I have been involved in large-scale educational research projects conducting national research across multiple sites with young people and practitioners. I am also interested in the application of research in corpus linguistics (using digital textual datasets) to education and have been involved in the design, development, and research of a number of spoken (academic and learner) corpora investigating the construction of knowledge and interaction in classroom contexts. Conducting small-scale research can provide particular research audiences and collaborators with evidence-informed insights and I have engaged in smaller scale projects involving participants considered to be in positions of vulnerability (e.g. refugee families) and on projects for capacity building and gender empowerment.

Aisling O'Boyle

My forthcoming book, published in 2020 by Springer, examines discourses of trust and ignorance online. I am a trustee and Governing Council member for the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), and also co-convener of the Society's Digital University Network. 

I serve as Executive Editor for the journal Teaching in Higher Education (T&F), as well as on the Editorial Board of Springer's Post Digital Science & Education. I am also the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for a project on “Literacy & Harmony” which examines Sino-Muslim heritage literacies in China 

 Ibrar Bhatt

I also lead the Association for Language Learning (ALL) Northern Ireland network. My research and scholarship are focussed on language learning at school level; I am currently Principal Investigator on Language Trends England, Northern Ireland and Wales, three large-scale longitudinal studies of language learning in primary and secondary schools funded by the British Council.

Ian Collen

In recent years my research has focused on heritage and Indigenous language education, including seven years collaborating with Ojibwe and other Native American communities on language reclamation efforts such as developing digital tools, family language camps, and bilingual storybooks. Working with multilingual minoritised language communities compels me to think more critically and creatively about teaching language pedagogy. I currently teach EDU7195 (Language Awareness for Teaching) and EDU7196 (Language Learning and Teaching) in the MSc TESOL programme, and contribute to EDU8102 (Theories, Frameworks and concepts) in the Integrated PhD programme. I value the multilingual and multicultural perspectives that local and international students bring to class and to the beautiful city of Belfast.

Mel Engman 

For example, my most recent book, co-authored, with Erik Von Hahn and Sheldon Horrowitz is entitled- Essential skills for Struggling Learners: A framework for Student Support Teams.  Although it was written before the pandemic, it never-the-less provides a comprehensive inventory of the types of skills children gain as a result of attending schools.   It helps parents and educators consider the types of skills, especially pragmatic skills that children may be losing out on as a result of the homeschooling/remote learning currently in place in some contexts. 

I am currently participating in an EU-wide study representing Ireland along with colleagues from University College Dublin to report on Irish teachers’ attitudes towards multilingualism and teaching multilingual children. I am also currently leading a locally funded research project in collaboration with QUB and UCD colleagues, as well as long-time partners from the University of Central Florida. With this project, we aim to develop formative simulated classroom environments for educating science teachers to teach immigrant children. As the lead author of influential papers, I have argued and will continue to argue that all teachers should attend to the languaging and cultural resources of the multilingual learners in their classrooms.

My most recent publication is concerned with Lessons Learned in Providing Field Experience Opportunities for Future Teachers of Emerging Bilinguals during the COVID-19 Pandemic, published in a book by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Sultan Turkan

Dr Ortega's recent publications include: