Diversity in collaborative research communities: a multicultural, multidisciplinary thesis writing group in public health

Writing groups for doctoral students are generally agreed to provide valuable learning spaces for Ph.D. candidates. Here an academic developer and the eight members of a writing group formed in a Discipline of Public Health provide an account of their experiences of collaborating in a multicultural, multidisciplinary thesis writing group. We consider the benefits of belonging to such a group for Ph.D. students who are operating in a research climate in which disciplinary boundaries are blurring and where an increasing number of doctoral projects are interdisciplinary in nature; in which both academic staff and students come from enormously diverse cultural and language backgrounds; and in which teamwork, networking and collaboration are prized but not always proactively facilitated. We argue that doctoral writing groups comprising students from diverse cultural and disciplinary backgrounds can be of significant value for postgraduates who wish to collaborate on their own academic development to improve their research writing and communication skills; at the same time, such collaborative work effectively builds an inclusive, dynamic research community.Cally Guerin, Vicki Xafis, Diana V. Doda, Marianne H. Gillam, Allison J. Larg, Helene Luckner, Nasreen Jahan, Aris Widayati and Chuangzhou X

Training of Vancouver 2010 volunteers: a legacy opportunity?

The successful delivery of a mega-sport event depends upon a volunteer workforce. It is often asserted that the training of event volunteers contributes to the creation of a social legacy via the transfer of learning to other volunteer contexts; thereby creating an enhanced volunteer pool after the event that will support the tourism and events industries in the host communities. This article reflects upon the reality of that assertion and argues that in order to achieve legacy both training and development strategies are required. As such an analysis of data collected at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games around training and legacy is discussed. A Legacy Training and Development Model is offered and subsequently, applied to the case study. The article concludes by suggesting that training at Vancouver 2010 was a missed opportunity in achieving legac

Psychosocial development of women: Linking this literature to the study of leadership

Provided in this paper is an overview of the themes and a critique that emerged from a critical review of the literature on the psychosocial development of women, and an exploration of how these themes are linked to the theory of leadership. Observations are made for further research related to leadership in education

Self-direction in adult learning: What we have learned and what we need to know

Few research topics in adult education have received more attention that self-direction in learning. It has been nearly 25 years since Tough\u27s (1979) original investigation of the learning projects undertaken by adults. This study, and the numerous replications using the learning projects methodology, offered to the field an understanding of the frequency and nature of learning projects that are self-planned. This line of inquiry served as a foundation for other branches of inquiry into the study of self-direction in learning. Together, these approaches have greatly enhanced our understanding of self-direction. At the same time, some critics have challenged the appropriateness of certain methodological approaches to studying self-direction, while other critics have advocated de-emphasizing this research direction altogether. The purpose of this discussion is to examine research on self-direction in order to address the following questions: 1) How has previous work on self-direction contributed to the development of the future research agenda in this area? And 2) What are some of the promising direction for future research on self-direction? In order to accomplish this, brief discussion will be offered relative to qualitative methods of studying self-direction (Cavaliere), measurement of self-direction in learning (Guglielmino), and emerging theoretical perspectives that can contribute to the future research agenda (Caffarella). In addition, two responses to these developments will be provided (Kasworm and Long)