Abstract:
With some reference to Foucault, the paper will explore the relationship between applied educational research and educational change and development by taking several key research reports published by Queensland's Board of Senior Secondary School Studies and tracing the development and outcomes of these papers for quality and equity in senior secondary schooling: The first national guidelines for assessment quality and equity in assessment produced in Queensland for the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Certification Authorities (ACACA) as part of a DEETYA funded project. A key Queensland study of certification of the achievements of students with disabilities that provides an analysis of practices in eight Australian states and at least fourteen countries based on first hand information from systems as diverse as Fiji, Singapore, America, and Germany, as well as strategies for removing barriers to the certification of students with disabilities. A key study of how gender is represented in school developed assessment instruments that provides the results of a scan by 65 teachers of 118 randomly sampled sets of assessment instruments drawn from 95 schools and 10 subjects. The paper will identify specific techniques of applied research in these papers, raising key questions about whether and to what extent these can and have been techniques for achieving change and development at the national and Queensland state level.