2025: Partnering for impact

In 2025, the School continued efforts to enhance research quantity and quality, with a strong focus on capacity building and mentoring for our researchers and staff. This included a 37 percent increase in research publications from the previous year, with 80 percent in top quartile journals (up from 72.7 percent in 2025). 

The School also saw a 50 percent increase in awarded projects (12 in 2025, up from 8 in 2024) and a 25 percent increase in higher degree by research completions. 

Following its launch in 2024, the Education and Learning Futures Cluster continued to mature and expand its visibility, including through the development of its online presence on the UniSC website, supporting connections across research, teaching and industry.

Our staff also formed new partnerships and strengthened existing relationships with schools, early childhood education providers, local government and state government agencies, key community partners, and national and international education research organisations. This included a memorandum of understanding with Brisbane-based autism school The Sycamore School, a renewed research contract with Steiner Education Australia, and a developing research partnership with Play Matters Australia and the Parenting Research Centre.

Highlights

• Following a successful pilot and almost $300,000 grant from the John Villiers Trust, Dr Sharon Louth and team began rolling the Marigurim Yan program out to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people across the Fraser Coast region.
• As part of a successful Connect grant led by Associate Dean Professor Kate Williams, the School hosted visiting scholar Professor Alfredo Bautista from The Education University of Hong Kong for an intensive two weeks of capability building, covering HDR culture and supervision, international and research partnerships, academic writing and publishing, and more.
• Dr Linda Mahony received the SPARK Professional Development Award.
• Led by Dr Natalie McMaster, the MindSET-do program continued to strengthen one of the School’s several research partnerships with Sunshine Coast Council.
• Australia-wide early childhood education provider G8 and private disability support organisation Rhythmic Integrations signed on as partners in an Australian Research Council Linkage grant proposal, also led by Professor Kate Williams.

Making a difference: Our research in action

Honouring young children’s rights through an innovative approach to listening

The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of The Child gives children who can form their own views the right to express them freely in all matters affecting them. However, Australia has historically lacked data on how very young children’s perspectives are heard and included, creating blind spots in policy and service design that risked overlooking children’s rights and needs.

School researcher Dr Cynthia Hicban has sought to address this gap through a research project aimed at identifying how young children’s participation rights are enacted at an interactional level. Undertaken in an Australian long day care centre, the research gathered data on the interactions between 75 children (aged 16 months to 5 years old) and their educators, and analysed these using ethnomethodological conversation analysis. The Lundy Model of Participation was then mapped onto analysed data to identify how space for children’s voices was created, what form children’s voices took, and how children were able to influence decision-making.

The research generated an innovative methodological approach (the LViIP Approach) that identifies how children’s participation rights are co-constructed by adult and child and between peers, and delivered new knowledge around how young children’s perspectives could be accessed and included. The work progressed to the development of a children’s participation rights assessment tool for identifying and evaluating when and how children’s participation rights were being upheld in daily interactions.

Dr Hicban’s work has generated significant impact across policy, professional practice and children’s rights advocacy. The project produced three peer-reviewed publications, including articles in the International Journal of Children’s Rights and Pastoral Care in Education, with findings informing national child voice initiatives and reaching educators, researchers and practitioners internationally. Research outcomes have been disseminated through numerous presentation platforms, including international conferences, national professional forums and educator professional development programs.

The project has directly influenced teaching and learning at UniSC through the Learning Theories in Early Learning course, which has helped to build capacity in more than 250 researchers, pre-service teachers and educators. The research has also had substantial policy and organisational impact through its partnership with national charity Play Matters Australia, where findings informed an organisationwide review of children’s participation rights and the development of a child participation strategy. To date, 15 project recommendations have been implemented, leading to innovative practices that enable greater participation by young children in decision-making and program design.

Dr Hicban’s expertise has been sought nationally through media, professional and government forums, contributing to broader conversations about children’s rights and participation. Collectively, the research has advanced understanding of how young children’s voices can be authentically recognised and embedded in practice, creating lasting benefits across education, community organisations and policy settings.

Research spotlight

Teachers need more support to deliver key health lessons to kids 

Teachers are influential role models who play an important part in helping young people learn the foundations of health and wellbeing. However, research has revealed that graduate teachers across Australia and New Zealand need more information to promote crucial health behaviours to students. 

Led by the School's Dr Joseph Scott and published in the Health Promotion Journal of Australia, the research surveyed almost 100 teacher educators working at universities on the extent to which their programs covered content related to physical activity, sun safety, and sleep health. Most teacher educators reported very little time spent on these concepts, and a large proportion were unsure if their graduates would be able to confidently plan and teach lessons related to them.

More than 90 percent of young Australians don't meet the recommended guidelines for physical activity, and Australia and New Zealand have the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. However, there is currently no standardised requirement to ensure all future teachers have deep knowledge of these and other specific health behaviours.

The findings highlight an opportunity for education providers to better prepare pre-service teachers in these important health areas.

Left or right brained? Research uncovers widespread 'neuromyths' among early childhood educators

Many teachers and parents know that neuroscience – the study of how the brain functions and develops – is important for children’s education. However, a study led by Professor Kate Williams has found that some common 'neuromyths' remain widespread among early childhood educators.

The study surveyed 524 Australian early childhood educators to measure their neuroscience knowledge. Respondents were asked whether a range of commonly held but inaccurate beliefs were true, including that "students are either left- or right-brained" and that "teaching to different learning styles will improve learning". While some myths were widely, and correctly, understood to be false, for others, most respondents were either unsure or believed the statement to be correct. 

Although some neuromyths may seem harmless, others can influence classroom practice and ultimately affect student learning outcomes. Published in Trends in Neuroscience and Education, these findings highlight a need for more evidence-based neuroscience content as part of educator training and professional development

Resources

Download the report (PDF)