Prof. Sidney ( Sid ) Bourke

Biography

My background is in educational assessment and quantitative research methods generally. While Chief Research Officer at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) from 1975 to 1986, I was responsible for three major national studies of school achievement (1975-81) which broke new ground in the use of criterion-referenced assessment. The methodological approaches developed for those studies are still used in the basic skills assessment programs currently run in several Australian states. As a result of this and other work, I was invited to provide a major entry for the International Encyclopaedia of Educational Research (1985, 1997) on literacy, numeracy and oracy assessment.

In the mid 1980s while at the ACER, I developed a new instrument to assess the perceptions of primary school students of the quality of their school life (QSL). The questionnaire is still in use today across Australia and internationally, and the NSW Department of Education actively encourages and assists schools to use it as part of their self-assessment.

Also during the 1980s I was responsible for the Australian component of a major international study of teaching and learning in schools, conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). As a member of the international management team, I was instrumental in bringing new developments in path modelling of effects on student achievement and affect to Australian educational research. This and my other subsequent work on measurement of student affect led to the offer of co-authorship (with Anderson) of a monograph on assessing student affect in schools, published by Lawrence Erlbaum (2000). My major contribution was the assessment component.

My involvment as a chief investigator in major study of the impact of educational research on schools and schooling (conducted for DETYA, now DEST)led me to a more general interest in research and its impact. More recently since the Centre for the Study of Research Training and Impact (SORTI) was established in 2000 to focus research efforts on research quality, training and impact, my work has moved to studies of higher education, particularly at the doctoral level. My most recent major research in this area (with Holbrook & Lovat) was an ARC DG (2003-5) on all aspects of PhD candidature, examination processes and results. This study includes all discipline areas, and investigates the role of detailed content of examiner reports as indicators of thesis quality. The study had an innovative integrated mixed method design that has been the subject of symposia at national and international conferences. Findings have been sought and drawn on by the Deans & Directors of Graduate Studies in developing examination criteria for judging doctoral thesis quality. My major current study (with Page, Connor & Holbrook) is an ARC LG (2005-8) focussing on recruitment to the Engineeing profession, Engineering Choices - Engineering Futures.

Qualifications

• PhD, La Trobe University, 1985
• Bachelor of Arts, University of New England
• Master of Letters, University of New England
• Master of Education, Monash University
• Bachelor of Science, University of New South Wales

Research

Research keywords

• assessment
• doctoral completion/attrition
• doctoral examination
• professional training
• quantitative methods
• research impact

Research expertise

Educational measurement, particularly in the affective domain. Research thesis assessment and impact of research on academe and the profession. Preparation of professsionals, with a present focus on Engineering.

Fields of Research

Centres and Groups

Centre

• Centre for the Study of Research Training and Impact (SORTI)

Appointments

Invitations

Administrative

Administrative expertise

Management of research and research training at Faculty and University levels.

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• quantitative methods
• research methodology

Teaching expertise

Research methodology with a specific focus on quantitative and mixed methods. Supervision of research students, and training of new supervisors.