Dr Matt Homer

Profile

My substantive areas of research interest include medical education assessment, and post-16 mathematics education. I also have a range of teaching, research supervision and leadership responsibilities.

In terms of my academic background, I have a PhD in Mathematics, an MSc in Applied Statistics, and taught mathematics and statistics in further and higher education for several years. 

Responsibilities

• Postgraduate Research Tutor (2015-2018)
• Chair of Assessment Research Group

Research interests

Medical education

I currently spend the majority of my working time in the Leeds Institute of Medical Education within the School of Medicine carrying out assessment-related work and research. With a team of colleagues, we have an ongoing and internationally-recognised programme of research centred on improving performance and knowledge assessments. We have published widely in this area, for example, recent work is on how to set conjunctive standards which is currently being developed for implementation in OSCEs. I have also written a series of papers on examiner variation in OSCEs, the most recent of which is here.

I also have assessment-related external positions with the General Medical Council, quality assuring the clinical assessment of international medical doctors coming to the UK (PLAB2), which includes bi-montly report writing and producing the most recent annual reports on this high stakes assessment. I also sit on the GMC’s Curriculum Advisory Group that approves changes to postgraduate curricula, and on the Physician Associate National Exam Development Group. I am also advising some new/forthcoming medical schools on assessment issues.

Maths education research

In the School of Education, I led research on the uptake of the new and important post-16 Core maths qualification introduced recently in England. This large-scale, longitudinal project (2017-2020) was funded by the Nuffield Foundation, and in conjunction with external partners we have recently produced a range of videos to encourage the uptake on this important new qualification.

We also have papers from this project here and here, as well as the final report which was published in September 2020.

I have a developing interest in post-16 Maths Schools, and am involved in early research on the development of the new Leeds Maths School opening to students in 2024.

Affiliated Research Centres

Centre for Curriculum, Pedagogy and Policy

Assessment research group

• Applied science students: Examining progression routes from KS4
• Developing Curriculum Pathways in Mathematics - phase two
• Enactment and Impact of Science Education Reform (EISER)
• GCSE 21st Century Science: comparisons of participation and attainment in post-compulsory science
• Growing post-16 maths participation: promoting the benefits of Core Maths
• HENNA (Harehills ESOL Needs Neighbourhood Audit) project
• Medical education assessment
• Opportunity Areas: Impact Evaluation
• Research on professors, professorial academic leadership and preparation for professorship
• The early take-up of Core Mathematics: successes and challenges

Qualifications

• BSc in mathematics
• PhD in mathematics
• PGCE (FE)
• CStat (Chartered statistician) - lapsed in 2022

Professional memberships

• Royal Statistical Society (until 2021)
• Psychometrics SIG for the Association for the Study of Medical Education

Student education

I have a number of postgraduate research students (partial list below), and I teach quantitative research methods to Master’s level.

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Curriculum, Pedagogy and Policy

Current postgraduate researchers

• Tevfik Karabiyik
• Agathi Prodromou
• Lamya Alfadhel
• Darren Perrett
• Saila Rabab Kazmi
• Marianne Talbot