Dr John Ainley is Deputy CEO (Research) of the Australian Council for Educational
Research and Research Director of its National and International Surveys Program.
His research interests span several areas. His research on post-compulsory education and
training has involved analyses of the progress of young people in Australia through
school, further education, training and work, studies of influences on subject choice in
the senior secondary years and the progress of students through the senior secondary
years. Dr Ainley used longitudinal research methods to study the development of literacy
over the first five years of school. His research on information and communication
technology in education has encompassed case studies of innovative teaching and learning
practices in schools and a national survey of ICT literacy in Australian schools. He has
surveyed in the East Asia and Pacific region to assess knowledge needs and access to the
global development learning network.
Dr Ainley is a member of the Education and Training Statistics Advisory Group of the
Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Consortium Advisory Group for the Longitudinal Study
of Australian Children and the Youth Advisory Group for the Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare. He is editor of the Australian Journal of Education and a member of
the editorial boards of Education Research and Evaluation and the Education Research
Review. He was a member of a group that conducted a national study of the impact of
educational research. He has been a visiting scholar at the Far West Laboratory for
Educational Research in San Francisco and the Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education.
