A strategy for the defense, improvement and promotion of educational research: an international exam

1
A strategy for the defense, improvement and
promotion of educational research an
international example

• British Educational Research Association
• UK Teaching and Learning
• Research Programme

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The presentations

• UK challenges to educational research Geoff
  Whitty
• TLRP strategies for research development Andrew
  Pollard
• Project research classroom group-work Peter
  Blatchford Andy Tolmie
• Thematic analysis on teacher learning Mary James
• Project research on learning in the lifecourse
  Gert Biesta
• Thematic analysis on learning through the
  lifecourse Miriam David
• TLRP summary Andrew Pollard
• Eva Baker Discussant

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UK challenges to educational research
Geoff Whitty President, British Educational
Research Association
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UK challenges to educational research

• Mid-1990s- series of reports critical of much
  research in education (e.g. Hargreaves, Tooley,
  Hillage et al)
• Main criticisms
• Lack of rigour
• Failure to produce cumulative research findings
• Theoretical incoherence
• Ideological bias
• Irrelevance to schools
• Lack of involvement of teachers
• Inaccessibility and poor dissemination
• Poor cost effectiveness

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UK challenges to educational research

• New Labour emphasis on evidence-informed policy
  and finding out and disseminating what works
• Pressure to make research more relevant to the
  governments improvement agenda (e.g.Blunkett)
• More government funding for education research
  increase in DfES research budget from 5.4m to
  over 10.4m

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UK challenges to educational research

• Efforts to coordinate and prioritise research
• (e.g. NERF)
• Synthesis of existing research findings
• (e.g. EPPI)
• New DfES research centres established
• (e.g. CEE, WBL, NRDC)
• Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP)
  with multiple funding sources

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UK challenges to educational research

• TLRP, with ESRC backing, is committed to
• the application of findings to policy practice
• conducting research with the potential to improve
  outcomes for learners
• diversity of research perspectives
• political independence

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TLRP strategies for research development

• Aims
• To lead to significant improvements in learning
  outcomes for UK learners of all ages
• To enhance capacity for research on formal and
  informal teaching and learning

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TLRP strategies for research development

• Strategies for coping with change
• Compliance
• Creative mediation
• Resistance

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TLRP strategies for research development

• Reflexive activism - a form of creative
  mediation
• building social capital for educational research
  - developing relationships, networks and
  alliances
• promoting collective, open and reflexive debate
  and action in respect of new challenges
• supporting high quality research projects and
  adding value through extensive thematic work
• working on politically engaged impact and
  dissemination strategies
• attempting strategic positioning in respect of
  long term issues

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TLRP strategies for research development

• Strategies for development
• Early, and continuing, user engagement
• Knowledge generation by project teams
• Knowledge synthesis by thematic groups
• Knowledge transformation with users task
  groups
• Outputs for impact
• Partnerships for sustainability

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TLRP strategies for research development
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TLRP strategies for research development

• Mid-term review and evaluation
• We found the quality of the Programmes research
  to be very high. No serious criticisms were
  raised in relation to academic rigour, and
  several projects were seen to go well beyond
  previous work in this field.
• It is clear that TLRP has already made major
  strides in terms of helping to raise the profile
  of educational research promoting interesting
  forms of cross-institutional working engaging
  with significant groups of practitioners and
  policy-makers and stimulating and supporting
  projects of a high quality across a range of
  teaching and learning contexts. (NFER Rudd,
  Rickinson and Walker, 2005)

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TLRP strategies for research development

• Multiple partnerships
• Ten phases of funding, securing some 65m
• 2000 to 2011/12 with possible developments
• Distributed, UK-wide support for 70 initiatives
• Active involvement of some 500 researchers and of
  key sectoral user organisations
• Organisational and consultative infra-structures
  to support activity

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TLRP strategies for research development

• Projects themes
• For example
• Classroom group-work practice (Peter Andy)
• teacher learning (Mary)
• Learning, identity and agency (Gert)
• learning through the lifecourse (Miriam)

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Project researchon classroom groupwork

• Improving the effectiveness of pupil groups
• in school classrooms the SPRinG Project
• Peter Blatchford and Andy Tolmie
• (Institute of Education, University of London
• and University of Strathclyde)

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Project researchon classroom groupwork

• SPRinG aimed to
• 1. develop and implement with teachers a general
  approach to incorporate group-work into everyday
  school activities
• 2. evaluate this programme over one school year
  relative to a control group in terms of academic
  progress, behavioural interaction and dialogue,
  and attitudes to learning
• 3. evaluate extensions of group work, e.g.,
  differences between urban and rural schools, and
  academic vs.social benefits of group work

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Project researchon classroom groupwork

• Distinctive features of SPRinG
• A general programme applying group work across
  the curriculum and over a school year
• Developed with teachers and recognised their
  concerns and difficulties
• Key principles
• stresses supportive relationships between pupils
  through a relational approach and provides
  activities for teambuilding and developing
  communication and group-work skills.
• provides guidance on the key role of the teacher
  in adapting group work for different learning
  tasks and in supporting groups. The key aim is to
  encourage pupil independence rather than directly
  teaching pupils.
• provides guidance on how to organise the
  classroom and groups for effective group work in
  terms of seating arrangements, and group
  characteristics such as their size, composition
  and stability over time

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Project researchon classroom groupwork

• Key finding 1
• Group work led to raised levels of achievement.
  At KS2 SPRinG focused on science activities and
  led to significantly higher attainment and higher
  conceptual understanding and inferential thinking
  (effect sizes 0.21 0.58)
• Key finding 2
• Group work improved pupils behaviour in class.
  It raised pupil levels of active engagement in
  learning and facilitated more higher level
  thoughtful learning processes.

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Project researchon classroom groupwork

• Teachers working in areas of deprivation or in
  difficult circumstances found that group work
  could be used successfully, and could aid
  classroom relationships and integration
• High quality implementation of group work yields
  benefits in social relationships and self-esteem
• Effects were consistent across a range of school
  sizes, school locations (urban vs rural), and
  class compositions (mixed vs single age bands)

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Project researchon classroom groupwork

• Teachers own professional skills and confidence
  were enhanced. Their teaching repertoire was
  extended and there were unexpected benefits, e.g.
  pupils new group working skills freed teachers
  from some procedural duties, classroom control
  was easier and they were able to spend more
  strategic time on teaching
• Group work was most effective when adopted by the
  whole school, rather than by individuals, and
  this integrated principles of group learning
  across the school experience

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Thematic analysison teacher learning

• Teachers learning
• Mary James
• (Institute of Education, University of London)

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Thematic analysison teacher learning

• 2002, conference for 4 TLRP Phase I networks (4-6
  projects in each).
• Importance of teacher learning for student
  learning as an emergent theme.
• 2003, papers on this theme developed and
  presented at the annual BERA conference.
• 2005, six revised papers, from 4 networks and two
  projects, published in Research Papers in
  Education, vol. 20, nos. 2 3.
• 2005, Digest for teachers published by National
  College for School Leadership in Teaching Texts.

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Thematic analysison teacher learning

• The RPIE special issue highlighted the importance
  of
• Individual, collective and planned activity
• Teacher learning as an inquiry-based social
  process involving learning dialogues and boundary
  crossing
• Mediation of research evidence by transformation
  into practical strategies
• Structural and dispositional barriers and
  affordances
• Institutional change at cultural level
• Professional networks

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Thematic analysison teacher learning

• Overall, these findings confirmed the importance
  of considering the interactions among
• teacher factors (knowledge and dispositions)
• cultural factors (institutions, professional
  communities and networks)
• structural factors (policy contexts).

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Thematic analysis on teacher learning

• Student achievements are moderated by teachers
  personal and professional life phase and
  identities
• These in turn interact with characteristics of
  students, policies, school leadership,
  socio-economic contexts, school phase, CPD
• So, teachers commitment, agency, resilience,
  life-work balance and sense of well-being are
  crucial influences on outcomes
• (VITAE associate project studying 300 teachers)

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Project researchon learning in the lifecourse

• Learning Lives Learning, Identity and
• Agency in the Lifecourse
• Gert Biesta
• (University of Exeter)

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Project researchon learning in the lifecourse

• B A C K G R O U N D
• transition from adult education to lifelong
  learning
• growing interest in lifelong learning
• actual increase in informal and non-formal
  learning (silent explosion)
• governments focus on the economic function of
  lifelong learning
• (re-training, upskilling, etc with severe
  implications for funding of adult learning)
• but there are other functions (personal,
  civic-democratic)
• Learning Lives an investigation into
• what learning means and does in the lives of
  adults

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Project researchon learning in the lifecourse

• K E Y C O N C E P T S
• learning identity agency
• how identity (including learner identity) and
  agency (ability to give direction to ones life)
  impact on learning dispositions, practices and
  achievements
• how learning impacts on identity and agency
• against the background of unfolding lives
  transitions and transformations
• unit of analysis the learning biography

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Project researchon learning in the lifecourse

• L E A R N I N G
• learning one of the ways in which people respond
  to events in their lives
• from adaptive and reproductive, to generative
  and creative
• related to transitions, turning points and
  routines
• context and time (individual history and history
  of contexts)
• 3 methodological challenges
• How to investigate learning-in-context?
• How to investigate the temporality of learning?
• How to investigate the temporality of learning
  contexts?

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Project researchon learning in the lifecourse

• D E S I G N A N D M E T H O D O L O G Y
• life-history (retrospective) life-course (real
  time)
• interpretative repeated life-history interviews
  with ca. 125 adults (25-80) over a 3 year period
• quantitative secondary analysis of British
  Household Panel Survey (1991-)

4 thematic foci older learners (un)employment fam
ily community migration
theoretical work on learning identity agency
lifecourse
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Project researchon learning in the lifecourse

• W H A T A R E W E F I N D I N G ?
• 14 months into life-history data-collection
• established relationships with more than 100
  adults
• everyone has a story to tell (although some are
  much more fluent)
• from the mundane to the spectacular
• importance of life themes and identity
  narrative
• life, learning and agency
• emerging understanding of context and history
• (e.g., migration, changing nature of work, rural
  environment, age)
• impact of research on participants
• and that it is a big and complicated project!

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Thematic analysis on learning through the
lifecourse

• Learning and transitions through the lifecourse
• Miriam David
• (Institute of Education, University of London)

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Thematic analysis on learning through the
lifecourse

• Synthesising research from across TLRP
• Thematic Group (2003-4) on learning across the
  lifecourse (special issue of Studies in the
  Education of Adults)
• Thematic Seminar Series (2005-7) on transitions
  through the lifecourse (Kathryn Ecclestone)

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Lifelong learning in society
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Thematic analysis on learning through the
lifecourse

• The Thematic Seminar Series
• Review of research including
• Life histories/biographies and/or ethnographies
• Quantitative datasets and/or longitudinal studies
• Conceptualising transitions by identifying common
  and distinctive features
• Relating these to
• individual abilities to exercise agency
• educational, occupational and personal identities
• structural conditions
• Identifying practical, political and theoretical
  implications for different audiences

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Thematic analysis on learning through the
lifecourse

• The Thematic Seminar Series
• Analysing transitions through the lifecourse
• Complexity given policy initiatives such as from
  school to post-compulsory or higher education
  and/or work
• Different interplay between identity, agency and
  structure in different transitions
• Researchers, practitioners and policy makers need
  greater awareness of identity/agency interactions
  in context implications
• Strategic action in education, career and social
  relationships are intrinsic to lifecourse
  development
• An implication that transitions in identities
  between different settings have significant
  effects on learning outcomes

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Thematic analysis on learning through the
lifecourse

• Towards a TLRP meta-narrative?
• Can we make sense of the Programme, across
  projects, by focusing on learning, learners,
  contextualised biographies and lifelong learning
  learning?
• Could this challenge models of transmission,
  didacticism and performance which still seem to
  underpin much public debate and policy making in
  the UK?

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TLRP Summary

• Review
• UK educational research has been challenged
• TLRP is one response

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TLRP Summary

• TLRP tries to defend and promote UK educational
  research though
• High quality, relevant, projects
• Thematic activities adding value
• Openness and commitment to self-improvement
• External promotion of outputs with user partners
• Strategic alliances and positioning

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Discussant

• Professor Eva L. Baker
• University of California, Los Angeles

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UK challenges to educational research

• Geoff Whitty Education(al) research and
  education policy making is conflict inevitable?
• Presidential address to the BERA annual
  conference, University of Glamogan,
• 17 September 2005
• To be published in the British Educational
  Research Journal, forthcoming 2006
• BERA is at www.bera.ac.uk

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TLRP strategies for research development

• Andrew Pollard has published various accounts of
  TLRP and the challenges facing educational
  research in the UK. For a recent example, please
  see
• Pollard, A. (2005) Taking the Initiative? TLRP
  and Educational Research Educational Review
  Guest Lecture, School of Education, University of
  Birmingham,12th October
• This is available from http//www.tlrp.org/pub/ac
  adpub/APollard_Ed_Review_Lecture.pdf
• TLRP is at www.tlrp.org

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Project researchon classroom groupwork
Improving the effectiveness of pupil groups in
school classrooms the SPRinG Project

• Peter Blatchford and Andy Tolmie
• Institute of Education, University of London and
  University of Strathclyde 
• www.spring-project.org.uk

KS1 Team Peter Kutnick, Lucia Berdondini Cathy
Ota KS2 team Peter Blatchford, Ed Baines Anne
Chowne KS3 Team Maurice Galton, Linda
Hargreaves, Charlotte Page, Tony Pell Susan
Steward ScotSPRinG Team Donald Christie,
Christine Howe, Andy Tolmie Keith Topping
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Thematic Analysis on teacher learning

• Research Papers in Education, 20(2), 2005
• Hodkinson, H Hodkinson, P. Improving
  schoolteachers workplace learning.
• Howes, A., Booth, T., Dyson, A. Frankham, J.
  Teacher learning and the development of
  inclusive practices and policies framing and
  context.
• McIntyre, D., Pedder, D. Rudduck, J. Pupil
  voice comfortable and uncomfortable learnings
  for teachers
• Ratcliffe, M., Bartholomew, H., Hames, V., Hind,
  A., Leach, J., Millar, R. Osborne, J.
  Evidence-based practice in science education
  the researcher-user interface.
• Hurry, J., Nunes, T., Bryant, P., Pretzlik, U.,
  Parker, M., Curno, T. Midgley, L.
  Thransforming research on morphology into
  teacher practice.
• Research Papers in Education, 20(3), 2005
• Pedder, D., James, M. MacBeath, J., How
  teachers value and practise professional
  learning,
• James, M. Teacher learning for pupil learning.
  In NCSL Learner-centred leadership, 4 Teaching
  Texts, Nottingham, NCSL, 2005, pp.127-138.
• James, M. and Pedder, D., Professional learning
  as a condition for assessment for learning in
  J. Gardner (Ed.) Assessment for Learning (London,
  Sage).
• VITAE Project www.nottingham.ac.uk/education/cent
  res/crtsd/vitae/newsletter3FINAL.pdf

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Learning lives Learning, Identity and Agency in
the Lifecourse

• Learning Lives is a collaboration between the
  Universities of
• Exeter, Brighton, Leeds and Stirling
• 5 project directors
• Exeter Gert Biesta (overall director) Flora
  Macleod
• Brighton Ivor Goodson
• Leeds Phil Hodkison
• Stirling John Field
• 7 research fellows Michael Tedder, Paul Lambe,
  Norma Adair, Heather Hodkinson, Geoff Ford, Ruth
  Hawthorne, Irene Malcolm
• WWW.LEARNINGLIVES.ORG

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Thematic analysis on learning through the
lifecourse

• Full details of thematic work in this area are
  available at
• http//www.tlrp.org/themes/themes/learners_nero.ht
  ml
• http//www.projects.ex.ac.uk/tlrp/ThematicSeminarS
  eries/
• For further information, please contact Dr
  Kathryn Ecclestone, at kathryn.ecclestone_at_notting
  ham.ac.uk