Maurice focuses is the development of large scale / national assessment systems. He has substantial experience in the design, development, management, implementation, analysis and reporting of large scale assessments.

Currently he is the Research Director, Primary and Secondary at the Australian Council for Educational Research. Previously he was the Project Director of ACER-GEM technical support to the development of South Africa’s systemic evaluation program, which includes national assessments at grades 3, 6 and 9. He recently served as Project Director for two international surveys in early childhood: The OECD/UNESCO Survey of Teachers in Pre-primary Education (STEPP); and the OECD International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study (IELS).

In 2017 Maurice led a team developing an National Assessment Framework for Afghanistan. From 2015–2019 he was team leader for a project devising and initiating a strategy for an increasingly comprehensive and coherent national assessment system in Indonesia. A large part of this work involved capacity analysis and development of the national agencies.

From 2014-2016 Maurice managed the technical support to India's NCERT for development of the Class X National Achievement Survey. Prior to this his focus was developing a national learning assessment in Afghanistan (implemented in grade 6 in 2012 and grade 3 in 2016).

Maurice promotes technology based assessment solutions and has wide experience in large scale technology based assessment: in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Lesotho and Australia. IELS is also technology based; he coordinated the PISA 2012 Computer-Based Assessments; and he co-managed the Digital Reading Assessment in PISA 2009.

Maurice was involved in the design and implementation of four rounds of PISA, he was project director for PISA 2009+ and was responsible for coordinating major parts of the development of the PISA 2006 contextual instruments and framework. He has been involved in several international comparative surveys. He was on the international Questionnaire Development Group for the first IEA’s PIRLS study, New Zealand’s NPM for PISA 2003 and NRC for PIRLS 2001. Maurice also has considerable experience in policy and research committees at NZ Ministry of Education.