Andrew Mcconney

Biography

Andrew is Associate Professor of Program Evaluation, Research Methods and Classroom Assessment in the School of Education at Murdoch University. Currently, Dr McConney teaches Policy Research & Evaluation (SWM516), Assessment & Action Research (BED200), and Learning and Assessment Processes (EDN545). Prior to joining Murdoch in 2006, Andrew was Associate Professor in the College of Education at Florida Gulf Coast University where he taught undergraduate assessment and action research and graduate educational research methods. Andrew has also been Associate Research Professor at Teaching Research Institute, Western Oregon University, where along with Mark Schalock and Bob Ayres, he led the development of the Evaluation and Research Group (ERGO), and the validation of Teacher Work Sample Methodology (TWSM). Before working in Oregon, Dr McConney directed the Cross-Cutting Theory Project of the national Center for Research on Educational Accountability and Teacher Evaluation (CREATE) at Western Michigan University’s Evaluation Center, under the leadership of Dan Stufflebeam and Arlen Gullickson. As an educational researcher and program evaluator, in Australia and the US, Andrew has directed or co‑directed numerous grants and contracts related to teacher education, teacher evaluation and teacher effectiveness, school system reform and improvement, and the evaluation of science, maths and environmental education programs. In addition to these ongoing interests, Andrew has been engaged in developing two additional programs of research over the last couple of years. The first, with Laura Perry, is the examination of relationships among student socioeconomic status (SES), school SES and student performance using secondary analysis of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) datasets. This work has attracted considerable interest from international colleagues and students, and was cited in David Gonski’s national review of funding for Australian schools. The second, with Amanda Woods‑McConney, Mary Oliver (Nottingham), Renato Schibeci, and Dorit Maor examines the factors associated with students’ science literacy and engagement in science, also using retrospective analysis of PISA data. This research has compared the factors related to literacy and engagement in science for indigenous and non-indigenous students in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Research Interest

His research interests currently span three areas: 1. the effectiveness of teacher education, including the assessment of programs, graduates and early career teachers. Recent projects in this area include: A Systematic Review of the Literature surrounding Fast Track Schemes in Teacher Education, with particular focus on Teach for All (2011) for New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association (NZ PPTA), with Anne Price and Amanda Woods-McConney. Available at http://www.ppta.org.nz/index.php/resources/publication-list/2142-fast-track-teach-2012-litrev and at http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED529919.pdf Keeping Cool: Embedding Resiliency in the Initial Teacher Education Curriculum (2009—2011) supported by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC, Priority Projects; Dr C Mansfield & Dr A Price, project leaders (see http://www.keepingcool.edu.au/ ) 2. the evaluation of science, maths and environmental education programs, typically using mixed‑method approaches. Recent projects in this area include: Review of the use of technology in Mathematics education and the related use of CAS calculators in external examinations and in post school tertiary education settings (2015) with Barry Kissane & Kai Fai Ho, for Western Australia’s School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA) ISBN 978 0 7307 2843 6 External Evaluation of Maths by Email (2010) for Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) with Barry Kissane. Available at http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED523870.pdf External Evaluation of a Pilot Mentoring Program for Beginning Science and Mathematics Teachers (2008-09) for the University of Western Australia and WA Department of Industry and Resources with Dorit Maor. Available at http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED505169.pdf 3. the secondary analysis of large-scale datasets to inform educational policy and practice. Recent work in this area includes: retrospective analysis of PISA data to better understand cross-cultural patterns of science literacy and engagement in science for students in Australia,New Zealand and Canada, for example, Woods McConney, A., Oliver, M., McConney, A., Maor, D., & Schibeci, R. (2011). Science Engagement and Literacy: A Retrospective Analysis for Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Students in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. Research in Science Education. Online First http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11165-011-9265-y secondary analysis of PISA data to better understand cross-national patterns of achievement related to student and school SES, and with particular focus on issues of equity in Australian schools, for example, McConney, A. & Perry, L. (2010). Science and Mathematics Achievement in Australia: The Role of School Socioeconomic Composition in Educational Equity and Effectiveness. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, Vol. 8, Issue 3, 429 – 452. Online First http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10763-010-9197-4