Biography
Helen Simons is an Emeritus Professor of Education and Evaluation at the University of Southampton where she specializes in programme, policy and institutional evaluation and research training. Initially a trained teacher and psychologist, she received her B A Degree (English Literature and Psychology) and Diploma of Education from the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and her PhD in Applied Educational Research from the University of East Anglia, UK.
Her research positions have included Senior Research Associate, UEA (1970-72), Senior Research Fellow, The Nuffield Foundation (1972-76). In 1977 she joined the staff of the University of London Institute of Education as Lecturer in the department of Curriculum Studies moving to Senior Lecturer in 1985, and then Reader of the University of London in 1989. In 1992 she was appointed to the professorship she now holds at the University of Southampton. In 2001 she was elected as an academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Professor Simons has conducted many external evaluations of innovatory programmes funded by both government and non-government agencies and directed numerous evaluation-training workshops both in this country and overseas. She is also an experienced consultant to ministries and organizations on setting up evaluation systems to monitor their policies and practices. The countries in which she has worked include the United States, Canada, China Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, Norway and Poland, where for five years she directed a programme of evaluation capacity building and training.
Helen’s research in the field of evaluation over twenty-five years has focused on democratic processes, ethics, programme, policy and institutional self-evaluation and extends across all sectors of education and the practice professions. Her evaluation practices embody humanistic methodologies and participatory principles that give autonomy and skills to organisations to continue their own development.
She has written widely on the theory and practice of evaluation, case study methodology and the ethics and politics of change, publishing several books and over 90 research reports and academic papers. Her book Getting to Know Schools in a Democracy: the politics and process of evaluation, Lewes: the Falmer Press, 1987 was awarded an international book prize for the 'most outstanding contribution to the social purposes of education'. A more recent research interest is the exploration of the creative arts in evaluation and research and the engagement of these processes in her teaching - in courses on Case Study Research, Progranme and Policy Evaluation, Institutional Self-evaluation and Action Research.
Helen has played a major role in the national policy context for evaluation and educational research. As a member of the Executive Councils of the British Educational Research Association and the UK Evaluation Society (of which she is currently President) she has been active in writing the ethical guidelines of both societies.
She is also a trustee of Charities Evaluation Services, an agency dedicated to promoting quality systems, evaluation and organisational development and self-evaluation in voluntary organizations, the Development School, an NGO specialising in social development for Central and Eastern European Countries, and Artswork, a youth arts agency committed to developing creative opportunities for young people aged 12-35.
Full CV available on request.
PhD Students
- McClellan, Timothy
Creative approaches to learning in higher education
Leadership, School Improvement and Effectiveness
Principal Publications
- Significant Publications
- Simons H. (2006) Ethics in Evaluation, in Greene, J.C. Mark, M. and Shaw, I ( eds), The International Handbook of Evaluation, London: Sage.
- Simons, H. (2002) School Self Evaluation in a Democracy, in Nevo, D.(ed) School-Based Evaluation: A Research Perspective, Advances in Program Evaluation, London, CA Sage Publications.
- Books
- Simons, H. and Usher, R. (2000) ( Eds) Situated Ethics in Educational Research,: Routledge/Falmer pp200
- Simons, H. (1999) Evaluacion democratica de instituciones escolares. Madrid. Ediciones Morata, S.L pp 291
- Simons, H. (1991) Dealing with Difference: Handling Ethnocentrism in History Classrooms (Ed. with Heather Fry and Janet Maw), London, University of London Institute of Education, 135 pp
- Simons, H. (1989) Rethinking Appraisal and Assessment (ed. with John Elliott) Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 250 pp.
