Search

Play, which is both a context and process for children's learning, has become a pivotal pedagogical component in global early childhood education. The uptake of intentional teaching has contributed to the shift in understandings of play, from viewing play as a means of recreation and entertainment to a more socio-cultural perspective that advocates for educators' proactive and engaged roles in play. The recent update of the Early Years Learning Framework (2023) in Australia has included an emphasis on intentionality in play-based learning. However, there is little academic work on intentionality, and recent studies demonstrate educators' struggles in conceptualising their roles as intentional teachers. Drawing on the findings of a literature review, this discussion paper aims to conceptualise intentional teaching from two aspects: intentionality and decision-making. This paper argues that while educator and child intentionality are the starting point of intentional actions, the decision-making process enables educators to have ongoing intentionality behind their teaching practices. It concludes by advocating for a broader understanding of intentional teaching that focusses on the underlying thought processes behind educators' decisions and actions.

Vocational decisions made at school have significant long term impacts on young people's life chances, their opportunities for securing decent jobs and economic growth for themselves, their families and communities. In the short term, their aspirations dictate the decisions they make about educational pathways in post-compulsory years of schooling and vocational and higher education. For young people from already marginalised backgrounds, the quality of support they have in making these decisions is crucially important. This paper examines a rapidly expanding vocational education program specifically designed for students with refugee backgrounds that was codeveloped between a state education authority and a community service provider in Sydney, Australia. Through an ecological understanding of individuals as nested within interrelated networks, this paper explores the perspectives of stakeholders ranging from the educators, careers teachers, employers, civic partners, and, crucially, the young people themselves in order to determine whether and through what means key program elements meet the needs of students from a refugee background and where gaps in the program ecology need to be addressed.

Purpose: This paper presents a case study of successful rural school leadership in Victoria, Australia. The purpose of the paper is to identify how particular leadership practices were adapted to secure rural school success. Design/methodology/approach: The author used the International Successful School Principalship Project research protocols to develop a multiple-perspective, mixed-method case study that investigated the principal's leadership at the school. Findings: The findings illustrate how the leadership practices of the principal healed the fractured school-community relationships, which allowed the school community to work together towards a common school vision. A key factor in the school's success was the principal's personal connection to the local rural community of which he was a part. This notion of native connection could have practical implications for the recruitment and retention of rural principals in the future. Originality/value: Whilst it is widely acknowledged that principals need to consider their school and community contexts when making leadership decisions, there have been few studies that have focussed on understanding how this can be achieved in the context of rural schools. This case provides a rich account of a principal's leadership practices in one successful school in rural Australia.

Chinese students studying abroad have been increasing rapidly in the past decades and become a significant financial contribution to receiving countries. Accordingly, understanding their enrollment choice is essential to facilitate college marketing and admission strategies. Though the decision process is believed to be different from domestic students, empirical analysis of Chinese students' enrollment choices is still lacking. This paper fills the void by examining the influential factors of Chinese students' enrollment choice with novel student-level data. We find that in addition to factors domestic students typically consider, such as financial aid and academic quality, Chinese students particularly emphasize college ranking, reputation, and location in their decision process. Furthermore, unlike domestic students who usually prefer colleges with proximity to home, Chinese students' location preference is linked to job prosperity. We also find that the impact of the factors varies for students from different regions of China, which can be attributable to uneven economic development within the country.

Current teacher attrition in Australia and globally has created an untenable situation for many schools, teachers and the profession. This paper reports on research that examined the critical issue of teacher attrition from the perspective of former classroom teachers and school leaders. Although there is extensive national and global research related to teacher shortages and intentions to leave the teaching profession, minimal research has sought insights from those who have left the profession in Australia, including ascertaining what they are doing now. Using an online survey, data were collected from 256 former teachers from all states and territories, sectors and career stages who had left the profession between 2016 and 2022. Using descriptive statistical and thematic analysis, this study highlights the potential loss to teaching and the education profession more broadly due to teacher attrition. For these participants, the reasons for leaving were often multifaceted and the process of leaving was often protracted. Many of these former teachers have maintained links to the education profession occupying various associated roles and positions. We call for a reconsideration of the ways that strategies to ameliorate teacher attrition are conceptualised and implemented.

Addressing the participation rates in senior secondary mathematics courses in Australian schools remains a critically important issue. In this paper, the authors report on quantitative findings from a study in which all year 11 and year 12 (aged 17-18 years) Australian Tertiary Admissions Ranking (ATAR) students in Western Australia were invited to participate. The aim was to explore the perceptions of these students regarding their enrolment in higher-level mathematics courses. Data from 1633 students were collected using a survey instrument comprised of 12, 5-point, Likert-scale items. Data were analysed by applying two statistical procedures: calculating frequencies of the 12 items in the scale and examining associations with demographic characteristics and individual items through generalised linear modelling. Analyses indicated most students agreed that other courses of study were more attractive, with almost half indicating that they did not like mathematics. In addition, approximately half of the students said that they did not need to enrol in any mathematics course for ATAR or for university entrance. Significant findings were also identified for gender, school type, and school gender. The knowledge gained from this research is valuable in understanding students' reasons for choosing not to enrol in higher-level mathematics courses when they have the option to do so and, more broadly, to address persistently low or declining participation rates in these areas of study.

This paper presents an analysis of the prescribed text list for senior school English (including English as an Additional Language or Dialect, EAL/D) in Queensland, Australia. Queer understandings about the normalization of cisgender and heterosexuality provide a framework to analyze prescribed texts for adolescent learners. Hetero-cisgender norms are perpetuated through overrepresentation in endorsed texts. Representations of queer subjectivities or themes in the most highly promoted texts, those appearing on the examination list, are infrequent and minor. Reflexive justice thinking acknowledges the critique of merely identifying "who is missing" in the literature and extends the discussion to consider the complexities of the social, cultural, and political contexts that influence who gets to decide.

The use of algorithms and automation of public services is not new, but in recent years there has been a step change in processing power and a decrease in the price of these technologies, which means we are seeing more widespread use. These advances are reframing our perception of what matters in ways that impact the ethical dimensions of day-to-day life. In turn, these changes challenge long-standing assumptions about public service ethics and how it is taught. In this multidisciplinary authored paper, we argue that public service leaders must be attentive to ethical questions that converge around adopting "data-driven" techniques, including algorithmic decision-making. Algorithmic and technology focused ethics question assumptions about the current deficits within public service ethics pedagogy in public service programs and university programs and the future direction of the discipline. To do so raises longstanding but neglected questions about the public services' role in the state and recovering what Rohr refers to as the 'ethics of the office.' This, we argue, will have implications for teaching public service ethics.

In Victoria, Australia, senior secondary mathematics students are expected to use technology and thus need to make decisions about using pen-and-paper (P&P) or technology when solving mathematics problems. The predominant technology is a Computer Algebra System (CAS). This study investigated the beliefs about CAS held by twelve Year 11 students as they learnt to use CAS and whether these beliefs were stable over time. These students held a range of beliefs related to the usefulness of CAS, speed of CAS compared to P&P, whether CAS is proper mathematics, choice of CAS or P&P, ease of use, the correctness of answers and solving problems in Mathematical Methods (i.e. the mathematics subject studied). Beliefs are often described as being stable (e.g. McLeod, 1992), but some researchers stress stability needs to be determined empirically rather than being seen as a characteristic of beliefs (e.g. Liljedahl et al., 2012). For this sample of students, stability (rather than instability) is a feature of students' beliefs about CAS.

This discussion paper highlights the importance of Australian nursing and midwifery students' lack of exposure to electronic medical records during their undergraduate programs. There is pressure on universities offering nursing and midwifery programs to provide students with opportunities to learn to use patient electronic medical records. This will provide authentic rehearsal with the digital technology prior to clinical placements and increase graduate work readiness. Informed by contemporary literature, we describe the benefits of implementing electronic medical records (eMR) in health organisations and identify the challenges and barriers to implementing and integrating the education of electronic records into undergraduate nursing and midwifery programs. Undergraduate students who had not experienced eMR as part of on-campus learning felt unprepared and lacked confidence when commencing clinical practice. Some international nursing and midwifery programs have found that student's skills improve in decision-making and documenting patient observations when eMR is integrated into their university education program. Successful integration of an eMR program should consider academic/teaching staff skills and confidence in technology use, initial and ongoing costs and technical support required to deliver the program. In conclusion, Australian universities need to embed eMR learning experiences into the nursing and midwifery undergraduate curricula to increase students work-readiness with a focus on patient safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools now face considerable pressure to be using educational data to inform decision-making and become more efficient. Key to this rise of the 'data-driven' school is the increased use of digital technologies -- with computer-based data processing fuelling hopes for the technology-driven 'smart schooling' and a general 'datafication' of education. Against this background, the present paper explores the realities how data-work is taking place within individual schools with the aid of digital technologies. In particular, it draws on empirical data generated from in-depth ethnographic studies of digital data practices within three secondary schools in the Australian state of Victoria. Using concepts from the sociology of numbers, the paper takers these empirical findings to develop productive and relational accounts of the predominant ways that data work was being carried out within these schools. In contrast to the idea of 'Big Data', schools were most often found to be engaging in small-scale, improvised forms of spreadsheet work. The paper considers the social, cultural and political reasons underpinning schools' reliance on such forms of 'small data' -- particularly in contrast to the more sophisticated, automated and continuous forms of data analysis that are now available.

The characteristics of optimal developmental experiences are examined in a group of international Sea Kayaking Guides. This paper considers how these experiences contributed to the development of decision-making. A mixed approach was utilised that included a survey followed by a series of semi-structured interviews that are thematically analysed. An optimal developmental experience is identified as one with authenticity, diversity, transferability, and reflective value. The Guides developed their judgment and decision-making processes as an aspect of their 'seamanship' via experiences they described as 'epics'. The paper concludes that training for Guides must involve individualised, optimal developmental experiences.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruption to education and highlighted the importance of effective leadership during times of crisis. This paper considers the impact of the pandemic on school leaders in Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand. A secondary analysis of data from five interpretivist, qualitative studies was conducted. The aim of the study was to investigate the similarities and differences between the leaders' experiences across school settings, states/provinces, and countries. Our findings place renewed importance on understanding the role of schools within the community and the vital role school leaders play in helping schools respond to volatile and dynamic circumstances. The findings show how leaders' roles and responsibilities adapted to respond quickly and effectively to the urgency of the crisis, regardless of the context. Furthermore, common practices such as attending to wellbeing and providing clear and timely communication were revealed. The analysis also revealed some interesting nuances in the leaders' responses because of the duration of the crisis, the particular needs of the community, and government requirements. Papers like this provide insights into what leaders do and how schools and systems might prepare and support leaders to lead during times of crisis.

This paper examines the PhD by publication in the humanities and social sciences in US, UK, Canadian and Australian universities. A set of PhDs by publication from each of these countries were collected for the study. The theses were analysed to see to what extent they fitted, or not, with discussions of thesis types described in previous research into the PhD by publication. Interviews with students and supervisors were carried out to investigate the choices that students made in their writing. University rules for the submission of PhDs by publication and related policy documents are also examined. The study found that there seems to be a preference for different types of PhD by publication in each of the countries. In the US they were all prospective PhDs with the work being especially written for the thesis. In the UK, by contrast, retrospective PhDs, the PhD by published work, largely dominate. Canada was similar to the US, at least in the area of study where the data were collected for the paper, Education. In Australia, both prospective and retrospective PhDs were found, although it was the former, the prospective PhD, which dominated.

Purpose: Steiner schools represent a natural experiment in the provision of schooling. With a history dating back more than 100 years, leadership, leaders and the principal do not sit easily with Steiner educators. The contemporary regulatory environment requires a "principal" or legal authority at the school-building level, creating a tension for Steiner schools. This makes Steiner schools an ideal case study for understanding the contemporary role of the principal. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on an interview-based study with 24 heads of Australian Steiner schools. Conducted on Microsoft Teams, all by the principal investigator, the interviews generated a 171,742-word corpus subjected to an inductive analytical approach. Data reduction led to four themes, and this paper focuses on one (principles not prescription) and its implications for the principalship and school governance. Findings: Embedding the principalship in a philosophy (or theory) of education re-couples school administration with schooling and bases decision-making in principles rather than individuals. It also alters the role of data and evidence from accountability to justifying principles. Research limitations/implications: Rather than a focus on individuals or roles, this paper argues that the underlying principles of organisational decision-making should be the central focus of research. Practical implications: Ensuring organisational coherence, by balancing the diversity of positions on core principles is the core task of the contemporary principal. Originality/value: Exploiting natural experiments in the provision of schooling makes it possible to argue for how schooling, and specifically the principalship, can be different.

In the recent Australian 2021 census, the socio-technical construct of algorithmically driven decision-making processes made LGBTQI+ data as a category of diversity, inclusion and belonging an absent presence. In this paper, we position the notion of 'data justice' in relation to the entrenchment of inequalities and exclusion of LGBTQI+ lives and consider the implications of LGBTQI+ data being missing in action. As we look at the notion of 'data justice', we consider five critical socio-technical imaginaries with different kinds of data to think through the implications of technical democracy, data justice and post-automation. Finally, we consider the imaginary of citizenship when LGBTQI+ data is habitually missing in action from systematic power integrated into forms of governance. This paper positions 'data' not as a static 'object or process' but as a dynamic ecology that carries with it a multi-faceted set of coded meanings requiring constant review and reconsideration.

Purpose: This article examines the educational decision-making of hearing parents for their deaf children born during a period (1970-1990s) before the introduction of new-born hearing screening in New South Wales, where the study was conducted, and prior to the now near-universal adoption of cochlear implants in Australia. Design/methodology/approach: We present findings from an oral history study in which parents were invited to recall how they planned for the education of their deaf children. Findings: We propose that these oral histories shed light on how the concept, early intervention--a child development principle that became axiomatic from about the 1960s--significantly shaped the conduct of parents of deaf children, constituting both hope and burden, and intensifying a focus on early decision-making. They also illustrate ways in which parenting was shaped by two key structural shifts, one, being the increasing enrolment of deaf children in mainstream rather than separate classrooms and the other being the transformation of deafness itself by developments in hearing assistance technology. Originality/value: The paper contributes to a sociological/historical literature of "parenting for education" that almost entirely lacks deaf perspectives and a specialist literature of parental decision-making for deaf children that is almost entirely focussed on the post cochlear implant generation. The paper is distinctive in its treatment of the concept of "early intervention" as a historical phenomenon rather than a "common sense" truth, and proposes that parents of deaf children were at the leading edge of late-20th and early-21st century parenting intensification.

This paper reports on three Victorian early career Foundation to Year Two (F-2) teachers and the impact of leadership on their daily pedagogic decision-making about the teaching of reading. Data sets from each teacher drew on observations of three of their reading lessons and researcher-generated field notes, a semi-structured teacher interview, an online survey of reported teacher practice, teacher planning documents of the observed lessons and classroom artefacts related to reading. Selected from a wider qualitative case study undertaken with 16 F-2 teachers across six government primary sites in metropolitan Melbourne, the teachers in this paper reported on how mandated and non-negotiable principles and practices of reading affected their ability to make daily pedagogic decisions for their students. As a result of leadership directives, the three teachers expressed frustration at the lack of opportunity for teacher voice and autonomy in their craft of teaching. If the teaching profession wishes to continue to renew its numbers and promote the teaching profession as an ongoing career of choice, the focus on the professional development of early career teachers is timely and necessary. Therefore, this paper aims to shine a light on the importance of instructional leadership models which support the development of teacher knowledge, teacher efficacy and teacher satisfaction, ultimately resulting in more targeted outcomes for students and more teachers likely to remain in the profession.

Introduction: This paper reports the findings of a study of risk management in public libraries. The focus of the research was to determine whether the libraries had a risk management and disaster plan for major disasters. Method: A qualitative study was done to investigate risk management and disaster recovery in public libraries in South Australia. Seven personal interviews were conducted with library managers and librarians at four public libraries. Analysis: The qualitative results emerging from the interviews were analysed through hand coding using grounded theory. Results: Participants confused risk management and disaster recovery with the practice of work (occupational) health and safety. None of the participating libraries have a risk management or disaster plan. Conclusions: The library managers do not rate the risk of disaster as high, believing that their library is located in a low-risk disaster area. They also do not regard any part of their collections to be of great value. Loss of a collection is perceived as an opportunity to refresh that collection. The participants do not consider risk management and disaster recovery as an important part of their business. [Paper presented at the Information Seeking in Context (ISIC): The Information Behaviour Conference, Part 1 (11th, Zadar, Croatia, September 20-23, 2016).]

Improving schooling outcomes is a preoccupation facing school leaders globally. At the heart of such an agenda is the school leader's capacity to make professional learning decisions that best support the professional learning needs of their teachers. Thus, this paper investigates the extent to which principals' control to make professional learning decisions for the teachers in their schools is influenced by confidence in their understanding of professional learning and by four decision-making influences. To achieve such ends, 73 principals who were members of a large state-based cross-sectorial professional association for school leaders accepted an invitation to be surveyed concerning professional learning for teachers in their school regarding control, confidence in understanding professional learning, accountability, organisational constraints and school system influences. Key among the findings were that principals' sense of control to provide their teachers with effective professional learning was positively predicted by three factors: their own engagement in ongoing professional learning; the experience of fewer organisational constraints; and confidence in their understanding of what constitutes efficacious professional learning. School system influences such as regional office priorities were found to predict a negative impact on control. The article concludes by offering three recommendations to improve principals' control regarding the provision of professional learning for their teachers.

Drawing upon a long-term study of venture philanthropy and public schools in Australia, this paper focuses on Teach For Australia (TFA) as a major component of a venture philanthropic network, one that builds critical infrastructures and connections between non-government organisations and the state, creating a product pipeline into public schools. Utilising interviews with staff from Teach For Australia and venture philanthropic organisations, comprehensive and rigorous financial data, reviews, reports and website data, the analysis aims to identify the major philanthropic funders, individual actors and private foundations that leverage Teach For Australia, illustrating how this network develops for-profit pathways into public schools. In pushing a deficit framing of public schools, these networks incur privatisation effects, including flows of money, resources and key decision-making. They compromise the democratic principles upon which public schools are ideally based, in that the most disadvantaged public schools are opened up to 'entrepreneurial' and risk-taking corporate behaviour to test out teachers, products and services. By examining streams of revenue, partnerships and networks, we show how the purportedly non-profit Teach For Australia develops for-profit opportunities and business partnerships nested in corporate philanthropy, resulting in a privatisation effect on public schools.

This paper examines the psychometric properties of an existing school-based Parent Opinion Survey (POS) in order to investigate its validity as a measure of parent sentiments which may (eventually) be used to better inform the decision making of school leaders. The study focusses on the POS administered by all Victorian public schools at the time of this study, and uses Rasch analysis to identify a subset of items which form a psychometrically robust, unidimensional measure of parent sentiment. We propose that 13 items identified through this analysis could lay the foundation for providing policy makers who currently manage the distribution and collation of this survey, as well as school leaders, with a more reliable and valid overarching POS Scale score. Such an approach could better inform and support the home-school partnership that forms a crucial part of the Victorian Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO) school improvement continuum.