Marian Mahat

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Senior Researcher at University of Melbourne

This paper reinforces growing social and economic demands for graduates who can navigate the uncertainty and complexity of rapidly transforming employment contexts. This aim is first addressed with an overview of the research on employability and the changing nature of work and employment. This is followed with a discussion of employability and car...

The arrival of university ranking has changed the landscape of higher education all over the world and is likely to continue to influence further development nationally and internationally. This article provides an overview of rankings systems in which Australian universities feature and it goes on further to discuss the impact ranking systems have...

COVID-19’s impacts on academics have triggered calls for establishing and nurturing academic resilience in pursuit of a better normal in higher education institutions. Drawing on the perspectives of scholars from Universitas 21 member institutions, this research examined perceptions of academic resilience at the intersections of institutional and r...

Collaborative teaching and learning approaches are becoming increasingly important as schools become more flexible and innovative. Many teachers are challenged by the expectations of collaborative team teaching, which involves a group of teachers working purposefully, regularly and cooperatively to support student learning. Utilising an action rese...

Co-design teacher-led action research is an approach to educational practice and professional development of teachers through action-oriented, evidence-based research. In this approach, teachers conduct their own collaborative research in real classrooms and school settings, focusing on local practices. There has been a gradual shift from researche...

In recent years, teaching pedagogies have undergone significant transformations as schools become more flexible and innovative. New ways of organising space and furniture are part of this change, facilitating communication, democratising the teaching environment and focusing on student learning that is deep and participatory. Utilising a quasi-expe...

Provision of equitable access to higher education has never been simple. Disparities continue despite over 25 years of ongoing and directed efforts in policy and practice to improve participation across equity groups (Burke, Bennett & Bunn, 2019; Harvey, Burnheim & Brett, 2016). Recent policy reviews and research have highlighted the need for urgen...

We investigated how learning environments–involving their physical, pedagogical, and psychosocial dimensions–influence students learning experiences in an Australian Faculty of Business and Economics. Qualitative data collection involved observations of eight classrooms over a semester, four focus groups with 21 students and interviews with six edu...

Academics around the world continue to demonstrate strength to overcome the initial hurdles of COVID-19. But resilient academics show sustained engagement despite the continuing changes and uncertainties during these ongoing challenging times. In this concluding chapter, we synthesise the key takeaways from each chapter – narratives that may suppor...

In this penultimate chapter, we link the key themes on academic resilience to the changing context of the academic workforce around the world. We provide provocations for individual academics and institutional leaders to reflect on the complexities of the academic landscape and academic identity regardless of contexts and adversities. We include in...

The pressures brought about by the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020 have amplified the significance of academic resilience and highlight the importance of a shared insights into academics' experiences. The responses to academic work within this context has received little research attention despite its universality during the pandemic. Failing to r...

The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly tested the resilience of academics in higher education. Many universities were severely affected by reduced student enrolment, with widespread job losses reported across universities. For many academics, the impact of the pandemic has been worrying, financially crippling and overwhelming. The virus has also expose...

Recent history has seen many schools shift from their original purpose of standardization and facts to focus on soft skills and global preparedness. The physical design of a school follows suit, shifting from identical classrooms and autonomous teachers to more collaborative shared spaces deemed 'innovative'. While those who formulate such schools...

The vocational experiences and skills of young adolescents could be infused into formal education by identifying career competencies to be taught within the academic curriculum. Such curriculum practices that embed educational and career pathways must also include the perspectives of students and the community, particularly those from marginalised...

The demands arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have amplified the importance of resilience not only for students, but also for academics. This narrative review examines a phenomenon which has received little research attention, despite its significance during the pandemic, namely the resilience of academics in higher education. We refer to this as...

This chapter places the preceding papers into a wider context. As part of the Innovative Learning Environment and Teacher Change (ILETC) project, seven Transitions symposia were held in five cities across Australasia, Europe and North America during 2017, 2018 and 2019. Each aimed at investigating how teachers adapt to innovative learning environme...

Supporting higher education participation across equity groups has long been a directed effort in global higher education practice and policy. However, to date, there has been little improvement in the rates of Australian higher education participation by equity groups such as regional/remote, low socioeconomic, and Indigenous Australian students....

The paper introduces and explores the Plans to Pedagogy research programme, a three-year project focused on teacher capacity-building within schools. Plans to Pedagogy engages practitioner-researchers in the development of their and their colleagues’ spatial learning skills as they move into and attempt to take advantage of innovative learning envi...

An increasing amount of scholarly literature exists that examines the relationship between students and universities, and their role in university governance and quality assurance of their higher education experiences. The traditional mechanisms for involving students in university governance – for example, through representation by student associa...

Significant investment in innovative learning environments (ILEs) around the world has created the need for a suite of reliable measures regarding their educational impact. Focusing specifically on principals’ perceptions of pedagogy and learning in a variety of spatial design types, this paper will argue the Space Design and Use survey contains te...

This article explores the characteristics of a successful transition of a school from traditional classrooms to an innovative learning environment. Many schools today are converting traditional classrooms into spaces which are flexible, supporting a wide array of teaching and learning possibilities (i.e. an ‘innovative learning environment’). These...

Purpose Medical education is an evidence-driven professional field that operates in an increasingly regulated environment as compared to other fields within universities. The purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which Porter’s five competitive forces framework (Porter, 2008) can drive the management of medical schools in Australia....

In recent years, there has been a marked increase in the number of new and refurbished building projects in the higher education sector. In Australia alone, public universities, of which there are 40 (TEQSA, 2017), owned $28 billion of building assets, with almost $2 billion being spent on construction in 2015 (Department of Education and Training,...

Aim The systematic review identified evidence that different learning environments (blended, innovative learning environment (ILE), open-plan and traditional) have an impact on student learning outcomes. There are significant methodological questions around the availability and viability of empirical evidence. This systematic review investigated ho...

Every research project begins with the wish to address a pressing need, and then hopefully transits into a well-resourced active project. ILETC has been fortunate in making the journey from discussions between a few academics, to a successful grant, to the establishment of an extraordinarily skilled and enthusiastic team operating across a number o...

Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs), celebrated by some for the ‘transformational’ educational opportunities they may provide, raise questions whether the anticipated pedagogical value of these ‘nontraditional’ spaces is based on idealised visions of teaching and learning rather than sound evidence. Before such complex issues can be efficiently...

Driven by international trends and government policy, it is a requirement for all newly built schools in New Zealand to be designed as innovative learning environments (ILEs) with flexible learning spaces. These environments, celebrated by some for the “transformational” educational opportunities they may provide, also raise questions about whether...

Since 2009 there has been increased interest in Australian universities’ ability to demonstrate that their students have acquired knowledge and skills as specified by them in the form of graduate attributes or institutional learning outcomes. This paper describes research undertaken in Australia to identify a comprehensive set of generalized learni...

The concept of strategy in non-profit higher education is a contested issue. It is argued that strategy, in the business sense, does not apply to a substantially public and more institutionalized sector such as higher education and is not achievable in complex, loosely coupled organizations such as universities. Additionally, strategy does not sit...

Key forces shaping higher education drive institutions to make strategic choices to locate themselves in niches where they can make use of their resources effectively and efficiently. However, the concepts of strategy and strategic positioning in higher education are contested issues due to the nature and complexity of the sector and the university...

Zusammenfassung. Die Einstellung zu Inklusiver Bildung wird in Forschungskontexten als ein wesentlicher Prädiktor für deren gelingende Realisierung im Bildungssystem beschrieben. Nationale und internationale Studien beziehen sich jedoch vorrangig auf Einstellungen von Personen, die im schulischen Kontext tätig sind. Ein deutschsprachiges Instrument...

The regulation of standards in higher education is a complex area of scholarship that intersects with several established and emergent fields including quality assurance, regulation, and legal theory, public policy, accreditation, audit, academic standards, transnational education, and the scholarship of higher education policy more generally. A dy...

Key forces shaping medical education drive medical schools to make strategic choices to locate themselves in niches where they can make use of their resources effectively and efficiently. However, the concepts of strategy in higher education are highly contested issues due to the nature and complexity of the sector and the university, more so for m...

The emergence of the concept of strategy in higher education can be traced to the late 1970s and 1980s as American universities, at that time, moved from a “managerial revolution” to an “enterprising evolution” (Thelin, 2004, p. 337). Rooted within the planning school of thought (Ansoff, 1965), higher education’s conception of strategy emphasised i...

Structured Abstract: Key forces shaping higher education drive institutions to make strategic choices to locate themselves in niches where they can make use of their resources effectively and efficiently. However, the concepts of strategy in higher education are highly contested issues due to the nature and complexity of the sector and the universi...

Quality assurance conventions are being challenged by emerging business scenarios with alluring economies. This paper analyses shaping contexts, resulting hybridised forms of higher education, and consequences for quality assurance. It devotes sustained attention to unpacking what, as a result of contemporary reconfigurations, would appear to be pr...

Assessing how students engage and what they know and can do are pressing change frontiers in contemporary higher education. This paper examines large-scale work that has sought to advance the capacity of higher education systems and institutions to engage students through to graduation and ensure they have capabilities required for future study or...

There is a good deal of consensus that institutional diversity in higher education is a good thing. Simply put, systems with more diverse institutions perform better than systems with less diverse institutions. Yet the overall diversity of Australia's higher education system remains unclear. Significant questions and opportunities remain unresolved...

The Multidimensional Attitudes toward Inclusive Education Scale (MATIES) was developed to effectively measure affective, cognitive and behavioural aspects of attitudes, within the realm of inclusive education that includes physical, social and curricular inclusion. Models within Item Response Theory and Classical Test Theory were used for calibrati...

The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) was administered to recent university graduates by Graduate Careers Australia (GCA) in order to obtain feedback about their perceptions of their course. Students were asked to rate the extent to which they agree with a series of 49 statements covering issues surrounding the education and support services pr...