Research on assessment in the field of doctoral education remains an underexplored domain, particularly concerning the preconfirmation or probationary stage of candidature, when attrition is at its highest. We propose that the use of rubrics in this preconfirmation stage has the potential to improve feedback literacy and overall progression to…

The authors define accountability broadly as a government's mechanism for holding educational institutions to account for the delivery of high quality education. The idea that the practice of accountability can contribute directly to improvements in education is a powerful one that underpins policy. Paradoxically, though, some hold that…

Teacher standards are used in many countries, but it has been argued that there is a disconnection between the standards and teachers' everyday practices. Mega-narratives about teachers' practices have been recognised as powerful for educational change and when implementing and legitimising standards. In this comparative study, the standards for…

The renewed commitment to school autonomy reform in Australia is based on the view that it will drive up academic standards. There remains, however, little conclusive evidence to support this view. Simply instating the structural changes to bring about greater autonomy for schools within public education systems across the world has not led…

With the globalisation of university education, national frameworks are commonly used to prescribe standardised learning outcomes and achieve accountability. However, these frameworks are generally not accompanied by guiding pedagogy to support academics in adjusting their teaching practices to achieve the set outcomes. This paper reports the…

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare key elements of the actions that states in the USA and Australia took to implement the Common Core State Standards or Phase One of the Australian Curriculum, and what processes and products they used to facilitate implementation of these innovations. A rubric adapted from a diagnostic tool,…

This article undertakes a review of Australian and international literature and higher education policy in response to the changing nature of university academic boards (also known as academic senates or faculty senates). It shows that governance has become an issue for both the state and for universities and that within this context risk…

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent, to which factors in the process of decision making involved in curriculum development in Australia, have determined the quality of curriculum documents. Searches on web sites of education organisations and electronic databases of educational literature were conducted to identify source documents…

This paper provides an account of individual and collective academic values under the pressure of government policy for social equity in selective admissions at one Australian university. A survey of faculty (N=93) from Law, Social Work, Science, and Architecture identified their goals related to the goals of the university and fairness in…

This paper begins with the following quote from Michel Foucault: "People know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does." The context of the paper and the policy directions considered encompass the past decade and take the National Curriculum as an intervention in…

This paper offers a broad look at accreditation and quality assurance in higher education and how these issues are addressed around the world. Section 1 is an overview of accreditation and addresses the aims and objectives of accreditation, standards, accreditation bodies, stages of the accreditation process, the quality of that process, the role…

This literature review compares international and New Zealand research and international program information on teacher competencies and preservice and inservice teacher education, addressing two issues: (1) what literature identifies as key competencies required by quality beginning and practicing teachers in the current social, economic, and…

Recent changes to the student profile in higher education and calls for improved graduation rates and better quality graduates have caused consternation among academics. Greater access to higher education by non-traditional groups is supported both ideologically and pragmatically. However, the disparate needs of such a student population has led…

Training indicators are functional suites of quantitative and qualitative indicators of current or future vocational education and training (VET) supply and demand. The training indicators approach to educational planning considers indicators of present and likely future conditions for skilled labor and forms judgments about the most appropriate…

The six state-based research centers of the Adult Literacy and Numeracy Australian Research Consortium (ALNARC) investigated the effects of inclusion of literacy and numeracy standards in Australia's national training packages and the standards' impact on the quality of learning and work outcomes. The six ALNARC projects, which used a case study…