About us

The project team

The Principal Investigator Professor Sally Thomas and co-investigator Dr. Wen-Jung Peng are from the University of Bristol. Our Chinese collaborators are Professor Huisheng Tian (China sub-contract director), Jianzhong Li (project manager in China) and other team members listed below:

• Ji Feng (ITDEQC) is head and researcher of department for national assessment of education quality at provincial level in China.

• Jianzhong Li (ITDEQC/IEEQC) is a researcher at National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES, formerly known as China National Institute for Educational Research, CNIER). His research interests include school effectiveness assessment and EU education and training policy.

• Xincui Li (ITDEQC) is a researcher at National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES, formerly known as China National Institute for Educational Research, CNIER).

• Xiaoqian Ma (IEEQC) is a researcher at National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES, formerly known as China National Institute for Educational Research, CNIER). He has supervised several national educational research projects, especially national compulsory monitoring program since 2002. Ma is also a core member of many MOE projects in CNIER and was visiting research fellow in Graduate School of Education, UOB (2006). His main research interests cover education economics and finance, education inspection and evaluation, and value added measurement methodology (multilevel modelling).

• Wen-Jung Peng (ITDEQC/IEEQC) is a researcher at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol. Her current work and research interests focus on aspects of school effectiveness and active citizenship. Her other interests include motivation and management in education, health education and educational research methods (including multilevel modelling).

• Chunron Ren (IEEQC) is a researcher at National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES, formerly known as China National Institute for Educational Research, CNIER). She has gained extensive research experience over the past 10 years and was visiting research fellow in Institute of Education of London University (2000-2001) and Centre for Assessment Research at Melbourne University (2005). Her research interests include school effectiveness assessment (including multilevel modelling), gender and rural education.

• Sally Thomas (ITDEQC/IEEQC) is Professor in Education at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol and internationally known scholar in the area of school effectiveness and improvement. Her main publications are on the topic of school quality, evaluation and assessment using both quantitative and qualitative approaches and a range of different pupil and organisational outcomes. She and has led extensive research studies on ‘value added measures of school effectiveness’ using multilevel methodology and the application of these measures for different, or overlapping, purposes including: school improvement, school evaluation and self-evaluation, indicator development and academic knowledge-base research. See personal webpages and publications .

• Huisheng Tian (ITDEQC/IEEQC) was formerly the deputy-President of China National Institute for Educational Research (CNIER, from 2003-2011) and senior research fellow as well as Ph.D. student supervisor. He is currently Director of National Center for School Curriculum and Textbook Development, Ministry Of Education, Beijing. Tian is also the director and academic member of the Chinese Society of Education, vice-chairman of the Research Association of Educational Experiments, Chinese Education Society, and vice-chairman of the Working Society of the Young Pioneer of China. He is currently visiting professor of Peiking University and Southwest University. He is author of more than 100 papers and textbooks (eg Teaching Environment, Teaching, Introduction to Activity Teaching, The Modernization of Chinese Education, The Reform and Experiment of Textbooks in Primary and Secondary School) and series on Research on Teaching Intelligence and Intelligent Teacher. His research interests include theory of teaching, curriculum theory, educational experiments and educational policy analysis.

• Xiangrong Wu (IEEQC) is a researcher at National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES, formerly known as China National Institute for Educational Research, CNIER). She has participated several large projects funded by Chinese Ministry of Education and World Bank. Her current work and research interests focus on educational policy and management, overeducation; education of rural migrant children; education inspection and evaluation.

• Xiaomei Yan (ITDEQC) is PhD candidate at Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol and an intern of ITDEQC project.

• Lingyun Yi (ITDEQC) is associate professor and researcher at National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES, formerly known as China National Institute for Educational Research, CNIER).

• Chong Zhang (IEEQC) is a researcher at National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES, formerly known as China National Institute for Educational Research, CNIER). Her research interest includes mental health, personality and sociality, and psychology and education of children with special needs. Chong have worked on many projects funded by Chinese Ministry of Education including study on efficient educational model for mental health in primary schools and middle schools as well as construction of database of Chinese children development and education.

The project advisory group

The advisory group will provide expert advice on project activities as well as in monitoring the dissemination plans to enhance communication with research users more widely.

• Prof Fang Liu, Director of the Research Centre of Educational Inspection and Assessment, National Institute of Education Sciences, Beijing (NIES)

• Prof Helen Simons, Professor of Education and Evaluation at the University of Southampton, UK

• Director Suming Yang, Deputy Director of Baoding Education Authority, China

• Prof Miantao Sun, Director of the Research Institute of Educational Administration of Shenyang Normal University, China

• Prof Hechuan Sun, Professor of Shenyang Normal University, China

• Prof Jingbin Zhang, Vice-Dean of Faculty of Education in Capital Normal University and Vice-Director of Capital Basic Education Development Institute

• Prof Xiaoman Zhu, Formerly Director of UNESCO International Research and Training Centre for Rural Education in Beijing and Vice-Dean of Institute of Rural Education for Rural Development, currently Professor of Beijing Normal University