Recent and ongoing research projects

StatSmart
StatSmart is an ARC Linkage Project based at the University of Tasmania with Chief Investigators, Professor Jane Watson and Associate Professor Rosemary Callingham. The Industry Partners are the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Key Curriculum Press in the US (publisher of statistical software for schools), and the Baker Centre for School Mathematics at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. The ABS has provided a 2-day conference in Melbourne each of 3 years for 45 teachers from 3 states (Tasmania, Victoria, and South Australia) and supported an APAI student, Colin Carmichael. Key Curriculum Press has provided software (TinkerPlots and Fathom) to all participating schools, paid for 4 visits to Australia by the software developers (Cliff Konold and Bill Finzer), and supported an APAI student, Anthony Bill. The Baker Centre has provided support for teachers in South Australia and the professional development expertise of its Director, Anthony Harradine.

The research aims of the project include evidence-based outcomes reporting teacher and student change as a result of the extensive professional learning opportunities provided to teachers in the project. Extensive longitudinal data from students is being collected, coded, and entered to assess change. Besides completing teacher profiles, 40 teachers have been interviewed to assess pedagogical content knowledge for teaching statistics at the middle school level. Rasch methods are being employed in ground-breaking analysis that is leading the field of mathematics education in the area of teacher knowledge for teaching mathematics

More information is available on the web site www.statsmart.org.au or contact one of the Chief Investigators:

Professor Jane Watson
Telephone: +61 (0)3 62262570
Email: Jane.Watson@utas.edu.au

Associate Professor Rosemary Callingham
Telephone +61 (0)3 63243051
Email: Rosemary.Callingham@utas.edu.au

AlwaysOn
AlwaysOn is an ARC Linkage Project based at LaTrobe University with Chief Investigators Professor Margaret Robertson and Dr. Andrew Fluck from University of Tasmania. The Industry Partners are the Departments responsible for school education in Tasmania and Victoria which contribute relief days to support planning in the project schools of the two states.
The project aims to compare the efficacy of portable computers in school education and map the pedagogical adaptations made by teachers to accommodate these mobile devices. In project schools entire cohorts of Year 7 & 9 students study a Health and Wellbeing topic. Most classes learn using contemporary/traditional methods, with one class studying online and another uses personal digital assistants. We gather data through pre- and post-testing and classroom observations. Our evaluation will use Rasch analysis based upon the calibrated items in the tests and will be moderated by the national benchmark tests of literacy and numeracy.

Some schools involved in the project have been so convinced of the efficacy of the mobile devices, and the concept of student ownership, they have given all Year 7 student a netbook at the start of 2009. This is a pathway to radical transformation of what and how students learn in high schools.

For more information, please see the project web-site at www.alwayson.edu.au or contact Dr. Andrew Fluck:
Telephone: +61 (0)3 6324 3284;
E-mail: Andrew.Fluck@utas.edu.au

Enhancing emergency incident management team effectiveness and organisational learning
This project is funded by the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre (BCRC) within the Protection of People and Property research program. Research is based at the University of Tasmania with chief investigator Dr Christine Owen, four BCRC scholarship students and a small team of research assistants and project officers.

Research is overseen by a Steering Committee made up of members of the Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC).

Research associates include Dr Fang Chen of National ICT Australia (NICTA) Research Centre and Dr Elizabeth Avery Gomez of New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Key organisations participating in the research include:

• Tasmania Fire Service (TFS)
• Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), Victoria
• Country Fire Authority (CFA), Victoria
• Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia (FESA)
• New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSWRFS)
• Queensland Fire and Rescue Service (QFRS)

This project aims to explore what communication and coordination practices personnel engage in when undertaking incident management teamwork and what enables and constrains successful multi-agency co-operation and collaboration. Organisational influences on teamwork and successful multi-agency collaboration include organisational cultures, decision-support systems, and structures outlined in policy arrangements and training programs.

Research methods include interviews with experienced personnel, observations of planned (incident management team training exercises) and unplanned (structure and bushfires in Tasmania and Victoria) incidents, and a National Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS) Questionnaire distributed to 25 emergency and incident management agencies.

Our data collection consists of 115 interviews, over 25 hours of sampled video data using ball crunching/ ground breaking/ cutting edge video analysis software, 19 hours of audio transcripts, 265 teamwork effectiveness surveys, and over 600 AIIMS Questionnaire responses. Analysis of the data is nearing its conclusion in 2009, and already several national and international conference presentations and reports have been delivered, and papers written, based on initial results.

More information is available on the web site or contact the Chief Investigator:

Dr Christine Owen
Telephone: +61 (0)3 62262555
Email: Christine.Owen@UTAS.edu.au