Kairen Call

Research

Kairen's research is underpinned by Empowerment Theory and critical pragmatism. Her key areas of interest include:

1. Professional Standards for Teachers
2. Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Policy
3. Early Literacy Development

Kairen's doctoral research focused on the implementation of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, paying particular attention to exploring how preservice teachers could be supported to use the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers to manage their professional learning. Her PhD research was also concerned with the psychological empowerment of preservice teachers within a highly regulatory education environment. Most recently, Kairen was invited to present on the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers for the Centre national d'étude des systèmes scolaires, Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, Paris (2025), International Comparison Conference 2025: The Teaching Profession – What Changes? Under What Conditions? - Cnesco.

Her research that explores ITE policy has a special methodological interest in critical pragmatism and discourse analysis. Kairen has collaborated on several funded research projects.

• Participation in a cross-disciplinary grant on school leaders’ use of the APST with three UniSC and two regional Queensland academics, resulting in three publications and 4 conference presentations.
• Partnered on research exploring the scholarship of teaching and learning with UniSC and Fredonia University (New York) academics, resulting in a joint publication.
• Responded to the policy impacts in ITE with two colleagues, developing a highly cited Q1 publication in an international journal, with an Altmetric attention score of 18 (top 25% of all Altmetric research outputs).
• Collaborated in research towards three successful UniSC seed grants.
  1. 2018 ($4000): Explored embedding PST grit constructs in first-year courses. Findings led to adjustments in two first-year WIL courses, explicitly teaching self-management skills and normalising help-seeking behaviours.
  • 2021 ($4000): Collaborated on research focused on discourses on teacher quality in Australian politics and media. This resulted in two conference presentations, and two more accepted in 2024, with three publications in progress.
  • 2024 ($4000): Lead a team to undertake a Systematic Literature Review that explored the use of picture books for teh development of children's prosocial behaviours.

Supervision

Available for PhD Supervision

Research Highlights

Initial Teacher Education: Teaching and Learning

Kairen's curriculum development experience internationally supported her collaboration in the development and accreditation of the UniSC Master of Teaching (Primary). Kairen has also been involved in several working groups to continually review and refine the School of Education and Tertiary Access (SETA) programs and courses.

As Teaching Performance Assessment (QTPA) Coordinator, Kairen implemented both the GTPA and the QTPA into the final ITE Professional Experience (PEx) courses for all ITE programs from 2018-2021. Kairen also worked with our QTPA partner universities to refine QTPA content and processes. During this time, Kairen participated in cross-institutional moderation of the Graduate Teacher Performance Assessment (GTPA) and the QTPA, with the outcomes demonstrating the success and accuracy of our implementation of the nationally mandated TPA. She brings this TPA knowledge to her course content through backward mapping the QTPA and its application to the Teaching and Learning Cycle and program accreditation. Kairen has since trained in ITE program standards accreditation and core content accreditation. She has also sat on a panel with QCT to assess ITE program core content.

Kairen has coordinated and taught numerous courses across Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary Education programs of study, including;

• EDU213 Teaching English: Curriculum and Pedagogy
• EDU767 Teaching English: Curriculum and Pedagogy
• EDU205 Facilitating the Learning Environment
• EDu764 Quality Teaching and Learning
• EDU411 The Professional Teacher

Kairen's expertise as an effective and scholarly educator was recognised with the award of Senior Fellow in the HEA Fellowship Scheme, through AdvanceHE.

Engagement

Kairen has worked with and in support of industry partners at the local, state and national levels. Collaborating with colleagues, Kairen led a team to develop the Train the Teacher video series. This series supported supervising teachers' understanding of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) and how they can assist preservice teachers during their PEx in school. It is supplied to all of our WIL school sites and supervising teachers.

Kairen has also continued to apply her APST expertise through training as an ITE program accreditation panel member with the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership.

Expert media commentary

Kairen's specialist areas of expertise include:

1. Professional Standards for Teachers
2. Initial Teacher Education Policy
3. Early Literacy, with a particular focus on the use of high-quality picture books for authentic learning.

Teaching

Kairen began her teaching career in London, working with migrant families. Passionate about social justice, she established support programs for students through local authority grants and developed whole school community events and theatre productions to support community connections and the development of relationships. She later moved to Switzerland to take up a position at an international school, building on her experience in supporting culturally diverse communities. Here, Kairen continued her advocacy for the arts and community connections, instigating whole school theatre productions, art shows and a whole school community mural project. It was during her time in Switzerland that Kairen trained and worked with the International Baccalaureate Organisation’s (IBO) Primary Years Program (PYP) – providing her with expertise in international education, as well as inquiry-based and concepts-based learning. Whilst in Switzerland, Kairen led Languages and Arts education programs and provided training for staff. In these roles, Kairen also led the design of school-wide language policy documents and designed inquiry-based curriculum programs. During her time in Switzerland, Kairen also became a technology lead in the school, undertaking training, applying new technologies to the classroom, and supporting staff in the application of technology to teaching and learning. Kairen also had the opportunity to engage in 'Futures Projects' with IBM.

After moving to Australia, Kairen taught in Queensland State and Independent Schools in Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary Classrooms on the Sunshine Coast. Here, Kairen worked to complete her Master of Education and also undertook research on the application of technologies applied through Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approaches. This classroom-based action research underpinned her move into working in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and research.

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