The ‘evidence-informed’ tag is now popular and desirable across the sector. Despite being time-poor, many teachers and teaching assistants seek out evidence on effective teaching and learning to support their practice.
I recall, for example, my own mum – a teaching assistant of fifteen years – using her gained time through the pandemic school closures to enquire into how best to promote reading for pleasure.
Evidence has also become increasingly central to many recent education policies. The Department for Education’s early career and national professional qualifications frameworks all cite extensive lists of research papers that underpin the items of knowledge teachers and leaders should be entitled to learn.
But with this instinct and language becoming ever more widespread, challenges have presented themselves. For example, you would be hard-pushed to find a training provider who doesn’t describe their product as being supported (or justified) by evidence.
So how do we maintain meaningful engagement with research evidence, as well as avoiding fashions or fads?
Terms of engagement
What do we mean by ‘evidence-informed’ anyway? It seems evident that such terms should be clearly defined for everyone working in schools. Yet ask two school leaders what research and evidence are, and you’ll likely get quite different answers.
Working definitions vary outside the school gate too. Teacher educators, civil servants and researchers can talk about evidence in such varied ways that it can become a barrier to building mutual understanding.
Researchers don’t have a clear and consistent interpretation of what constitutes ‘evidence-based’ or ‘evidence-informed’. Meanwhile, some critics around the world argue the former is a problem, and that ‘informed’ infers more autonomy for the teacher.
Whatever phrase you prefer, at the heart of being ‘evidence-informed’ or ‘evidence-based’ is the purposeful use of objective, high-quality evidence.
What comes next?
While the mix of interpretations and labels can cause confusion and, at times, contestation, positive norms related to using evidence have been established in schools. We must continue to make evidence increasingly available and accessible to practitioners.
In doing so, we must ensure that research evidence is used in a meaningful way, empowering education professionals and ultimately improving pupil outcomes.
There are three key areas that will help us to achieve this:
Challenge loose labels
Teachers and school leaders should question products and programmes that claim to be ‘evidence-based’.
Is a quick survey enough to be ‘evidence-based’? Is a quote from an ‘influencer’ enough a warrant the tag?
We need to support teachers to critically appraise different evidence sources and the insights they offer. This will pressure providers of products and professional development to be transparent about the evidence for their claims.
Equip teachers for the job
Teachers should be supported to access, engage with, and apply educational research in their work.
The recently published Initial teacher training and early career framework (ITTECF) includes a statement that promotes how teachers need to recognise that research evidence can “vary in its level of reliability”.
But busy colleagues in schools need support to access a range of evidence sources and to critically appraise it. This will require a long-term commitment from leaders in ITE and schools, to strengthening the foundations of evidence-informed professional development.
Identify barriers and enablers
We must constantly question: What research questions are relevant to decision makers, be they practitioners, programme designers, or policymakers? What are the most accessible formats for decision makers to access and apply findings from research? What support is necessary for findings from research to be applied in a way that brings about positive change for users?
In a world of vested interests, competition and high-stakes accountability, it has never been more important that we move beyond loose and misleading tags of being ‘evidence-based’.
There is a powerful opportunity to fend off potential fads and instead build upon foundations of committed teachers, leaders and TAs – my mum included – in accessing evidence and applying it effectively to help make a difference to their work each day.
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