Position: Deputy Director Programs: Higher Education

Christine Spratt has a Bachelor of Education (Nursing) from the University of New England (Armidale), a Master’s Degree in Distance Education and a PhD (Education), both from Deakin University (Geelong). She has 15 years experience in Australia and Singapore in a variety of academic teaching, research and senior management positions in the university, corporate and non-profit educational sectors in particular in health (Nursing, Health Sciences and Medicine).

Dr Spratt has particular research and pedagogical interests in curriculum design and development and e-learning, open and distance education and educational evaluation. She has extensive experience in educational leadership in professional education managing a variety of education and curriculum projects at universities such as Monash University , Deakin University and the University of Tasmania.

In the recent past she established a new quality assurance portfolio in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Tasmania; she undertook a major evaluation of the core undergraduate curriculum in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University and led the team to design a demonstrator training program in Monash’s Faculty of Engineering.

Immediately prior to her appointment at NMIT, she was Education and Curriculum Advisor at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) where she was responsible for advising the College on broad educational matters and had primary responsibility for establishing the strategy to design and develop a competency-based curriculum including workplace based assessment models for the training of specialist psychiatrists.

Dr Spratt has sat on internal and external University review committees most recently at Charles Darwin University. She was the lead author contributing to the development of distance learning materials in the area of mixed methods research by the Commonwealth of Learning.

While at the RANZCP Dr Spratt was the lead author on a successful Department of Health and Ageing Grant to improve the capability of the RANZCP Fellowship to support chronic disease self-management. She collaborated on a successful Australian Learning and teaching Council grant application with colleagues at Deakin University that investigated the role of central support units for teaching and learning in the contemporary university (with Dr Dale Holt and Dr Stuart Palmer: Deakin University). A Strategic Leadership Model for the 21st Century.

She has published in the broad fields of curriculum design and assessment in higher education.

Her most recent contribution is the edited text:

• Spratt, C. & Lajbcygier, P. (Editors) (2009) E-Learning Technologies and Evidence-Based Assessment Approaches, IGI-Global Publishing, Hershey, PA.

Indicative Publications

• Spratt, C., Boyce, P., Davies, M. 2010, Workplace-Based Assessment in Psychiatry Education: The Australian Experience, In Workplace Based Assessment in Psychiatry Cambridge University Press. (Solicited chapter in press)
• Spratt, C. & Lajbcygier, P. (Editors) (2009) E-Learning Technologies and Evidence-Based Assessment Approaches, IGI-Global Publishing, Hershey, PA.
• Lajbcygier, P. & Spratt, C. (2009), The validity of group marks as a proxy for the individual learning that comes from group work in e-learning environments, in Spratt, C. & Lajbcygier, P. (Editors) E-Learning Technologies and Evidence-Based Assessment Approaches, IGI-Global Publishing, Hershey. PA.
• Sanford A., Lajbcygier, P. & Spratt, C. (2009), Identifying Latent Classes and Differential Item Functioning within a cohort of e-learning Students, in Spratt, C. & Lajbcygier, P. (Editors) E-Learning Technologies and Evidence-Based Approaches, IGI-Global Publishing, Hershey, PA.
• Weaver, D, Spratt, C & Nair, C., 2008, Academic and Student Use of a Learning Management System: Implications for Quality, Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 24, (1), pp. 30-41. 7
• Marlow, A., Spratt, C. & Reilly, A., 2008, Collaborative action learning: A professional development model for educational innovation in nursing, Nurse Education in Practice, 8, (3), pp. 184-189.
• Spratt, C. 2008, Technology Innovators and Structures of Indifference in Distance Higher Education, In Evans, T., Murphy, D., & Haughey, M., (Eds) International Handbook of Distance Education, London, Elsevier.
• Lajbcygier, P., & Spratt, C. 2007, Using ’Blended Learning’ to Develop Tertiary Students Skills of Critique, In Tomei, L., (Ed) Integrating Information Technologies into the Classroom, Information Science Publishing, Hershey PA.
• Reilly, A., & Spratt, C., 2006, The Perceptions of Undergraduate Student Nurses of High Fidelity Simulation: A Case Report from the University of Tasmania, Nurse Education Today, and available online October 25 2006.

Conference Presentations

• Boyce, P., Spratt, C., Dick, S., & Crawshaw, J. 2009, Preparing Psychiatrists for the 21st Century: Continuous Curriculum Improvement in the RANZCP Fellowship Program, 2009, RANZCP Congress 2009, May 25 Adelaide.
• O’Connor, D., Spratt, C., Jayawardena, A., & Schweitzer, Y. 2009, The Expanded Specialist Training Program: A Case Report in Psychiatry at the RANZCP, RANZCP Congress 2009, May 25 Adelaide.
• Spratt, C., Gilbert, K., Lueckenhausen, G., & Roller, L. 2007, Implementing Strategic Policy to Improve Teaching and Learning: A Case Report from Monash University, Australian Universities Quality Agency, AUQF2007: Evolution and Renewal in Quality Assurance, Hobart, July 11-13,
• Weaver, D., Nair, C., & Spratt, C. 2005, Using Student Evaluation to Enhance Teaching with WebCT, 2005 Evaluations and Assessment Conference, Sydney, November 30–December 1.
Marlow, A., Spratt, C., & Reilly, A. 2005, Collaborative Action Learning as a Model for Simulation Development, The 5th SimTect Health Conference, November, Brisbane.