Professor George Leckie

Professor of Social Statistics

Keywords

Biography

I am a Professor of Social Statistics and Co-Director of the Centre for Multilevel Modelling (CMM) at the School of Education, University of Bristol, UK.

Research interests

My methodological interests are in the development, application and dissemination of multilevel, longitudinal, and dyadic data models to analyse educational and other administrative and survey data. My substantive interests focus on design, analysis, and communication issues surrounding school performance measures and league tables, especially the use of value-added models for estimating school effects on student achievement for accountability and choice purposes.

Multilevel modelling short courses

I have taught over 90 multilevel modelling short courses across UK, Europe, Australia and US as well as online. These include courses for the Eurofound European Agency in Dublin, the Home Office, PISA at Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, and the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.

Government and other advice

I have worked or advised on a range of government and other external projects. These include: Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, Catholic University of Portugal, Colombian Evaluation Institute, Higher Education Academy, Home Office, Israel Academy of Sciences, National Assessment Agency, ACT testing company, National Institute for Certified Educational Measurements Slovak Republic, Northern Powerhouse Partnership, Pearson Education, RAND Europe, Swedish Education Department, The Times and Sunday Times Data Analysis Team, Trinidad and Tobago Education Department, World Bank.

Research grants

I have been Principal Investigator on three ESRC grants, and Co-Investigator on 13 futher grants others, including MRC grants as well as Belgian, Canadian, Swedish, and US research council grants.

Journal articles

I have published over 100 journal articles resulting in over 7000 Google Scholar citations and an h-index of 45 (as of June 2026).

My first-authored research includes publications in leading applied statistics journals: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A; Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics; Journal of Educational Measurement; Journal of Statistical Software; Psychological Methods; and Sociological Methods Review as well as substantive educational journals: British Educational Research Journal; Higher Education; School Effectiveness and Improvement. 

My co-authored research includes publications in further applied statistics journals: Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation; Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics; Sociological Methodology; Statistics in Medicine; and Statistical Methods in Medical Research; and other top substantive journals: American Journal of Epidemiology; American Sociological Review; Criminology; Developmental Psychology; Journal of Management Studies; Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness.

Awards

I was awarded the Frances Wood Medal in the Royal Statistical Society's 2017 honours for my contributions to Social Statistics over.