EVENT: Accomplished Education Researcher Seminar

As researchers in a research-intensive university, we are encouraged to build a coherent research agenda. As research leaders, we encourage our colleagues to articulate a plan and to build a research strategy with international collaborations and ISI targets. Collectively we monitor our outputs and we are monitored for our impact. In this seminar I describe the range of research activities in which I have engaged since taking my current role at UWA. Mostly my focus is school leadership, both its development and its role in driving student learning. However, in reflecting on five years of research, I see that my progress is not always linear, nor is the agenda completely coherent. The research includes long term international partners, such as Durham University, new international collaborations in China and Iceland, complex collaborations across the country including Mission Australia and Ted Noff’s Foundation, and small activities involving one other researcher, for example, my collaborations with novice researchers in Iceland and Bhutan. Some are funded through competitive grants and industry support, and others are entirely unfunded. I have undertaken research with sophisticated software, such as PIPS, InCAS, NuLit, Appraise and EYLND, longitudinal surveys, such as the Perspectives of Leadership Development, as well as narrative inquiry. As I reflect on the purposes of this patchwork of research I begin to understand that there are many worthwhile goals apart from adding to the body of useful knowledge. My talk is framed around a set of purposes – intended and unintended – and its consequences for publications.