Lisa Murtagh

Academic Interests

Dr Lisa Murtagh joined Edge Hill University in January 2007 as the Primary Undergraduate Part-Time Programme Leader, following several years as a senior lecturer at Newcastle University.  Lisa has always been passionate about seeking to improve her own practice and keen to work with others to develop her understanding and interpretation of new initiatives.  Therefore, in September 2000, Lisa embarked upon a PhD, to seek to develop understanding of formative assessment, following the seminal review of Black and Wiliam (1998). The PhD thesis was grounded in developing insights into the practice of experienced practitioners, with a view that through unravelling their practice it could then be available to question and critical scrutiny, ultimately with a view to improve it.

Lisa is keen to explore practice, believing that if we want to understand what teachers do and why, then we need to understand them. Her research interests therefore lie not only in formative assessment but in teachers’ sense of self and Lisa is keen to explore the relationships between a teacher’s practice, context, experience and biography- understanding teachers as ‘persons in teaching’ (Nias, 1989). Her approach to research is rooted in the qualitative paradigm, and she works with teachers to access their ‘voice.’ Similarly, Lisa has a belief that children have a right to express themselves on matters that effect them, and uses participatory techniques to enable children to talk about issues. Participatory techniques are less invasive and more transparent and children consider them to be innovative and fun and Lisa welcomes opportunities in her work for the children to set the agenda and describe their own reality.

Some Recent Publications

Murtagh, L. and Baker, N. (2008) Feedback to Feedforward Paper presented at the Assessment in Higher Education Conference, University of Cumbria, July 2008.

Murtagh, L. (2007) Implementing a critically quasi-ethnographic approach. The Qualitative Report 12 (2) 193-215.

Higgins S., Wall, K., Falzon, C., Hall, E.,Leat, D., Baumfield, V., Clark, J., Edwards, G., Jones, H., Lofthouse, R., Moseley, D., Miller, J., Murtagh, L., Smith, F., Smith, H., Woolner, P. (2005) Learning to Learn in Schools Phase 3 Evaluation Year One Final Report. London: Campaign for Learning.