Senior Researcher - Early Years Social and Emotional Assessment

Location:

Remote (UK based with travel to schools)

Salary:
Specialist (£60k to £65k pa equivalent)

Hours:

Full Time (1 FTE / 37.5 hours a week)

Contract Type:
Fixed-term for up to nine months

Closes:
Thursday 12th November at 5pm

Nurtureuk is a charity dedicated to making nurture central to education and removing barriers to learning. Learn more .

• Reviewing existing measures of young children’s social and emotional development, including the Boxall Profile, and what makes them effective and reliable for teachers to use
• Research and synthesise findings on exemplification materials for early years practitioners
• Working with partner schools to develop an effective, practical assessment tool
• Drafting and developing a new way of assessing social and emotional development
• Working with lead and partner schools to ground the tool in classroom practice and observation
• Developing exemplification materials that make the assessment practical and easy to use consistently
• Revising the tool iteratively in response to feedback and test results
• Testing and validating the assessment tool
• Designing a practical research and test plan to test the new tool
• Securing ethical approval and handling of children’s data safely, in line with safeguarding and data protection requirements
• Gathering evidence of reliability, including agreement between teachers, and of validity, including comparison with EYFS Profile and the Boxall Profile®
• Establishing age-related norms for interpreting results and ensuring the tool works fairly for different groups of children
• Working with partner schools to test the assessment tool and exemplification materials
• Writing up technical description and validation data into practitioner-friendly forms

• A professional with proven experience in the area of work outlined above
• A master’s degree or equivalent (or PhD / professional doctorate) in developmental, educational or child psychology, education or a related field
• Practical research related to child development and grounded in theory and practice
• Developing or validating questionnaires, rating scales and other age-related assessments, including testing their reliability and validity
• Quantitative analysis using statistical software
• Developing practical materials to explain a complex topic to non-specialists
• Knowledge of or experience using assessment instruments / psychometrics for social and emotional development, including the Boxall Profile®
• Experience working with early years practitioners and UK schools

Please ensure you read the Job Description and Person Specification for full details of this role.

• We offer a supportive environment with fully remote, flexible working, a £500 learning budget along with free Linked In Learning, and generous time off starting at 25 days holiday plus free days off for Christmas and your birthday.

£60,000 to £65,000 pa equivalent