General Ability, English and Mathematics Tests (for the North Shore Coaching College) Project contact: Dr Zhonghua Zhang Tests have been designed to measure General Ability, English and Mathematics (GEM) tests.They are administered early in March each year and initially to students in years 4, 5 and 6, in colleges run by the North Shore Development and Coaching Centre (NSDC Pty Ltd) throughout Australia. Each year the tests attract a number of additional students. The aim of the tests is to monitor student…
Gippsland Microcredentialing of Enterprise Skills - Phase 2 Project Contact: Enterprise Professor Sandra Milligan The Assessment Research Centre has successfully secured further funding from the Latrobe Valley Authority to develop and trial a microcredentialing system to formally recognise enterprise skills. Unlike traditional degrees and certificates, microcredentials provide detailed and easily communicated information about what a credential holder knows and can do. This project will involve trialling of the credentialing system and its associated assessments with a range of candidates…
Gippsland Microcredentialing of Enterprise Skills – Phase 3 Project Director: Enterprise Professor Sandra Milligan The Latrobe Valley Authority (LVA) in partnership with the University of Melbourne’s Assessment Research Centre (ARC) has engaged industry, education and community to work together in developing and piloting a process for recognition and assessment of employability skills to support the transition of workers in the Latrobe Valley. The combined enterprise has been engaged in a co-design process to support the transformational phase that the…
Girls Writing Together: Developing writing pedagogies for low language and literacy learners Dr Julie Choi Girls from African refugee backgrounds face critical educational and social barriers as they rebuild their lives in Australia. Their experiences of war, endemic violence, rape, forced marriage, forced displacement, living in refugee camps and family separation, undoubtedly play a debilitating role on their sense of worth and possibilities for positive new identity becomings in this world. Histories of disrupted schooling, a lack of formal education…
Greater Shepparton Lighthouse Community Education Project A/PROF Helen Stokes The Greater Shepparton Lighthouse project is a collective impact initiative aimed at effecting significant social change within the Goulburn Valley region of Victoria and bringing together key representatives of local business, education, welfare and non-profit sectors. The University of Melbourne has supported the project by providing funds for, among others, a report documenting the initial ‘exploring’ phase of the project.
Health Promoting Institution Implementation Guide and Framework This is a research partnership with MCRI, LeapEd Services, UNICEF and Ministry of Health Education in Malaysia to build an implementation guide, training program and monitoring systems for implementing the global standards for health promoting schools.
Healthy City for Adolescents Program Monitoring and Evaluation Framework Development Project lead: Associate Professor Janet Stanley The project involves developing an evidence-to-action framework for Fondation Botnar Learning Hubs. The project is co-led by Professor Dianne Vella-Brodrick and Associate Professor Janet Stanley (from Melbourne Institute of Sustainability).
How language develops, what goes wrong and why it matters: Following the Early Language in Victoria Study to age 13 Project contact: Sheena Reilly 2003, we established the Early Language in Victoria Study (ELVS), a prospective study of 1,910 Victorian infants already followed to age 7 years. In this study we will capture the ELVS children’s abilities from middle childhood to adolescence, a transition phase that poses greater physical, academic, cognitive, social and emotional challenges. We will track the children’s language, literacy, health and well-being to 13 years by…
IB’s Learner Profile: A comparative Study of Hong Kong, India and Australia Research Contact: Professor Fazal Rizvi
Identifying Individuals’ Impact on Collaboration in ICT Environments (Early Career Grant) Dr Claire Scoular To be workforce ready in the 21st century, students need to be equipped in school with how to be active problem solvers and be able to work collaboratively, all while being proficient in ICT digital literacy. This project aims to investigate the relationship between these three skills. The outcomes should provide valuable information to educators about the nature of the skills and how they should…
The Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change (ILETC) project Project Manager: Associate Professor Wesley Imms The Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change (ILETC) project is investigating the value of modern, innovative classrooms and will develop tools to support teachers to use these spaces to their full potential.It brings together the expertise of leading researchers in education and learning environments and 15 partner organisations in education and learning environment design and technology.The project is lead…
Improving Assessment With Intelligent Automation Project Lead: Narelle English Rubrics are widely used to assess essays, lesson plans, reflections of professional practice, and teaching portfolios. Within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, rubrics have been found to:clarify required standards of work for students and staffimprove comparability of marking by staff teaching into the same subjectprovide a guide for staff to target feedback to students.However, despite their utility, rubrics do not solve every assessment problem.…
Improving children's language, literacy and mental health: Evaluating the impact of the Classroom Promotion of Oral Language (CPOL) approach Project Lead: Professor Tricia Eadie This project is led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in collaboration with the University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, Deakin University and partnering with Catholic Education Melbourne and the Victorian Department of Education. Children’s ability to communicate and use language impacts access and participation in education as it affects their capacity to learn, mental health, behaviour and life opportunities. Language competence, including spoken communication…
Improving children’s language, literacy and mental health: Evaluating the impact of the Classroom Promotion of Oral Language (CPOL) Sharon Goldfeld Oral language and literacy competence are major influences on children’s developmental pathways and life success. The ability to communicate and use language effectively impacts upon children’s capacity to learn, their mental health and behaviour, future educational and employment achievements, and social participation opportunities. Evidence that teacher effectiveness has a powerful impact on students suggests that an investment in improving teaching may be a critical step…
Improving Teaching Skills for Early Childhood Educators (ITSECE) Project Lead: Professor Tricia Eadie Improving Teaching Skills for Early Childhood Educators (ITSECE) is a project carried out in partnership with the Victorian Curriculum & Assessment Authority (VCAA) to validate and test the reliability of a self-reflection tool that focuses on the quality of instructional support provided by teachers of children aged from three to five years. An important part of the evaluation will determine implications in making the tool…
Improving the participation of young people with chronic illness in triadic medical discussions about their health Prof. Johanna Wyn Developments in medical technologies mean that more and more children/adolescents now grow up with serious chronic illnesses requiring lifelong participation in health care. Inclusive and open doctor-parent-child medical communication is crucial, yet current doctor-parent dominated communication often excludes young people. This longitudinal, qualitative project using youth-oriented research methodologies seeks to generate new knowledge about promoting youth participation in triadic medical discussions about their health to…
Independent Review of the Validation of the Foundation Skills Assessment Tool Project Lead: Dr Rebekah Luo The Assessment Research Centre (ARC) acted as a consultant to Education Services Australia to provide technical expertise to independently review the validation of the Foundation Skills Assessment Tool (‘FSAT’) for the Commonwealth Department of Education and Training. FSAT is an Australian government interactive online tool designed to identify and measure an individual’s foundation skill in learning, reading, writing, oral communication and numeracy as well as…
Independent validation of assessment: Developing and piloting and external assessment model Associate Professor Shelley Gillis This project consists of two parts. The first is to explore and gather data on national and international assessment systems/frameworks that involve the use of nationally developed and administered assessment procedures (for example a capstone test) designed to improve the quality and integrity of qualifications issued. The second part of the project is to develop and pilot a capstone test instrument to be…
Innovative methodologies for gender research: colloquium and pilot research workshop Prof. Helen Cahill This seed project brought together theoretical experts in researching gender and the body. The purpose of the three-day workshop was to share and evolve research methods to assist investigators to explore the ways in which media and social norms influence the internalisation of body image standards. In doing this the participants sought to advance the use of participatory research methods to inform and drive social…
Innovative partnerships for youth engagement in education and work Project contact: Prof. John Polesel In most modern OECD nations, secondary schools are required to form partnerships with a large variety of organisations, ranging from other education and training providers to community groups, businesses and associations. These schools typically manage a large number and various types of relationships with external organisations. These may include Work Placement Coordination providers, local businesses offering work placements, external vocational education providers, such as Technical…
International Baccalaureate Programs: Longer term outcomes Project Lead: Dr Katie Wright A qualitative study that explored the influence of International Baccalaureate (IB) programs on the lives of IB graduates.Since its inception in the late 1960s, the International Baccalaureate (IB) has played a major role in the field of international education. A key aim of the original Diploma Program that remains central to the IB mission today is the provision of ‘education for a better world’. At…
Investigating literary knowledge in the making of English teachers Project Coordinator: Dr Lucy Buzacott English education is mandated in schooling for all Australian children and young people. While the value of English is agreed, the subject content, the knowledge English teachers should have, and the pedagogical approaches used are highly contested.This project explores the literary education of Early Career English Teachers (ECETs) in order to understand the role that literary knowledge plays in their teaching.The project aims to understand…
Investigating quality teaching in the Victorian VET sector Associate Professor Shelley Gillis The objective of the research is to conduct primary research that seeks to answer the question of what is quality teaching in the VET sector. The research will produce a developmental learning framework for the VET teaching profession using methods that have been well-tested in other educational settings, and the model will distinguish between levels of VET teacher proficiency from novice to expert…
Keeping Connected: Young people, identity & schooling Project Contact: Julianne Moss A research project investigating the social and educational experiences of young people whose schooling has been disrupted due to an ongoing health condition.School connectedness and retention is an established key to both immediate and long-term health, academic and life outcomes. Young people with health conditions often miss schooling and get caught in a spiral of catching up and disconnection from important peer relationships and from…
Knowledge Building Project Project Contact: Dr Peter Woelert This project examined two important disciplines, history and physics, in the markedly changed environment for schools and universities in the 21st century, and in the context of ongoing debates about knowledge and the purposes of education today.It used interviews with a large number of teachers and academics across different kinds of schools and universities to examine changing practices and pressures across the education trajectory, and…
Latrobe Valley Microcredentialing Project (for the Latrobe Valley Authority) Project Director: Enterprise Professor Sandra Milligan Through discussions with jobseekers, businesses, industry and education providers in Gippsland, the Latrobe Valley Authority (LVA) identified a ‘gap’ between the skills that local jobseekers have and what our local employers are looking for. This project aims to address this ‘gap’ through the use of microcredentials. More specifically, the project involves the development and trialling of a microcredentialing process which can be used to formally…
Leading country-based implementation of the Connect with Respect Gender-based violence prevention program Project lead: Prof. Helen Cahill This project entailed the development and provision of a two-day training for country teams preparing to lead implementation of the Connect with Respect program addressing the prevention of school-related gender-based violence. The literature review, guidance notes and teaching materials were developed by Helen Cahill and colleagues, and published by UNESCO for use in schools in the Asia-Pacific region. The training assisted country focal points to…