This article reports on the experiences of a novice researcher undertaking a National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) scholarship programme. A summary of the research is provided, which involved a survey of international students completing vocational education and training (VET) courses in Tasmania. Whilst many students reported…

The outcomes of educational systems continue to lag far behind expectations at all levels, primary, secondary, and tertiary. Meanwhile, the sheer amount of educational research published in refereed journals has expanded enormously. There is an obvious disconnect between the educational research papers published in professional journals or…

In March 2004, Stephen Ball and others presented a symposium at the conference of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) on the necessity of theory in educational research. Like Ball, I have observed that theory, not just social theory, is a difficult space and one that divides researchers (those comfortable with theory and those less…

Research in Indigenous Australian education is at a dead-end. Researchers are still heading out into the field to look for new knowledge to answer old questions. The same epistemology dominates how we look, and where, while the methodology provides the researcher with a forced choice, one where either the student or the teacher is blamed for the…

This article presents an interview with Dr. Miraca Gross, Professor of Gifted Education, and Director of the Gifted Education Research, Resource, and Information Centre (GERRIC), at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Dr. Gross is a leading international authority on the education of gifted and talented children, particularly…

This document reports a study which dealt principally with research activity under way in the education departments of the Commonwealth and the states, in the university schools of education and departments of psychology, in the schools of education of the colleges of advanced education, in the teachers colleges, and in the special units of the…