Serene H.-J. Choi

Factors Influencing the Higher Education of International Students from Confucian East Asia.

Higher education, especially that leading to a degree from a high-prestige university, is strongly related to social status and employment opportunities in East Asian countries. This is a consequence of both traditional Confucian attitudes to education and the social and economic changes accompanying industrialisation. Since the number of places available at high-prestige universities is limited, competition is intense. Successful entry to such a university is not only an important achievement for the future career of the student, but also a victory for the family. In contrast, failure to do so is often seen as shameful for the family, sometimes resulting in psychological problems or suicide. This background affects the international education of East Asian students, who often have a high level of family support, with correspondingly high expectations of their success. Motives for international study vary, from avoidance of the hyper-competitive domestic system, pursuit of an overseas degree as an ‘easy option’ of moderate prestige, to an expectation of more up-to-date teaching and content. Understanding this background can be a first step for Australian or other Western educators to better meet the needs of East Asian international students and to attract students from East Asia in the long term.

Peer Training Methods for Children and Adolescents with Autism: A Review

Abstract I review how the training of peers is undertaken in peer-mediated interventions for children and adolescents with autism. Common elements of training include peer modelling, peer initiation, peer response, and multiple interaction training for peers. The intent is to provide some practical notions about designing peer involvement for inclusion.

Factors influencing international PhD students to study physics in Australia

Since physics research is an activity of an active international community, international visits are a common way for physicists to share scientific knowledge and skills. International mobility of physicists is also important for PhD physics study and research training. We investigated personal and social factors that influenced the decision for international PhD students to study physics in Australia. Eleven international PhD physics students at a university in Australia participated in individual in-depth interviews. As a result, multidimensional factors on their decision to engage in PhD study abroad were found. Although highly regarded research fields and/or experts in fields appeared as a strong influential factor, other personal and social contexts also influence the final decision. This indicates intertwined aspects of personal learning desire and social contexts for PhD international learners in physics who are underrepresented in the higher education literature.

Binary Keys for Classification and Taxonomy of Behaviour.

Quantitative behaviour analysis requires the classification of behaviour to produce the basic data. This can be challenging when the theoretical taxonomy does not match observational limitations, or if a theoretical taxonomy is unavailable. Binary keys allow qualitative observation to be used to modify a theoretical taxonomy to produce a practical classification method, or to develop a pragmatic taxonomy in the absence of theory. Furthermore, inter‐observer consistency can be maximized with less training, and construction of a binary key ensures that the categories into which behaviour is classified are complete and mutually exclusive. We give examples from special education research for the behaviour of children with developmental disabilities. † This paper is based on work that appears in a doctoral dissertation by Serene Hyun‐Jin Choi. A portion of this work was presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education Annual Conference in 2002.