About
Dr. Nora McIntyre is Associate Professor of Education, Technology & Society. She is AI Champion for the Social Sciences in AI@Southampton.
With her research focus on educational innovation, Nora asks how best to improve teacher effectiveness in educational technology among diverse global populations.
She has research interests in culture, socio-emotion, and inequalities. She particularly advocates the use of intensive data via innovative research technology and process-oriented analytic techniques.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Educational effectiveness
- Educational technology
- Innovative research methods: eye-tracking, big data
- Social justice
- Socio-emotion
Current research
Nora's research interests include:
- Innovative research methods: Eye tracking, systematic observation, process tracing, intensive data, innovative research technologies, quantitising in mixed methods
- Big data: Learning analytics, machine learning, data mining, log file analysis
- Contextual sensitivity: Cultural comparison, under-researched populations (e.g. the global south), real-world settings
- Social justice: Inequalities in education, equitable research partnerships, scalable research methods and impact outcomes
- Socio-emotion: Mental health, interpersonal dynamics, autism, social cognition
- Educational effectiveness: Teacher effectiveness, classroom teaching and learning
- Educational technology (edtech): Online learning, innovative edtech use
Nora now focuses on investigating educational innovation comprehensively via this integrated research trajectory:
- Prioritising student-centredness;
- Going beyond the traditional to consider the whole learner;
- Exploring the place of edtech;
- Rebalancing educational inequalities; and
- Mapping out the path to change via process-tracing analyses.
External research groups
- Co-Investigator: EARLI Centre of Excellence in Research (E-CER) on Teacher professional vision (2023-2027)
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Coordinator: EARLI SIG 27 Online Measures in Educational Research (2021-2025)
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Co-Convenor: EARLI and Jacobs Foundation ‘Emerging Field Group’ on eye-tracking for educational research (€25k, 2020-)
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Affiliate member: Hughes Hall College, University of Cambridge, UK
Editorial roles
- Board of Directors: European Association of Learning and Instruction (EARLI), Awards and Activities portfolio
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Editorial Board: Learning and Instruction
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Associate Editor: International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches, with Editors-in-Chief Prof. Tony Onwuegbuzie and Dr. John Hitchcock
- Special Issue Editor: Journal of Learning and Instruction, Chronicles of cognition: Think-aloud and its potential in research on learning and instruction
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Special Issue Editor: Journal of Educational Technology and Society, Dynamic Accounts of Digital Divides: Longitudinal and Relational Insights into Unequal Learning Gains from Online and Blended Education
Institutional group membership
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Leadership, Effective Education & Policy research centre (LEEP)
- Quantitative Methods in Education Group (QMEG)
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Digital education advisory group
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GenAI working group
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AI in research ethics working group
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
Nora teaches on a wide range of Undergraduate, Masters, and PGR modules and programmes, with a focus on educational innovation, educational psychology, and research methods.
- Module lead: Digital education and innovation for an equitable future (Campus, Online)
- Module lead: Investigating Innovations, MSc Education (Army ETS)
- Module lead: Dissertation, MSc Education (Online)
- PhD Supervisor: PG Research
- Additionally, I have previously taught in the following capacities.
- Programme Lead: Education MSc (Online)
- Module lead: Research Methods, BSc Education and BSc Educational Psychology
- Module tutor: Digital society, BSc Education
- Module tutor: Cognitive Psychology, BSc Educational Psychology
- Module tutor: Issues and Practice in Mixed Methods Research Design, PG Research
- Dissertation Supervisor: BSc Education, MSc Education (Campus), MSc Education (Online)
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Dr. Nora McIntyre is Associate Professor of Education, Technology & Society, within the Southampton Education School (since 2024), having joined as Assistant Professor in July 2021. She is AI Champion for the Social Sciences in AI@Southampton.
Prior to Southampton, Nora established and led a research centre at an edtech start-up (2021). There, her research focus was on online education as an avenue for educational access and opportunity for innovative process-tracing educational research analyses.
Nora served as Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, as part of an international research consortium, The EdTech Hub (2019-2021; FCDO, World Bank, Gates Foundation). During this period, Nora focused on methodological innovations for research on edtech in international development. She led mixed methods research on teacher professional development and edtech in low-and-middle-income countries and performed data mining of learners’ online gaming. Nora sustained continued cross-sector engagement as part of this role. She contributed multiple white papers and rapid evidence reviews.
Between 2016 and 2020, Nora conducted post-doctoral research on the role of mental health and wellbeing in adult professional development. Through a systematic review and longitudinal data analysis, Nora also investigated the link between social class and child mental health, especially depression and antisocial behaviour (Nuffield Foundation). Nora was Co-Investigator on a Finnish Academy eye-tracking project on collaborative problem-solving in mathematics learning (€480k).
PhD Research
McIntyre, Nora Ann (2016) Teach at first sight: Expert teacher gaze across two cultural settings. PhD thesis, University of York.
Funding: ESRC Award, ESRC Overseas Field Visit fund, ESRC Top-Up (2014, 2015, 2016).