This week, the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) officially welcomed its 2024-25 Visiting Scholars Assistant Professor Franziska Lessky from the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and Adjunct Professor Seán Bracken from the University of Worcester (UK) to the ACSES offices at Curtin University in Perth.
Franziska and Seán will spend their stay working on their respective research projects, which they introduced to the ACSES team with short presentations during their first week.
Franziska’s project “Does combining work and study ‘pay off’? Critically investigating graduate outcomes of students from equity groups” examines the impact of equity students’ paid work experience on their graduate labour market outcomes. She is hoping to answer questions such as “Do different types of work experience during study have different effects on graduate outcomes?” and “Does work experience effect outcomes differently for different student groups?”.
Franziska has been collaborating with Professor Mollie Dollinger at Curtin University on this project. Together, they have examined graduate outcomes surveys in Australia (Graduates Outcome Survey), the UK (Higher Education Students Forecast), and Europe (EUROGRADUATE) to assess and compare their methodological underpinnings. Their publication on this work can be found here.
As a result, the project – in collaboration with Professor Ian Li (ACSES), Novia Minaee (ACSES), and Robert Jühlke (Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna) – will use country-comparative quantitative data from the EUROGRADUATE survey for further analysis into the effects of work and study on graduate outcomes. As part of her research project, Franziska will also collect and compare qualitative data to focus on students’ lived experiences in more detail by collaborating with Dr Nicole Crawford (CRADLE, Deakin University).
Seán’s project “The development of a leadership framework for enabling systemic inclusion in higher education”, applies the principles of Universal Design (UD) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a conceptual lens to create a leadership framework. The aim of the project is to improve understanding and capacities for the enactment of leadership for inclusion in HE institutions.
Throughout the project, Seán will engage with senior leaders in HE institutions in the UK and Australia through semi-structured interviews, as well as using the Q Methodology to identify priority areas for the framework. The project will also include a series of framework enhancement and validation workshops.
Seán is looking forward to collaborating with fellow researchers and practitioners, such as Professor Jaswinder Dhillon (University of Worcester, UK), Professor Katie Ellis (Curtin University), Associate Professor Tim Pitman (ACSES), and Darlene McLennan (ACSES Equity Fellow, ADCET), on this project.
We extend our warmest welcome to Franziska and Seán and look forward to working alongside them in the coming weeks and sharing their research results in due course.
