Dr Callula Killingly
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Education
Biography
Dr Callula Killingly is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in The Centre for Inclusive Education (C4IE) at QUT and a member of the Accessible Assessment ARC Linkage Team (LP180100830). Her research areas include cognitive processes underpinning learning and memory, effective instruction and intervention for reading and social-emotional skills, and disproportionality in exclusionary discipline.Callula's doctoral research was in experimental cognitive psychology, where she investigated the involvement of working memory processes in the experience of involuntary musical imagery ("earworms"). She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has teaching experience in the areas of cognitive psychology, research design, and statistical analysis.
Personal details
Positions
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Education
Keywords
learning, memory, reading
Research field
Cognitive and computational psychology, Specialist studies in education
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2020
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy (Queensland University of Technology)
- Bachelor of Behavioural Sciences (Psychology) (Queensland University of Technology)
Professional memberships and associations
Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR)
Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE)
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
Publications
- Killingly, C., Matheson, S., Bentley, L. & Swanson, E. (2026). Interventions for students with reading difficulties in Grades 4-12: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 51. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/262119
- Killingly, C., Graham, L., Tancredi, H. & Snow, P. (2025). Reciprocal relationships among reading and vocabulary over time: a longitudinal study from grade 1 to 5. Reading and Writing, 38(3), 605–625. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/247789
- Killingly, C., Graham, L., White, S. & Sweller, N. (2026). Do Accessible Assessment Task Sheets Work? In LJ. Graham & J. Willis (Eds.), Accessible Assessment and Pedagogies: Improving Student Outcomes Through Inclusive Practice (pp. 139–165). Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/259988
- Killingly, C. & Lacherez, P. (2023). The Song that Never Ends: The Effect of Repeated Exposure on the Development of an Earworm. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76(11), 2535–2545. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/237267
- Killingly, C., Lacherez, P. & Meuter, R. (2021). Singing in the brain: Investigating the cognitive basis of earworms. Music Perception, 38(5). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/208312
- Killingly, C., Bielinski, D. & Lacherez, P. (2025). An investigation of earworms and obsessive-compulsive traits using experience sampling and retrospective methods. Psychology of Music, 53(6), 987–1004. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/254330
- Graham, L., Killingly, C., Alexander, M. & Wiggans, S. (2024). Suspensions in QLD state schools, 2016-2020: overrepresentation, intersectionality and disproportionate risk. Australian Educational Researcher, 51(4), 1527–1558. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/242829
- Tancredi, H., Graham, L., Killingly, C. & Sweller, N. (2023). Investigating the impact of impairment and barriers experienced by students with language and/or attentional difficulties. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 28(2), 173–194. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/244996
- Graham, L., Gillett-Swan, J., Killingly, C. & Van Bergen, P. (2022). Does it matter if students (dis)like school? Associations between school liking, teacher and school connectedness, and exclusionary discipline. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/228692
- Graham, L., McCarthy, T., Killingly, C., Tancredi, H. & Poed, S. (2020). Inquiry into Suspension, Exclusion and Expulsion Processes in South Australian Government Schools. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/206791
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Callula, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Filter publications:
A complete list of publications is available at: https://www.qut.edu.au/about/our-people/academic-profiles/c.killingly
Supervision
Current supervisions
- The Provision of Adequate Interventions for Students with Persistent Reading Difficulties
Professional Doctorate, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Linda Graham, Dr Haley Tancredi
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- Improving the Capacity of Classroom Teachers to Include Students with Complex Learning Profiles in Grade-level Academic Curriculum (2026)
- Guiding Reading: Exploring Guidance on Reading Instruction in Australia's Largest Education Systems (2025)
- The Impact of Accessible Pedagogies on the Classroom Experiences and Engagement of Students with Language and/or Attentional Difficulties (2024)
Completed supervisions (Masters by Research)
The supervisions listed above are only a selection.