BEc, GDipPsych, MAppPsych, PhD
Senior Lecturer, School of Education and Professional Studies
Cluster leader, Special Education
Convenor, Bachelor of Education - Special Education
Profile page for Dr Mike Davies
Research expertise
Dr Mike Davies has established a strong research profile within interconnecting research themes of transitions, stress and coping, social skills, and inclusive practices. His lifetime summary of research includes 51 publications. He has published six refereed journal articles (two in top Special Education journals) six book chapters (two as sole author and one in an international handbook published by Springer NY), along with 20 refereed conference publications. His work has been presented to academic and practitioner communities through 31 conference presentations at 21 academic conferences (10 at five overseas conferences; and 21 at 16 Australian conferences). He was invited to present three keynote addresses and two invited addresses at national and overseas conferences as well as being invited to serve on an international quality review panel to King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and twice to serve as a member on panel reviews for the Queensland Office of Higher Education. He was also invited to serve as a research consultant at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Indonesia.
He has had success with two competitive external grants with funding totalling $203 000, and eight competitive internal grants totalling $62 700. Published outcomes were achieved from all but one completed grant. He has been invited to be a collaborative research partner on a 5-year research project at Rutgers University, New Jersey. He is leading an application for an ARC Linkage Grant with US partner investigators for November 2012 submission with a further grant application involving fathers of young children with autism planned for 2013.
He has supervised twenty higher degree research students, with ten completions: two PhDs; two EdDs; one MPhil; and five Honours (all First Class). He is currently supervising six PhD candidates, two EdD candidates, and two Masters candidates.
His doctoral studies focused on research on adjustment to change and transition, and psychological well-being and coping, particularly on coping with the multiple transitions of relocation (sea/tree change) after retirement. More recently he was involved with other Griffith colleagues in a statewide review of transition to post-school options for students with a disability for Education Queensland- Quality Outcomes for Students with a Disability. From this research, one article investigated stress and adjustment of parents of young people with disabilities transitioning to post-school options, while another benchmarked teacher practice. He is currently leading a team of researchers investigating stress and coping of families, especially fathers, with young children with autism. His research on social skills as an academic enabler has been conducted with US colleagues from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee that is leading to a project to evaluate social skills development programs for primary students and their impact on NAPLAN achievement results for students.
His interest in inclusive practices initially focused on how to help schools to become more inclusive by developing a self-assessment tool for schools to conduct self review and any associated change. Currently Mike is researching the lack of participation of students with additional needs in NAPLAN. His research on the gap between espoused policy of inclusion for students with disabilities and a lack of access to NAPLAN assessments has been published in a recent book chapter. An application for a grant for further research aims to demonstrate the application of a range of cutting edge US practices that can be applied to increase inclusivity of the NAPLAN testing regime. With Professor Elliott of Arizona State University, he has been appointed as a guest co-editor of a special March 2012 issue on 'Inclusive Assessment and Accountability: Policy to Evidenced-Based Practices' for the International Journal of Disability, Development and Education.
Current teaching areas
Mike is the cluster leader in special education and in this role he oversees five programs in Special Education, two at the undergraduate level, and three at the Masters level. He is the program convenor of the Bachelor of Education – Special Education, and oversees the learning enhancement area of the Bachelor of Education – Secondary program. He is a psychologist who has lectured in tertiary institutions for over 30 years, across a broad range of courses in the areas of development, behaviour, learning, and interpersonal skills. Currently he teaches Interpersonal and counselling skills, and consultation and collaboration for special educators in undergraduate and postgraduate courses. These courses involve the development of knowledge and skills in helping and supporting others, counselling, collaboration, consultation, teamwork, conflict resolution, negotiation skills, and mediation skills, particularly applied to special education settings.
His teaching philosophy is based on constructivism, and his teaching style is to be facilitative, empowering, and solution-focused, helping students to bring their understandings to a critical consciousness, identifying their competencies and attributes, and discussing and supporting them to construct new schemas of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
Mike has a large supervision load with eight students at the doctoral level and two at the Masters level.
PhD topics
- Outcomes for children with autism and their families participating in inclusive and autism specific educational programs
- Perceptions of parents on the autism spectrum
- Resiliency in sport
- Science as a sareer: An investigation into undergraduate students motivation to study science.
- Effects of a tailored sports program on resiliency levels in middle and senior school students
- The training to teaching continuum: Examining teacher attitudes towards Health and Physical Education and related change strategies
EdD Topics
- Learning profile assessments to identify giftedness
- Secondary school inclusion
MSpecEd Topics
- Queensland preparatory teachers’ capacities for educating young children with disabilities and problem behaviours
- The use of non-directive play in facilitating social-emotional growth in pre-school children with autism
Completions
Two PhD
- The Thai Emotional Intelligence Screening Test: Measurement and validation with pre-service teachers
- Teachers in transition: Do universities provide adequate preparation for the workplace?
Two EdD
- Measuring sports class learning climates – the development of the Sports Class Environment Scale
- Educational activities, well-being and life satisfaction of members of Chinese community groups
One MPhil
- Student experiences of flexible learning
Five BEd(H) Special Education
- Aspirations, expectations, goals and outcomes: home based intensive intervention and autism
- Students with Asperger Syndrome and their experience of stress
- Parent perception of the value of the Parent Stress Index (SF) in an autism specific early intervention setting
- Golden Key and student achievement
- Reducing stress and supporting parents of children with a vision impairment: The teacher’s role