Associate Professor Peter Taylor
Associate Professor Peter C. Taylor holds a PhD from Curtin.
Telephone: +618 9266 7501
Office: B220. 213
Email: p.taylor@smec.curtin.edu.au
Research and Thesis Topics
I specialise in research that engages teachers as critical reflective practitioners.
Research that is experimental, exciting, potentially transformative. Research
that endeavours to illuminate the heart and soul of teaching and learning.
My expertise, not surprisingly, resides in qualitative research, especially
that which is shaped by constructivism (e.g., ethnography, fourth–generation
evaluation) and postmodernism (reflexive, impressionistic, pluralistic writing).
Recently completed doctoral and masters research topics:
- Classroom factors affecting scientific literacy: Impressionistic tales and their interpretation using a metaphoric framework. John Willison
- Culture and conceptualisations of nature: An interpretive analysis of Australian and Chinese perspectives. Jill Slay
- School stories: Weaving narrative nets to capture science classrooms. David Geelan
- Science cultural myths and school science: A critical analysis of historical and contemporary discourses. Catherine Milne
- A phenomenological study of the health care related needs of multicultural Western Australians. Georgie Hawley
- A self–study of teaching reform in a university business computing course: "...It all went wrong...". Mark Williams
- Critical autobiography: An insider perception of science and mathematics education in Vanuatu. Joe Timothy
- Out of the ashes: An autoethnography. Mark McClellan
- I don’t like your chances: A teacher’s journey towards an outcomes focussed classroom. Lesley Sutherland
Selected Publications
Taylor, P.C., & Wallace, J. (Eds.) (in preparation). Practicing qualitative research in postmodern times – Exemplars for science, mathematics and technology educators.
Taylor, P.C., Gilmer, P.J., & Tobin, K. (Eds.). (2002). Transforming undergraduate science teaching: Social constructivist perspectives. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing.
Geelan, D.R., & Taylor, P.C. (2001). Writing our lived experience: Beyond the (pale) hermeneutic? Electronic Journal of Science Education, 5(4), article 1.
Fitzpatrick, R., & Taylor, P.C. (2001, Dec). A question of balance: Conflicting interests of a school–based curriculum change agent. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Australasian Association for Research in Education, Fremantle, WA.
Taylor, P.C. (1998). Constructivism: Value added. In B.J. Fraser & K.G. Tobin (Eds.), International handbook of science education (pp. 1111–1123). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Taylor, P.C., & Cobern, W.W. (1998). Towards a critical science education. In W.W. Cobern (Ed.), Socio–cultural perspectives on science education: An international dialogue (pp. 203–207). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Taylor, P.C., Geelan, D., Dawson, V., & Stapleton, A. (1999). Can teaching in a virtual classroom enhance real learning? FID Review, 1(12), 121–127.
