Dr Sean McCusker

Associate Professor

School: Communities and Education

Dr Sean McCusker has a background in Engineering with a Ph.D in Civil Engineering. However, since moving to Education, he has spent many years in educational research and development. He has worked on large scale Assessment projects, including the World Class Arena and World Class Tests and the KS3 ICT Tests. He has been applying creative ideas to adapt practices and techniques from a range of environments for use in education. He has led projects in Storytelling and ICT-enabled distance learning. He has been involved in a number of European Projects, taking part in and leading the UK partnership in projects on; Girls and STEM, Girls and Technology, LEGO® Serious Play® and Seniors and Technology.

His research interests are centred on Understanding and Communication within broad educational contexts. This covers many strands including; developing methods for representing large and complex data sets, understanding how data is interpreted and used, Assessment and Assessment for Learning and LEGO® Serious Play®. His interests lie in the affordances of play and playfulness as a tool for thinking and exploration. Current work focuses on the potential of clowns and clowning methods witinin the educational context. He also has a parallel interest in the development of tools to enable the public understanding of quantitative data and is in the process of developing this through the use of innovative and interactive data display interfaces.

Email Sean

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Public Understanding of Evidence; Data Interfaces and Representation; Play and Playfulness; Clowns and Clowning; Lego Serious Play; International and Development Education.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
It’s in the wind: An opportunity for understanding epidemiological evidence, Nicholson, J., McCusker, S. 21 Feb 2026, Statistics and Data Science Education in STEAM. Proceedings of the Satellite Conference of the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE), September/October 2025, Münster, Germany, International Association for Statistical Education (IASE)
Playful experiential approach to reasoning with evidence, McCusker, S., Nicholson, J. 21 Feb 2026, Statistics and Data Science Education in STEAM. Proceedings of the Satellite Conference of the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE), September/October 2025, Münster, Germany, International Association for Statistical Education (IASE)
Tribute to Jim Ridgway and his contributions to statistics education and statistical literacy, Engel, J., Gal, I., McCusker, S., Nicholson, J. 7 Aug 2024, In: Teaching Statistics
Clowning and Creative Teaching: How to Be a Clown-Teacher, Mccusker, S. 29 Aug 2023, Pedagogy of the Clown, Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan
Pedagogy of the Clown: Clowning Principles in Education, McCusker, S. 29 Aug 2023
Where Educators Can Benefit From the Wisdom of Clowns, McCusker, S. 16 Oct 2023, In: International Journal of Management and Applied Research
A comparative investigation of emerging adults’ moral thinking and communication competencies in Taiwan, the USA, and the UK, Lee, A., Walker, D., Chen, Y., Thoma, S., McCusker, S. 2 Oct 2022, In: Journal of Moral Education
Alias the Jester – What Can Clowns Tell Us about Teaching?, McCusker, S. 19 Feb 2021, Early Careers in Education, Bingley, Emerald
C.O.A.C.H: a cross-national study of coach training for teachers across 5 countries, McCusker, S., Welply, O. 2 Jan 2021, In: Coaching
Everybody’s monkey is important: LEGO® Serious Play® as a methodology for enabling equality of voice within diverse groups, McCusker, S. 14 Mar 2020, In: International Journal of Research and Method in Education

PGR Supervision

Emily Vince Inclusion in Early Years settings, what are the main factors affecting positive teacher attitudes? Start Date: 01/03/2021 End Date: 19/05/2026
Stephen McStay A phenomenological study of student nurse experiences with smart phones in a learning environment Start Date: 01/10/2019
Deborah Herridge 'Re-imagining primary science pedagogy: Beyond Shulman, the importance of fun in learning science.' Start Date: 05/02/2019

Qualifications

Civil Engineering PhD June 30 1999
Fellow Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA) 2015
Fellow (FHEA) Higher Education Academy (HEA) 2010