I graduated B.A. (Hons 1) in Psychology from the University of Tasmania in 1957, whereupon I went to England as did many Tasmanians of my generation: in my case with a view to postgraduate study. After a year of school teaching, I was employed at the National Foundation for Educational Research to carry out research into methods of teaching arithmetic; part of that work became my doctoral thesis (Birkbeck College, University of London, 1963). This work defined the broad thrust of my subsequent academic career: trying to establish the elusive link between psychological theory and educational practice. I started out in Psychology then shifted to Education (UNE, Armidale, NSW) and stayed in Education (Monash, Alberta, Newcastle, Hong Kong) until post-retirement I completed the circle back in Psychology. My final institutional affiliation is as Honorary Professor of Psychology at HKU.

My academic journey relating psychology to education is outlined in Significant Academic Publications, first in books, then journal articles.

I retired from HKU to write fiction, but as I had unfinished academic work to do, I continued as an occasional consultant on teaching in higher education.

My son Zoltan Dienes followed my career path: he is a Reader in Psychology at the University of Sussex.

significant academic Publications

I see the educational context as an ecosystem, where each component affects all other components. Thus, teaching methods and assessment tasks should be aligned to the curriculum, which is expressed in terms of the learning outcomes we intend the students to achieve. This is a version of ‘outcomes-based education' (OBE), not to be confused with two other versions. In the left corner, is school level OBE, under fire from neo-conservatives as post-modern, anti-family and a vehicle for left-wing propaganda; and in the right corner, OBE is a managerial whip to flog the long-suffering academic horse, which is already nigh on death. My version of OBE, constructive alignment, is concerned only with improving teaching and learning. If you Google “constructive alignment”, you will currently see nearly 250,000 references, none of which have anything to do with left wing propaganda or with managerialism. Constructive alignment is successfully implemented in universities all over the world. A useful tool for achieving alignment is the SOLO Taxonomy, which helps us to define the quality of learning we want in our intended learning outcomes and assessment targets. Awareness of students' approaches to learning is another tool for helping us define good and poor quality learning. Individual teachers, and institutions as a whole, can use these tools for reflective practice.

Teaching in Hong Kong provided me with a most rewarding twist to this work: The Paradox of the Chinese Learner. Students from the Confucian heritage are stereotyped by Westerners as rote learners yet they achieve astonishingly high outcomes that would be impossible on the basis of rote learning. What's that all about?

Where we have got it badly wrong is in corporatising universities. This has prevented universities from pursuing their distinct and essential role in a democratic society, which is to carry out research and to teach without fear of political or corporate bullying or of being rewarded for producing contrived outcomes for powerful others. Serving political and commercial interests as is required today is to deny not only academic integrity but democracy itself. For more, see Biggs, J and Davis R. (Eds) The Subversion of Australian Universities see especially Chs 1 and 12.