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Cathy Wylie

chief researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 19, 2025
Entity authorityQ113125905 ↗
Source-derived summary

Catherine Ruth Wylie is a New Zealand academic, and is Emeritus Chief Research at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, specialising in the impacts of educational policy.

Academic career

Wylie completed a PhD titled Reflective Surfaces: the Individual as the Key Social Relationship in New Zealand Society at Victoria University of Wellington in 1980. Wylie joined NZCER in 1987. From 1989, she led the National School Surveys. She also conducted a longitudinal study called Competent Learners, which tracked a group of students from the end of their early childhood education through to age 26. The research findings influenced both educational policy and practice. Wylie also led the development of the Teaching and School Practices survey tool, a research-based tool for schools.

Wylie's 2012 book Vital connections was critical of the impact of the Tomorrow's Schools reforms, and recommended changes to the competitive self-managed schools model to create better connections between schools and create more equal opportunities for learners. Wylie has also advocated for a single agency to take on some of the roles of the Ministry of Education, the Education Review Office, and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.

Wylie was appointed as part of the five-person review panel for Tomorrow's Schools, which produced a 2018 report.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cathy Wylie” as chief researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1980, 1987, 1989, 2012—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Cathy, Wylie and chief can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as chief researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q113125905. VIAF identifies the subject as 270999769. The Library of Congress control number is n90632690. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 1987, 1989 and 2012.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Cathy Wylie”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cathy Wylie primary sources, Cathy Wylie archive and Cathy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cathy Wylie”?
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  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Cathy Wylie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.