From leadership research to district action: Lived experience inclusion in psychology education: a survey of Australian tertiary institutions

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

ABSTRACT Objective To conduct a preliminary survey of staff involved in teaching accredited psychology units at Australian tertiary institutions about their inclusion of lived experience in education. Method Academics were informed about the study by Heads of School/Directors of Education. Thirty-two educators across undergraduate and postgraduate psychology courses completed an online survey. Content analysis was used to identify recurring themes and patterns in the data. Results Over 50% of the respondents were using their own or others’ lived experience in their curriculum, with the primary reason being to enrich learning. The main barriers reported were resource constraints, perceived relevance, and work-safety concerns. Key enablers were identified as resourcing, leadership support, and increasing acceptability of lived experience. Almost two thirds of respondents self-identified as having personal lived experience. Conclusions This study provides an initial snapshot of the current state of lived experience inclusion in Australian psychology tertiary education. The findings are of importance for our discipline to maintain consistency with other disciplines and ensure we are preparing graduates to effectively contribute to a workforce which values consumer and community expertise. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: Involvement of people with lived experience has expanded considerably in recent years across education, research, policy, and practice. Many health profession education courses now include lived experience content and expertise, however not much is known about inclusion in psychology education. Competency standards require psychology graduates to work with respect and sensitivity towards people with diverse experiences and perspectives. What this topic adds: This is the first known survey of educators at tertiary institutions offering accredited courses in psychology in Australia about the inclusion of lived experience in teaching/curriculum. Over one-half of survey respondents are using their own or others’ lived experience in their psychology teaching/curriculum, while others would like to but have not yet had the opportunity, seeing it as a way to enrich learning. Barriers to the inclusion of lived experience in Australian tertiary psychology courses included resource constraints such as time and budget, as well as the perceived relevance of lived experience to psychology teaching/curriculum.

Study methods

In this preliminary study, a total of 32 respondents returned a completed survey (62.5% women, 31.3% men, with one respondent identifying as non-binary/gender diverse and one preferring not to respond). Survey responses primarily came from academics in Queensland (37.5%) and Victoria (25.0%), with other respondents teaching at institutions in Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and South Australia. Respondents taught in undergraduate (n = 12), postgraduate (n = 8), or across courses (n = 12), and academic level ranged from Professor (n = 10) to Lecturer (n = 6) with most respondents being in a Teaching and Research position (68.8%). A third of the respondents had worked as practitioners (n = 11) and 22 respondents (71.0%) identified as having their own psychology-related lived experiences as an individual or carer/significant other. Further description of the sample can be found in Table 1.

Limitations

This project was designed as a preliminary study to gain an indication of what is occurring in tertiary institutions with accredited psychology courses in Australia, and serves as a precursor to more in-depth ethnographic and participatory action research being conducted. We acknowledge that a brief survey is consistent with a positivist/post-positivist paradigm and quantitative analysis, and would have conducted more detailed analysis accordingly had response rate been higher. The open-ended questions in the survey allow for simple content analysis aligned with an interpretivist paradigm which strengthens understanding and presents multiple perspectives. It was not possible to collect information from Heads of School/Directors of Education about how many staff they invited to participate in the study, and several states did not reply to the study invitation, prohibiting calculation of response rates. We acknowledge the findings may not represent the broader tertiary psychology education community due to small sample size and self-selection bias, with 71% of respondents self-identifying as having personal lived experience. Although constrained by a small sample size and self-selection bias, the findings contribute to the limited knowledge base on the inclusion of lived experience in tertiary psychology education in Australia, providing insights into how lived experience is being integrated, as well as the barriers and enablers influencing this practice. As this work gains momentum, we anticipate an increased systematic inquiry into lived experience inclusion within the discipline nationally and overseas.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Kim L. Johnston; Judith Gullifer. Lived experience inclusion in psychology education: a survey of Australian tertiary institutions. Australian Journal of Psychology (2025-06-02). https://doi.org/10.1080/00049530.2025.2511882

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.