Education Commons^™

The Toy Brick As A Communicative Device For Amplifying Children’S Voices In Research, Kylie J. Stevenson, Emma Jayakumar, Harrison See

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This article arises from recent industry-partner research between the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, the LEGO Group, and Edith Cowan University (ECU), examining new ways of communicating children’s perspectives of digital citizenship to policy makers and industry in a project called Digital Safety and Citizenship Roundtables: Using Consultation and Creativity to Engage Stakeholders (Children, Policy Influencers, Industry) in Best Practice in India, South Korea, and Australia. We posed the research question: What are children’s everyday experiences of digital citizenship in these countries, and how might these contribute to digital citizenship policy and practice? In research roundtables, we …

No Time To Read? How Precarity Is Shaping Learning And Teaching In The Humanities, Helena Kadmos, Jessica Taylor

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Humanities educators are frequently frustrated by students’ poor engagement in reading. The contemporary student experience is characterised by disruption and precarity. Similarly, is that of teachers who work in casual employment. This discussion is located within broader conversations around the neoliberal university, but aims to make more visible ways that teaching and learning are increasingly shaped by precarity, and consequences for the humanities. It describes what precarity in higher education looks like and considers the kinds of strategies that students and their teachers are positioned to develop by virtue of engaging in education under such conditions, amid chaos, making these …

Conversations With Rain: Proposing Poetic And Non-Linear Interpretation Strategies In The Art Gallery, Lilly Blue, Jo Pollitt, Mindy Blaise

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Conversations with Rain aims to disrupt conventional socio-constructivist and cognitive notions of the child familiar in museum settings by rethinking children’s relations with art objects and weather worlds. Our rationale suggests that poetic and non-linear interpretation strategies, combined with artist studio practices that heighten presence and attention, expand the potential of more porous entanglements for children with the world, and potentially transform our climate futures. Disrupting didactic Gallery programming and environmental ‘learning about’ practices, we propose responsive, participatory, multisensory, open-ended, and poetic opportunities that recognise the unfixed, iterative, and tacit knowledges of the child. Building a body of research through …

The Experiential Salience Of Music In Identity For Singing Teachers, Melissa Forbes, Jason Goopy, Amanda E. Krause

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Professional musicians with strong identities in music may also have a high degree of music in their identities. Accordingly, a rigid identification with work may be problematic for musicians, particularly when forces beyond their control change their work circumstances. In this study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 singing teachers, representing a subset of professional musicians, and used interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to explore the ways in which they enacted music in their identities. The framework of musical identities in action was used to interpret the findings, revealing the dynamic, embodied, and situated complexity of music in participants’ identities. Music …

Gender Equity In Early Childhood Picture Books: A Cross-Cultural Study Of Frequently Read Picture Books In Early Childhood Classrooms In Australia And The United States, Helen Adam, Laurie Harper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Children’s picture books contribute to children’s development of gender identity and can impact aspirations and expectations of roles in families and society. However, the world represented in children’s books reflects predominantly middle class, heterosexual, male heroes and characters. This paper reports on a cross-cultural study investigating gender representation in frequently read picture books across eight early learning centres in the United States and Australia. Forty-four educators working with 271 children participated. Data were collected from book audits and observations. Unique to this study is the presentation of a new data analysis instrument, Harper’s Framework of Gender Stereotypes Contained in Children’s …

Mindfulness, Recovery-Stress Balance, And Well-Being Among University Dance Students, Peta Blevins, Gene Moyle, Shona Erskine, Luke Hopper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Dance students face many physical and psychological stressors in their training and daily lives, therefore methods for coping with stress are essential for performance enhancement and general wellbeing. This study aimed to investigate the relationships between mindfulness, stress, recovery, and wellbeing among university level vocational dance students. Seventy-two dance students at two Australian universities completed online self-report measures of mindfulness, recovery-stress states, and affect. Correlation coefficients indicated a significant positive relationship between mindfulness and positive affect, and significant negative relationships between mindfulness and stress, and mindfulness and negative affect. MANOVA revealed differences between high mindfulness and low mindfulness groups on …

Competing Worlds: The Private Lives Of Women Nurse Students And Gender Equity In Higher Education, Lesley Andrew, Ken Robinson, Leesa Costello, Julie Dare

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 Society for Research into Higher Education. A longitudinal qualitative study of undergraduate women nursing students demonstrated the profound and pervasive influence of the heterosexual intimate relationship on their university engagement and achievement. Hitherto, the importance of women’s private lives have been underappreciated in the arenas of student equity and retention. The study showed that traditional ideas of gender held within the intimate relationship were highly detrimental to student autonomy and capacity to engage, and that the university’s organisation and delivery of the curriculum exacerbated the situation. Participants made personal sacrifices, which, while enabling continuation of their studies, were …

Voicing Derbarl Yerrigan As A Feminist Anti-Colonial Methodology, Vanessa Wintoneak, Mindy Blaise

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The paper voices Derbarl Yerrigan, a significant river in Western Australia, through three imperfect, non-innocent, and necessary river-child stories. These stories highlight the emergence of a feminist anti-colonial methodology that is attentive to settler response-abilities to Derbarl Yerrigan through situated, relational, active, and generative research methods. Voicing Derbarl Yerrigan influences the methodological practices used as part of an ongoing river-child walking inquiry that is concerned with generating climate change pedagogies in response to the global climate crises and calls for new ways of thinking and producing knowledge. In particular, the authors found that voicing as a methodology includes listening and …

Integrating Indigenous Perspectives In The Drama Class: Pre-Service Teachers' Perceptions And Attitudes, Elisa M. Williams, Julia Morris

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Currently, educational bodies are recognising the importance of integrating Australian Indigenous cultures in education to promote intercultural understanding and improve outcomes for Indigenous students. In drama, learning about Indigenous perspectives can be integrated through sharing cultural stories, with this integration mandated by the Australian curriculum. However, teachers are struggling to achieve this directive due to a lack of knowledge in Indigenous content and concerns surrounding permission and cultural appropriation. This qualitative study used a focus group interview to determine non-Indigenous pre-service drama teachers' perceptions about integrating Indigenous perspectives in their praxis. Inductive analysis of the data revealed participants strongly believed …

The Digital Sabbath And The Digital Distraction: Arts-Based Research Methods For New Audiences, Lisa F. Paris, Julia Morris, John Bailey

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Despite the known affordances of Arts-Based Research Practice within the international education environment, its use remains relatively uncommon in Western Australia. The reasons for this are likely the contested nature of quality criteria by which Arts-Based Practice is evaluated as well as the challenges as well associated with the dissemination of research findings. Mixed-methods research is increasingly recognised as an appropriate and practical approach for education phenomena, and within this domain, inquiry that combines traditional qualitative and arts-based strategies offers the education researcher advantages that are not readily available through other approaches. As professional artists and researchers we share our …

Performing Kayepa Dordok Living Waters In Noongar Boodjar, South-Western Australia, Clint Bracknell, Pierre Horwitz, Trevor Ryan, Jonathan W. Marshall

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Performance through language, song and dance provides alternative knowledges and ways of understanding, in this case, developing deeper relationships with living water. Drawing on Indigenous Noongar culture from south-western Australia, this paper addresses the question: How can relationships between living underground, estuarine and riverine water bodies (kayepa dordok) be performed? Two new interlinked Noongar works in response to local riverscapes were developed for, and performed as part of, the 2021 Perth Festival. The first was to embody the return journey of the bullshark, from the salt water to the riverine fresh water; the second was to enact the …

Open Scholarship In Australia: A Review Of Needs, Barriers, And Opportunities, Paul L. Arthur, Lydia A. Hearn, Lucy Montgomery, Hugh Craig, Alyssa Arbuckle, Ray Siemens

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Open scholarship encompasses open access, open data, open source software, open educational resources, and all other forms of openness in the scholarly and research environment, using digital or computational techniques, or both. It can change how knowledge is created, preserved, and shared, and can better connect academics with communities they serve. Yet, the movement toward open scholarship has encountered significant challenges. This article begins by examining the history of open scholarship in Australia. It then reviews the literature to examine key barriers hampering uptake of open scholarship, with emphasis on the humanities. This involves a review of global, institutional, systemic, …

Educational Outcomes Of Adolescents Participating In Specialist Sport Programs In Low Ses Areas Of Western Australia: A Mixed Methods Study, Eibhlish O'Hara, Craig Harms, Fadi Ma'ayah, Craig Speelman

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Specialist Sport Programs (SSPs) are an underexamined activity that combines the best features of two different contexts for adolescent development: a sporting program and a secondary school. A mixed-methods study was conducted to determine the influence of participation in SSPs on the educational outcomes of lower secondary students in Western Australia. The results demonstrated a significant improvement in specialist students' mean grade for Mathematics over the course of a year, while their mean grade for all other subjects, and their level of engagement with school, remained stable over the same period of time. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with key …

Educative Power And The Respectful Curricular Inclusion Of Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Music, Michael Webb, Clint Bracknell

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This chapter argues for the full, respectful curricular inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music in order to promote a more balanced and equitable social and cultural vision of the nation-state in Australian schools. It challenges views that claim Indigenous cultures have been irretrievably lost or are doomed to extinction, as well as the fixation on musical authenticity. We propose that the gradual broadening of Indigenous musical expressions over time and the musical renaissance of the new millennium have created an unprecedented opportunity for current music educators to experience the educative power of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music. …

Weather Bodies: Experimenting With Dance Improvisation In Environmental Education In The Early Years, Jo Pollitt, Mindy Blaise, Tonya Rooney

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper reports on insights gained from incorporating dance improvisation into a broader early years environmental education ethnographic research project. Findings are reported from a two-day workshop where a dancer was invited to work with young children to attune to the weather through their bodies. In these workshops, the practice of dance improvisation was used as a deliberate interference to disrupt the disconnected and disembodied ways in which weather is often taught to young children. The paper argues that when children attune with weather through the embodied and relational practice of dance improvisation, this challenges the common practice of learning …

Aesthetic-Ethical-Political Movements In Professional Learning: Encounters With Feminist New Materialisms And Reggio Emilia In Early Childhood Research, Stefania Giamminuti, Jane Merewether, Mindy Blaise

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Professional learning is considered essential for early childhood teachers, and is frequently associated with childhood outcomes and dominant constructs of quality which perpetuate neoliberal ideals and position early childhood teachers within a framework of rationality, privileging discourses of masculinity and power. By engaging with feminist new materialist perspectives, with the concept of ‘movement’, and with the theory-practice of the educational project of the city of Reggio Emilia, Italy, this paper extends understandings of professional learning to include nonhuman others as worthy interlocutors, and puts forth …

The Challenge Of Monoculturalism: What Books Are Educators Sharing With Children And What Messages Do They Send?, Helen Adam, Caroline Barratt-Pugh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The importance of recognising, valuing and respecting a child’s family, culture, language and values is increasingly articulated in educational policy. Diversity and inclusion are central themes of the guiding principles of early childhood education and care in Australia. Children’s literature can be a powerful tool for extending children’s knowledge and understandings of themselves and others who may be different culturally, socially or historically. However, evidence suggests many settings provide monocultural book collections which are counterproductive to principles of diversity. This paper reports on a larger study investigating factors and relationships influencing the use of children’s literature to support principles of …

Being The Adult You Needed As A Kid: Why The Aitsl Standards Are Not The Best Fit For Drama Teachers, Christina Gray, Kirsten Lambert

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The Australian Professional Standards for teachers attempts to regulate the profession and improve teacher quality. Yet the standardisation of teachers’ work has attracted criticism from researchers who assert that a “one size fits all” model for judging teacher quality fails to recognise the affective, enactive and relational aspects of teaching. Given the interactive and interpersonal nature of teaching drama, this concern has salience. Our research into the experiences of early-career drama teachers reveals the positive influence these teachers have on their students and in their …

More Than “Sluts” Or “Prissy Girls”: Gender And Becoming In Senior Secondary Drama Classrooms, Kirsten Lambert, Peter R. Wright, Jan Currie, Robin Pascoe

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This article examines the relationships between the embodiment of dramatic characters, gender, and identity. It draws on ethnographic data based on observations and interviews with 24 drama teachers and senior secondary drama students in Western Australia. We explore how student becomings in year 12 drama classrooms are mediated and constituted through socially overcoded gender binaries in a dominant neoliberal culture of competitive performativity. We ask the questions: What constructions of femininity and masculinity are students embodying from popular dramatic texts in the drama classroom at a critical time in their social and emotional development? Are these constructions empowering? Or disempowering? …

Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Experiences And Self-Efficacy To Teach Music: Are They Ready?, Geoffrey M. Lowe, Geoff W. Lummis, Julia Morris

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Music is essential in developing the young brain, particularly skills relating to concentration, filtering, information retrieval, verbal competencies, mental visualisation, problem solving, empathy and personal expression. With the introduction of the Australian National Curriculum and its adoption as the basis of the Western Australian P-10 music syllabus, there is cause to reflect on the effectiveness of music provision within teacher education courses and pre-service generalist teachers' abilities to deliver the new music syllabus. Accordingly, a mixed method study was conducted with first and fourth year Bachelor of Education primary students at a Western Australian university, to investigate students' music experiences …

Community Building, Multiculturalism And The Suburban Public Library: Community, Cohesion And Sustainability. Qualitative Data From Interviews On Western Australian Migrants' Information Needs & Quantitative Web Survey Data On Service Provision At Australian Public Libraries, 2011-2012, Rajeswari Chelliah

Research Datasets

This dataset consists of 3 files:

File 1: Qualitative data enclosed in Microsoft Excel file. Data collection includes one to one interviews with Western Australian migrants.

Content analysis: interview utterances were analysed for content, classified into categories, and coded and entered in Microsoft Excel file columns.

File 2: Qualitative data enclosed in Microsoft Word file. Data collection includes one to one interviews with Western Australian migrants.

Content analysis: interview utterances were analysed for content, classified into categories, and coded and entered in Microsoft Word file columns.

File 3: Quantitative data enclosed in Qualtrics software which includes public librarians’ responses to …

A Day In The Park: Emerging Genre For Readers Of Aboriginal English, Ian G. Malcolm

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Despite the fact that varieties of Aboriginal English are widely used in communication in Aboriginal communities across Australia, the use of Aboriginal English in writing has been limited. A significant genre for Aboriginal writers has been the autobiographical narrative. In most published narratives of this genre, Aboriginal English has not been widely used. This paper describes and discusses an autobiographical narrative composed by Aboriginal author Glenys Collard and published by the Western Australian Department of Training and Workforce Development in 2011 in which the only medium of narration (except for utterances by non-Aboriginal characters) is Aboriginal English. Analysis of this …

Service Design 101: The Joy And Challenge Of Introducing Service Design Into An Undergraduate Design Curriculum, Christopher Kueh, Stuart Medley, Alun Price

Research outputs 2013

This paper describes the introduction of service design into a university design course that previously promoted itself as industry-based and practice-driven—but which had not necessarily kept pace with the contemporary meanings of these terms. The followings discuss the need to teach service design in Western Australia. These are being highlighted through the latest development in business community, government and NGOs that seek innovation and sustainability. Edith Cowan University Design Department therefore is committed to teach socially-focused projects (such as wayfinding; civic identity; designing out crime) connect students with the public and real clients through collaborative practice and social design workshops. …

Diversity And Equity...Community Building Strategies In Public Libraries For Multicultural Communities, Rajeswari Chelliah

Research outputs 2013

The research project focused on the community building potential in the public library due to increasing diversity in multicultural groups. Diversity in Australia and the world at large, is challenged by groups with backgrounds of traditionally embedded mind-sets, civil unrest, war, intolerance and poverty, and who live within the socio-cultural framework of the host culture. Building cohesion and integration among the residents is vital for all nations. The exploratory research project investigated the current level of public library services to Multicultural groups to obtain library staff views. The views of Multicultural individuals about their local public library experiences and information …

Aboriginal Research And Study Protocols, Dan Mcaullay, Colleen Hayward

Research outputs 2012

The Aboriginal Research and Study Protocols have been developed as a guide for ECU staff and students undertaking research, projects or fieldwork that involve Indigenous Australian issues, people or knowledge or that impact on Indigenous people or communities.

These protocols fulfil a strategic priority of ECU’s Reconciliation Action Plan: Develop clear and agreed protocols around Indigenous Australian research to ensure that research activity is informed by thorough cultural awareness and respect.

They also reflect the requirements of key documents that must be addressed by applicants as required by the ECU Human Research Ethics Committee. If the proposed project relates to …

Public Libraries : Celebrating Diversity, Rajeswari Chelliah, Justin A. Brown, Barbara Combes

Research outputs 2012

No abstract provided.

Edith Cowan University 1991-2001: The Journey So Far, Ruth Callaghan

Research outputs 2012

In celebrating the 20th anniversary of Edith Cowan University (ECU), we have reflected on: our history; our rapid growth in student numbers; course offerings; infrastructure; and the many achievements of our talented people and, of course, the University as a whole. In looking to the future, we recognise the strength and determination of the people who make up our University community will drive our continued success - our students, staff, alumni, partners, and members of committees, Boards and Council.

Online Metacognitive Tool Development: Final Development, Joseph Luca, Mark Mcmahon

Research outputs pre 2011

The authors of this paper have been developing an online metacognitive tool over the past four years through a process of iterative design and development stages using Design-Based research. Based on feedback from students, tutors and peers, the application has now been finally developed and is available for public download. The application helps students working in teams reflect on their learning strategies through a process of planning, monitoring and evaluation, and allows students to reflect on their performance.

The Catalyst Clemente Project: Making Journalism Education Accessible To Disadvantaged Australians, Trevor Cullen

Research outputs pre 2011

This is a brief commentary on a new initiative to promote engagement with the wider community through the Catalyst Clemente project, which was introduced in Western Australia in 2008. It encourages participants to improve their personal situation through learning and developing essential skills in a supportive environment. It also seeks to promote self-confidence in people at risk of homelessness or physical and mental illness, by encouraging them to take control of their lives and bring about personal change through undergraduate education. The program gives applicants the opportunity to do accredited university courses in the area of the humanities. I was …

Less Than Equal: Secularism, Religious Pluralism And Privilege, Anne Aly, Lelia Rosalind Green

Research outputs pre 2011

In its preamble, The Western Australian Charter of Multiculturalism (WA) commits the state to becoming: “A society in which respect for mutual difference is accompanied by equality of opportunity within a framework of democratic citizenship”. One of the principles of multiculturalism, as enunciated in the Charter, is “equality of opportunity for all members of society to achieve their full potential in a free and democratic society where every individual is equal before and under the law”. An important element of this principle is the “equality of opportunity ... to achieve ... full potential”. The implication here is that those who …