Deakin University Postgraduate Research (DUPR) scholarship applications with CRADLE are now closed
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Scholarships are available annually for projects that align with CRADLE’s research themes and our current programs of research.
If you’re a domestic or international student specifically interested in the areas of assessment and/or digital learning, you can apply for a scholarship to undertake your research with CRADLE. The successful applicant will work on a project that considers assessment and/or digital learning in higher education, and will contribute evidence to inform assessment research, policy, and practice. We welcome applications that align to CRADLE’s research themes, and encourage applicants to consult our list of prospective topics.
Who can apply for the scholarship?
Scholarship applications are open to domestic and international students (international candidates must already be in Australia or be able to gain a visa and travel to Melbourne by May 2025). To be competitive for a scholarship you should already have an H1, first class, or 80%+ grade in your previous studies, especially in the research thesis component, or equivalent demonstrated high quality research experience. The scholarship will be awarded on a full-time basis based at CRADLE’s Melbourne CBD location, Deakin Downtown.
How does the application process work?
If you are interested in studying with CRADLE, you must apply via the Higher Degree by Research Application Form. This requires the development of an original research proposal, which should be aligned with CRADLE’s research themes. You should contact the relevant CRADLE supervisor directly with a draft of your proposal prior to submitting the application, and to discuss your eligibility and competitiveness for a scholarship.
CRADLE’s research program seeks to establish what works to improve learning in higher and professional education. Our current programs of research include:
The digital world and its impact on learning and teaching
Feedback and feedback practices
Learning in and for the workplace
Evaluative judgement
Assessment security and academic integrity
Inclusion and belonging in a digital world
Representation in and beyond assessment
Throughout this research we use cross-cutting approaches, including innovative methodological and theoretical approaches and knowledge transition.
Potential Research Topics
As part of the application process, prospective students must develop an original research proposal. Below is an overview of current CRADLE areas of focus, potential supervisors, and recent CRADLE publication(s) on those topics to illustrate the potential scope of work. We would expect a prospective candidate to develop their proposal taking one of these topics as a starting point, then share it with prospective supervisors prior to the application submission.
Effective feedback for learning – including feedback literacy
Potential supervisors: David Boud, Phillip Dawson, Juuso Nieminen
Feedback can have a positive impact on learning, but what makes for effective feedback? Beyond participating in well-designed feedback processes, students may need to develop particular strategies in how they approach feedback so that it has an impact on their learning, now and into the future. A project could focus on feedback literacy interventions, or feedback designs, including digitally mediated feedback and peer feedback.
Dawson, P., Yan, Z., Lipnevich, A., Tai, J., Boud, D., & Mahoney, P. (2024). Measuring what learners do in feedback: the feedback literacy behaviour scale. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 49(3), 348-362. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2240983
The implications of generative Artificial Intelligence for assessment and feedback in higher education
Potential supervisors: Phillip Dawson, Margaret Bearman
Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) has disrupted previous ways of thinking about the purposes and designs of assessment and feedback in higher education. There is a need for the close study of what educators and students do in response to this. Students interested in this project would be joining a larger team investigating how genAI interacts with assessment and could take a focus on educators or students.
Academic integrity and assessment security in online assessment
Potential supervisors: Phillip Dawson
As assessment has rapidly shifted online, and artificial intelligence has increased in its capabilities, many educators have expressed concerns about cheating. A range of assessment designs and technologies have been deployed in response. This project involves an investigation of the effectiveness of those approaches at addressing cheating (if it really is cheating), as well as their potential harms and benefits.
Dawson, P., Nicola-Richmond, K., & Partridge, H. (2024). Beyond open book versus closed book: a taxonomy of restrictions in online examinations, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 49(2), 262-274. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2209298
Developing evaluative judgement
Potential supervisors: David Boud, Margaret Bearman
The capability to judge the quality of work of self and others is an important part of becoming a capable professional practitioner and should be intentionally developed during university studies rather than being left up to chance. How can learners be better supported to develop the ability to make judgements about their own learning? How can it be fostered in different contexts? How does it develop over time? This project might take a particular disciplinary or contextual focus to address these questions.
Tai, J., Ajjawi, R., Boud, D., Dawson, P., & Panadero, E. (2018). Developing evaluative judgement: enabling students to make decisions about the quality of work. Higher Education 76, 467–481. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0220-3
Fischer, J., Bearman, M., Boud, D., & Tai, J. (2024). How does assessment drive learning? A focus on students’ development of evaluative judgement, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education49(2), 233-245. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2206986
The role of the social world in feedback and assessment (e.g. culture, relationships, emotions, and power)
Potential supervisors: Margaret Bearman, Juuso Nieminen
Beyond the cognitive, there are significant emotional, social, and material influences on the way that feedback and assessment unfolds in the world, and shapes who learners might become. How might this change what learners, teachers or institutions do? This project offers the opportunity to research assessment or feedback as a cultural, social or sociomaterial practice.
Bearman, M., Ajjawi, R., Castanelli, D., et al. (2023). Meaning making about performance: A comparison of two specialty feedback cultures. Medical Education 57(11), 1010–1019. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.15118
The role of the social world in feedback and assessment (e.g. culture, relationships, emotions, and power)
Potential supervisors: Margaret Bearman, Juuso Nieminen
Beyond the cognitive, there are significant emotional, social, and material influences on the way that feedback and assessment unfolds in the world, and shapes who learners might become. How might this change what learners, teachers or institutions do? This project offers the opportunity to research assessment or feedback as a cultural, social or sociomaterial practice.
Bearman, M., Ajjawi, R., Castanelli, D., et al. (2023). Meaning making about performance: A comparison of two specialty feedback cultures. Medical Education 57(11), 1010–1019. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.15118
New knowledge practices in a time of artificial intelligence
Potential supervisor: Margaret Bearman
Workplaces are increasingly mediated by big data, analytics and artificial intelligence. This has implications for universities and for learning-on-the-job. How do we navigate a world with new kinds of knowledge practices? This project could investigate learning practices across the continuum of higher and professional education.
Bearman, M., Ajjawi, R. (2023). Learning to work with the black box: Pedagogy for a world with artificial intelligence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 54, 1160–1173. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13337
The longer-term effects of assessment and feedback: student identities, being and becoming
Potential supervisor: Juuso Nieminen
Assessment and feedback are commonly portrayed as influential factors for student learning, but they also have longer-term effects beyond immediate learning outcomes. Assessment also influences students’ developing professional identities over time. How could we better understand how student identities are influenced by assessment? How could we design assessment that better considers the long-term processes of professional identity development? This project could explore these questions empirically, particularly through longitudinal approaches.
The use of traditional course/unit grades in higher education has been criticised in scholarly work at least for a century. Grades have been claimed to drive student learning; they have been called inaccurate and ineffective; and they have been connected to neoliberal and performative values. More recently, there has been criticism that they don’t portray the achievement of learning outcomes and that they are inappropriately aggregated into Grade Point Averages. So far, the criticism of grading has not led to change in the representation of student achievement on a wide scale. This project could consider the empirical effects of alternative forms of reporting outcomes of learning, or new theoretical approaches for thinking about portrayal of performance.
Ajjawi, R., & Boud, D. (2023). Changing representations of student achievement: The need for innovation. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 61(3), 597–607. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2023.2192513
Stipend of $34,400 per annum tax exempt (2024 DUPR rate).
Top-up stipend of $5,000 per annum tax exempt for a CRADLE candidate.
Relocation allowance of $500-1500 (for single to family) for students moving from interstate or overseas.
International candidates only: Tuition fees offset for the duration of 4 years. Single Overseas Student Health Cover policy for the duration of the student visa.
Eligibility Criteria
Be either a domestic or international candidate (Domestic includes candidates with Australian Citizenship, Australian Permanent Residency or New Zealand Citizenship).
International candidates: must already be in Australia or be able to gain a visa and travel to Melbourne by May 2025.
Meet Deakin’s research degree entry pathways scholarship requirements, including holding an honours degree (first class) or an equivalent standard master’s degree with a substantial research component.
Be enrolling to study full time.
How to Apply
If you are interested in studying with CRADLE, you must apply via the Higher Degree by Research Application Form when applications are open. This requires the development of an original research proposal, which should be aligned with CRADLE’s research themes. You should contact the relevant supervisor directly with a draft of your proposal prior to submitting the EOI, and to discuss your eligibility and competitiveness for a scholarship.
Subscribe to our blog to find out when applications are open again
Deakin Business School, Faculty of Business and Law
Project: Evidencing learning outcomes a multi level multidimensional course alignment model
Paige Mahoney
Paige Mahoney is a Research Fellow at CRADLE. She holds a first-class honours degree in Professional and Creative Writing and History.
Paige has worked on a range of research projects examining pedagogical and professional issues in higher education, including sessional academic staff, assessment feedback, inclusive pedagogies, and academic identity. Her own research explores the complex intersections between history and fiction, gender and memory, and regional and national identities.
Project: Masks on or off? Are workplace-based assessments a tool for professional identity development or a setting for identity dissonance, for neurodivergent medical students?
Jack Walton
Jack Walton is a Research Fellow within CRADLE. He holds a Bachelor of Music, and his PhD developed a theorisation of assessment in university music education.
His main research interests include assessment, judgement, and creative practice.
Laura Hughes
Dr Laura Hughes is an Associate Research Fellow and has a background in biomedical sciences, psychology and addictions.
Nicole Crawford is a Senior Research Fellow, currently working on several research projects at CRADLE. She was an Equity Fellow at the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) and an educator in pre-degree programs at the University of Tasmania.
Nicole’s research interests include equity and inclusion in higher education, student and staff mental wellbeing, and enabling education.
Thomas Corbin
Dr Thomas Corbin is a Research Fellow and has recently joined the CRADLE team from Macquarie University, where he was a lecturer in the Philosophy Department.
His main research focus is on Education and Assessment Design at the intersection of Generative Artificial Intelligence and Work. In his spare time, he conducts research on Australian species of Cicada.
Professor Boud is also Emeritus Professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Professor of Work and Learning at Middlesex University. He is Australia’s most internationally renowned educational researcher in higher education. He is a global leader in the fields of higher education, workplace learning, and assessment and feedback.
His work is used both by researchers and scholars committed to the development of teaching and learning and he has changed the foundations of assessment practice through pioneering research and development.
Margaret Bearman
Professor Margaret Bearman is CRADLE’s Professor of Research. Margaret holds a first class honours degree in computer science and a PhD in medical education.
Margaret’s interests are broad ranging and include assessment in university education, feedback in healthcare contexts, simulation and learning in a digital world.
Recognition for her work includes Program Innovation awards from the Australian Office of Learning and Teaching and Simulation Australasia.
Joanna Tai
Dr Joanna Tai is a Senior Research Fellow and has a background in higher and health professions education.
Joanna’s research interests include student perspectives on learning and assessment from university to the workplace, peer-assisted learning, feedback, assessment literacy, developing capacity for evaluative judgement and research synthesis.
Kevin Dullaghan
Kevin Dullaghan is an Associate Research Fellow with CRADLE. Kevin assists the team with their research and manages the CRADLE Blog, website, and newsletter.
Kevin is interested in all areas of higher education research, particularly conducting surveys and interviews, identifying trends, and managing data. He first started with CRADLE looking into the murky world of contract cheating.
Jaclyn Broadbent
Associate Professor Jaclyn Broadbent is Pro-Vice Chancellor Sessional Academic Experience, Deputy Head of School in Psychology and a member of CRADLE. Jaclyn’s background is multidisciplinary, with PhDs in Psychology (2011) and Education (2021).
Jaclyn’s leadership has been acknowledged through prestigious awards for innovative teaching practices, including Deakin Teacher of the Year (twice), an AAUT Teaching Excellence Award, and a Citation.
Jaclyn’s research focuses on online self-regulated learning as well as the development, evaluation, and translation of effective online teaching strategies to ensure student success.
Project: Co-designing effective feedback: working with students and academics as collaborators to purposefully design feedback from clinical assessment
School of Health and Social Development, Faculty of Health
Project: How international students enrolled in a Masters program in the School of Health and Social Development engage with Deakin’s mode of delivery, assessment, and feedback
School of Health and Social Development, Faculty of Health
Project: Identifying barriers to assessment completion and submission as well as investigating solutions
Mollie Dollinger
Dr Mollie Dollinger is a Senior Lecturer in Learning Design at DLF and researches with CRADLE.
Mollie’s research interests include student equity and inclusion, student voice and graduate employability.
Helen Walker
Dr Helen Walker is CRADLE’s Research Manager. Helen assists the team with their research as well as manages CRADLE’s popular Seminar Series, International Symposia, and publications.
Rola Ajjawi
Professor Rola Ajjawi has a Bachelor’s Honours Degree in Physiotherapy and worked as a physiotherapist and clinical educator before moving into academia full-time.
Rola conducts research into work-integrated learning, assessment and feedback, evaluative judgement, professional identity formation, and student engagement, failure and persistence. Rola is one of the top Australian researchers in these fields.
Rola is Deputy Editor of the journal Medical Education and on the editorial board of Teaching in Higher Education.
Professor Dawson holds a PhD in Higher Education and a first-class honours degree in Computer Science. He also has over a decade of university teaching experience and he has been awarded four university-level teaching awards and a citation from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.
Phill researches assessment in higher education, focusing on feedback and cheating, predominantly in digital learning contexts. His 2021 book Defending Assessment Security in a Digital World explores how cheating is changing and what educators can do about it.
