Academic biography

Dr Shivaun O’Brien is Associate Professor in the School of Policy and Practice at the DCU Institute of Education and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has served as Associate Dean for Professional Development and Partnerships and as Chair of the Institute’s Professional Development and Partnerships Committee. She is also the founder of the Institute of Education’s flagship engagement initiative, the DCU Partnership for Learning. Dr O’Brien is Chair of the B.Ed. in Home Economics and Technology and teaches across a range of programmes, including the Doctor of Education, the B.Sc. in Science Education, and the B.Sc. in Physical Education and Biology. She is Director of Research in the DCU Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection (EQI) and is recognised for her expertise in quality assurance, school self-evaluation (SSE), school ethos evaluation, school improvement, student participation, data use in schools, and teacher professional learning. Drawing on more than twenty years of experience supporting and training teachers and school leaders in SSE, she has developed an evidence-based model of professional learning for teachers leading school self-evaluation. This model has been adopted by Oide and is now widely implemented in schools across Ireland. Dr O’Brien has been commissioned by several school patrons to design national quality frameworks for diverse school networks. In 2020, she completed the Ethos Quality Framework for Educate Together, which has since been adopted as national policy. From 2020–2022 she led the development of an Ethos Quality Framework for the national network of Education and Training Board (ETBI) schools, including Community National Schools and post-primary schools. In 2023, she completed a two-year research and development project resulting in an Ethos Quality Framework for Jesuit schools in Ireland, aligned with the Global Identifiers for Jesuit Schools. Each of these frameworks represents an unprecedented and historically significant development in mainstream Irish education, collectively demonstrating Dr O’Brien’s substantial impact on national education policy and practice. She was also commissioned to facilitate the development of the Oide Strategic Plan 2024–2027. As Principal Investigator at EQI, Dr O’Brien leads multiple research projects aligned with her areas of expertise, including: Models of professional learning for school self-evaluation The development of an Ethos Quality Framework for ETBI and the ETBI Patron’s Framework on Ethos A national survey of ethos in ETB schools The development of an Ethos Quality Framework for Jesuit schools in Ireland Student Participation as a Key Aspect of Wellbeing in Educate Together Primary and Post-Primary Schools (John Coolahan Research Support Framework) A national survey of library provision in Irish post-primary schools Dr O’Brien has published widely in Irish and international peer-reviewed journals and has presented her research at national and international conferences.

Background
She was qualified as a post-primary teacher and worked in mainstream for a number of years. Having completed a Masters Degree in Adult Education and Community Development she worked in many aspects of adult and further education and specialised in work with disadvantaged youth. For 10 years she seconded to the Department of Education Further Education Section as National Coordinator of the Quality Framework Initiative, a quality assurance system for Centres of Education.  She worked for Louth and Meath Education and Training Board as Education Development Officer, for five years where she was part of the Senior Management Team, before taking up her position in DCU.