Senior Lecturer in Learning Enhancement and Academic Development
Dr Helen Donaghue joined ºÚÁÏÉçÇø in May 2022 as a Senior Lecturer in the LEAD centre.
- Overview
- Research Interests
- Research Publications
- Teaching and Learning
Dr Helen Donaghue (PFHEA) is a Senior Lecturer in Academic Practice in the LEAD Centre. She has taught HE staff and students at all levels and has provided leadership in learning, teaching and assessment and pedagogic research across universities in the UK and abroad. She has a record of consistently outstanding teaching, evidenced by student evaluations. At QMU she is the programme leader for the PG Certificate in Academic Practice. She also leads the provision of assessment support across the university which includes research-informed assessment workshops for programme teams on topics such as programme assessment mapping, assessment design, robust and fair marking processes, scaffolding assessments, feedback, and assessing writing and speaking. Helen is the Vice Convenor of the (SHED) network.
Helen holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and her research is situated within HE at the nexus of education and language. Her sustained, significant and international contribution to research in language teacher education, assessment and doctoral writing/pedagogy is evidenced through a portfolio of world-leading, high-quality academic outputs - see her for publication details.
Helen is a member of the Culture in Society research centre at QMU. She currently supervises two PhD students and welcomes PhD applications in the areas of language teacher education, teacher and researcher identity development, teacher talk (specifically post observation feedback), face and politeness in spoken discourse, assessment and feedback in higher education, doctoral writing, and doctoral pedagogy. She is particularly interested in projects using applied linguistics methodologies (e.g. discourse analysis, linguistic ethnography).
Helen’s research is situated at the intersection of language and learning. Her sustained, significant and international contribution to research in language teacher education, assessment and doctoral writing and pedagogy is evidenced through a portfolio of world-leading, high-quality academic outputs which include a monograph for the prestigious Routledge Studies in Applied Linguistics series (). View her for publication details.
Helen is a member of the Culture in Society research centre at QMU. She currently supervises two PhD students and welcomes PhD applications in the areas of language teacher education, teacher and researcher identity development, teacher talk (specifically post observation feedback), face and politeness in spoken discourse, assessment and feedback in higher education, doctoral writing, and doctoral pedagogy. She is particularly interested in projects using applied linguistics methodologies (e.g. discourse analysis, linguistic ethnography).
Helen’s successful grant applications include projects researching the development of doctoral students’ researcher identities (; , ), the representation of academic writing in assessment criteria across disciplines (), subject lecturers' commitment and capacity to develop students' academic and professional literacies () and post observation feedback in HE (; ). Funded research projects include the development of two toolkits: Tasks for Doctoral Education and .
Helen is the co-founder (with Lynne Bremner) of the dialogic teaching research group at QMU. This group is currently investigating how oracy features in assessment criteria across the university.
Helen’s research interests include academic writing development, particularly doctoral writing (), and she teaches academic writing workshops at the Graduate School induction weeks.
Helen has taught HE students and teachers from all over the world, at different levels (foundation year, undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students, new and experienced HE lecturers and language teachers), in different disciplines, and in different modes (on campus, blended, online). She has worked in universities in the UK, Hungary and the United Arab Emirates. Taking an innovative, person-centred, approach to learning, she is committed to building a diverse, inclusive and international HE community and helping, inspiring and supporting colleagues and students to flourish. She has a keen interest in the development of academic and professional literacies, dialogic pedagogy, and assessment and feedback. She is the programme leader for the PG Certificate in Academic Practice.
