Research Advisory Group

Alison Standfast, Chair

Alison Standfast is the Executive Director Corporate Resources at Qualifications Wales. She looks after all the corporate functions, including the research and statistics team. Prior to joining Qualifications Wales, she worked for Welsh Government for thirteen years, managing the Value Wales procurement division before moving to run the project to create Qualifications Wales. Prior to this she worked for British Airways for seventeen years in various commercial roles.

Isabel Nisbet, Qualifications Wales Board Member representative

Isabel Nisbet has had a career in public service and regulation, particularly education and educational assessment. She has held a range of civil service posts in Scotland and England, and in 2008 she became the first CEO of Ofqual, the regulator of examinations and qualifications in England. From 2011 to 2014, she worked in South East Asia on behalf of Cambridge International Examinations. Isabel is an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She serves on the  Boards of the University of Hertfordshire and the University College of Osteopathy, and on two committees advising Government on ethical questions.

Anne Pinot de Moira, Member

Anne is a Chartered Statistician (CStat) with over 20 years of experience, primarily in the fields of education and assessment.  Between 1996 and 2014 she worked for AQA in the Centre for Educational Research and Practice (CERP) where she took up the post of Head of Assessment Research. During her time at AQA her research was used both to influence policy decisions and to aid the implementation of changes to national assessments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Since 2015 she has been working independently as a consultant. She has worked closely with Ofqual and collaboratively with exam boards and universities. Her most recent post is with the University of Oxford helping in a statistical evaluation of the impact of linear and modular GCSE routes on attainment. Anne’s most recent research focused on assessment quality, marking reliability and mark scheme design but she has also produced research in the fields of assessment design, standards and comparability.

Dr Joshua McGrane, Member

Joshua is Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment. He completed his university medal-winning PhD in Quantitative Psychology and BA (Hons I) in Psychology at the University of Sydney. He has been a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Western Australia and has also worked as a Psychometrician for the Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (CESE) in the New South Wales Department of Education.

Joshua is currently undertaking a Research Fellowship, funded by AQA, at the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment. His work focuses on the area of assessment and psychometrics and involves collaboration with members of the Centre for Educational Research and Practice (CERP). He has provided expert psychometric advice in a range of academic and government contexts, including for state, national and international-level educational assessments.

Jane Nicholas, Member

A former teacher and teacher educator, Jane is a freelance educational consultant. She worked on test development and assessment at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) Cymru from 1999 to 2020. She holds a PGCE (Secondary), and an Masters in Education. She has been involved with the development of statutory Welsh tests at KS3, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and also worked on KS2 Optional Skills Assessment Materials and National Reading Tests for Welsh Government.

She also worked on the development of various reading assessments for the national curriculum in England within NFER’s Centre for Assessment and on research into e-assessment. Jane has developed classroom materials and educational resources for a range of clients, including the Woodland Trust and Natural Resources Wales. In addition to her consultancy work, Jane is also a Welsh for Adults tutor.

Dr Mary Richardson, Member

Mary is an Associate Professor of Educational Assessment at University College London, Institute of Education in London (UCL IOE). She leads an MA in Educational Assessment and supervises doctoral candidates with an interest in assessment. Before her role at UCL IOE, Mary led the BA Education Studies at the University of Roehampton and prior to joining academia was a Senior Research Officer in the department of Research and Statistics for AQA. Mary has also worked in the development of educational programmes with campaigning non-governmental organisations and children's charities and as a facilitator and producer of theatre with young people.

Mary sits on the Publications Board for the Association of Assessment and Evaluation (Europe) and on the Council for the Philosophy of Education Society for Great Britain (website editor). She conducts research focused on assessment with particular emphasis upon how philosophy of education and philosophical discourses can help us to improve assessment practice and how we discuss and understand assessment in public settings.

Dr Rhian Barrance, Member

Rhian is a Research Associate at the Wales Institute for Social and Economic Research Data and Methods (WISERD) at Cardiff University. Prior to joining WISERD, she completed her PhD in Education at Queen's University Belfast. Her PhD involved using a mixed-methods approach to identify students' views and experiences of GCSEs and their reform in Northern Ireland and Wales.

Rhian is currently working on the WISERD’s Multi Cohort Study, a large-scale longitudinal cohort study which has been surveying pupils across Wales on aspects of their lives and education over the last seven years. Her research focus on this project relates to young people’s views and experiences of national assessments, particularly within the reformed GCSE in Wales.

Sarah Maughan, Member

Sarah is Director of Assessment Development at AlphaPlus. She joined the organisation in November 2014 and since that time has led a number of assessment-related projects including: a project on grading methods for vocational qualifications, a large validation study of an examination for solicitors and the test design of a national test for Ofqual. Prior to joining AlphaPlus Sarah was Director of Research at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). Sarah has a 1^stClass degree in Psychology, a Masters in Educational Assessment, and is a Fellow of the Association of Educational Assessment – Europe.  Sarah is also on the publications committee of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).

Sarah is currently leading a four-year project to develop national assessments in reading and numeracy for learners aged 7 to 14 in Wales. Sarah has also led wider research projects including literature reviews on textbook use, on post-16 English and mathematics GCSEs and on modern foreign languages teaching and assessment.  Sarah’s expertise is in the area of assessment design, development and evaluation.  Sarah is also expert in a wide range of research techniques including evaluations, literature reviews, comparative studies and randomised control trials.  She has worked extensively with assessment organisations and Ministries of Education in the UK and internationally.