Earlier this month the EEF released their newest guidance document – “Using Research Evidence – A Concise Guide”. The release of this document reflects the positive growth in school leaders and teachers turning to research evidence to plan and guide their school improvement. However, using research evidence effectively in schools does require some careful thought and overcoming a few hurdles.
Hurdle 1:
Research evidence is defined as “the communication of findings from a study that answers clear research questions through planned and deliberate processes for collecting and analysing information”. Unfortunately, not all evidence available to teachers is drawn from research, and because we are busy people, we don’t always have the expertise and time to trace evidence claims back to the research from which they are based. Even publication is not “in and of itself” a guarantee of reliability.
To add to a further layer of complexity not all research is the same, and identifying the type of research that is best is not always possible or at best highly dependent on context. For example, if a teacher/school leader is interested in how/why a particular a particular intervention or approach works than a broad range of evidence will be beneficial including a range of case studies and other qualitative data sets. Meanwhile if a leader is interested in measuring the effectiveness of an intervention than quantitative studies (often using control or comparison groups) is necessary.
Hurdle 2:
Even once school leaders/teacher have identified appropriate research, they still have more hurdles to overcome. We must be critical of the research we find, use and infer approaches from, as unfortunately some are not all they seem. The EEF guidance report suggests that when examining research, school staff should use the acronym – CLAIMS
A concise review of a concise guide to using research evidence
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