Curriculum-related research
Researchers within the School of Educational Sciences conduct a range of curriculum-related research. Please visit the School’s research page for further details.
¾«¶«´«Ã½, along with all Higher Education Institutions in Wales, collaborates with the Welsh HEIs Education Research Alliance (WHERA) to create four national Collaborative Research Networks (CRNs). WHERA acts as a steering group and a source of advice and support for CRN Leads and as a forum for leadership and collaboration in relation to education research across all Welsh universities.
Research
‘’ (In collaboration with Aberystwyth and Trinity St David’s universities)
(In collaboration with Aberystwyth and Trinity St David’s universities)
(In collaboration with Swansea University)
(In collaboration with Wrexham Glyndŵr and the University of South Wales)
The is designed and run by researchers at the School of Psychology, and the Miles Dyslexia Centre at ¾«¶«´«Ã½. It comprises a short language and literacy programme for Key Stage 2 children, and was launched in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting national lockdown in April 2020. Our mission is to ensure that children can continue to receive the best possible literacy tuition during school closures, and to rapidly regain literacy skills once schools reopen. We are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and by the Welsh Government. So far, our curriculum has been delivered to over 200 children in England and Wales.
‘Optimising and Efficacy-Testing Remote Online Assessments of Children’s Literacy-related, Phonological Skills’, funded by Sêr Cymru – Tackling COVID-19, and led by Dr Markéta Caravolas sought to develop a viable solution to the current limitations on in-person assessments for children with specific learning difficulties (SpLD), and special educational needs. Assessment tools of cognitive and academic skills for children are generally designed for in-person test administration. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has motivated many assessors to make idiosyncratic adaptations of such test materials for remote online screen-sharing platforms, which may have generated unreliable results. Our aim was to produce a set of reliable, state of the art, online tests designed for the remote assessment of children’s phonological skills, these being fundamental to diagnostic literacy assessments, and yet, particularly difficult to measure online. The software design innovations produced in this study place Wales at the forefront of remote assessment of children’s language and literacy skills and offer a unique Welsh language capability. , for example when pupils are unable to attend school for long-term medical reasons, or in the case of school closures due to additional waves of COVID-19 infection.