Dr Gavin T L Brown

Dr Gavin T L Brown Senior Lecturer Research Methodology School of Teaching, Learning and Development	telephone	:	+64 9 623 8899 ext. 83042
	fax	:	n/a
	office	:	H102
	email	:	gt.brown@auckland.ac.nz
	website	:	Gavin Brown's website from Art

Teaching Area/Interests

Assessment-EDUC224/225
Research Methodology-EDUC 380, 774, 768
Conceptions in Education-EDUC315
Intelligence-EDUC113

Research Interests (area & methodologies)

My research is in educational psychology focused on measuring academic performance and on investigating how assessment is perceived by students and teachers. Specifically, I seek to determine, for both teachers and students, how their thinking about and practices of assessment are linked to increased academic performance. My research applies large-scale surveys and structural equation modeling techniques to teacher and student thinking research which has previously relied on small-scale case studies and qualitative interpretations.

I am interested in how these constructs differ across different cultures and am currently collaborating with researchers or post-graduate students in Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Mexico, Israel, and Hong Kong.

Graduate Student Research Supervision

I am especially interested in students who are willing to undertake a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research around teachers' and/or students' thinking about and practices of assessment and the impact of those conceptions and practices on educational outcomes for students.

Specifically, these questions are of interest:

How do teachers' conceptions of assessment relate to their assessment practices in classrooms?
How do students' conceptions of assessment relate to their practices around assessment?
What kinds of assessments do teachers use and how do they use those assessments?
What effect do the different assessment practices of teachers and students have on student outcomes and achievement?
How systematic is the relation of conceptions to practices and outcomes?

These topics involve qualitative studies into teachers' assessment beliefs and practices. Hypotheses developed from such research would need larger-scale testing through surveys, or other quantitative studies to establish the robustness of findings. So if you are interested in doing and learning about mixed-methods research and learning the basics of inferential multivariate statistics, please contact me about possible supervision.

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Professional Links

Member, Editorial Advisory Board, set: Research Information for Teachers, 2006—2008.
Member, Editorial Advisory Board—Asia-Pacific Region, Assessment in Education: Policy, Principles and Practice, 2006—2009
Member, New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE), 1997 to date
International Affiliate, International Reading Association (IRA), 1998 to date
International Affiliate, American Educational Research Association (AERA), 2001 to date
International Affiliate, National Council for Measurement in Education (NCME), 2001 to date
International Affiliate, American Psychological Association (APA), 2006 to date
Member, International Test Commission (ITC), 2002 to date
Member, Association of University Staff (AUS), 1997 to date

University Committees served on

Member, Research Committee, School of Teaching, Learning & Development, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, 2006—2008
Member, Workload Working Party, School of Teaching, Learning & Development, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, 2006
Member, Faculty Information Technology Committee, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, 2004—2007

Qualifications / Degrees

PHD - University of Auckland
MEd - Massey University
BEd (TESL) - Concordia, Montreal
Registered Teacher 1986 ~ 1996 practicing - New Zealand

Previous professional experience (prior to present position)

Senior project manager. Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning, School of Education, University of Auckland
Researcher. New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Wellington,
Teacher & Dean ESOL Students, Waitakere College, Auckland
Director of Studies, Massey University English Language Centre (MUELC), Auckland
Assistant Head English, Tangaroa College, Otara, Auckland
Teacher & Head Language Support, De La Salle College, Mangere, Auckland

Other information, interests or things that drive you

Curling, writing for publication

Links to other web sites

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