CSA provide regular updates on current research projects. You can view them all here.
Want to find out more information about ACSI Research? Explore ACSI Research.
Our tertiary partners are listed at the bottom of this page. You can find out more about each partner here.
Research
CSA is committed to research on and for Christian schools that showcase and expand the second value proposition of CSA’s 3.0 vision – Thought Leadership. Our research foci centres on a range of key projects, publications and partnerships that hope to re-frame the conversation relating to Christian schools within the public square. Significantly, in our cultural moment, there is a growing body of high quality and reliable research which affirms and supports the practices, policies and principles that underpin Christian schooling.
This download provides an overview of the role of Dr. Darren Iselin, CSA Director of Research and Innovation and includes links to current and future projects with our research partners.
Research and Innovation
Current Projects
Click on each project heading, below, for more information about each of the current projects CSA are participating in and contributing to.
Quality education shapes lives for the common good and effectively equips graduates to contribute to the flourishing of society. Effective schooling should therefore be orientated towards the formation of persons and recognise and celebrate the cultivation and shaping of both hearts and minds within all of our educational communities. But how do we seek to measure our effectiveness in shaping lives that contribute to the public good once they leave our schools?
For nearly a decade, the Cardus Education Survey (CES) has collected data on the social, academic, and spiritual outcomes of nationally representative samples of secondary school graduates (aged 25 – 39) in the USA and Canada. The CES data reveals that school communities are very important cultivators of moral character and civic virtue that can be leveraged more broadly for the common good and the flourishing of society. A consortium of Australia Christian school associations collaborated in 2019 to implement the survey in Australia, leading to the formation of the CES Australia Project. Whilst the project is overseen and licensed through Cardus and their appointed lead Researcher Associate Professor Albert Cheng; the Australian implementation of the CES has been entirely funded and coordinated by the consortium project team consisting of of 6 Australian Christian School Associations: Adventist Schools Australia (ASA), Associated Christian Schools (ACS), Australian Association of Christian Schools (AACS), Christian Education National (CEN), Christian Schools Australia (CSA) and Swan Christian Education Association (SCEA).
Through these collaborative efforts The Cardus Education Survey (CES) has now been able to be developed and undertaken in Australia. The consortium project team look forward to sharing the findings of this landmark research project that will contribute to the narrative regarding education for the public good in Australia into the future.
You can find our more about the CES Australia Project in the latest Project update here or by accessing the CES Australia. The site provides information pertaining to the study including the consortium partners as well as links to other Cardus documents and resources.
Multiple Choice: How parents sort education options in a changing market
The ACSI Barna survey is anticipated to be implemented within Australia in 2021. Preliminary conversations with ACSI have already provided a framework and proposed schedule for the project to be implemented. The School Choice Project will focus on current and prospective CSA member school parents from a representative sample across Australia and will seek to identify, understand and analyse the decision-making practices and influences of parents within a dynamic, rapidly changing Australian socio-cultural milieu. The project will explore why and how do prospective parents choose schools? What do they value, and what are their perceptions of different school types? What do Millennial prospective parents look like? What are the trends that are emerging for school choice for millennials? What are the motivations/barriers for parents who choose Christian education? Expressions of interest for CSA member schools to be involved in this study will be sent in Semester 2, 2020.
ACSI have compiled a report on trends that have shaped the landscape for private Christian education in the United States. This report is available for download below.
Christian Schools Workforce Research Project: Wellbeing and Impact
Thirteen Christian Schools Australia (CSA) member schools have participated in an exploratory study that has investigated the characteristics of K-12 school workforces, including levels of staff resilience, and their potential connection to student outcomes. An overview of the instrument and survey can be accessed here. The sample represented a diverse snapshot of the CSA network, spanning five states (NSW, Qld, Vic, SA and WA), with workforces ranging in size from 21 to 298 staff, and serving student populations ranging from 99 to 1960.
Find out more information about this project here.
Check out the downloads available below for further tools and information within the scope of this project:
2018-2019 State of the Sector Report
A range of CSA member schools from across the nation are now registered for the pilot implementation of the Flourishing Schools Culture Model (FSCM) and the Flourishing Schools Culture Survey instrument (FSCI) in Australia. Over the past year, ACSI has partnered with North American member schools to collect and leverage empirical data in the pursuit of insight around how and why Christian schools flourish. The validated constructs identified through rigorous data analysis were mapped onto the first ever research-based model of Christian school flourishing—the Flourishing School Culture Model (FSCM). In total, the Flourishing Schools Culture Instrument (FSCI) tested 1,445 discrete variables across seven different survey groups: students; parents; alumni; teachers; leaders/administrators; support staff; and board members.
Below are links to documents compiled by ACSI on their research on Christian School Culture and Community, including an information sheet that contains a model of flourishing school culture.
ACSI's Flourishing Schools Research Info Sheet
With the focus in 2020 on pedagogy within the CSA Architecture, CSA and Tabor have been partnering together on the development of an exciting new resource: Christian Pedagogy: Teaching Redemptively – A Field Guide for Principals and Leaders. Dr Tracey Price, Dean of Education and Director of Scholarship at Tabor is overseeing this exciting project. It is expected that this Field Guide will align with other key CSA resource documentation and be a useful and stimulating reference guide for teachers to use in Christian schools. The project is progressing well and Dr Price is hopeful that the resource will be available to member schools later in the year.
In conjunction with Christian Heritage College (CHC), CSA will produce a GBS (2.0) companion document which showcases the Cross-Curriculum Priority of sustainability from a Biblical Worldview. The project will be led by Richard Leo, Lecturer in Education and Humanities at CHC. The Sustainability priority provides the opportunity for students to develop an appreciation of the necessity of acting for a more sustainable future and so address the ongoing capacity of Earth to maintain all life and meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations.
Due to the popularity and high quality of the Biblical Literacy (Open Book) materials developed by Morling College/Vose Seminary, CSA has partnered with Vose to develop a set of materials to assist in the onboarding and professional development of all staff new to Christian schooling. These materials will again be designed by Dr Brian Harris and Jon Bergmann and will focus on the essential elements of working in a Christian School. The resources seek to prepare both the heart and mind for all staff (teaching and non-teaching) entering into Christian schools and provide high quality, thoughtful, relevant and engaging video modules and stimulus for induction and on-boarding into Christian schools.
Completed Projects
Click on each project heading, below, for more information about each of the previous projects CSA has participated in and contributed to.
In 2017 and 2018, CSA completed one of the largest research projects undertaken on Christian schools in Australia. The project was overseen by the Relational Schools Foundation in the United Kingdom under the direction of Dr Rob Loe and sought to measures a school’s level of relational proximity. “Relational Proximity” is defined as a measure of the distance in the relationship between two people or organisations. The project involved 17 schools and 12,000 student responses with over 1 million lines of data.
The research findings of the Relational Schools Project in Australia were significant in both scope and quality and the level of relational proximity within Australian Christian schools was very high and the correlations with the UK data revealed that, on average, Christian Schools in Australia were exceeding the levels of schools from the initial research in the UK. A second phase of the project was also undertaken in 2019.
LEARN MORE about this important project, including resources and downloads.
A CSA Project in partnership with Christian Heritage College. More about this project can be found here.
A CSA Project in partnership with Morling College, Vose Seminary. More information about this project can be found here.
A CSA Project in partnership with Alphacrucis College, the Thriving in Community resource is designed to assist Principals and teachers in implementing elements of the National Safe Schools Framework (NSSF), most particularly element 6.
Tertiary Partners
