Overview of Research
The Faculty of Nursing and Health Research Culture
The Avondale College of Higher Education, Faculty of Nursing and Health, supports and promotes a research environment for both academics and students. We strive to create a culture of research and scholarship and produce research in targeted areas of health in particular nursing and the education of nurses. We are committed to continuing and growing our collaborative research links with healthcare organisations, selected universities, professional bodies and the Christian community. We aim to continue to develop our reputation for carrying out high quality, research and research training and contributing evidence to the research-teaching nexus. Research findings from academic staff’s own research are utilised and reflected in teaching and other faculty activities.
Staff Research and Scholarship
Dr Malcolm Anderson: is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Nursing and Health and the Convenor of post graduate studies. Malcolm has over 20 years experience in tertiary teaching and has been researching for 10 years. His research interests are well developed using quantitative and qualitative methods, with a particular focus on structural equation modelling (SEM). His research projects have involved multi-site, multidisciplinary collaborations with Liverpool Health Service, Australian Catholic University and the Hong Kong Institute of Education. His areas of research interest include psychological stress in families such as examining the effects of traumatic brain injury on family relationships. Further, research in health psychology, which includes testing models of protection motivation as a way of understanding nurses intentions to practice and promote protective behaviours. He contributes to the writing of nursing texts and has a number of publications in peer reviewed journals.
Wayne Bradshaw: is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Nursing and Health. His research interests focus on Obesity and health promotion. Wayne has previously conducted research with the New Zealand Cancer Society looking at Men’s Health Issues and has also explored the perceptions of men who have a family history of bowel cancer. Wayne has also studies into the development of a research culture within a department of nursing and has evaluated research proposals for the New Zealand Research Council.
Katherine Cooper: is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Nursing and Health and is enrolled in a Master of Nursing (Honours) program. Her thesis is entitled “The effects of spiritual care education on nursing student’s perception of spiritual care.” She has a paper currently under review that reviews the literature around spiritual care in nursing education and has co-authored a chapter in a book entitled “Spirituality in Dementia Care.”
Tonia Crawford: is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Nursing and Health. Her research focuses on the processes for English language development for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Her current study is a participatory action research project that investigates what the students’ feel they need to support their language development, to assist with their communication in the clinical setting, and their progression through the BN programme. Tonia recently presented her findings at the International Symposium on Teaching English at Tertiary Level in Hong Kong, and currently has a paper reporting findings from this study under review.
Sonja Frischknecht: has been a Lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education since 2008 and teaches senior nursing students in High Dependency and Med/Surg Nursing subjects. With 12 years prior experience of working with a Christian, humanitarian organisation around the continent of Africa, she is now providing opportunities for nursing students at Avondale in the South Pacific to build a global perspective on matters of health, nursing and leadership within a faith based context.Her passion is to equip and support nurses to function in a global health environment for volunteer service and to provide direction on leadership in these areas. Sonja’s research interests revolve around clinical education within service learning projects. Sonja has pioneered a programme at Avondale to take senior nursing students on clinical placements outside of Australia. She recently completed a qualitative study on student perceptions of their clinical learning whilst undertaking a service learning clinical placement in a developing country. Sonja is regularly invited to speak about her overseas nursing experiences at conferences and meetings.
Paul Race: is the Dean of the Faculty of Nursing and Health. His current research interests include exploring the perceived student value of mental health pre-clinical workshops in preparing students for acute mental health clinical practice environments. He is also a member of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) project reference group to facilitate work integrate learning (WIL) through Skills-Enabled electronic (e)-Portfolios in the disciplines of Construction Management (CM) and Nursing University of Newcastle.
Dr Athena Sheehan: is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Nursing and Health and also holds an adjunct research and teaching position at the University of Western Sydney. As well as her links with UWS, Athena also has collaborative research links with colleagues from the University of Central Lancashire and Thames Valley University in the UK and Academics from UTS and Griffith University Australia. Athena has research experience in both qualitative and quantitative research designs. She has worked on a number of research projects including an RCT of a community based model of midwifery care, a study on postnatal outcomes for women, and a study of university based midwifery education. Athena has been both a technical advisor and researcher on Commonwealth funded projects. She has been involved in the design and writing of successful research grants including two Australian Research Council (ARC) grants. Her current research focuses on infant feeding and includes women’s perceptions and experiences of infant feeding, support for women learning to breastfeed and policies and practices around infant feeding. She has a strong track record of publications in high ranking peer reviewed journals and has given a number of invited keynote and conference presentations.
Dr Alison Smedley: is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Nursing and Health and is the Assistant Course Convenor of the undergraduate nursing programme. Alison has over 30 years in teaching and learning in various contexts including community, TAFE, clinical nursing education and tertiary level teaching and learning (both undergraduate and postgraduate). Alison’s commitment to excellence in teaching both clinically and in the classroom, are reflected in her research interests. Alison has focused her research on the self directed learning readiness of students, student’s perceptions of clinical learning environments and developing clinical teaching skills of preceptors. Her research and involvement with curriculum development has contributed significantly to the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes run through Avondale College. She has a number of published articles in the field and is called on to review articles and theses in her area of expertise. She has recently contributed to reviewing books such as ‘Educational Leadership’ by Duignan (to be published in 2012).
Dr Drene Somasundram: is a Lecturer and Chaplain to students in the Faculty of Nursing and Health. Drene’s research interests are particularly focused on Gender Issues in Spirituality and Religion. She has presented findings from a research study ‘A Gender Inclusive Model in Theological Education for the Seventh-Day Adventist Church’ at numerous conferences. And has a paper under review in the ‘International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society’. She is currently working with Katherine Cooper in preparing a book chapter “Spirituality in Dementia Care.”
Zorana Wong: is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Nursing and Health. Zorana is preparing to commence her PhD where she will be exploring the sources of distress and eustress in undergraduate nursing students. The interaction between stressors, coping and the impact on student psychological well-being will also be investigated.
