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PhD (Queensland University of Technology), Graduate Diploma Education (Queensland University of Technology), BNurs (Hons) (Queensland University of Technology), BCom (University of New South Wales)
Dr James Davis is a Senior Lecturer (STEM and Entrepreneurial Education), Academic Lead Engagement (Domestic) in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership, and Lead for the QUT STEM Education Research Group.
James leads teaching and research across science, integrated STEM, and entrepreneurial education with a strong pragmatic approach to social justice through education for empowering action. His interest in entrepreneurship education takes a human capabilities approach that promotes emancipatory entrepreneuring evident with his research and teaching that seeks to develop a sense of action-orientated autonomy and confidence in teachers and students. He currently leads a program of research in the Learning Science and Innovation Lab within the QUT STEM Education Research Group and supervises a diverse group of higher degree research students across science, STEM and entrepreneurial education. In 2023 James released a sole authored book How to Become an Entrepreneurial Teacher, published with Routledge and grounded in his scholarship of learning and teaching over the past 6 years.
James has impacted the field of science education with his novel research into the place of emotions in teaching and learning processes that underpin his methodological strategies and connects across his fields of research. He has considerable experience with research into enacted pedagogy and the emotive-cognitive interplay in student engagement and learning, using authentic, event-orientated and multi-logical research strategies. James completed his PhD in 2016, entitled A Study of the Emotional Essence of Analogical Reasoning in Secondary School Science. He is a contributing author to the Springer volume Exploring Emotions, Aesthetics and Wellbeing in Science Education Research. He has also contributed several chapters to a Brill volume Eventful Learning: Learner Emotions and a Routledge volume Emotions in Late Modernity. One of his most cited publications Objectivity, Subjectivity and Emotion in School Science Inquiry was published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST). In 2019, James was lead author on a paper in Cultural Studies of Science Education (CSSE) that described an intensity model of emotional energy. In late 2019 he initiated and led a study of emotional energy in a Shanghai primary school STEM program as a collaborative project with Shanghai Normal University. James leads an emergent research program with a focus on entrepreneurial STEM education. He serves as an Associate Editor for Research in Science Education (RISE).
Additional information
- Entrepreneurship Development Program 2023, Sloan School of Management, MIT Boston.
- Leader, QUT STEM Education Research Group, 2023-2025.
- Academic Lead Engagement (Domestic), School of Teacher Education & Leadership, 2022-2023.
- Australian-ASEAN Council grant delivering research training to academics in Cambodia: Research Design through a Social Inclusion Lens, in collaboration with Tetra Tech & DFAT. 2021-2023.
- Associate Editor to Research in Science Education, published by Springer in collaboration with the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA).
- Faculty of Education, Entrepreneurship Leader, embedding entrepreneurial mindset into preservice teacher education, establishing research opportunities, and engaging with Queensland’s startup community. 2017-2020.
- Leadership of entrepreneurship and innovation professional development programs for teachers, including a MOOC https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/teaching-entrepreneurial-thinking
- Non-Executive Director for Kairos Community College, an Independent Special Assistance School supporting young people's learning in Deception Bay and Caloundra.
- Mentor and lead to an international Doctoral Forum between QUT, Beijing Normal University and University of Calgary, 2022-2024.
- Davis, J., (2023). How to become an entrepreneurial teacher: Being innovative, leading change. Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/235604
- Davis, J., (2023). Creating Values: the Entrepreneurial-Science Education Nexus. Research in Science Education, 53(1), 19–36. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/227305
- Davis, J., (2019). Preservice teacher learning experiences of entrepreneurial thinking in a STEM investigation. Entrepreneurship Education, 2(1-2), 1–17. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/128086
- Davis, J., (2022). Formal rules and rules as reasoning-in-action: playing games with reality in science education. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 17(4), 1081–1088. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/235632
- Davis, J. & Bellocchi, A. (2020). Gamification of SSI's as a science pedagogy: Toward a critical rationality in teaching science. In M. Evagorou, JA. Nielsen & J. Dillon (Eds.), Science Teacher Education for Responsible Citizenship: Towards a Pedagogy for Relevance through Socioscientific Issues (pp. 101–116). Springer. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/130706
- Davis, J., Du, J., Tang, J., Qiao, L., Liu, Y. & Chiang, F. (2020). Uniformity, diversity, harmony, and emotional energy in a Chinese STEM classroom. International Journal of STEM Education, 7(1). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/203454
- Davis, J. & Bellocchi, A. (2020). Intensity of emotional energy in situated cultural practices of science education. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 15(2). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/126377
- Davis, J. & Bellocchi, A. (2018). Objectivity, subjectivity, and emotion in school science inquiry. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 55(10), 1419–1447. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/223972
- Davis, J., (2017). Emotions, social beings, and ethnomethods: understanding analogical reasoning in everyday science classrooms. In C. Quigley, A. Bellocchi & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (Cultural Studies of Science Education, Volume 13) (pp. 121–140). Springer. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/98886
- Zhou, D., Gomez, R., Davis, J. & Rittenbruch, M. (2023). Engaging solution-based design process for integrated STEM program development: an exploratory study through autoethnographic design practice. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 33(2), 717–748. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/229564
- UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS'S SOCIAL BONDS AND METACOGNITION AS CONTEMPORANEOUS PHENOMENA IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Alberto Bellocchi - Secondary school leadership in disrupting times: the role of entrepreneurship in leading contemporary learning organisations
Professional Doctorate, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Chris Blundell, Professor Hitendra Pillay - Exploring the conception of Nature of Science among Pre-Service Science Teachers in Bhutan
Professional Doctorate, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Alberto Bellocchi
Professional Doctorate, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Alberto Bellocchi- From creative thinking to enterprising creativity: Experiences of Australian entrepreneurial education teachers
MPhil, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Hitendra Pillay
- A Study of Emotions and Social Bonds During Transformative Pedagogy in a Bhutanese 10th-Grade Physics Class (2022)
- Adopting Design-based Pedagogy Utilising 3D Printing to Develop Integrated STEM Programs in Queensland, Australia (2022)
- Entrepreneurial learning in business incubators and accelerators (2022)
- Investigating social bonding dynamics in a Brazilian science class through a multi-level analysis (2022)
- Understanding student emotion to inform science inquiry teaching practices (2022)