Grants

ARC Discovery Grant 2003 - 2005

Associate Professor Allyson Holbrook, Professor Sid Bourke and Professor Terry Lovat
PhD assessment: An investigation of examination process, examiner consistency and factors that identify thesis quality across disciplines.
Doctoral research is a significant component of research activity in Australian higher education and effective research student supervision and high quality research are key goals. The main control over quality is the thesis examination, but there is no systematic study of examiner consistency or application of standards within and across disciplines. Drawing on candidature history, examiner reports and ratings, this cross-institutional study responds to the need for foundational research into the area. The study will ascertain assessment processes, assessment criteria and factors that identify highly rated theses. The ultimate aim is to improve the quality of doctoral education practices.

ARC Linkage Grant 2006

Professor Adrian Page, Professor John O'Connor, Associate Professor Allyson Holbrook, Professor Sid Bourke and Stephen Williamson
The Identification and Development of Strategies for Increasing Engineering Enrolments
There is a continuing nation-wide decline in high school student enrolment in higher level mathematics and science. This is already leading to a reduction in the number of students undertaking university engineering programs in Australia and the situation is expected to worsen. This project is directed toward a better understanding of the reasons for the trend and the development of strategies to reverse it. It aims to 1. Evaluate the most effective strategies that increase students' interest and understanding of engineering and increase participation in engineering studies. 2. Develop and optimised national communication strategy for promoting engineering studies to secondary students.

Internal Project Grants 2004

Associate Professor Allyson Holbrook, Professor Anne Graham, Miranda Lawry and Professor Elizabeth Ashburn
The role of the exhibition and it treatment in the doctoral assessment practice of Fine Art examiners.
Doctoral research in Fine Art is a relatively recent phenomenon, and its introduction has heightened debate around fundamental questions about the nature and scope of research in the creative art, the outcomes of research as a contribution to art, and how research that is practice-based can be equated or compared with research in other disciplines. Preliminary findings indicate that compared to reports in traditional research disciplines, Fine Art examination reports show significantly different emphases in assessment. This study pilots the second stage of a methodology that will allow issues surrounding Fine Art PhD assessment to be systematically investigated for the purpose of informing research training, assessment and development.

Dr Melissa Monfries, Professor Terence Lovat and Associate Professor Allyson Holbrook
Power discourse in PhD examiners' reports.
Research in PhD examination reports has recently aimed at clarifying examiners' expectations of PhD theses. This project proposes to examine the discourse of power in PhD examination reports. It will use a psychological definition of power to guide the coding of the examiner's discourse used in his/her report with a view to understanding more about the PhD examination process. The study will examine how the discourse of power impacts on the type of feedback given about the PhD dissertation. In addition it will examine whether there are different types of power which effectively differentially impact on examiners' comments.

Professor Sid Bourke and Peter Farley
Research pathways and degree completion: An investigation of the scope of the problem
Claims that research higher degree candidates' attrition is high and completion times are too long are current concerns of government and therefore of universities and students. The international literature is replete with definitions of measures of attrition percentages and of candidacy time, and factors related to these. The effects of using different measures will be assessed for Australian universities, and for Newcastle as a particular case study. A questionnaire will be developed and data will be collected from a selection of recently non-completing candidates from Newcastle. Initial investigations will be made of links between the new data and other national and international data on attrition and delayed completion.

Conference Establishment Grant

Dr Jo May has been successful in her application for seeding grant for the the Building Foundations 2004 National Conference of Enabling Educators.

ARC Discovery Grant Applications

Associate Professor Allyson Holbrook, Professor Terry Lovat, Professor Anne Graham, Professor Elizabeth Ashburn and Dr Robert Cantwell Doctoral research expectations, learning needs, supervisory and assessment practices and qualities of research outcomes in Fine/Visual Arts

Professor Sid Bourke, Dr Robert Cantwell, Associate Professor Allyson Holbrook and Dr Jill Scevak
The relative contributions of learner attributes, life events and institutional contexts to PhD completion and attrition.

Associate Professor Shen Chen, Associate Professor Doug Absalom and Professor Andy Kirkpatrick (Curtin University of Technology)
Cross-cultural teaching-learning ethos in Chinese-Australian contexts: Cultural conflicts between Australian supervisors and Chinese students in research training

Dr Neil Morpeth
Jack Lindsay and the writing of intellectual history: An Australian contribution to the history of ideas in the twentieth century".

ARC LIEF Grant Application

Associate Professor Allyson Holbrook, Professor Sid Bourke, Professor Julie Byles, Professor Linda Connor, Associate Professor David Lemmings, Professor Terence Lovat, Professor William Mitchell, Associate Professor John Rodger and Associate Professor Deborah Stevenson
Building the Hunter Regional Research Database