Personal details
- Name
- Professor Susan Walker
- Position(s)
- Professor
Faculty of Education,
School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education - Discipline *
- Education Systems, Specialist Studies in Education
- Phone
- +61 7 3138 3195
- sue.walker@qut.edu.au
- Location
- View location details (QUT staff and student access only)
- Identifiers and profiles
-
- Qualifications
-
PhD (Queensland University of Technology), MEd(Research) (Queensland University of Technology), BEd(Hons) (Queensland University of Technology)
- Professional memberships
and associations - Australasian Human Development Association (AHDA)
- International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development (ISSBD)
- Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
- European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA);
- Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY)
- Early Childhood Australia (ECA)
- European Association of Developmental Psychology (EADP)
- European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction (EARLI)
- Keywords
-
Child Development, CCC, Early Childhood Education, Epistemic Beliefs, Inclusive Education, Executive Function, Teacher Education, SELB, Transition To School, TEPL
Biography
Dr Sue Walker is a Professor within the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at QUT. Her research interests concern children’s developmental outcomes and the role of early intervention in early childhood. In the past ten years, Dr Walker’s research teams have attracted over $1.6m in research funding. Funding has included ARC Discovery grants (DP0880000, DP0877587, DP130102136, DP160100319), an ARC Linkage grant for $214,857 (LP150100279) and a Financial Markets Foundation for Children Grant worth $125,175 (“Whose behaviour is and is not managed in the early years of school, why and with what effects?”).
Dr Walker is currently leading an ARC Linkage Project “Enhancing executive function through imaginary play” with Professor Marilyn Fleer and Associate Professor Nikolay Veresov (Monash University) and partners Gowrie Queensland and Department of Education and Training Victoria. The aim of this project is to develop a sustainable play based program designed to enhance children’s developing executive function in the year prior to formal schooling.
Dr Walker has extensive expertise in survey methodology and quantitative data analysis and particular expertise in working with large longitudinal data sets (through her work with Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children). Past and current research projects include:
- Which children develop severely disruptive school behaviour? (ARC Discovery Project) with Professor Linda Graham and Dr Sonia White (QUT), Professor Pamela Snow (La Trobe Rural Health School), Dr Kathy Cologon (Macquarie University) and Professor Robert Pianta (University of Virginia).
- Changing relationships between children’s moral reasoning for inclusion and epistemic beliefs in early years primary school classrooms (ARC Discovery Project) with Professor Jo Lunn-Brownlee and Professor Donna Berthlesen (QUT) and Professor Eva Johansson (University of Stavanger)
- The Transition to School for Young Children with Developmental Disabilities: The Impact of Interpersonal Relationships on Successful School Adjustment (ARC Discovery Project) with Professor Donna Berthelsen and Professor Suzanne Carrington (QUT) and Professor Jan Nicholson (La Trobe University)
- Learning about social and moral values for active citizenship: Educational Policy and Practice in Early Education (ARC Discovery Project) with Professor Jo Lunn-Brownlee and Professor Gillian Boulton-Lewis (QUT), Dr Jo Ailwood (University of Newcastle) and Professor Eva Johnasson (University of Stavanger)
Dr Walker is a key researcher in the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism Spectrum Disorders (Autism CRC), which has received $31 million from the federal government for the next eight years. She is currently involved in two projects that have received funding within Program 2 (Education) of the Autism CRC: Longitudinal Study of Australian Students with Autism (LASA) and Transition Models of Practice.
Teaching
Dr Walker’s teaching includes post graduate supervision for Honours, Masters and Doctoral students with project foci including inclusive education, early intervention, parent involvement and Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Higher Degree Research student projects include:
- Teacher-child Relationship Quality for Young Children with Parent Reported Language Concerns
- The effectiveness of a short-term group music therapy intervention with young parents and their children
- Parent decisions regarding paid work and care of the child
- Mothers of Young Children with Special Needs: Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Relationships between Well-being and Engagement in Work
- Risk and resilience: School and family influences on the social adjustment and academic achievement of young Australian children
- Children with Special Health Care Needs – Academic and Social Adjustment in the Early Years
- Early non-parental child care in Australia: Quality of care, patterns of care and developmental outcomes for Australian children
Dr Walker also teaches in research methodology, specifically quantitative research methods.
Experience
I have made an international contribution in the area of early childhood development, including atypical development and children’s outcomes. This contribution has resulted in the publication of a scholarly book, five book chapters and over 50 journal articles published in high quality internationally respected journals. In the past ten years, I have been awarded (with colleagues) 4 Australian Research Council Discovery grants worth over $1.2M, an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant ($214,857) and a Financial Markets Foundation for Children Grant ($125,175). My research has had an impact on policy at both the State and Federal levels of Government. For example, my findings on the quality of the early home learning environment and children’s outcomes using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) informed the work of A Flying Start for Queensland Children (DET). In the ARC Discovery grant project, The Transition to School for Children with Developmental Disabilities (DP0877587, 2008-2011) we investigated the transition to school of young children with high support needs. Three cohorts of children, aged 4 to 6 years, were recruited from Early Childhood Developmental Programs (ECDPs) of Education Queensland. Each cohort was tracked for 3 years in mainstream schools. The longitudinal sequential design enabled the study of individual change in child adjustment to school across the timeframe of the study to be explored and inter-individual difference (between cohorts) to be analysed. The findings from this project have been cited by the Queensland Commission for Children and Young People in their advice to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations regarding the review of Disability Standards for Education (21/4/11) demonstrating impact on educational policy.
Publications
- Lunn J, Johansson EM, Walker S, Scholes LJ, (2017) Teaching for active citizenship: Moral values and personal epistemology in early years classrooms (Routledge Research in Early Childhood Education) p1-142
- Mergler AG, Walker S, (2017) 'This is possibly the hardest decision a parent has to make.' Deciding when your child is ready to start prep, Australasian Journal of Early Childhood p97-104
- Scholes LJ, Lunn J, Walker S, Johansson EM, (2017) Changes in children's reasoning about the social inclusion of aggressive children over the early years of elementary school, International Journal of Inclusive Education p991-1010
- Walker S, Berthelsen D, (2017) Gender differences in early literacy and mathematics achievement and self-regulatory behaviours in the first year of school: An Australian study, Australasian Journal of Early Childhood p70-78
- Fleer M, Veresov N, Walker S, (2017) Re-conceptualizing executive functions as social activity in children's playworlds, Learning Culture and Social Interaction p1-11
- Lunn J, Schraw G, Walker S, Ryan ME, (2016) Changes in preservice teachers' personal epistemologies, Handbook of epistemic cognition p300-317
- Lunn J, Scholes LJ, Walker S, Johansson EM, (2016) Critical values education in the early years: Alignment of teachers' personal epistemologies and practices for active citizenship, Teaching and Teacher Education p261-273
- McLeod S, Harrison L, Whiteford CM, Walker S, (2016) Multilingualism and speech-language competence in early childhood: Impact on academic and social-emotional outcomes at school, Early Childhood Research Quarterly p53-66
- Carrington S, Berthelsen D, Nickerson JA, Nicholson JM, Walker S, Meldrum KL, (2016) Teachers' experiences of inclusion of children with developmental disabilities across the early years of school, Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools p139-154
- Lunn J, Walker S, Mascadri JA, (2015) Personal epistemologies and teaching, International handbook of research on teachers' beliefs p319-335
For more publications by this staff member, visit QUT ePrints, the University's research repository.
Awards
Awards and recognition
- Type
- Editorial Role for an Academic Journal
- Reference year
- 2016
- Details
- Member of the Editorial Board Pakistan Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation (PJERE)
- Type
- Editorial Role for an Academic Journal
- Reference year
- 2016
- Details
- Member of the Editorial Board Australian Educational Researcher
- Type
- Committee Role/Editor or Chair of an Academic Conference
- Reference year
- 2010
- Details
- Invited reviewer for the scientific programs of the 2007, 2009 and 2011 Biennial Conference for Society for Research in Child Development. SRCD is the largest and most prestigious professional association for developmental and related research
- Type
- Committee Role/Editor or Chair of an Academic Conference
- Reference year
- 2010
- Details
- Secretary of the Australasian Human Development Association
- Type
- Editorial Role for an Academic Journal
- Reference year
- 2010
- Details
- Invited reviewing in the fields of social development and inclusion for national and international journals including Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood and the Australian Journal of Early Childhood, Australian Journal for Developmental and Educational Psychology, International Journal of Early Childhood
- Type
- Membership of Learned Societies
- Reference year
- 2010
- Details
- Member of the Society for Research in Child Development, International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, Australasian Human Development Association, European Early Childhood Education Research Association, European Society for Developmental Psychology and Early Childhood Australia
Research projects
Grants and projects (Category 1: Australian Competitive Grants only)
- Title
- Building Executive Function in Imaginary Play
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP150100279
- Start year
- 2016
- Keywords
- Title
- Which Children Develop Severely Disruptive School Behaviour?
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- DP160100319
- Start year
- 2016
- Keywords
- Title
- Changing relationships between children's moral reasoning for inclusion and epistemic beliefs in early years primary school classrooms
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- DP130102136
- Start year
- 2013
- Keywords
- epistemic beliefs; values education; children's reasoning
- Title
- Whose behaviour is and is not managed in the early years of school, why and with what effects?
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- 2013-030
- Start year
- 2013
- Keywords
- Disruptive Behaviour; Inclusive Education; Learning Support; Mixed-Methods; Teacher-Student Relationships
- Title
- Learning about Social and Moral Values for Active Citizenship: Educational Policy and Practice in Early Education
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- DP0880000
- Start year
- 2008
- Keywords
- Active Citizenship; Inclusion; Early Education; Pedagogy; Epistemological Beliefs; Values Education;
- Title
- The Transition to School for Young Children with Developmental Disabilities: The Impact of Interpersonal Relationships on Successful School Adjustment
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- DP0877587
- Start year
- 2008
- Keywords
- Transition to School; Disability; Early Childhood; Inclusion; School Adjustment; School Engagement;
Supervision
Current supervisions
- DEVELOPMENT, IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION OF A PARENTING INTERVENTION TO PROMOTE MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTION IN UNDERPRIVILEGED FAMILIES IN BANGLADESH
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Linda Gilmore - Enhancing secondary students' self-efficacy in English
MPhil, Mentoring Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Kate Williams - Visual Narrative and Mind Representation: Using Theory of Mind to Analyze the Visual Narrative in Picture Books
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Emeritus Professor Kerry Mallan
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- Early Childhood Educators' Intercultural Competence: A Multiple Case Study through the Lens of Self-Authorship (2016)
- Continuity and Change in Family Engagement in Home Learning Activities across the Early Years (2015)
- Early child care in Australia: Quality of care, experiences of care and developmental outcomes for Australian children (2015)
- An Examination of Saudi High School Teachers' ICT Knowledge and Implementation (2014)
- Family Structure and Change Through Middle Childhood: The Impact on Children's Adjustment and Achievement (2014)
- Self-regulation from Birth to Age Seven: Associations with Maternal Mental Health, Parenting, and Social, Emotional and Behavioural Outcomes for Children (2014)
- The role of motivation and motivational strategies in Saudi students' communicative competence in English (2013)
- Mothers of Young Children with Special Health Care Needs: Maternal Well-being and Engagement in Work (2012)
- Supporting Children's Language and Literacy Skills: The Effectiveness of Shared Book Reading Intervention Strategies with Parents (2012)