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Marianne Talbot

Profile

Background

I spent two decades working in research, development, and evaluation teams in the public sector, becoming the Head of Research & Evaluation of the Qualifications & Curriculum Development Agency before leaving in 2010 to pursue independent consultancy. My freelance work has been varied, including contracts with the University & College Admissions Service, the Department for International Development, the Rwanda Education Board, and EngineeringUK. Work with the Myanmar Ministry of Education is currently on hold. I have worked with the University of Oxford since 2014 on various projects to evaluate outreach, widening participation, and social mobility, and with the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA), based at the University of Hertfordshire, where I design and lead professional development courses for assessors working in a wide variety of assessment contexts.

I am a Chartered Educational Assessor (CEA), a Fellow of the CIEA, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a primary school governor, and took a year out between 2011 and 2012 to travel the world with my husband and two children. I hold a BSc in Geological Sciences from the University of Birmingham and an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University – my route to Leeds has not been traditional! 

What motivated me to undertake PhD study?

Qualifying as a CEA and as an FHEA prompted me to want to formalise the process of reviewing the status and impact of CEAs, through robust research and reporting. I believed I would benefit from the open-minded approach of the University of Leeds School of Education and I wanted to work with like-minded academics. My passion for this particular research is related to other areas of my professional interest, such as equality for all in education and assessment (staff and students), teacher assessment as a complement to externally examined assessment, outreach and widening access to higher education, and collaboration between educational professionals and others allied to education, such as parents and carers. Leeds was recommended to me by a trusted colleague, and I count myself lucky to have secured a place here.

I have a wealth of research experience, but I have mostly picked it up informally through my work at an examinations board, in a regulatory body, at various universities and at the CIEA, and it has been characterised by others as expertise, but am I really an expert? I would like to formalise my ‘expertise’, to extend and deepen my ability to collect and analyse data, and to extract key and subtle messages from them.

I seem to have unwittingly spent more than 30 years ‘doing’ social science research into qualifications at an awarding body, at regulatory bodies, and then in higher education and international contexts, but I do recognise that I have learnt most of what I know ‘on the job’ and lack formal qualifications in this area, so it seems logical to pursue a PhD.

Teaching Experience

  • Course Leader, Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors, University of Hertfordshire; active in Examiner, SEND, and Vocational & Technical Special Interest Groups (since 2014)

  • Academic Personal Tutor, University of Leeds School of Education; mentoring MA TESOL students (since 2023)

  • Module Assistant, University of Leeds, Leeds Language Centre; mentoring and assessing students undertaking an Online Academic English Pre-sessional course (2023)

  • Teaching Assistant, University of Leeds, Leeds Language Centre; mentoring and assessing students undertaking Language for Marketing Pre-sessional course (2023)

  • Visiting Lecturer in Teacher Education, Leeds Trinity University (since 2024)

 

Citizenship Experience

  • School of Education Student Representative on the Faculty Research Ethics Committee (since 2023)

  • Attendance at BERA’s Annual Conference and Early Career Researcher Annual Conference (2022, 2023 and 2024); active in Curriculum, Assessment & Pedagogy, Practitioner Research, and Teacher Education & Development SIGs, and in the ECR Network

  • Attendance at AEA-Europe’s Annual Conference (2022); active in Assessment Cultures and Holistic Assessment SIGs

  • School governor in one primary and two secondary schools (2004-2024)

Research interests

What am I interested in?

The professional development of teachers, post-qualification, fascinates me, as their experience and expertise deepen and broaden over time, specifically in relation to assessment and all the associated processes before, during and after assessment takes place. I am interested in teachers’ knowledge, understanding, and application of concepts such as validity, reliability, fairness, and comparability, and also in the similarities and differences in the use of formative and summative assessment. More specifically, I want to understand the impact of CEAs on their own and others’ assessment practice.

What makes me passionate about my subject?

Having worked in the education sector since the early 1990s, continuing to contribute to the body of learning about educational assessment strikes me as the best thing I can do with my own experience and expertise. It is a privilege to be able to do that at Leeds.

Educational assessment has been a bit of a poor relation, but is now firmly under the microscope, politically, in the media, and in the public eye, due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Having been involved in it one way or another for so long, and especially in my current work with the CIEA, I feel I ought to do my bit to make it as robust as possible and contribute to its positive development.

What are my plans once I have completed my PhD?

I want to continue working in the field, learning from others, and researching further, deeper, better. I think we can always improve!

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7308-5600 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariannejtalbot/ 

I am an editor of the Hillary Place Papers, the journal of the School of Education at the University of Leeds: https://hpp.education.leeds.ac.uk

Publications and Research Activities

  • Harwood, A., Talbot, M., Karimova, D., Wainwright, H. & Podesta, E. 2024. Navigating Collective Academic Development: A Case Study of the Activity of the Editorial Board of a Community Academic Journal. Presentation for BERA ECR Annual Conference, 5th June 2024, Leeds. Link to abstract

  • Research Culture Uncovered Podcast. 2023. (S4E3) Becoming A Postgraduate Researcher in Mid Career - Marianne Talbot in conversation with Ruth Winden. [Online]. [Accessed 30 October 2024]. Link to episode

  • Talbot, M. 2022. Conference Report: TEALfest 2021 (Technology Enhanced Active Learning), University of Warwick, May 2021. Hillary Place Papers, Issue 7. https://doi.org/10.48785/100/249

  • Talbot, M. 2023. The challenge of managing the research process: initial ideas to cocreated new knowledge. Hillary Place Papers, Issue 8. https://doi.org/10.48785/100/211

  • Talbot, M., Harwood, A., Karimova, D., Wainwright, H. & Podesta, E. 2024. Navigating Collective Academic Development: A Case Study of the Activity of the Editorial Board of a Community Academic Journal. Poster presentation for The International Research Culture Conference, 16th September 2024, Warwick. Link to abstractLink to poster

  • Talbot, M. & Walker, M. 2022. Engaging teachers in professional development in today’s uncertain times. Presentation for AEA-Europe Annual Conference, 9-12th November 2022, Dublin. Link to programme Link to presentation

  • Talbot, M. & Winden, R. 2023. Becoming a Mature Postgraduate Researcher: Challenges and Rewards. Presentation for Researcher Education and Development Scholarship Conference, 11th October 2023, Leeds. Link to abstract Link to presentation

  • Talbot, M. & Winden, R. 2024. Becoming a Mature Postgraduate Researcher: Challenges and Rewards. Poster presentation for The International Research Culture Conference, 16th September 2024, Warwick. Link to abstractLink to poster

  • Taylor, M. & Talbot, M. 2024. Navigating the PhD Odyssey: Drawing parallels with Dorothy’s journey to meet the Wizard. Presentation for BERA ECR Annual Conference, 5th June 2024, Leeds. Link to abstract Link to presentation

Forthcoming Publications

  • Talbot, M. 2025. Barriers and Solutions: Investigating teachers’ engagement with professional development. In: Tyson, C., Chen, J., Mawson, K, & Perry, T. The BERA Guide to Practitioner Research in Education and Practice(title tbc). Leeds: Emerald Publishing.

  • Talbot, M. 2025. Becoming a mature postgraduate researcher: using autoethnography to stargaze. BERA Blog. [Online].

Qualifications

  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors
  • Chartered Educational Assessor
  • MA in Creative Writing
  • BSc in Geological Sciences