Research Conferences
Keynote Speakers
Professor Geoff Masters
Geoff Masters is CEO of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Immediate Past President of the Australian College of Educators and a member of the UNESCO National Commission in Australia. For more than 20 years, Professor Masters has been an international leader in developing better measures of educational outcomes. He has chaired the IEA Technical Advisory Committee for the introduction of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS); chaired the initial OECD PISA International Technical Advisory Group; directed the only national survey of Australian primary school literacy levels; and worked with all Australian states and territories to introduce statewide testing programs in literacy and numeracy. In 2005-06 he undertook an investigation of options for the introduction of an Australian Certificate of Education on behalf of the Australian Government.
Dr Helen Wildy
Dr Helen Wildy is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education at The University of Western Australia. Formerly a Mathematics teacher she taught in government and independent schools in Western Australia and Victoria. She currently conducts research and supervises doctoral and Masters students in a range of leadership and school improvement topics. She has been chief investigator or co-chief investigator in research projects worth more than $4m since 2000. Her academic papers are published widely in refereed national and international journals. For the past 9 years she has worked with school sectors in Western Australia on projects to present national assessment data in formats that are accessible to school leaders and teachers. She is Director of Performance Indicators for Primary Schools (PIPS) Australia, a literacy and numeracy assessment program for students entering school, used by over 800 schools in all Australian states and territories.
Dr Margaret Forster
Dr Margaret Forster is the Research Director of the Assessment and Reporting Research Program at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
Dr Forster has extensive experience in the area of assessment and reporting and works as a consultant nationally and internationally. She has direct experience in the development of support materials for teachers, and policy makers. She conceptualised and co-authored the first Developmental Assessment Resource for Teachers (DART English Upper Primary), and is co-author of the ACER Attitudes and Values Questionnaire, and the Assessment Resource Kit (ARK) materials. She wrote the introductory overview to the Discovering Democracy Assessment Resources, and prepared the introductory materials for the Curriculum and Standards Framework II information kit that was distributed to all schools in Victoria (Progress Maps: A Teacher's Handbook).
Dr Forster has a particular research interest in the collection and use of achievement data to improve learning. She co-directed the National School English Literacy Survey (NSELS) and co-authored the NSELS report. She has written a number of general research based publications on the reporting of student achievement including A Policy Maker's Guide to International Achievement Studies, and A Policy Maker's Guide to Systemwide Assessment Programs.
Recent national consultancies on the revision and implementation of assessment and reporting frameworks include work with the Western Australian Curriculum Council, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and Education Queensland. Recent international consultancies include work for The World Bank in India, for the Peruvian Ministry of Education, for AusAID in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, for UNICEF, for the Scottish Executive, and for the Hong Kong Curriculum Development Institute.
Professor Patrik Scheinin
Patrik Scheinin is a Professor of Education and the dean and former vice dean of the Faculty of Behavioural Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Among other administrative tasks he is vice chair of the Board of the Open University of Helsinki, board member of the Helsinki Area Summer University, vice chair of the Central Campus Library Committee of the University of Helsinki, and a former vice director of the Department of Education. He received the University of Helsinki Scholarship for Especially Talented Young Researchers for two three-year periods 1986 and again 1989.
Scheinin is vice director and a founding member of the Centre for Educational Assessment, member of the steering group of the Finnish PISA Project, and is a former board member of the Helsinki University Collegium for Advanced Studies. He is an expert and referee for several scientific journals, foundations, and conferences, and has been scientific expert for projects of the Finnish National Board of Education, as well as of the Swedish National Agency for Education. He is a member of several national and international research associations.
His research interests are cognitive abilities and thinking skill, self-concept and self-esteem, their structure and development, educational interventions promoting development of cognitive abilities and personality, educational assessment and evaluation research, as well as teaching and learning in higher education.
