Research Interests
Bernardita is a Principal Research Fellow at the Department of Leadership and Learning, UCL Institute of Education and an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Education, University of Bristol, where she started her academic career as a Postdoc Research Fellow upon completion of her PhD in 2014. She has a strong interest in education and inequalities.
Bernardita’s research focuses on school effectiveness, school improvement and accountability research fields. She defines herself as a mixed-methods researcher. Her PhD and Postdoctoral work examined the range, extent and consistency of primary and secondary school effectiveness in the Chilean context using multi-level modelling to conduct school performance analysis using Chilean administrative longitudinal data, as well as exploring qualitatively through case studies the school processes and factors that might explain the observed differences.
Focusing on quantitative methods, Bernardita applied varied statistical techniques, such as Factor Analysis and Principal Component Analysis, and survey analysis using descriptive and inferential statistics. Focusing on qualitative studies, she has designed and conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with undergraduate students (TELME project), and analysed transcripts from interviews and focus groups as well as documentaries produced in Evernote using NVivo 10 (DD-Lab project).
Currently Bernardita is the PI of an Nuffield funded project (‘Intractable’ schools: can an Ofsted judgment prevent sustainable improvement?) and a co-researcher at ISIKLE, Research School Network Evaluation and Action Against Stunting Hub (UKRI-GCRF).