Dr Jim Van Overschelde stands out from the pack of researchers – he takes a quantitative approach to exploring this phenomenon. He’s an Associate Professor in Curriculum & Instruction and Co-Director, Evaluation and Research at Texas State University. Texas is unusual in its comprehensive collection of data that tracks people throughout their education. It even goes granular so, as Dr Van Overschedule explains, you can link student performance to whether or not they’ve been taught by out-of-field teachers for particular subjects. We’re not talking PISA, TIMMS here either.

Check out the pod for more details.

You can also check out his papers on Google Scholar, and Acadamia.

Are you an out-of-field teacher, researcher or have an interest as a consultant, school leader, policymaker, or even a student or parent? Maybe you'd like to share your views in an upcoming podcast. Then get in touch with me via email margaret.paton1@gmail. I welcome ideas/angles for future podcasts, too, if you're feeling a bit shy about taking part in a podcast interview.