Publications

2025

Transparency in Undergraduate Admissions Essays: The case of the UCAS personal statement in the UK. Journal of Praxis in Higher Education. Written with Steven Jones and Bowen Zhang. https://doi.org/10.63223/jphe.2025.62217

British private schools and their satellite campuses: 2025 update, Private Education Policy Forum. Written with Martha Aitken. https://www.pepf.co.uk/publications/british-private-schools-and-their-satellite-campuses-2025-update/

Investigating bursaries and other means-tested support at elite English private schools, Private Education Policy Forum. Written with Agrima Tewari and Kathryn Telling. https://www.pepf.co.uk/publications/bursaries-report-private-schools/

Investigating the alignment of teachers and admissions professionals on UCAS personal statements, Perspectives; Policy and Practice in Higher Education. Written with Anna Burchfiel, Matt Griffin, Sam Holmes and Steven Jones. https://doi-org.manchester.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/13603108.2025.2512737

Multi-faith in policy only? Religion and belief inequalities at UK universities since the Equality Act, British Journal of Sociology of Education. Written with Kristin Aune (first author), Lucy Peacock and Mathew Guest. https://doi-org.manchester.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/01425692.2025.2557570

2024

Enhancing transparency in UCAS personal statement guidance: a traffic light approach, Higher Education Policy Institute. Written with Steven Jones and Bowen Zhang. https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/11/13/enhancing-transparency-in-ucas-personal-statement-guidance-a-traffic-light-approach/

Revisiting Realist Theory of Science: A practical guide. Written with Cristián Navarrete.

A scoping review of the graduate outcome literature, Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, https://doi.org/10.5456/WPLL.26.2.182

A short guide to ontology and epistemology: Why everyone should be a realist, Third Edition. Written with Cristián Navarrete, https://tfryer.com/ontology-guide/ 

Redefining emergence: Making the case for contextual emergence in critical realism, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12414. Led by Cristián Navarrete.

2023

Understanding Graduate Outcomes from UK Higher Education: A Critical and Methodological Analysis. PhD Thesis. Available from: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/understanding-graduate-outcomes-from-uk-higher-education-a-critic

Benefitting the public? A study of private-state school partnerships, Private Education Policy Forum. https://www.pepf.co.uk/publications/report-benefiting-the-public-a-study-of-private-state-school-partnerships

Profiting overseas: British private schools and their satellite campuses, Private Education Policy Forum, https://www.pepf.co.uk/publications/report-british-private-schools-and-their-overseas-satellite-campuses/. Written with James Fishwick.

Does critical realism need the concept of three domains of reality? A roundtable. Journal of Critical Realism, https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2023.2180965

How do Admissions Professionals use the UCAS Personal statement? Higher Education Policy Institute. https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/How-do-Admissions-Professionals-use-the-UCAS-personal-statement.pdf. Written with Steven Jones.

2022

Reforming the UCAS personal statement: Making the case for a series of short questions, Higher Education Policy Institute, https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Reforming-the-UCAS-personal-statement-Making-the-case-for-a-series-of-short-questions.pdf. Written with Steve Westlake and Steven Jones.

Do the political attitudes of students change during their time in higher education?, Higher Education, doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00915-8. (Open Access)

A critical realist approach to thematic analysis: producing causal explanations, Journal of Critical Realism, doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2076776. The author manuscript is available open access below:

Let’s stop talking about the three domains of reality, Critical Realism Network, https://criticalrealismnetwork.org/2022/04/26/stop-talking-about-the-three-domains/. Written with Cristián Navarrete.

2021

Conceptualising Graduate Outcomes with Critical Realism, Higher Education Policy, http://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-021-00232-2. The author manuscript is also available open access below.

‘Can we assess ‘job quality’ using the Graduate Outcome Survey?’, Higher Education Policy Institute, https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2021/07/06/can-we-assess-job-quality-using-the-graduate-outcome-survey

‘What is a graduate outcome?’, Higher Education Policy Institute, https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2021/05/28/what-is-a-graduate-outcome/

2020

Value, Graduate Outcomes and the Post-Pandemic University: A scoping review and alternative way forward, The Post-Pandemic University: Building the Post-Pandemic University, https://postpandemicuniversity.net/2020/09/13/value-graduate-outcomes-and-the-post-pandemic-university-a-scoping-review-and-alternative-way-forward/

A short guide to ontology and epistemology: Why everyone should be a critical realist, First Edition. Available from: https://tfryer.com/ontology-guide/ 

Naff: Universities and how to change them, Available from: https://tfryer.com/naff/ 

We should be talking about a comprehensive university system, Higher Education Policy Institute, https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/08/24/we-should-be-talking-about-a-comprehensive-university-system/

The key lesson from the Ofqual debacle, Private Education Policy Forum, https://www.privateschoolreform.co.uk/opinion/tom-fryer

Three things all teachers should know about universities, MIE Building Evidence into Education Blog, http://blogging2.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/miebee/three-things-all-teachers-should-know-about-universities/

Older

Why we need to change the whole rules of the university game, Brightside, https://brightside.org.uk/news/need-change-whole-rules-university-game/