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of continuing employment and promotion,”
CCC said in its audit plan.
“Accordingly, the issues of authorship
ranking, number of articles published,
impact factor … and ability to attract grant
funds are closely interlinked. The CCC
continues to receive allegations of
corrupt conduct involving research fraud.”
The commission will evaluate whether
the prevention measures implemented by
the Queensland University of Technology,
University of Queensland and University of
Southern Queensland are “adequate and
effective to build resistance to research
misconduct and fraud”.
It will cover how universities have dealt
with allegations about related corrupt
conduct. The audit will use as a benchmark a
recent research fraud case – the first in
Australia to result in criminal prosecution.
That case began after UQ received
information that then professor
Bruce Murdoch may have committed
research misconduct, sparking an inquiry
in 2013.
The fraud in question involved the
publication of an article discussing the
outcome of research that Murdoch
said he conducted with colleague
Dr Caroline Barwood.
That article, titled ‘Treatment of
Articulatory Dysfunction in Parkinson’s
Disease Using Repetitive Transcranial
Magnetic Stimulation’ and first received
by the European Journal of Neurology,
was fabricated – the research was never
carried out.
It was later used as the basis for grant
applications from multiple funding sources.
After this activity was brought to light,
UQ returned funds awarded on the basis
of the fraudulent research and ensured
the retraction and correction of relevant
research publications. ■
According to the Grattan Institute,
Australia’s student population will grow by
more than 650,000 by 2026. The report’s
authors contend that recent initiatives
to channel mathematics graduates into
education careers will not be enough to
avert a situation that has been developing
for over three decades.
The amount of out-of-field teaching in
the subject has reached a critical point,
“with less than one in four students having
a qualified mathematics teacher in each of
Years 7 to 10”.
AMSI director Tim Brown said “rigorous
subject knowledge benchmarks” in
teaching qualifications are required as well
as initiatives aimed at retaining current
maths teachers.
“The federal and state governments must
prioritise the collection of subject-specific
teacher qualification data to track workforce
standards and inform planning,” Brown said.
“The AMSI study is important in
reminding Australia of this long-standing
unsolved problem. When I was president,
the Australian Council of Deans of Science
released an important study by Kerrie-Lee
Harris and Felicity Jensz in 2006 on the
extent of out-of-field mathematics teaching. The public reaction was strong but ... there
was no successful follow-up.”
One of the report’s authors, AMSI schools
outreach manager Michael O’Connor,
agreed that new-teacher recruitment drives
would have little impact on the situation and
that current teachers will need to be part of
the solution.
“It is critical that any solution takes
a long-term approach with a focus on
strengthening both new and existing
teachers’ mathematical knowledge and
confidence,” O’Connor said.
"AMSI released modelling last year that
shows quick fixes to address out-of-field
maths teaching will not be enough to
address this issue.”
Another co-author, AMSI honorary senior
fellow Jan Thomas, said this nadir in maths
education stems from “inaction by Australian
governments, both federal and state”.
“This paper demonstrates the historical
failures that have contributed to the current
crisis in our classrooms,” Thomas said.
"The number of mathematically prepared
teachers in Australian schools has been in
decline since the 1980s. The mathematical
community, including AMSI, has been
calling for action for decades." ■
Research fraud scrutiny
Corruption commission zeroes
in on research fraud.
T
hree Queensland universities will be
investigated for research fraud by the
state’s anti-corruption body.
The Crime and Corruption Commission
Queensland (CCC) has released a snapshot
of its planned corruption prevention audits
up until 2021.
Research fraud was listed as the first cab
off the rank, with that audit starting in July
and running until the end of the year.
“Competition exists amongst researchers,
particularly junior researchers, to regularly
publish in order to increase the likelihood
Not adding up
Report warns of impending crisis
in mathematics education.
A
ustralia is facing “a crisis” in
secondary schools as student
populations swell and the shortage
in maths-qualified teachers continues,
according to the Australian Mathematical
Sciences Institute (AMSI).
In its latest report, entitled Australian
Secondary Mathematics Teacher Shortfalls:
A Deepening Crisis, the institute also
warns that more transparency is needed
in knowing how many teachers are
adequately equipped to teach mathematics
in the high school years.
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