Western Australian Institute for Educational Research 41st Annual Research Forum at Murdoch University on Saturday 15 August Forum 2026 Abstracts Listed alphabetically by first author [ Invitation ] [ Program ] [Panel discussion] This page is updated as new abstract submissions are processed

Reframing disengagement: A trauma-informed systems framework for alternative education

Jennifer Achari
Edith Cowan University
Email: j.achari@ecu.edu.au

Australia's flexible and alternative education sector is expanding rapidly, yet it has lacked a national evidence base for trauma-informed practice, and the young people it serves are still too often theorised through deficit and disengagement. This presentation draws on the first national study of the sector to reframe that account. It argues that many students are disengaged not from learning, but from systems that have yet to understand how trauma and adversity shape educational experience.

The mixed-methods design integrated a grey literature scan, expert interviews, a national practitioner survey (n = 113), and seven focus groups, analysed through a synthesis of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, Ungar's differential impact theory, and Levitas's utopian method. From this, two contributions were developed: the eight-element Trauma-Informed Alternative Education Framework and the 6S Transformation Model, which together position safety, belonging, and systemic understanding as foundational conditions for learning.

This presentation foregrounds what this reframing opens for research - an empirically grounded, theoretically integrated framework that can be tested, extended, and applied across settings. It invites discussion of where a credible pedagogy of hope might lead, and what a trauma-informed research agenda for education should pursue next.

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Working mothers and the ethics of educational institutions

Shoshanna Allnutt
Curtin University
Email: s.allnutt@curtin.edu.au

Teaching is a unique profession, with teachers expressing a high level of care for the holistic development of young people. However, despite the centrality of care to a teacher's work, this labour is often gendered, invisible, and structurally undervalued. This presentation will explore the experiences of five working mothers who are teachers in Western Australia, underscoring how their professional care work compounds the invisible labour performed at home.

The study explored how teachers who are working mothers navigate the intersecting demands of professional care, maternal responsibility and emotional labour, struggling against ideal worker norms created by institutional expectations. Data was collected through a demographic questionnaire then through semi-structured interviews. Data was analysed through first and second cycle coding. Through an exploration of the study's emerging themes, this presentation will explore how teachers' identities and perceptions towards the profession develop contextually as a result of life history, family background and personal school experiences, highlighting the shift in professional identity as motherhood significantly reconfigured their view towards work-life balance. Drawing on this, the presentation will provide recommendations for educational institutions to support working mothers' careers.

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"Nothing about us without us": Co-designing consent education for young people with disability

Kim Andreassen, Cindy Smith and Jacqueline Hendriks
Curtin University
Email: kim.andreassen@postgrad.curtin.edu.au

Young people with disability face disproportionate rates of sexual violence yet remain largely excluded from the design of consent education. This PhD research aims to reframe how consent is taught by co-designing accessible, inclusive teaching and learning materials for students with disability aged 12-16, guided by participatory action research and design justice principles.

This presentation explores findings from two scoping reviews. The first, centering youth voice, identified that young people with disability prefer pedagogical approaches that combine structural clarity with relational safety - explicit instruction alongside trust, autonomy, and affirmation. Building on this, a broader review of 110 consent education resources revealed significant gaps in resources which align with the pedagogical approaches youth with disability want, as well as in skill domains young people and sexuality education experts identify as essential, including enthusiastic consent, empathy, media literacy, and coping skills. Together, these findings illuminate both what is available and what is critically missing in consent education for disabled youth, with implications for educators and researchers across Australia. This research contributes new horizons for inclusive sexuality education, informing curriculum design, teacher training, and disability-affirming educational practice.

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How do lecturers really feel about teaching online in higher education?

Bobby Victoria Cooper, Cindy Ann Smith and Sonja Kuzich
Curtin University
Email: bobby.cooper@curtin.edu.au

Online learning in higher education continues to expand rapidly, creating exciting opportunities for new research and innovation. This presentation will share some early insights from a nationwide questionnaire completed by lecturers across Australia, offering a first look at emerging trends, challenges, and possibilities in online teaching/learning.

As a participant, you'll be invited to take part in interactive activities where you will have the opportunity to discuss some of the key findings and respond to prompt questions. This session introduces the questionnaire as a core component of a larger PhD project, and you will gain a preview of the broader research direction and hear more about the next stages of the study as it evolves.

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Daddy wouldn't let me drive the BMW: Privilege, capitals and the elite schooling experience

Jen Featch
Murdoch University
Email: jenfeatch@gmailcom

Elite schooling is positioned in Australian education as a pathway to opportunity - institutions in which model citizens are incubated, while also functioning as a site for the reproduction of social inequality. In this presentation, I use autoethnography to critically examine my experiences of attending an elite private girls' school in Perth, Western Australia during the 1980s. This presentation is drawn from a paper of the same name, that is the first journal article within my doctoral thesis by compilation. In it, I use personal vignettes as sociological data to interrogate how privilege, belonging and exclusion have operated within elite schooling. The analysis is informed by Bourdieu's ideas of capital, habitus and symbolic violence, alongside sociological critiques of meritocracy and the neoliberal, normalisation of school choice. While access to cultural and institutional capital ultimately enabled my academic success(es), there are also deeply felt ethical contradictions of elite schooling - marginalisation within privilege, shame alongside advantage, class disavowal, and the everyday practices through which inequality is normalised and legitimised.

Methodologically, I position autoethnography as both a sociological and ethical research practice. I examine the un-asked for privileges of attending such a school that have emerged through the decades and consider ways in which this ongoing analysis can contribute towards a more critical, nuanced and conscious understanding of power and oppression, particularly in the education space. In choosing autoethnography for this narrative, I seek to situate my elite schooling experiences and subsequent emotions within a broader, sociological framework. I argue that sociological research has an ethical responsibility to interrogate privilege as well as disadvantage, including my own complicity within formalised systems of inequality. By making visible the ordinary, embodied workings of elite schooling, this work contributes to sociological understandings of education as a powerful mechanism through which inequality is reproduced and contested.

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Understanding difference and sustaining wellbeing: Lived experiences of neurodiversity in the classroom

Sarah Gaudieri
Murdoch University
Email: sarah.gaudieri@murdoch.edu.au

Research has established the neurological foundations and impacts of ADHD, specific learning disorders and sensory processing disorder (SPD), on learning, mental health and wellbeing. Yet less is known about how these developmental neurological differences are experienced in classrooms through the combined perspectives of students and teachers.

This qualitative study explored the lived schooling experiences of young adults in Western Australia diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia and/or SPD, alongside teachers' experiences in supporting students with these diagnoses. Using critical hermeneutic phenomenology, semi-structured interviews were analysed through iterative, interpretive cycles that moved between individual accounts, shared patterns of meaning and broader educational structures. Analysis focused on how personal, relational and systemic influences shaped wellbeing for both students and teachers.

In this presentation a conceptual model illustrating a critical understanding of the lived experience of developmental neurological differences in the Western Australian classroom will be introduced alongside recommendations for policy and practice to strengthen inclusive, wellbeing-focused education for neurodiversity. By centring both student and teacher voices, this research reframes inclusion as a shared wellbeing responsibility requiring relational understanding, informed practice and systemic change.

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Beyond the secular assumption: Scoping the evidence base for relationships and sexuality education delivery in faith-based schools

Roisin Glasgow-Collins, Sharyn Burns and Jacqui Hendriks
Curtin University
Email: roisin.glasgow-collins@curtin.edu.au

Good quality, comprehensive relationships and sexuality education (RSE) is vital for young people's development as informed sexual citizens. However, access to comprehensive RSE remains inequitable, and one of the least examined contexts is faith-based schooling. Although faith-based schools educate significant proportions of students across OECD countries, research has largely overlooked how a school's religious ethos may shape RSE practice, delivery and outcomes.

This presentation introduces a doctoral scoping review currently underway, examining the practice of RSE in faith-based schools across OECD countries, and the enablers and barriers to its delivery. Guided by the Arksey and O'Malley framework, the review systematically searched six academic databases alongside grey literature sources published 2010-2026, with screening against predefined inclusion criteria.

Preliminary findings indicate an under-explored field, with the available literature concentrated in a small number of countries and faith traditions. We argue that the absence of faith-based school contexts from mainstream RSE research has real consequences for the equity and consistency of the education young people receive. In sharing these preliminary findings, this presentation makes a case for reframing RSE research to include faith-based contexts, as a matter of both methodological rigour and educational equity.

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"How did you do that so quickly?" Fostering children's critical thinking about AI

Madlen Griffiths, Karen Murcia and Sarsha Mennell
Curtin University
Email: madlen.griffiths@curtin.edu.au

As artificial intelligence (AI) infiltrates children's everyday lives, it is paramount for educators to foster critical thinking skills in young children so they can discern misinformation and differentiate between what is real and artificial. Early childhood educators play an important role in guiding children's development of critical thinking skills needed for navigating an AI-influenced world. Education literature discussing critical thinking is considerable but there is little research into how this skill develops in early childhood.

This study examined a series of learning experiences, developed from the five 'Big Ideas' of AI. Children from an early learning centre were invited to participate in these experiences and video data of their engagement was examined for evidence of critical thinking and for the practitioner-researcher's supporting pedagogy. The qualitative study adopted a dual model of analysis including multimodal observations of the children and interviews with the practitioner-researcher who conducted the learning experiences. Analysis of the observed pedagogy for critical thinking was framed by dialogic inquiry, modelling thinking, and scaffolding inquiry.

Findings highlight the importance of educators using intentional pedagogical strategies for facilitating young children's critical thinking and the need for schools and teacher education institutions to provide targeted resources and professional learning to support this. Further research is recommended for validating pedagogical strategies and process skills used by children as they are thinking critically. We suggest a critical thinking framework through which educators can support young children as critical thinkers.

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From escalation to engagement: Exploring the impact of a sensory dog on learning participation for SEN students in a mainstream secondary school

Leisa Hanson
Murdoch University
Email: leisa.hanson3@gmail.com

This study investigated the role of a sensory dog in supporting emotional regulation, engagement, and participation in learning for secondary students with additional needs in a mainstream school setting. As Australian schools experience increasing numbers of students presenting with complex social, emotional, and behavioural needs, there is growing interest in innovative approaches that promote inclusion and engagement. Despite the increasing use of sensory-dog programs, limited research has explored their application within mainstream secondary education.

Guided by the question, "In what ways can a sensory dog enhance and improve the learning environment and engagement of students with additional needs?", this study employed an autoethnographic methodology incorporating three ethnographic narratives. Critical incidents, teacher observations, and student interactions were analysed to examine how sensory dog interventions influenced students' experiences of schooling.

Findings demonstrated that the sensory dog supported emotional regulation, reduced escalation, and facilitated re-engagement with learning. Students experienced increased feelings of safety, trust, and connection, enabling greater participation in classroom activities. The dog also acted as a social mediator, strengthening communication and relationships with peers and staff. Teachers reported increased pedagogical flexibility and a greater capacity to respond to student distress. The study contributes to emerging research at the intersection of inclusive education, trauma-informed practice, and human-animal interaction, highlighting the potential of sensory dogs as relational supports within secondary school environments.

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Reflection on practice: Perspectives of experienced EAL teachers

Anamaria Isticioaia-Budura
The University of Western Australia
Email: anamariaisticioaia@gmail.com

The aim of this study is to generate propositions concerning the perspectives of 12-14 experienced English as an additional language (EAL) teachers on their use of reflection-on-practice strategies. This is significant because there are gaps and inconsistencies in the research of experienced teachers and their use of reflection-on-practice in Australia, particularly for those working in the vocational sector (VET), such as nationally registered training organisations (RTOs) and ELICOS (English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students) providers. Research has identified that reflective practice is a central pillar in teacher education and therefore, professional practitioners and educational programs have much to gain from this form of professional inquiry. The theoretical framework for this study draws upon the interpretivist approach which places the individual and the society as two inseparable units (O'Donoghue, 2007).

The study has been conducted within a qualitative interpretive research paradigm (Braun and Clarke, 2022, Robinson, 2011). Experienced EAL teachers working in the vocational sector have been interviewed and the analysis is being conducted employing thematic analysis adopted from Braun and Clarke (2022). The findings may have the potential to show significant concepts such as the importance of time to reflect on one's practice aiming to build propositions that will inform the development of guidelines for EAL teachers and address the gaps in the knowledge.

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Educators' digital self-efficacy for fostering young children's digital play and learning in early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres in Western Australia

Simranjeet Kaur, Karen Murcia and Madeleine Dobson
Curtin University
Email: simranjeetkaur1@postgrad.curtin.edu.au

This project addresses the technological integration for early childhood educators in the early childhood education sector. The study examines the role of digital self efficacy among early childhood educators (EC educators) to foster digital play for 4 to 5 year old children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings in Western Australia. The EC educators are expected to integrate digital technology to support young children's learning and provide them an opportunity to be digital citizens according to early years curriculum documents. The research highlights variability in the digital self-efficacy of the EC educators. This study explores how educators understand and develop digital self efficacy, and how their beliefs and contextual factors affect their use of digital technology for fostering digital play for young children aged 4-5 years.

Using a constructivist paradigm and interpretivist epistemology, the research draws on semi structured interviews, document analysis and narrative vignettes to investigate educators lived experiences. The study has been conducted across four different types of Early learning Centres by purposefully selecting two kindergarten educators from each centre. Bandura's self efficacy theory provides the conceptual lens, focusing on the challenges, barriers and enablers for the early childhood educators. Preliminary findings indicate that digital self efficacy is influenced by the early learning centre contexts, the policies, opportunities for professional learning, and teacher training. The study offers insights for the need of a professional development training for the EC educators, an agency for educators to embed digital play and availability of digital resources to strengthen educators's understanding and confidence to use digital tools for, with and by children to improve their digital self-efficacy.

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Smile in the mirror. You look amazing! Pre-service teachers' revelations about their tendencies for harsh self-reflections

Bich Nguyen
Curtin University
Email: ngoc.nguyenhuynh@curtin.net.au

This study was an extension of Nguyen and Ilich (2026) published in Issues in Educational Research, 36(1). Fourteen high achieving pre-service teachers (PSTs) volunteered to deliver micro-lessons to illustrate high impact teaching strategies for their peers. They were then asked to respond to a brief questionnaire to reflect on their experience when participating in the micro-teaching activity. Nvivo analyses revealed the complexity of the participants' emotional experiences as they grappled with their teaching effectiveness and the dual identities as students and future teachers. There was a tendency for severe self-criticism, insecurity and an aversion to rewatching their teaching videos. However, after gathering the courage to view their own videos, the PSTs slowly came to terms with their limitations to appreciate their strengths and focus on growth. The study suggests that video-based learning (VBL) offers a useful and objective method to help PSTs avoid subjective, harsh self-condemnation and develop better emotional regulation to build stronger self-efficacy.
Reference: Nguyen, B. & Ilich, K. (2026). Video-based learning helps pre-service teachers prepare for practicum: An Australian university's findings. Issues in Educational Research, 36(1), 221-241. http://www.iier.org.au/iier36/nguyen-abs.html

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Navigating challenges in school leadership: Experiences of female principals

Maria Outtrim
Curtin University
Email: outtrimmarie@gmail.com

This study investigated the challenges experienced by female principals in Catholic composite and secondary schools (CCSS) in Western Australia. Composite schools were defined as schools catering for both primary and secondary students. The research was underpinned by a constructivist paradigm, drawing on an interpretivist approach and a symbolic interactionist perspective to gain insight into participants' lived experiences. An instrumental case study methodology was employed to explore the complexities of female leadership within the Catholic education context.

Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 14 female principals and supplemented by researcher field notes. Analysis of the data revealed six key challenges faced by participants: the multifaceted and demanding nature of the principalship; issues relating to the safety, health and wellbeing of the school community; the breadth of financial and property management responsibilities; increasing compliance and regulatory requirements; limitations in principal preparation processes; and experiences of gender discrimination.

The findings highlight the complexity of leadership roles undertaken by female principals and the unique challenges they encounter within Catholic schooling. In response, three recommendations are proposed for Catholic Education Western Australia: the provision of ongoing and targeted support for female principals, enhanced leadership development focusing on work-life balance and wellbeing, and the implementation of comprehensive strategies to address gender discrimination and promote greater equity in leadership.

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When quality conceals harm: Student experience, education reality, and the limits of measurement

Nina Rovis-Hermann
Curtin University
Email: nina.rovis-hermann@curtin.edu.au

Standardised education systems promise objectivity, fairness, and quality. What they cannot promise, and are structurally incapable of accounting for, is the full reality of the students who move through them. This presentation argues that contemporary quality frameworks in education do not merely fail to capture student experience; they are epistemologically designed to exclude it. When quality is defined by what can be ranked and reported, the things that cannot be ranked and reported cease, institutionally, to exist: the midnight self-surveillance, the profound emotional distress, the feeling of having no choice but to endure what academic performance demands.

This presentation draws on a critical realist case study of students navigating Australia's high-stakes ATAR pathway. Using Foucauldian critique of neoliberal governmentality alongside Bhaskar's challenge to the epistemic fallacy, it exposes the ideological architecture that makes structurally produced consequences feel like personal failure. It concludes with an urgent call to reposition student experience, not as supplementary data, but as the primary evidence of whether education is working at all.

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Examining the relationship between prison education attendance and incidents of harm and instability

John Shenton, Cindy Ann Smith and James Churchman
Curtin University
Email: john.shenton@postgrad.curtin.edu.au

This study examines correctional statistics drawn from publicly available governmental publications for prisons, from England and Wales, Australia, India, and Nordic Countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland). This study aims to investigate whether there is any correlation between educational attendance and self-harm, assaults on staff and prisoner-on-prisoner assaults.

A correlational design using government datasets was employed with prison education as its independent variable to examine whether attendance is associated with the dependent variables: self-harm, assaults on staff, and prisoner-on-prisoner assaults. The results from England, Wales and India suggest that prison education may be associated with differences in prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, prisoner-on-staff assaults and self-harm. Data from Australia and Nordic countries show weak or no correlations, largely due to the limited available data and small sample sizes. Although findings suggest a positive relationship between prison education and these outcomes, further research is needed using more comprehensive data before a firm conclusion can be drawn.

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Linguistic creativity and criticality: English as double-edged catalyst in post-socialist Mongolia

Bolormaa Shinjee
Curtin University
Email: bolormaa.shinjee@curtin.edu.au

This presentation introduces my PhD thesis, which explores the sociolinguistic transformations of post-socialist Mongolia through the dual lenses of linguistic creativity and criticality. Drawing on qualitative methodologies, the study explores how Mongolian young people engage with English in both online and offline contexts.

The thesis is structured as six publications, grouped into two thematic categories. The first theme, linguistic creativity, examines how Mongolians creatively use translingual repertoires in daily communication, public signage, and social media platforms. It highlights the dynamic process of translingualism and relocalisation, in which global linguistic resources are adapted to make meaning in the local contexts. The second theme, linguistic criticality, addresses the sociopolitical dimensions of language use, focusing on issues such as linguistic racism, accentism, and inequities in English language education. It critically examines how unequal access to English contributes to marginalisation, particularly for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who face systemic barriers and potential exclusion.

The findings demonstrate that while English operates as a resource for global mobility and modernity, it is also a mechanism that reproduces social hierarchies and exclusionary practices. The thesis contributes to sociolinguistics in a peripheral Asian context and calls for more inclusive, context-sensitive language policies and pedagogies.

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Perceptions of principals and faith leaders regarding the transmission of Presentation charism in Australian Presentation schools

Gemma Thomson
University of Notre Dame Australia
Email: Gemma.Thomson@cewa.edu.au

In the current demographic context of the Australian Catholic Church, where many religious congregations are ageing and diminishing, the transmission of charism has become both a significant and urgent responsibility and challenge for lay leadership. We are fast moving towards a world where the Presentation Sisters; a religious congregation, will be known 'more on paper than in person, remembered in history, rather than encountered in relationship.'

The study explored the perceptions of principals and faith leaders nationally regarding the transmission of Presentation charism in Australian Presentation schools. Using a qualitative instrumental case study, the research investigated how principals and faith leaders perceive the nature of Presentation charism, how it is evidenced in their leadership approaches in Presentation schools, and the perceptions of principals and faith leaders as to what is required to transmit Presentation charism in Australian Presentation schools. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, researcher field notes and a document search. The presentation will provide several recommendations pertinent to the profession and for further research regarding transmission of charism in Catholic education settings.

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The politics of visibility: Gender, authority and women university leaders in Chinese higher education

Wei Zhang and Tanya Fitzgerald
The University of Western Australia
Email: wei.zhang@uwa.edu.au

Efforts to increase the visibility of women in university leadership are often read as evidence of institutional progress. This article questions that assumption by examining how women's leadership authority is publicly represented through official institutional digital materials in Chinese higher education. Drawing on a qualitative interpretive analysis of institution-authorised digital profiles, leadership biographies, portraits, and university news concerning 27 women university leaders in mainland China, the article develops the concept of regulated visibility. The concept synthesises Brighenti's account of visibility as relational and ambivalent with Fraser's distinction between recognition and redistribution.

The analysis shows how official digital representation can recognise women leaders as legitimate institutional figures while also shaping the terms on which their authority becomes publicly recognisable. Across the corpus, women's leadership is represented through formal position, professional and academic achievement, political or institutional alignment, event-mediated visibility, and moralised narratives of service and care. These forms of visibility do not provide evidence of internal decision-making power or the redistribution of institutional authority. Rather, they show how universities publicly stage women's leadership within gendered, organisational and governance-specific conditions. By conceptualising official digital representation as a site of regulated visibility, the research contributes to feminist higher education scholarship on gendered authority, recognition, and the cultural politics of leadership legitimacy.

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