Richard Wallis

In 1990, Dr. Wallis graduated with a Bachelor of Education (Hons) degree with qualified teacher status (QTS) in secondary Physical Education (PE) and Dance. His undergraduate degree dissertation titled,  “An investigation into truancy: What factors influence secondary school pupils to feel disaffected?” focused on pupils’ reasons for truancy in secondary school. The findings illuminated a critical tension between what final year pupils wanted to study (in preparation for leaving school and entering employment) and what they experienced within the limitations of their curriculum choice.

On graduating, his teaching career began in the secondary comprehensive education system as a PE and Dance teacher, progressing to become a subject leader, examinations moderator, teacher governor and pastoral leader for Key Stage 3 pupils. In 1998, he successfully completed his Master’s in Education degree with a dissertation titled: “Intention and intervention: An inquiry into the counselling styles of a mentor”. This research afforded deeper understanding and insight into trainee students’ experiences and perceptions of their learning whilst on teaching placement.

In September 2000, Dr. Wallis joined the University of Brighton as a Senior Lecturer in Physical Education and Dance, located at Chelsea School on the Eastbourne campus (now School of Sport and Service Management). In 2006, he moved to the School of Education (Falmer campus) to take up a position as Senior Lecturer in Education. As part of this role, he was subject-leader for Education Studies and Student Engagement champion. Promotion to a Principal Lecturer in 2008, also came with course leadership responsibility for the BA (Hons) Education. In 2012, Dr. Wallis became Assistant Head for Operations (AHO) at the School of Education, leading on timetabling, staff workloads, staff employment, and staff development. He  also led the development of a project to restructure the management and leaderships roles within each of the School’s programmes and initiated a School-wide review of how personal academic tutoring was structured and delivered within each programme.

In September 2016, Dr. Wallis was promoted to Deputy Head of School for Learning and Teaching. In October of 2017 he submitted his doctoral thesis, entitled “Undergraduate Students’ Experiences and Perceptions of Dialogic Feedback within Assessment Feedback Tutorials”. The research developed his critical understanding of undergraduate student experiences of engaging with assessment feedback whilst problematising further this complex and highly personal element of the learning process.  The outcome of his viva was a pass, without amendments.

In January 2021, Dr. Wallis took on the role of Associate Dean (Education and Student Experience) and continues to teach and supervise on undergraduate, postgraduate, Masters and the taught Doctoral programme. More recently, he has been invited to be part annual progress review panels that assess Doctoral student progression.

He was made a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) in December 2019.

Dr. Richard Wallis is a Principal Lecturer in Education, whose primary research interests lie within the areas of higher education pedagogy, assessment methodology and dialogic feedback. His research takes a lens of Persona Studies that acknowledges the influences and implications of perceptions of identity and self within learning contexts. Methodologically, his work is positioned within qualitative paradigms and framed by interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA)

He is a member of the School of Education's Childhood and Education Research and Enterprise Group (REG).

Dr. Wallis frames his higher education teaching approach around core andragogic themes of self-direction, personal responsibilty and motivation. Building upon established co-constructive models, Dr. Wallis believes that active, enquiry-based learning - where students work in close partnership with peers and tutors to lead their study - afford the greatest opportunity for deep and transformative learning experiences.

Dr. Richard Wallis is particularly interested in supervising Doctorate students in the following areas:

• Student experience of learning and teaching in HE.
• Enquiry-based learning approaches in HE.
• Assessment and feedback in HE (specific focus dialogic feedback)
• Research projects that adopt an ‘Interpretive phenomenological analysis’ (IPA) methodology.