Research

Home educators need support With nearly 20,000 Australian children now being taught by their parents at home, education researchers are calling for greater support for the sector. Edith Cowan University (ECU) researchers Dr Eileen Slater, Dr Kate Burton and Dr Dianne McKillop surveyed 385 guardians of 676 home-schooled children to draw a more accurate picture of why Australian families are choosing this option.

Routines and time off devices for a good sleep The anecdotal evidence is there, sleepy, grumpy kids are disinterested in anything other than more sleep. Students are rarely getting the recommended 8-10 hours per night, averaging 7.5 hours of sleep during the school term and 8.2 hours during the school holidays.

Read good material for the most benefit Reading is good but reading quality stuff is better, magazines and websites present everyday concepts with regular vocabulary which makes for valuable reading practice but interesting, innovative material makes the reader push themselves and develop their cognition.

Handwriting vital to literacy Despite a tech heavy education sector good old fashioned hand writing is looking to be an essential part of learning and a shift to paperless schools does not have strong empirical research to back it.

Maximising impact on student learning: high effect size strategies in a science classroom As an early career teacher, more so than experienced teachers, you are exposed to numerous teaching practices that all work to enable greater student learning. It creates a problem – they can’t all be implemented at once, but how do we know which practices we should be using and which will work best?  

Minors can get booze online easily, fast and cheap The internet has broken down may barriers including those that stand between minors and alcohol. Buy now pay later services are also removing monetary barriers to obtaining booze.

Oral language skills predict young children's success in the classroom and life Communication, curiosity and conversation are key predictors of young children’s success later in life, according to new best practice resources on early childhood education launched in Brisbane this week.

Bullying is universal and worst for low SES boys Bullying happens all over the world and the same group of people suffers from it the worst. Adolescent boys from lower socio-economic backgrounds are most likely to be the victims of bullying, but there is a wide variation in prevalence.

Play in nature essential for children The increasingly isolated, urban lives that children live means that they’re often unable to muck about in the bush and that’s been identified as a bad thing for their physical and social development.