I am a Senior Lecturer in Education and Joint Director of the University of Glasgow Educational Assessment Network (UGEAN). I am also a member of the International Educational Assessment Network (IEAN) and serve on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Technology Education.

Following my graduation from the University of Glasgow in 2001, I taught secondary school Design & Technology in Falkirk and was awarded a PhD scholarship from the Underwood Trust. This scholarship allowed me to pursue post-graduate research into pupils’ technological problem solving which sparked my passion for research and led to my joining the University of Glasgow as a lecturer in 2012. My work since then has developed to also explore how curriculum, assessment and pedagogy relate through educational practices and processes of educational change.

Over time, I have undertaken a range of roles including Graduate Teaching Assistant, Research Assistant, Lecturer in Design & Technology Education, Programme Leader in Initial Teacher Education, Post-Graduate Supervisor, Project Research Lead, Co-Investigator, and Principal Investigator on a range of funded research projects. I have also work with research and policy colleagues in a range of countries including Scotland, England, the United States, Northern Ireland, Canada, Slovenia, New Zealand, and Norway. I am currently a Principal Investigator of Camau i’r Dyfodol Project.  This is a large-scale co-constructive project with the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the Welsh Government focused on progression and assessment and is designed to support teachers and education professionals across the Welsh Education system to realise Curriculum for Wales.

Please do get in touch if you have similar interests or if you are seeking consultancy.

See also: ResearchGate | LinkedIn | SlideShare | FigShare

Orchid Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9009-4738

My work explores how curriculum, assessment and pedagogy inter-relate. My focus for this work ranges from teacher reasoning and classroom practice to large-scale educational reform and system change. I have a particular interest in relational understandings of assessment and pedagogy developed from a non-performative and non-positivistic stance.

There are currently three inter-related areas to my work. The first explores coherence and fidelity in national curriculum reform mainly through my work with teachers, education professionals and policy makers in Wales. It looks at how different understandings of curriculum, assessment and pupil learning emerge and relate through policy and practice. The second explores educational assessment as an authentic and relational process and considers the educational possibilities that this way of thinking about assessment might open up for teaching and learning. The third is concerned with pedagogical reasoning as a relational, epistemic and generative process in Design & Technology, and in taught subjects more broadly. It looks at how pedagogical reasoning is understood and the types of professional actions that can be taken to support and develop it. The different roles that knowledge and theory play are recurring considerations throughout all these areas.

I work predominantly with qualitative and thematic approaches that are associated with an interpretivist ontology and which often involve close-to-practice contexts. Building from the work of Stepney and Thomson (2017) and Coghlan and Rigg (2021), Dr Fiona Patrick and I also developed theorising as a form of practice-focussed research. Rather than beginning with theory and considering how this might help us to understand our practice, theorising invites us to begin with the practice challenge and to develop theory that allows it to be explained and acted on responsibly. Theorising is an abductive research approach involving theory, published evidence, practical wisdom and humility.

Selected links that may be of interest:

• Camau i’r Dyfodol Project
• Supporting student teachers to integrate theory, research, and practice: developing the Adaptive Subject Pedagogy Model.
• Theorising as practice-focused research

List by: Type | Date

Project Title: Camau i’r Dyfodol (Partnership with University of Wales Trinty Saint David)

Project Staff (University of Glasgow): Morrison-Love, D. (PI), Makara, K. (PI), Patrick, F., Farrar, J., Vadera-Gil, F., Haward, L., Chapman, C., Wiseman-Orr, L., Borquez Sanchez, E. (RA), Sheckleton, L.

Project Description: The Camau i’r Dyfodol project (Steps to the Future) is a 3-year joint project of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the University of Glasgow in collaboration with Welsh Government. The project is designed to develop new knowledge and support the realisation of Curriculum for Wales by working with teachers and educational partners across the system to co-construct project outputs that will advance practical understandings of learning progression. Change led by those at the heart of the system provides the best opportunity for sharing expertise, building confidence, fostering coherence across the system and for supporting the different people and organisations who matter in education in Wales.

Awarding Body: Welsh Government

Duration: 2022-2025

Funding: £2.4 Million

Further Information

Understanding curriculum in practice: Camau i'r Dyfodol

Project Research Reports

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Project Title: Understanding Learning Progression Methods Project (ULPM)

Project Staff: Morrison-Love, D. (PI), Makara, K. (Co-I), and Borquez Sanchez, E. (RA).

Project Description: The project is funded by the Carnegie Trust, Research Incentive Grant RIG009335. This project addresses the problem of limited evidence about the substantive nature of pupils' learning as they progress through national curricula areas with specified progression steps, and the factors affecting this learning. We will develop a new methodological approach, set of data-gathering instruments, and guiding principles for adaptation, using a combination of methodologies and teacher expertise, to investigate learning progression where no prototypical method currently exists.

The project is guided by the following objectives:

1. Develop a method for gathering high quality and longitudinal evidence of pupils’ learning progression to be gathered as they move through different areas of a national curriculum.
2. Develop a set of associated data gathering instruments that elicit data/evidence from teachers, pupils and learning activities in Mathematics, Humanities and Science & Technology. This data should be of a form that allows a composite representation of learning progression to be constructed in a more extensive study commencing in the future.
3. Piloting of data gathering instruments with pupils, teachers and learning activities in selected curricular areas.

Awarding Body: The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland

Duration: 2020-2022.

Funding: £13,646

Further Information

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Project Title: Assessing for the Future (Curriculum for Wales)

Project Staff: Hayward, L. MacBride, G., Makara, K., Morrison-Love, D., Spencer, E., Vadera-Gil, F., Farrer, J., Borquez Sanchez, E. Wiseman-Orr, L., Hutchinson, C.

Project Description: The Welsh Government has published guidance for all practitioners employed in all Welsh maintained schools and funded non-maintained nursery education on the Curriculum for Wales introduced last year. This includes guidance on the principles and approaches which will underpin assessment practice designed to support learning progression for all learners aged 3 to 16 in all aspects of the curriculum. 

This Welsh Government funded project involves educational researchers from the University of Glasgow, with colleagues from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, collaborating with practitioners and policy makers to co-construct a resource which will support schools and practitioners both to engage with and develop their understanding of the concepts which underpin assessment practice aligned with curricular policy and guidance and to make use of these concepts as they develop school and classroom practice aligned with Curriculum for Wales. 

Awarding Body: The Welsh Government

Duration: 2021-2022.

Funding: £75,543

Further Information

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Project Title: Curriculum for Wales - Principles of Progression Think Piece

Project Staff: Hayward, L. MacBride, G., Makara, K., Morrison-Love, D., Spencer, E. and Vadera-Gill, F.

Project Description: Since the publication of the Curriculum for Wales Framework, (January 2020) the Covid19 pandemic has dominated all planning and response. Consequently, we have received limited feedback in relation to how it has been received by practitioners.  The purpose of this brief is therefore to commission a report, an over-arching think piece that explores the following: 

• Reflect how coherent is the approach to progression in the Curriculum for Wales based on the guidance?  
• What are the next steps to support practitioners understanding and application of progression, and its relationship with assessment? 
• How will professionals build a shared understanding of progression in all areas of the curriculum? 

Awarding Body: The Welsh Government

Duration: 2020-2021.

Funding: £24,850

Further Information & Project Updates

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Project Title: Decision Trees: Improving the Impact of Research on Policy and Practice

Project Staff: Hayward, L. MacBride, G., Makara, K. Morrison-Love, D. and Spencer, E.

Project Description: UofG researchers developed a Decision Tree Toolkit to align research, policy and practice in education, leading to evidence-informed decision-making and sustainable change. This approach addresses the challenge of policy development that is deeply rooted in evidence and ensuring a close relationship between policy and classroom practice.  This project further develops this Toolkit with international academic and policy partners in a wide range of policy contexts.

Awarding Body: ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Award

Duration: 2020-2022.

Funding: £14,900

Further Information

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Project Title: CAMAU: Learning Progression for Wales

Project Staff: Hayward, L.,  Jones, D. E., Waters, J., Makara, K., Morrison-Love, D., Spencer, E., Barnes, J., Davies, H., Hughes, S., Jones, C., Nelson, S., Ryder, N., Stacey, D., Wallis, R., Baxter, J., MacBride, G., Bendall, R., Brooks, S., Cooze, A., Davies, L., Denny, H., Donaldson, P., Hughes, S., Lewis, I., Lloyd, P., Maitra, S., Morgan, C, Pellew James, S., Samuel-Thomas, S., Sharpling, E., Southern, A., Stewart, S., Valdera-Gil, F., Wardle, G.

Project Description: The CAMAU project was established with funding from UWTSD and the Welsh Government to work with teachers and policy makers to develop progression frameworks for all areas of the curriculum. These descriptions of progression in learning are evidence-informed and supportive of assessment practices that are consistent with the ‘spirit’ rather than the ‘letter’ of assessment for learning.

Awarding Body: University of Wales Trinity St David, Welsh Government

Duration: 2017-2020

Funding: £393,427

Further Information & Project Updates

Project Reports: Learning About Progression

Project Report: Building the Evidence Base to Promote a Successful Future for the Curriculum for Wales

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Project Title: Access to Impact

Project Staff: David Morrison-Love, Dawne Irving-Bell, Dave Wooff, Matt McLain.

Project Description: This project explores ways of supporting professional dialogue between teachers and authors of published research to enhance outcomes for learners as well as provide more direct insights into the impact of published research.

Awarding Body: ITEEA (£16,060 in kind support).

Duration: 2016

Further Information

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Project Title: Mathematics Revision Resources for Students in the School of Education.

Project Staff: Dr David Morrison-Love, Dr Sue Milne, Mr Lee Dunn & Mr Naill Barr.

Project Description: This project will provide diagnostic testing facilities for students in the School of Education, with feedback linked to revision resources, including sustainable formative assessment. This builds on the work of several Jisc-funded projects led by the University, and an existing first year module already running for BTechEd. It will also provide tools and training to enable staff to create feedback-rich assessment resources for their students.

Awarding Body: Learning & Teaching Development Fund, University of Glasgow

Duration: August 2014 - July 2015

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Project Title: LITUP (Learning through the Integration of Technology in a University Partnership)

Project Staff: Prof Vivienne Baumfield, Prof Nigel Leask, Prof Jyoti Sharma, Dr David Morrison-Love.

Project Description: This project supports the development of technology enhanced learning in shared modules in English Literature between two Higher Education Institutions. This will involve the development of a framework and model to guide the design and implementation of pedagogical and instructional design that can be utilised in other subject areas.

Awarding Body: British Council: Knowledge Economy Partnerships

Duration: April 2014 - April 2015

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Project Title: Thinking with Things

Project Staff: Dr David Morrison-Love, Miss Olesya Nedvetskaya (Research Assistant)

Project Description: Exploring ways in which S2 pupil interaction with a range of tools and materials to generate design ideas can be represented as a system of distributed thinking. As a pilot project, this is exploratory in nature and seeks to ascertain areas of interest that could be further explored through a larger grant application.

Awarding Body: Adam Smith Research Foundation, University of Glasgow

Duration: November 2013 - November 2014

Funding: £650

I am interested in hearing from anyone who may wish to pursue PhD research in the following (and related) areas:

• Curriculum, assessment and pedagogy.
• Educational assessment.
• Design, technology, engineering & vocational education.
• Educational change, policy and practice.
• Professional learning and teacher education.        

Current Students:

• Akbar, Muhammad Naveed
  Students' study habits, collaboration, and the role of of technology enhancement in the quality of learning
• Rozzo, Anna
  Inclusive Pedagogy: Exploring Faculty Perceptions and Professional Development Needs at a North American Catholic University

Taught Masters

I have undertaken masters supervision for students on the MSc in Education programme.

Undergraduate

I supervise undergraduate ITE students who have explored issues of curriculum and practice at both Primary and Secondary levels:

• Understanding Materials Through Technology in Primary Schools
• Enhancing Pupil Engagement with 3D Modelling Software
• The Design of a Teaching Resource to Enhance Pupils' Skills in Justifying Design Choices
• A Comparative Study of Approaches to ACfE
• How does Technology Education provide Young People with the Skills that Employers look for? A Stakeholder's Analysis.
• As a Teacher, How can I best Support a Pupil with Down Syndrome in Practical Craft Skills, at National 4/5 level?
• Cognitive fixation effects in design thinking.   

My own teaching practice has changed over the years and is influenced chiefly by the work of Gert Biesta, Lawrence Stenhouse, Lee Shulman and Wolfgang Klafki. This has led me to explore the challenges of practice that draws uncritically or unwittingly from different and sometimes competing paradigms, particularly in relation to pedagogy and assessment. I work with evidence-informed rather than evidence-led or data-driven approaches to my teaching and educational practice.

A key focus for developing my own teaching began in 2017 in response to the persistent challenge that students had in developing their pedagogical reasoning. This led to the creation of the Adaptive Subject Pedagogy Model (ASPM) in 2018 which I have since developed with my colleague Dr Fiona Patrick and with input from different student groups. The ASPM is not a form of lesson planning. Rather, it was designed to encourage students to reflect on, transfer, and synthesise different sources of knowledge to inform their thinking about appropriate pedagogic choices for teaching. The ASPM can be used with any subject area and I am happy to speak with anyone who is interested in using it as part of their own practice in Teacher Education.

I currently teach courses in Initial Teacher Education. These include the philosophy of design and technology education, engineering systems, and courses that support the development of students' classroom practice and pedagogical reasoning. Previous courses I have taught include Design, Electronics, Engineering Materials, Technology & Society and Research Methods. As a high school technology teacher I taught subjects including design, practical craft skills to technological studies at a range of levels.

Selected links that may be of interest:

• The Adaptive Subject Pedagogy Model: Understanding Pre-service teachers’ pedagogical reasoning in Design and Technology Education
• Redeveloping courses for online learning. A short paper for sharing ideas
• Talking pedagogy and theory with David Morrison-Love

Awards, Recognition & Roles

• Top Presentations Award at PATT 38 Conference, 27-30 April 2021, University of Turku, Finland for presentation entitled: 'The Adaptive Subject Pedagogy Model: Empowering Student Teachers of Design & Technology Education to Create their own Pedagogy'
• Recipient of the 2019 Sylvius-Wolansky Award for Outstanding Publication in the Field of Technology and Engineering Education (awarded for paper entitled: 'Towards a Transformative Epistemology of Technology Education' published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2017, Vol. 51, Issue 1: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9752.12226).
• CAMAU Project: Finalists in the 2019 University of Glasgow Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement Awards
• Session Chair at the Nisbet Summit and Inaugural Meeting of the International Educational Assessment Network, Glasgow, May 2018.
• 21st Century Fellow with the International Technology & Engineering Education Association.
• Invited Session Chair for the 11th International Conference on Technology Education for the Asia-Pacific Region. Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, 2015.
• Shortlisted for the 2016 Student Teaching Awards under the Category of 'Best Feedback'.
• GTCS Professional Recognition for Technology Education.
• GTCS Professional Recognition for Assessment.
• GTCS Professional Recognition for Mentoring.
• Underwood Trust Scholarship for Post-Graduate Studies.
• Scottish Technology Teachers' Association Undergraduate Medal Winner.

Editorial Board Memberships‌

• Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Technology Education
• Editorial Board Member for the PATT4O Conference 2023

Peer Reviewing (past & present)

• Journal of Technology Education (present)
• International Journal of Technology & Design Education (present)
• Reviewer for the Council on Technology Teacher Education Research Monograph Series
• European Journal of Engineering Education
• European Journal of Teacher Education
• The Global Education Review
• Technology, Pedagogy & Education
• The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland‌ (Grant Application Review)

Professional Memberships & Organisations

• Member of the International Technology and Engineering Education Association
• Member of the University of Glasgow Educational Assessment Network
• Member of the Council on Technology & Engineering Teacher Education
• Member of the International Educational Assessment Network.
• Member of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
• Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy
• Senate Seat as a Representative for the College of Social Science, University of Glasgow (2014-2017).
• Member of the University of Glasgow Senate Conduct Committee (2014-2017).
• Member of the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change (2018-2024)