Higher Degree Research (HDR) students
The Centre has a number of current HDR students working on Doctoral or Masters research projects that explore a range of topics coonnecting to STEM education and learning.
Annie Agnew
Thesis title: Mobile and Wired: Tweens in an interactive mobile world
Topic summary: The study will examine the “inside and outside” of tween use of mobile technologies, exploring how they esoterically and inextricably engage with mobile devices across a range of activities, formal and informal, structured and unstructured. The study will consider how tweens view their digital lives and how they adapt to the changes that mobile technologies afford, with consideration given to the impact on learning across a range of physical and virtual spaces. Alternative methods to collect authentic data will be explored, reflecting the changing nature of the research landscape.
Joint supervisors: Sandy Schuck and Kirsty Young
Davis Jean-Baptiste
Thesis title:An investigation into the Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Science Teachers: Creating a PCK model for the Affective domain.
Topic summary: The main aims of the thesis are to find out whether science teachers know how to integrate the Affective domain in their science teaching; the extent to which they integrate the affective domain in their teaching and to create a new Pedagogical Content Model that can serve as a guide for science teachers with regards to in cooperating the Affective domain in their science teaching. This is a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative research styles so that the research could have greater reliability and validity.
Principal supervisor: Kimberley Pressick-Kilborn
Co-supervisor: Peter Aubusson
Joel Budd
Thesis title: Spaces and interactions: Design and Technology and new learning spaces in secondary education.
Topic summary: With the emergence of technology, educators are looking to new ways of teaching students curricula but also soft skills; Collaboration, Creativity, Connection, Critical Thinking, Creation, Problem Solving to ensure students can transition to become agile workers within the 21st Century. These skills have been at the forefront in the emergence and traction of designing and building new learning spaces, with the aim to provide students with a more flexible learning environment. My research will examine how space within the Design and Technology discipline, effects learning, the use of media and interactions between teachers and students.
Principal supervisor: Kirsty Young
Alternate supervisor: Jane Hunter
Co-supervisors: Nick Hopwood
Raviro Chineka
Thesis title: Social mobilisation for climate change mitigation and adaptation
Topic summary: This doctoral study examines climate change adaptation from a socio-scientific perspective in Zimbabwe, using an ethnographic approach. Data was gathered through observations, narratives and photography from eight families purposively drawn from 30 families whose children belong to a local school’s Eco Schools Club. A socio-cultural lens is used to analyse the informal learning that takes place as people adapt to climate change. Preliminary analysis from this study suggests that the community demonstrates climate science literacy in their local innovations. This is in some instances, in spite of a range of historical, socio-cultural and environmental factors including traditional beliefs, poverty, intergenerational differences, and crop failures.
Principal supervisor: Keiko Yasukawa
Alternate supervisor: Christopher Riedy
Ruth Fentie
Thesis title: Exploring the ways in which Professional Learning Network (PLN) activity might contribute value to primary science teacher development
Topic summary: Professional Learning Network (PLN) activity might contribute value to sustainable, primary science teacher development, to developing science pedagogical content knowledge, teachers’ perceptions of inquiry identity and their efficacy. Methods include analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected through questionnaires, focus groups, interviews using participant created artefacts as aide-memoires and school policy documents for comparison. An Interpretivist theoretical framework supports multiple views of primary science teachers’ varying experiences, perceptions, representation and interpretations of meanings.
Principal supervisor: Matthew Kearney
Alternate supervisor: Peter Aubusson
Nicole Holgersson
Thesis title: Supporting Primary School Teachers in a Mobile-Enhanced Learning Environment
Topic summary: Australia has already adopted mobile technology programs in education, but what is the impact that they have on a primary school teacher's ability to deliver high-quality curriculum, and vitally, how are these teachers supported? Using a design-based research approach, this project looks at both the barriers and enablers that teachers face in regard to mobile-enhanced learning, and the possibilities and opportunities that are afforded by mobile devices in primary school education. Findings may improve how primary school teachers are supported in a mobile-enhanced learning environment, ensuring that the curriculum taught is through the highest quality teaching methods.
Joint supervisors: Sandy Schuck and Matthew Kearney
Lata Jayaprakash
Thesis title: Scaffolding Multimodal Communications for an Inclusive Education
Principal supervisor: Matthew Kearney
Alternate supervisor: Damian Maher
Lauren Knussen
Thesis title: Early Career Teachers’ Design of Technology-Integrated Learning
Topic summary: This research focuses on how early career primary teachers design technology-integrated units of work (programs) for their students. It seeks to investigate the complexities of decisions they make and the influences on their design practice, which arise from the context within which they work. While research on teachers in the field of technology-integrated learning has focused on skills and knowledge, classroom practices and barriers to technology integration, this study aims to address the gap in our understanding of how early career teachers design technology-integrated learning and how this design is influenced by context.
Principal supervisor: Lori Lockyer
Alternate supervisor: Mathew Kearney
Pauline Kohlhoff
Thesis title: An exploration of the interplay between assessment and mobile pedagogies, in secondary school mathematics.
Topic summary: Student-centred mobile technology offers rich and powerful tools for supporting mathematics teaching and learning. However, with simultaneous pressure to prepare students for mathematics assessments, teachers are obliged to reconcile the promise of one with the needs of the other. This study explores the nature of the relationship between assessment and mobile learning in mathematics. It considers the issue from two different perspectives: first, how do the assessments influence the teachers’ use of student-centred mobile technology in their teaching? And secondly, how might mobile learning inspire different ways to assess students’ mathematical achievements?
Principal supervisor: Anne Prescott
Alternate supervisor: Sandra Schuck
Suman Laudari
Thesis title: Exploring Teacher Educators’ Digital Competencies and Practices: A case of EFL Teacher Educators in Nepal.
Topic summary: Recent studies have established that ‘teacher educators’ digital competency’ is an under-researched area and limited information is available on their digital capabilities and practices. This study examines the digital competencies of teacher educators using the lens of Activity Theory and Digital Competence for Educators. The study followed a mixed methods approach to collect survey and interview data from EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher educators (teaching in 17 teacher education campuses), pre-service teachers and the policy makers. Preliminary findings suggest that in the absence of learning opportunities related to ICT use, teacher educators drew on alternate sources of learning to enhance their digital competencies and used different digital resources in their practices without any mandate to do so.
Principal supervisor: Damian Maher
Alternate supervisor: Kirsty Young
Jane Martin
Thesis title: Rescuing the M in STEM: Making the STEM education agenda work for mathematics education in NSW secondary schools.
Topic summary: My research aims to enhance understanding of the status of the STEM education agenda, and whether it is working for secondary mathematics education in years 7 to 10 to increase participation and achievement in the lived environment of NSW secondary schools. It is hoped the data will reveal affordances and challenges posed by the regulatory environment and the 'messy complexity’ of the classroom, and hence whether or not the current STEM education policies and strategies represent an effective change model for improving outcomes in mathematics education.
Principal supervisor: Anne Prescott
Alternate supervisor: Kimberley Pressick-Kilborn
Rosemarie Di Mattia
Thesis title: How do primary schools cater for innovative futures in STEM?
Topic summary: Schools are being called on to produce the future STEM innovators of tomorrow, yet despite the widespread policy discourse regarding education for innovation, there is little research or evidence on the enablers and inhibitors of innovation and innovative teaching in schools, particularly in STEM education. This study seeks to investigate the capacity of schools in catering for innovative futures in STEM. The research will use the definition that has emerged in literature (Ferrari, Cachia & Punie, 2009; Zhu et al, 2013) in recent years which outlines innovative teaching as both the practice of teaching for skills in innovation and of applying innovation to teaching. The study will focus on the primary education space and will use qualitative methods to determine the factors in K-6 schools and school systems that allow for innovative teaching for STEM.
Principal supervisor: Matthew Kearney
Alternate supervisor: Sandra Schuck
Bijoy Rai
Thesis title: Sustaining students’ engagement and interest in science
Topic summary: There is a strong recommendation to examine the cause of declines in science interest and study the potential of interest to support learning. Focusing on classroom practices, this study will explore some novel ideas in curriculum, teaching and learning approaches, resources used and assessment practices to sustain students’ engagement and interest in science in schools in Bhutan. This study will use audio-visual recordings of classroom episodes for grades 6, 8 and 10 in one rural school and one urban school. Further support for these data will be provided by field notes and focus group interviews with teachers and students. Critical incident analysis will be used to elicit meanings with valid and justifiable descriptions. The goal of the research is to ensure that students achieve the standard learning outcomes of science, continue to pursue the subject in higher classes and become scientifically contributing citizens in the country that leads the world in Gross National Happiness (GNH).
Principal supervisor: Kimberley Pressick-Kilborn
Alternate supervisor: Anne Prescott
Co-supervisors: Wan Ng and Nick Hopwood
Christopher Sandoval
Thesis title: Fanning or Smothering the Flame: What factors enable inquiry-based learning in the science classroom
Topic summary: The NSW BOSTES K-10 Science syllabus requires teachers to develop student inquiry skills, improve student attitude toward science and help students develop deep knowledge and understanding of science concepts. Yet research shows that inquiry-based learning (IBL) is not utilized as much as one would expect. This study aims to investigate the current factors that enable IBL in the secondary science classroom. The methodology will involve semi-structured interviews of current science teachers to determine their views on IBL and the factors they believe enable them to utilize IBL in their classrooms.
Principal supervisor: Wan Ng
Alternate supervisor: Peter Aubusson
Co-supervisor: Carroll Graham
James Scott
Thesis title: Exploring the impact of formative practices on science learning outcomes: A mixed methods study of the Essential Secondary Science Assessment Program in New South Wales.
Topic summary: This thesis presents findings about the impact of two significant interventions into the work of junior science teachers in the largest government school system in Australia. The research design employed mixed methods, including both quantitative and qualitative methods as well as a case study involving sixteen school sites. The findings provide good news for students in regional schools and a sound basis for policy advice to the Department and feedback to participant teachers. The policy advice provided was in keeping with the transformative intention of the research.
Joint supervisors: Peter Aubusson and Mathew Kearney
Melissa Silk
Thesis title: The Value of ME in STEAM: Identity Development through STEAM Education
Topic summary: The phenomenon in question is STEAM education: integrating science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) with the Arts (STEAM). Commensurate with transdisciplinary learning, the study focuses on activity emotions such as joy, frustration, elation and challenge, and how such are seen as powerful potential contributors to the acquisition of knowledge. Similarly, human abilities of imagination and empathy lie at the heart of educational experiences. This study aims to explore the autotelic nature of learning, experienced through a STEAM lens, measuring the quality of intrinsic satisfactions and self-expansion.
Principal supervisor: Anne Prescott
Alternate supervisor: Kimberly Pressick-Kilborn
Do Thi Ha
Thesis title: The impacts of flipped classroom approaches on EFL students’ attitudes, performance and use of formulaic sequences in academic writing
Topic summary: Since its first successful application in 2007, flipped instruction, as a reversal of traditional teaching, has proven to facilitate students’ engagement and performance across varied disciplines (Bergmann & Sams, 2012; Mason, Shuman, & Cook, 2013; Tune, Sturek, & Basile,2013). Thanks to recent development in educational technology, lectures have been digitalized for home study, which allocates more class time for higher-order activities such as problem solving, discussions and projects (Davies, Dean, & Ball, 2013; Fulton, 2012). Despite a majority of positive findings about this approach, there has not been much in-depth discussion on how it can influence foreign language teaching and learning. Using a mixed method approach, this study is aimed at exploring the effects of flipped instruction on EFL students’ attitudes, their performance and use of formulaic sequences when it comes to academic writing.
Joint supervisors: Wan Ng and John Buchanan
