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A review of the first year physics laboratory program in 1991 at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) revealed that student laboratory experiences did not: resemble the practice of physicists; give a realistic picture of the contribution of physics to everyday life, or; enhance students’ capabilities of broad value, such as their communication skills. Physics academics at UTS committed themselves to reforming students’ laboratory experiences with inquiry-oriented learning as a center-piece of the reform. This chapter explores the drivers that led to the reconceptualization of the role of the laboratory in the undergraduate curriculum and the strategies and processes we adopted over more than 20 years to embed inquiry-oriented activities into first year physics laboratory programs.

This chapter describes an innovative method of curriculum design that is based on combining phenomenographic research, and the associated variation theory of learning, with the notion of disciplinary threshold concepts to focus specialised design attention on the most significant and difficult parts of the curriculum. The method involves three primary stages: (i) identification of disciplinary concepts worthy of intensive curriculum design attention, using the criteria for threshold concepts; (ii) action research into variation in students’ understandings/misunderstandings of those concepts, using phenomenography as the research approach; (iii) design of learning activities to address the poorer understandings identified in the second stage, using variation theory as a guiding framework. The curriculum design method is inherently theory and evidence based. It was developed and trialed during a two-year project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, using physics and law disciplines as case studies. Disciplinary teachers’ perceptions of the impact of the method on their teaching and understanding of student learning were profound. Attempts to measure the impact on student learning were less conclusive; teachers often unintentionally deviated from the design when putting it into practice for the first time. Suggestions for improved implementation of the method are discussed.

This chapter provides an introduction to how the inquiry-based learning (IBL) approach is being used by colleges and universities around the world to strengthen the interconnections between teaching, learning, and research within STEM programs. This chapter provides a synthesis and analysis of the chapters in the volume, which present a range of case studies and empirical research on how IBL is being used across a range of courses across a range of institutions within STEM programs. Based on these findings, this chapter argues that the IBL approach has great potential to enhance and transform teaching and learning. Given the growing demands placed on education to meet a diverse range of complex political, economic, and social problems and personal needs, this chapter argues that education should be a place where students learn “how-to-learn” – where increasingly higher levels of self-directed learning is fostered – and where students grow in the three key areas of learning: affectively, behaviorally, and cognitively. To that end, this chapter argues that IBL, if designed and implemented properly, can be an important approach to enhancing and transforming teaching and learning in higher education.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

It has been noted for some time now that the field of technology as an area of work, has been, and continues to be gender imbalanced and gender stratified This persistent trend has led to a growing body of theorisation and to the (re‐) evaluations of the inter relationship between gender and technology. It is beyond the scope of this article to review the rich theoretical work on gender and technol ogy, and instead the “essentialist” and “constructivist” approaches are briefly discussed here, since they offer a useful frame work within which to look at the case study policy of this article. This policy, as will be shown in the following sections, adopts an “essentialist” stance by seeing women’s under‐representation as resulting from gendered technologies and the obduracy of masculine values associated with technology, and by focusing on girls’ interests as distinct from those of boys. It adopts at the same time a “constructivist” approach through the strategy’s ability to reshape technology through girls’/women’s wider appropriation and use of technology, whereby technology is seen as socially constructed . Before exploring this dualism in more detail, it is helpful to develop a little the theoretical foundations of essentialism and constructivism.

Attempts to construct consumer typologies are an enduring feature of retailing research and frequently centre on economic and demographic characteristics. Such research highlights the relatively poor understanding of real‐life consumer behaviour and, in particular, the need to develop more appropriate methods of examining the behaviour of consumers within real‐life retail settings. As a first step in a study designed to assess the role of group identity in fashion clothing purchasing, this paper outlines an innovative methodological approach. Based on the experience of a project examining customer behaviour in a major menswear fashion retailer in the UK, the paper outlines a technique involving video observation, coupled with individual in‐depth interviews, as an effective means of generating valid referential accounts of in‐store customer behaviour. The paper considers the ethical and practical problems associated with utilising such a methodology, and points out the managerial and marketing implications of the approach.

Food deserts are an attractive metaphor, but because defining this phrase and actually identifying food deserts as geographic places are a contentious endeavour, it is more revealing to discuss related terms. Inherent in the debate around food deserts (i.e. how they are defined, if and where they exist) is the topic of access. The central purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that access is a more accurate and less misleading concept than food deserts when it comes to highlighting food inequalities.

Social exclusion, choice, food security, and public health are fields on which the paper draws. The proposition is that food security studies have entered a postmodern food security paradigm, which can readily be seen in US‐based community food security efforts.

Progressing beyond the initial attention‐grabbing nature of the food desert term, a conceptually thin foundation is discovered that impedes universal understanding and acknowledgment that areas of inadequate food access do exist. Food access, on the other hand, is an established phrase that has evolved and been applied in different arenas to address food security. Food access is a readily understood concept that can be tailored to specific applications; whether it is physical, economic, or informational food access.

It is proposed here that access is a more accurate and less misleading concept than food deserts when it comes to highlighting food inadequacies.

In contrast to outer apparel, academic research has neglected consumer behaviour for intimate apparel or lingerie. It is argued that within this category the bra deserves singular research attention. This paper presents the results of exploratory research designed to explore in depth the bra consumer decision process. The key findings indicate a highly involved consumer who is motivated by a complex range of interlinked factors, and a consumer who desires to be brand loyal in order to enjoy a less extensive decision process, but who is prevented from doing so by high levels of perceived risk and “obstructive” marketing. The authors offer directions for future empirical research based on the consumer behavioural constructs of involvement, perceived risk and the self‐concept. Implications for marketing management are also discussed.