core business of fire‐fighting organizations is typically seen as emergency response. For a range of reasons, however, fire‐fighting organizations face increasing pressures to develop new capabilities. In the midst of multiple changes, individual organizations need to develop strategic plans that allow them not only to change the organization, but also to develop the capabilities of its personnel. This paper considers the case of one large Australian fire‐fighting organization’s attempts to develop new in‐house educational practices. These attempts can be seen retrospectively to build on previous cultural practices without causing industrial revolt, and at the same time to encourage aspiring middle managers to respond to emerging corporate goals.

Reduced processing decision support for competent firefighters

Decision support systems have been proposed as a means of extending the information processing capabilities of less experienced operators by reducing the amount of information to be processed at a given point in time. Conducted in a firefighting context, the current study examined whether the decision-making performance of inexperienced Incident Commanders could be improved with the use of three decision support systems that differed in their demands for information processing. Although the results revealed that the implementation of a reduced processing strategy was associated with a reduction in decision time, the decision accuracy of the inexperienced Incident Commanders did not approach the decision accuracy of the experienced Incident Commanders. The evidence suggests that experienced Incident Commanders were acquiring features that were more relevant to the decision-task. These results highlight some of the limitations to the implementation of decision support systems. Mechanisms may be needed to ensure that less experienced operators are processing relevant information when using reduced processing interfaces.