The Heart of Health Care: Advancing Emotional Well-being, Engagement and Performance in Hospitals. This research will improve our understanding of the drivers of effective health care delivery and will identify practical ways to improve the well-being, performance, retention and engagement of health care professionals and improve patient care, satisfaction and safety. In light of significant staffing shortages of health care professionals, the knowledge created will have substantial benefits in ....The Heart of Health Care: Advancing Emotional Well-being, Engagement and Performance in Hospitals. This research will improve our understanding of the drivers of effective health care delivery and will identify practical ways to improve the well-being, performance, retention and engagement of health care professionals and improve patient care, satisfaction and safety. In light of significant staffing shortages of health care professionals, the knowledge created will have substantial benefits in developing more effective models of quality care. In addition this research will enable health care professionals to build holistic, adaptable and multidisciplinary approaches to patient care in order to ensure a sustainable health care system for the future.Read moreRead less
Learning to read words: Beyond alphabetic skills. Up to 20% of Australian children experience difficulties in learning to read. Many of these children are unable to sound out words, and a focus on teaching these skills in Australian classrooms was a key recommendation of the recent National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy. However, some children make slow progress in reading despite having good sounding out skills, demonstrating that more than just this ability is needed for proficient rea ....Learning to read words: Beyond alphabetic skills. Up to 20% of Australian children experience difficulties in learning to read. Many of these children are unable to sound out words, and a focus on teaching these skills in Australian classrooms was a key recommendation of the recent National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy. However, some children make slow progress in reading despite having good sounding out skills, demonstrating that more than just this ability is needed for proficient reading. This project explores how children progress in reading once they have learned to sound out, and examines why some poor readers have difficulty doing so. The findings will inform the teaching of reading and will assist in the development of interventions for children with reading problems.Read moreRead less
Category learning and conceptual change in children. Fundamental to children's cognitive development is the ability to form concepts and generalize beyond direct experience. This project examines the effect of pre-existing beliefs and new empirical observations on concept learning by children. The cognitive processes involved when children of various ages integrate these different sources of information to form new concepts will be investigated in several knowledge domains. In addition to addre ....Category learning and conceptual change in children. Fundamental to children's cognitive development is the ability to form concepts and generalize beyond direct experience. This project examines the effect of pre-existing beliefs and new empirical observations on concept learning by children. The cognitive processes involved when children of various ages integrate these different sources of information to form new concepts will be investigated in several knowledge domains. In addition to addressing key theoretical questions about the role of exemplar diversity and sub-typing processes in concept learning the project will develop and evaluate innovative techniques for teaching science concepts to young children.Read moreRead less
Lexical retrieval and reading comprehension: Binding perceptual, lexical and conceptual information in on-line reading. Reading is a complex process that involves integrating sensory information extracted from text with stored memories about word meanings, syntactic structures and general knowledge. Most reading research has focused on the processing of isolated words, but normal reading requires integration processes that are not necessary to recognise single words. This research uses tasks req ....Lexical retrieval and reading comprehension: Binding perceptual, lexical and conceptual information in on-line reading. Reading is a complex process that involves integrating sensory information extracted from text with stored memories about word meanings, syntactic structures and general knowledge. Most reading research has focused on the processing of isolated words, but normal reading requires integration processes that are not necessary to recognise single words. This research uses tasks requiring sentence comprehension and measures of eye movements during reading to investigate how readers retrieve and combine information while reading to comprehend text. It will contribute to developing more comprehensive theories of normal reading that can inform methods of teaching reading and contribute to refinement of text recognition systems.Read moreRead less
Lexical expertise and reading skill: An experimental analysis of individual differences in written language proficiency. The Federal Government's current National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy highlights the importance of an evidence-based approach to teaching and assessing literacy. Considerable research and policy effort has been directed towards early reading programs. Much less attention has been paid to evaluating children's later development of reading comprehension and spelling pr ....Lexical expertise and reading skill: An experimental analysis of individual differences in written language proficiency. The Federal Government's current National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy highlights the importance of an evidence-based approach to teaching and assessing literacy. Considerable research and policy effort has been directed towards early reading programs. Much less attention has been paid to evaluating children's later development of reading comprehension and spelling proficiency, but there is wide diversity in these skills within the adult population that influence educational and vocational opportunity. This investigation of the factors underlying expertise in reading and spelling will provide evidence that can contribute to developing educational policy and curricula for the later stages of schooling.Read moreRead less
Improving asthma device use: Innovative models for inter-professional practice. This project falls within the goals of National Priority 2: promoting and maintaining good health. This project has the potential to affect every individual accessing health care in the Australia. Through its approach to and focus on improving the use of asthma medications this project will impact on: the quality use of medicines and health outcomes for patients. Through its focus on health professional relationships ....Improving asthma device use: Innovative models for inter-professional practice. This project falls within the goals of National Priority 2: promoting and maintaining good health. This project has the potential to affect every individual accessing health care in the Australia. Through its approach to and focus on improving the use of asthma medications this project will impact on: the quality use of medicines and health outcomes for patients. Through its focus on health professional relationships and interdisciplinary approach to community health care it will result in: improved interprofessional relationships and a model of collaboration which has the potential to be implemented on a broad scale in the community.Read moreRead less
Central nervous system cytokines and morphine analgesia. Morphine remains the drug of choice for the management of moderate-to-severe pain, however its clinical effectiveness is compromised by the fact that morphine's analgesic (pain reducing) efficacy becomes less effective the more it is administered.. This project will examine how analgesic tolerance develops from a completely new approach: Namely, how stimulation of the immune system within the central nervous system is a crucial factor in t ....Central nervous system cytokines and morphine analgesia. Morphine remains the drug of choice for the management of moderate-to-severe pain, however its clinical effectiveness is compromised by the fact that morphine's analgesic (pain reducing) efficacy becomes less effective the more it is administered.. This project will examine how analgesic tolerance develops from a completely new approach: Namely, how stimulation of the immune system within the central nervous system is a crucial factor in the development of tolerance. Modulation of analgesia by the immune system has not been systematically studied and provides a potentially fertile ground for the development of new techniques in the management of clinical pain.Read moreRead less
From patient-centred to family-centred care: A new conceptual framework and doctor training to involve family caregivers in cancer consultations. Cancer has an enormous impact on patients and families. Family caregivers play a critical role in supporting patients and participating in treatment decision-making. Yet there are no guidelines or training to optimise family caregivers' involvement in health care, and current practice is poor. This project aims to develop the first Conceptual Framewor ....From patient-centred to family-centred care: A new conceptual framework and doctor training to involve family caregivers in cancer consultations. Cancer has an enormous impact on patients and families. Family caregivers play a critical role in supporting patients and participating in treatment decision-making. Yet there are no guidelines or training to optimise family caregivers' involvement in health care, and current practice is poor. This project aims to develop the first Conceptual Framework and Strategies Document for involving family caregivers in communication and decision-making within cancer consultations and to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and potential efficacy of a novel doctor-patient-family (triadic) intervention for oncologists. By extending patient-centred to family-centred care, this project may transform the field of clinical communication.Read moreRead less