Professor Pete Boyd, PhD

Pete Boyd is professor emeritus in professional learning at the University of Cumbria. He focuses on supporting the development of research-informed practice in education and works as an education consultant, research mentor and doctoral research supervisor with lecturers and teachers in universities, colleges, and schools. In his early career he taught in comprehensive schools and outdoor education for 15 years before moving to teacher education, academic development, and research capacity-building roles in higher education. Pete has published research on teacher education, on assessment in higher education, and on becoming an academic in professional fields, mainly in teacher education but also in the health professions. He has a commitment to practitioner research in education and has collaborated with school teacher researchers, most recently in relation to teaching mathematics. He has also published research into assessment in higher education and is currently chair of the assessment in higher education network conference. As an associate consultant with Advance HE, he is part of the ‘degree standards’ project which is focused on shared academic standards and professional development of external examiners in higher education.

PhD  MEd. PGCE QTS BA(Hons) PFHEA

Pete's research is focused on the professional learning of educators with three main areas of activity:

1. Close to practice collaborative projects with school teacher researchers - including talking to four year olds with expert early years teachers (Boyd, 2014) and on inquiry-based teaching in maths teacher beliefs. 

2. Research and scholarship in teacher education including the 'becoming a teacher educator' project (Boyd & Harris, 2010) and 3rd edition of guidelines for induction of teacher educators published by Advance HE (Boyd, Murray & White, 2022). Other open access papers and chapters on pedagogy of teacher education include: a research study of a school-based teacher educator; a research-based chapter on modelling in teacher education; and a chapter on the clinical practice model, realistic clinical practice for teacher education. Work on teacher educators and teachers developing research-informed practice include a chapter on teacher educator professional inquiry and on teachers' research literacy (Boyd, 2022) plus a paper (Boyd 2022) and BERA Blog on teachers' knowledge and professional learning in the post truth era. Pete has also published an advanced reader for beginning school teachers 'Becoming an Inspirational Teacher' with colleagues Barry Hymer and Karen Lockney.

3. Pete co-authored a research-informed practical guide that became a standard text for new lecturers 'Developing effective assessment in higher education' (Bloxham & Boyd, 2009). Collaborative research with his mentor Sue Bloxham informed Pete's critique of the 'theory-practice gap' metaphor and his proposal for an alternative 'interplay' metaphor for professional learning (Boyd & Bloxham, 2010; open access version).

PhD supervisor completions at University of Cumbria except *Lancaster University and **University of Porto:

Teaching Mathematics: Teachers' beliefs, knowledge, and use of representations (Dr Andy Ash, 2023)

Collective Mindset in a primary school (Dr Pippa Leslie 2021)

The research-teaching nexus in teacher education (Dr Rita Sousa 2021)**

The role of theory in teacher education (Dr James Burch 2020)*

Subject leaders and the National Curriculum in UK Schools (Dr Steve Chubb 2020)*

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations in Teacher Professional Development (Dr Kevin Proudfoot 2018)

Nurse educator identity and pedagogy (Dr Sue Harness 2018)

Professional identity formation by student teachers (Dr Deborah Seward 2018)*

The role of emotional knowledge in learning to teach (Dr Eamonn Pugh 2017)

Student teachers’ conceptions of Assessment for Learning (Dr Donna Hurford 2016)

To what extent is feedback in teacher education ‘for’ learning? (Dr Mark Carver 2016)

Collaborative agency across boundaries in the UK Children’s Workforce (Dr Kaz Stuart 2013)

Proudfoot, K. & Boyd, P. (2023 In Press) The Instrumental Motivation of Teachers: Implications of High-Stakes Accountability for Professional Learning. British Journal of Educational Studies.

Proudfoot, K. & Boyd, P. (2022) Teachers’ constitutive motivations for professional learning in England’s context of high-stakes accountability, Professional Development in Education  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19415257.2022.2151038

Boyd, P. (2022) Teachers’ Research Literacy as Research-Informed Professional Judgment. In Pete Boyd, Agnieszka Szplit and Zuzanna Zbrog (Eds.) Developing Teachers’ Research Literacy: International Perspectives. Krakow: Libron. Pages: 17-43. Available at: https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/6368/ 

Boyd, P., Splitz, A. & Zbrog, Z. (2022) (Eds.) Developing Teachers’ Research Literacy: International Perspectives. Krakow: Libron. Available at: https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/6366/ 

Boyd, P. (2022) Post-Truth Teachers. BERA Blog (British Educational Research Association). Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/post-truth-teachers

Boyd, P. (2022) Teachers developing research-informed practice in the post-truth world. Research in Teacher Education 12(1): 47-52. Available at: https://www.uel.ac.uk/sites/default/files/rite-may-2022-guest-author-pete-boyd.pdf

Boyd, P. (2022) ‘Learning Teaching’ in School. In Hilary Cooper & Sally Elton-Chalcraft (Eds.) Professional Studies in Primary Education. London: Sage.

Boyd, P. (2021) Being a subversive teacher educator. BERA Blog (British Educational Research Association). Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/being-a-subversive-teacher-educator

Boyd, P., Murray, J. & White, L. (2021) Becoming a Teacher Educator: Guidelines for induction (3rd Edition). York: Advance HE. Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/becoming-teacher-educator-guidelines-academic-induction

Harness, S. & Boyd, P. (2021) Academic identities and their deployment within tutorials (2021) International Journal of Educational Research 108: 101777.

Stuart, K., Bunting, M., Boyd, P., Cammack, P., Hornbæk Frostholm, P., Thore Graveson, D., ... & Walker, S. (2019). Developing an equalities literacy for practitioners working with children, young people and families through action research. Educational Action Research, 1-21.

Boyd, P. (2021) Learning Teaching in School. In Hilary Cooper (Ed.) Professional Studies in Primary Education (4th Edition). London: Sage.

Boyd, P. (2020) Mixed-age teaching and mastery approaches to mathematics. Teacher Education Advancement Network (TEAN) Journal. Available at: https://ojs.cumbria.ac.uk/index.php/TEAN/article/view/637

Boyd, P. & Ash, A. (2018) Teachers framing exploratory learning within a text-book based Singapore Maths mastery approach. Teacher Educator Advancement Network Journal 10(1): 62-73. Available at: https://ojs.cumbria.ac.uk/index.php/TEAN/article/view/442

Boyd, P. (2017) Teacher and Teacher Educator Professional Inquiry in an Age of Accountability. In Pete Boyd and Agnieszka Szplit (Eds.) Teachers and Teacher Educators Learning Through Inquiry: International Perspectives. Available at https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/3089/1/Teacher%20Educators%20and%20Inquiry%20Boyd%20&%20White%202017.pdf

Boyd, P. (2016) Realistic Clinical Practice: Proposing an inquiry-based pedagogy for teacher education, in Pete Boyd & Agnieszka Szplit (Eds.) Student Teachers Learning Through Inquiry: International Perspectives. Kraków: Attyka. Available at https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2580/1/Boyd_RealisticClinicalPractice.pdf

Boyd, P. & Smith, C. (2016) The Contemporary Academic: orientation towards research and researcher identity of higher education lecturers in the health professions. Studies in Higher Education. https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1671/1/Boyd%20Smith%20the%20contemporary%20academic%202014.pdf 

Boyd, P., Hymer, B. & Lockney, K.(2015) Learning Teaching: becoming an inspirational teacher. Critical Publishing.

Boyd, P., Smith, C. & Beyaztas, D. (2015) Hyper-Expansive Academic Workplaces: the case of UK lecturers in Nursing and Midwifery. International Journal for Academic Development,20 (1), 18-32. 

Boyd, P. & Leslie, P. with Teacher Researchers from North Liverpool Teaching Alliance (2015) Learning Conversations Teacher Toolkit: developing practice in early years through practitioner inquiry. Liverpool: Everton Nursery School and Family Centre.

Boyd, P. (2014) Using ‘modelling’ to improve the coherence of initial teacher education. In Pete Boyd, Agnieszka Szplit & Zuzanna Zbróg (Eds.) Teacher Educators and Teachers Learning: International Perspectives, Cracow: Libron. Available at https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1987/1/Pete%20Boyd%20Using%20modelling%20in%20teacher%20education.pdf

Boyd, P. (2014) Learning Conversations: teacher researchers evaluating dialogic strategies in early years settings. International Journal of Early Years Education. https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1802/1/Boyd_LearningConversations.pdf 

Boyd, P., Smith, C. & Ilhan, D. (2014) Hyper-Expansive Academic Workplaces: the case of UK lecturers in Nursing and Midwifery. International Journal for Academic Development.  https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1673/1/Boyd_EvaluatingAcademicWorkplaces.pdf 

Boyd, P. & Bloxham, S. (2014) A situative metaphor for teacher learning: the case of university tutors learning to grade student coursework. British Educational Research Journal, 40 (2), 337-352.  https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1501/1/Pete%20Boyd%20and%20Sue%20Bloxham%20A%20situative%20metaphor%20for%20teacher%20learning%20%20BERJ%202014.pdf 

Boyd, P. (2014) Learning Teaching in School. In Hilary Cooper (Ed.) Professional Studies in Primary Education (2nd Edition). London: Sage. Available at http://www.uk.sagepub.com/upm-data/61142_Cooper.pdf

Lopes, A., Boyd, P., Andrew, N. & Pereira, F. (2013) The research-teaching nexus in nurse and teacher education: contributions of an ecological approach to academic identities in professional fields. Higher Education, iFirst.

Boyd, P. (2013) Professional Education: resolving tensions around the value of different types of knowledge in teacher and nurse education. In Amelia Lopes (Ed.) Formacao Inicial de Professores e de Enfermeiros: identidades e ambientes / Initial education of teachers and nurses: identities and environments. Lisboa: Mais Leituras.

Boyd, P. & Tibke, J. (2012) Being a school-based teacher educator: developing pedagogy and identity in facilitating work-based higher education in a professional field. Practitioner Research in Higher Education, 6 (2), 41-57. Available at https://ojs.cumbria.ac.uk/index.php/prhe

Bloxham, S. & Boyd, P. (2012) Accountability in grading student work: securing academic standards in a twenty-first century quality assurance context. British Educational Research Journal, 38 (4), 615-634.

Smith, C. and Boyd, P. (2011) 'Becoming an Academic: The reconstruction of identity by recently appointed lecturers in Nursing, Midwifery and the Allied Health Professions.' Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 49 (1), 63-72.  https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1500/1/Boyd_BecomingAnAcademic.pdf 

Boyd, P., Harris, K. & Murray, J. (2011) Becoming a Teacher Educator: Guidelines for induction (2nd Ed.). ESCalate, Higher Education Academy: Bristol.

Bloxham, S. and Boyd, P. (2011) 'Accountability in grading student work: Securing academic standards in a 21st century quality assurance context.' British Educational Research Journal, iFirst Article, 1-20.

Bloxham, S., Boyd, P. and Orr, S. (2011) 'Mark my words: the role of assessment criteria in UK higher education grading practices.' Studies in Higher Education. First published on: 31 January 2011 (iFirst).

McNamara, O., Boyd, P., Jones, M., Murray, J., Qasim, S. and Stanley, G. (2011) 'Initial Teacher Education Annual Self Evaluation: Review of the SED.' Universities Council for Education of Teachers.

Boyd, P. (2010) 'Academic induction for professional educators: supporting the workplace learning of newly appointed lecturers in teacher and nurse education.' International Journal for Academic Development 15 (2), 155-165.

Boyd, P. and Harris, K. (2010) 'Becoming a university lecturer in teacher education: expert school teachers reconstructing their pedagogy and identity.' Professional Development in Education 36 (1-2), 9-24.  https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/359/1/Pete%20Boyd%20and%20Kim%20Harris%202010%20Becoming%20a%20University%20Lecturer%20in%20Teacher%20Education.pdf 

Boyd, P. and Lawley, L. (2009) 'Becoming a Lecturer in Nurse Education: The work-place learning of clinical experts as newcomers.' Learning in Health and Social Care 8(4), 292-300.  https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/361/1/Pete%20Boyd%20and%20Liz%20Lawley%202009%20Becoming%20a%20lecturer%20in%20nurse%20education.pdf 

Boyd, P., Smith, C., Lee, S., MacDonald, I. (2009) 'Becoming a Health Profession Educator in Higher Education: The experiences of recently-appointed lecturers in Nursing, Midwifery and the Allied Health Professions.' Health Science and Practice Subject Centre, Higher Education Academy.  https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/362/1/boyd_smith_lee_macdonald_2009_HEA_becoming_health_educator_project_report.pdf 

Clough, J., Boyd, P., Bunyan, P., Houghton, S., Hobson, T., Waters, A. and Zaranko, T. (2009) 'Teacher Supply in Cumbria: the contribution of teacher education.' University of Cumbria: Carlisle.

Boyd, P. (2009) 'University of Cumbria: Peer Review of Teaching, Learning and Assessment' in D. Gosling and K. Mason O'Connor (Eds.), Beyond the Peer Observation of Teaching. SEDA Paper 124. London: Staff and Educational Development Association, 29-35.

Bloxham, S. and Boyd, P. (2007) 'Developing Effective Assessment in Higher Education: a practical guide.' London: McGraw Hill / Open University Press.

Associate of Advance HE on Degree Standards project 2019-2023

North West Maths Hub leadership team member 2019-2022

Visiting Professor of Academic Development at Newman University - workshop on research quality 2019

Keynote speaker on developing research-informed practice in Education, University of Wolverhampton 2019

Research presentation Teacher Education Policy in Europe (TEPE) conference Caracow Poland 2019

Lead facilitator - becoming a teacher educator workshops at TEAN conference Birmingham 2019

Keynote speaker 'leadership and pedagogy in mathematics' maths hub launch conference Liverpool 2019

Chair of the 'Assessment in Higher Education' conference, Manchester 2019

Keynote speaker Maths Mastery Leadership conference, Dubai 2019

Keynote speaker, Assessment in MENA (AIM) conference, Abu Dhabi 2019