National best practice guidelines for early childhood intervention (ECI) were first published in Australia in 2016, but research into the implementation of these guidelines has been limited. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which the role descriptions of ECI positions advertised by Australian employers aligned with the best…

Much research into how universities seek to support their students' graduate employability has focused on academic strategies such as graduate attributes and work-integrated learning, or the employability benefits of part-time work, volunteering, and extracurricular activities. However, the work of the professional staff who support these…

It is important that software testing courses at universities provide students with testing skills that are close to the skills needed by industry. To investigate if these courses do accomplish this role, this research provides comparison and empirical analysis of the topics provided by 80 software testing courses in nine countries around the…

This paper focusses on how careers advice provided to Australian secondary school students varies according to students' socio-economic background. National data for students in Years 11 and 12 from five cohorts of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth initiated between 1998 and 2015 are analysed. Students from higher socio-economic…

Formal Indigenous leadership within Australian universities has expanded significantly in the last decade. Given this advancement, understanding how to integrate Indigenous leadership into existing institutional governance structures is an area that requires investigation. Recognising the need to further examine Indigenous leadership in the higher…

The last decade has seen a shrinking of degree-level employment opportunities for young people (aged under 24 years) in Australia and globally. This research aims to better understand the job advertisements to which our graduates are exposed. This article presents a universal method to collect and process advertisements from an online job board.…

Background: A number of studies of the roles and responsibilities of teaching assistants have been conducted in Australian jurisdictions, but much of this research has been small-scale or geographically localised. Method: The present study was the largest survey conducted in Australia to date and involved a survey of 361 teaching assistants in New…

Reading for pleasure is an undervalued but highly beneficial practice conferring a range of educative and socio-emotional advantages. School librarians may play a key role in supporting reading for pleasure and associated literature advocacy; however, relatively little is known about how reading for pleasure may be valued within the job…

The marketisation of schools has emerged as a defining feature of the education landscape. While the role of principals and lead teachers in carrying out marketing work was investigated in the late 1990s, there has been scant evidence of how the people and practices of marketing in schools have evolved into the twenty-first century. Expanding on…

This research examines the impact of non-monetary work environment factors on employee discretionary effort within the higher education sector in Australia. There is limited qualitative research that examines the factors that drive and inhibit employee discretionary effort especially in the higher education sector. Semi-structured interviews were…

Governments recognise that careers guidance, underpinned by accurate labour market information, can help learners make post-secondary education choices that match their interests, aptitudes and abilities, and lead to rewarding employment. For this reason, they have invested in building linked education/employment information systems and other…

Universities are under pressure to produce work-ready graduates. This study analyzed 130 job advertisements to identify skills required by environmental science employers in Australia. For degree-related criteria, the most frequently required were content knowledge, a tertiary qualification and experience. Other desired skills were an…

This study examines the employability skills of accountants cited in job advertisements in Australia and New Zealand, as they indicate the skills that are most valued by employers. The results indicate interpersonal and personal are the most frequently requested skills. Of the 31 identified skills, the most sought-after skills included the ability…

The process of curriculum development can be informed by seeking the views of stakeholders, including employers, academics, students and recent graduates, about the skills, attributes and personal characteristics required by various professions. The views of several stakeholders may also be compared to help ensure reliability of results and…

The author states that in earlier pieces (O'Neill, 2002, 2010, 2012), he chewed on and tried to digest newspaper advertisements made by universities. Byproducts did not come out smelling like roses: universities are scarcely able to present themselves without boasting, crass displays of salesmanship, and brazen invocations of virtue. This article…