CQUniversity Rockhampton this week welcomed Susanne Knudsen, who noted Australian teachers tend to dip into many sources, rather than relying on a particular textbook for their class like their Scandanavian counterparts.

Dr Knudsen is a Danish researcher who works in Norway as a Professor of Pedagogic Text and who is the current president of the International Association for Research on Textbooks and Educational Media.

Professor Susanne Knudsen and Associate Professor Mike Horsley chat about learning and teaching materials, at Rockhampton Campus this week

She gave a presentation on campus about new ways of analysing teaching materials devised for school children.

Her research shows, among other things, that Aboriginal authors of history textbooks are interested in 'where and who' explanations, whereas non-Aboriginal authors are more obsessed about the timeline (when) and why things happened.

Dr Knudsen is also considered a world authority on portrayal of gender in textbooks. She's tracking with interest developments leading to textbooks being supplemented by digital materials.

Hosted by Associate Professor Mike Horsley, who is Director of CQUniversity's Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre (LTERC), Dr Knudsen said she would arrange for a Norwegian PhD student to visit Noosa Campus in 2012, to collect comparative data on use of teaching materials by Australian school children.