Gordon Stobart

Honorary Research Fellow

About me

Professor Stobart is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment (OUCEA) and Emeritus Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University College London.

He has worked in education as a teacher, psychologist, policy researcher and academic. His expertise is in assessment, with much of his recent work focusing on Assessment for Learning.

After teaching for eight years in secondary schools in Africa and Inner London he retrained, and worked, as an Educational Psychologist. This led to a Fulbright Scholarship in the USA, where he gained a PhD for research into the integration of special needs students in mainstream classrooms.

Returning to the UK he worked as an assessment researcher for 20 years, firstly with an exam board and then with government agencies. These posts led to wide experience with assessment policy and the development of national qualifications and assessments.

His move to the University of London Institute of Education provided the opportunity to further develop his work on the formative role of assessment. As a founder member of the Assessment Reform Group he has worked for over twenty years on developing Assessment for Learning, an approach which now has international recognition. He continues to work on international projects in this area.

His Testing Times: The uses and abuses of assessment (Routledge, 2008) focused on the impact of assessment, while his current focus is on how expertise develops and the implications for classroom teaching and learning. His book on this is The Expert Learner: Challenging the myth of ability (2014, OUP/McGraw-Hill).
Much of his current professional work involves working with teachers on classroom teaching and learning – and the role formative assessment plays in this.

Recent conference presentations
  • Sept. 2019, Effective Learning – What matters most? Britanico Conference, Lima Peru.
  • July 2019, Schools matter, but they don’t make a difference’ – examining the genetic claims of Robert Plomin LondonEd Research Conference for Schools
  • January 2019, Developing effective assessment for learning, Kompatense Norge Conference, Norway.
  • Nov. 2018, Teaching, Learning and Assessing for Today and Tomorrow, Aga Khan University, Pakistan.
  • Nov. 2017, Can examinations ever be fair? Investigating equal opportunities, meritocracy and validity.43rd IAEA Conference Batumi, Georgia
  • June 2017, Expert learning and teaching, IEA Assessment Conference, Adelaide.
Selected publications
  • ADIE, L., STOBART, G. & CUMMING, J. (in press) The construction of the teacher as expert assessor, Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education.
  • BOYD, E., GREEN, A., HOPFENBECK, T. & STOBART, G (2019) Effective Feedback: The key to successful Assessment for Learning, Oxford University Press
  • GOLDSTEIN, H., MOSS, G., SAMMONS, P., SINOTT, G. & STOBART, G. (2018) A baseline without basis: The validity and utility of the proposed reception baseline assessment in England, London: British Educational Research Association.
  • STOBART, G. (2018) Becoming proficient: An alternative perspective on the role of feedback. The Cambridge handbook of instructional feedback, Eds A.L. Lipnevich and J.K. Smith, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 29-51.
  • BAIRD, J., ANDRICH, D., HOPFENBECK, T.N. & STOBART, G. (2017) Assessment and Learning: fields apart? Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 24, 1, 317-350.
  • STOBART, G (2016), Assessment and Learner Identity, Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, Dordrecht, Springer Press, 1-6.
  • T.N. HOPFENBECK & G. STOBART (Eds) (2015) Assessment for Learning: Lessons learned from large-scale evaluations of implementations. Special Issue of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 22, 1, 1-177.
  • STOBART, G. (2014) What is 21st Century Learning – and what part does classroom assessment play? Assessment and Learning 3, 1-14; Hong Kong Education Bureau.
  • STOBART, G. (2014) The Expert Learner; Challenging the myth of ability, Maidenhead, McGraw-Hill/Open University Press.
  • EGGEN, T.J.H.M. & STOBART, G. (Eds) (2014) High Stakes Testing in Education: Value, fairness and consequences, London, Routledge.
  • STOBART, G. & HOPFENBECK, T.N. (2014) Assessment for Learning and formative assessment, in BAIRD, J-A., HOPFENBECK, T., NEWTON, P., STOBART, G. & STEEN-UTHEIM, A.T. State of the Field Review of Assessment and Learning, Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Education study 13/4697.
  • STOBART, G. & EGGEN, T. (2012) High-stakes testing – value, fairness and consequences, Assessment in Education, 19,1, 1-6.
  • STOBART, G. (2012) Validity in formative assessment, in J.GARDNER (Ed.) Assessment and Learning, 2nd Edition, London, Sage.
  • BAIRD, J., ISAACS, T., JOHNSON, S., STOBART, G., YU, G., SPRAGUE, T. AND DAUGHERTY, R.
    (2011) Policy Effects of PISA.
  • BAIRD, J., ELWOOD, J., DUFFY, G., FEILER, A., O’BOYLE, A., ROSE, J. & STOBART, G. (2011) 14–19 Centre Research Study: Educational Reforms in Schools and Colleges in England Annual Report. London: QCDA.
  • STOBART, G. (2011) Validity in formative assessment, in J.GARDNER (Ed.) Assessment and Learning, 2nd Edition, London, Sage.