Henry is a Swire Scholar and is currently reading for a DPhil in Education at the University of Oxford. His doctoral research is fully funded by the Swire Charitable Trust and St Antony’s College.
Henry’s research interests lie primarily in classroom dynamics, specifically the interaction of cognitive, affective and motivational experiences in education settings. His DPhil research seeks the rapprochement between the dominant nomothetic (group-focus) approach in the field of education and psychology with the idiographic (person-focus) approach, which is mostly overlooked. Henry is also interested in advanced quantitative methods (e.g., Dynamic Structural Equation Modelling) and analysing ambulatory assessment data.
Prior to starting his DPhil, Henry undertook a placement year as a research assistant in the Child Development and Learning research group at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, whilst completing his BSc in Psychology at the University of Surrey. He continued and completed his MSc in Education (Child Development and Education) at the University of Oxford.
Publications
Lo, H. T. F. 2022. Children’s Momentary Executive Function Fluctuation in Real-World Classrooms: An Intensive Longitudinal Study. MSc Dissertation. University of Oxford, U.K.
Mirna Sumatic is a DPhil student at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral thesis is focused on student-teacher interactions and the changes in relationship quality between students and teachers across the primary school years, and the factors that influence these changes over time.
Her research interests lie particularly in secondary data analysis and applying quantitative methods to longitudinal data. Theoretically, Mirna is interested in applying and integrating attachment and motivation theories to her research.
Prior to starting her DPhil, Mirna completed her BSc in Psychology at the University of Bath. She subsequently went on to complete her MSc in Child Development and Education at the Department of Education, University of Oxford.
Mirna is currently a Doctoral Teaching Fellow for the MSc Child Development and Education programme, where she teaches on the Foundations of Educational Research course.
Publications
Šumatić, M., Malmberg, L.-E., Grigoriadis, A., Grammatikopoulos, V., Zachopoulou, E. (2023). Child, teacher and preschool characteristics and child-teacher relationships in Greek preschools. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 63, 355-367. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2023.04.008
Heemskerk, C., Šumatić, M., Strand, S., & Malmberg, L.-E. (2022). Individual differences in the effects of physical activity on classroom behaviour. Frontiers in Education, section Educational Psychology, 6, Article 812801. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.812801
Supervisors
Lrs-Erik Malmberg and Steve Strand
Kate’s current research centres on enhancing informal educational environments to maximise child outcomes. Through this, she hopes to contribute towards gently helping children discover their passions and thoughtfully equipping them to live into their best and healthiest selves, whatever that means to them each day. Her broader research interests include the role of family in out-of-school learning, socio-emotional development, and education-based non-profit evaluation.
The focus of Kate’s doctoral work is to better understand child learning in museum contexts, with a particular emphasis on family visits to the ‘children’s museum’. More specifically, she aims to both identify what impacts such visits can result in, as well as explore how they might be optimally reached; in other words, what about a children’s museum visit makes it a high-quality children’s museum visit.
Prior to beginning the DPhil programme, Kate received her B.S. Psychology with a minor in Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University and her MSc Education (Child Development and Education) at the University of Oxford, for which she conducted a meta-analysis on the effects of museum intervention on parent-child dyadic conversations.
Bhabesh’s research Inquire into the systemic practices in a school to understand the implications of already existing classification of roles, and regulations based on power and control dynamics within the school. Also, focusing on the systemic apparatuses existing in a schooling system, wherein there is a categorical divide between the students
that are the academically poor and the administrative personnel who pose authority.
As a mathematics teacher who believes that anyone can understand mathematics, Ashley is keenly interested in developing interventions and resources for learners who struggle with the subject. More specifically, she is focusing on the transitionary moment in the classroom when discussions have ceased, and practice begins and how this transition can become more fluid for learners.
By drawing on research from education, psychology and cognitive neuroscience, Ashley hopes to gain insights into how the brain and mind process information and how this knowledge can inform teacher practice and, ultimately, help learners understand mathematics.
After having taught for over ten years, Ashley completed her MSc, with Distinction, at the Department of Education, and her dissertation was “Highly Commended” by the British Educational Research Association (BERA). She is committed to making mathematics more accessible for all learners and strives for research that is not only impactful but also directly applicable to the classroom.
McQueen Sum is a Clarendon Scholar and is currently reading for a DPhil in Education at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include higher education, academic work, and sociomaterial theories of practice. Her doctoral research is fully funded by the Clarendon Scholarship and New College Scholarship.
McQueen is a member of the Centre for Global Higher Education. Her research interests are influenced by her experiences of working as an academic tutor at the University of Hong Kong and a researcher for Khan Academy and HarvardX (edX).
Prior to coming to Oxford, McQueen completed her master’s degree with a specialisation in media and learning technologies at Teachers College, Columbia University in the City of New York. She earned her bachelor’s degree in philosophy and business management at the University of Hong Kong with a full merit-based scholarship.
Supervisors
Professor Alis Oancea and Professor Velda Elliott
Publications
Xie, Y., & Sum, M. (2024). Higher education leadership challenges and responses to COVID-19 in China and the UK: A need for ethical, collaborative, and compassionate leadership. In M. Drinkwater & P. Deane (Eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Context and Transformative Leadership in Higher Education . London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Sum, M., & Oancea, A. (2022). The use of technology in higher education teaching by academics during the COVID-19 emergency remote teaching period: a systematic review. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 19(1), 59. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-022-00364-4
Sum, M., & Oancea, A. (2021). Higher education teachers’ perspectives on technology use in emergency remote teaching during the global pandemic: A systematic literature review. In Proceedings of the Yidan Prize Doctoral Conference (pp. 103-124). Department of Education, University of Oxford. https://yidanprize.org/knowledge-hub/publication/2021-yidan-prize-doctoral-conference-proceedings
Tiarnach’s research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Tiarnach has returned to the Department of Education having previously completed an M.Sc in Childhood Development and Education at the University of Oxford. Tiarnach was recipient of the Oxford Review of Education Dissertation Prize 2016/2017 for his thesis exploring the effects of feedback in virtual learning environments. He completed his undergraduate, Honours B.Ed at Trinity College Dublin.
Tiarnach’s professional background is in primary education as a mainstream and English language teacher, working predominantly in disadvantaged communities.
Research interests:
- Technology in education
- Early literacy and numeracy learning
- Motivation
- Assessment
- Early mental health
- Effects of social disadvantage on education
- Quantitative methods in education research
Zhen graduated from China Foreign Affairs University in 2001 with a first-class honours degree in English, and obtained MSc in Child Development and Education in University of Oxford in 2014.
Before coming to Oxford, Zhen taught English in China or over 10 years. She also worked in 12 UK schools (11 primaries and 1 secondary school) for one year, teaching Chinese and Chinese culture. Her first-hand knowledge of Chinese and English education, combined with the training she received in Oxford, gives her an advantage to create her own voice in child learning, and in second language learning for young children.
Her research interests are children learning, literacy development, bilingualism, second language acquisition, English language teaching and learning.
Rachel is a Research Officer at the Department of Education, Oxford. Her research focuses on improving children’s literacy, through interventions which target early spoken language skills.
Before studying that the University of Oxford, Rachel completed a BSc in Psychology at the University of Birmingham and an MSc in Language Sciences specialising in Sign Language Studies at University College London. Between studying, Rachel was employed as a Learning Support Assistant in a secondary school, particularly with KS4 students who struggled with reading, and also as a British Sign Language Communication Support Worker with D/deaf students in further education colleges in London. Prior to beginning doctoral training, she worked at University College London, developing and trialling a parent-delivered early language intervention (PACT; Parents and Children Together), which aimed to improve the oral language and literacy skills of nursery aged children, particularly focussing on those living in areas of higher deprivation.
In addition to working on her own research, Rachel was involved in the organisation of the student-led postgraduate STORIES (Student’s Ongoing Research in Education) conference 2018, and has also contributed to the development of the ATLAS app (Automated Test of Language AbilitieS), designed to assess the verbal language skills of young children.
Research interests
- Early language and literacy development
- Language intervention in the early years
- Use of Randomised Control Trials in educational research