Sydney eScholarship
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Productive Failure and Learning about Epidemics and Complex Systems in Medical Education
No full textOver recent decades, global outbreaks such as AIDS, SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 have highlighted the importance of epidemiology for health and society. Despite advances in data-driven outbreak monitoring, epidemiology education often relies on teacher-centred methods that emphasise memorisation rather than explanatory understanding. Many epidemiological concepts are best understood as complex systems, where interactions between individuals produce emergent population-level behaviours. Traditional approaches leave many students struggling to link these dynamics with underlying mechanisms, creating a need for student-centred pedagogies.
This study examines Productive Failure (PF)—an approach where students first attempt problems before instruction—compared with Direct Instruction (DI), where instruction precedes problem solving. PF was combined with Agent-Based Models (ABMs), which allow learners to simulate disease spread and explore feedback mechanisms. To date, no studies have investigated the integration of PF and ABMs in epidemiology education.
A quasi-experimental design was implemented with 35 undergraduate medical students randomly assigned to PF (n=20) or DI (n=15) groups across three two-hour online sessions. Both groups engaged with identical challenge problems through ABMs, with instruction provided either after (PF) or before (DI). Pre- and post-tests assessed declarative and explanatory knowledge of complex systems, while challenge problems measured transfer to near and far domains. Focus-group interviews explored student experiences.
Findings showed no significant post-test differences between PF and DI for declarative or explanatory knowledge. However, PF students demonstrated stronger near-transfer gains from pre- to post-test and decisively outperformed DI students on far-transfer tasks, applying epidemiological knowledge to novel contexts.
The study suggests that while both approaches support knowledge development, PF combined with ABMs may be especially effective for enhancing students’ transfer of learning. Future research should replicate these findings with larger samples and explore applications in broader medical and public health contexts
Gender Equality @ Work Index: Index Report, November 2025
No full textDespite decades of effort by government, employers, unions and education institutions, gender inequalities are an intractable feature of the Australian labour market. Stubborn gaps in participation, pay and career progression are holding women, business, and the national economy back. Many of the unequal features of the Australian labour market, such as the concentration of men and women in different industries and occupations, have barely shifted in three decades.
The Gender Equality @ Work Index, developed by the Australian Centre for Gender Equality and Inclusion @ Work at the University of Sydney, offers a comprehensive, national, and longitudinal snapshot of gender equality at work. It provides insights for the community, policymakers, and employers on Australia’s progress and highlights areas requiring urgent action to address the root causes of inequality
The Causes and Prevention of Maternal Mortality in Low and Middle Income Countries: The Role of Ultrasound and The Role of Novel Postpartum Haemorrhage Treatments
No full textMaternal mortality continues to represent one of the most pressing global health challenges, disproportionately concentrated in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite decades of international initiatives and technological progress, approximately 287,000 women die each year from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, with sub-Saharan Africa alone accounting for two-thirds of these deaths. These deaths are frequently preventable and arise from a combination of medical, structural, and sociocultural factors. This thesis, The Causes and Prevention of Maternal Mortality in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: The Role of Ultrasound and The Novel Postpartum Haemorrhage Treatments, set out to investigate maternal mortality in LMICs through three main objectives: (i) to examine the causes of maternal mortality in LMICs, particularly Ghana, (ii) to assess the potential role of prenatal ultrasound in reducing maternal mortality and adverse pregnancy outcomes, and (iii) to explore the promise of innovative interventions, specifically chitosan-covered gauze, for the management of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH)
School Mental Health: Development of a Multidimensional Mental Health Training Model Based on a Needs Assessment
No full textGlobal trends related to climate change, cost of living crisis, war and pandemics have and continue to impact on young people’s mental health. In Australia, mental disorders increased by 50% between 2007 and 2021 in 16–24-year-olds and we have now reached a crisis in youth mental health. Protection from harm to a person’s mental health is a human right, which forms the basis to the provision of healthcare to young people in Australia. However, such care necessarily engages multiple stakeholders and sectors who largely work in silos related only to their field. This thesis proposes a radical rethinking which acknowledges that the healthcare systems cannot operate in isolation and instead requires more coordination, workforce integration and collaboration with community services and community-based organisations.
Schools are at the forefront youth mental healthcare in the community. Schools can provide early detection, early intervention, and triage for young people with emerging mental health issues. Therefore, the overarching aim of this thesis is to develop a training model for teacher training and changes to school systems. This model is based on a needs assessment of the Australian school context with the aim to provide more effective school-based care to young people with emerging mental health issues.
In response to the current crisis in youth mental health, this thesis contributes to the growing body of knowledge focused on identifying best practices for mental health service delivery to young people. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) and experts in the field encourage a multidisciplinary workforce based on multisectoral collaboration, the challenge has been to envision what such a model would look like in different contexts. The purpose of this thesis is to provide the initial conceptualization of such a model for the Australian school context
Sundanese ideational grammar: perspectives from register and discourse semantics
No full textThis thesis is about ideational grammar in Sundanese. It describes the grammar from the perspective
of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) – the underpinning linguistic theory informing the
description. A tri-stratal approach on describing languages is adopted in the thesis whereby patterns
of meanings in lexicogrammar are justified in relation to the meanings they realised in higher stratum,
i.e., ideational discourse semantics and register variable field. This approach is grounded on the
SFL’s dimension of stratification that considers the realisation of register variables by the variations of
patterns in discourse semantics (text) which in turns are realised by patterns in lexicogrammar
(clause). With regards to Sundanese, it is useful to provide a comprehensive description of
Sundanese ideational grammar, particularly for examining patterns of meaning at clause rank and
their contributions to the construal of both figures in ideational discourse semantics and field
perspective, across texts from various genres and registers. This is important with regards to the
development of educational linguistics program, particularly in Sundanese language teaching, that is
currently happening.
The grammar developed in the thesis is expected to contribute to two major areas. Firstly, it
contributes to providing the first comprehensive description of Sundanese ideational grammar that
can be linked to meaningful text patterns. This can be regarded a major step forward for Systemic
Functional typology specifically, and linguistic description in general. Secondly, the description
offered in this thesis can be used as a basis of enacting Sundanese educational linguistic program. It
can be taken for developing Sundanese pedagogy orienting to the explicit knowledge of language
and its relations to the co-textual (discourse semantics) and contextual features (register and genre)
Advancing Circular Construction in Sydney: Integrating System Dynamics, Evolutionary GameTheory, and Robust Optimization for Construction and Demolition Waste Management
No full textThe construction sector not only drives global economic growth but also ranks among the world’s
largest consumers of natural resources and producers of waste. With construction activities
responsible for 30–50\% of the world’s raw material use and nearly 37\% of energy-related
emissions, there is an urgent need to pivot from the linear “take-make-dispose” model to a circular
economy that emphasizes resource efficiency and closed-loop processes. However, implementing
such circular strategies is particularly challenging in dense urban contexts like Sydney, where
construction and demolition waste levels remain critically high.
This dissertation tackles these challenges by proposing and evaluating innovative approaches to
circular construction. Employing a multi-method framework that integrates System Dynamics
modeling, evolutionary game theory, and distributionally robust optimization, the research pursues three interrelated objectives. First, it explores the economic and operational drivers affecting concrete
recycling in Sydney. Second, it assesses how stakeholder interactions and targeted policies can
accelerate the adoption of sustainable construction practices. Third, it optimizes skip-based waste
collection under uncertainty, offering more resilient and efficient logistics for construction and
demolition waste management.
The findings contribute both theoretically and practically to the field of circular construction. They
highlight key leverage points to increase recycling rates, offer evidence-based policy insights for
promoting sustainable practices, and present robust operational solutions for waste management.
Taken together, these results furnish actionable guidance for policymakers and industry
professionals eager to operationalize circular economy principles, thus bridging a crucial gap
between sustainability concepts and on-the-ground construction practices
Supercritical water - actions and reactions during the thermal decomposition of plastics
No full textCurrent estimates suggest that there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050 if the
mounting plastic waste problem that society is facing remains unaddressed. New technologies will be
required in order to shift society towards a circular economy which will support a more sustainable
future. Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) shows promise to be a major part of the solution for dealing
with the rapidly growing quantities of plastic waste generated each year. Yet, there are still many
unknowns pertaining to the reaction pathways occurring during the HTL of plastic wastes. The work
within this thesis will explore the role that water plays during the decomposition of plastic waste in
sub- and supercritical water. Water’s role as a solvent and a reactant will be investigated and
clarified.
Chapter 2 focuses on the reactivity of water with a hydrocarbon substrate. Contradictory claims in the
literature about whether water or oxygen are responsible for the formation of oxygenated compounds
have been clarified. Adventitious oxygen was found to be responsible for formation of oxygenated
species, which is consistent with mechanisms proposed for SCWO.
Chapter 3 examines the behaviour of scrap tyres in HTL. The particle size of a tyre granulate sample
was varied to examine effects on the product distribution. Fundamental reaction pathways
responsible for the decomposition of the polyisoprene chain are identified.
Chapter 4 is a studies the HTL conversion of limonene to aromatics. The behaviour in supercritical
water has been identified to diverge from previously published pyrolysis of limonene and the role of
water was identified as promoting isomerisation of the double bonds within limonene.
Chapter 5 focuses on the hydrothermal decomposition of polyamides. Whilst the behaviour in
subcritical water is well known, the same cannot be said about the behaviour in supercritical water. A
hydrolysis mechanism accounts for the observed behaviour at all conditions examined
Leading and Practising GenAI Care-fully
No full textThis thought piece explores how the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) can guide educators to lead with curiosity, collaboration, and care in the age of generative AI. Here we reframe leadership as relational rather than hierarchical, anchored in inquiry, reflection, and shared learning. The chapter traces a co-designed research project that used metaphors to explore how educators and students conceptualise GenAI’s role in higher education. This creative and critical approach foregrounded the ethical, pedagogical, and emotional dimensions of AI while amplifying diverse voices through collective authorship. Framed by contemporary SoTL research, echoing calls for pedagogically grounded and ethically aware AI practice (Fitzgerald & Curtis, 2025), the piece positions care-based leadership as central to shared understanding in times of technological disruption. Leading and practising GenAI care-fully means moving beyond control and certainty to cultivate inclusive, reflective spaces for inquiry and educational transformation
Assessment design through co-design. Reimagining Business School courses
No full textThis educational resource explores the transformative practice of assessment design in higher education. The resource focuses on three large courses at a Business School at a leading Australian university. Using a co-design approach, the project brought together students, educators, industry partners, educational developers and learning designers to collaboratively enhance assessment practices over a year-long strategic education project. Key interventions included Connect:In workshops, weekly student reflections, academic capacity-building workshops and student-generated videos. Collectively, these activities aimed to create inclusive, innovative and meaningful assessments aligned with contemporary educational priorities and challenges, including the integration of Generative AI. The outcomes demonstrate co-design’s ability to improve student learning experience and ensure alignment with diverse learning goals and assessment practices
The influence of flexi-time and flexi-place work on online ordering expenditure
No full textIn recent years we have seen a tsunami of change in both the way in which work is performed by location, when, and the quantum of hours, which is now seen as flexi-place and flexitime, together with the growth annually in online shopping. These two phenomena may be related to working from home all day and/or a blended or hybrid workday (part in the main office and part elsewhere) may have contributed to boosting online ordering. In this paper, we estimate a Tobit regression model with a zero-corner solution to explore the interplay between the amount of money spent on online shopping and whether the hours working from home and/or hybrid work results in an increase in expenditure on online ordering. There appears to be little evidence in the research literature given to this relationship. We draw on a March 2024 survey for Australia to investigate the presence of a link, and we find that there are systematic differences, with a higher incidence of online expenditure associated with a higher probability of working from home all day or on a blended workday. Partial effects estimates suggest a statistically significant difference, and as the mix of flexitime and flexi-place changes over time, we can expect a noticeable response in the quantum of online shopping expenditure