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Papers by Tony Wright

Background In education delivered through an online self-regulated learning mode, students’ abili... more Background In education delivered through an online self-regulated learning mode, students’ ability to learn and engage varies with different factors. Considering the absence of teacher supervision and opportunities to provide direct feedback, students may lack opportunities to control and interact with a learning environment, which might lead them to less engagement with learning activities (Krause & Coates, 2008; Tuckman, 2007). Aims The objective of this study is to investigate how students engage with and apply their effort to complete the tasks in the module. The study objective also includes the cognitive engagement to understand the concepts and how engagement has been demonstrated in the activities. Further investigated is the student enthusiasm towards task completion and student choice to engage with different learning tools like simulations and videos. Design and methods This study investigates student engagement with two online learning modules. These modules address the...

The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 2013

Students entering tertiary studies possess a diverse range of prior experiences in their academic... more Students entering tertiary studies possess a diverse range of prior experiences in their academic preparation for tertiary chemistry so academics need tools to enable them to respond to issues in diversity in conceptual models possessed by entering students. Concept inventories can be used to provide formative feedback to help students identify concepts that they need to address to improve construction of subsequent understanding enabling their learning. Modular, formative learning activities that can be administered inside or outside of class in first year chemistry courses have been developed. These activities address key missing and misconceptions possessed by incoming student. Engagement in these learning activities by students and academics will help shift the culture of diagnostic and formative assessment within the tertiary context and address issues around the secondary/tertiary transition. This diagnostic/intervention framework is currently being trialed across five Australian tertiary institutions encompassing a large heterogeneous sample of students.

European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 2014

Even in the context of a university science course, students make and attempt to defend unscienti... more Even in the context of a university science course, students make and attempt to defend unscientific claims in personal and scientific contexts. This research examined a random sample of rhetorical arguments submitted by 130 first-year students in a pre-service primary teaching program for the presence and quality of research evidence and reasoning. Students were strongly encouraged to review the evidence with an open mind before taking a stance. Arguments were analysed by identifying elements of Toulmin's Argument Pattern (Toulmin, 1958) and evaluating the quality of and relationships between these elements using SOLO Taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982). For the most part, students' claims aligned with scientific consensus; for example, that climate change is almost certainly anthropogenic. However, a small number of students submitted pseudoscientific claims, such as that fluoride should not be added to the water supply. Such claims lack evidence, contradict existing evidence that comes from a strong methodological basis, or rest on weak evidence that comes from a poor methodological basis. Sometimes these claims rely on faulty reasoning or logical fallacies. Concern is not only for those students who have submitted pseudoscientific claims, but also for those students who have presented claims that reflect scientific consensus yet defend those claims with shoddy evidence or poor reasoning. If students cannot distinguish between scientific and pseudoscientific claims, evidence and reasoning, how will they make robust decisions about health, how money should be spent, and how and what they will teach their future students?

The FASEB Journal, 2009

Concept inventories are rigorously validated web-based multiple choice instruments that are desig... more Concept inventories are rigorously validated web-based multiple choice instruments that are designed to evaluate the nature and quality of student understandings of key concepts. Such tests can also reveal any related alternative conceptions and visualization difficulties, thereby providing educators with vital feedback about their students' learning and, in turn, their own teaching practice and pedagogical content knowledge. Students receive rapid diagnostic feedback on their understanding of key concepts and remediation can be targeted by the educator towards problematic areas. This paper describes the process that is being used to develop and validate a concept inventory, which is tailored for use by instructors teaching introductory university courses in biochemistry and molecular biology. The initial phase of the project has involved the identification of the concept domain through a set of "Big Ideas" which are unique to the molecular life sciences and which capture, in a comprehensive and future-looking way, thinking by experts in the field. In the second phase of the project, a draft set of key concepts that underpin understanding of these "Big Ideas", and which are at an appropriate level of discreteness and specificity to be tested through the concept inventory, has been identified. These include equilibrium, protein structure, metabolic energy and coding of information. A refined set of adaptive questions has been developed around the key concept of chemical equilibrium. Statistical tools to analyse questions for reliability and validity have been trialled and a series of interviews has been conducted to examine students' alternative conceptions. A second set of questions on protein structure has been developed and is currently being refined as an adaptive test.

The Political Quarterly, 1999

There will be a release of Wiley Online Library scheduled for Saturday 27th November 2010. Access... more There will be a release of Wiley Online Library scheduled for Saturday 27th November 2010. Access to the website will be disrupted as follows: New York 0630 EDT to 0830 EDT; London 1130 GMT to 1330 GMT; Singapore 1730 SGT to 1930 SGT

The Political Quarterly, 1997

Political Quarterly, 2007

The Political Quarterly, 2004

Physical Review Letters, 2009

We reveal that there exists a class of graphene structures (a subclass of bilayer graphene nanori... more We reveal that there exists a class of graphene structures (a subclass of bilayer graphene nanoribbons) which has an exceptionally strong optical response in the terahertz (THz) and far infrared (FIR) regime. The peak conductance of THz/FIR active bilayer ribbons is around 2 orders of magnitude higher than the universal conductance of 0 ¼ e 2 =4@ observed in graphene sheets. The criterion for the THz/FIR active subclass is a bilayer graphene nanoribbon with a one-dimensional massless Dirac fermion energy dispersion near the À point. Our results overcome a significant obstacle that hinders the potential application of graphene in electronics and photonics.

Physical Review B, 2010

We calculate the electrical conductivity of single-layer graphene within the regime of massless D... more We calculate the electrical conductivity of single-layer graphene within the regime of massless Dirac fermions. We consider the electron-LO-phonon interactions as the dominant scattering mechanism. By using the Green's-function method, we are able to obtain the quantitative contribution from the five leading diagrams in the high-frequency approximation. It is found that electron-LO-phonon interactions cause an increase to the electromagnetic absorption of single-layer graphene of as much as 20% at room temperature. The spectrum is dominated by a continuum contribution with a peak at = LO / 2 and represents intraband transitions. The temperature and doping dependence of these peak corrections is also investigated. These results probe the validity of the universal conductivity of graphene with respect to electron-phonon interactions under a range of conditions.

Nanotechnology, 2009

We investigate the dependence of the optical conductivity of bilayer graphene (BLG) on the intra-... more We investigate the dependence of the optical conductivity of bilayer graphene (BLG) on the intra-and inter-layer interactions using the most complete model to date. We show that the next nearest-neighbor intralayer coupling introduces new features in the low-energy spectrum that are highly sensitive to sample doping, changing significantly the "universal" conductance. Further, its interplay with interlayer couplings leads to an anisotropy in conductance in the ultraviolet range. We propose that experimental measurement of the optical conductivity of intrinsic and doped BLG will provide a good benchmark for the relative importance of intra-and inter-layer couplings at different doping levels.

Journal of Applied Physics, 2008

Environmental History, 2009

... between the development of the science of ecology and key ethical concepts in environmental t... more ... between the development of the science of ecology and key ethical concepts in environmental thought such as Aldo Leopold's “land ethic ... Peña moves on to a brief environmental history of Mexico and then, treated separately, of “El Norte,” mostly the American Southwest. ...

Applied Physics Letters, 2009

We demonstrate that within the model of massless Dirac fermions, graphene has a strong nonlinear ... more We demonstrate that within the model of massless Dirac fermions, graphene has a strong nonlinear optical response in the terahertz regime. It is found that the nonlinear contribution significantly alters both the single frequency and frequency tripled optical response at experimentally relevant field strengths. The optical activity of single layer graphene is significantly enhanced by nonlinear effects, and the frequency tripled response opens the gateway to photonic and optoelectronic device applications.

Applied Physics Letters, 2010