This project is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project scheme. Nationally and internationally, there is a growing demand to engage students in scientific thinking and build their creative problem-solving capabilities through evidence-based teaching strategies. This project is addressing the challenge by (1) identifying students’ creative thinking from their science diagrams and their interaction with peers; (2) devising and evaluating teaching strategies to support students’ creative scientific thinking. The PhD students will work with secondary school science teachers to develop teaching materials, video-record classroom interactions, conduct interviews, analyse class videos and diagrams, write a doctoral thesis, and contribute to writing peer-reviewed journal articles.
The successful PhD students will be supervised by a team of experienced science education researchers (Dr Mihye Won, Professor David F. Treagust, and Dr Kok-Sing Tang) from the STEM Education Research Group (formerly Science and Mathematics Education Centre—SMEC) at Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
Candidates for these PhD scholarships are expected to:
• Hold an undergraduate degree with honours or a master degree in science education at a high level of academic achievement;
• Demonstrate an aptitude for research through their analytical skills and creative thinking;
• Be able to work in a team setting and take responsibility for their individual tasks;
• Be experienced in the use of digital technology and software packages;
• Possess excellent spoken and written communications skills that may be evidenced, for example, through their undergraduate thesis/project work and presentations given; and
• Practise well-developed time- and self-management skills with strong personal discipline and drive in their work.
Value: This scholarship covers the tuition fees [$36,400/year] and the living stipend [$27,082/year] for three years.
Interested applicants should contact Dr Mihye Won, (mihye.won@curtin.edu.au, +61-8-9266-4074) with their CV and transcripts. Shortlisted applicants will be contacted to apply for admission via Curtin online e-application: http://futurestudents.curtin.edu.au/postgraduates-research/future-research-students/admission-overview. Scholarship is subject to approval of admission at Curtin in the HDR course.
Applications can be made from February 1st 2018 and will remain open until the positions are filled. For full consideration, please submit the application by March 1st 2018.
