Dr Sarah McElwee

Dr Sarah McElwee

Principal Research Manager

Sarah is a Principal Research Manager at Cambridge Assessment English, leading on research related to university admissions tests. Her areas of expertise are the use of assessments to support the selection of candidates to university, and the impact of university admissions on students, universities and wider society. She is particularly interested in admission to medicine, the validity of selection assessments, and widening participation in Higher Education.

Sarah has worked in education for over 15 years as a researcher, consultant, and as a teacher and lecturer for learners right across the age range from early primary school to postgraduate study, as well as in Community Adult Education. She holds an honours degree in Psychology from Trinity College Dublin and a PhD in Cognitive Development from Queen’s University Belfast.

Sarah previously held a research position at the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, focused on the development of verbal and spatial reasoning assessments for primary and secondary school pupils. She has worked as a consultant to a number of national education bodies in her native Ireland. As a specialist in the development and learning of exceptionally able children, Sarah has delivered numerous public engagement events to parents and teachers, and has devised and tutored online learning courses for teachers.

Key publications and conference presentations

Cheung, K Y F and McElwee, S (2017) What skills are we assessing? Cognitive validity in BMAT, in Cheung, K Y F, McElwee, S and Emery, J (Eds) Applying the Socio-cognitive Framework to the BioMedical Admissions Test: Insights from Language Assessment, Studies in Language Testing volume 49, Cambridge: UCLES/Cambridge University Press, 35-80.

Cheung, K Y F, McElwee, S and Emery, J (Eds) (2017) Applying the Socio-cognitive Framework to the BioMedical Admissions Test: Insights from Language Assessment, Studies in Language Testing volume 49, Cambridge: UCLES/Cambridge University Press.

McElwee, S, Fyfe, M and Grant, K (2017) The consequences of biomedical admissions testing on individuals, institutions and society, in Cheung, K Y F, McElwee, S and Emery, J (Eds) Applying the Socio-cognitive Framework to the BioMedical Admissions Test: Insights from Language Assessment, Studies in Language Testing volume 49, Cambridge: UCLES/Cambridge University Press, 181-215.

Cheung, K Y F and McElwee, S (2016) Using the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT) to support shortlisting for multiple mini interviews (MMI), paper presented at the Association of Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) Annual Conference, Barcelona, Spain, August 2016.

McElwee, S and Shannon, M (2016) Supporting positive test impact for BMAT candidates: A case study of revising BMAT Section 2, paper presented at the Association of Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) Annual Conference, Barcelona, Spain, August 2016.

Hustad, A and McElwee, S (2015) Ideas to action: A framework for the design and implementation of a mixed methods study, in Moeller, A J, Creswell, J W and Saville, N (Eds) Second Language Assessment and Mixed Methods Research, Studies in Language Testing volume 43, Cambridge: UCLES/Cambridge University Press, 299-324.

McElwee, S, Cheung, K Y F and Shannon, M (2015) Widening participation and positive impact in the design and administration of university admissions tests, paper presented at the 16th Association for Educational Assessment-Europe Annual Conference, Glasgow, UK, 5-7 November 2015.

McElwee, S (2014) Metacognition: Can we teach people how to learn?, in Mellanby, J and Theobald, K (Eds) Education and Learning: An Evidence-Based Approach London: Wiley Blackwell, 173-206.