Projects

Project dates: 01/05/2024 – 31/12/2024

PI: Dr Angeliki Kallitsoglou

Co-investigator: Dr Rebecca Georgis, University of Exeter

Community partner: Cristina Motoca, Alton Community Playschool, London

Funding awarded: £5990,43

Sponsor: ESRC Impact Accelerator Account (IAA) - Impact Cultivation Award

Access to inclusive early childhood education and care (ECEC) remains a significant challenge for families of young children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Many early years providers face difficulties accommodating children with additional needs, against a backdrop of workforce shortages, limited resources and increasing demand for SEND support. These challenges can disproportionately affect families of children with emerging SEND, particularly those living in disadvantaged urban communities.

The knowledge exchange project sought to facilitate collaboration between parents, early years practitioners and senior community stakeholders to:

develop a shared understanding of the challenges experienced by families and providers; and
identify promising inclusive practices and explore opportunities to strengthen the capacity of early years settings to support children with emerging SEND.

The findings highlighted the challenges faced by parents in finding suitable early years provision, navigating complex support systems and accessing clear information and guidance. Parents also reported anxiety and uncertainty about their children's transition to primary school. As well as set of inclusive practices, a professional and moral commitment to the inclusion of children with SEND is critical to facilitate access to ECEC for children with SEND. Professional practice in ECEC inclusion could benefit from a values-driven approach to training.

Related publication: Accessing Early Childhood Education & Care (ECEC) for Children with SEND: Perspectives and Solutions from the Frontline [Infographic] https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.29604.44160

PIs: Dr George Tarling, Dr Nicholas Bremner, Dr Jason Hill, Dr Isabel Hallam

Research partners: Dr James Wilson & Gemma Abson, Exeter College

Funding: £7300

Sponsor: University of Exeter Engaged and Participatory Research Fund

About the research

Smartphone ownership among young people in the UK is now almost universal, with 98% owning a device by age 12 (Ofcom, 2025). Alongside this rise, daily use has increased dramatically over the past decade, intensifying concerns about the impact of smartphones on adolescents’ attention, mental health, social relationships and learning (Goodyear, 2023; Haidt, 2023; Campbell et al., 2024). Within education, debates have shifted from early enthusiasm for mobile technologies as learning tools to growing anxieties about distraction, cyberbullying and wellbeing (Selwyn & Aagaard, 2021). These concerns have contributed to a global trend toward restricting smartphone use in schools, with countries such as Australia, France, Canada and China introducing various forms of bans, and UNESCO (2023) calling for worldwide action.

In England, the Department for Education recently updated their non‑statutory guidance on phones in schools (DfE, 2024) calling for schools to have 'a policy that prohibits the use of mobile phones throughout the school day, including during lessons, the time between lessons, breaktimes and lunchtime’ (DfE, 2026). This responds to research suggesting approaches in schools vary widely and evidence of impact remains inconsistent (Rahali et al., 2024). Importantly, whilst this guidance mentions sixth form students in schools, it does not explicitly include further education (FE) colleges, which retain autonomy to design policies appropriate for 16–19 learners.

The current study is an exploration of Exeter College’s Digital Detox initiative where students are asked to put their phones in pouches at the front of the classroom to remove them from use during taught sessions. This initiative aims to improve focus, promote healthier screen‑time habits and encourage student reflection on personal phone use. Given the limited evidence concerning smartphone restrictions in post‑16 settings, the research will make a valuable contribution to debates around academic engagement, wellbeing and digital self-regulation in FE contexts including the tensions between policy and implementation.

The research will be conducted in three phases: staff and student focus groups, staff and student surveys, and a series of workshops. The research is guided by the following questions:

RQ1: How do students and staff perceive the roles of phones in their lives in and out of college?

RQ2: How do students and staff experience the Digital Detox and perceive its impacts?

RQ3: Who does the Digital Detox not work for and why?

RQ4: What suggestions for improvements or alternatives do staff and students have?

1^st January 2026 to 31^st December 2027

PIs at Exeter: Professor Neil Harrison, Dr Rebecca Georgis and Professor Nick Gill (Geography)

Funding awarded: £379,393

Sponsor: Nuffield Foundation

This project, which is a collaboration with Refugee Education UK and Newcastle University, focuses on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASCs), meaning those young people aged under 18 who arrive in the country without their parents or other adult carers and who then claim asylum. Typically aged 16 or 17, there were 7,380 UASCs in England in 2024, with numbers growing rapidly over the last decade due to civil war, climate change and global instability.

UASCs generally have high educational and occupational aspirations that have been thwarted in their home countries, but face numerous challenges and barriers in their new setting. These include structural constraints such as the availability of housing and educational opportunities, as well as more individualised ones including the legacy of trauma and English language proficiency. These challenges are compounded by limited family support.

This project will develop significant new insights into the experiences of UASCs in accessing Higher Education and higher-level Further Education. The project uses mixed methods, combining a longitudinal study of a cohort of 45 UASCs with analysis of national administrative data and a survey of key practitioners. It will take an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on our expertise in education, geography, psychology, migration studies and sociology.

We will address the following research questions:

RQ1: How many UASCs have accessed Higher Education or higher-level Further Education and what is their demographic profile compared to (a) UASCs in general, and (b) other care-experienced young people?
RQ2: How can their Higher Education participation be characterised by type of institution attended, subject studied, graduation rate, and degree classification?
RQ3: How can their higher-level Further Education participation be characterised by the subject and level of course undertaken and completion rate?
RQ4: What are the educational aspirations and experiences of UASCs post-arrival and how do these change over time?
RQ5: What are the constraints and enablements experienced by UASCs considering higher education and how do these shape the options available to them?
RQ6: How do UASCs conceptualise higher education within the broader sweep of their past and future lives?
RQ7: What challenges exist for practitioners working to support educational pathways for UASCs and how might they be mitigated?

1 October 2022 - 31 October 2023

PI/s in Exeter: Associate Professor Kerry Chappell

Research partners: The Lisbon Council (Belgium), Ellinogermaniki Agogi (Greece), ECSITE (Belgium), TRACES (France), University of Malta, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Greece), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), ScienceView (Greece), Centre for Social Innovation (Austria), Engineering Ingegneria s.p.a (Italy), European School Heads Association (Netherlands)

Funding awarded: (total funding of £109146)

Sponsor(s): UKRI and Horizon 2020

Project webpage(s)

Roadmap STEAMer: developing a steam roadmap for science education in Horizon Europe

About the research

The overall aim of the project is to develop a STEAM roadmap for science education in Horizon Europe, i.e., a plan of action that will provide guidance to EU's key funding programme for research and innovation on how to encourage more interest in STEM through the use of artistic approaches, involving creative thinking and applied arts (the “A” in ‘STEAM’).

The consortium aims to provide Europe with this roadmap, through:

Collaboration and co-creation with the stakeholder communities of science education, research, innovation, and creativity, through intensive exchange, dialogue and mutual learning among them which will produce better knowledge and shared understandings of the relevant opportunities, challenges and needs.
A bottom-up approach emphasizing educational practice and practitioners’ agency rather than high-level conceptualizations of STEAM and generic top-down plans (in reality often just vague statements of intention) for its adoption in science education.
A specific focus on ways to leverage the power of STEAM approaches, as manifested through exemplary cases and best practices, to enable a bridging of open science and open schooling which can catalyse an increased impact for science education as a crucial tool for addressing Europe’s current scientific and societal challenges.

The UoE team consists of Kerry Chappell, Lindsay Hetherington, and Harriet White, and Lucy Yeomans who bring expertise in arts, science education, outdoor learning and equity and participation, respectively. The team’s contribution to Roadmap STEAMer involves bringing these expertise to developing a conceptual framework for STEAM, designing a research methodology and supporting consortium partners with co-creation workshops.

The consortium of Roadmap STEAMer also includes partners from The Lisbon Council (Belgium), Ellinogermaniki Agogi (Greece), ECSITE (Belgium), TRACES (France), University of Malta, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Greece), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), ScienceView (Greece), Centre for Social Innovation (Austria), Engineering Ingegneria s.p.a (Italy), European School Heads Association (Netherlands).

University of Exeter are supported in Project STEAMer by UKRI grant number 10040523 and Horizon 2020.

1 October 2022 - 31 October 2023

PI/s in Exeter: Rachel Manning

Research partners: Field Studies Council

Sponsor(s): ESRC

About the research

Many students in the UK benefit from curriculum-based environmental education (EE) (A-level and GCSE biology and geography fieldwork) which is provided by organisations such as the Field Studies Council (FSC). However, this provision is too focused on a narrow, reductionist curriculum and neglects a key component of health and wellbeing (Alsop & Dillon, 2018).

A large body of literature exists supporting the notion that young people derive both physical and psychological benefits from spending time in natural environments and developing a connection to nature (Mayer et al., 2009). As such, the concept of connection to nature has been a prominent feature in educational theory, and environmental education is commonly attributed as one of the main strategies for facilitating a connection to nature (Fletcher, 2017). However, details of the relationship between curriculum-based EE and wellbeing remain unclear. There has been little insight into the impact of curriculum-based EE on the wellbeing of young people and reveals little of the everyday emotions experienced within pedagogically based experiences of the natural environment.

This project seeks to enhance the understanding of young people’s wellbeing in curriculum-based EE, and in broader settings of education. This project will encourage stakeholders across education settings to think about the wellbeing aspects of educational initiatives and the importance of seeking views from young people about wellbeing in education. It will also allow researchers and stakeholders to share the best practice and enhance knowledge exchange.

Research that will be carried out within this project will capture practitioners’ understanding of supporting young people’s wellbeing in curriculum-based EE, and the perceived opportunities and challenges that exist. As practitioners are tasked with delivering curricula and interacting with young people, it is vital that their experiences are understood, and findings will be used to further support the wellbeing needs of young people. The research will be used to identify professional development and resource needs across outdoor education providers, practitioners, health professionals and schools to ensure programs are designed in an inclusive and impactful manner that focuses on the wellbeing of young people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.

The main aims of the project are to:

Contribute to the fields of education and wellbeing by disseminating research to a broad audience; to academics through published journals and conferences, and to practitioners and policymakers through a series of targeted online resources.
Bring together researchers, EE practitioners and providers, teachers, and school staff to create an interdisciplinary research agenda regarding wellbeing in curriculum-based EE by hosting a series of roundtables drawn from multiple disciplines.
Further understanding of how wellbeing can be supported in curriculum-based EE, by exploring practitioners’ perspectives. Whilst there has been attention to young people’s experiences of EE, little attention is given to practitioners’ perspectives on Supporting the wellbeing of young people wellbeing. This project will carry out research with practitioners to draw from their perspectives of facilitating wellbeing to explore barriers and enablers. This research could be used to identify key skills training and resource needs for current practitioners and health providers to effectively support the wellbeing of young people in EE.

1 October 2021 - 31 December 2023

PI/s in Exeter: Professor Neil Harrison

Research partners: National Association of Virtual School Heads

Funding awarded: (total funding of £58103)

Sponsor(s): KPMG Foundation

About the research

Following the Children and Families Act 2014, every local authority in England has a statutory responsibility to operate a ‘virtual school’ for children in care. The principal purpose of each virtual school is to improve educational outcomes for this vulnerable group whose attainment is significantly lower than the general population at every Key Stage. It primarily achieves this by (a) advocating on behalf of children with physical schools, local authority departments and other agencies engaged in their welfare, (b) administering the Pupil Premium Plus funding, and (c) delivering educational enhancement services directly to children. Each virtual school is led by a ‘virtual head’ who is typically – but not always – an experienced headteacher.

Despite the importance of virtual schools to government policy objectives around children in care, little research has yet been undertaken into the principles that underpin effective practice for virtual schools. Indeed, the educational outcomes for children in care are known to vary widely between local authorities in ways that are not readily explained, suggesting a very strong role for local practice – effective or ineffective. For example, children in care in the local authority with the strongest GCSE outcomes attain an average of roughly two grades higher in each GCSE taken compared to the local authority with the weakest outcomes.

The overarching aim is to improve the collective effectiveness of virtual schools and thereby improve the educational outcomes for children in care. Raising the GCSE attainment of children in care nationally to the level of the currently highest-performing virtual school would represent a major step change; it is also likely that already-effective virtual schools have scope for further improvement. Specifically, the project will answer the following research questions:

1.    How do virtual schools understand effectiveness within their work, including markers of success at the organisational and individual child level?
2.    What elements of effective practice in virtual schools can be identified?
3.    How does the apparent effectiveness of virtual schools with respect to educational outcomes for children in care vary between local authorities?
4.    What relationships exist between the environmental and organisational contexts of a virtual school and its apparent effectiveness?

(N.B. This study was originally hosted at the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford.)

Final report - effectiveness virtual schools

1 July 2021 - 30 September 2021

PI/s in Exeter: Dr Georgina (George) Tarling

Research partners: Co-investigator: Dr Ana Melro, Instituto Universitário da Maia, Portugal.
Research Partners: Dominic Murphy and Brian Conway (Geek Talent)

Funding awarded: £ 5,000

Sponsor(s): ESCR-NPIF-Accelerating Business Collaboration

About the research

Taxonomies are widely used to predict emerging skills that will be needed in the rapidly changing jobs market. In the past such taxonomies were developed by panels of experts. Increasingly now they are created using machine learning techniques applied to large datasets. This has implications for education, as tools based on these taxonomies are increasingly used by policymakers and education providers to guide decision-making about vocational education and student employability. The processes used to identify and classify skills therefore warrant critical attention.

This project is a collaboration between the University of Exeter and Geek Talent, an analytics company in the North West, which uses natural language processing (a type of machine learning) to provide users (including students, job-seekers and education providers) with timely and detailed information to help them see which skills are needed in particular occupations, sectors and regions. The aim of the project is to help Geek Talent improve the quality of their Skills DNA tool, by comparing their data insights with the well-established and large scale ESCO (European Skills, Competences and Occupations) framework. From a business perspective, this will help give more detailed, meaningful and robust information to users. From an academic perspective it offers a way of critically interrogating two different platforms which both seek to shape education provision.

The outputs of the project include an updated taxonomy of transversal (including transversal digital) skills and a report describing in detail our methodology, a version of which can be uploaded to the Geek Talent platform to increase transparency and accountability. These outputs will provide a basis for funding applications to conduct ongoing research to improve the quality of machine learning generated taxonomies of emerging digital, data and other advanced technical skills. This will be of value particularly for the UK’s Institutes of Technology, who have responsibility for developing new FE and HE courses to meet the needs of regional employers with emerging technical roles.

1 June 2021 - 1 June 2024

PI/s in Exeter: Dr Lee Elliot Major

Research partners: Dr Sam Parsons, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, UCL

Sponsor(s): The Monday Charitable Trust

About the research

The aim of this work is to help improve the outcomes for the third of pupils who leave compulsory schooling every year lacking the basic English and maths skills. This is a three-year research project funded by the Monday Charitable Trust that will produce a series of reports to engage policy makers on this national challenge. For this project the Left Behind are defined as those teenagers in England who failed to secure a grade 4 or above in both their English Language and Maths GCSEs (with equivalent benchmarks for those in the rest of the UK). The study will use the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) that tracks c18,000 children born in 2000/2 who took public examinations at age 16 in 2016/17. It will assess the backgrounds of children who failed to gain good grades in English language and Maths GCSEs and consider their later life outcomes in education and employment. It will also examine how the pandemic has differentially impacted on the Left Behind. It will also use the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) and the 1989/90 Next Steps survey to consider previous generations of children who failed to gain English and maths qualifications. Using cognitive assessment data collected during childhood and adolescence the research will track the literacy and numeracy trajectories of children from different income backgrounds. It will document the family and individual characteristics associated with children who ‘buck the trend’ and achieve well despite their backgrounds. These are the so-called ‘protective characteristics’, and may include parents reading regularly to children, the home-learning environment, regular bedtime, parents interest/involvement with their child’ education or types of schooling or other factors. These could point to possible policy lessons for children more widely. It will also document the particular risk factors associated with becoming the Left behind at earlier age-points. The project will consider for several important policy areas, and recommend evidence-informed reforms, citing good policy practice in other countries where appropriate.

1 January 2021 - 1 January 2022

PI/s in Exeter: Dr Lee Elliot Major

Research partners: Will Harvey, Professor at the Exeter Business School, and Anne-Marie Sim, Postdoctoral Research Associate.

Sponsor(s): The Cobalt Trust.

About the research

This project aims to address the barriers to social mobility facing disadvantaged young people in the South West. On many social mobility measures the South West performs worse than any other region in the country. Yet the extent of social mobility problems in the South West has been hugely overlooked. The region’s affluence and picture postcard landscapes conceal the fact that, despite lower than average rates of deprivation, disadvantaged young people growing up locally can expect extremely poor outcomes. For example:

On upward occupational mobility, the South West ranks third worst of 19 regions. · 60% of disadvantaged pupils in the South West (the highest in England) did not obtain a pass in GCSE Maths and English in 2019 – a crucial qualification for accessing most jobs. This compares with 41% in Inner London.
At the end of primary school, disadvantaged pupils nationally are on average 9.3 months behind their non-disadvantaged peers, but in Somerset they are 12.5 months behind. And the gap is widening.
At 16-19, 4 out of the 10 local authorities with the largest attainment gaps in the country are in the South West.
Only 18% of disadvantaged young people in the region progress to higher education – the lowest proportion of any English region.
Meanwhile, Devon has 4 of the top-25 below-Living-Wage local authorities (with between 33% and 41% of jobs paying below the Living Wage).

In other words, disadvantaged young people in the region face a double bind of poor mobility prospects and a poor earnings outlook. This project will look to tackle these issues by identifying the region’s challenges and suggesting strategies and initiatives to address the challenges. Focus will be on those aged under 25 across the South West Peninsular, and three case studies will examine West Somerset, Plymouth, and Redruth and Camborne in more depth. We will propose a regional (or local) strategy to effectively address the specific challenges a region or area might be facing. And we aim to make sure the South West is a key part of national agendas and a frontrunner in trialling this regional approach.

The project is based at the University of Exeter’s Graduate School of Education which hosts the University’s Centre for Social Mobility. Initial funding is being generously provided by the Cobalt Trust. The project team comprises Lee Elliot-Major, Professor of Social Mobility; Will Harvey, Professor at the Exeter Business School, and Anne-Marie Sim, Postdoctoral Research Associate. They will be supported by an advisory board comprising Sir Steve Smith (Chair), former Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of Exeter; Stephen Dawson, Chair of the Cobalt Trust, Founder and former Chair of Impetus; Mary Curnock Cook, former Chief Executive of UCAS; and Dame Suzi Leather, former Chair of the Charity Commission and Chair of the Integrated Care System for Devon.

The team hope that the research will attract the funding and piloting of initiatives to improve social mobility in the South West. They also aim to carry out further phases of work to develop and assess regional and local strategies and initiatives.

1 June 2019 - 1 June 2022

PI/s in Exeter: Dr Esmaeel Abdollahzadeh, Professor Debra Myhill

Research partners: Co-Investigator: Dr Abdelhamid Ahmed , University of Qatar, Qatar

Funding awarded: £ 128,790

Sponsor(s): Qatar National Research Fund

About the research

This three-year project is a cross-linguistic and a cross-gender comparison of metadiscourse and voice employed by Qatari L1 Arabic university students writing argumentative texts in English and Arabic in a university in Qatar. Metadiscourse and voice, as rhetorical devices, refer to how the writers express themselves and their voice in their written arguments to signal their stance and orientation to the content of writing and engage with their readers.

Summary of key findings

This study is unique in bringing together a corpus study of written argument texts with interviews with the student writers of those texts to explore their metalinguistic understanding of the writing choices they make. In terms of the research questions, the corpus analysis has highlighted strong significant differences in the use of metadiscourse by these writers in their Arabic and English arguments. In particular, they use more metadiscourse in English and make more use of interactive, rather than interactional metadiscourse. There is also a significant relationship between judgments of voice strength and the use of metadiscourse. At the same time, there are no meaningful differences in the use of metadiscourse by gender; and no clear correlational relationship between metadiscourse use and writing quality.

The interviews reveal that students are not familiar with the concept of metadiscourse or its terminology, and, in general, when they discuss the use of metadiscourse features in their own texts they do not see the metadiscoursal function, but link it to other aspects of argument, such as objectivity and formality. There was, however, some sense of metalinguistic understanding that reader pronouns were inclusive of the reader. It is important to note that these students did not lack metalinguistic understanding per se: they did demonstrate high levels of metalinguistic understanding of the expectations of the argument genre in their educational context.

Metadiscourse, in drawing on Halliday’s theorisations of metafunctions, is by its very nature focused on the function of the metadiscourse. The description of the identification of metadiscourse for the corpus study brings this into sharp relief, explicitly having to determine whether the presence of a particular form is performing a metadiscoursal function, or whether it is propositional. The students’ metalinguistic understanding of written argument was often very form-focused - referring to what should or should not be in an argument text, and particularly the ways these texts should be structured. It may be that the insights on actual usage of metadiscourse from the corpus analysis and the writers’ metalinguistic understanding elicited in the interviews point to the potentiality of embedding metadiscourse more meaningfully within the teaching of argument writing. This might support writers in better understanding how to build an effective reader-writer relationship, and to be more metalinguistically aware of the precise ways in which interactive and interactional metadiscourse serves to engage and interact with the reader, and to show writer positionality.

1 March 2019 - 31 July 2023

PI/s in Exeter: Professor Neil Harrison

Research partners: University of Oxford; University of York

Funding awarded: (total funding of £159714)

Sponsor(s): Nuffield Foundation

About the research

This mixed methods study investigates the predictors of educational and employment outcomes at age 21 for care leavers and other care-experienced young people and explores their perspectives on the barriers and facilitators to participating in education, employment and training. The research questions underpinning this study are:

1. What are the key individual, care, and educational predictors of care leavers’ participation in education, employment and training?
2. What are the perceptions of key stakeholders with regards to the barriers and facilitators for care leavers’ participation in education, employment and training, and to the role played by children’s social care services in these processes?

There are two strands to the study:

1. We undertook a novel linking of national adminstrative datasets to explore the cohort of 530,440 young people born in 1995/96 through to their 21^st year. This includes data from their schooling, further education, employment and receipt of benefits which we used to build a detailed picture of their lives and how their social and educational backgrounds influenced their pathways into adulthood. Our cohort included 7,300 young people who had experience of the care system and we used various forms of statistical analysis to compare this group to their peers who had not.

2. In addition, we also gathered the perspectives of care leavers and key people in their lives, including foster carers and a range of professionals from local authorities, education and employment. In total, we collected rich qualitative data through interviews and focus groups with 69 young people, carers and professionals across five contrasting local authority areas.

The findings will assist policymakers and service providers to better support care-experienced young people into employment and mitigate the risks of their becoming NEET. The study also aims to highlight policy changes and practices that could increase the percentage of care leavers in employment, training or further study, while also informing recommendations for further research on post-16 trajectories of care leavers and other disadvantaged groups.

The final report of this study was published in January 2023 and can be accessed via the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford, which hosted the study.

1 September 2017 - 31 August 2018

PI/s in Exeter: Associate Professor Taro Fujita

CI/s in Exeter: Dr Judith Kleine-Staarman

Research partners: Prof Mikio Miyazaki and Mr Koki Yui (Shinshu University)

Funding awarded: £ 7,000

Sponsor(s): Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

About the research

The focus of this project is on understanding and assessing quality in collaborative group thinking in Japan and the UK. We intend to develop and trial an app-based test which can measure group thinking. Group thinking is a real and important phenomenon but, while there are many tests of individual thinking there are none for group thinking. Since 2014 we have been working towards developing a group thinking test. Our studies have involved more than 300 students in the UK and about 90 students in Japan. This work has provided insights into effective collaborative group work (e.g. Wegerif,et al. in press,L&I). This was an important step forwards in educational research since this is the first time a simple and easy to use test has been developed for classroom use to rigorously measure group thinking. The current online test requires tick boxes. This project will explore the hypothesis that adding interactivity, so that potential answers can be manipulated by students using their fingers, will help the group thinking process. This project will enable us to investigate the potential difference and added value of converting our test into something that can be done interactively by students on iPads/tablets of the kind that are increasingly available in schools. One of the most interesting findings of our research up to now is that Japanese students do significantly better in our tests of group thinking than the UK students. We want to investigate this finding further by exploring different test question options.

In this one year project we will engage the following four main activities:

Development of a new test on iPad/mobile tablets based on the existing group thinking test.The test will be developed by our partner developer Japan systems which we have already worked for the development of web-based learning tools in Japanese and English.
Piloting the developed test to up to 200 students (aged 10-13). It will be trialled with both UK and Japanese students. In order to examine general group thinking skills and domain specific thinking skills, we will also implement maths tests. We will undertake rigorous statistical analysis in order to compare test performances as well as identifying difficulties in the test. We also take a sample of video-recorded students'collaborative learning. Using these data, we will identify effective group thinking as well as different features of collaborative work between Japanese and the UK students.
Hold a research seminar in June 2018 (Cambridge University) to share the project findings.
Produce a bilingual project report and research papers for dissemination. We will also develop a bilingual project website.

21 August 2017 - 31 December 2018

PI/s in Exeter: Professor Anna Mountford-Zimdars

CI/s in Exeter: Pallavi Banerjee Joanne Moore Professor Debra Myhill

Research partners: Tim Quine (Geography, University of Exeter)

Funding awarded: £ 69,910

Sponsor(s): OFFA (Office for Fair Access)

About the research

This project sets out to determine the efficacy and usability of the Standards of Evaluation Practice. These are a set of useable and transferable standards of evaluation practice which provide guidance about different approaches to evaluation and evidence of which type of outreach interventions can have the greatest impact in different geographic and institutional settings. The project design is mindful that the evaluation tools will be used largely by practitioners rather than evaluation experts, and thus will address whether the tools and guidance sufficiently mediate this expertise on evaluation and data to outreach professionals. Accordingly, we approach this endeavour from the outset aware of the need to promote evaluation where we ‘collect evidence in a structured way to provide a common language for communicating impacts, where the evidence requirements are realistic and proportionate, to generate useful evidence to ensure we are making a positive difference’.

In the current context practitioners are being challenged to understand more about effective widening participation evaluation practices, and to evaluate more effectively and with more consistency across the breadth of institutions within the sector. Frameworks for evaluation of outreach and widening participation have been developed over a number of years. The Phase One work was developed in partnership with universities, and seeks to address tensions between statistical behavioural studies and qualitative data, through the focus on comparative studies. Achieving agreement on evaluation solutions and approaches that are owned by the sector and can operate within a changing landscape is challenging, and relies on access to appropriate data sources and staff with analytical expertise and knowledge. The proposed project will be important in developing practice-based conclusions and guidance about different approaches to evaluation, and useable and transferable standards of evaluation practice which have been tested ‘in the field’ (as well as evidence of the impact of different types of interventions). Improvements in administrative data sources have afforded greater opportunities for evaluations using a robust approach, but there are ethnical implications and control groups may be unreliable. Improved availability of matched administrative data is allowing for more comparative research and it will be important to test the data sources and uses, and the extent to which different approaches provide alternatives to randomised control trials in some circumstances. Collaborative working has been identified as a productive way of working on these issues (eg. HEAT membership). This is a promising development, although it will be important to test whether pooled data allows for the specificity of each activity to be addressed.

Project aims:

To further understanding of evaluation practices in outreach activities;
To support the development of institutional evaluation practices of their outreach activities;
To influence guidance to institutions on data collection and evaluation practice;
To develop guidance and practices which can withstand changes to the higher education sector;
To provide evidence about the types of outreach intervention that have the most impact in different geographic and institutional contexts.

Key questions the project will address:

How effective are the Standards of Evaluation Practice in determining the impact of outreach activities?
How useful are the Standards of Evaluation Practice in determining the impact of outreach activities?
How well do the Standards of Evaluation Practice and accompanying guidance mediate understanding of evaluation methodologies to outreach professionals?

1 April 2017 - 30 September 2018

PI/s in Exeter: Dr Alison Black

CI/s in Exeter: Dr Alexey Bessudnov

Funding awarded: £177369.00

Sponsor(s): ESRC

Project webpage(s)

DfE-Inclusion & the academisation of English secondary schools: trends in the placement of pupils with significant SEN & those permanently excluded

About the research

This project aims to analyse a national dataset (the National Pupil Database) about pupils and schools to explore the routes some vulnerable pupils take through secondary schools. We are interested in comparing trends over time (2003-2015) with a focus on:

pupils with SEN that enter at year 7 and exit during later years
all pupils permanently excluded from secondary schools.

Over the past 30 years consecutive UK governments have had 2 main policy initiatives regarding schooling in England. Raising academic standards has been the focus of the first initiative, leading to an assessment-led national curriculum; national testing and comparison of results; and developing a more market-orientated model of schooling. This reflected a wider development in public service policy, to replace some state provision by more diversity and autonomy of provision and more user choice. Academies were created by the Labour government to respond to the issues of persistently 'failing' schools. The Conservative/Lib Dem coalition built on this to introduce academies and free schools on a much larger scale. A lesser though nevertheless important trend was providing for more pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in ordinary rather than special schools and building capacity in ordinary schools to provide for these pupils - what has been called the inclusive education movement. However, the most recent legislation relating to pupils with SEN reinforces the choice and diversity model in emphasising more parental choice and offering more diversity of provision, for example more special schools established through the free school policy initiative. There are now a range of school types, each with a different level of autonomy. Converter Academies (the most autonomous of the types) had the lowest percentage of pupils with significant SEN, the sponsored Academies (required to convert, governed by outside sponsor) had the highest percentage with significant SEN, while maintained schools (remaining as local authority schools) had percentages between these levels.

We think the policy of secondary schools changing into academies and a focus on raising standards in school may have changed the patterns over time of vulnerable pupils (those with SEN as well as those who experience permanent exclusions) in ordinary schools. The specific aim of our project is to examine whether greater school autonomy and diversity is related to lower placements in ordinary secondary schools and thus greater separate special school and alternative provision placements.

Objective 1: to analyse secondary data from the NPD at a pupil, school and local authority (LA) level, regarding pupils that enter and exit mainstream secondary schools.

Objective 2: to explore the typical educational routes of children with SEN over time since pupil level data was collected. To find out if there is any variation in educational routes by different areas of SEN.

Objective 3: to examine whether greater school autonomy and diversity is related to lower placements in ordinary secondary schools and thus greater separate special school and alternative provision placements.

Objective 4: to examine variations in the educational trajectories of vulnerable pupils at a LA level associated with the extent of acadamisation at a LA level. If there are differences we will examine the characteristics of the LAs that may influence the variations.

By identifying routes from mainstream schools to special schools/alternative provision we hope to identify some factors that explain significant divergence from typical routes through school. This is to enable us to understand pupil, school and LA factors that influence the educational experiences of vulnerable pupils. The project will support original evidence informed policy making and will act as a model of the kind of research that can and needs to be done internationally in the context ofinternational moves towards greater inclusive education.

15 October 2016 - 14 October 2019

PI/s in Exeter: Dr Karen Walshe

CI/s in Exeter: Professor Vivienne Marie Baumfield Dr Emese Hall Associate Professor Lindsay Hetherington Thomas Ralph Bryan Smith

Sponsor(s): European Commission

Project webpage(s)

PROTEACH (Promoting teachers' success in their induction period)

About the research

Alarming numbers of beginning teachers (BTs) leave the profession within 1-3 years, while many remain in the system but become demotivated. The transition from education studies into teaching is often difficult, largely due to mismatched expectations.

In Israel, despite the importance assigned to teacher training and induction programs, high teacher dropout rates persist. PROTEACH aims at capitalizing on the recommendations of the EU’s “Handbook for policymakers on developing coherent and system-wide induction programs” (2010), the experience of the European members of the consortium, and the lessons learned from the Israeli “incubators” induction model implemented by some of the partners in previous years, to create a more effective model of teacher induction: MIT – Multi-player Induction Teams. This model will take into account all areas to be considered when developing coherent and system-wide induction programs, will support BTs’ diverse needs and will empower them to become active players in their own induction process and in their schools, while increasing their retention rates.

From Israel, 3 HEIs + 1 educational institute take part in the project and are responsible for conducting the actions in schools from which our understanding of the role of BTs and the importance of “amplifying their voices” will emanate. 3 European partners –from Romania, UK & Estonia– represent knowledge and experience in fields that are needed for achieving of PROTEACH’s objectives. Throughout 3 iterations, the model and related curriculum will be fine-tuned. MIT groups will be created at 15 Israeli schools, with 200 BTs and 450 participants in total.

Outcomes expected: (1) Establishment of intra- and inter-HEI frameworks for mutual learning; (2) BT will be empowered to serve as key actors in their induction and school communities; (3) BT retention rates at participating schools will increase; 4) MIT-based principles will be included in HEI training programs and adopted by policy makers.

Other institution's involved with the project are:

Kibbutzim College of Education Technology & Arts, Israel
Mofet, Israel
Beit Berl College, Israel
Kaye Academic College of Education, Israel
Universitatea din Bucuresti, Romania
Tallinn University, Estonia

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