Make an Impact with Research in Education

Our Research

The School is committed to the intrinsic value of research to further knowledge and improve educational practice

School of Education Research

It is a core Committee of the School of Education which is responsible for bringing forward strategy, policy and supports for staff and postgraduate research students.

Research & Innovation Committee

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Committee membership as follows:
Dr Máire Ní Ríordáin [Chair]
Dr Dan O’Sullivan [Deputy Chair]
Dr Manolis Adamakis
Dr Alicia Curtin
Dr Alison Moore
Prof Kathy Hall
Dr Kevin Cahill
Dr Mark Prendergast
Dr Diarmuid Lester

Research Areas

The research of the School strongly reflects its academic origins in the disciplines of sociology, psychology, philosophy, and history of education, and these along with newer, inter-disciplinary areas (e.g. curriculum, teaching, childhood, and sports studies) serve to enrich theorising and ground the foci of research projects. Collectively, the research of the School can be captured under the following:

Pedagogy, Learning and Curriculum (encompassing elements such as learning cultures, literacies, numeracies, assessment, subject pedagogies, the Arts in Education, digital education, policy implementation and resistance)

Teacher Education and Professional Learning (encompassing elements such as teacher identity formation, policy, reflective practice, School-University mentoring/partnership)

Schooling, Inclusion and Changing Childhoods (encompassing elements such as globalised and digital childhoods, school and societal belonging and exclusion, diversity and identity; school cultures and whole school learning)

While these overarching themes represent the research conducted in the School, academics also work on topics of individual interest, and the work of several staff members locates in more than one of the specified areas.

Research areas Research areas

Your Own Research

We offer a wide range of specialised research degrees including our M.Ed. (Modular) and Cohort PhD programmes. With almost 40 doctoral students, the impact of advanced postgraduate research in the School is felt at a national and international level.

Master of Education (M.Ed.)

Cohort PhD

Structured PhD

Research Support

Research Ethics

Committee membership as follows:
Máire Ní Ríordáin (Chair)
Niamh Dennehy
Dr Mark Prendergast
Dan O’Sullivan
Kathy Hall

The Student Journey

I have felt self-directed and supported in equal measure by my supervisors, encouraged to be authentic, creative, and daring within clear parameters.

Anne Marie Moylan

My Cohort Phd Journey: A Homecoming
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Just beyond the midway mark in life and learning is a nice time to pause and ponder. At the age of fifty and the dawn of the ‘now or never’, I decided to submit my Cohort PhD application. I had my doubts at the start. Perhaps I was too old, too rusty, too inexperienced, an imposter posing as an academic! However, once started, I observed these doubts disperse amidst the connection, the craic, the support and the shared wisdom of the Cohort. New and lasting friendships were forged amongst a group as diverse in experience and context as we were in our respective research themes, hailing from the educational corners of Primary, Post Primary, Further Education, Third level, Inpsectorate and more.

An ethos of support, regard, patience (no doubt!) and genuine curiosity has underpinned the gentle fair guidance of our Faculty team. A sound scaffolding of modest wisdom and experience has endorsed and empowered our evolving agency and identity. I truly appreciate their democratic, dialogical, and exploratory approach. I have felt self-directed and supported in equal measure by my supervisors, encouraged to be authentic, creative, and daring within clear parameters. That which I have required has always just so happened to appear on the agenda of our college days, as if by accident!

The journey so far has allowed me to become critically engrossed in the reading and the writing, while a deeper understanding of my stance in the field of education has unfolded. In addition, it has been personally significant and strangely comforting for me to note the reemergence of writers long forgotten bobbing in the mix alongside new encounters. Becoming a PhD strudent has set in thrum the dusty strings of my unconscious steadfastness and unchanging core beliefs and values. This is self-affirming and validating. It is a witnessing of encounter between a wiser, experienced school leader and her younger idealistic counterpart three decades later. It is like an old flame reignited, an integration of a continuum of selves, an honour and a homecoming.

As a happy perchance, I had missed medicine by a fraction, all those years ago in 1987. And while it is clear that education has been my undoubted and true calling, I did always want to be a doctor. It may take the 33 years to complete the circle, but nevertheless it’s a nice figure all the same in which to activate my legacy and commence the ‘now or never’ process of closure.

Image preview — I was in the advantageous position of interacting on a daily basis with the post-primary school population while undertaking my PhD research,

Dr Diarmuid Lester

To design, develop, implement and evaluate the efficacy of Project FLAME (Fundamental and Functional Literacy for Activity and Movement Efficiency)
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**My Structured PhD Journey in the School of Education – Diarmuid Lester**

In June 2015, I completed my undergraduate studies in the School of Education in UCC with a Bachelor of Education degree in Sports Studies and Physical Education. That September I began teaching full-time in Coláiste an Phiarsaigh, Glanmire, and a month later I began my PhD in the School of Education under the supervision of Dr. Wesley O’Brien and Dr. Fiona Chambers. Initially, this was a PhD track, which is essentially a probation period for a few years (the length of which will depend on a number of factors, for example, your status as a part-time or full-time student), before you have the option of finishing your research with a Masters degree or progressing your research further as a doctoral student. I was very fortunate in that I had the full support of my school management (i.e., my employer) from the outset and equally so, my supervisory team understood the demands of my teaching timetable and were fully supportive and accommodating in this regard. The overall aim of my PhD research was to design, develop, implement and evaluate the efficacy of Project FLAME (Fundamental and Functional Literacy for Activity and Movement Efficiency), a multi-component, school-based, motor competence intervention for adolescent youth in Ireland. This project sought to strengthen links between research and professional practice and I was in the advantageous position of interacting on a daily basis with the post-primary school population while undertaking my PhD research, in many respects fulfilling a dual role as both a practitioner as well as an academic. I submitted my PhD thesis when the country was in lockdown in April 2020 and completed my viva voce (examination) virtually in June 2020. While it was undoubtedly the most challenging and demanding period of my life to date, it was an amazing journey from start to finish and I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend and present at several national and international conferences along the way. My advice to anyone considering undertaking a PhD would be to ensure that you have the full support of those around you, especially your family and loved-ones, as well as your employer, as you will need to be selfish with your time, and finally to ensure that you are compatible and have a positive working relationship with your supervisor(s) as they will help guide you on your journey.

School of Education Scoil an Oideachais