MO-PED

Monash Online - Psychology Education Division (MO-PED)

Navigating future directions for online education and research

Join the journey...

What is MO-PED?

The Monash Online - Psychology Education Division (MO-PED) team in the School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University comprises researchers and educators who are passionate about online education. MO-PED is led by Associate Professor Matthew Mundy, Director of Education in the School of Psychological Sciences, and Dr Stephen McKenzie, Course Convenor of the research units in the GDPA, and comprises members of the Graduate Diploma of Psychology Advanced (GDPA) teaching, supervision and coordination teams.

As online education at Monash University (and worldwide) continues to increase in flexibility and accessibility, models such as the Monash Online suite of courses are increasingly moving fully online. Ongoing research to understand the student experience in this mode of study is warranted, in order to best understand the predictors of student success, and in turn inform continuous improvement in our fully online courses. MO-PED was formed in late 2016 to enable a capacity to fully evaluate our innovative online Psychology courses at Monash, and ensure that course developments are informed by an evidence-based quality research agenda.

To date, MO-PED and MO-PED related achievements include the formation of international and Monash online education research networks including a Memorandum of Understanding and research collaboration with Kings College, membership of a Monash digital education informing Community of Practice, existing Monash collaborations, and publications in the area of online education.

Current projects

Current Projects

MO-PED research team leaders and members are undertaking research in a variety of areas related to both Psychology as a discipline and online education. Broadly, MO-PED's research agenda covers the areas of online teaching, online learning, student support, the online learning environment, and professional skills. Current priority areas include:

  1. Understanding our online students and key cohort characteristics;
  2. Measuring predictors of student success in an online course;
  3. Assessing work readiness in fourth year Psychology students;
  4. Characterising the fourth year Psychology online research experience;
  5. Conceptualising student readiness for intensive online study;
  6. Evaluating GDPA innovations, including the Monash Psychology Research Portal; and
  7. Understanding online student behaviour

MO-PED Active Project Leader Profiles

Meet our MO-PED active project leaders.

  • Associate Professor Matthew Mundy

    A/Prof Mundy is Director of Education for the School of Psychological Sciences. In this role he oversees the School's teaching, as well as the education research portfolio. Responsible for more than 3000 students, on-campus and online, A/Prof Mundy guides the school's development and continuing innovation in teaching and learning.

  • Dr Stephen McKenzie

    Dr Stephen McKenzie is a Senior Lecturer in psychology at Monash University. He is a researcher, lecturer, and writer in different areas of psychology, and is a course convenor of a large new Honours’ equivalent online course, the Graduate Diploma of Psychology - Advanced. He led the development of the Psychology Research Portal at Monash, a ground-breaking web-based tool enabling students to carry out their research projects entirely online

  • Dr Filia Garivaldis

    Filia Garivaldis is an Organisational/Social Psychologist with strong interest and expertise in self-regulation, motivation, expectations, and implicit affect states. Dr Garivaldis is a Lecturer and Course Convenor of the GDPA, and is a founding member of MO-PED, is researching work readiness in psychology students, and the experiences of academics teaching online.

  • Chantal Roddy

    Chantal is an Assistant Lecturer/ Senior Online Instructor in the GDPA, as well as a supervisor and unit coordinator. She is also a former teacher. Her MO-PED research interests include student readiness, student wellbeing, and the online research experience.

  • Dr Bernice Plant

    Bernice’s main research interests lie in examining the efficacy and underlying mechanisms of psychological influence techniques, and in examining the interaction between dispositional and situational factors in creative performance. As a member of MO-PED, Bernice draws on evidence-based psychological techniques to improve the learning environment and to develop students' work readiness and transferable skills.

  • Jen Chung

    Jen Chung was an Assistant Lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences in the role of Assistant Course Convenor for an online fourth-year psychology course, the Graduate Diploma of Psychology Advanced. Her professional experience in this role in addition to on-campus teaching has led her to further explore her research interests in the area of student wellbeing as a PhD Candidate within MO-PED. She commenced her candidature in April 2018.

  • Dr Ruth Tatnell

    Ruth's research focus broadly focusses on suicide prevention, and specifically addresses non-suicidal self-injury, which is purposeful damage to the body without intent to die. This behaviour is surprisingly prevalent, particularly among adolescents and young adults, and indicates underlying distress and an inability to manage emotions. Ruth's has been examining possible developmental reasons for this behaviour with a view towards prevention and intervention.

  • Dr Lisa Burke

    Dr Lisa Burke is an AHPRA registered psychologist with extensive experience in clinical, research, and academic settings. Having been an academic in traditional, blended, and fully online modes, Lisa appreciates the overt and nuanced distinctions between these modes for students, staff, and administrators. Accordingly, Lisa's MO-PED research investigates staff experiences in online tertiary courses.

  • Dr Janelle Levesque

    Dr Janelle Levesque is a Lecturer, Unit Coordinator and Senior Supervisor for the Graduate Diploma in Psychology- Advanced. Her MOPED research interest focuses on student feedback, and particularly staff and student perspectives on formative feedback.

  • Dr Lauren Shaw

    Dr Lauren Shaw is an Assistant Lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences, with extensive experience in on-campus and online teaching, supervision and research. She is currently leading a project within MO-PED that seeks to investigate the phenomenon of volatility in online learning environments.

  • Zahra Aziz

    Zahra Aziz draws from her 10 years' research and evaluation experience, most of these in the education and healthcare environments through a range of evaluation and research roles (including Senior Researcher and Business Analyst for academic institutions). She is currently leading the evaluation of Psychology Research Portal project which is funded through the Learning and Teaching Grant, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences. She is also co-leading the Monash Education Academy funded project that investigates the key factors of optimal student outcome in online psychological courses.

  • Dr Lilani Arulkadacham

    Dr Lilani Arulkadacham is an Assistant Lecturer and Assistant Convenor from the School of Psychological Sciences, who has extensive experience in on-campus and online teaching. She is currently co- leading a project within MO-PED, which aims to investigate the predictors of optimal student outcomes in online Psychological courses.

Grants and Awards

The MO-PED team have been awarded the following competitive grants:

  • Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences Learning & Teaching Research Grant Scheme 2017
    ($15,000)
  • Higher Education Research Scheme ($2,000)
  • MEA Travel Grants (In total, $16,000)
  • Identifying the indicators of optimal student outcome in online education - Collaboration with Kings College London under MEA Small Grant Scheme ($5,000)

Professional Development

MO-PED members have undertaken the following professional development activities and training opportunities.

  • Learning analytics: Lessons learned and future directions, June 2017, Monash University Clayton Campus
  • Evaluating your Teaching Practice: Applying for a citation or a teaching award workshop, August 2017, Monash University, Melbourne
  • ASCILITE Spring Into Excellence Research School: Three day program focused on developing Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) research initiatives, including information on grants, collaboration opportunities, and publication advice.
  • Higher Education Research Scheme: The Monash Education Academy Higher Education Research (HER) Scheme is an 18-month mentoring program that provides mentees with knowledge, project support and mentorship related to the scholarship of learning and teaching. Chantal is mentored under this scheme by A/Prof Nicky Jacobs from the Faculty of Education.

Publications and Conferences

Publications

MO-PED members have a number of publications in preparation, so please keep an eye on this website for updates. Our first article was recently published in the open access journal Frontiers in Education.

Roddy C., Amiet, D.L., Chung, J., Holt, C., Shaw, L., McKenzie, S., Garivaldis, F., Lodge, J.M. and Mundy ME (2017) Applying Best Practice Online Learning, Teaching, and Support to Intensive Online Environments: An Integrative Review. Front. Educ. 2:59. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2017.00059

Conferences

MO-PED members have also presented at a range of conferences throughout 2017, to showcase some of the GDPA innovations and research, including:

  • Monash Education Academy (MEA) Learning and Teaching Conference, Monash University Caulfield (31 May 2017)
  • Vancouver International Conference on the Teaching of Psychology (27 - 29 July 2017)
  • Australian Psychology Learning and Teaching Conference (AusPLAT), University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich, QLD (15 - 17 Sept 2017)
  • World Conference on Online Learning (WCOL), Toronto, Canada (16 - 19 Oct 2017)
  • Heartbeat of Teaching Symposium, Monash University Caulfield (23 Oct 2017)
  • EdTechPosium, Canberra, ACT (30 - 31 Oct 2017)

News & Events

  • MO-PED News

    MO-PED members Dr Filia Garivaldis, Dr Stephen McKenzie and Dr Bernice Plant are due to present at the Twenty-fifth International Conference on Learning in Athens, Greece in June, 2018 (http://thelearner.com/2018-conference)

  • MO-PED Events

    In late February, Professor Sue Elliott AM – Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Education) and Professor Kim Cornish, Head, School of Psychological Sciences hosted a Monash-Kings College London Symposium dedicated to exploring advances in technology and online education, innovation and student-centred education as we increasingly embrace online technologies. Further reporting on the event is accessible here: https://www.monash.edu/neuro-institute/news-and-events/latest-news/articles/monash-kings-college-london-symposiumredefining-the-future-of-digital-education-in-large-student-cohorts.

MO-PED Research Collaborations

MO-PED is currently building collaborations with the GDPA's companion course, the Graduate Diploma in Psychology (GDP), which is also part of the Monash Online suite of offerings. We hope to also conduct future research with other Monash Online courses, and also online courses outside of Monash Online. MO-PED has also initiated some research projects which span the Psychology on-campus Honours program, the Graduate Diploma of Professional Psychology (GDPP) run by the Faculty of Education, and the GDPA.

With Professor Kim Cornish, Head, School of Psychological Sciences, MO-PED members Dr Stephen McKenzie and A/Prof Matthew Mundy established a Memorandum of Understanding with Kings College London to conduct collaborative online education research.  A current research collaboration is underway with Dr Kyle Dyer and Dr Gisele Dias from Kings College, and Dr Stephen McKenzie from MO-PED investigating the predictors of student success online.

Monash Online Education Community of Practice (MOEC)

As part of wider Monash collaborations in the online education, MO-PED members have also joined the Monash Online Education Community of Practice (MOEC), founded by Associate Professor Matthew Mundy, Professor Geoff Rose, Dr Stephen McKenzie, and Dr Angela Fitzgerald. Further information on the community of practice and related upcoming events will be advertised on this website.

Join the Journey!

  • Study with Us

    Are you passionate about online education research/ scholarship of learning and teaching (SoTL)? We periodically have opportunities for PhD study or other short-term opportunities for research assistant work, so please be in touch at our email address below to find out more information.

  • Collaborate with Us

    If you are seeking to build research collaborations for grants, publications, development of resources, or delivery of professional development activities, we would love to hear from you. MO-PED is also open to partnership opportunities. Please make contact with us as per the contact details below.

Contact Us