QUT researchers have been awarded $418,000 in federal funding to study the sociodemographic factors - including family and home - in the literacy development of Year 1 students.
The literacy research, which will be led by education expert Professor Allan Luke from QUT's Faculty of Education, comes at a time when standards and methods for teaching initial literacy are the topic of national policy debate.
"The debate often is based upon generic and populist claims, focusing on a range of stereotypes relating to parents and teachers," Professor Luke said.
"Our research team will be unpicking the relationships between what's going on in the home, such as TV-watching and early reading, and how this is received or capitalised upon at school.
"We know a child's background affects the way he or she interacts with school, but QUT will be undertaking the first large-scale quantitative study to fully analyse the home-school transition."
The project will also address policy debates on phonics, early intervention and standards and will offer guidance for the development of early childhood curriculum strategies and programs.
The literacy project was one of 24 QUT research projects that attracted $6.7 million in the latest round of funding allocations by the Australian Research Council announced today.
The university secured $4.1 million in Discovery Projects grants and $2.6 million in Linkage Projects grants.
Professor Colin Fidge from QUT's Faculty of Information Technology will also lead a $290,000 study into safety-critical product recalls and how recalled items can be located in large-scale distribution networks driven by complex logistics processes.
In QUT's Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering, Dr Firuz Zare has won a $195,000 grant to improve the efficiency of train systems by intelligent distributed control systems which reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Full details of the projects are available on the Australian Research Council's website www.arc.gov.au.
Media contact: Janne Rayner, Media Manager, QUT on phone 3864 2361 or j2.rayner@qut.edu.au.
