Quality use of research evidence: practitioner perspectives

2022

This summary report draws on quantitative findings from three Q Project surveys involving 1,725 Australian educators. <br>The report shares educators' insights into: - What types of research and evidence they value;- Why they access and use different research and evidence;- When they use research and evidence; and- How they access and then use research and evidence in practice.

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2021

Recent decades have seen widespread efforts to improve the generation and use of evidence across a number of sectors. Such efforts can be seen to raise important questions about how we understand not only the quality of evidence, but also the quality of its use. To date, though, there has been wide-ranging debate about the former, but very little dialogue about the latter. This paper focuses in on this question of how to conceptualise the quality of research evidence use. Drawing on a systematic review and narrative synthesis of 112 papers from health, social care, education and policy, it presents six initial principles for conceptualising quality use of research evidence. These concern taking account of: the role of practice-based expertise and evidence in context; the sector-specific conditions that support evidence use; how quality use develops and can be evaluated over time; the salient stages of the research use process; whether to focus on processes and/or outcomes of evidenc...

2017

Implicitly, therefore, and sometimes quite explicitly, qualitative approaches to research are marginalized. The debate seems to reflect both long-term changes in what we might call the 'terms of trade' between science and policy, along with more specific short-term jockeying for position amongst particular researchers and government officials/advisers at a particular point in time. The intensity and focus of the current debate in the UK can be dated from a speech in 1996 by David Hargreaves (then Professor of Education at Cambridge University) to the Teacher Training Agency (TTA-a government agency regulating teacher training). Hargreaves (1996) attacked the quality and utility of educational research, arguing that such research should produce an "agreed knowledge base for teachers" (p. 2) that "demonstrates conclusively that if teachers change their practice from X to Y there will a significant and enduring improvement in teaching and learning" (p. 5). Subsequent government-sponsored reviews and reports took their lead from this speech and produced what might be termed a mainstream policy consensus that the quality of educational research was low, particularly because so many studies were conducted on a small scale and employed qualitative methods, and therefore "something had to be done" (Hillage,

Project outline and methods 5

Practice theory: Diffractive readings in professional practice and education, 2017

Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2017). Bad research, bad education: The contested evidence for evidence-based research, policy and practice in education. In J. Lynch, J. Rowlands, T. Gale, & A. Skourdoumbis (Eds.), Practice theory: Diffractive readings in professional practice and education (231-246). London, UK: Routledge.

Brock Education Journal, 2016

This paper summarizes the results of a pan-Canadian online survey study that investigates the extent to which school practitioners (N = 1,153) use research to inform their practice. The self-reports indicate that the majority of the respondents used educational research, yet this engagement was infrequent. Although the respondents shared neutral attitudes about research, their comments add rather negative connotation to their perceptions. This study’s findings are relevant to school leadership organizations, teacher education institutions and research-generating bodies as they point to the necessity of increasing research relevance and accessibility, cultivating teaching as a research-based profession, and building school capacity to use research.

Building Better Schools with Evidence-based Policy, 2021

Policy makers like immediate answers but education research moves at a snail's pace: It sometimes takes decades before a longitudinal survey yields policy-relevant insights to the burning questions we have right now. Education research also does not always focus on the questions that are most relevant to policy makers and practitioners. Nor are research results always available in a form intelligible to them. And even when they are, research will have insufficient impact if it is not used to challenge conventional wisdom or long-held beliefs in what works. Sometimes policy makers and practitioners forget that data are not the plural of anecdote, and often they are simply too busy to look for research-based answers. On top of that, education systems often lack adequate infrastructure and mechanisms to support them in using research in their daily decisions.

2018

Most policies and strategies to improve teaching practice and student learning have often underpinned their arguments on research as the basis to authenticate their appropriateness and potential effectiveness. In essence, the idea of using research to inform teaching and learning is often considered as important and at the heart of any attempt to improve teaching practice and student learning and achievement. However, there is little evidence to demonstrate how teachers use research to inform their teaching (Ingen et al, 2016). The idea of using research to inform practice (evidence-informed practice) attracted extensive discourse in the 1990s particularly in the UK following a keynote address by David Hargreaves in a teacher training conferences in which he made an unfavourable comparison between the teaching profession and the medical profession (Hargreaves, 1996; Hammersley, 1997; McIntyre, 1997; Foster & Hammersley, 1998; Gillborn & Gipps, 1998). Hargreaves (1996, 1) contends “....

Teacher Development, 2016

This article presents a microanalysis of how a group of primary school teachers deals with research evidence in their work. Based on analysis of a group of Norwegian teachers' interactions over issues of educational research and research-based knowledge, we find that teachers' representations of educational research particularly center on the following issues: educational research being perceived as circular, 'polyphonic' , and a matter of accommodation to their experience-based knowledge. These metaphors also shed light upon the dilemmas that arise when research evidence meets teachers' more contextual knowledge. We conclude that teachers' practicebased evidence may take new forms with an increased policy focus on research-based evidence, as well as bringing forth challenges for teacher work and professionalism.