Associate Researchers

Dr. Mifrah Ahmed

Mifrah is currently involved in a research assisting position and multiple sessional lecturer positions across schools of design, IT, and business at Deakin University. Teaching across faculties since 2013 (Malaysia) enabled her to bring a sense of adaptive, transformative, and experiential learning across schools at Deakin (since 2018). Her focus of research involves unpacking educational game design through a software lens and recently, it has refocused a more educational view of ‘experiential learning’ across games and educational game design processes. She has numerous published papers to outreach communities with research interest in bridging education and game design through qualitative and participatory research approaches. Her interest is to explore the possibilities of participatory design approaches and co-designing techniques across experts to examine and connect an innovative and creative bridge between fields.

Professor Coral Campbell

Coral’s research interests are in early childhood and primary science, design technology, and environmental education where she particularly focuses on practitioner learning and children’s development of science understandings. She is on the review panels for several international journals and is on the Board of Directors of the Australasian Science Education Research Association.

Dr. Brian Doig

Brian has worked for many years in the field of teacher education, mainly with Primary and Pre-school aspirants. He has also worked as a psychometrician, particularly in large-scale international assessment programmes such as TIMSS and PISA. More recently he, along with Professor Julian Williams of the University of Manchester, completed the edited book Interdisciplinary Mathematics Education: The state of the art and beyond which canvassed an international range of STEM research and practices. Currently he is writing up research results from the Modelling Motion: Developing mathematics concepts through STEM activities, an Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers and Australian Academy of Science-funded research project.

Dr. Shelley Hannigan

Shelley is a Senior Lecturer in Art Education who has worked as an academic at Deakin University since 2006. As a researcher she is interested in the value of art in education and arts-health and wellbeing approaches. Shelley’s education-focused research investigates arts-health and wellbeing crossing over with psychology, arts education and creative interdisciplinary approaches for teaching and learning (including STEME and STEAM). Methodologies most practiced in include: Arts led research, arts practice-based research, A/R/Tography (the overlaps of Art practice, Research and Teaching), autoethnography, CABAE, narrative inquiry and phenomenology. Shelley has researched and published in environmental science and art projects, aesthetics in education – especially in the art-science area and in 2022 was invited to deliver a keynote on Art and Mathematics education at the Victorian Maths Teachers conference. Her arts practice includes community arts and my own studio practice (painting and experimental textile/fibre art installations). Shelley’s most recent project was to curate and exhibit in an experimental textiles exhibition of 8 artists, which was funded by Geelong’s Arts and Heritage grant and explored heritage and archival materials in the Geelong area.

Dr. Amrita Kamath

Amrita is a PhD graduate and academic at Deakin University, and her current research focuses on exploring effectiveness of guided inquiry in senior secondary contexts. Amrita’s qualifications include M.Teach (Australia), M.Ed (U.S.A), M.Sc, B.Ed and B.Sc (India), with experiences in sessional lecturing in the faculty of science education, secondary science teaching, curriculum development, and genetics research.

Research Abstract: Guided inquiry is extensively endorsed in primary/lower secondary settings in Australia, but appears underutilised in senior biology education. A design-based study was undertaken with the following research questions; 1) How can guided inquiry be effectively enacted to enhance student learning and engagement in senior biology? 2) What cultural, technical, and political influences shape effective enactment of guided inquiry in senior biology settings? Year-11 teachers at four schools across Victoria participated as co-researchers to collaborate and implement a guided inquiry-based teaching and learning sequence. These lessons were co-designed and adapted by considering contemporary research, contextual influences, and student voice. Data was collected through teacher interviews, student focus groups, field observations, artefact documentation, and classroom recordings. A reflexive thematic analysis revealed that teacher agency with a student-centric focus was crucial in facilitating effective implementation guided inquiry through strategies that were designed in response to distinct contextual influences.

Melinda Kirk

Melinda’s experience in education, primary school teaching, research and teacher education extends over 25 years. Her school experience includes regional, metro, public and private systems as a primary science specialist, class teacher, creative arts teacher and Gifted Education Mentor (GEM). In 2017 Melinda completed her Master of Education (Leadership) at UOW, where she was awarded the Education Alumni Award (2018) in recognition of her contribution to education research and school and university partnerships. Since 2018 she has been a Research Assistant at Deakin, including the Australian Research Commissioned (ARC) Interdisciplinary Maths and Science (IMS) Learning Project, and a sessional lecturer. Melinda’s PhD research focuses on meaningfully and generatively supporting students’ “general capabilities” – critical thinking, creative thinking and collaborative thinking, within a guided inquiry, interdisciplinary (STEAM) primary classroom context. Her other interests include curriculum, pedagogy, differentiation, semiotics, interdisciplinarity, classroom culture, student voice, and agency.

The focus of this PhD research is Impactful inquiry, generative, primary student science inquiry for a solution to a matter of significance to them and the school community. A Design-Based Research micro-ethnography closely following extended school closures during the COVID-19 response, in Melbourne, Australia, focused on enabling student critical and creative thinking and collaboration is reported. Within a Community of Learners approach an intentionally supported responsive curriculum that pursued students’ inquiry questions and innovations is reported. Students, teachers and school leadership identified student voice and agency as a key outcome, as the students’ proposals were actioned in the school.

Dr. Adam Masri

Adam is a passionate and experienced educator, researcher, and curriculum designer specialising in STEM education. He earned a PhD in Education from Deakin University, where his research explored the discursive practices influencing girls’ identification with physics. As a schoolteacher and over 15 years of teaching experience across multiple countries, including Australia, Egypt, Kuwait, and Qatar, Adam’s extensive teaching experience spans primary and secondary education, covering subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology, health, and Arabic. In higher education, Adam taught Science Education and supervised Master of Teaching students at Deakin University, guiding them through their final-year research projects. Adam has also been involved in impactful research projects, including studies on girls’ participation in STEM, examining socio educational influences, career advice, and role models. His research extends to adult community education, where he explores how educational programs can enhance opportunities for adult learners, particularly in marginalised communities. As a Deakin graduate and research fellow in science education, Adam is committed to advancing educational practices that prepare future teachers to navigate the complexities of modern education.

Abstract: The thesis investigates factors underlying the gender imbalance in Australian high school physics. Drawing on theories of gender and a mixed methods approach, it uncovers a complex web of influences on girls’ physics identity, including biases and inconsistent support. Recommendations include increasing teacher awareness and integrating career advice.

https://hdl.handle.net/10779/DRO/DU:27229401.v1

Amanda Peters

Amanda Peters is a PhD candidate and science education lecturer at Deakin University. She is currently the Project Officer and teaching within Graduate Certificate courses designed to upskill out-of-field science, mathematics and design and technologies teachers to be in-field teachers. Her interests are in STEM education, critical policy analysis, arts-based research and teacher education. Amanda is a secondary science and mathematics teacher with extensive experience in leading and teaching in secondary schools. She is involved in VCE curriculum and assessment at the state level.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is crucial in solving global challenges and framed as the driver to national economic prosperity. Government policies highlight STEM education as key to ensuring a well-prepared future workforce. Schools are considered pivotal in realising the imperative of the STEM agenda. In the Australian context, student engagement in school-based STEM is in decline. The ongoing challenge of STEM education continues to be contested and debated emanating complexities.

To gain insight into the complexities of STEM education in an Australian secondary school context, I draw on qualitative methodologies. An innovative two-step methodology was employed to critically analyse STEM education policy in the Australian state of Victoria. The two distinct methodologies, the poststructural ‘What is the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR) approach and an arts-based research (ABR) approach, each informed by the inadequacies of the other, were sequentially applied. The findings were diffractively read through each other, blurring boundaries between methodologies, challenging assumptions and disrupting the current rhetoric of STEM education.

The findings realise policy, fraught with contradictions, provides simple solutions to STEM education. The neoliberal agenda drives the intent of building human and non-human capital where students and teachers are viewed in deficit. The policy disregards the structures, people and power relations, inherent as the bedrock of the education system. Perspectives of stakeholders, through arts-based approaches, provide insight into their lived and living experiences and future vision for STEM education. The entwined methodologies facilitate emergence of new awareness providing opportunities for potential transformation of STEM education policy and practice.

Dr. Lam Pham

Dr Lam Pham is a former pharmacist and pharmaceutical scientist/lecturer who has moved from the discipline of pharmacy and pharmaceutical science to the field of science education research. His interest is research on science education. His PhD focuses on student learning in chemistry through representation construction. Dr Pham has worked as a research fellow for some ARC projects that includes: 1- Enhance the quality of science learning using a representation-intensive pedagogy (CRISP)”; 2-“Develop digital pedagogies in inquiry science through a cloud-based teaching and learning environment (iSTELR)”; and 3-“Multiliteracies for enhancing learning and assessment outcomes in senior secondary science – M3S”.

Research Abstract: Researchers have claimed that constructing representations (e.g., graphs, models, images, diagrams etc.) are a necessary and effective way to teach and learn chemistry. This is because these diverse representations help capture a learner’s interest in the learning process, engage the learner’s mind in constructive and critical thinking about what they are learning and produce more comprehensive long-term learning outcomes. Teachers using multiple representations in their teaching are likely to make abstract science concepts more accessible for students.

This PhD research focuses on the application of a student representation construction approach to teaching and learning chemistry at the senior school level. In details, this research aims to answer the following questions:
1- How can representational activities be effectively designed and implemented to support students to learn chemistry at senior schools?
2- How does translating across and coordinating targeted representations support students’ reasoning and problem solving in senior chemistry?

Professor Vaughan Prain

Vaughan has a strong international record in science education research including the role of writing for learning in science, and more recently in how this mode relates to other modes, such as visual, mathematical and embodied modes in constructing understanding of scientific concepts and processes. His current research focus includes the development of STEM education, and how constitutive subjects in this multi-disciplinary approach to curricular renewal can support quality applied learning within and across these disciplines. He is also researching how learning in science can be enhanced by incorporating strategies and approaches used in other subjects, including visual arts. He currently participates in ARC-funded research to reform science education in primary and secondary schools, with a particular focus on schools with low SES profiles.

Dr. Saeed Salimpour

Saeed has a background in Astronomy/Astrophysics (focussing on Cosmology), Education and Design. His research focuses on Cosmology Education, Representation, Data Visualisation, VR/AR, Curriculum Development and Student Research in Astronomy. His goal is to bring the science and beauty of Cosmos to everyone, whilst working at the interface of Science, Art and Education. He believes in “being curious for the sake of finding things out!”.

Research Abstract: The Cosmos offers us curiosity piquing science and awe-inspiring beauty. Science and Art have always shared a symbiotic relationship, both providing diverse ways of understanding the Universe. This relationship owes its existence to the fact that humans are an innately visual species, capable of discerning patterns, creating representations, and extracting meaning from data.

The landscape in science and science education has undergone a transformation – the dawn of the “Big Data” era, large-scale international collaborations, and the embedding of topics related to Cosmology, Relativity and Quantum Physics in school curricula. The representation of these changes in school curricula implies deeper learning, and the acquisition of a diverse range of skills, allowing students to think across disciplines.

This multidisciplinary study aims to investigate innovative approaches to school science and highlight the potential of Representation Construction and Data Visualisation to support expanded forms of reasoning and skills, using Cosmology as the stage, and incorporating the notion of Aesthetics as experience. In doing so, this study aims to develop different tools and techniques related to education and data visualisation for use in the classroom.

In its extended form, this study aims to explore the pedagogical use of VR/AR in the context of Cosmology Education.

Dr. Christopher Speldewinde

Chris is a primary school teacher, anthropologist, doctoral candidate and teacher educator at Deakin University. His doctoral research examines teacher pedagogy and creativity in the Australian bush kinder movement. He is currently involved with multi-university research teams investigating issues in early childhood, primary and secondary school education, particularly outdoor education, digital literacy, STEM and Humanities education. He also has research interests in transitions between early childhood services and primary schools; the use of robotic devices in early childhood education; the implications of teachers teaching out of field; and the role of educators in early childhood and primary school education. He has recently published in the emerging context of Australian bush kinders and early childhood STEM education.

This thesis, a thesis by publication that comprises ten published peer-reviewed, high ranking journal articles, is influenced by past scholarship on forest schools and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning in ECEC. It focuses on an Australian study that took place between 2015 and 2020 during which time, nature-based approaches to Australian ECEC were in an emergent phase. Bush kinders are nature-based ECEC programs located in outdoor nature settings, for example parklands, reserves and beaches, and are usually for three to five-year-old children who are attending preschool. Four bush kinder settings in the state of Victoria were the research field sites for the study. Research participants included educators, parents and four to five-year old children. Through play in natural surroundings and educator scaffolding, the children were observed to develop STEM understandings and knowledge. The thesis responds to the research questions that seek to understand how teachers, educators and pre-school children experience STEM in a bush kinder and the pedagogical approaches being enacted in bush kinders when teaching STEM. The thesis also contributes to the methodological discussion of the place of ethnography in allowing for deep understandings of the social interactions between educators and children in bush kinder settings.

Maria Vamvakas

Maria began her career teaching Science and Biology, having completed a Bachelor of Science and Graduate Diploma of Education at Monash University. Progressing to the position of Head of Science from 2007, her primary responsibilities included staff and curriculum leadership. Her roles have enabled her to act as a facilitator in developing students’ scientific literacy, critical thinking and passion for science.

From 2017 Maria has been working at Deakin University as a Teaching Associate and Research Assistant and recently completed a Graduate Certificate in Education Research at Deakin University, culminating in a Research Paper investigating “Contemporary Science practice in the Classroom”. She is currently enrolled to undertake PhD candidature in the Degree program, Doctor of Philosophy – Education investigating how scientists’ practices can be best represented in the classroom

There is continuing policy interest for school science reform to re-engage students in science and develop their scientific literacy and for supporting teachers to establish new creative approaches to science teaching through connecting their students to scientists’ contemporary research and practices. Implementing design-based research methodology, I collaborated with three teachers from two different schools to adapt and refine online curriculum resources to provide students with contextual, current, and contemporary science learning experiences. Data collection involved semi structured interviews with teachers and students to describe their experiences with these resources, as well as digital video recording of classes during resource use. Findings include teacher learning and change in practice as a result of trialing and adapting the resources as well as learning opportunities afforded for students through their engagement with the resources.