Dr Susan Creagh

Dr Susan Creagh is Research Fellow and Lecturer in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the University of Queensland. She works jointly as a researcher within the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) and as a lecturer in the School of Education.

Susan has a PhD in Education (University of Queensland), a Master's degree in Applied Linguistics (Northern Territory University–now Darwin University) and an Arts degree and Diploma of Education (University of New England). She is a member of the Australian Association of Researchers in Education (AARE), the Queensland Association of TESOL (QATESOL) and the Australian Council of TESOL Associations (ACTA).

Susan has researched and written about the statistical processes used in national education testing in the Australian context which serve to misrepresent the performance of students for whom English is an Additional language. Her PhD was recognised as outstanding research, and was awarded both the Ray Debus Award for Doctoral Research in Education by the Australian Association for Research in Education, and the Penny McKay Memorial Award for an outstanding thesis by the Australian Council of TESOL Associations and the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia.

As a Research Fellow at ISSR, Susan is currently examining the relationship between extreme disadvantage and educational outcomes through an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, under the leadership of Professor Mark Western and with The Smith Family, a large charity organisation which supports the education of disadvantaged children and young people in Australia. Susan is particularly interested in quantitative research methods and identification, categorisation and measurement of students and their educational performance.

Susan has more than twenty years' experience as an English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom teacher and educational administrator. This experience informs her teaching role within the School of Education, where she lectures in the Bachelor of Education program, the Graduate Diploma of Education and the Masters of Education (Primary teaching). Her key teaching areas focus on the teaching of English as a Second or Additional Language for students who are speakers of languages other than English. Within the field of English as a Additional Language, she is continuing to focus research on issues relevant to these students, most recently working on action research with ESL teachers to better understand and document the teaching of reading to newly arrived teenagers of refugee background who have had no schooling prior to arrival in Australia and who are becoming literate for the first time, in English as an additional language.

Susan's research has been published in a range of national and international journals, including the Journal of Education Policy and the Australian Educational Researcher.