Project 4: Student teacher

engagement with research

Elspeth McCartney, Helen Marwick

University of Strathclyde

HEA TEd Conference

11th July 2014, Birmingham City University

• There is a renewed emphasis on developing

‘evidence based’ classroom practices

• Traceable across UK countries’ policies,

BERA publications, HEA research

• Agree on teachers as ‘discerning consumers’

of research

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The (re)turn to research evidence

• ‘Critical Policy’ evidence, synthesising

(often) large-scale data and existing

research studies into policy statements

• ‘What works’ research, evaluating and

synthesising studies on the effects of

specific classroom approaches

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Two types of evidence considered

• Policy makers and service commissioners seek ‘best’ evidence, e.g. Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) which provide a ‘counterfactual’ (control) condition

• RCTs offer the possibility of results generalising to similar situations

• However, they then need real-world follow-up implementation studies

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The turn to (medical) trials model

• Not all teachers qualify in Higher Education (England)

• No agreement on underpinning disciplines, for teachers, beyond curriculum areas (UK)

• Much research, but poorly articulated with teachers’ needs/poorly ‘translated’ for use

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(Re)turn to varied ITE programmes

• Research on the distinctive contribution of HE to ITE (Florian & Pantić, 2013)

• Strategic priority: ‘Supporting research-informed teacher education in a changing policy environment’

• Ultimate aims -

- to develop educational opportunity and achievement for the diverse modern classroom

- for teachers to respond effectively to developmental, social, cultural and/or linguistic factors that impact, often adversely, on child attainment and wellbeing

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HEA response

• Commissioned as a strategic social

science project within this priority research

strand

• Investigated student teachers’ views on

and use of research evidence

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HEA Project 4

• Little is known about student teachers’ views as they progress towards practice

• Teachers’ views of research evidence and its uses are not uniformly welcoming (Helmsley Brown & Sharp 2003)

• Students are transitioning into the new research context, and may have similarly mixed views

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Because …..

1 identify examples of research evidence on the influences of developmental, social, cultural and/or linguistic factors on child attainment and wellbeing, and of their inter-relationships – policy research.

2 identify selected information about ‘What Works’ research evaluating classroom practices for children with developmental, social, cultural and/or linguistic factors that may impact adversely on their attainment and wellbeing – what works research.

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Specific project aims were to:

3 prepare and pilot workshop materials to engage participants in appraising selected reports of relevant research, using questionnaire and group discussion methods, and to discuss the barriers and facilitators they perceive in using research

4 identify key themes emerging from pilot workshops

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Specific project aims were to:

Education research evidence was sourced

• from Faculty staff, as a scholarly

community

• and from targeted literature searches

Aims 1 and 2: sourcing evidence

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• Faculty staff sent policy research

examples, but no What Works research

examples.

• Targeted searches found both kinds of

evidence.

• One example of each was used in each

workshop.

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Evidence retrieved

Key sources of policy research were:

• The Joseph Rowntree Foundation http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications

• The National Foundation for Educational Research http://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/

• The Teachers College Record http://www.tcrecord.org/

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Sources for policy evidence

Key sources of ‘What Works’ research were:

• The Campbell Collaboration Library of Systematic Reviews http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/lib/

• The Cochrane Collaboration reviews http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane-reviews

• The Education Endowment Foundation http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/

• The ‘What Works’ Clearinghouse http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/findwhatworks.aspx

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Sources for ‘What Works’ evidence

• Education students could be studying for a:

• Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE), primary or secondary,

• BEd degree, primary; or

• BA Childhood Practice (BACP), a part-time degree for individuals already working with pre-school children

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Selecting evidence to discuss

• Sosu & Ellis (2014). Closing the

Attainment Gap in Scottish Education.

York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/education

-attainment-scotland-summary.pdf

• New, relevant to Scotland

Policy example: all courses

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• All What Works Clearinghouse - Quick Reviews

• PGDE: Closing the Social-Class Achievement Gap: A difference-education intervention improves first-generation students’ academic performance and all students’ college transitions.

• BEd: Reciprocal Teaching: Students with learning difficulties.

• BACP: Head Start Impact Study: Final report

• All http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/quick_reviews

‘What works’ examples: varied

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Each workshop had five activities:

1. an individual Pre-workshop Questionnaire, asking

about current uses of research evidence, its sources

and utility, barriers and facilitators to use, and views

about research;

2. an activity on Views of Research, asking whether

statements about educational research were or were

not close to the participant’s personal views, with

group discussion;

3. group discussion focussed on Research Summary 1,

the selected policy research summary;

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Aim 3: workshop activities

4 group discussion focussed on Research Summary 2, the

selected WWC Quick Review, and

5 an individual Post-workshop Questionnaire, asking how

research could be made more useful, about students’

experiences of participating in workshops, and about any

personal changes resulting from workshop participation.

6 a Follow-up Questionnaire was sent a month later asking

about any further changes in views following the workshop.

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Workshop activities:

• Workshop materials were piloted with a post-graduate student who had experience as an ITE teaching associate, as a primary teacher and as a teacher of children with learning difficulties, to clarify procedures and timing

• Then with BA Childhood Practice students

Piloting workshop materials

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• The workshop materials proved feasible,

and uncovered relevant information

• Final versions of the materials are

attached to the report to HEA

Outcomes

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• Recordings of group discussion were

transcribed, and thematically analysed.

• Nine key themes emerged.

• Further piloting could uncover further

themes.

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Aim 4: emerging themes

• A qualitative analysis was undertaken, with

too few participants in the pilot workshops

to allow quantitative measures.

• For discussion, we will consider some of

the themes, and their implications, and

some views on research.

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What did participants say?

• Teacher’s role - including barriers to undertaking

research (e.g. work pressure, time constraints,

and the belief that research is the job of

academics), as well as the belief that it is the

teacher’s role to adapt research to classroom

context.

• “What I’ve heard in schools I’ve been in is that

research is the job of the academics in the

universities, but we just want a summary of

‘How’s this going to help me, what I need to do,

why does it help, and how do you know it will?”’

(W1)

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Theme One

• Suggests teachers as ‘discerning

consumers’ of research, not as

researchers

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Implications -

• Identifying practical application/s of the research, potentially useable within personal practice.

• “For example, like the after-school club not just being ICT because that is the traditional one. … But this is saying not necessarily, ‘supported study’ is more helpful so if we can change what clubs we’re offering, it has a big impact.” (W1)

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Theme Three

• Teachers actively applying research

findings.

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Implications

• Challenging the research methodologies - such as population characteristics, relevance and value.

• “ What do they mean by ‘learning disabilities’, what’s ‘adequate (pre-coding) proficiency’, ‘who - what pupils do they have?” (W1)

• “What was the temperament of the children, things like that?” (W2)

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Theme Five

• Evaluating how trustworthy the findings

are.

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Implications

• In/accessibility of the research message

• “It’s not normal language (academic jargon) and

how it’d be spoken. There’s so much pressure in

schools and the pace goes so quickly, there's no

time to sit and think, ‘What does that mean?’,

and if I need to go to the effort to find out what it

means, I’m not going to bother reading it at all.”

(W1)

• “It’s not user-friendly, isn’t it not?” (W2)

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Theme Six

• Need for ‘translation’ and implementation

information

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Implications

• Position in a job hierarchy and top-down

decision making.

• “If I take anything back and try to discuss it

you’re kind of closed down; nobody’s

willing to listen.” (W2)

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Theme Eight

• Individuals are limited in the use they can

make of research.

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Implications

• The policy research extract was considered

accessible, with its messages understood

• The ‘What Works’ Quick Reviews were not

considered accessible

• Although written for a professional audience,

Quick Reviews require understanding of how

study quality is evaluated, and how systematic

reviews are constructed, which challenged the

students

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Types of research

• Students responded by attempting to relate to personal experience (Theme 2) and challenging the research methodologies (Theme 5).

• They expressed discomfort in discussing the Quick Reviews when they had not understood them (Theme 7), which they said would impact upon workshop participation in less supportive contexts.

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Types of research

• Such responses may be due to the underpinning evaluative principles of ‘What Works’ research being unfamiliar.

• This could make it difficult for education students to engage with current ‘What Works’ research initiatives, and to understand the outcome metrics used by researchers such as the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF)

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Issues for ITE

• Resonances with some teachers’ views

(Connolly, 2009)?

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Not enough data, but ….

• On post-workshop questionnaires, participants answered ‘yes’ to all questions about whether they had changed their views following workshops. For example:

• “Developing my understanding of analysis/methodologies.” (W1)

• It has encouraged me to think more about, are there any weaknesses to research?” (W2)

• “Finding out that research and implementation of practices are not always evaluated and clearly written.” (W2)

• On the follow-up questionnaire, a student noted that she had accessed the relevant web sites suggested, and found them very useful.

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Impact of workshops

• The workshops proved a viable means of assessing and discussing students’ views

• Further examples from many other courses are needed

• There are clear barriers to using research evidence

• As an illustration of a workshop activity, we can discuss the ‘views of research’ section…..

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Conclusions – and your views?

1. Education research isn’t helping people live with daily reality.

2. In order to influence teachers’ practice, research-based teaching materials that translate findings into practical strategies are required.

3. Teachers have concerns about their ability to evaluate research information.

4. Teachers are less interested in research if they believe that the intention in sharing the research evidence is to impose a particular style or model on their teaching.

5. Having research evidence for practice prevents inappropriate or time- wasting activities in class.

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Views of research statements

6. Without strong research evidence for good practice, teachers can be pushed into doing whatever politicians dictate.

7. Educational research is often not applicable to individual classroom situations.

8. Research is often full of jargon and

9. Statistics that are hard to understand.

10.Having research evidence for practice allows teachers to justify their professional decisions.

11.Theory without practice is empty; practice without theory is blind.

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Views of research statements

• Thank you for listening.

Thank you

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• BERA (2014). The Role of Research in Teacher Education:

Reviewing the Evidence. London: BERA

• Connolly, P. (2009) Paradigm Wars, Evidence and Mixed Methods

in Educational Research http://www.paulconnolly.net/publications/

pdf_filesTERN_Presentation_2009.pdf

• Florian, L. & Pantić, N. (2013), Eds. Learning to teach. Part 2:

Exploring the Distinctive Contribution of Higher Education to Teacher

Education. York: HEA

• Helmsley-Brown, J. & Sharp, C. (2003). The use of research to

improve professional practice: a systematic review of the literature.

Oxford Review of Education, 29 (4) 449 – 470.

• Schleicher, A. (2012), Ed. Preparing Teachers and Developing

School Leaders for the 21st Century: OECD Publishing.

Key readings

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