Shelley Gillis

Associate Professor Shelley Gillis is a faculty member in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, where she holds the position of Associate Professor in Education within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She is a leading expert in competency-based assessment, having provided advice to national and international agencies on educational assessment and measurement, competency and performance assessment, standards-referenced frameworks, qualification frameworks, and quality assurance frameworks across school, tertiary, and workplace settings. Gillis has led numerous high-profile national studies examining quality issues in vocational education and training (VET), contributing major evidence-based insights to government policy development in Australia. Her expertise extends to assessment and evaluation practices, influencing standards and competencies in educational contexts.

Gillis's research interests include vocational education and training, qualifications comparability, senior secondary education, higher education and migration, primary school achievement, educational inequality, transitions to university, PISA data usage in policy, nursing competencies, scoring rubrics for clinical performance, and graded assessment principles. She has contributed to significant projects such as 'Developing students' life and career skills for successful workplace entry,' 'Vocational teachers in school settings: career pathways and motivations,' 'Expectations and Destinations of NSW Senior Secondary Students,' and 'Victorian Aspirant Principal Assessment Process.' Her key publications feature 'Rubrics and formative assessment in K-12 education: A scoping review of literature' (English, Robertson, Gillis, & Graham, 2022), 'PISA data: Raising concerns with its use in policy settings' (Gillis, Polesel, & Wu, 2016), 'Standards-referenced assessment for vocational education and training in schools' (Griffin, Gillis, & Calvitto, 2007), 'Educational inequality and transitions to university in Australia: Aspirations, agency and constraints' (Polesel, Leahy, & Gillis, 2018), 'Assessing in VET: Issues of Reliability and Validity' (Gillis & Bateman, 1999), and 'Principles underpinning graded assessment in VET: A critique of prevailing perceptions' (Gillis & Griffin, 2005). With over 226 citations, her work has shaped assessment methodologies and policy discourse in education.

Professional Email: shelley.gillis@unimelb.edu.au