Laura Perry PhD

Purpose
Challenges associated with transitioning from graduate to employee are often attributed to a lack of “work readiness”. A useful tool to address this issue is a valid and reliable measurement scale for graduate work readiness (GWR), which is the purpose of this study.

Design/methodology/approach
Using a mixed-method exploratory sequential design, this study draws from a priori conceptual knowledge of GWR to refine and validate a new 67-item scale. It also explores the interrelationships between factors to establish the nomological network. A sample of eight students participated in focus group discussions and individual interviews to pilot test the scale, after which another sample of 101 second-year university students completed a GWR survey.

Findings
A partial least squares-structural equation modelling with 101 survey responses confirmed the original four-factor solution, comprising cognitive, metacognition, intrapersonal and interpersonal domains organised into a hierarchical structure, six lower-order constructs: critical thinking, innovative thinking, problem-solving, planning and organisation, collaborative leadership and social self-efficacy mapped onto three higher-order constructs, namely cognitive, metacognition and interpersonal, while the intrapersonal construct was not hierarchically organised. The validated model comprised 35 items with good internal reliability and validity. The results also indicated statistical evidence that the metacognition and intrapersonal constructs influenced the interpersonal construct and the intrapersonal construct significantly affected the cognitive and metacognition constructs.

Originality/value
This study provides a new validated scale for measuring students’ and graduates’ work readiness more robustly than previous scales.

School segregation is an international problem undermining the performance and equity of education systems. Australia's secondary schooling system offers international insights into the causes of segregation owing to it being one of the most segregated in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, its long history of school competition and privatisation, and a lack of government regulation of the fees, enrolment and exclusion policies of private schools. This study examines the role of institutional differentiation and school fees in the uneven enrolment of low socioeconomic status (SES) and Indigenous students within geographical areas over which school choice is a viable option. We found that no secondary school sector was representative of the Australian secondary student population and that there was substantial variation in segregation between states and territories. States and territories with lower rates of Catholic, independent and selective schools have lower levels of segregation. Indigenous students were doubly segregated into schools with high concentrations of low SES students. School segregation varied between geographical areas with the degree of institutional differentiation, and this was partially accounted for by school fees. Independent, Catholic and selective schools contributed to the segregation of low SES students while independent and Catholic schools contributed to the segregation of Indigenous students. Policy reform options include improving the funding and political support for government schools and raising the accountability of government-funded schools for the enrolment of low SES and Indigenous students. This study has relevance in the international comparison of causes and potential reforms of school segregation.

The present study aims to investigate how school segregation, as well as the (in)congruence between the school and individual SES, can explain the variation in student achievement. Additionally, it examines the role of instructional leadership in mitigating this association. Using international large-scale assessments (PISA-TALIS link data) from seven countries – Australia, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Georgia, Malta, and Turkey – we applied several multilevel polynomial regressions with response surface analyses. The results showed that both individual SES and school segregation have a profound impact on student achievement, with varying results across countries. Second, we found differential school composition effects, with the school composition effect strongest for low SES students in high SES schools. Third, our results do not support congruence theory, but they do somewhat favor (in)congruence theory. Finally, strong leadership magnifies benefits for low-SES students in high-SES schools and for all students at low-SES schools. Implications for policy, practice, and further research are discussed.

K–12 online distance education (ODE) is a growing sector of the education market. However, the demand-side factors that drive parents’ decisions to enroll their children in online schools remain understudied, particularly beyond the United States. This literature review considers both the U.S. and Australian historical school-choice policy contexts, demonstrating freedom in the former and some restrictions on the sector in the latter. Using the wider school-choice research field as context, the theoretical and psychological drivers, particularly the push factors toward ODE and pull factors away from traditional schooling, are considered. Contemporary debates and research needs are presented.

Australia provides substantial opportunities to engage in educational choices. These exist primarily in household choice of school, and choice of study pathway in secondary school. These choices are generally not directly restricted, rationed or regulated by education authorities, schools or teachers. Rather, the system of exercising educational choice is largely driven by households and students. Education authorities and schools play an indirect role, however, in shaping the educational choices that are available to students. This happens primarily through funding mechanisms that lead to a stratified and segregated system of schooling that limits educational choices for households with fewer resources.

This study proposes a more nuanced understanding of the elements constituting refugees’ cultural and social capital to help education providers and policymakers develop a non-deficit view of refugees. Such an understanding, informed by empirical research, ought to shape the type of support that is offered to this cohort to facilitate successful participation in higher education. This paper deploys the concepts of cultural and social capital, habitus and field as articulated within Bourdieu’s theory of practice. The findings of this study favour an ‘asset view’ of refugees within the higher educational context. Using a qualitative research design, 20 participants who come from a refugee background were interviewed. It was found that cultural identity and embeddedness within community has a varied influence on the higher educational experience of people from a refugee background in Australia. Additionally, diverse learning environments and, even, generic support structures, help provide a positive higher educational experience for refugees. These findings complement current research suggesting that people who come from a refugee background possess a range of cultural and social capital which can be assets to their higher educational endeavours.

Australian schooling is characterised by high levels of choice and competition, and education policymaking promotes the dissemination of information to assist families to choose a school. The aim of this study is to examine whether current information sharing is adequate for informing school choice for young people seeking vocational education and training (VET) opportunities. We examined secondary school websites in Western Australia, a state that is experiencing severe skills shortages, to ascertain the nature and extent to which information about VET in secondary schools is publicly available. Our findings showed that information about VET programs is largely invisible on school websites, as well as on the state jurisdiction's website (Department of Education WA, n.d.).

There is growing evidence about the importance of establishing clarity around the ‘work readiness’ concept. A conceptual understanding of its meaning, structure, and components, as well as the essential characteristics for developing and assessing work readiness (WR), is not well established. This conceptual paper examines how WR can be articulated with greater clarity for furthering research in the field. It critically reviews the literature to provide comprehensive insights on its meaning, structure, and components around three questions: How is WR defined? What constitutes WR? And how can it be conceptualised? Graduate WR is theorised as a set of multi-dimensional constructs of cognitive and non-cognitive skills evolving in an environment driven by three approaches: demand-, equilibrium-, and supply-oriented, each guided by three types of definitions: organisational-, process- or outcome-based. The structure consists of WR skills organised hierarchically into three-order skill levels. This paper integrates WR components into a comprehensive three-dimensional conceptual model which researchers can use to construct their conceptualisations.

School funding policy in Australia not only promotes educational equity in some ways but also creates substantial between-school resource inequalities due to its embrace of market ideologies. School funding policies are designed to promote school choice and competition, based on the assumption that they are both a right and an effective lever for improving educational outcomes. School funding is used to create an educational marketplace with varying ‘price points’, leading to the acceptance of a two-tiered system of basic provision via the public sector and enhanced provision for those willing to pay via the private sector. Political commitment to making school funding more equitable has been largely absent. Marketisation is the mechanism by which schooling maintains its capacity to reproduce social inequality without evoking class-based discourse or anxiety.

While marketization has been promoted as a mechanism for improving educational equity and effectiveness, substantial evidence suggests that it may have the opposite effect. We contribute to this debate by examining educational equity and effectiveness in two similar countries that have embraced educational marketization to different degrees. Drawing on data from the Program for International Student Assessment and a causal-comparative design, we show that Australian schooling has more choice and competition, is more socially segregated, has larger school stratification of human and material resources, and has greater inequalities of educational outcomes and overall lower effectiveness than Canadian schooling. Our findings suggest that educational marketization reduces educational equity and effectiveness by increasing school social segregation and stratification of resources.