Publications
The major take-away from the study “Youth Education Decisions and Occupational Misalignment – Australian Study” is that there is a significant misalignment between high school students’ career aspirations and their academic performance, influenced heavily by socioeconomic factors and gender-specific trends. The concept of misalignment refers to the disconnect between the education students pursue and the…
If you’re a secondary principal, teacher or career advisor, what is the average year 12 completion rate for students in your school? Do you know the reasoning behind why some students decide to leave early? How could you best support these students? A new report offers answers to these questions. Results of a new and…
Micro-surveys of school student attitudes have shown creative, careers-focused learning programs build aspirations and confidence in science and mathematics. The University of South Australia research, led by Associate Professor Simon Leonard and Dr John Paul Kennedy and funded by the NCSEHE, employed an innovative research method to measure the various impacts of university outreach programs.…
The strong academic performance of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degrees could be better reflected in career outcomes by addressing access and post-graduation barriers, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) reports. New research, led by Dr Julie McMillan and funded by the NCSEHE, has found women commonly outperformed their peers in…
NCSEHE Adjunct Fellow Dr Lynette Vernon (Edith Cowan University) and NCSEHE Research Fellow Dr Catherine Drane have published the findings from their quantitative study entitled, Influencers: “The importance of discussions with parents, teachers and friends to support vocational and university pathways”. The study examined the role of career discussions, between high school students and significant…
Positive relationships between students and instructors are crucial to meeting students’ academic and socio-emotional needs as outlined by the American Psychological Association (APA). As university educators, we contend that trust is an essential ingredient in these relationships. While teaching is inherently relational, we argue that models of “good teaching” must include trust to acknowledge that…
The role of parental expectations in determining children’s higher education participation is important in understanding both participation and potential policy responses. Using a nationally representative longitudinal survey of Australian households, providing repeat observations on expectations for individual children, this study extends the literature in several respects. First, it examines the adaptation of parental expectations over…