From the Director of the Pymble Institute

A colleague recently drew my attention to an excellent article published by the University of New South Wales newsroom. It was an opinion piece, originally published in The Conversation, with the provocative title, ‘Fewer women receive research grants – but the reasons are more complicated than you’d think‘. As intended, the article got me thinking about what the reasons might be and, as I am committed to girls’ education and building capacity in young women’s identities and skills as researchers, my mind quickly turned to what I could do about any of these reasons during students’ school years.

The authors, Dr Isabelle Kingsley, Professor Emma Johnston, Dr Eve Slavich, Associate Professor Lisa A. Williams and Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith, are an impressive group of researchers with expertise in various fields of science, social psychology and statistics, as well as leadership and innovation. To sum up their findings, the article states the reason women receive fewer research grants is because ‘fewer women researchers mean fewer women applicants, in turn leading to fewer women receiving grants’. Importantly, they identify there are ‘fewer women than men in the research workforce … for every 100 men researchers, there are only 75 women researchers on average’. Workforce participation in research is a key issue with acknowledgement of the hurdles women face in STEM fields, especially. The authors point to a number of resources which will further readers’ understanding of issues underpinning gender inequity in Australian research, including:

• Women in STEM Decadal Plan, published by the Australian Academy of Science (2019)
• Gender and the Research Workforce, published by Australian Research Council (2018)

The Gender and the Research Workforce study (ARC, 2018) (using 2018 and 2015 data) includes  interesting snapshots revealing the gender of researchers in different research fields (using FoR, Field of Research codes, designated by the Australian Research Council). Education, Language Culture and Communication, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Human Society, and Medical and Health Sciences include ‘a greater share of female researchers … ranging from 52 per cent in Medical and Health Sciences to 65 per cent in Education’ (ARC, 2018). Women make up less than 21 per cent of the research workforce in Mathematical Sciences, Engineering and Physical Sciences although, pleasingly, the numbers increased from 2015 to 2018 (ARC, 2018).

But beyond a focus on diversity of gender, our planet must utilise the knowledge, commitment and research talents of as wide a range of people as possible to solve the urgent and complex problems facing our generation. Schools, especially those with research centres, hold significant responsibilities to open research careers up as possibilities for both primary and secondary-age students. We can introduce students to people who will become research role models and encourage academic researchers to work with us in schools so that the design, ethics, data collection, analysis and reporting of research is made visible to students. Schools should consider requiring that those who would collect data from our students should give back in a much more immediate and tangible form than sending ‘the report’ when it is complete. Pymble, with over 2,300 girls and young women in our educational community, has benefited from:

• having academics join our ethics committee meeting to discuss their application
• establishing projects with an expert academic and a team of students and staff, to put the academic’s research into action
• inviting research teams to discuss their proposed research with potential participants face to face
• setting up multiple feedback points at different stages of projects so students can hear about the challenges and uncertainties, and see how academics make meaning from data in iterative ways
• having students interview prospective keynote speakers to ensure their understanding of what their school audience will be interested to hear.

These strategies not only enrich the girls’ understanding of research and activate their interest as research-informed citizens, but will hopefully, in only a handful of years, begin to make a difference in the statistics and stories of women who research.

Research spotlight: Ryan Stewart

How do educators inspire their students and play a part in bringing knowledge into the public sphere? The personal and professional commitment of teachers undertaking post-graduate study is celebrated by the Pymble Institute. In the next profile in this series, meet Ryan Stewart, a passionate secondary teacher and PhD candidate with a strong commitment to First Nations history, culture and education.

Ryan is a full-time member of Pymble’s History, Society and Ethics Learning Area where he teaches History and Aboriginal Studies. Ryan is also a researcher at the University of Newcastle where he is working towards his PhD in History. Ryan’s research is centred around settler memories of frontier violence with First Nation peoples in Australia and the representations of Indigenous peoples in settler-centred local histories. This very important topic is allowing Ryan, as well as his colleagues and students at Pymble, the opportunity to hear the voices of First Nations people through primary source research. Ryan’s understanding of this area and network of Elders, academics and fellow researchers contributes to the College’s commitment to greater social intelligence. 

Between 2019 and 2021, Ryan was involved in an educational program in partnership with the University of Newcastle and the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council which aimed to educate university and high school students about the true nature of first contact between First Nations peoples and colonists. This culminated in the production of a short film titled ‘Central Coast First Contact Heritage Project’ which is available to view on YouTube. Ryan has published in the History Teacher’s Association of NSW journal, the College’s research journal, Illuminate, and he is featured in an episode of Boe Spearim’s podcast series Frontier War Stories. Ryan has also presented his research at academic conferences at ANU, Deakin, ACU and UNSW. 

As Ryan nears the end of his PhD journey, we commend him for the important scholarship he brings to his teaching and wish him well for the final stages of submitting his thesis. If readers are interested in connecting with Ryan, contact the Pymble Institute at pymbleinstitute@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au 

The students’ research conference

What type of mindset is needed in research?

Pymble’s second Student Research Conference was held in May with two keynote speakers and fourteen student presenters. The conference theme, Mindsets in Research, was designed by student convenor, Lucy Clark (Year 12). It invited participants to consider ways to cultivate the type of mindset needed for research and how to build skills to support it. We saw many examples of curiosity, clear thinking and problem solving across the conference. In addition to the speakers, we were honoured to share the afternoon with an enthusiastic and supportive audience of students, parents and teachers.

Student led

Year 12 student, Lucy Clark, organised the conference after successfully co-running the inaugural student research conference in 2022. Lucy strongly believes in the benefit of giving a voice to students to showcase their work. Over the past three years, Lucy has made a significant contribution to developing an inclusive community of student researchers at the College. A team of younger students assisted Lucy by facilitating each room and managing question time at the end of each presentation.

Role models and keynote speakers

Professor Fiona White, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Sydney, and Natalie Dajkovich, ex-Pymble student and Senior Policy Officer in International Climate Negotiations and Engagement with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, were inspirational role models as they explained the principles of research design. They both shared their personal passions for their respective fields and explained how they meet the demands of their work with steady persistence and creative ideas.

Conference themes

Professor Fiona White spoke about researching tricky topics and drew on her experience in her research area of race, diversity and inclusion. Fiona explained how fundamental principles in ethics, confidentiality and safety for participants and researchers are built into research design and how complex human questions can be explored through inquisitive, caring and respectful frameworks.

Natalie Dajkovich shared her journey from Pymble to the Australian National University, and onto her role as Senior Policy Officer with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water with the Australian Government. Natalie outlined how she designed and conducted her research into processes of carbon pricing and explained the methodologies she employed to research this complex field. 

Fiona and Natalie spoke with such passion for research, but brought to life ways that research can make an impact on public policy and shape the lives of everyday citizens.

Following the panel discussion, hosted by Erika (Year 10) and Lucy, participants moved to breakout rooms to listen to student presentations. Find details of the full program here.

Pymble’s student researchers and topics

Students generously shared their research in 15-minute sessions. They took questions and spoke confidently about their findings and opportunities for future research. We look forward to following the careers of the following young researchers!

Year 7

Leahara Wijesuriya, Alexa Wu, Celine Cai – Online communications and how it has evolved

Ariana Azizmohammad – An abstract summary of why we yawn

Year 9

Kitty He – The future of space appropriation and Kessler Syndrome

Alice Mao – Overcoming bias in AI: Strategies for equality

Year 10

Catherine Shi – What makes Shakespeare ‘Shakespeare’?

Year 11

Julie Sheng – What is the ideal form of government? 

Yuki Wang – Stock market returns of COVID-19 vaccine companies

Year 12

Sumeera Chapra – Impact of reducing adolescent screen time with greyscale

Manni Lin – Correlation between temperature and the sound level of boiling water

Becca Peters – Utilising a prompt to form a habit

Christy Xue – An economic evaluation on Pymble‘s canteen “shadow market”

Understanding online learning through data

Working in partnership with researchers from UTS has enabled students and teachers to learn more about the research process

Data Science students and staff from Pymble have now concluded their research collaboration with the team from the University of Technology Sydney Data Science Institute (DSI) and UTS Education. In May, the research team joined us for final meetings to share and discuss findings in preparation for upcoming presentations and publications.

The focus of the project was how learning analytics can be used to enhance student engagement in online learning in secondary school. The pilot set out to see if tracking software can ‘see’ student engagement and, if so, what engagement in online tasks ‘looks like’. The research questions for the project were:

1.How does students’ engagement vary in the different online tasks?

2.How can teachers assess students’ levels of engagement on online tasks?

3.How does this engagement relate to assessable learning outcomes?

4.What are the implications for how Pymble teachers design online tasks that engage and effectively enable learners to complete task successfully?

Data were collected via DSI software loaded onto College laptops which students used for the task and were collected in the form of coding which captured eye gaze, head pose, facial expressions and keyboard and mouse interactions. Once in code, the students’ movements were represented as follows:

A second form of data collection took place in the form of focus groups. These enabled discussion, explanation and questioning, including what was happening at certain times and how students felt while doing the task.

Data analysis by the UTS team arrived at three personas which will be further explained in upcoming publications. In summary, teachers and students have started to explore the three categories of Whiz, Worker and Worrier in order to critique the relevance of these in the school setting. The Pymble Data Science team strongly believe that all mindsets are vital for coding and programming and help students see their strengths and growth opportunities by exploring all these approaches.

Dr Tracey-Ann Palmer from UTS Education has presented on this project at the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA) Conference in Queensland and enjoyed the chance to share results with the interested audience.

This article has been co-written with the UTS team of Nick Hopwood, Tracey-Ann Palmer, Mun Yee Lai, Gloria Koh (Education) and Kun Yun and Yifei Dong (Data Science). We thank Pymble Data Science teachers Anthony England, Kim Maksimovic, Glen McCarthy and Cedric Le Bescont and Research Assistant Victoria Adamovich, and Year 9 and 10 Data Science students (2022).

Staying sharp with research skills

How do researchers and research-leads in schools develop their skills in quantitative and qualitative methods?

Pymble Institute staff recently completed micro-credentials in research design, data collection, analysis and interpretation with the Centre for Continuing Education, Australian National University. The online environment was ideal for bringing together people whose work and study calls for research work. It was also a great way for school-based researchers and research-leads to learn alongside postgraduate students and professionals and to see how research skills are relevant in a range of public and private sphere organisations.

The courses took us on a deep dive into the research tool box as we refined research questions, and tackled technical issues in sampling, stratification and survey design. There was the chance to explore the use of demographics, sampling frames and apply different forms of analysis to projects we’ve been designing. In the quantitative analysis domain, coursework covered statistical hypothesis tests and multivariate and longitudinal analysis. Greater skills in data and analysis will enrich the research services the Pymble Institute offers both students and staff.

For research leaders based in schools, investing in your research toolkit is important as you are often called upon to assist colleagues with a range of projects and these can be out of your own field in terms of both content and method. Many of us also work in partnership with universities and it is important to be able to collaborate actively in decisions around the design of research which will be undertaken in the school community. Completing the assignments in these courses gave us the chance to apply the skills and, most valuably, receive feedback from the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods team. 

For those interested in the ANU Data and Analysis Micro credentials through the Centre for Social Research and Methods, more information is available here. Contact Sarah or Victoria for more information on our experiences with this learning program.

Researching the experiences of career changes teachers at Pymble

Like all schools and sectors in education, nationally and internationally, Pymble is conscious of how teacher shortages are impacting staffing. One of the Pymble Institute’s projects is an investigation into career-change teachers in our own school with the goal of better understanding this important group’s motivations and experiences. Career change, or second career, teachers are teachers who commenced their work lives in careers outside education and made the pivotal decision to re-train as teachers.

Career-change teachers often bring with them a past life rich in combinations of skills, leadership and experience, as well as strong intentions to contribute to society as a teacher. The research highlights attributes like maturity, resilience and intentionality which strengthens teachers’ commitments to their work. Along with these interpersonal attributes, career-change teachers can bring resources such as networks of contacts and resources which enliven their teaching.

Kate Rimer, Chief People and Culture Officer, and Dr Sarah Loch, Director – Pymble Institute, are working with Dr Meera Varadharajan, Research Fellow (Education) at the Centre for Social Impact at the University of New South Wales, on Pymble’s own research in this area. Participants from within the College’s teaching team have contributed to interview and survey data which is currently being analysed. From within the group of 20 participants, pre-teaching careers in law, business and management dominated. Career change teachers at Pymble bring with them lived experience in areas including healthcare, insurance, banking, telecommunications, microbiology, chemistry, marketing, pharmacy, fashion, law, television and film.

Many mentioned a ‘light-bulb moment’ which solidified their determination to transition into a new career. These reflect both passion and hope which indicate what an incredible asset career-change teachers are for the teaching profession. The following quotes give a small insight into the type of data collected:

“I have always wanted to become a teacher as I see the profession as one that you can really make a difference in a child’s life”.

“It was actually my husband who made me realise teaching was what I was passionate about. I was miserable in my job and he asked me some questions that made me realise I wanted to empower young people to love learning and loved working with children”.

A College resource will be prepared to help career-change teachers include the full scope of their skills in job applications and interviews so that the College learns of the additional experience they bring. 

For more information, contact Kate or Sarah via pymbleinstitute@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au