Amy Fox
BSc, MSc
Senior Research Fellow
amy.fox@employment-studies.co.uk
Amy is an experienced project manager and researcher. Before joining IES, she worked at Aston University, successfully managing collaborative research projects with NHS England, assessing interventions designed to improve staff wellbeing in Paediatric Critical Care and Emergency Departments.
With over 17 years of experience leading and delivering large-scale research projects, Amy has demonstrated expertise in project management and research across academia and the voluntary sector. She has managed research initiatives in education, covering public engagement with research, early speech and language skills, parental engagement, and reading skills including phonics. Through this experience, she has gained a good understanding of early years practice and policy.
Amy’s project management skills include overseeing research operations, programme design, staff training, large-scale data collection and analysis of standardized psychometric assessments. As a researcher, Amy has experience in intervention implementation, survey design, interviewing, focus groups, and report writing. She has applied these skills to investigate complex issues in education and healthcare.
Amy also brings experience from primary education practice, working as an EAL coordinator, intervention specialist, teacher, and TA. These roles have afforded her an understanding of the challenges and opportunities in real-life educational contexts.
Amy’s interest in language and literacy, parental engagement, and workplace well-being has driven her to make contributions through research. At UCL, during CV-19 she successfully managed the delivery of the Flexible Phonics project, a large-scale efficacy trial aimed at improving how schools teach children to read in reception while working with the evaluation team to ensure robust research outcomes.
Education
| 2006 |
The University of Birmingham |
MSc Urban Regeneration Research and Policy |
| 2001 | The University of Bristol | BSc Single Hons Psychology |
Career
| 2023-2024 | Project Manager & Research Associate | Aston University |
| 2021-2023 | Senior Project Manager, Early Years | The National Literacy Trust |
| 2021-2024 | Research Fellow (Honorary) | University College London |
| 2021 | Public Engagement with Research Manager | Aston University |
| 2020-2021 | Senior Project Manager | University College London |
| 2019-2020 | Research Co-ordinator | University College London |
| 2018-2019 | English as Additional Language Co-ordinator | Birmingham City Council |
| 2013-2018 | Various primary teaching roles across early years, KS1 and KS2 | Birmingham City Council |
| 2016 | Research Co-ordinator | Aston University |
| 2011-2013 | Psychologist Assessor | National Perinatal Unit, The University of Oxford |
| 2011-2012 | Principal Investigator / Research Manager | The University of Warwick |
| 2006-2012 | Research Associate – various roles | Aston University, The University of Birmingham and The University of Warwick |
| 2003-2005 | Research Associate | The University of Birmingham |
| 2002-2003 | Graduate Research Assistant | The University of Bristol |
Publications
Webber, C., Patel, H., Cunningham, A., Fox, A., Vousden, J., Castles, A. and Shapiro, L., (2023). An experimental comparison of additional training in phoneme awareness, letter‐sound knowledge and decoding for struggling beginner readers. British Journal of Educational Psychology, p.e12641. Available at: https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjep.12641
Boldrini, G., Fox, A. C., & Savage, R. S. (2023). Flexible phonics: a complementary ‘next generation’ approach for teaching early reading. Literacy, 57(1), 72-86. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lit.12308
Hulme, R.C., Webber, C.E., Fox, A.C., Ricketts, J., National Family Learning Forum, Shapiro, L.R., & Taylor, J.S.H. (2022). Do family learning phonics courses improve parents' reading‐related skills and ability to support their children's reading? Journal of Research in Reading, 45(3), 258-276. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9817.12377
Carroll, J.M. & Fox, A.C. (2017). Reading self-efficacy predicts word reading but not comprehension in both girls and boys. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 2056. Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02056/full
Einav, S., Robinson, E. J., & Fox, A. (2013). Take it as read: origins of trust in knowledge gained from print. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 114, 262-274. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022096512001907?via%3Dihub
Robinson, E.J., Einav, S., & Fox, A. (2013). Reading to learn: Pre-readers' and early readers' trust in text as a source of knowledge. Developmental Psychology, 49(3), 505-513. Available at: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0029494
Higgs S., Williamson A.C., (maiden name) & Attwood, A. (2008). Recall of recent lunch and its effect on subsequent snack intake. Physiology & Behavior, 94, 454-462. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938408000693?via%3Dihub
Higgs S., Williamson A.C., Rotshtein S., & Humphreys, G.W. (2008). Sensory specific satiety is intact in amnesics who eat multiple meals. Psychological Science, 19, 623-628. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02132.x
Williamson, A. C. (2007). A case study of Manchester. In Lutz, J. et al. Baseline and growth study of creative industries in Birmingham: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, The University of Birmingham, prepared for Birmingham City Council.