Search Results (3)

PK-12 Equity Directors (EDs) are tasked with addressing systemic inequities. The scope of their responsibilities is influenced by role configuration or placement within the organizational structure and the authority they are granted. Limited research has explored how role stress stemming from ambiguous or conflicting directives linked to role configuration affects EDs’ capacity to address systemic inequities. This organizational autoethnographic study examines how role stress because of my role configuration influenced my ability to address systemic inequities over 26 months, using reflective journal entries triangulated with artifacts and documents. The findings demonstrate that I experienced role ambiguity as my position had substantive unstructured time that sometimes made me feel I was not contributing to district goals of addressing systemic inequities. However, after recognizing my authority in different ways, this unstructured time allowed me to pursue projects aligned with my expertise and interests. I also encountered role conflict when leading employee teams who volunteered outside their contracted hours. The voluntary nature of their involvement limited consistent collaboration and forced me to be strategic about employee involvement in equity initiatives. The implications of this study suggest that supervisors should carefully balance EDs’ autonomy with structured support to foster sustainable equity efforts. Furthermore, district leaders must align volunteer committee members’ time commitments and expectations with the scope and demands of equity initiatives to ensure effective collaboration. Full article

The work environment for building workers in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) is characterised by concerningly high rates of distress and suicide at both a jurisdictional and an industry level. Work-related psychosocial hazards are known antecedents of work-related distress and suicide, and more research is required to understand how these hazards impact workers in this unique building context. This paper examines the unique work environment in the NT building industry by comparing psychosocial hazards in the NT with those in the broader Australian building and construction industry. When comparing 330 NT self-report survey responses about psychosocial hazards in the workplace to 773 broader Australian building industry responses, supervisor task conflict for NT workers was more concerning, at 10.9% higher than the broader Australian cohort. Within the NT sample, comparisons between fly-in and fly-out/drive-in and drive-out (FIFO/DIDO) workers and non-FIFO/DIDO workers were also performed to determine specific local psychosocial hazards. When comparing FIFO/DIDO workers’ responses to their NT peers, role overload and supervisor task conflict were significantly higher, and co-worker and supervisor support were lower. In FIFO/DIDO environments, praise and recognition, procedural justice, and change consultation were at concerningly lower averages than the broader NT building and construction industry. These results suggest that the NT building and construction industry, and particularly FIFO/DIDO operations, require greater resourcing, investment, and focus on workplace mental health initiatives to improve the work environment and wellbeing of this workforce and mitigate hazards that can lead to distress and the high rates of occupational suicide found in this jurisdiction and industry. Full article

In many e-learning settings, allowing students to choose which skills to practice encourages their motivation and contributes to learning. However, when given choice, students may prefer to practice skills that they already master, rather than practice skills they need to master. On the other hand, requiring students only to practice their required skills may reduce their motivation and lead to dropout. In this paper, we model this tradeoff as a multi-agent planning task, which we call SWOPP (Supervisor- Worker Problem with Partially Overlapping goals), involving two agents—a supervisor (teacher) and a worker (student)—each with different, yet non-conflicting, goals. The supervisor and worker share joint goals (mastering skills). The worker plans to achieve his/her own goals (completing an e-learning session) at a minimal cost (effort required to solve problems). The supervisor guides the worker towards achieving the joint goals by controlling the problems in the choice set for the worker. We provide a formal model for the SWOPP task and two sound and complete algorithms for the supervisor to guide the worker’s plan to achieve their joint goals. We deploy SWOPP for the first time in a real-world study to personalize math questions for K5 students using an e-learning software in schools. We show that SWOPP was able to guide students’ interactions with the software to practice necessary skills without deterring their motivation. Full article