Designing Investigation Methods to Research Indiscernible Impediments of an Invisible Equity Group in Australian Higher Education

Abstract

Research related to Australian Indigenous people is of national significance and is full of challenges as well as opportunities for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers. It requires cultural sensitivity, innovation and pragmatic approaches to frame the enquiry to reach its intended outcomes. Indigenous students are the most marginalised equity group at Australian universities and some aspects of their access and success at university, especially those related to the use of English as the sole medium of instruction, are yet to be explored thoroughly.A grounded approach to the research was guided by the advice of Indigenous mentors of the researcher. The host university’s strong commitment to the compliance of ethical practices for Indigenous research combined with the collective experiences of the mentors and the researcher in Indigenous education informed and guided the drawing up of a pragmatic and culturally sensitive research framework. This paper outlines the development of a framework to investigate the potential language barriers encountered by Indigenous students from EALD (English as an additional language or dialect) backgrounds at a regional Australian university.