Improving Community-Based Youth Work: Evaluation of an Action Research Approach

Few formal post-secondary educational programs in the United States focus on youth work, thus youth workers often enter the field with diverse backgrounds and varying levels of experience working with youth. Drawing on mounting evidence that quality youth service requires skilled staff, professional-development opportunities have received increasing support by agencies and funders. Typically, youth work professional development supports propositional (theory) knowledge learning to develop a more skilled workforce. This article describes an approach to youth work professional development that supports professional-craft knowledge learning (practice wisdom). Based on action research methodology, the approach has been developed over the last three years with groups of youth workers in a public organization. Using program evaluation data over the last two years and university-facilitator reflections, the authors describe what have been found to be the critical components of this approach. Also discussed are implications of using such an approach in day-to-day youth work practice.     

The Purpose and Perception of Learning Objectives

Much of existing assessment and instructional design strategies revolve around the use of learning objectives. Learning objectives are used by faculty, by instructional designers, by accreditors, by assessment offices, and by students. But even as the use of learning objectives becomes more widespread, the definition and purpose have remained unclear. Instructional designers argue that learning objectives exist to provide a focused mindset for students engaging in the content, while faculty often view learning objectives as an administrative requirement that has little impact on teaching or student performance. Existing research on the subject is primarily normative and/or qualitative in nature (Harden 2002 Harden, Ronald M. 2002. “Learning Outcomes and Instructional Objectives: Is There a Difference?” Medical Teacher 24 (2):151–155.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Torrance 2007 Torrance, Harry. 2007. “Assessment as Learning? How the Use of Explicit Learning Objectives, Assessment Criteria and Feedback in Post-Secondary Education and Training Can Come to Dominate Learning.” Assessment in Education 14 (3):281–94. doi:10.1080/09695940701591867.[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). In this article, the researchers seek to use empirical evidence to examine the definitions, purpose, and impact of learning objectives on student performance. We find that there is no shared understanding of definitions and purpose, and using an experimental design, we find that learning objective wording and use in the classroom does not affect student performance.     

Suicide far from home: the concept of transjurisdictional suicide

A review of a series of eleven persons who committed suicide in a city long distances from home is presented, and the concept of transjurisdictional suicide is introduced. Those eleven cases suggest a high likelihood that the victim will be found in a hotel or motel bed by a hotel/motel employee within a day of check-in; the victim will be a white male who drove to the city and who lived in a hometown closely associated with an urban center which is within a day's drive and on an interstate route connecting the hometown to the city selected; the victim will be older than twenty-one years, married or never married but not divorced or widowed, and will not have been born in the state where death occurred; a suicide message will be found, and a specific reason for selecting a given city will not be apparent.     

Rorty's Poetic Politics

In reading Rorty as political theorists we must separate his critique of epistemology from his advocacy of a new style of philosophy. If we concentrate on the detail and presuppositions of the latter, we will find insufficient reason to grant that his political project is coherent or that it derives any support from his attack on 'Enlightenment' philosophy. We will see that historicist accounts can never reasonably compel belief; that no-one (save the epistemologist manque craving a role) could accept that there is a compelling social need for poetic and literary exclamations; and that great men cannot be allowed to set our political agenda.     

Making the Harder Yards: Environmental Policy Integration in Australia

Solutions to environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and land and water resource degradation require long term integration of economic, social and environmental policies. This poses challenges to specialised, hierarchical public administration systems. The study reported here examined strategies, structures and processes to enable environmental policy integration in six Australian states and territories, and some federal arrangements. The study found that the most prominent success factors, barriers and gaps that affect environmental policy integration relate to leadership, long term embedding of environmental policy integration and implementation capacity. Factors deserving further research and policy attention include leadership, cultural change and capacity building; embedding sustainability in structures and processes; development of a long term evidence based approach; strengthening decentralised implementation arrangements; and evaluation of policy integration initiatives.