Researcher

Job Title: Researcher

Salary: £34,200  to £44,400

Location: Cambridge, Hybrid (including 2 to 3 days a week in the Cambridge office)

Contract: Permanent, Full-time

Are you passionate about education and especially about assessments and qualifications? Do you have the skills to complete statistical analyses and then accurately write about the results? This role gives you the opportunity to apply your research skills to explore critical questions about data-driven elements of assessment (for example, setting grade boundaries) and how achievement in qualifications relates to candidates' futures.

We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading assessment organisation and academic publisher and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.

About the role

 This is an exciting opportunity to work within the Educational Measurement strand of the Research Division. This team focuses particularly on using data analysis to ensure that assessments are reliable, useful, and fair. For example, this may include research into the on-going issues of how to ensure that alternative versions of examinations are equally difficult, how to measure the accuracy of marking and understanding the impact of policy changes upon students. You will be responsible for research projects, from planning to dissemination. In particular, this role will provide statistical and psychometric support for international contract work. This will include involvement in preparing bids, designing analyses, and either executing or providing quality assurance for the quantitative work on successful contracts.

In this role your research will have wide-ranging impact, both for our business activities as well as on the assessment and education community more widely. You will provide critical evidence to support our business teams in developing and delivering assessment products of the highest quality. You will also help influence thinking and policy on education more widely within and beyond Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

Some key accountabilities will be:

• Design, conduct and lead quantitative research projects.
• Carry out quantitative data analysis confidently and independently using appropriate statistical programming skills.
• Exercise professional independence and creativity to solve problems and initiate solutions.
• Author reports, research papers, and presentations of publishable quality.
• Communicate research outputs to business teams to support development and improvements to products and/or processes.
• Provide advice, training, operational and project support to teams across the organisation, promoting good research practice within and beyond the Research Division.

This is your opportunity to make an impact! If you don't want to miss out, please take a look at the job description attached at the end of the advert. We want to hear from you.

About you

You will display creativity in approaching research problems and communicating research outputs, collaborate effectively and enjoy both working as part of a team and independently. You will need to be able to travel internationally when necessary.

To be successful you will demonstrate:

• A deep understanding of statistical and psychometric methods.
• Statistical programming skills. The ideal candidate would be able to create code to implement familiar and new types of analysis. Most work in the division is done with SAS or R, so experience with these software packages would be an advantage but is not a prerequisite.
• Extensive relevant experience of the design and management of research projects in education, learning or assessment.
• The ability to write and speak in ways that suit different purposes and that engage different audiences, such as teachers, business colleagues and academic researchers.
• The ability to work well with colleagues so that you can properly understand their needs as well as provide constructive criticism of others' work.

You will also have a postgraduate qualification in Education, Statistics, Psychology, or in another Social Science or quantitative discipline that includes a quantitative research element.

Rewards and benefits

We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible rewards package, featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including:

• 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance
• Discretionary annual bonus
• Group personal pension scheme
• Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary
• Green travel schemes

We are a hybrid working organisation, and we offer a range of flexible working options from day one. We expect most hybrid-working colleagues to spend 40-60% of their time at their dedicated office or location. We will also consider other work arrangements if you wish to work more flexibly or require adjustments due to a disability.

Ready to pursue your potential? Apply now.

We review applications on an ongoing basis, with a closing date for all applications being 6^th February 2024 and interviews are scheduled to take place shortly afterwards.

Please note that successful applicants will be subject to satisfactory background checks including DBS due to working in a regulated industry.

Why join us

Joining us is your opportunity to pursue potential. You'll belong to a collaborative team that's exploring new and better ways to serve students, teachers and researchers across the globe – for the benefit of individuals, society and the world. Sharing our mission will inspire your own growth, development and progress, in an environment which embraces difference, change and aspiration.

Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to being a place where anyone can enjoy a successful career, where everyone has a voice, and where we learn continuously to improve together. Ensuring that everyone feels they belong is essential to who we are, and to the contribution we make to society and our planet.

We believe better outcomes come through diversity of thought, background and approach. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and communities, actively seeking to employ people from a wide range of different communities.

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