Dr Alison Fox

Professional biography

Dr Alison Fox (BSc, Durham; MSc, Aberdeen; PGCE, Cambridge; MEd, Cambridge; PhD, Open) is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the Open University in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language and Sport and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She currently holds the role of Associate Head of School (Research and Knowledge Exchange) and is Chair of the Human Research Ethics Committee for the University, which includes co-leading work to support University oversight of Undergraduate and Taught Postgraduate research ethics provision. 

Alison's research contributes to understanding contemporary issues in education; most recently, the role of support networks in early career teacher retention, the empowerment of children and young people in raising ideas for environmental sustainability and the development of frameworks for equitable and defensible ethical enquiry. 

Background

Alison’s academic expertise in Professional Learning and Ethical Enquiry is founded on both teaching and research experience. After working as an environmental scientist, she retrained and taught Science for ten years in Secondary Schools and Further Education, was a teacher educator on Post Graduate Certificate in Education courses for Science teachers for six years and, since 2007, has taught as a lecturer on Masters and Doctoral programmes. Her research began whilst studying an MEd (1998-2000) when a school teacher, then extended through contract research (2000-2011), her PhD examining the professional learning of emergent school leaders (2006-2011) and as a senior lecturer (2011 onwards).

Funded research

As a University researcher Alison’s expertise is grounded in the work undertaken across a range of projects at the University of Leicester, the University of Cambridge and at The Open University. She has expertise in researching the development of beginning teachers, school leadership development and the adoption and dissemination of classroom assessment for learning practices across schools and networks. Her funded research projects include inter-University collaborations, internationally funded projects, commissioned research, and a project funded by a charitable trust. Her current consultancy is as an independent Ethics Advisor for ‘Dialoguing@rts – Advancing Cultural Literacy for Social Inclusion through Dialogical Arts Education’ (2024-2027) funded by Horizon Europe and led by Nord University, Norway. She is also contributing to capturing the impact on workplace learning of practitioners involved in combatting Antimicrobial Resistance in a Mott Macdonald Fleming Funded programme of online modules hosted on the OpenLearn platform. Alison is passionate about supporting practitioner research through designing and teaching PostGraduate courses for teachers to develop their enquiry skills and through leading University support for school-based research in Teaching School Alliances. A recent consultancy (2017-2023) involved leading a longitudinal project with the Suffolk and Norfolk SCITT and the Relationships Foundation to examine how social networks of training and beginning teachers support them in being retained in the profession. 

National roles and collaborations

Alison is a member of the British Educational Research Association Council, and its Publication Committee, which builds on her experience of co-convening both their Research Methods in Education and Educational Leadership Special Interest Groups, through which she designed and led academic programmes of events and publications. This involved working with a network of colleagues, including British Educational Leadership Management and Administration Society (BELMAS), Scottish College for Educational Leadership (SCEL) and the British Curriculum Foundation. Alison is committed to building researcher capacity through leading BERA events and workshops, mentoring roles with the British Journal of Educational Technology, as deputy editor of the BERA blog and through collaborative editing and authoring. Alison's expertise in research ethics has been recognised through invitation to working groups reviewing the BERA Research Ethics Guidelines for Educational Research (2016-2018) and chairing the review of the resulting 4th edition (2022-2024). She has led the production of a set of BERA research ethics case studies both as a textbook to be published by Bloomsbury in 2025 and web case studies available on the BERA website Research Ethics Case Studies 2024 | BERA. She also contributed to the development of the Association for Learning Technologists'  Framework for Ethical Educational Technology (2021) and to establishing a research ethics approval process at the National Institute of Teaching.

Publication support

Alison’s expertise in Professional Learning informs her work on the editorial boards of the Journal of Workplace Learning (2014 - ongoing), the Journal of Education and Social Sciences (2019-ongoing), Journal of Contemporary Teacher Education (2020-ongoing), Educational Research Review (2022-2024) and the BERA Blog and she is regularly invited to review papers for a wide international journals.This work was recognised when she was awarded Outstanding Reviewer for the Journal of Workplace Learning in the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence (2016 and 2020) and Outstanding Contribution to Reviewing Teaching and Teacher Education, Elsevier, January 2017. She set up a School-University journal Research4&BYteachers and has led special issues of academic journals (Management in Education, 2018; Education Sciences, 2022), BERA BITES and edited books. 

Advocate of student research

As an advocate of Student Voice in Higher Education, Alison leads and supports initiatives, scholarship and research projects which include undergraduate and taught students in the areas of: educational research, peer coaching, personal development planning and digital badging. She has led a pan-University project exploring student, staff and employer perceptions of digital badging which now informs the OU digital badging steering group and been a key member of the OU Student Mentoring Framework (launched November 2022). She has established a student mentoring and coaching team which now spans Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes, and supports a Student Voice and Wellbeing Group, designing with students a suite of open digital badges. As a result of this work she is a Fellow of CollectivED, the Centre for Mentoring, Coaching and Professional Learning based at Leeds Beckett Carnegie School of Education. Alison has established a well attended Celebrating Research Student Conference for the School of Education, Childhood and Youth since 2022 organised by a student-staff committee and including a preparatory quiz night. 

Research interests

Professional Learning

Alison’s expertise is oriented to supporting educational professionals in their ongoing learning by examining the benefits and challenges associated with professional networking in order to promote the value of such activity to training teachers and, more recently, training doctors. Alison developed a new method for professionals to visually represent their networks as learning opportunity maps which facilitate rich discussions with the maps’ authors about the nature and value of others to their learning. This has proved an insightful research and development tool across a number of projects including the ‘Learning How to Learn: In classrooms, in schools and in networks’ (2002-2006) funded by the TLRP/ESRC and 'Beginning teacher development and support' project (2006-2011) funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. This work has led to consultancy work for Relational Schools (2017-2023) currently working with Suffolk and Norfolk SCITT to support strategies for increasing training teacher retention. Alison co-authored the book Researching and Understanding Educational Networks in 2010 and has examined issues associated with emergent technologies eg. Educational research and AIED: Identifying ethical challenges and Social Media, Learning and Work.  Alison has led the production of the book Professional Learning Communities and Teacher Enquiry: Evidence-based Teaching for Enquiring Teachers in the Evidence-Based Teaching book series for Critical Publishing and recently published Harnessing Professional Development in Education: A Global Toolkit with Open University Press. 

Ethical Enquiry

Alison was involved in reviewing and revising the British Educational Research Association (BERA) ethical guidelines (published 2018) and chaired the review of these guidelines for its 5th edition launch in 2024. She has acted as an independent Research Ethics advisor on the Horizon Europe ‘Dialoguing@rts – Advancing Cultural Literacy for Social Inclusion through Dialogical Arts Education’ (2024-2027) led by Nord University, Norway and Horizon2020 Dialogue and Argumentation for Cultural Literacy Learning in Schools (2018-2021) led by The University of Cambridge, UK. Together with a colleague Kris Stutchbury, Alison developed a comprehensive ethical appraisal framework published in the Cambridge Journal of Education as Ethics in Educational Research: introducing a methodological tool for effective ethical analysis. This has been developed since through national and international presentations to multiple audiences and through doctoral workshops to become known as the CERD framework. Alison has been developing a dialogic and democratic approach to research ethics approval through her chairing of the University Human Research Ethics Committee, which includes decolonising research ethics eg. Democratising Ethical Regulation and Practice in Educational Research and working with a network of Australian researchers to explore how supervisory support for research in 'fragile contexts' can best be supported eg How do higher degree research students and supervisors navigate ethics-in-practice for educational research in sensitive or ‘fragile’ contexts?. Alison led the development of a Massive Open Online Course on the FutureLearn platform to disseminate her and colleagues’ expertise in research ethics from across the Social Sciences at the University of Leicester People Studying People: Research Ethics in Society and at the Open University for across-University research ethics support Becoming an Ethical Researcher. The currency of her work has led her to seed debate about pressing ethical concerns related to ethnographic methodologies by co-chairing and presenting a symposium Ethics and Research in Educational Ethnography as part of network 19 at the European Conference for Educational Research (ECER) in Denmark (2017), the outputs of which were published as a book Ethics for Educational Ethnography: Regulation and Practice. Widening the discussion of critical ethical thinking to presentations and networking through BERA and ECER led to Alison co-editing and authoring the book Thinking critically and ethically about research for education: Engaging with people’s voices for self-empowerment (2021). 

Teaching interests

Alison’s teaching expertise has grown from her early career as a classroom teacher, which provided her with a commitment to active pedagogical approaches to learning which support learners in developing enquiry skills for their ongoing learning. These principles she translates into supporting the learning of education professionals using her research to inform her teaching. Alison’s teaching expertise has been recognised through accreditation as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2015) and winning a University Distinguished Teaching Fellowship at the University of Leicester (2016). Alison was Director of Studies at the University of Leicester from 2013-2016 involving leading the development and quality assurance of the School of Education’s portfolio of taught programmes and was invited to chair Inside Government's debate on Delivering Teaching Excellence across UK Higher Education (2016). Alison brings together her expertise into Masters level course design and delivery. In addition to her current teaching roles, she has been Programme Leader for an MA in Education: Learning and Teaching, a PostGraduate Certificate in Effective Middle Leadership developed collaboratively with the national Union the Association for School and College Leaders and led the redesign of an MSc Educational Leadership (distance learning) programme. She supervises doctoral students on a range of international projects connected with her research interests. Alison led the design and presentation of a new Pathway on the MA/MEd programme in Learning and Teaching launched in 2017, which included leading the production of the badged online course Looking globally: The future of education, in 2018 with EE830 Learning and Teaching: Education for the next generation, the production of the badged online course Becoming an Ethical Researcher and EE831 Understanding your educational practice in 2019, the Masters Multidisciplinary Dissertation module (E822) in 2020 and co-authoring the OpenLearn course Engaging with Postgraduate Research: Education, Childhood and Youth. Most recently Alison contributed to the OpenLearnCreate course for educators interested in Sustainable Pedagogies.

Alison is passionate about learning from the students' voice in feeding into course design, revision and in-course support. She leads the Masters student peer PDP coaching team which offers roles for students to support students on the MA Education and MA Childhood and Youth modules, as well as one another - as peer coaches, peer mentors and peer team leaders - offering digital recognition of the reflection this involved and employability skills developed through open digital badges. She sits on the School Student Voice group as the MA staff representative, alongside student ambassadors, and on the University-wide Student Consultation Panel. Alison has recently completed co-leading a pan-University scholarship project gathering evidence about students', staff and employers' perceptions of digital badges for employability skills (2021-2022) and offers digital badges for students across the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies through the OpenBadgeFactory. Students and staff collaborated on a student-initiated research project in 2022 which led to professional outcomes and an online database in the SAGE research methods collection about the collaborative, at-a-distance research design, data gathering and analysis. 

Alison’s expertise in course design suitable for in-service teachers and leaders is built from her research expertise from projects such as the 2006 National College for School Leadership: Evaluation of Online Learning Impact Study, the 2008 TDA commissioned Schools and Continuing Professional Development in England State of the Nation Research Project and as a Senior Associate for CFE on the research project Evaluation of the National College’s Leadership Curriculum and Licensed Provision (2013-2016) commissioned by the Department for Education. She also draws on her external examining experience with the University of Sussex MEd/MAE programme, the University of Aberdeen MSc Leadership in Professional Contexts, the University of Hertfordshire/Herts Cam Network MEd, University of Reading MA Education (Educational Leadership), the University of Greenwich MA Education and Cambridge University MA Transformative Practice. Alison has been invited to offer curriculum advice to Beaconhouse University and contribute to teaching at Fatima Jinnah Women University, both in Pakistan.

Impact and engagement

Alison is exploring different ways to engage potential users of her research with her enquiries to ensure the findings are accessible, meaningful and fuel further debate.  She is committed to the principles of open access dissemination, building communities and networks and utilising social media to explore the translation of her research into practice.

For children: Alison led a schools' debate of teachers and pupils about the value and challenges of using social media for education at the National Space Centre as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science (2014) which led to a schools' charter for social media use. She has also been working with the Leicester-based charity Kaine Management on a raising aspirations programme for disadvantaged children across 10 schools to offer a digital futures strand, linked to the development of an e-portfolio and safe use of social media.

For practitioners: Alison presented a Keynote lecture for the University of Sussex’s Teacher Research Conference entitled How can school-based enquiry be supported by ethical thinking? (2016) and worked with a Teaching School Alliance to develop an ethical appraisal protocol for school-based enquiry, presented with practitioner colleagues at BERA and University Council for the Education of Teachers conferences. This applicability of her and Kris Stutchbury’s ethical appraisal framework to school-based research has been recognised in the first edition of the Chartered College of Teachers’ journal IMPACT (2017). Alison has also been fostering school-based research through a range of partnership activities and has recently launched an open access online journal Research4&BYteachers as a vehicle for sharing the knowledge gained from such research with other practitioners, setting up an editorial team that spanned school and University representatives. In terms of project legacy and facilitating local sustainability, the British Council Pakistan project to support initial teacher development in Islamabad, Pakistan generated a set of self-evaluation guides (2018) for school and University partners in initial teacher development to take forward curriculum development and implementation, developed through co-creation workshops, May 2017. Alison ran a workshop about ethical research to the British Alliance for Research into Dental Education and Scholarship, June 2019. She has written books with Critical Publishing (2020) and the Open University Press (due 2022) aimed at a practitioner audience, which included inviting practitioner contributions. She supported practitioners in editing a BERA Bite linked to reflections on the impact of COVID-19 on practice. In 2022 Alison led the creation of a series of resources for teacher educators and training teachers to support their resilience and address national issues in early career teacher attrition for the Suffolk and Norfolk SCITT, hosted on the Relationships Foundation, which draws on a series of vignettes from training and early career teachers about their use of support networks. 

For fellow researchers: Alison has contributed to the working group reviewing the BERA research ethical guidelines to ensure they are relevant, accessible and inclusive for contemporary use. She is working with a range of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers as well as in cross-University spaces to discuss ways to decolonise research ethics and ensure culturally relevant ethical research practice. She offers support and advice through her role as Deputy Chair on the University's Human Research Ethics Committee. As illustrated through this profile she has built open access web and blog sites to disseminate the collective research findings of the BERA educational leadership SIG, regional school-based research, her social media research and, in the case of research ethics, a public-facing website and downloadable resources Doing Ethical Research (https://www2.le.ac.uk/colleges/ssah/research/ethics) and two free online courses People Studying People: Research Ethics in Society and Becoming an Ethical Researcher. Alison has been key, as part of her role on the BERA Blog Editorial Board in organising and editing collections of BERA blogs as BERA BITES and BERA blog series. 

External collaborations

• Co-convenor BERA Educational Leadership SIG (2015-2018) with Anna Reid from the University of Newcastle, working with colleagues within BERA and BELMAS to organise Educational Leadership Research-related activities, including events and supporting colleagues with publications. A special issue of Management in Education and a BERA Bite were published in 2018.

• Co-convenor BERA Research Methodology in Education SIG (2018-2022) with Carmel Capewell from Oxford Brookes University, to organise events, supporting colleagues with publications leading to co-publication, including a BERA Bite.

• Member of working groups who reviewed and revised the BERA Research Ethics Guidelines published as 4th edition (2018), Chair of review of these Guidelines (2022).

• Member of the BERA Blog editorial board.

• Member of the Association for Learning Technology.

• Development of a collaboratively designed PGCertificate Effective Middle Leadership with the Union Association for School and College Leaders at the University of Leicester.

• External examiner for the University of Sussex MEd/MAE programme (2013-2017), the University of Aberdeen (2013-2018) MSc in Leadership in Professional Contexts, University of Hertfordshire/Herts Cam Network (2015-2019), University of Greenwich (2019-2023), University of Reading (2021-2025), Cambridge University (2025-2029).

• External validator for the University of East Anglia/University of Essex

• Member of the Advisory Board, Beaconhouse University, Pakistan
• Member of the Research Advisory Group, National Institute of Teaching

International links

• Collaborator on Artivism initiatives with HighlandOneWorld, the African Alliance of YMCAs and University of Ibadan. 

• Co-investigator in Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) project in conjunction with members of the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse SIG examining higher degree research support for research in fragile contexts (2020-2022).

• Co-investigator on the British Council Pakistan funded project (2014-2017) 'Promoting Inquiry Informed Practice: bridging the gap between theory and practice for participants of pre-service teacher education in Pakistan'

• Editorial board member of the Journal of Workplace Learning and Journal of Research in Social Sciences, and reviewer for a number of international journals (Advances in Education - Pakistan, Educational Research Review, Education and Information Technologies, British Medical Journal Open, Education and Information Technologies,  Ethnography and Education, Italian Journal of Educational Technology, International Journal for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Pakistan Journal of Distance and Online Learning, QWERTY, Teaching and Teacher Education). She was awarded 'Outstanding Reviewer for Journal of Workplace Learning in the Emerald Literati Network 2016 and 2022 Awards for Excellence.

• External evaluator of doctoral theses for the National University of Modern Languages and Fatima Jinnah Women University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

• External grant reviewer: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg, CORE 2016; 2018. 

• Ethics advisor on the international advisory board for the Horizon 2020 DiALLS project (2018-2021), led by the University of Cambridge.