Rate My Professor Sian Chapman

Dr. Sian Chapman serves as Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, and holds the position of Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research. With a professional background in dance, she delivers arts education courses within initial teacher education programs at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Chapman earned her Doctor of Philosophy, focusing her doctoral research on arts curriculum implementation practices in primary schools. Her academic career at Murdoch University encompasses teaching, research supervision, and leadership in postgraduate research initiatives.

Chapman's research specializations include arts education, complexity theory, curriculum and education policy, teacher agency and wellbeing, inclusive education, creative practice, and the entanglements and complex emergence in arts teaching. She explores topics such as preservice teachers' preparedness for inclusive schooling, disability representation in children's media, vocational education offerings, and policy translation in arts curricula. Chapman leads projects like Emotional Intelligence Training for teaching and nursing students utilizing drama-based and immersive technologies. Her scholarly contributions feature peer-reviewed journal articles and conference presentations. Key publications encompass 'Creative Practice, Entanglements and Complex Emergence: Teaching in the Arts' (2024), 'School choice in an information desert: a multimodal website analysis of vocational education offerings' with Alison Hilton and Laura B. Perry (2024), 'Seeing disability in children's made for television programmes: An Australian case study' with Julie-Mary Carmel and Peter Wright (2024), 'Inclusion illusion: a mixed-methods study of preservice teachers and their preparedness for inclusive schooling in Health and Physical Education' (2023), 'Arts curriculum implementation: "Adopt and adapt" as policy translation' (2016), and 'Content without Context Is Noise: Looking for Curriculum Harmony in Primary Arts Education in Western Australia' (2018). She has presented works such as 'Courage and Change in Arts Education' (2024) and 'Criticality in Arts education: developing connoisseurship in the primary context' at the 33rd Annual Research Forum of the Western Australian Institute for Educational Research. As a supervisor, Chapman has mentored higher degree by research students on theses addressing teacher wellbeing in challenging times, disability awareness in society and media, casualised academic experiences, and educational resource use in teaching. Her publications and supervisory roles contribute to advancing arts pedagogy, inclusive practices, and curriculum policy in education.