Transcript Copyright CUREE Ltd 2011 All rights reserved

PROFESSIONAL PRACTITIONER USE
OF RESEARCH REVIEW
Practitioner engagement in and/or with research
Philippa Cordingley
Background: policy and practice
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•
•
•
Practitioner engagement in and with research increasing
Multiple local, regional and national examples in England
GTC 2010 survey 33% teachers (12m)engaged in research
OECD examples of Nationally funded knowledge brokers:
EPPI Centre, Knowledge Chamber, Netherlands, New
Zealand BESS Programme, Danish Knowledge
Clearinghouse, Canadian Council on Learning
• Engaging in research (teacher-as-researcher) and with
research (using the public knowledge base to inform
practice) now get considerable investment across OECD
• Some underpinning debate and research to which this
review contributes
Systematic Review Methodology
• Comprehensive electronic literature search- huge
numbers – eg 80,000 + for health alone;
• Screened titles & abstracts against the published criteria;
• Retrieved full studies applied 3 levels of filtering;
• Completed a map of the literature;
• Double blind data extraction - 50% (98) of initial
selection; 100% ( 25) for synthesis;
• Explicit assessment for weight of evidence for synthesis;
• Synthesised evidence for review questions;
• Commissioned anonymous peer review;
• Implications explored with policy makers, practitioners
and researchers.
Review of studies of
professional practitioners’
engagement in and/or with
research in education and of its
impact on learning
Review of research reviews into
engagement in and/or with
research in health and social
care – and, where possible, its
impact on client outcomes
Map of the literature
Summary of reviews (no point
in mapping, just a summary of
the reviews and their terrain
will suffice
Synthesis of findings
Synthesis of findings
Comparison of related fields of
evidence
Technical report
Three user reports
Findings: outcomes in education
• Practitioner engagement in and with research is
linked to positive outcomes for themselves and for
pupils.
• Impacts spread fairly evenly among improvements
in:
– knowledge and skills;
– behaviour for learning; and
– attitudes/motivation for learning.
FINDINGS: A Spectrum of Engagement
Engagement
with
Research
Engagement in
Research
The Engagement Spectrum - education
• At one end of the spectrum, where there were
positive benefits for pupils- practitioners engaging with
research in education involved:
– research planned, analysed and reported by
researchers
– active involvement of practitioners in
implementation, data collection and review
– teachers introduced to research findings and
underpinning rationale/ theory, by researchers
– support to help teachers interpret findings and
adapt them for their contexts
• But not identifying questions, analysis, interpretation
or reporting
The Engagement Spectrum - education
• At the other end, benefits were linked with,
practitioner engagement in research when:
– activities were wholly planned, implemented,
analysed and reported by practitioners
– teachers drew on support from (e.g.) HEIs,
Local Authorities and specialist organisations
– teachers involved in data collection, review,
observation and refinement of questions and
evidence, analysis and reporting
– Teachers used published research of others
• Engaging with others’ research represents a
change in England
In health (and social care) reviews:
• When filtered for patient/ client outcomes data,
health and social care reviews highlight a different
spectrum ranging from:
– reading briefings and guidelines
– responding to compliance monitoring
– less commonly, participating in workshops which
enabled enquiry-oriented interpretation and
contextualisation.
• In H&SC engagement with was much more common.
In education engagement in nearly always involved
engagement with.
Examples of the research foci education
• Practitioners were engaging in and with varied research,
including:
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
assessment for learning;
using the web as a learning tool;
improving social skills via co-operative learning;
making group work effective;
increasing student motivation;
professional development for behaviour management;
teaching literacy, mathematics, and social sciences;
inquiry based learning in science; and
creativity in the curriculum.
Findings: important processes
• Identifying goals in relation to pupil outcomes
• Selecting and experimenting with new approaches
with support from specialists
• Reviewing and refining results with support from
peers and in light of evidence from classrooms
• A settled picture – processes and outcomes pretty
consistent in education
Education: obstacles and Support
• Approaches homogenous for engaging both with and in
• Time was often an obstacle including:
– Time to undertake research
– Rush to meet deadlines/ rhythms of academic year
• Problem of in-depth focus v multiple competing demands
• Peer collaboration and critical friendship – essential across all
studies and fields as support and motivator
• Form and content of specialist support important for:
– Selecting the most effective/appropriate approaches
– Initial training/modeling of new approaches
– Designing research tools, analysis and reporting
Health education comparison
• Approaches and outcomes more diverse in health
• Less evidence about outcomes of practitioner use of
research in health
• Approaches seem to be more about communication
and transmission of evidence
• Knowledge base viewed as more certain – effort
focussed on whether rather than how things work
• Contextualisation less well revealed and
problematised
Knowledge base in health and
education different
In health research tends to focus on high quality impact data in
clinical settings. Education research focuses more on how things
work in context but weaker re: impact data
• In health obstacles reported as take up and compliance
• In education they involve interpreting evidence, adapting for
context whilst still securing fidelity to principles
• In further education students are perceived as an obstacle to
engaging in or with research
• Teachers had greater professional autonomy with more scope
for managed risk taking than did nurses or social care
professionals
• Are schools were more conducive practitioner research
environments than colleges or clinical settings?
Contact Details
[email protected]
www.curee.co.uk
Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in
Education
4 Copthall House
Station Square
Coventry CV1 2FL
024 7652 4036