Dr Alice Brown

Name	Alice Brown
Position	Senior Lecturer (Early Childhood Education)
Section	School of Education
Office	A210
Location	Springfield Campus
Phone	+61 7 3470 4120
Extension	4120
Email
Qualifications	BEd UCSQ , MEd QUT , PhD USQ

Biography

Dr Alice Brown is an internationally and nationally recognised, award winning early childhood educator, specialising in Early Childhood Education (ECE), with 35 years’ experience working in diverse educational contexts. She has been a full-time lecturer of ECE, within the School of Education, at the University of Southern Queensland, for nearly two decades (Senior Lecturer since 2015), specialising in children’s active play, physical education, resilience, and wellbeing, as well as EC pedagogy and professional leadership, both at the undergraduate and post-graduate level. She is a leader in innovative practice and solution-focused approaches across the three cornerstones of teaching, research and service. Her efforts contribute to USQ’s vision and culture for excellence by: driving change and excelling in leading inclusive physical and digital higher education learning experiences and undertaking world-class research that has a positive social impact. Dr Brown’s leadership in scholarship research relates to innovative frameworks, projects and approaches to supporting student learning and engagement in Higher Education. She influences others by sharing her work extensively to positively impact across the broader profession, both nationally and internationally to enhance the teaching and learning for students and teachers. Her research is translated into excellence in teaching resulting in a consistent track record of excellence in teaching and learning; exceptional student satisfaction outcomes/SETS data averaging 4.4/5 for Q33 for student satisfaction; recipient of numerous Dean Commendations; and most recently ‘successful application for awards related innovation in L&T’ resulting as the co-recipient of two USQ Learning and Teaching Awards for 2020. Dr Brown evidences a strong track record for attracting research funding - internal and external income totalling - $184,994 (individual/team). Her high-quality research outputs are positioned above the national average, with her H index of 11 and 725 citations. This includes 31 refereed publications, with one of her co-authored papers receiving 208 citations since 2018. Dr Brown's research profile typifies that of an HE L&T researcher, expert and leader and supervisor of sustain collaborative national and international research projects about the interplay among early childhood education, health, wellbeing, and social ecology, as well as a substantial track record of scholarship research in the area of online engagement, particularly in HE contexts. She leads research partnerships, culture, and outputs within three fields of research: scholarship research focussed on computers, technology, and online engagement in higher education (1301), research focussed on early childhood, children, and EC professionals (1303), and ethical and respectful methodological approaches (1399). Dr Alice Brown is a world leader in innovative methodological approaches focussed on reframing research with young families that reflect ethical and respectful application to participants involvement and agency in inquiry. This work has recently been captured in a sole authored book, ‘Respectful research with and about young families’ (2019, Palgrave, MacMillan). - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-02716-2

Research Career

Fields of Research (FoR)

Higher Education ( 130103 )
Early Childhood Education (excl. Maori) ( 130102 )
Early Childhood Education ( 390302 )
Higher Education ( 390303 )
Education Systems ( 390300 )
Education Systems not elsewhere classified ( 390399 )

Research interests
Hello, I'm Dr Alice Brown. My work and the work I engage in with families, community, key stakeholders harnesses existing social capital to help to build assets, empower individuals, and contribute to strong and vibrant child-friendly communities. As an academic, researcher, and as an early childhood health, wellbeing & social ecology specialist I bring a skill set of methodological approaches and research experience to this space. My research focus is on gaining insights into the lifeworld’s of others, and the theory/practice nexus of respectful & ethical inquiry. I adapt ecological models to better understand the impact of context and environment on behaviours, values & practices.
My research interests include:
- Innovative, respectful, and ethical methodological approaches for researching with young families;
- Young children and families - health, well-being, active play;
- Exploring context and illuminating people’s stories using qualitative research methods: interpretivist paradigms, naturalistic perspectives, narrative, case study research; building trust in semi-structured interviews;
- Social-ecological frameworks for understanding socio-environmental and personal determinants of health behaviours in parents and children;
- Early childhood environments, pedagogy, leadership;
- Professional development, intervention; program evaluation in health, physical activity and early childhood;
- Contextual considerations for effective health interventions for families and communities;
- Paediatric education, care and wellbeing;
- Engagement, E-learning/Teaching - Learning and teaching in higher education and enhancement of the student and staff experience
- Supporting online engagement using learning analytics and nudging

Professional memberships
Queensland College of Teachers
Early Childhood Australia
Association for Learning and Technology
Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth
Be You Mental Health Education
Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australia

Industry affiliations
Queensland Health Partner
Education Queensland Partner

USQ Research affiliations

Institute for Resilient Regions (IRR)
Institute for Advanced Engineering and Space Sciences (IAESS)

Teaching

Currently teaching courses/programs
EDM5014 Planning for Learning: Curriculum, Play and Pedagogy
ECH1200 – Early Years Health and Active Play
ECP2200 – Childhood Resilience and Wellbeing
EDE3103 – Perspectives of Early Years Curriculum, Play and Pedagogy
EDX4350 - Welfare and Wellbeing in Education

Teaching experience(Tertiary)
18 Years

Teaching experience(Other)
15 Years

Administrative responsibilities
Specialising in Early Child Health, Wellbeing, Social Ecology and online student engagement

Publications

Research most recent
Brown, A., Lawrence, J., Basson, M., Axelsen, M., Redmond, P., Turner, J., ... & Galligan, L. (2022). The creation of a nudging protocol to support online student engagement in higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education. Advanced Online Publication, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14697874211039077
Brown, A., Lawrence, J., Basson, M., & Redmond, P. (2021). A conceptual framework to enhance student online learning and engagement in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, Advanced online publication, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1860912
Redmond, P., Foote, S. M., Brown, A., Mixson-Brookshire, D., Abawi, L.-A., & Henderson, R. (2021). Adopting a framework to support the process of critical reflection and understanding of online engagement. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 34, 110-130. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-021-09281-3

Research most notable
Sole-authored book Brown, A. (2019). Respectful research with and about young families – Forging frontiers and methodological considerations. London, UK: Palgrave Pivot.
https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030027155#otherversion=9783030027162
Redmond, P., Heffernan, A., Abawi, L., Brown, A. & Henderson, R. (2018) An online engagement framework for higher education. Online Learning, 22(1), 183-204. doi: 10.24059/olj.v22i1.1175.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1179626.pdf
Brown, A., & Danaher, P. A. (2017). CHE Principles: Facilitating authentic and dialogical semi-structured interviews in educational research. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 1-15. doi:10.1080/1743727X.2017.1379
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1743727X.2017.1379987

Publications in ePrints

Brown, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0306-729X and Lawrence, JillORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4163-8698 and Basson, MaritaORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9731-1128 and Redmond, PetreaORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9674-1206 (2022) A conceptual framework to enhance student online learning and engagement in higher education. Higher Education Research and Development, 41 (2). pp. 284-299. ISSN 0729-4360