Undertaking and writing research that is important, targeted, and the best you can do

Three recent events over the past week that made me reflect on writing and undertaking research. 

1. I have written my final editorial as editor of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (IJSLP),
2. I was invited to open the School of Teacher Education Research Writing Retreat with "inspirational words"
3. I was invited to speak at the Early Years Education Collaborative Research Network meeting in Melbourne on the topic of "Improving your academic writing - both journal article and thesis writing"

The convergence of these three events inspired me to talk and write about "Undertaking and writing research that is important, targeted, and the best you can do"

McLeod, S. (2014). Editorial: Undertaking and writing research that is important, targeted and the best you can do. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 16(2), 95-97. 

 Here is the beginning of the editorial:

Conducting and writing research is a privilege. It is a privilege because researchers can change lives through their findings and can influence public knowledge and debate. It is also a privilege because researchers are reliant on the time and goodwill of participants (and colleagues), and research is often underpinned by funding raised by the public, either through taxes or philanthropic donations. This privilege comes with responsibility. Researchers have a responsibility to undertake research that is important, targeted, and of high quality. This editorial aims to inspire, challenge, and bolster the research efforts of individuals and teams.

Learning statistics

This week Sarah Masso spent a productive PhD week in Melbourne undertaking an ACSPRI (Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Incorporated) statistics course with other members of the Early Years Education Collaborative Research Network. She will apply this knowledge to the analysis of the Sound Start data.

Sarah Masso still smiling at the end of her week-long statistics course

Hilary Monk (Monash) and Sarah Masso (CSU) in Melbourne at the end of their course

Meetings

This week I have attended a number of large and small meetings with colleagues from around the corner and around the world:

• Faculty of Education Professor's research meeting
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention committee meeting
• Weekly meetings with my PhD students
• Meetings with prospective PhD students
• Meetings regarding our Australian senate submission

Mostly I find these meetings to be productive and informative. I am lucky to work with teams of people who work hard towards common goals.

Early Years Education Collaborative Research Network Whole of Network Meeting

This week I have travelled to Melbourne to meet with colleagues from Charles Sturt University, Queensland University of Technology, and Monash University. There are around 70 attendees at our final Early Years Education Collaborative Research Network (CRN) Whole of Network Meeting. The CRN has been going for 3 years as a result of Australian government funding of $5.3 million to build capacity within early years research across the three universities. It has been such a productive three years of collaboration amongst PhD students, senior, mid and early career researchers.

This week some of the guest speakers have included:

• Assistant Minister for Education, The Hon Sussan Ley, MP
• Professor Andrew Vann, Vice Chancellor of CSU
• Professor Marian Simms, Executive Director of Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences, Australian Research Council
• Karen Weston, Assistant General Manager, Quality Improvement Branch, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria
• Professor Anne Graham, Ethics in Research Involving Children, Southern Cross University
• Professor Maggie Walter, Member of the steering committee of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, University of Tasmania
• Deborah Kikkawa and Fiona Skelton, Department of Social Services, Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children team

Research involving the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) was a focus during the meeting and our recent publication using the LSIC data was highlighted in the poster displays. I was invited to provide a workshop titled "Improving your academic writing - both journal article and thesis writing".

Sarah Verdon, Deborah Kikkawa, Sharynne McLeod, Fiona Skelton

Prof Susan Danby (QUT - Future Fellow), Prof Marian Simms (ARC), Prof Sharynne McLeod (CSU - Future Fellow)

PhD Think Tank

On Monday all of my PhD students met in Sydney – traveling from as far as Fiji to be together. We rarely spend time in the same location since everyone is based in a different city. Each student had 1.5 hours to present their work to the others and to gain feedback from the group about any aspect of their PhD. Sarah Verdon gained feedback about data collected during her 5 month trip across 5 continents to visit places where educators and speech pathologists worked with multilingual children. Suzanne Hopf discussed how the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) was going to be used as the theoretical framework to underpin her work to consider Fijian children's speech, language, and literacy. Sarah Masso discussed how she was using factor and cluster analyses to differentiate children with speech sound disorders based on their production of polysyllables. Kate Crowe shared advice for success in the final stages of writing a PhD. It was such a useful day and everyone gained insights into each others’ work, as well as their own. My students continually keep in touch throughout the year, sharing papers, techniques, tips, and encouraging one another. Being together in a face-to-face context strengthens this community of practice. 

Dr Kate Crowe, Sarah Masso, Sarah Verdon, Suzanne Hopf, and Sharynne in Sydney

Chinese New Year: The Year of the Horse

I was in Sydney for the Chinese New Year parade and celebrations along with Suzanne Hopf, my PhD student and one of my ex-students from The University of Sydney, Susanne Rigby (nee Perks) who practices as a speech pathologist in Sydney. Sydney is home for many people across Asia, and many different countries were represented in the parade that lasted for over an hour. In the last Australian census, the second most commonly spoken language was recorded as Mandarin, with Cantonese and Vietnamese being amongst the top five. It is great to see that Sydney embraces and celebrates its multicultural and multilingual composition.

Colour and movement in the Chinese New Year parade in Sydney

Sharynne with speech pathologist, Susanne Rigby

Writing over summer

It is summertime in Australia at the moment. Quite a contrast to the polar vortex and the snow days being experienced by my colleagues in the US. It has been a good time to write book chapters and journal articles since many locals are still on holidays. Today Linda Harrison and I spent the day writing a paper we have currently titled "Multilingualism and speech-language competence in early childhood: Impact on academic and social-emotional outcomes at school". We rewarded ourselves with a swim in the middle of the day's writing. We hope that this paper will be ready to submit soon - we have been working on it for a few years.

In the news

Dr Kate Crowe's PhD research has featured in the local Bathurst Life newspaper on page 2.
It is great for our research to have a voice in the community -  you never know who will read it and which children it could assist.

Language maintenance and loss in a population study of young Australian children

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication

Verdon, S., McLeod, S., & Winsler, A. (in press). Language maintenance and loss in a population study of young Australian children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

Here is the abstract

Information about children’s cultural and linguistic diversity and language acquisition patterns is important for the development of sustainable educational practices. While there is some knowledge about language acquisition, maintenance, and loss in adults and older children, there is limited information about young children. The first three waves of data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), from 4,252 young children were considered longitudinally over the first 5 years of life to identify patterns of language, acquisition, maintenance, and loss among those who speak languages other than English. Overall, 91.5% of children maintained speaking a language other than English at wave 2, yet only 86.6% did so at wave 3. Children’s patterns of language acquisition and loss over the first 5 years of life varied within and between language groups. For example, Arabic-speaking children tended to maintain Arabic throughout early childhood, whereas Italian-speaking children’s use of Italian decreased considerably over the first 5 years of life while use of English steadily increased. Environmental and personal factors such as parental language use, presence of a grandparent in the home, type of early childhood care, first- and second-generation immigrant status and parental perception of support from the educational environment were related to language maintenance among non-English speaking children.