Section: Overview
Overview
Key publications
Research funding
Supervising & teaching
Career

Key details

Areas of expertise

  • Teacher Education
  • Mathematics education
  • Women in leadership
  • Practitioner research methodology

Not available to supervise research students

Not available for media queries

About Pat Drake

At VU, Pat was Dean of Education from 2012-2015, and Professor of STEM Education Strategic Initiatives from 2015-2017. Her projects in Britain and Australia include:

  • Equitable Partnerships in Mathematics and Science (with Jo Boaler)
  • Evaluating Mathematics Pathways with Andy Noyes for the UK Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
  • Early Years STEM (with Nicola Yelland) for the Australia Government Canberra;
  • A play based approach to ICT education, Google.

Writing from these projects and from her experience in university leadership include articles, book chapters and books. She has won two awards for her writing:

  • Emerald Literati Award Most Outstanding article
    Drake, P.  (2018) '"The cut and thrust of industrial relations” – bullying by another name?', Gender in Management: An International Journal, Vol 33(1) 2-13
  • Editor’s choice for the best article:
    Noyes, A., Wake, G. & Drake, P (2013) ‘Time for curriculum reform: the case of mathematics’, The Curriculum Journal, 24 (4), 511-528.

Pat is currently working on a book, An Awfully Familiar Strange Land, that explores the global phenomenon of academic staff migrating as part of the expansion of education as a global commodity. 

Originally a mathematics teacher and a trained statistician, Pat veered towards social science when small-scale projects about what people do in practice thwarted the use of statistical techniques. Pat’s sample sizes decreased to the extent that she has written about experience in the first person, having developed a perspective on authorial responsibility to make meaning, especially of voices not otherwise represented.

She combines research with practice in professional settings. Her most recent project in this vein for VU was an analysis of the mathematics performance of students taking mathematics-related units across all courses in the university: Be a Somebody.

Pat offers academic mentoring and doctoral assessment. She also serves on the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Expert Numeracy Panel (2013 - 2019).

Qualifications

  • EdD, University of Sussex, UK, 2007
  • MA Education, University of London, UK, 1990
  • Post-Grad Diploma in Statistics, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, 1980
  • Post-Graduate Certificate in Education, University of London, UK, 1972
  • BA Pure Mathematics, Essex University, UK, 1971

Key publications

Year Citation
2019 . (190101). Interdisciplinary Mathematics Education. Doig, B. ;. (Ed.). Springer International Publishing.

doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-11066-6

Year Citation
2019 Drake, P. (190101). Introduction: A Glass Half Full? (pp. 85-91). Springer International Publishing.

doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-11066-6_6

2019 Vale, C., & Drake, P. (190101). Attending to out-of-field teaching: Implications of and for education policy (pp. 195-215).

doi: 10.1007/978-981-13-3366-8_8

Year Citation
2017 Yelland, N., Drake, P., Sadler, K., & Department, of. (170101). Early Learning in STEM: Multimodal learning in the 21st century. Melbourne: Victoria University.

Year Citation
2019 Drake, P. (190101). Introduction: A Glass Half Full? In Doig, B. ;. (Ed.), Paper presented at INTERDISCIPLINARY MATHEMATICS EDUCATION: THE STATE OF THE ART AND BEYOND (pp. 85-90). SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG.

doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-11066-6_6

Year Citation
2018 Drake, P. (180220). The cut and thrust of industrial relations - bullying by another name?. Gender in Management, 33(1), (2-13).

doi: 10.1108/GM-09-2016-0154

2015 Drake, P. (150223). Becoming known through email: a case of woman, leadership, and an awfully familiar strange land. Gender and Education, 27(2), (148-163).

doi: 10.1080/09540253.2014.993936

2013 Noyes, A., Wake, G., & Drake, P. (131201). Time for curriculum reform: the case of mathematics. Curriculum Journal, 24(4), (511-528).

doi: 10.1080/09585176.2013.812973

2012 Drake, P., Wake, G., & Noyes, A. (121201). Assessing 'functionality' in school mathematics examinations: what does being human have to do with it?. Research in Mathematics Education, 14(3), (237-252).

doi: 10.1080/14794802.2012.734969

2011 Noyes, A., Wake, G., & Drake, P. (110401). Widening and increasing post-16 mathematics participation: Pathways, pedagogies and politics. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 9(2), (483-501).

doi: 10.1007/s10763-011-9281-4

Research funding for the past 5 years

Please note:

  • Funding is ordered by the year the project commenced and may continue over several years.
  • Funding amounts for contact research are not disclosed to maintain commercial confidentiality.
  • The order of investigators is not indicative of the role they played in the research project.

Early Learning STEM Australia (ELSA) Research Project.
From: ACT Government Department of Education and Training
Other investigators: Prof Nicola Yelland
For period: 2016-2016
Not disclosed

Supervision of research students at VU

Not available to supervise research students

Not available for media queries

Completed supervision of research students at VU

No. of students Study level Role
1 PhD Principal supervisor

Completed supervision of research students at VU

Students & level Role
PhD (1) Principal supervisor

Key academic roles

Dates Role Department / Organisation
Mar 2017 - Present
Emeritus Professor
Victoria University
Jan 2012 - Dec 2015
Dean of Education
Victoria University
Jan 2015 - Dec 2017
Professor of STEM Education Strategic Initiatives
Victoria University
Dates Role & Department/Organisation
Mar 2017 -
Present
Emeritus Professor
Victoria University
Jan 2012 -
Dec 2015
Dean of Education
Victoria University
Jan 2015 -
Dec 2017
Professor of STEM Education Strategic Initiatives
Victoria University

Key industry, community & government roles

Dates Role Department/Organisation
Jan 2015 - Dec 2019
LANTITE Expert Numeracy Group
Australian Council for Educational Research.
Dates Role & Department/Organisation
Jan 2015 - Dec 2019
LANTITE Expert Numeracy Group
Australian Council for Educational Research.

Professional memberships

  • Member, Women in Mathematics Higher Education
  • Member, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
  • Member, Mathematics Association of Victoria
  • Member, British Society for Research in Mathematics Education