Executive SummaryThe research reported here investigates variation in first year university students' early experiences of learning to program, with a particular focus on revealing differences in how they go about learning to program. A phenomenographic research approach was used to reveal variation in how the act of learning to program may be constituted amongst first year university students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students who had either recently completed, or were enrolled in, a university-level introductory programming subject. Analysis revealed that students might go about learning to program in any of five different ways: by (1) Following -where learning to program is experienced as 'getting through' the unit, (2) Coding -where learning to program is experienced as learning to code, (3) Understanding and integrating -where learning to program is experienced as learning to write a program through understanding and integrating concepts, (4) Problem solving -where learning to program is experienced as learning to do what it takes to solve a problem, and (5) Participating or enculturation -where learning to program is experienced as discovering what it means to become a programmer. The relationships between these different approaches to learning are represented diagrammatically. The mapping of the variation constitutes a framework within which one aspect of the teaching and learning of introductory programming, how students go about it, may be understood. Implications for teaching and learning in introductory university curricula are discussed. They include the following points:

This article describes higher degree research supervisors' experiences of supervision as teaching. While research education is considered central to the higher degree research experience, comparatively little is known to date of the teaching lenses adopted by supervisors as they go about their supervision. We worked with 35 supervisors engaged in discipline-specific and interdisciplinary research across architectural design, science, engineering, computer science, information systems and librarianship. Several of these supervisors conducted projects which interfaced with the social sciences and humanities. Nine categories describing supervisors' experiences were constructed through the adoption of a phenomenographic approach. These offer a picture of supervisors' collective awareness of supervision as teaching. Supervision as teaching was experienced as: Promoting the supervisor's development, Imparting academic expertise, Upholding academic standards, Promoting learning to research, Drawing upon student expertise, Enabling student development, Venturing into unexplored territory, Forming productive communities, and Contributing to society.

Abstract:The IT research community, comprising both academic and industry stakeholders, is responding to national and international imperatives that challenge disparate groups to work together. In this article we show how, within both academic and industrial contexts, researchers interpret, or constitute, the significance and value of research in different ways.Important aspects of these differences may be described in terms of what comes to the foreground when members of the community are asked to consider the significance of projects; and what recedes to the background, ultimately forming a 'perceptual boundary' beyond which they do not see. The study reported here represents a first step in understanding one dimension of the 'collective consciousness' of the IT research community.The framework developed may contribute to the widening awareness of more experienced researchers, as well as revealing something of the character of the research community to those engaged in researcher training, education and development.

No abstract

Exploring information use within everyday or community contexts is a recent area of interest for information literacy research endeavors. Within this domain, health information literacy (HIL) has emerged as a focus of interest due to identified synergies between information use and health status. However, while HIL has been acknowledged as a core ingredient that can assist people to take responsibility for managing and improving their own health, limited research has explored how HIL is experienced in everyday community life. This article will present the findings of ongoing research undertaken using phenomenography to explore how HIL is experienced among older Australians within everyday contexts. It will also discuss how these findings may be used to inform policy formulation in health communication and as an evidence base for the design and delivery of consumer health information resources and services.