Victorian Aspiring Principal Assessment - Privacy Collection and Research Consent
- The Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership (the Academy) is the statutory authority responsible for developing and delivering the Victorian Aspiring Principal Assessment (VAPA) in collaboration with the University of Melbourne.
- The primary purpose of the Academy and the Victorian Department of Education (department) collecting your personal information is to facilitate:
- your application to participate in VAPA as a candidate or assessor
- your involvement in VAPA
- the evaluation of VAPA.
- The Academy may provide this information to any service provider contracted to develop or deliver VAPA for the purpose of assisting in its design, delivery or promotion.
- Information may also be disclosed to third parties to evaluate the effectiveness of VAPA.
- Your contact details may be provided to teaching and corporate staff within the department to facilitate further professional development opportunities.
- If you do not provide the requested personal information, you may not be eligible to participate in VAPA.
- An individual may request access to their personal information held by the Academy and request its correction if inaccurate. For this, or any other enquiry, please contact the Academy on (03) 8199 2900.
- For general information about the handling of personal information by the department, please see our privacy policy at: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Pages/privacy.aspx.
- As a VAPA applicant and candidate, we also invite you to participate in this work through a research project that is being conducted under the leadership of Professor Barry McGaw of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. This project is funded by the Victorian Department of Education. This project has been approved by The University of Melbourne Ethics Committee HREC: 1647852.1
- The aim of this project is to design a rigorous, evidence-based approach to assess aspiring school leaders’ readiness for principalship in Victoria. More specifically, the project will design and deliver a pilot of the capstone assessment process that will be:
- informed by international best practice and research evidence
- aligned with the Australian Professional Standard for Principals and the Academy's Principal Preparation Program (PPP)
- tailored for Victorian school contexts, school leaders and policy frameworks
- underpinned by clearly articulated educational principles
- co-designed with school leaders, researchers, and educational assessment experts who specialise in instrument design and mixed-method assessment and evaluation
- endorsed by relevant stakeholder organisations
- valid in its measures, practical in its use and developmental in its ethos.
- If you consent to the research, you will be asked to participate as a candidate in a pilot of the assessment process and the assessment instrument. You will be involved in the following:
- Pre-assessment briefing: you will be briefed on the steps of the assessment and will be provided with a Candidates’ Guide.
- Preparation of evidence: you will follow the instructions detailed in the Candidates’ Guide and prepare evidence to submit for assessment.
- Assessment: your evidence will be assessed.
- Post-assessment briefing: you will be briefed about your results and given suggestions for improving your knowledge and skills.
- The anonymity and confidentiality of you and your responses will be ensured to the fullest possible extent within the limits of the law. We will not name you or your jurisdiction in any report arising from this research and your identity will not be revealed to other participants. Reports resulting from this study will emphasise summary information. Any references to specific information that might allow someone to guess the identity of you or your jurisdiction will be removed. The data will be kept securely at the University of Melbourne under the University’s guidelines for the management of research data, and destroyed five years after publication of written reports.
- Your participation will be used only to help us to summarise the collective wisdom of current providers of leadership development programs which will inform the development of approaches in Victoria.
- Participation in this research is completely voluntary. Should you wish to withdraw from the research at any time, or to withdraw unprocessed information that has been collected, you are completely free to do so. Please contact VAPA@education.vic.gov.au to indicate your withdrawal from the research.
- On completion of the research, a summary of the final report will be made available to you.
- If you require any further information or have any concerns, please contact Professor Barry McGaw (barry.mcgaw@unimelb.edu.au). If you have any concerns about the conduct of the project you are welcome to contact the Manager, Human Research Ethics, Office for Research Ethics and Integrity, The University of Melbourne, ph: 8344 2073.
- If you would like to participate, please indicate that you have read and understood this information by ticking the “I agree to the VAPA Privacy Collection Notice and Research Consent notice” box on the registration page.
- By clicking this box, you:
- consent to participate in the above research study, the particulars of which – including details of procedures – have been explained to me in the Plain Language Statement and I have been given a copy of that explanation to keep.
- authorize the investigators in the above study to implement the procedures referred to above.
- acknowledge that:
- the possible uses of the information arising from the study have been explained to me to my satisfaction;
- I have been informed that my participation in this research is voluntary, and that I am free to withdraw from the study at any time and to withdraw any unprocessed information that has been supplied;
- the study is for the purpose of research and development only;
- once signed and returned, a copy of this consent form will be retained by the principal researcher; and
- I have been informed that the confidentiality of the information provided by myself and teachers at my school will be safeguarded, subject to any legal requirements (subpoena, freedom of information, mandated reporting), and in the following ways:
- no names or personal details of individual participants or jurisdictions will be revealed in any report of the study, and any contextual details that might reveal their identity will be removed;
- data will be stored in secure files at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne for the management of research data and records, and destroyed five years after publication of findings.
