In our latest expert Q&A we talk to Kristy Osborne, a physicist, former pre-service teacher and Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) about the science concepts that primary students struggle with and why it’s important for teachers to identify and address student misconceptions early on.

Our guest for this episode of The Research Files is Professor Anne Castles. She’s a Keynote speaker at ACER’s Research Conference next month, which is exploring how to improve continuity of learning in the first 12 years of a child’s life. We’ll be discussing some of the research on learning to read, and getting a taster of what delegates can expect from her presentation.

In our latest reader submission, teacher Hannah Wiemers and researcher Dr Michelle Avila Vanderburg share details of a pilot program to create a 10-week curriculum unit allowing students to explore the use of drones in agriculture and gain more insight into careers in the industry.

We know that e-cigarette use among adolescents in Australia has quickly become a pressing issue. So, how can educators empower them to say no to vaping, and work towards the prevention of e-cigarette use among young people? In this episode, we speak to the team behind the Unpacking Vaping in Schools Project about their findings so far.

A new research paper, Creative self-beliefs among children and adolescents, published in the Australian Journal of Education, seeks to understand more about young people’s confidence in their creative abilities, as well as their beliefs about whether these abilities are fixed or malleable.

Recently released survey data from PIRLS 2021 (Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study) includes information on reading instruction strategies used in year 4 lessons. This infographic shows the percentage of Australian PIRLS 2021 students whose teachers reported using these strategies in every or almost every lesson.

The new report, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study: Australia’s results from PIRLS 2021, reveals how the average reading performance of year 4 students in Australia compares to other countries. Find out more in today’s infographic.

Recruiting career changers into teaching has become a strategy to address teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools. In today’s article we speak to Dr Babak Dadvand from La Trobe University about his research that aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how career change teachers navigate challenges in these schools in the early years of switching to the profession.

‘As a school teacher or leader, you will understand the challenge of addressing gaps in students’ literacy and numeracy skills.’ In this article, Adam Inder shares findings from AERO’s 'Implementing effective tiered interventions in secondary schools' project.

Australia’s results in the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) were released last week. In our latest expert Q&A we speak with PIRLS National Project Manager for Australia and ACER Senior Research Fellow Kylie Hillman about some of the interesting findings to come from this cycle.