BSc (Hons) Warwick, PGCE Manchester, BEd Monash, DipEd Rusden, GradCertEduLeadership VUT, MEd RMIT, MPD-Master Project Director AIPM

Mark Butler is a Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research. He joined ACER in August 2004 and has since devised and developed testing instruments across a number of different subject areas. He has designed tests for Literacy, Numeracy and Information and Computer Technology (ICT) for Australian and international clients, and has created inter-disciplinary tests in Critical Thinking, Interpersonal Development, and Financial Literacy. Mark has much expertise in the online delivery of testing instruments.

Mark is the Project Director for ELSA which is an online test of English language proficiency and he has been a key member of the National ICT Literacy group which has tested the computer skills of students in Years 6 and 10 around Australia and internationally. Additionally Mark is in charge of running the computer-based Car Learner Permit Test developed by ACER for the Victorian Road Transport Authority.

As a test developer for the ICT Literacy test, Mark created unique simulated learning environments and developed assessments around these environments in order to simulate the task students are expected to perform. Additionally, Mark is the project director for the International Benchmark Tests in English, Mathematics and Science which are delivered to almost 130,000 students worldwide, and he has been instrumental in the design and development of the 2012 PISA Financial Literacy Assessment that was administered in 20 countries.

Before joining ACER, Mark had been teaching English in International schools in Malaysia and Japan. Prior to this, he lectured in Mathematics at a college in Manchester. He has also worked as a motivational presenter in schools around the UK running study skills programmes for students and in-service training for teachers.