Rate My Professor Joanne Dargusch

Associate Professor Joanne Dargusch is an educator and researcher in the School of Education and the Arts at Central Queensland University, serving as Director of the Centre for Research in Equity and Advancement of Teaching and Education. Drawing on 15 years as a secondary school teacher of English and history in Queensland schools, her work centers on assessment and pedagogy, with particular attention to equity issues for undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds. Key projects include the Higher Education Participation Program-funded Supporting Students’ Assessment Success (2015-2017) and Smoothing Assessment Transitions for VET Students (2019-2020). She has investigated students with disabilities' experiences in exams and other timed assessments, as well as postgraduate initial teacher education students' transitions to classrooms. Ongoing research, funded by the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education and the Centre for University Leadership and Learning Transformation, examines assessment policies' effects on equity and inclusion, emphasizing time factors. Dargusch earned her PhD from Griffith University with the thesis "Formative assessment as contextualised practice: Insider accounts."

At CQUniversity, she has held positions including lecturer, Head of Course, Unit Coordinator, acting Deputy Dean Research for the School of Education and the Arts, and Postgraduate Research Coordinator. As the university's lead in a national consortium implementing the Graduate Teacher Performance Assessment, coordinated by Australian Catholic University, she advances initial teacher education standards. Her research informs curriculum in CQUniversity's Graduate Certificate in Tertiary and Adult Education and Bachelor of Education (Secondary), and she disseminates findings via publications, conference presentations, and workshops. Notable works include "Catering for 'very different kids': distance education teachers’ perspectives on technology’s affordances and constraints when supporting distance education learning" (2021), "Re-imagining exams: How do assessment adjustments impact on inclusion?" (2022), "Low socioeconomic status students transitioning from Vocational Education and Training to university: Examining definitions of success" (2023), and leading the ACSES Small Grant project "Time for a rethink: Assessment policy to enable equity" (2023). She received the 2017 Dean's Research Award for Early Career Researcher from the School of Education and the Arts.