New paper just published open access in Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

When technical standards fail. Questionnaire wording and the comparability of PISA truancy data - Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability

This paper presents a case study of how an undetected wording change in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) may have led to erroneous conclusions. We focus on a survey que...

link.springer.com

This draws on new evidence from a working paper by the same team, analysing data on perceptions of vocational education in countries across Europe: econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucl:ce...

Following announcement of plans to expand technical education from age 14, our new briefing note by @robbiemaris.bsky.social @jakeanders.uk & @gillwyness.bsky.social asks: What would it take to achieve parity of esteem between academic and vocational education? econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucl:ce...

Our incoming Prime Minister has a greater knowledge of English literature than his predecessor: Would Starmer have been able to name any of the key locations in Macbeth? Burnham would.

New article: Experimental education research: rethinking why, how, and when to use random assignment Out today (even though it’s Saturday): doi.org/10.1080/1380... With @drsamsims.bsky.social @mjinglis.bsky.social @benweidmann.bsky.social @benstyles.bsky.social & Hugues Lortie-Forgues

Experimental education research: rethinking why, how, and when to use random assignment

Over the last twenty years, education researchers have increasingly conducted randomized experiments. Such experiments are usually designed in the hope of supporting comparisons of cost effectivene...

doi.org

Last night (3rd July) between 10.50-11.30 my electric cargo bike was stolen. Black Pakyak E+ with a baby carrier. First time I’d taken it to town 🥹 . I parked it on the Plain roundabout near the Cape of Good Hope pub. Secured it with a Diamond grade lock. If you saw anything please let me know.

New article: Experimental education research: rethinking why, how, and when to use random assignment Out today (even though it’s Saturday): doi.org/10.1080/1380... With @drsamsims.bsky.social @mjinglis.bsky.social @benweidmann.bsky.social @benstyles.bsky.social & Hugues Lortie-Forgues

Experimental education research: rethinking why, how, and when to use random assignment

Over the last twenty years, education researchers have increasingly conducted randomized experiments. Such experiments are usually designed in the hope of supporting comparisons of cost effectivene...

doi.org

New paper out in @sociologicalsci.bsky.social on teacher sorting and the impact of teacher qualifications on student achievement. Read more here:

Arnout van de Rijt@arnoutvanderijt.bsky.social · last mo.

"teacher-induced learning inequalities are mainly driven by unequal exposure to highly qualified teachers, rather than unequal returns to qualifications." Just out in our journal, @sociologicalsci.bsky.social sociologicalscience.com/articles-v13...

Had to read this one to figure out whether it's as click-bait-y as the title. As somebody who has written a lot about causal inference with observational data, I'm quite conflicted about it.> asteriskmag.substack.com/p/the-case-a...

The case against randomized controlled trials

Everyone knows RCTs are the gold standard of evidence...right?

asteriskmag.substack.com

🚨🚨 4 weeks to go until the 2026 CEPEO #annyleccy! 🚨🚨 Prof. Jacob is going to tell us what happened when schools banned phones in the US -- just as a widespread ban (probably) comes into force in the UK. Sign up at the link below!

UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities@cepeo-ucl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Do school phone bans actually work? Join us for CEPEO's 5th Annual Lecture with Prof Brian A. Jacob (Michigan / NBER) presenting new US evidence. 🗓 Thurs 9 July 2026, 18:00 📍 Central Hall Westminster Secure your spot today 👇 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cepeo-annu...

Interesting research job for a quant sociologist at the ESRI in Dublin. 5-year contract with possibility of permanency. €93k. candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Senior Research Officer in Sociology

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has a long-established tradition of sociological research, and we wish to recruit a sociologist with excellent

candidate.hr-manager.net

📢 Open positions! I’m recruiting 2 postdocs + 3 PhD positions at C³S, @goetheuni.bsky.social in #ClimateJustice, environmental inequality, #Demography & #ComputationalSocialScience 🌍📊💻 3–4 years + strong support for training🎒 Deadline: 23 June 2026 More: www.uni-frankfurt.de/48794987/Zen...

A new Economics of Education Research Centre (EERC) — run by CEPEO, @cep-lse.bsky.social and @theifs.bsky.social — has been awarded a ~£3m DfE contract to build the evidence base on economic and social returns to education and skills, from early years to post-16. www.ucl.ac.uk/consultants/...

UCL-led consortium wins bid to launch new education economics centre

A contract worth almost £3 million has been awarded by the Department for Education (DfE) to UCL Consultants Ltd, to establish a research centre for education economics.

ucl.ac.uk

I have a new working paper out today, looking at the impact of educational use of ChatGPT/AI on student test scores. Importantly, this is overall student-led use (incl for cheating!), not specialized AI tutoring tools. To my surprise, I found... no effect at all! arxiv.org/abs/2605.08812

Little Impact of ChatGPT Availability on High School Student Test Score Performance

In educational settings, AI can be used as a learning aid, but can also be used to avoid schoolwork, thereby passing classes while learning little. Many existing studies on the impact of AI on educati...

arxiv.org

Good data is essential for policy. Today it’s been a year since we had a permanent National Statistician. No news on what is happening with the current recruitment which began Oct 2025. This is an under the bonnet issue that points to state failure 🧵 uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/news/stateme...

Statement: Sir Ian Diamond steps down as National Statistician

Today the UK Statistics Authority has announced the resignation of Sir Ian Diamond as the UK’s National Statistician. Since joining the organisation more than five and a half years ago, Sir Ian has l...

uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk

📢WE'RE HIRING! 1 pre-doc and 1 post-doc position, both until 31 March 2028 initially. We're a super friendly multi-disciplinary team, though these positions have a strong economics focus. Closing date 20th May. Please share widely! Pre-doc: tinyurl.com/3t75je4a Post-doc: tinyurl.com/ycyrzaxp

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

tinyurl.com

New findings out today from @theeef.bsky.social on the impacts of setting cf. mixed attainment in early secondary maths. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Teaching in classes grouped by ability does not hamper progress of less able pupils, study finds

Research on maths teaching in English secondary schools upends decades of debate over mixed-ability education

theguardian.com

New data alert! 🚨 Our #LEARNineq team at UCL CEPEO is diving into the latest wave of the Millennium Cohort Study. Tracking UK people born in 2000, it looks at changes in education, work, health & families to help tackle educational inequality. Learn more: cls.ucl.ac.uk/millennium-c...

Millennium Cohort Study Age 23 data now available | CLS

Data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) Age 23 Sweep are now available to download from the UK Data Service.

cls.ucl.ac.uk

📢 Upcoming seminar (UCL CEPEO Spring Series 2026) Revisiting the 'Dominance Approach': An appropriate measure of social origin for those born in Great Britain during the 1950s–1980s? 🎤 Dr Michael Vallely (University of Strathclyde) 📅 30 April 2026 ⏰ 3pm (UK) 🔗 Join us: ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: CEPEO Seminar Series. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: CEPEO Seminar Series. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

ucl.zoom.us

If you're a current or recent PhD student based in London and using quantitative methods...we're currently recruiting TAs for next year, get in touch!

This is excellent from @samfr.bsky.social Why saving universities is far more than academic observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Why saving universities is far more than academic

Modern Britain needs young people with degrees – here’s how to make sure they still have somewhere to study them

observer.co.uk

Why do we still run marathons even though it is much quicker to get a train or taxi? Why should we learn to write even though it is much quicker to get the LLM to do it for us? Sometimes the aim of doing something is to do it. There is no shortcut. substack.nomoremarking.com/p/what-is-th...

No More Marking

-

nomoremarking.com

This would be bad at any time, but while the government is talking g about an AI revolution and automating / digitising the state with a data revolution etc, it's absolutely insane. Statistics are at the bedrock of all of this stuff.

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 4mo ago

And we are two weeks away from not having had a permanent National Statistician for a year. Why is there so little commentary on this? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

How did you get this footage of me?

Odd This Day@oddthisday.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Editing

Considering using Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) data in your research? Seems daunting? CEPEO, funded by @adr-uk.bsky.social, are working with DfE to help! Presenting a synthetic version of LEO to download & explore today: datacatalogue.ukdataservice.ac.uk/studies/stud...

Still time to register and join me for an introduction to some of the practicalities of doing youth transitions research using administrative data tomorrow lunchtime Registration link below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities@cepeo-ucl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

📢📢 interested in doing research on youth transitions using adminstrative data? 📢📢 join our very own @jakeanders.uk who will be giving a practical introduction to exactly that next tuesday (14/04) online sign up for the webinar here: zoom.us/webinar/regi... @adruk.bsky.social community catalyst

A postdoc position is now available in my project Markets and Mobility: How Employers Structure Economic Opportunity. Start date flexible within the next 12 months, apply by 9 May. www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

📢📢 interested in doing research on youth transitions using adminstrative data? 📢📢 join our very own @jakeanders.uk who will be giving a practical introduction to exactly that next tuesday (14/04) online sign up for the webinar here: zoom.us/webinar/regi... @adruk.bsky.social community catalyst

May I interest you in £10k for humanities or social science research? Our small grants scheme is open. Apply by 3rd June. We allocate through partial randomisation - awarding randomly between all applications that meet our quality threshold www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants

The British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants are available to support primary research in the humanities and social sciences. These awards, up to £10,000 in value and tenable for up to 24 mont...

thebritishacademy.ac.uk