Professor Marcia Devlin

PhD (Melb); M Ed (Macq); Grad Dip Appld Psych (Swinburne); Dip Ed (La Trobe); BA (ANU)

Inaugural Chair in Higher Education Research, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.

Email: marcia.devlin@deakin.edu.au

Twitter: @marciadevlin

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Academia.edu Profile

Professor Marcia Devlin's research is in the field of higher education. It involves conceptual, theoretical and applied investigations into contemporary higher education issues, policies and practices. Her research interests traverse higher education policy, equity, Indigenous higher education, quality assurance and enhancement, academic standards, university teaching improvement, curriculum development, assessment, university student engagement and learning, interdisciplinarity and leadership.  A broad and extensive publication record in the higher education field incorporates more than 230 publications, comprising a book; an edited journal; book chapters; refereed journal articles; refereed conference papers; commissioned reports for universities and professional associations; and newspaper articles, including opinion pieces in major national broadsheet papers and a regular online column in The Age. Quotes from interviews with her on higher education matters are regularly published in state and national newspapers and/or broadcast on radio. 

Marcia's primary roles at Deakin are to contribute to the strategic directions of the university and to provide leadership in higher education research and scholarship in teaching and learning and higher education policy. Marcia also has responsibility for all interface with the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) in the Commonwealth Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE), including Awards, Citations and Grants.

Background

Marcia has worked in higher education for 22 years. She brings experience from previous roles at RMIT and Swinburne Universities, The University of Western Sydney and most recently, the University of Melbourne, where she was Associate Professor and Director of the Teaching and Learning Unit, and Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education until 2007.  She qualified as a psychologist, holds a PhD in Higher Education and was appointed to Deakin University's inaugural Chair in Higher Education Research in April, 2008. 

With colleagues from Deakin University, the University of Technology Sydney and IDP Education, Marcia is undertaking an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage grant to look at responses to recent changes in migration policy and their impact on international graduate outcomes. She is leading an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)-funded project examining the teaching and support of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds at university, with colleagues from Deakin University, Queensland University of Technology and Charles Sturt University. Marcia is also leading a second ALTC-funded project to examine the leadership of teaching and learning in universities with colleagues from Deakin University, Swinburne University, The Queensland University of Technology and Murdoch University.

Frequently invited to deliver national and international keynote addresses, workshops and seminars to provide policy and practice advice on a range of topics related to quality, teaching and learning and higher education, Marcia works across Australia and has recently worked internationally in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand. 

At Deakin University, Marcia leads the Higher Education Research Group (HERG), a community of over 220 staff undertaking research, scholarship and consultancy in the field of higher education, including university teaching and learning. HERG has had significant achievements since its inception in June 2008, including winning ARC and ALTC grants and publishing numerous articles in both peer-reviewed and media outlets. The HERG website can be found here. Marcia also supervises Higher Degree by Research students. She sits on the University Teaching and Learning Committee, recently led a university wide review of the assessment policy and is a member of several university wide working groups.

Marcia holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University, a Diploma in Education from La Trobe University, a Graduate Diploma in Applied Psychology from Swinburne University, a Masters in Education from Macquarie University and a PhD from University of Melbourne.  She was registered as a psychologist until 2011and is a current member of the Executive of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA). She is also a member of the UK-based Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), for whom she writes a regular column as an international contributor.

Marcia has worked in higher education since 1991 in a range of positions related to teaching and learning research, development and quality.  A broad and extensive publication record incorporates higher education policy, interdisciplinarity, the scholarship of teaching, academic development, the evaluation of teaching, and university student learning. The author and co-author of a large number of reports, articles and studies outlined above and below, Marcia's award-winning work includes first prize in the Campus Review Co-op Bookshop Dialogica Awards for her piece, The problem with plagiarism and contributing to a major national study of student assessment in Australian higher education for the Australian Universities Teaching Committee (AUTC), which led to the creation of the widely used Assessing Learning in Australian Universities website. She is interviewed and quoted frequently in the print media, and writes frequently on higher education issues for The Australian, University World News and Campus Review newspapers. She had a column on higher education in The Age between 2005 and 2011.

Research interests

• Higher education policy
• Equity, access, participation and success, particularly for students from low socio-economic backgrounds
• Indigenous higher education
• Standards and quality assurance and enhancement
• Teaching in higher education
• The scholarship of teaching
• Approaches to teaching evaluation and improvement
• Student engagement and learning
• Assessment
• Interdisciplinarity
• Leadership in universities
• Research into higher education

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