This study explored the consultation practices of Learning Support Teams (LSTs) in three NSW primary schools engaged in learning and wellbeing support for diverse students. An organisational ethnographic case study approach was used to explore behaviour, language and interactions within the school sites. Participants included learning support…

Most students acknowledge shared responsibility, with the university, for their employability development. Many academics use assessments as the main driver for motivating students to learn. At the intersection between employability, assessment and learning, the emergent research question is -- what are the mechanisms by which course-based…

This paper investigates students' mathematical modeling activity in data-rich modeling tasks. It aims at gaining insight into how students develop meaning when modeling data-rich situations and the mathematical models produced. A tendency to model a particular dataset, rather than the phenomenon that the dataset is a particular instance of, has…

The International Mathematical Modeling Challenge takes place towards the end of Term 1 each year in Australia. Students use their research, mathematical and creative abilities to develop a mathematical model to address a real world problem. Ross Turner describes some aspects of the competition.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a measure of soft skills suitable for use in a large survey of Australian adolescents. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted with N = 4,704 Australians aged 15-19 over 2 years. Principal components analysis was performed on 14 self-report items, followed by generalised linear mixed…

Purpose: This study aims to explore the role of planned, sudden shifts in lived experiences, in influencing learner capabilities towards improved problem-solving for sustainable development outcomes. The authors responded to employers of engineering and built environment graduates observing limited "real-life" problem-solving skills,…

Employers of chemistry graduates are seeking a range of transferable skills from prospective employees, and academics are increasingly seeking to build employability skill development opportunities into the undergraduate curriculum. However, research suggests that undergraduates do not recognise or value such skill development without prompting.…

In tertiary education, generic professional skills should be developed along with discipline-specific knowledge and skills. Team-Based Learning (TBL), an active learning strategy, creates deep learning and enhanced student engagement; however, its effects on the development of generic learning outcomes are unknown. The aim of this study was to…

This book focuses on integrity throughout the PhD journey and beyond, and is organised around two main themes: (1) integrity in relation to the capabilities developed by doctoral candidates for professional practice; and (2) integrity and coherence at the PhD system level. The working methods of key participants such as PhD candidates,…

For higher education graduates to be effective in the workplace, they require strong technical skills and the capability to operate across diverse knowledge landscapes to solve real world problems. At an Australian university, an interdisciplinary, short-term study tour programme was utilised to enhance students' inexplicit employability skills…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise graduate work-readiness (GWR) and to develop a scale to measure it. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology entailed the compilation of a literature review and the conduct of qualitative interviews and a focus group to generate items. This study used the "resource-based view"…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the emphasis placed on technical and soft skills by prospective employers for accounting positions and graduate accounting positions in particular. The data was gathered from job advertisements placed in the careers section of a major newspaper in Queensland Australia over a four-year period from 2006 to…

Professional accrediting bodies and accounting education reviews have long expressed concerns about student capabilities and learning outcomes, including the ability to apply knowledge and make reasoned judgements. In response, we report on a new design that uses a web of threshold concepts to guide curriculum development. With an associated focus…

Experiential learning approaches such as work-integrated learning (WIL) are an important international business (IB) educational tool yet can be challenging to implement. This exploratory research examines the value derived by regional Australian export companies from engagement with such programmes. The results suggest that firms perceive…

This supporting document sets out the content analysis technique and detailed findings that underly part of the research conducted for the report titled "VET for secondary school students: acquiring an array of technical and non-technical skills." That report is the first in a set of studies that aims to understand the value of…