tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/education-research-8914/articlesEducation research – The Conversation2023-08-25T12:26:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2117202023-08-25T12:26:55Z2023-08-25T12:26:55ZHow educational research could play a greater role in K-12 school improvement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544629/original/file-20230824-17-yoegke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C35%2C5832%2C3882&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Billions of dollars are being spent on education research. Is it working?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/students-work-together-in-a-classroom-setting-royalty-free-image/1209763734?phrase=elementary%2Bschool%2Btest">Fly View Productions/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the past 20 years, I have taught <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q0iwOrMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">research methods in education</a> to students here in the U.S. and in other countries. While the purpose of the course is to show students how to do effective research, the ultimate goal of the research is to get better academic results for the nation’s K-12 students and schools.</p>
<p>Vast resources are already being spent on this goal. Between 2019 and 2022, the <a href="https://ies.ed.gov">Institute of Educational Sciences</a>, the research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Education Department, distributed <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/pdf/IESBR2019_2020.pdf">US$473 million</a> in 255 grants to improve educational outcomes.</p>
<p>In 2021, colleges and universities spent approximately <a href="https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23303">$1.6 billion on educational research</a>.</p>
<p>The research is not hard to find. The Educational Research Information Center, a federally run repository, <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/projects/eric.asp">houses 1.6 million educational research sources</a> in over 1,000 scholarly journals.</p>
<p>And there are plenty of opportunities for educational researchers to network and collaborate. Each year, for instance, <a href="https://www.aera.net/Portals/38/docs/About_AERA/RulesandPolicies/AM%20Site%20Selection%20Procedures.pdf?ver=2016-06-16-110502-963">more than 15,000 educators and researchers</a> gather to present or discuss educational research findings at the annual meeting of the <a href="http://www.aera.net">American Educational Research Association</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, for all the time, money and effort that have been spent on producing research in the field of education, the nation seems to have little to show for it in terms of improvements in academic achievement.</p>
<h2>Growing gaps</h2>
<p>Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, test scores were beginning to decline. <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/statemapping/2021036.aspx">Results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress,</a>, or NAEP – the most representative assessment of what elementary and middle school students know across specific subjects – show a widening gap between the highest and lowest achievement levels on the NAEP for fourth grade mathematics and eighth grade reading between 2017-19. During the same period, NAEP outcomes show stagnated growth in reading achievement among fourth graders. By eighth grade, there is a greater gap in reading achievement between the highest- and lowest-achieving students.</p>
<p>Some education experts have even suggested that the chances for progress get dimmer for students as they get older. For instance, in a <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/pdf/IESBR2019_2020.pdf">2019-2020 report to Congress</a>, Mark Schneider, the Institute of Educational Sciences director, wrote: “for science and math, the longer students stay in school, the more likely they are to fail to meet even NAEP’s basic performance level.”</p>
<p>Scores on the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/national_results.asp">International Assessment of Adult Competencies</a>, a measure of literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills, suggest a similar pattern of achievement. Achievement levels on the assessment show a slight decline in literacy and numeracy between 2012-14 and 2017. Fewer Americans are scoring at the highest levels of proficiency in literacy and numeracy. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q0iwOrMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">educational researcher who focuses on academic outcomes for low-income students and students of color</a>, I believe these troubling results raise serious questions about whether educational research is being put to use.</p>
<p>Are school leaders and policymakers actually reading any of the vast amount of educational research that exists? Or does it go largely unnoticed in voluminous virtual vaults? What, if anything, can be done to make sure that educational research findings and recommendations are actually being tried?</p>
<p>Here are four things I believe can be done in order to make sure that educational research is actually being applied. </p>
<h2>1. Build better relationships with school leaders</h2>
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<img alt="A man in a blue suit accompanies an elementary school-aged boy as they walk down a school hallway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544653/original/file-20230824-29-8rlhm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544653/original/file-20230824-29-8rlhm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544653/original/file-20230824-29-8rlhm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544653/original/file-20230824-29-8rlhm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544653/original/file-20230824-29-8rlhm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544653/original/file-20230824-29-8rlhm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544653/original/file-20230824-29-8rlhm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">School principals can help shape educational research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/elementary-student-walking-with-teacher-in-school-royalty-free-image/1423165500?phrase=black+high+school+principal&adppopup=true">Kali9/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Educational researchers can reach out to school leaders before doing their research in order to design <a href="https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2018/05/higher-education-and-k-12-form-partnerships-help-educators-and-learners">research based on the needs of schools</a> and schoolchildren. If school leaders can see how educational research can specifically benefit their school community, they may be more likely to implement findings and recommendations from the research.</p>
<h2>2. Make policy and practice part of the research process</h2>
<p>By implementing new policies and practices based on research findings, researchers can work with school leaders to do further research to see if the new policies and practices actually work. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-discretionary-grants-support-services/innovation-early-learning/investing-in-innovation-i3/">The Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund</a> was established by the <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-111publ5">American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009</a> to fund the implementation and evaluation of education interventions with a record of improving student achievement. Through the fund, <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20184013/pdf/20184013.pdf">$679 million was distributed through 67 grants</a> – and 12 of those 67 funded projects improved student outcomes. The key to success? Having a <a href="https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/innovation-grants-yield-some-clear-winners-lessons-to-learn/2018/06">“tight implementation”</a> plan, which was shown to produce at least one positive student outcome.</p>
<h2>3. Rethink how research impact is measured</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-education-schools/edu-rankings">national rankings for colleges of education</a> – that is, the schools that prepare schoolteachers for their careers – engagement with public schools could be made a factor in the rankings. The rankings could also include measurable educational impact.</p>
<h2>4. Rethink and redefine how research is distributed</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies/2021/07/what-is-evidence-based-instruction/">Evidence-based</a> instruction can <a href="https://lincs.ed.gov/publications/te/ebi.pdf#:%7E:text=This%20brief%20provides%20an%20overview%20of%20evidence-based%20instruction%2C,instruction%20as%20part%20of%20the%20teacher%20induction%20process.">improve student outcomes</a>. However, public school teachers often <a href="https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-research-improve-teaching">can’t afford</a> to access the evidence or the time to make sense of it. Research findings written in everyday language could be distributed at conferences frequented by public school teachers and in the periodicals that they read. </p>
<p>If research findings are to make a difference, I believe there has to be a stronger focus on using research to bring about real-world change in public schools.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211720/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Detris Honora Adelabu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A veteran education researcher raises questions about whether educational research is actually being put to use.Detris Honora Adelabu, Clinical Professor of Applied Human Development, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1781672022-03-09T04:00:43Z2022-03-09T04:00:43ZScientific measurement won’t answer all questions in education. We need teacher and student voices, too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450838/original/file-20220309-15-18blrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tired-kid-microscope-classroom-blackboard-biology-2054329121">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recently released report of the <a href="https://www.dese.gov.au/quality-initial-teacher-education-review/resources/next-steps-report-quality-initial-teacher-education-review">review into initial teacher education</a> recommends universities use randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to find evidence for effective methods of educating teachers. It says:</p>
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<p>Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs), the gold standard in empirical research, are
rarely used in evaluating the impact of initial teacher education (ITE) programs. Higher education providers are encouraged to conduct RCTs to inform evidence-based
teaching practice. </p>
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<p>Randomised controlled trials are indeed the “gold standard” for specific kinds of medical research. They are the best way to compare a new treatment to either a standard treatment or no treatment at all. </p>
<p>In such a study, participants are randomly allocated to either the new or standard (control) treatments using the computer equivalent of tossing a coin. This process is known as randomisation. When the results are compared between the two groups, randomisation ensures an unbiased estimate of the treatment effect.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=12157">it is naive</a> to transpose the gold standard for specific kinds of research in medicine onto an entirely different discipline, such as teaching. </p>
<p>In educational research, a study might ask what challenges Indigenous Australians face in becoming teachers. This might involve a <a href="https://espace.curtin.edu.au/bitstream/handle/20.500.11937/37083/154944_32184_Bessarab_Yarning%20about%20Yarning.pdf?sequence=2">yarning</a> or narrative inquiry approach, in which preservice teachers and researchers share their stories for in-depth collaborative analysis. </p>
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<p>Another study might wonder why preservice teachers identify one placement school as having an especially supportive learning culture. This invites a case study of the school involving the principal, teachers, students and community, to understand the complex dimensions of this context.</p>
<p>Neither of these projects is less valid or important than those suited for randomised controlled trials. And creating a hierarchy of importance can mean research funding is directed away from any study that doesn’t use a randomised controlled method.</p>
<h2>Where randomised trials are beneficial</h2>
<p>A study that attempts to establish cause (usually an intervention) and effect (a desired improvement) might involve a randomised controlled trial. For instance, a study might want to examine the impact of a new program for teacher education. </p>
<p>One such study is a trial conducted in NSW in 2014-15 on the effectiveness of <a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/about-us/educational-data/cese/evaluation-evidence-bank/2016-the-impact-of-quality-teaching-rounds.pdf">Quality Teaching Rounds</a> – a specific approach to teacher professional learning in schools. Researchers wanted to know if this approach improved teaching. Teachers were randomly allocated to one of two intervention groups that would undertake the quality teacher rounds, or to a control group. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/randomised-control-trials-what-makes-them-the-gold-standard-in-medical-research-78913">Randomised control trials: what makes them the gold standard in medical research?</a>
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<p>Researchers observed and assessed the teaching of all participants. The researchers were “blinded”, meaning they did not know whether they were assessing teachers in the intervention or control group. The trial found Quality Teaching Rounds made a statistically significant improvement in the quality of teaching in the intervention groups.</p>
<h2>Other educational research is just as valid</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19415257.2016.1251486">different kind of study</a>, researchers wanted to gain insight into the perspective of teachers themselves on how they learn at their workplace. A randomised controlled trial would not be able to achieve this aim.</p>
<p>Instead, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with four teachers they selected from a larger group. They encouraged teachers to talk freely about their learning goals, then coded and categorised their transcribed responses. Through this, researchers identified ways teachers feel they learn best: through reading, experience, reflection and collaboration.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-have-the-evidence-for-what-works-in-schools-but-that-doesnt-mean-everyone-uses-it-160712">We have the evidence for what works in schools, but that doesn't mean everyone uses it</a>
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<p>Another example of important educational research that can’t be done through randomised controlled trials is action research, where teachers try a new classroom idea, reflect critically on the process and modify their approach – in an ongoing cycle. In <a href="https://www.aitsl.edu.au/tools-resources/resource/action-research-for-professional-learning-illustration-of-practice">one such project</a> two teachers are investigating the effect of interdisciplinary team teaching on student and teacher learning. Teacher researchers also reflect on feedback from other colleagues and students.</p>
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<p>This kind of research is identified as <a href="https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=edu_conference">empowering for teachers</a> and offers scope for them to create their own projects. Randomised controlled trials, in contrast, are complex for teachers to establish and run reliably.</p>
<h2>The limitations of randomised trials</h2>
<p>The newly established <a href="https://www.edresearch.edu.au/">Australian Education Research Organisation</a> (AERO) has published some <a href="https://www.edresearch.edu.au/sites/default/files/2021-02/AERO-evidence-rubric-educators-and-teachers.pdf">extraordinary guidelines</a> advising teachers to conduct randomised controlled trials in their classrooms. </p>
<p>The organisation suggests individual teachers should flip a coin to decide how they will teach, or split their class randomly into two, and teach one half one way and the other half another. However, <a href="https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/2114/rct01.pdf">this is methodologically unsound and impractical</a> in a single class. The person deciding who gets the intervention should not be the person delivering the intervention or assessing the outcome. Otherwise bias is inevitable. </p>
<p>AERO’s advice demonstrates ignorance not only of randomised controlled trials, but of teacher workloads, by expecting teachers to teach in two ways at once.</p>
<p>Even in medicine (where they originated), randomised controlled trials cannot answer all questions. They cannot, for example, determine people’s attitudes, biases and commitments to certain issues. Medical researchers also use the various approaches described above. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-defence-of-observational-science-randomised-experiments-arent-the-only-way-to-the-truth-49807">In defence of observational science: randomised experiments aren't the only way to the truth</a>
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<p>Research shows one disadvantage of randomised controlled trials in education is that the interventions they assess are <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131881.2018.1493353">not likely to have the same effect</a> across all contexts and groups of students. They require additional process evaluations. </p>
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<p>Another disadvantage is randomised controlled trials tend to be externally designed and academically-run, rather than teacher-led. Few teachers are experts in medical-style research. This positions teachers in a subservient way, in their own profession. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13384-022-00509-4">Our research</a> suggests it is just as important to understand “what is going on”, as it is to try to prove “what works”.</p>
<h2>Privileging scientific measurement over participants’ voices</h2>
<p>The ideal way to find answers to questions in education is to conduct quantitative (numbers-based) and qualitative (people-based) research <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131881.2018.1493353">in parallel</a>. This would answer complementary questions. </p>
<p>But privileging one kind of research over all others demonstrates a lack of understanding of the nature of research. It suggests a <a href="https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=3874">bullying preoccupation</a> with scientific measurement over research that privileges participants’ voices, especially in a feminised profession.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Privileging the randomised controlled trial in education suggests a preoccupation with scientific measurement over research that privileges participants’ voices, especially in a feminised profession.Lucinda McKnight, Senior Lecturer in Pedagogy and Curriculum, Deakin UniversityAndy Morgan, Senior Lecturer, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1755172022-01-27T19:09:04Z2022-01-27T19:09:04ZOnly 1 in 3 teachers use research evidence in the classroom – this is largely due to lack of time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442832/original/file-20220126-13-ei2f6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/teacher-helping-young-boy-writing-lesson-107801354">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even before the pandemic, <a href="https://www.aitsl.edu.au/research/australian-teacher-workforce-data/atwdreports">recent research</a> shows most Australian teachers worked an average of 140 to 150% (one-and-a-half times) of their paid hours in a typical week. And they’re not necessarily getting to focus on aspects of the job they believe are important, such as actual teaching. In fact, the same research shows teachers spend, on average, 1.5 times as many hours on non-teaching tasks, such as administration and compliance reporting, as they do on face-to-face teaching. </p>
<p>Adding to teachers’ workloads are <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/education-evidence/report">growing expectations</a> they will find and use research to improve their practice for the benefit of students. References to the use of research and evidence-based initiatives now feature in various state-level school improvement frameworks, such as the Victorian Department of Education and Training’s <a href="https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/fiso/policy">Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (2.0)</a>, <a href="https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards">national professional standards</a>, and professional learning programs such as those provided by the <a href="https://www.academy.vic.gov.au/professional-learning">Victorian Academy of Teaching and Learning</a>. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/exhausted-beyond-measure-what-teachers-are-saying-about-covid-19-and-the-disruption-to-education-143601">'Exhausted beyond measure': what teachers are saying about COVID-19 and the disruption to education</a>
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<p>By reading and using the latest research, teachers can improve their knowledge and teaching skills concerning a number of everyday issues. These range from student well-being and school engagement to subject expertise and different teaching approaches, including online learning. But using research is complex and takes time to do well – time that teachers just don’t seem to have. </p>
<p>Over the past two years, our work at the Monash Q Project has involved <a href="https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/report/What_why_when_and_how_Australian_educators_use_of_research_in_schools/17192990">surveying and interviewing 1,725 Australian teachers</a> and school leaders from primary and secondary schools across Australia to understand how and why they use research in practice. </p>
<p>We gave them a number of survey items to respond to. Having sufficient time was a key challenge they faced. Most indicated they “did not have adequate time to engage with research” (76%) and struggled to “keep up with new research” (76%). </p>
<p>Nearly two-thirds did not believe their school provided sufficient “structured time dedicated to reading, discussing and understanding research” (63%). As such, many reported giving up their own time to engage with research.</p>
<h2>How much of their own time teachers give up</h2>
<p>One in three teachers (33%) indicated they consulted research before the start of the school year, and one in four (25%) did so during the holidays between terms. For those who also consulted research during the school term, more than two-thirds (69%) indicated they did so at home on the weekend. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442831/original/file-20220126-13-xt0wqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman sitting at computer at home, with cat on the window sill." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442831/original/file-20220126-13-xt0wqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442831/original/file-20220126-13-xt0wqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442831/original/file-20220126-13-xt0wqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442831/original/file-20220126-13-xt0wqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442831/original/file-20220126-13-xt0wqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442831/original/file-20220126-13-xt0wqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442831/original/file-20220126-13-xt0wqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Many teachers engage in research at home, in their own time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/girl-student-freelancer-working-home-on-1071472322">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>In most cases teachers engaged with research for less than 30 minutes at a time. Only when teachers engaged with research at home on the weekend did they usually spend more than 30 minutes on this task. </p>
<h2>Only a small number of teachers regularly use research</h2>
<p>Many teachers also told us they didn’t <a href="https://doi.org/10.26180/14234009">have the necessary skills</a> when it came to understanding the research appropriately. For instance, 55% said they lacked confidence in “knowing where to find relevant research”, 64% in how to “analyse and interpret research” and 49% in how to “judge the quality of research”.</p>
<p>Due to time constraints and the lack of necessary skills, only a minority of teachers reported regularly using research (37%) or university-based guidance (30%) in their practice. </p>
<h2>Teachers want to use research</h2>
<p>Teachers <a href="https://doi.org/10.26180/14783637">told us using research well</a> matters, though, when it comes to doing a good job and supporting their professionalism.</p>
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<p>Most teachers indicated that using research had both “influenced their practice” (81%) and “changed their thinking” (74%) for the better. Nearly three-quarters believed research use was “critical to being a good educator” (74%). During one interview, a NSW school leader connected research use with having a teaching mindset of “professional excellence”.</p>
<p>A Queensland school leader said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] it would be careless and wrong professional conduct if we did not reach or try to gain as much evidence (and knowledge) about student behaviour as we could.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Teachers also believed “research would help improve student outcomes” (83%), and most felt “clear about how research could be used to change practice” (75%). This contributes to <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Role-of-Knowledge-Brokers-in-Education-Connecting-the-Dots-Between/Malin-Brown/p/book/9781138616141">growing international evidence</a> that associates teachers’ research use with learning and teaching improvements.</p>
<h2>Teachers need more time</h2>
<p>Research shows <a href="https://www.aitsl.edu.au/research/australian-teacher-workforce-data/atwdreports">one in four teachers</a> intend to leave the profession before retirement, and time is one key factor. <a href="https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=9068">Australian teacher educators</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2021/oct/11/australian-politicians-trust-scientists-on-covid-why-dont-they-listen-to-teachers-on-school-reform">international educators</a> are calling for teachers’ workloads, particularly administrative and compliance obligations, to be addressed.</p>
<p>To do so effectively, we must make sure teachers’ workloads are not simply reduced, but reorganised to provide time for critical professional work such as engaging with research. This change is not just important for teachers, but also for their students.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/schools-are-surveying-students-to-improve-teaching-but-many-teachers-find-the-feedback-too-difficult-to-act-on-170873">Schools are surveying students to improve teaching. But many teachers find the feedback too difficult to act on</a>
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</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175517/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanne Gleeson receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blake Cutler receives funding from The Paul Ramsay Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucas Walsh receives funding from The Paul Ramsay Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Rickinson receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation. </span></em></p>In a survey of 1,725 Australian teachers, 86% said they “did not have adequate time to engage with research” and struggled to “keep up with new research”.Joanne Gleeson, Research Fellow in Education, Monash UniversityBlake Cutler, Research Assistant in Education, Monash UniversityLucas Walsh, Professor and Director of the Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice, Monash UniversityMark Rickinson, Associate Professor of Education, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1607122021-05-18T20:08:14Z2021-05-18T20:08:14ZWe have the evidence for what works in schools, but that doesn’t mean everyone uses it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400728/original/file-20210514-19-dw40a7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/male-elementary-school-teacher-giving-female-1448047391">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>By June 2020, the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/education-and-covid-19-focusing-on-the-long-term-impact-of-school-closures-2cea926e/#figure-d1e54">COVID-19 crisis had forced schools to close</a> in 188 countries, disrupting the learning of more than 1.7 billion children. The OECD estimated the impact of these school closures would be at least two months of lost teaching for half of primary and secondary school students.</p>
<p>In Australia, <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-education-questions-the-victorian-government-should-answer-at-the-covid-19-inquiry-144933">modelling by the Grattan Institute</a> estimated disadvantaged students — including those from low socioeconomic families, Indigenous backgrounds and remote communities — had lost around two months learning during the remote learning period in Victoria.</p>
<p>Some states have invested in tutoring schemes <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/simply-staggering-nsw-students-fall-months-behind-due-to-covid-19-20201126-p56ibk.html">to help students catch up</a>. This includes the Victorian government’s A$250 million <a href="https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/tutor-learning-initiative-2021/policy">Tutor Learning Initiative</a>, South Australia’s <a href="https://www.education.sa.gov.au/learning-pilot-tutoring-program">Learning+</a> program and New South Wales’ plan to <a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/news/latest-news/free-tutoring-to-support-students">employ up to 5,500 staff</a> to support students who may have fallen behind.</p>
<p>Evidence suggests some groups of students, such as <a href="https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=8816">students in the most disadvantaged schools</a>, have felt the effects of lockdowns more than others. Evidence also suggests small-group tuition can make a difference. But this is only the case if the tutoring itself is evidence-based.</p>
<p>Between March and September 2020, <a href="https://doi.org/10.26180/14445663">we surveyed 492 teachers</a> and school leaders from 414 schools across New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland about their use of evidence — particularly research-based evidence. Our sample included primary, secondary, combined (K-12) and special schools. They included a spread of government, Catholic and independent schools. </p>
<p>While the study was not specifically prompted by the pandemic, our emphasis on the use of research evidence became particularly relevant as schools — like the rest of the world — grappled with the virus. </p>
<p>While most educators said they regularly consulted evidence, only 43% did so for university-based research. Participants cited a lack of time and a lack of access to the evidence they needed. </p>
<h2>Less than half regularly consult university research</h2>
<p>School leaders and teachers involved in tutoring initiatives — and teaching more broadly — have to make nuanced decisions about how best to address learning.</p>
<p>They must draw on various sources of evidence to understand how different factors have influenced their students’ learning and then decide on the most effective way forward. </p>
<p>A key question, therefore, is how confident and able are our leaders and teachers to use evidence to inform their responses to the effects of COVID-19?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victoria-and-nsw-are-funding-extra-tutors-to-help-struggling-students-heres-what-parents-need-to-know-about-the-schemes-153450">Victoria and NSW are funding extra tutors to help struggling students. Here's what parents need to know about the schemes</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Our survey aimed to find out:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>what types of research and evidence teachers and school leaders value</p></li>
<li><p>how and why they source different kinds of
evidence</p></li>
<li><p>whether and how they use research in their practice</p></li>
<li><p>what they believe “using research well” in practice means.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Over two-thirds of survey participants (70%) said they had recently used evidence in their practice. Most consulted with familiar and readily available evidence types such as “student data” (77%) and “policy and curriculum documents” (72%). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400729/original/file-20210514-13-zw9bu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Boy learning from teaching on Zoom screen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400729/original/file-20210514-13-zw9bu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400729/original/file-20210514-13-zw9bu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400729/original/file-20210514-13-zw9bu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400729/original/file-20210514-13-zw9bu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400729/original/file-20210514-13-zw9bu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400729/original/file-20210514-13-zw9bu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400729/original/file-20210514-13-zw9bu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Remote learning set many students back, especially those from disadvantaged groups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/asian-boy-student-video-conference-elearning-1760879942">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But respondents used research-based sources much less frequently. Only 43% said they regularly consulted “research disseminated from universities” and 36% engaged with “university-based advice or guidance”.</p>
<p>Nearly half (43%) of respondents indicated “teacher observations and experience should be prioritised over research”. These educators were less likely to source research-related evidence types.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-do-no-harm-education-research-should-answer-to-the-same-standards-as-medicine-148904">First, do no harm: education research should answer to the same standards as medicine</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We also asked educators to reflect on the evidence types they have used in relation to “a specific initiative related to improving student outcomes that [they or their] colleagues have started to use in [their] schools or classrooms in the past 12 months”. </p>
<p>Some answers related to COVID-specific initiatives such as the transition to online learning and the best learning platforms to use. Others spoke about interventions to address poor student behaviour or phonic programs to improve literacy.</p>
<h2>Schools need to help</h2>
<p>Educators reported three particular challenges in relation to using research: access, organisational culture and confidence.</p>
<p>First, many said they didn’t have sufficient access to research (68%), or adequate time to access and review it (76%). More than three-quarters (76%) also indicated they can’t keep up with new and emerging research, such as studies of the educational impacts of the pandemic.</p>
<p>Second, <a href="https://www.monash.edu/education/research/projects/qproject/publications/quality-use-of-research-evidence-framework-qure-report">organisational cultures</a> are important supports for enabling <a href="https://doi.org/10.26180/14234009">the use of research</a>. Respondents reported they use research-related sources more often when their schools had processes designed to support their research use.</p>
<p>Finally, many respondents reported lacking confidence in their own skills and capacities to use research. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/exhausted-beyond-measure-what-teachers-are-saying-about-covid-19-and-the-disruption-to-education-143601">'Exhausted beyond measure': what teachers are saying about COVID-19 and the disruption to education</a>
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<hr>
<p>Addressing the first two challenges is an important first step to building educators’ skills and capacities to use research.</p>
<p>Laureate education professor Jenny Gore <a href="https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=8816">recently wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The success of the tutoring programs being used by schools to help students recover post-COVID-19 will depend heavily on the quality of the tutoring they provide. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our findings suggest evidence use can play a key role in improving the quality of teaching, both in COVID-19 tutoring programs and classrooms generally. But this can only happen when educators feel they have the appropriate access, support and confidence to make evidence-informed judgments and practices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>'Monash Q Project' research is funded by project partner, the Paul Ramsay Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>'Monash Q Project' research is funded by project partner, the Paul Ramsay Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>'Monash Q Project' research is funded by project partner, the Paul Ramsay Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span> 'Monash Q Project' research is funded by project partner, the Paul Ramsay Foundation. </span></em></p>A survey of 414 schools across four states has found most school leaders and teachers do not regularly draw on research-based evidence of the sort universities provide.Lucas Walsh, Professor, Education Policy and Practice, Monash UniversityBlake Cutler, Research Assistant in Education, Monash UniversityConnie Cirkony, Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, Monash UniversityJoanne Gleeson, Research Fellow in Education, Monash UniversityMandy Gayle Salisbury, Research Assistant (The Q Project), Faculty of Education, Monash UniversityMark Rickinson, Associate Professor of Education, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1499172020-11-12T19:49:48Z2020-11-12T19:49:48ZOur study in China found struggling students can bring down the rest of the class<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368983/original/file-20201112-23-qznikw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-middle-school-students-studying-classroom-157595600">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Low-achieving 12-13 year old students can significantly bring down the academic achievement of the rest of their class. But this negative effect largely vanishes in the next two years.</p>
<p>These are the findings of our recent study published in <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-020-00780-8">Journal of Population Economics</a>, in which we examined the influence of low-achieving students on their peers in classrooms in China.</p>
<h2>How we conducted our study</h2>
<p>Social interactions at school are believed to be crucial for student learning. Peer influence among students is an important factor to consider for educators, governments and parents. </p>
<p>We used data from the <a href="https://ceps.ruc.edu.cn/index.php?r=index/index&hl=en">China Education Panel Survey</a> conducted during the 2013-14 academic year. The survey is a large-scale, nationally representative survey of students in China’s middle schools. Middle school in China comes after primary school, from grade 7 to grade 9 (the last year before high school).</p>
<p>The survey aims to explain the links between students’ educational outcomes and multiple contexts of family, school processes, communities and the social structure of the school or classroom.</p>
<p>In each school covered in the survey, two classes were randomly chosen from grade 7 (when students are around 12-13 years old) and the grade 9 (when students are around 14-15). Then all students in the selected classes were surveyed to answer questions related to their learning, as well as some background information. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-blame-the-teacher-student-results-are-mostly-out-of-their-hands-124177">Don't blame the teacher: student results are (mostly) out of their hands</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<p>We considered students who repeated a grade in primary school as low achievers. These students had a proven track record of academic failure. In our data, about 13% of students repeated a grade in primary school. </p>
<p>We based students’ academic performance on each middle school’s administrative records of mid-term test scores in three compulsory subjects (Chinese, maths and English).</p>
<p>When compared with non-repeaters, repeaters had lower performance in Chinese, maths and English.</p>
<p>To identify a relationship between low-achieving students and the academic outcomes of their classmates, we focused on middle schools that randomly assigned students to classrooms in grade 7 and did not rearrange classes in grades 8 and 9. </p>
<p>With random student assignment, we ruled out the possibility that peers in the classroom were the choice of students, their parents or schools. </p>
<p>We compared the academic performance of regular students (non repeaters) from two classes in the same grade of the same school. These students shared similar characteristics and the same school environment, except for one thing. One class had a relatively higher proportion of repeaters than the other, due to the randomness of classroom assignment.</p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>We found the share of grade repeaters in the classroom reduced the academic performance of regular students in grade 7. This peer influence was largest when it came to Chinese and smallest with maths. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369011/original/file-20201112-13-1cdcivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Children in middle school in China." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369011/original/file-20201112-13-1cdcivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369011/original/file-20201112-13-1cdcivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369011/original/file-20201112-13-1cdcivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369011/original/file-20201112-13-1cdcivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369011/original/file-20201112-13-1cdcivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369011/original/file-20201112-13-1cdcivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369011/original/file-20201112-13-1cdcivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Middle-school in China runs from grade 7 to grade 9.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/xingtai-city-china-november-2016-on-525764788">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The negative effects were larger in big classrooms than in small ones. The lower performing but non-repeating (regular) students in grade 7 were most affected by repeaters. But there was no effect on high-performing students. </p>
<p>Repeaters did not affect their peers’ learning efforts nor the teachers’ pedagogical practices. Instead, they appeared to reduce the results of their peers in grade 7 in two ways.</p>
<p>First, in classes with repeaters, regular students were less likely to make friends with their high-ability and/or diligent classmates. Second, the classroom environments were worse with repeaters present. For example, regular students were less likely to report they regularly participated in class/school activities and that their classmates were friendly if more repeaters were in the class.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-you-hold-your-child-back-from-starting-school-research-shows-it-has-little-effect-on-their-maths-and-reading-skills-132874">Should you hold your child back from starting school? Research shows it has little effect on their maths and reading skills</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The story for students in grade 9 was different. We found no evidence the achievement of regular grade 9 students was impaired by their low-achieving classmates. </p>
<p>As classroom composition stayed unchanged from grade 7 to grade 9, our theory is that short-term negative peer effects found in grade 7 can fade out in the longer run. </p>
<p>By grade 9, academic pressure was piling on ahead of high school entrance exams. </p>
<p>We attributed the changes in the peer effects of low achievers from grade 7 to grade 9 to the adjustments students made to their friendship groups, and the change in the class learning environment under an enhanced level of academic stress. </p>
<p>Repeaters no longer seemed to affect their classmates’ propensity to form friendships with top academic performers and hardworking classmates in grade 9. Relative to repeaters in grade 7, repeaters in grade 9 reported improved class learning environment.</p>
<h2>Implications for Australia</h2>
<p>Low-achieving classmates in Australia may have a similar effect on their peers. But unlike in our study for China, the effect may not vanish in the year before high school. Australian students, culturally, generally do not face the same level of stress as in China — where academic success is a priority.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-some-migrant-school-students-do-better-than-their-local-peers-theyre-not-just-smarter-93741">Why some migrant school students do better than their local peers (they're not 'just smarter')</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The most important implication for Australian educators is to provide more support to struggling students, which will likely lift the performance of their peers. Economists call this the “social multiplier” effect.</p>
<p>The benefits for low-achieving students will subsequently affect the performance of their peers, which in turn will affect the achievement of the former, and so on. Academic support such as a special tutoring program targeted towards struggling students can generate considerable educational benefits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rong Zhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our study of students in middle schools across China found low-achieving 12-13 year old students significantly bring down the academic achievement of the rest of their class.Rong Zhu, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1489042020-10-29T19:07:29Z2020-10-29T19:07:29ZFirst, do no harm: education research should answer to the same standards as medicine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365678/original/file-20201027-23-n76gnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/teacher-giving-lesson-technology-classroom-441374218">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia has one of the <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/medical-research">highest-quality systems</a> of <a href="https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/ten-best-countries-life-sciences-research-rankings">medical research</a> in the world. It has helped underpin the high standing of Australia’s health system — it’s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-19/u-s-near-bottom-of-health-index-hong-kong-and-singapore-at-top">ranked</a> as one of the finest in the world. </p>
<p>Strong principles to protect safety and prevent harm underpin medical research. These <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/11/19/medical-research-dangers-human-subjects/">have been developed</a> due to a history of sometimes well intentioned, but ultimately harmful, medical interventions over the course of the 20th century. </p>
<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/national-statement-ethical-conduct-human-research-2007-updated-2018">National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research</a> is the primary guidance not only for medical research in Australia but for most research involving people, which includes education. But the harm and impact of educational programs — that are, on the surface, deemed important to educational improvements and well-being — face far less scrutiny in the applications process than do those of medical research.</p>
<p>No-one wants our children to be used as research guinea pigs. High standards of ethical oversight are needed to ensure no child is exposed to possible harm. While the medical research ethics model was developed to provide exactly this level of protection, perversely, in education, it may be exposing our children to harm. </p>
<h2>Differences between medical and education research</h2>
<p>There is a critical difference between medicine and education that impacts research. While drug and surgical therapies are administered to individuals, education is a shared activity. Students are taught in classes and schools. </p>
<p>Research ethics <a href="https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/national-statement-ethical-conduct-human-research-2007-updated-2018">require individual signed consent</a> from parents for their child to participate in any research project. This makes it difficult to study classroom teaching and class- and school-based programs. While few parents oppose educational research, families have busy lives, and notes home from school are easily overlooked or forgotten.</p>
<p>Studies show <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1753-6405.2009.00387.x">the requirement to sign a consent form</a> results in research participation rates of between 30% and 60%. In this case, the educational intervention being studied can be altered to only be delivered to some of the students in the class. This can lead to <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/berj.3137">biased findings</a>. Or the study may not go ahead if only some parents sign the form. It is no wonder many programs used in schools lack an evidence base informed by rigorous educational research.</p>
<p>As one example, most of the more than 200 mental health programs recommended by the <a href="https://beyou.edu.au/resources/programs-directory">Beyond Blue Be You national education initiative</a> have not actually been tested in Australian schools.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/education-evidence/report">Productive Commission report</a> noted the largest gaps in Australia’s education evidence base relate to </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the evaluation of policies, programs and education practices in Australian schools and early childhood education and care services to identify what works best, for whom and in what circumstances.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While educational research ethics are guided by the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research, there is another critical difference between health and education. A new medical therapy <a href="https://www.nps.org.au/consumers/how-medicines-are-approved-for-use-in-australia">can only be approved</a> for the Medicare or Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme if it has been proven to be safe, effective, and more cost effective than existing therapies. There is no such requirement in education. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-every-schools-anti-bullying-program-works-some-may-actually-make-bullying-worse-116163">Not every school's anti-bullying program works – some may actually make bullying worse</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Schools and teachers are given wide latitude to adopt untested educational programs and strategies based on their professional judgements. Some programs such as <a href="https://visible-learning.org">Visible Learning</a>, which helps teachers evaluate their own practices, have been <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01347_7.x">developed to rigorous standards</a>. But the implementation of such programs is less scrutinised, and questions are seldom raised about their potential harms. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365698/original/file-20201027-15-1xbpoly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365698/original/file-20201027-15-1xbpoly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365698/original/file-20201027-15-1xbpoly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365698/original/file-20201027-15-1xbpoly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365698/original/file-20201027-15-1xbpoly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365698/original/file-20201027-15-1xbpoly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365698/original/file-20201027-15-1xbpoly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365698/original/file-20201027-15-1xbpoly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A new medical therapy must be proven to be safe, effective, and more cost effective than existing therapies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-scientists-working-laboratory-71245138">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Research into the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0969594X.2011.592972">high stakes NAPLAN</a> test shows several negative effects. These include <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/63662/">teachers limiting the scope</a> of what they teach and concentrating only on what will be in the test, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/too-many-adjectives-not-enough-ideas-how-naplan-forces-us-to-teach-bad-writing-133068">encouraging students to write badly</a>, to a formula that will get them higher marks. But despite this, not much has changed in terms of the way the testing is implemented.</p>
<h2>Whose interests are being served?</h2>
<p>The requirement by university ethics committees for individual signed consent for research studies sounds prudent. Yet is it ethical not to evaluate the impacts of programs that are actually being taught in schools? And how can it be ethical to teach a program in schools that has not been rigorously evaluated? </p>
<p>Ethics committees ought to routinely ask questions about whose interests are being served. Rather than a focus on harm minimisation, a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0725686042000315740">focus on who benefits from the research</a> might be more appropriate. </p>
<p>Children don’t generally die from poor quality teaching. However, high quality education is one of the main drivers of economic opportunity and increased choices throughout life. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/too-many-adjectives-not-enough-ideas-how-naplan-forces-us-to-teach-bad-writing-133068">Too many adjectives, not enough ideas: how NAPLAN forces us to teach bad writing</a>
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<p>Some educational programs are <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-58689-2_11">evaluated and assessed</a> for the outcomes they produce, as well as the methodologies they use. But a database of evidence of these studies, similar to the <a href="https://www.cochrane.org">Cochrane Collaboration</a> which summarises previous medical studies about one topic, could be used to inform educational policy and decision making. It could also offer conclusive evidence about these programs and interventions.</p>
<p>In the main, educational projects that intend to help schools respond to policy objectives, such as improving national or international test scores, are rarely evaluated for the potential harm that might arise. For example, the <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/year-1-phonics-check">Australian government is investing $10.8</a> million to develop free phonics checks for Year 1 students to improve literacy levels. While there is mention of research that may help children, there is not, as yet, any adequate evidence-base for phonics testing.</p>
<h2>Funding differences</h2>
<p>Educational research in Australia is also underfunded compared with medical research. The Australian government provided $1.2 billion through the <a href="https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/funding/new-grant-program/overview">Medical Research Endowment Fund</a> and the <a href="https://www.finance.gov.au/government/australian-government-investment-funds/medical-research-future-fund">Medical Research Future Fund</a> in 2019 — <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2020/health">roughly 1%</a> of the $103 billion Australian governments spend annually on health care. While the $11.2million of education funding provided by the <a href="https://www.arc.gov.au/grants-and-funding/apply-funding/grants-dataset">Australian Research Council</a> in 2019 is only <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2020/child-care-education-and-training/school-education">0.02% of the $58 billion</a> Australian governments spend annually on school education. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gaps-in-education-data-there-are-many-questions-for-which-we-dont-have-accurate-answers-65241">Gaps in education data: there are many questions for which we don't have accurate answers</a>
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<p>Without research to guide what we invest in, we fail to learn from the experiences of the past and lack the information to guide improvements in our schools and education systems. Although researchers do question and contest educational policies, the impact of this research remains in our peripheral vision.</p>
<p>Australia needs to improve the education evidence base by systematically evaluating the effectiveness of policies, programs and practices. It must also evaluate and their implementation strategies within a cycle of learning, feedback and continuous improvement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148904/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lawrence receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Future Fund. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya Fitzgerald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>No-one wants our children to be used as research guinea pigs. High standards of ethical oversight are needed to ensure no child is exposed to possible harm.David Lawrence, Principal Research Fellow, The University of Western AustraliaTanya Fitzgerald, Professor and Dean, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1173702019-06-07T12:59:50Z2019-06-07T12:59:50ZSchool vouchers expand despite evidence of negative effects<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277465/original/file-20190601-69071-1qyi2gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, center, signs a bill that creates a new voucher program for thousands of students to attend private schools using taxpayer dollars.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Florida-Vouchers/4da58066057e460abfcd2219144bb557/1/0">Lynne Sladky/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the past couple of decades, proponents of vouchers for private schools have been pushing the idea that vouchers <a href="https://www.mackinac.org/FMM1999-40">work</a>.</p>
<p>They assert there is a <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/the-surprising-consensus-on-school-choice">consensus</a> among researchers that voucher programs lead to <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/school-vouchers-raise-african-american-test-scores">learning gains</a> for students – in some cases bigger gains than with other reforms and approaches, such as <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/vouchers-and-test-scores">class-size reduction</a>.</p>
<p>They have <a href="https://jaypgreene.com/2008/08/21/voucher-effects-on-participants/">highlighted</a> studies that show the <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/school-vouchers-in-dc-produce-gains-in-both-test-scores-and-graduation-rates/">positive impact</a> of vouchers on <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/school-vouchers-raise-african-american-test-scores">various populations</a>. At the very least, they argue, vouchers <a href="https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/voucher-challenge-2426.html">do no harm</a>.</p>
<p>As researchers who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KLVtdQYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">school choice</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jcvEv4AAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">education policy</a>, we see a new consensus emerging — including in pro-voucher advocates’ own studies — that vouchers are having mostly <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/LSP4-Policy-Brief-SCDP.pdf">no effects or negative effects</a> on student learning. As a result, we see a shift in how voucher proponents are redefining what voucher success represents. They are using a new set of non-academic gains that were not the primary argument to promote vouchers.</p>
<p>How success is defined is particularly important now in light of the fact that <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2019/0510/In-Florida-vouchers-win-ground-but-courts-may-have-ultimate-say">Florida</a> and <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/05/24/tennessee-governor-signs-school-voucher-bill_ap.html">Tennessee</a> – which are both <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/State_government_trifectas#Trifecta_status_by_state">controlled by Republicans</a> – have created new publicly funded voucher programs in May 2019. </p>
<p>In April, <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/LSP4-Policy-Brief-SCDP.pdf">a large-scale study</a> — conducted by <a href="https://www.federationforchildren.org/fuller-wolf-discuss-vouchers/">voucher advocates</a> — found substantial <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/04/23/do-voucher-scores-bounce-back-new-research-says-no/">negative impacts</a> for students using vouchers to attend private schools.</p>
<p>Certainly, other studies show a different kind of positive effect on the likelihood of a student <a href="https://www.urban.org/research/publication/effects-florida-tax-credit-scholarship-program-college-enrollment-and-graduation">enrolling and persisting in college</a>. Other studies also show that vouchers have <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/pdf/20174022.pdf">positive effects on perceptions of school safety</a>, and on <a href="https://news.uark.edu/articles/46318/researchers-report-link-between-school-voucher-program-and-reduced-crime-paternity-disputes">avoidance of crime</a> and <a href="https://news.uark.edu/articles/46318/researchers-report-link-between-school-voucher-program-and-reduced-crime-paternity-disputes">out-of-wedlock births</a>. But these goals were not what was used to advance vouchers.</p>
<h2>Vouchers being pursued politically</h2>
<p>In addition to states, Republicans are pursuing vouchers at the federal level as well. For instance, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos – along with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and eight of his fellow Republican senators – are pushing for a voucher-like plan to establish what they refer to as <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/trump-administration-unveils-plan-historic-investment-americas-students-through-education-freedom-scholarships">Education Freedom Scholarships</a>. The US$5 billion proposal would enable individual taxpayers and businesses to get dollar-for-dollar tax credits for contributions to “scholarship” organizations. Those organizations would then pass the money to families to use for private schools or other education related expenses for their children.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos talks with students in Nashville, Tenn., in April, as lawmakers voted to expand school vouchers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/DeVos-Tennessee/46a62ee95f464c8f8828d9c79e43f5e3/2/0">Mark Humphrey/AP</a></span>
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<p>There is a largely partisan divide in Congress concerning the District of Columbia school voucher program – a <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/chairmen-norton-request-documents-from-secretary-devos-on-dc-school-voucher">federally funded school voucher program</a> created <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/howvoucherscametodc/">under President George W. Bush</a>.</p>
<p>The program, which is authorized under the Scholarships for Opportunities and Results Act, has gotten more than <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/2019-03-29.EEC%20Scott%20Norton%20to%20DeVos-DoEd%20re%20SOAR%20Act.pdf">$200 million from Congress and served more than 10,000 children</a> since it began in 2004. It is set to expire in September.</p>
<p>House Democrats are <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/2019-03-29.EEC%20Scott%20Norton%20to%20DeVos-DoEd%20re%20SOAR%20Act.pdf">looking for problems</a> with the D.C. voucher program. In response, Republicans are <a href="https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-05-30-JDJ-MM-to-DeVos-Dept.-of-Ed-re-SOAR-Act.pdf">seeking additional information</a> to back up the Trump administration’s <a href="https://www.ncpecoalition.org/trump-voucher-plan">proposal to double its funding</a>, from $15 million to $30 million, even though a <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/">2017 evaluation</a> of the program showed “<a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/">negative impacts on student achievement</a>.”</p>
<h2>The voucher advocacy movement</h2>
<p>Given all the political interest in vouchers, it pays to revisit how there came to be such as disconnect between what the research shows about the negative impacts of vouchers and their popularity with policymakers.</p>
<p>Starting in the early 1990s, a <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1090254">voucher-advocacy movement</a> emerged to promote the idea that vouchers help students learn. Funded largely by pro-voucher philanthropies such as the <a href="https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/walton-family-foundation-pledges-6-million-for-private-school-vouchers">Walton Family Foundation</a>, <a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/expanding-education-choices-vouchers-and-tax-credits-savings-accounts">think tanks</a>, such as Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation, and advocacy <a href="https://ij.org/report/bulletproofing-school-choice/">organizations</a>, such as EdChoice, made concerted efforts to promote <a href="https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/school-choice-myths-and-realities-2nd-PRINTING-FINAL.pdf">proof</a> of the <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/research/the-abcs-of-school-choice/">effectiveness</a> of vouchers. The proof came in the form of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0895904808328532">a small set of studies</a> of voucher programs for poor children in a select set of cities. The studies were conducted by a <a href="https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/10118-market-forces/PetersonDots.d9ec33ad83b24dd0bd0560d9dfb2b636.pdf">group</a> of pro-voucher scholars often funded by those same philanthropies.</p>
<p>For example, a Harvard center funded by <a href="https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/sponsors_affiliates.htm">pro-voucher organizations</a>, disputed the official state evaluations of voucher programs in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013124599031002005">Milwaukee</a> and <a href="https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/newclvex.pdf">Cleveland</a> to argue that there were small but discernible achievement gains for voucher students.</p>
<p>More recently, teams from the University of Arkansas have been <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemcshane/2019/05/30/education-reformers-our-work-here-is-done/">claiming</a> that their studies show that vouchers almost always lead to learning <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/coreydeangelis/2018/01/30/untitled-n2441717">gains</a> for at least some students, do little if any <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/coreydeangelis/2018/01/30/untitled-n2441717">harm</a> to students, and provide all sorts of <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/private-school-choice-helps-students-avoid-prison-unplanned-pregnancies/">other benefits</a>. Among other things, they say that vouchers <a href="https://news.uark.edu/articles/46318/researchers-report-link-between-school-voucher-program-and-reduced-crime-paternity-disputes">reduce crime</a> and lead parents to become <a href="https://news.uark.edu/articles/24938/new-book-describes-how-school-vouchers-empowered-urban-families">more involved in civic life</a>. The media then <a href="https://www.albanyherald.com/news/cal-thomas-the-abc-s-of-school-choice/article_0da91e01-dba1-5e7d-9578-224d6419cea1.html">pick up these studies</a>.</p>
<p>But the latest research about vouchers calls into question the original, primary claims about their effectiveness.</p>
<h2>New evidence emerges</h2>
<p>Rigorous research on state-wide programs in <a href="https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/FORDHAM%20Ed%20Choice%20Evaluation%20Report_online%20edition.pdf">Ohio</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pam.22086">Indiana</a> and <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/LSP4-Policy-Brief-SCDP.pdf">Louisiana</a>, as well as in <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20184010/pdf/20184010.pdf">Washington, D.C.</a>, shows large, negative impacts on academic achievement of students using vouchers compared to their peers who stayed in public schools. </p>
<p>Initial <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/06/26/533192616/school-vouchers-get-a-new-report-card?t=1559252451019">hopes</a> by some researchers and voucher advocates that these <a href="https://www.catholicleague.org/wall-street-journal-scores-on-school-choice/">losses would disappear</a> over time have <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/04/23/do-voucher-scores-bounce-back-new-research-says-no/">evaporated</a> as more recent follow-up studies show that the harm is <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/LSP4-Policy-Brief-SCDP.pdf">significant and sustained</a>.</p>
<p>Now that there is evidence that vouchers harm student learning, voucher advocates have changed their argument. They say <a href="http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Do-Impacts-on-Test-Scores-Even-Matter.pdf">test scores</a> are not that important. Instead, they say policymakers should focus on other measures such as “attainment,” which entails things like the rate at which voucher students <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/04/24/louisiana-vouchers-have-led-to-big-drops-in-test-scores-but-they-also-might-boost-college-enrollment/">enroll in college</a>.</p>
<p>However, some of the most recent research finds that vouchers <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/Erickson-Mills-Wolf-LSP-Attainment_041719-final.pdf">don’t really lead to better college enrollment</a>, either.</p>
<h2>Bad choices</h2>
<p>While some advocates downplay the importance of test scores, others, such as <a href="https://www.hoosiertimes.com/herald_times_online/news/local/lighthouse-christian-academy-responds-to-concerns-over-its-admissions-policy/article_0677fbb4-93b8-5346-ac21-59aa56ce1285.html">DeVos</a> make the argument that vouchers are worthy simply because they give students and families expanded choice.</p>
<p>We believe student learning, the original reason vouchers were promoted, should remain the measure of success. While imperfect, few measures are as readily available to policymakers as test scores in evaluating education reforms. Moreover, advocates should be accountable for the <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/does-school-choice-work">results they said would occur</a> regarding learning gains. But instead, it appears they want to “<a href="https://nepc.info/newsletter/2018/05/review-goalposts">move the goalposts</a>” they themselves had set up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research over the past few years has shown vouchers for private schools set back student learning. So why are advocates still pushing so hard to expand them?Christopher Lubienski, Professor, Indiana UniversityJoel R Malin, Assistant Professor, Miami UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1140782019-03-27T18:41:07Z2019-03-27T18:41:07ZHelping teachers ‘practise what they teach’ could help them stay teaching for longer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266011/original/file-20190327-139352-17k5npg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's important to keep teachers passionate about what they're teaching.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/UmWW77lYEcA">Nik MacMillan/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Early career teachers are more likely to stay on if they practise what they teach in their own time. We <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330750438_TAP_research_report_2018">found that</a> practitioner-teachers – such as art teachers practising art and biology teachers observing nature – see themselves as better quality teachers when measured against key principles of learning and teaching. These principles include providing clear assessment objectives and tasks to students or developing activities related to students’ lives. </p>
<p>Those who identified as better quality teachers had a higher intention to remain in teaching than those who did not. In the case of art teachers, we found participating in an art exhibition had a significant effect for teachers at the important five-year mark. Those who had produced even one artwork per year as part of the exhibition had higher intentions to stay in teaching compared to those who did not.</p>
<p>While induction and mentoring programs have supported teachers well in their first year or two, our study shows that encouraging them to practise their discipline could be a solution to retaining quality teachers long-term.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/teachers-are-leaving-the-profession-heres-how-to-make-them-stay-52697">Teachers are leaving the profession – here's how to make them stay</a>
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<hr>
<h2>Why teachers leave</h2>
<p>Australia loses many teachers in their first five years. Research <a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=593408366075626;res=IELAPA">consistently addresses</a> why teachers are leaving, including <a href="https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol38/iss3/8/">burnout</a>, <a href="https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol37/iss11/2/">workload pressures</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X1000123X">physical isolation</a> (especially for those teaching in rural areas), and feeling underpaid and undervalued.</p>
<p>One solution to supporting early career teachers (those in their first five years of teaching) has been to introduce <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X14001012">induction and mentoring</a> programs. But these programs are often removed after one to two years, which means teachers don’t have long-term support. </p>
<p>Our research explores if “practising what you preach” makes secondary school teachers stay in the game. Aspiring secondary school teachers generally enter the profession <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09500790108666980">because they are passionate</a> about their main subject area, be it art, sport or science. Our hypothesis is that actively engaging teachers with their subject discipline is one solution to the teacher exodus.</p>
<h2>Why explore subject discipline?</h2>
<p>While teachers might begin passionate about their subject discipline when they enter education, the issues of burnout, stress and workload can cause them to focus more on their teaching and less on their subject practice. As they hone their skills as an expert teacher, they might forget they are also an expert in their subject. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/teachers-who-feel-appreciated-are-less-likely-to-leave-the-profession-89864">Teachers who feel appreciated are less likely to leave the profession</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Maintaining relevant, up-to-date content knowledge is essential if teachers want to help students be <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-melbourne-declaration-on-educational-goals-for-young-australians-what-it-is-and-why-it-needs-updating-107895">active and informed citizens</a>, ready for life post-school. </p>
<p>Our research <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330750438_TAP_research_report_2018">follows secondary teachers</a> once they graduate from university. Each year they are invited to participate in a subject-discipline intervention hosted at the university they attended. </p>
<p>We started the research in 2010 with visual arts teachers graduating from the courses we teach. The study has recently extended to include science teachers, and the exhibition has become a cross-disciplinary exposition of both art and science that has (and continues) to follow over 130 teachers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266014/original/file-20190327-139377-uxgrkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266014/original/file-20190327-139377-uxgrkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266014/original/file-20190327-139377-uxgrkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266014/original/file-20190327-139377-uxgrkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266014/original/file-20190327-139377-uxgrkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266014/original/file-20190327-139377-uxgrkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266014/original/file-20190327-139377-uxgrkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266014/original/file-20190327-139377-uxgrkh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A biology teacher could be taking photos of his garden as part of his professional practice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Teachers who participate don’t need to be professionals in their field as well, for example, an English teacher with a long list of published novels. It’s more important for teachers to do what they love with achievable targets. For example, the art teacher who continues to develop skills by making art on weekends for fun or the science teacher who takes photographs of their garden for their biology class. </p>
<p>We receive over 100 responses to surveys from teachers every year which broadly show that teachers who practise what they teach see themselves as better quality teachers. One teacher said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everything I do in my practice affects my teaching because it provides me with more insight […] and what I have to offer, as a teacher. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those who believe they are better quality teachers had a higher intention of staying on in the profession. Another teacher told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This makes me want to stay. It gives me a much better perspective on who I am as a teacher.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s fair to predict a similar approach for other subject disciplines such as sport and maths might elicit similar results.</p>
<h2>Establishing a community</h2>
<p>The reasons our teachers return to the exposition each year can be applied to any aspiring discipline-practice community. </p>
<ul>
<li>it’s achievable: for time-poor teachers, contributing to one project or output in their subject area is more achievable than maintaining a career in their subject area as well as in teaching</li>
<li>it keeps them connected: all participants have a common thread in that they attended the same university. A point of connection increases participants’ sense of belonging to the group. In our study, teachers were both connected by a shared interest in their subject as well as maintaining a connection to their university peers. </li>
<li>it has clear deadlines: submitting work for an event means teachers work towards the exposition rather than prioritising other tasks.</li>
</ul>
<p>One remarkable thing about our intervention is its simplicity: a discipline-based intervention like this doesn’t need to occur in a university setting to be successful. It could be equally effective in schools or with small clusters of teachers. </p>
<p>It has also surprised us that these types of interventions aren’t more commonplace; supporting teachers to grow their subject skills while teaching seems obvious to developing better quality teachers.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been updated to remove the exact percentage (which is contested) of teachers Australia loses in their first five years of teaching.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wesley Imms receives funding from the Australian Research Council Linkage Project Scheme. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia E. Morris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In our research, we offer teachers the chance to hone their skills in their teaching discipline, such as art. Those part of the program say it makes them better teachers, and more likely to stay.Julia E. Morris, Senior Lecturer, Visual Arts Education, Edith Cowan UniversityWesley Imms, Associate Professor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/998242018-08-01T20:18:43Z2018-08-01T20:18:43ZIs positive education another fad? Perhaps, but it’s supported by good research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227614/original/file-20180713-27036-ka0opr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Positive education pairs traditional schooling with positive psychology interventions to improve wellbeing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Positive education is a spin-off from <a href="https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/what-is-positive-education/">positive psychology</a>. Prominent psychologists such as <a href="https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/faculty-profile/profile-dr-martin-seligman">Martin Seligman</a> and <a href="https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-father-of-flow/">Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi</a> were instrumental in its creation, initially in 2000. </p>
<p>Positive psychology employs a strength-based approach to mental health and wellbeing. It focuses on a number of aspects such as resilience, general wellbeing, and happiness. </p>
<p>So, is positive education another fad in education? The answer is “perhaps”, as nothing is static in education. But positive psychology <a href="http://www.strengthswitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Waters-2011-Positive-psychology-review-of-school-based-programs-1.pdf">research</a> indicates long-lasting benefits for young adults. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-positive-psychology-and-how-can-you-use-it-for-yourself-75635">Explainer: what is positive psychology and how can you use it for yourself?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is positive education?</h2>
<p>The concept has support from a range of prominent psychologists and practising teachers. The idea is the wellbeing of students enhances learning and develops them as good citizens. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=fUPBDc4HU0oC&q=caring%2C+responsible+and+ultimately+productive+members+of+society#v=onepage&q&f=false">good school</a> doesn’t just aim for its students to achieve their academic potential. It also aims to develop them as caring, responsible and ultimately productive members of society.</p>
<p>Seligman developed the <a href="https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/perma-model/">PERMA</a> model, which identifies the five things necessary for wellbeing. PERMA stands for positive emotion (P), engagement (E), relationships (R), meaning (M) and achievement (A). Positive psychology moves away from a deficit approach to mental health (what’s wrong with the individual) to a proactive wellbeing approach. </p>
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<p>As a spin-off from positive psychology, positive education has been <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03054980902934563">defined</a> as “education for both traditional skills and for happiness”. So, positive education is based on best teaching practices to help students achieve their best academic outcomes, paired with aspects from positive psychology that promote student safety and wellbeing. </p>
<h2>It does work</h2>
<p>Positive psychology interventions <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/27784563">include</a> decision-making, coping skills, problem-solving skills, relaxation and creative brainstorming. Using these in positive education improves mental health and life satisfaction, reduces depression and anxiety and improves academic success and creative thinking. </p>
<p>International <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/27784563">research</a> indicates positive education does work. This has been conducted by reputable researchers through universities with good reputations. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/getting-the-happiness-formula-right-in-the-classroom-370">Getting the happiness formula right in the classroom</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The author’s analysis of the academic literature indicates positive psychology interventions support a strength-based approach for students. For such interventions to be available in schools, school leadership needs to adopt the positive education perspective. </p>
<p>There is nothing in the research to suggest the positive education approach has any negative outcomes. But outcomes may vary between schools. </p>
<p>Differences in the training, support for and by staff, and resources available, together with the demographics of the student population may affect outcomes. The only prediction that can be made is that positive education enhances student academic performance and wellbeing. </p>
<h2>Geelong Grammar School is a good example</h2>
<p>Some public schools in Australia have already adopted the positive education approach. But the schools involved in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2014.920408;%20doi:10.5502/ijw.v3i2.2">published research</a> in Australia are generally prestigious schools with the resources to train staff appropriately and provide additional resources to support the framework. </p>
<p>The most-cited Australian example is Geelong Grammar School, the first Australian school to adopt positive education. This school has undertaken a whole-school approach across all years of schooling with age-appropriate interventions. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9GPss6swg88?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Geelong Grammar staff have been trained to provide appropriate positive psychology interventions – decision-making, coping and problem-solving skills, relaxation and creative brainstorming. Interventions may also include enhancing gratitude for what one has and taking action to improve the lives of others. </p>
<p>The school has continued contact with Professor Seligman.</p>
<h2>Positive education is growing in Australia</h2>
<p>The growth of positive education in Australia is evidenced by the establishment of the <a href="https://www.pesa.edu.au">Positive Education Schools Association</a> (PESA). PESA started in 2011 with nine member schools and now has over 100 school members across Australia. </p>
<p>Internationally, groups such as the <a href="https://www.ippanetwork.org/divisions/education/">International Positive Psychology Association</a> and the <a href="http://ipen-network.com/">International Positive Education Network</a> exist to promote positive education. </p>
<h2>Can we implement it system-wide?</h2>
<p>Generally, the published <a href="http://www.strengthswitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Waters-2011-Positive-psychology-review-of-school-based-programs-1.pdf">research</a> has been conducted in schools that would be described as prestigious and/or in a middle-to-upper-class locations. Students are generally from middle-to-upper-class families with access to good resources, and life isn’t usually a daily battle for survival. </p>
<p>It’s likely schools with many students from low socio-economic families or with traumatic backgrounds would benefit from positive education. The effects might be even stronger in those schools, assuming the schools provided appropriate support and training for staff and leadership.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-the-quality-of-your-school-not-its-location-23602">It’s the quality of your school, not its location</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It takes time to develop the school culture necessary to implement positive education effectively. Teachers have to be trained to work with positive psychology interventions. A stable school leadership with belief in positive education is needed to ensure its effective adoption. </p>
<p>The time and money required to introduce positive education may hinder its full introduction to every school. These challenges are likely to inhibit the development of positive education across the government school sector. That is, unless state education departments take the concept on board and support it with appropriate training and resources.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99824/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cath Ferguson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Positive education pairs the traditional focus of schools on academic achievement with positive psychology interventions to support student wellbeing.Cath Ferguson, Academic, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/949792018-04-15T05:12:55Z2018-04-15T05:12:55ZHow to solve Australia’s ‘rural school challenge’: focus on research and communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214843/original/file-20180414-543-tx3r3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">To enhance the opportunities for children, we need to ensure we have vibrant and valued rural communities with a strong social and economic future.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent release of the <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/independent-review-regional-rural-and-remote-education">report of the independent review into rural, regional and remote education</a> provides a much-needed focus on the unique challenges and opportunities rural, regional and remote communities encounter. Ultimately, this is an issue of the place of these communities in contemporary Australian society.</p>
<p>The review was commissioned in March 2017, with the aim of improving education outcomes for rural students and their access to higher education. It sought to identify new and innovative approaches to achieve this.</p>
<p>The “rural school challenge” has existed since the advent of compulsory education. But this is the first major national report since the <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/rights-and-freedoms/projects/rural-and-remote-education-inquiry">Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Inquiry into rural and remote education</a> 18 years ago. Sadly, progress towards a more equitable educational experience, outcomes from schooling and access to higher education has been slow in the intervening years.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/educational-disadvantage-is-a-huge-problem-in-australia-we-cant-just-carry-on-the-same-74530">Educational disadvantage is a huge problem in Australia – we can't just carry on the same</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We cannot waste the opportunity this report provides to refocus our attention on Australia’s rural communities and the students in them.</p>
<h2>What does the report say?</h2>
<p>The report makes 11 recommendations, and identifies four priorities:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>establishing a national focus for regional, rural and remote education, training and research to enhance access, outcomes and opportunities</p></li>
<li><p>focusing on research for successful learning and building young people’s futures – school leadership, teaching, curriculum and assessment</p></li>
<li><p>addressing the information communication and technology needs in regional, rural and remote locations, and</p></li>
<li><p>focusing on the transitions into and out of school.</p></li>
</ol>
<h2>A national research programme</h2>
<p>The focus of research in two of these four priorities is important and timely. Here, the report highlights as much about what we don’t know as what we do know.</p>
<p>Australia has a vibrant and internationally renowned rural education research community. <a href="http://journal.spera.asn.au/index.php/AIJRE/issue/archive">There have been many studies here in Australia</a>, and overseas, that engage with the issues and ideas put forward in the report. But <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/grants">research funding</a> has been declining in a tight budgetary environment. It has has also focused on issues of schooling only, including <a href="https://www.aitsl.edu.au">teacher quality</a>, <a href="https://www.nap.edu.au">NAPLAN</a> and <a href="http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum">national curriculum</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214844/original/file-20180414-127631-o6zgv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214844/original/file-20180414-127631-o6zgv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214844/original/file-20180414-127631-o6zgv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214844/original/file-20180414-127631-o6zgv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214844/original/file-20180414-127631-o6zgv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214844/original/file-20180414-127631-o6zgv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214844/original/file-20180414-127631-o6zgv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We need to take a drastically different approach to attracting and retaining good teachers in rural communities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Through this time, much <a href="https://www.spera.asn.au/events/conferences/">rural, regional and remote education research has been highlighting the problem</a> with the “metro-centric” one-size-fits-all approaches preferred in public policy over the last two decades. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/standardised-tests-are-culturally-biased-against-rural-students-86305">Standardised tests are culturally biased against rural students</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Nonetheless, the resulting projects have identified strategies that work: attracting rural students into teaching, specifically <a href="http://www.rrrtec.net.au">preparing teachers for rural schools</a>, embedding curriculum in local contexts, innovative information and communication technology approaches to enhance curriculum access and new resourcing models, to name a few.</p>
<p>A national research focus will facilitate a unique opportunity to scale up innovations that exist in the sector. It will also ensure our focus is broadened from school-centric research to broadly-based rural education and community research. </p>
<p>We need a ten year focus, with significant and guaranteed funding to develop and implement a longitudinal research agenda. That might seem like a long while, but considering that a child is at school on average 13 years puts it in perspective. When we note the report makes recommendations related to early childhood education through to post-secondary education and training, we’re looking at approximately 22 years of a persons life.</p>
<p>A sustained, rigorous and funded national research program will confirm Australia’s leading international position in rural education research. The challenges we face are not unique to us, they are shared, for instance, by Canada, the US and China.</p>
<p>To activate this, we need to build a small group of five to ten specially trained researchers across the country dedicated to rural, regional and remote research. This leading group of researchers would be at the forefront of identifying success and “scaling this up” - using these insights in more communities and with a greater coverage. They can then provide a rolling review of the success of the implementation of the recommendations in the report.</p>
<h2>A return to equity</h2>
<p>The report places equity back in the centre of the educational agenda, rather than equality and resource redistribution. Through the sustained focus on rural, regional and remote, the report highlights these communities have unique needs that go beyond the funding they receive – though that remains important – and the school gate.</p>
<p>In doing so, it highlights the limitations of the “one size fits all” approach to public policy that has dominated until now. While such approaches might work on a national scale when the vast majority of the population live in major cities, the population outside that space get hidden among the averages.</p>
<p>For instance, the report highlights the need to ensure the relevance of the Australian Curriculum and its implementation for rural, regional and remote students. It reminds us there is another dimension beyond the <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/review-achieve-educational-excellence-australian-schools">Gonski 2.0 pre-occupation with the distribution of resources</a>. There is also what schools do with those resources, and how they tailor their work to meet the unique needs of their communities. This is where we need sustained and detailed research.</p>
<h2>The staffing challenge</h2>
<p>Meeting the unique needs of the community is only possible if there are appropriate teachers in the schools to do so. It’s not surprising, then, that the challenges of staffing are a major theme. <a href="http://journal.spera.asn.au/index.php/AIJRE/article/view/112">Many approaches have been tried throughout Australia</a> to train, attract and retain appropriate teachers for rural, regional and remote communities. If we’re going to ensure the equitable distribution of skilled teachers in these schools, we need to try something radically different.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-a-radical-rethink-of-how-to-attract-more-teachers-to-rural-schools-83298">We need a radical rethink of how to attract more teachers to rural schools</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Beyond the school gate</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214842/original/file-20180414-127631-tx69y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214842/original/file-20180414-127631-tx69y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214842/original/file-20180414-127631-tx69y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214842/original/file-20180414-127631-tx69y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214842/original/file-20180414-127631-tx69y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214842/original/file-20180414-127631-tx69y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214842/original/file-20180414-127631-tx69y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Challenges to rural education are largely influenced by factors outside the classroom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While critically important, the challenges of rural education go beyond getting the right teachers into the right school. They are largely influenced by factors outside the school gate, such as the local economy, employment opportunities and <a href="http://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research-centres/ceraph/regional-wellbeing">community well-being</a>.</p>
<p>This is an area of urgent further research. The report recognises educational achievement exists within the community and the local social and economic issues. But an understanding of how these interrelate in rural, regional and remote contexts remains undeveloped. </p>
<p>To enhance the opportunities for children, we need to ensure we have vibrant and valued rural communities with a strong social and economic future. Such communities are also attractive places for professions to relocate to, have a career and raise a family.</p>
<h2>Rural innovations need to be ‘rural’</h2>
<p>The report makes plain that the needs of rural, regional and remote communities are unique. This is a rural research agenda, not education research with a rural twist. As such, it’s crucial the government’s response, and researchers, heed the theme of the report – each community is distinct, and needs to be considered for what it offers. Then, by recognising this uniqueness, we can explore what innovations are scalable across different communities, and how they need to be tweaked to be successful in each new context.</p>
<p>There is already success in rural, regional and remote schooling. We need the courage to identify this success, understand it, and facilitate collective networking to grow this success.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Roberts receives funding from the Australian Government. He is Chief Editor of the 'Australian and International Journal of Rural Education'. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Hattie is the Chair of AITSL and receives research funding from the ARC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Piccoli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A government review of regional, rural and remote education tells us we need to recognise the uniqueness of and understand successes in these communities to improve outcomes for these students.Philip Roberts, Associate professor, University of CanberraAdrian Piccoli, Professor of Practice, School of Education, UNSW SydneyJohn Hattie, Professor, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/940992018-03-29T10:30:40Z2018-03-29T10:30:40ZFederal spending bill deals blow to school safety research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212516/original/file-20180328-109175-giynfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators in front of the White House protest inaction on gun control.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/washington-dc-feb-19-2018-demonstrators-1028581054?src=hRRPBgRl1VuH72Cu4Nq0Pw-2-38">bakdc/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Long before the current state of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/us/march-for-our-lives.html">heightened attention to school shootings</a>, my <a href="http://www.cavvresearch.com/">colleagues</a> and I <a href="https://news.umbc.edu/umbcs-chris-curran-receives-major-nij-grant-for-research-on-law-enforcement-in-k-12-schools/">began a two-year study</a> of school safety and the role of law enforcement officers in public schools.</p>
<p>Our work is funded by the <a href="https://nij.gov/topics/crime/school-crime/pages/school-safety-initiative.aspx">Comprehensive School Safety Initiative</a> of the National Institute of Justice.</p>
<p>To date, the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative has <a href="https://nij.gov/topics/crime/school-crime/pages/school-safety-initiative.aspx">funded</a> 100 research projects that involve almost US$250 million in total. Research projects have looked at things ranging from school emergency response plans to policing strategies that use alternatives to arrest.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212494/original/file-20180328-109196-ebpbio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212494/original/file-20180328-109196-ebpbio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212494/original/file-20180328-109196-ebpbio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212494/original/file-20180328-109196-ebpbio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212494/original/file-20180328-109196-ebpbio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212494/original/file-20180328-109196-ebpbio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212494/original/file-20180328-109196-ebpbio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212494/original/file-20180328-109196-ebpbio.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">New funding for the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative has been suspended.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nij.gov/topics/crime/school-crime/pages/school-safety-initiative.aspx">National Institute of Justice</a></span>
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<p>Collectively, this research is meant to build a robust evidence base so policymakers can use proven ways to keep students safe in school.</p>
<p>Last month, the NIJ put out a call for new research on school safety. This past Friday, however, <a href="https://nij.gov/topics/crime/school-crime/pages/school-safety-initiative.aspx">this call was canceled</a>. To understand why, look to the recently passed federal spending bill. </p>
<h2>Funding diverted from research</h2>
<p>Thanks to the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1625/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22STOP+School+Violence+Act+of+2018%22%5D%7D&r=3">Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018</a> – passed by Congress and signed on March 23 by President Donald Trump – the funding for school safety research is “no longer available for research and evaluation,” a recent NIJ notice states. “Instead, it will be used for other purposes under the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4909">STOP School Violence Act of 2018</a>,” the notice states, in reference to <a href="https://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2018/3/hatch-introduces-bipartisan-stop-school-violence-act">legislation</a> passed as part of the spending bill. The STOP School Violence Act provides funding for several initiatives that include training of school personnel to identify and prevent violence, training of local law enforcement officers to respond to such violence, and implementation of security measures like metal detectors.</p>
<p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, my view as a school safety researcher is that this move to cut funding for school safety research represents a blow to school safety. The risk that comes with this move is that policymakers and practitioners will have less research to rely on as they seek ways to make schools safe.</p>
<p>To its credit, STOP <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1625/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22STOP+School+Violence+Act+of+2018%22%5D%7D&r=3">specifies</a> that funded programs should be “evidence-based,” such as those “identified by the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative.” However, the reallocation of funds puts a pause on new school safety research under this initiative.</p>
<p>Continued research on school safety and security is important because existing research isn’t always clear as to what works. Furthermore, some of the common approaches to school safety have been shown to have negative impacts on schools.</p>
<h2>Many mixed results</h2>
<p>For instance, consider the increased presence of school resource officers in schools – an idea that has been put forth by school districts and a number of states, such as <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/02/23/rick-scott-proposes-450-million-school-safety-program/">Florida</a>. As <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/us/maryland-school-shooting-resource-officer-response-trnd/index.html">recently seen in Maryland</a>, school resource officers can lessen the damage in the case of a violent incident in school. However, despite the power of that anecdote, the research on the impact of school resource officers as a whole is mixed.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212517/original/file-20180328-109185-125u2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212517/original/file-20180328-109185-125u2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212517/original/file-20180328-109185-125u2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212517/original/file-20180328-109185-125u2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212517/original/file-20180328-109185-125u2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212517/original/file-20180328-109185-125u2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212517/original/file-20180328-109185-125u2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212517/original/file-20180328-109185-125u2x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Demonstrators outside the White House support armed staff in schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/washington-dc-february-19-2018-high-1028609713?src=hRRPBgRl1VuH72Cu4Nq0Pw-2-97">Joseph Gruber/shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Some <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pam.21954">studies</a> suggest that school resource officers increase school safety. However, school resource officers have also been linked to undesirable outcomes, such as increases in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pam.21954">school based arrests</a>. They have also been linked to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40894-015-0006-8">possible increases in the use of suspensions</a> and <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814748206/">severe discipline</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, certain school discipline policies, including the use of suspension and zero tolerance policies, have been linked to <a href="http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/zero-tolerance.aspx">negative student outcomes</a> and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0162373716652728">racial disparities in discipline</a>. At the same time, <a href="https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/school-discipline-reform-and-disorder-evidence-nyc-schools-10103.html">emerging evidence</a> suggests that the rolling back of suspensions and zero tolerance policies might lead to more disruptive school environments. Yet, research on alternative forms of discipline, though developing, is <a href="http://educationnext.org/what-do-we-know-about-school-discipline-reform-suspensions-expulsions/">limited</a>. This creates a quandary for policymakers considering discipline reform – a quandary that further research can help resolve.</p>
<h2>Some solutions cause problems</h2>
<p>Other areas of school safety research indicate that some common approaches may not be effective. For instance, the use of visible security measures, such as metal detectors and cameras, have been linked to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12103-017-9409-3">lower school safety</a>. Research suggests that such security measures may also <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362480607085795?journalCode=tcra">contribute to cultures of criminalization</a> or <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/48355">degrade school climate</a>.</p>
<p>To be sure, it is important that adequate resources be provided directly to schools and law enforcement agencies to improve school safety – which is the approach taken by the STOP School Violence Act. That said, if policymakers do not have adequate school safety research to draw on, they may end up making policies that cause more problems than they solve. Cutting back on school safety research only makes this scenario more likely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>F. Chris Curran receives funding from the National Institute of Justice's Comprehensive School Safety Initiative for ongoing research on school safety.</span></em></p>A recent cut to federal funding for school safety research could hurt efforts to make schools more secure, a scholar warns.F. Chris Curran, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873382018-03-18T18:56:23Z2018-03-18T18:56:23ZEducational researchers, show us your evidence but don’t expect us to fund it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210753/original/file-20180316-104673-1r1xw04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The use of evidence to improve teaching quality is central to the federal government’s <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/teacher-education-ministerial-advisory-group">teacher education reforms</a>. But less than 2% of <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/">Australian Research Council</a> (ARC) grants fund educational research.</p>
<p>It’s also concerning that maths and science are well down on the education grants ladder. The <a href="http://www.acde.edu.au/">Australian Council of Deans of Education</a> (ACDE) <a href="http://www.acde.edu.au/publications/">2017 Australian Educational Research Funding Trends report</a> recently revealed maths education research ranks fourth and science tenth. This is a stark contrast to the goals of the <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/national-stem-school-education-strategy-2016-2026">National STEM School Education Strategy 2016-2026</a> and other <a href="http://science.gov.au/scienceGov/ScienceAndResearchPriorities/Pages/default.aspx">Australian measures</a> to improve skills for innovation. </p>
<p>This is also at odds with the government’s own innovation agenda. It signals a need for a stronger university-government-industry research culture in Australian educational research to meet these commitments. </p>
<h2>The agenda has changed, but the focus of research hasn’t</h2>
<p>The ACDE’s <a href="http://www.acde.edu.au/publications/">recent report</a> finds the focus of funding and conduct of research, as well as the training and development of its researchers and academics <a href="http://www.acde.edu.au/?wpdmact=process&did=NDYuaG90bGluaw==:">has not changed much in the past seven years</a>. </p>
<p>The report reviewed the highest level research grants over nine years to 2017, and found 440 grants for educational research and scholarship came from the ARC. The remaining 39 were funded by the <a href="http://www.olt.gov.au/">Office of Learning and Teaching</a> (OLT), which disbanded in 2015. The <a href="https://www.ncver.edu.au/">National Centre for Vocational Education Research</a> (NCVER) funding outcomes are not included in the ACDE report because they do not have a public searchable grants database. </p>
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<p>The ARC <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/discovery-projects">Discovery Projects</a> scheme, for pure or basic research, funded 41.3% of the 440 ARC projects. This is despite <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/review-research-policy-and-funding-arrangements-0">a review of research policy and funding arrangements</a> in 2015. It recommended a clear move away from pure or basic research, which the government accepted. </p>
<p>But the <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/linkage-projects">Linkage Projects</a> scheme, focused on applied research, was the second highest funder (35.7% of grants). It was followed by the <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/DECRA">Discovery Early Career Researcher Award</a> (6.1% of grants) and <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/future-fellowships">Future Fellowships</a> scheme (3.3% of grants), both of which are for pure or basic research. </p>
<h2>The metropolitan-regional divide</h2>
<p>The report also highlights a significant metropolitan-regional divide in Australian educational research. This divide is consistent with broader trends in higher education funding.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-approach-to-regional-higher-education-is-essential-to-our-economic-future-88537">A new approach to regional higher education is essential to our economic future</a>
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<p>The Group of Eight (Go8) universities dominated, with 61% of total funding while the Regional Universities Network (RUN) attracted 2% of all funding for education and related projects. </p>
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<p>The University of Melbourne was the most successful university in winning education and education-related ARC and OLT grants and fellowships, with 11.90%. Following closely was The University of Queensland with 9.60% and the Queensland University of Technology at 8.35%. </p>
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<p>Seven of the top 10 highest-funded projects or fellowships went to Go8 universities. Two went to Australian Technology Network universities and one to the Innovative Research Universities. Regional Universities Network (RUN) universities did not rank in the top 100 highest funded projects. They came in 112th, with A$396,500 awarded for an ARC Discovery project. This finding confirms the Regional Universities Network has had limited success as leading universities of highly-funded ARC and OLT funding schemes in educational research. </p>
<h2>Men receive more funding, despite more women in educational research</h2>
<p>Teacher education academics represent 3.1% of the full-time Australian university workforce. Men comprise just under <a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/node/42366">56% of the total</a> university workforce, but only <a href="https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/education-research-in-australia-where-is-it-conducted">one-third of the workforce</a> in faculties and schools of education.</p>
<p>Although women represent a high proportion of the teacher education population workforce (two-thirds), they are not being awarded the same proportion of funding as their male counterparts. Women lead 54.1% and men 49.9% which is not balanced because men only represent one-third of the education workforce in universities. In the context of the wider gender demographic of the educational research workforce, the system appears to be weighted towards men.</p>
<p>In addition, 22.96% of male lead chief investigators or project leaders were from Go8 universities. The reasons for such gender discrepancies requires deeper investigation. </p>
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<h2>One-third of educational research projects had no partner</h2>
<p>More than two-thirds of all projects partnered with another Australian or foreign university and/or an industry collaborator. The remaining one-third of projects have no partner. This is a concern for Australian educational research, given the <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/review-research-policy-and-funding-arrangements-0">review of research policy and funding arrangements</a> and its commitment to improve collaboration between universities and business, and translate research outcomes into educational, social, ecological and economic benefits.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/starting-next-year-universities-have-to-prove-their-research-has-real-world-impact-87252">Starting next year, universities have to prove their research has real-world impact</a>
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<p>Deakin University had the highest number of partners across all education or education-related ARC grants. This was followed by the University of Melbourne, Victorian Department Education and Training and the University of Sydney. The Victorian Department of Education and Training was the number one non-university partner across all projects. This demonstrates significant Victorian Government commitment to educational research in Australia. </p>
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<p><strong>The ACDE report made 5 key recommendations for the Australian educational research sector:</strong></p>
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<li><p>Increase links between regional and metropolitan institutions through university partnerships in educational research. A greater commitment between Go8 and regional university education researchers in research collaboration, mentoring and coaching is needed.</p></li>
<li><p>The Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE), the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and the Australian Research Council (ARC) should support the Community of Associate Deans of Research in Education (cADRE) in continuing research so the sector can be kept up-to-date with educational research trends in Australia.</p></li>
<li><p>The educational research sector should engage more explicitly with Australia’s national science and research priorities through transdisciplinary approaches. Such approaches require collaboration outside the education sector, banding with researchers to work towards these priorities in the context of the world’s educational, social, ecological, cultural, technological and economic <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-seventh-megatrend-why-australia-must-embrace-innovation-41232">megatrends</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>The ACDE, cADRE, AARE and Go8 universities should provide direct support and professional learning to academics working at non-Go8 universities in writing, winning and leading high-level grants. Such professional learning and mentoring across the sector is particularly urgent to reduce both gender and metropolitan-regional inequities.</p></li>
<li><p>Build a stronger university-government-industry research culture through systematic and industry-focused initiatives. This should be done by working with proven industry partners, such as the Victorian Department of Education and Training. This needs to be a highly collaborative exchange between governments and universities in particular.</p></li>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) funded the research project reported in this article. Professor Cutter-Mackenzie led the ACDE report on Australian Education Research Funding Trends. She is a member of the National Steering Group of the Australian Council of Deans of Education’s network of Associate Deans of Research (cADRE). </span></em></p>Despite the Federal Government’s teacher education reforms and the push for evidence-based teaching, less than 2% of ARC research funding is directed to educational research.Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, Professor of Sustainability, Environment & Education and Deputy Head of School (Research), School of Education, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920372018-02-26T03:50:52Z2018-02-26T03:50:52ZAn education research institute won’t take politics out of the classroom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207782/original/file-20180226-140194-wtusz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Education research is inherently political, and can never be objective and value-free.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/David Crosling</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Labor Party <a href="https://www.appa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/announcement.pdf">has pledged</a> to create a A$280 million research institute to “take politics out of the classroom” and “put an end to decades of ideological battles about school education”, if it wins the next federal election.</p>
<p>Announcing the policy, Shadow Education Minister Tanya Plibersek <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/16/labor-pledges-280m-research-institute-to-take-politics-out-of-the-classroom">said</a>:</p>
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<p>Politicians shouldn’t tell teachers how to do their jobs, or be using schools as ideological battlegrounds.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/labors-struggle-to-remain-the-education-party-53309">Labor's struggle to remain 'the education party'</a>
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<p>This “ideological battleground” is not just plucked from thin air for political point-scoring –– it reflects viewpoints that are deeply embedded in Australian society. Schools are sites where social privilege is <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6GuaCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=social+reproduction+schools+australia+saltmarsh&ots=v58YzJSxf5&sig=12NdtLztTSSBaf-ZZ1Yc2I31LUI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=social%20reproduction%20schools%20australia%20saltmarsh&f=false">reflected and reproduced</a> for the next generation, and the disadvantaged have opportunities for <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01425692.2013.816036">economic and social mobility</a>. And teaching and teacher education are <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/0013189X034007003">“inherently and unavoidably political”</a>.</p>
<p>Education research itself is also inherently political and can never be objective and value-free. Yet Labor’s proposal favours a particular and well-critiqued research approach.</p>
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<h2>The medical model won’t work</h2>
<p>Labor’s pledge would inject much-needed funds into education research. But its announcement <a href="https://www.appa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/announcement.pdf">problematically evoked</a> a biomedical model of research and teaching practice:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just as doctors draw on the best new research when they are deciding how to treat their patients, we want to better support teachers do the same for their students.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When applied to education, the model is less convincing. Dispensing a pill is unlike dispensing a curriculum. The effects of an educational experiment also can’t <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1077800403259491">be easily measured</a> – unlike, say, a reduction in blood pressure. And the medical metaphor is premised on deficit: both students and their communities are <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1077800403259491">seen as problems that need to be treated</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-school-teachers-could-become-the-foot-soldiers-of-education-research-37667">How school teachers could become the foot soldiers of education research</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>So, this model – where teachers are viewed as clinicians, and models of teacher education are marketed – hardly seems appropriate. </p>
<h2>The rise of such ‘institutes’</h2>
<p>Over the last 25 years, the number of research institutes designed to gatekeep knowledge production and its distribution in education settings has grown. The US and UK governments have established organisations that are commissioned to producing research programs and filtering policy-sympathetic evidence to schools.</p>
<p>The Institute of Education Sciences in the US has a research wing – the National Centre for Education Research – <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/funding/grantsearch/details.asp?ID=1641">which carries out</a> “deep research” focusing on “scientific evidence”. But the infamous <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/no-child-left-behind-overview-definition-summary.html">No Child Left Behind</a> reform, which was <a href="https://search.proquest.com/docview/858466528?pq-origsite=gscholar">a “costly disaster”</a> in its inability to tackle disparities in childhood achievement, leveraged the “scientific evidence” of the biomedical model in its formulation.</p>
<p>The UK’s equivalent, the <a href="https://www.nfer.ac.uk/">National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales</a>, espouses a broader approach to research than its American equivalent. <a href="https://www.nfer.ac.uk/research/trials-unit/guide-to-trials/">It says</a> the randomised controlled trials of the biomedical model are just one approach to research, and “are not suitable for all research and evaluation”.</p>
<p>There is an assumption underpinning Labor’s assertion that its institute will be independent of government, and that commissioned science can deliver a value-free solution to education issues. This assumption does not account for the politics of senior executive appointments and the research funding decisions that support government promises. </p>
<p>Funding bodies privilege particular kinds of research, located in particular contexts, for particular purposes. This funding is <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/puar.12475/full">often filtered into</a> “policy-informed research”, rather than research that provides evidence to inform policy.</p>
<h2>Australia already has several bodies</h2>
<p>Australia already has an existing national, independent, not-for-profit research organisation: the <a href="https://www.acer.org/research/areas-of-research/school-education">Australian Council for Educational Research</a> (ACER). However, like its UK equivalent, it charges for programs and research. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aitsl.edu.au/tools-resources">Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership</a> (AITSL) is an additional organisation that produces, brokers and profiles education research for use in schools.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207791/original/file-20180226-140213-onocxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207791/original/file-20180226-140213-onocxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207791/original/file-20180226-140213-onocxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207791/original/file-20180226-140213-onocxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207791/original/file-20180226-140213-onocxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207791/original/file-20180226-140213-onocxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207791/original/file-20180226-140213-onocxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Teachers are best-placed to decide what education research needs to be applied in their classrooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>How we can enhance the link between research and practice</h2>
<p>Four alternative ideas to enhance the link between research and teaching practice that could easily be implemented are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Add “education” to the <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/science-research-priorities">national research priorities</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Tackle the <a href="https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/ArticleDocuments/940/University%20Financing%20Explainer%20April%202017.PDF.aspx">lack of education research funding</a> within Australian universities and support the dissemination of findings into the sector. Newly produced knowledge can be included in teacher education courses and disseminated into schools to enhance practice and fix inequity.</p></li>
<li><p>Although teachers and school leaders may be groomed to look for universal answers to complex problems, any experienced teacher would tell you there are no sure-fire, quick-fix solutions. Further professional development would enable school leaders and teachers to engage with this evidence as both critical consumers and producers of research themselves.</p></li>
<li><p>Support teachers and school leaders in localised research projects (working in partnership with universities) to align professional learning and development with real issues that benefit students and their communities. In this way, teachers and leaders <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-3130-4_11">can engage</a> with both local data and research literature to produce relevant knowledge.</p></li>
</ol><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Charteris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labor’s pledge injects much-needed funds into education research, but it problematically evokes a biomedical model of research and teaching practice.Jennifer Charteris, Senior Lecturer in Pedagogy, University of New EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/913932018-02-21T17:22:28Z2018-02-21T17:22:28ZPlay-based learning can set your child up for success at school and beyond<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206922/original/file-20180219-75984-87oxk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows play-based programs for young children can provide a strong basis for later success at school.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the new school year begins, many families are deciding where to enrol their child in preschool or school. Preschools and schools offer various approaches to early education, all promoting the benefits of their particular programs. </p>
<p>One approach gaining momentum in the early years of primary school curriculum is play-based learning. Research shows <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/play-in-the-early-years-marilyn-fleer/prod9781316631898.html">play-based learning</a> enhances children’s academic and developmental learning outcomes. It can also set your child up for success in the 21st century by teaching them relevant skills.</p>
<h2>What is play-based learning?</h2>
<p>Children are naturally motivated to play. A play-based program builds on this motivation, using play as a context for learning. In this context, children can explore, experiment, discover and solve problems <a href="https://www.oup.com.au/books/higher-education/education/9780190303211-play-in-early-childhood-education">in imaginative and playful ways</a>. </p>
<p>A play-based approach involves both child-initiated and teacher-supported learning. The teacher encourages children’s learning and inquiry through interactions that aim to stretch their thinking to higher levels. </p>
<p>For example, while children are playing with blocks, a teacher can pose questions that encourage problem solving, prediction and hypothesising. The teacher can also bring the child’s awareness towards mathematics, science and literacy concepts, allowing them to engage with such concepts through hands-on learning. </p>
<p>While further evidence is needed on cause and effect relationships between play and learning, research findings generally support the value of good quality <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-00074-001">play-based early years programs</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-just-let-them-play-24670">Should we just let them play?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How does it compare to direct instruction?</h2>
<p>Play-based learning has traditionally been the educational approach implemented by teachers in Australian preschool programs. It underpins state and national government <a href="http://files.acecqa.gov.au/files/National-Quality-Framework-Resources-Kit/belonging_being_and_becoming_the_early_years_learning_framework_for_australia.pdf">early learning frameworks</a>. </p>
<p>Research has shown the long-term benefits of high-quality play-based <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Early-Childhood-Matters-Evidence-from-the-Effective-Pre-school-and-Primary/Sylva-Melhuish-Sammons-Siraj-Blatchford-Taggart/p/book/9780415482431">kindergarten programs</a>, where children are exposed to learning and problem solving through self-initiated activities and teacher guidance. </p>
<p>In contrast to play-based learning are teacher-centred approaches focused on instructing young children in basic academic skills. Although this more structured teaching and learning style is the traditional approach to primary school programs, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1476718X15579741">research</a> is emerging that play-based learning is more effective in primary school programs. In these recent studies, children’s learning outcomes are shown to be higher in a play-based program compared to children’s learning outcomes in direct-instruction approaches.</p>
<p><a href="https://deyproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/readinginkindergarten_online-1.pdf">Research</a> has also identified young children in direct-instruction programs can experience negative effects. These include stress, decreased motivation for learning, and behaviour problems. This is particularly so for children who are not yet ready for more formal academic instruction. </p>
<h2>What can be gained through play-based programs?</h2>
<p>As with traditional approaches, play-based early years programs are focused on teaching and learning. In such programs, play can be in the form of free play (activity that is spontaneous and directed by the child), and guided play (also child-directed, but the teacher is involved in the activity as a co-player) with <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1132563">intentional teaching</a>. Both have benefits for children’s learning. To capitalise on these benefits, an optimum play-based program will provide opportunities for both free play and guided play. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206923/original/file-20180219-76003-9lzjup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206923/original/file-20180219-76003-9lzjup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206923/original/file-20180219-76003-9lzjup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206923/original/file-20180219-76003-9lzjup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206923/original/file-20180219-76003-9lzjup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206923/original/file-20180219-76003-9lzjup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206923/original/file-20180219-76003-9lzjup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In constructive play, children cooperate and problem-solve, engaging with mathematical and spatial concepts to design and create three-dimensional constructions from their imagination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0957514000200203">Involvement</a> in play stimulates a child’s drive for exploration and discovery. This motivates the child to gain mastery over their environment, promoting focus and concentration. It also enables the child to engage in the flexible and higher-level thinking processes deemed essential for the 21st century learner. These include inquiry processes of problem solving, analysing, evaluating, applying knowledge and creativity. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/demand-for-people-skills-is-growing-faster-than-demand-for-stem-skills-86754">Demand for people skills is growing faster than demand for STEM skills</a>
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</em>
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<p>Play also supports positive attitudes to learning. These include imagination, curiosity, enthusiasm, and persistence. The type of learning processes and skills fostered in play cannot be replicated through rote learning, where there is an emphasis on remembering facts. </p>
<p>The inquiry-based nature of play is supported through the social interactions of teachers and children. Teachers take an active role in guiding children’s interactions in the play. Children are supported in developing social skills such as cooperation, sharing and responding to ideas, negotiating, and resolving conflicts. </p>
<p>Teachers can also use children’s motivation and interest to explore concepts and ideas. In this way, children acquire and practice important academic skills and learning in a playful context. </p>
<p>For example, research indicates the increased complexity of language and learning processes used by children in play-based programs is linked to important literacy skills. These include understanding the <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14687984010011004">structure of words</a> and the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/17549507.2014.941934">meanings of words</a>. </p>
<p>Another <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1476718X15579741">study</a> found children’s vocabulary and ability to tell a story was higher in a play-based classroom than a traditional classroom. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206924/original/file-20180219-75997-zxex1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206924/original/file-20180219-75997-zxex1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206924/original/file-20180219-75997-zxex1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206924/original/file-20180219-75997-zxex1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206924/original/file-20180219-75997-zxex1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206924/original/file-20180219-75997-zxex1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206924/original/file-20180219-75997-zxex1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Learning in guided play: teachers help children with educational tasks during play.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Teacher-led learning and direct instruction methods have their place in educational contexts. But the evidence also points to the benefits of quality play-based programs for our youngest learners. In play-based programs, time spent in play is seen as important for learning, not as a reward for good behaviour. In such classrooms, children have greater, more active input into what and how they learn. </p>
<p>Research shows play-based programs for young children can provide a strong basis for later success at school. They support the development of socially competent learners, able to face challenges and create solutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne-Marie Morrissey has previously received funding from the International Baccalaureate Organisation, the Foundation of Graduates in Early Childhood Studies and Fleming's Nursery, to research play-based programs and outdoor play spaces. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Rouse has prevously received funding from the Victorian Department of Education and Training, the International Baccalaureate Organisation, The Foundation of Graduates and Flemings Nursery to undertake research in early childhood. She is member of Early Childhood Australia and Community Child Care. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Robertson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows play-based learning programs enhance children’s learning outcomes and teaches them skills relevant to the 21st century, such as problem-solving and creativity.Natalie Robertson, Lecturer in Early Childhood Education, Deakin UniversityAnne-Marie Morrissey, Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education, Deakin UniversityElizabeth Rouse, Senior Lecturer, Early Childhood Education, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/916232018-02-11T19:11:17Z2018-02-11T19:11:17ZWhy the Commonwealth should resist meddling in schools<p>Australia’s education debate is shifting at last, from how much money governments should spend on schools to how best to spend the money for the benefit of students.</p>
<p>After winning parliamentary approval for the <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/news/the-passage-of-gonski-2-0-is-a-victory-for-children-over-politics/">Gonski 2.0</a> schools funding deal (the “how much”), the Turnbull Government has commissioned the “<a href="https://www.education.gov.au/review-achieve-educational-excellence-australian-schools">Gonski 2.0 Review</a>” to advise on how to spend the money wisely (the “how best”).</p>
<p>But the extra Commonwealth money going to schools (A$23 billion over the next 10 years compared to previous Coalition policy) is only 3% of all government spending on schools over the decade. It should not be used as an excuse for the Commonwealth to intervene more heavily in school education policy.</p>
<p>The Grattan Institute’s new report, <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/home/school-education">The Commonwealth’s role in improving schools</a>, examines what the Commonwealth should do if it really wants to boost student outcomes. </p>
<p>And the answer is: not very much.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-passage-of-gonski-2-0-is-a-victory-for-children-over-politics-79828">The passage of Gonski 2.0 is a victory for children over politics</a>
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<h2>States are better placed to drive reforms</h2>
<p>The states run schools, as well as providing most of the funding. Heavy-handed Commonwealth intervention is likely to be counterproductive, costly and confusing. </p>
<p>Most of the big reforms needed are within the responsibilities of state governments. For example, all the <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/investing-in-our-teachers-investing-in-our-economy/">evidence</a> shows effective teaching has the largest impact on student achievement. The biggest advances will be made when teachers know what works in the classroom, and how they can adapt their methods to better <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/targeted-teaching-how-better-use-of-data-can-improve-student-learning/">target their teaching</a> to the particular needs of their students. </p>
<p>For this to happen, teachers need <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/towards-an-adaptive-education-system-in-australia/">better support from the “system”</a>: for example, better teacher development and greater standardisation of classroom materials so individual teachers don’t have to reinvent the wheel. </p>
<p>In school education, the states and territories are the “system” managers. Driving reforms such as these from Canberra would be difficult.</p>
<h2>Federal funding conditions aren’t the way to go</h2>
<p>Australia must learn from its history. Our report shows imposing prescriptive funding conditions on states and territories has been tried before, with little benefit. </p>
<p>Commonwealth interference can destroy policy coherence and simply increase red tape. The Commonwealth has few ways to independently verify if change is actually happening in the classroom, so adding an extra layer of government policies that chop and change only disrupts schools and teachers. </p>
<p>For example, the <a href="http://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia-2011/national-initiatives-and-achievements/partnerships">2008-2013 National Partnership agreements</a> for school education included a number of prescriptive and input-based conditions. These increased the administrative and compliance burden of states, and created instability in schools when the funding and initiatives stopped abruptly five years later. </p>
<p>Before looking to new reforms, the Commonwealth government should first deliver its existing responsibilities more effectively. These include initial teacher training, the national curriculum and national student testing. All require constant attention, and some require urgent reform.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/changes-to-school-funding-your-questions-answered-77243">Changes to school funding – your questions answered</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Prioritise a few national reforms only</h2>
<p>If determined to act, we suggest the Commonwealth focus strategically on a small number of national reforms only. It is far better to focus on a few actions with a high chance of success. </p>
<p>We suggest the Commonwealth only pursue reforms that meet all of three criteria: the evidence shows it’s a good idea, the government can make it happen, and Commonwealth intervention will help. While many Commonwealth ideas are good in theory, many fall down on whether they can be readily implemented by state governments and actually lead to change in practice. </p>
<p>For example, in 2016 the Commonwealth signalled an intention to require all schools to use explicit teaching. While <a href="http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/crash-course-evidence-based-teaching/explicit-teaching/">backed by evidence</a>, this type of Commonwealth policy requirement is unlikely to lead to change without a raft of complementary state government policies. These include the right training and school support for teachers to switch to explicit teaching. It would be difficult for the Commonwealth to independently verify, and it also creates confusion by coming in over the top of state policies on effective teaching methods. </p>
<p><strong>Commonwealth intervention must satisfy three criteria</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205817/original/file-20180211-51710-bubo8h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205817/original/file-20180211-51710-bubo8h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205817/original/file-20180211-51710-bubo8h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205817/original/file-20180211-51710-bubo8h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205817/original/file-20180211-51710-bubo8h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205817/original/file-20180211-51710-bubo8h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205817/original/file-20180211-51710-bubo8h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided/Grattan Institute</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Four suggestions for new national reforms</h2>
<p>We have four suggestions for new national reform areas where there are benefits of scale and coordination. These only to be pursued if state government’s have strong “buy in” and there is close collaboration in design and delivery:</p>
<p><strong>1. Create a new national school education research organisation</strong> to investigate what works to drive school improvement and to spread the word across schools, states and sectors. The new body should be charged with lifting the standard of education research in Australia, establishing a long-term research agenda for school education, and promoting key findings across the country. It could link up all research on education for people from birth through to age 18, so policy makers and the community better understand the continuum of learning, from early childhood to school and vocational education.</p>
<p><strong>2. Invest more in measuring new, non-cognitive skills</strong> such as teamwork and resilience, in the classroom. At present, Australia focuses much more on old, foundational skills such as literacy and numeracy, which are only one element of what we expect from 21st century schooling.</p>
<p><strong>3. Develop better ways to measure student progress</strong>, for national bench-marking and for use in the classroom. NAPLAN seeks to measure students’ learning progress in core literacy and numeracy skills at the national level, but NAPLAN gain scores are not easy to interpret when comparing the progress of different student groups.</p>
<p><strong>4. Invest in high-quality digital assessment tools</strong> for the classroom, so teachers know what their students know and how much progress their students have made.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gaps-in-education-data-there-are-many-questions-for-which-we-dont-have-accurate-answers-65241">Gaps in education data: there are many questions for which we don't have accurate answers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Resist over-reach</h2>
<p>The extra Commonwealth money for schools under Gonski 2.0 is welcome. The shift in the education debate towards how best to use the extra money is still more welcome. </p>
<p>But for Australian students to get the most benefit, the Commonwealth must resist the temptation to over-reach by intervening heavily in school education policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91623/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and Grattan uses the income to pursue its activities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Sonnemann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The shift in the education debate from “how much” to “how best” is a welcome change, but for students to feel the full benefit the federal government must resist intervening.Julie Sonnemann, Research Fellow, Grattan InstitutePeter Goss, School Education Program Director, Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834642017-09-17T19:42:08Z2017-09-17T19:42:08ZMale teachers are an endangered species in Australia: new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185018/original/file-20170907-8380-1a21kn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C998%2C667&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Both men and women are capable of being excellent teachers, and we want both in our schools.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Tyler Olson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Male teachers may face extinction in Australian primary schools by the year 2067 unless urgent policy action is taken. In government schools, the year is 2054. </p>
<p>This finding comes from <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775717303278">our analysis</a> of more than 50 years of national annual workplace data – the first of its kind in any country.</p>
<p>We found a sharp decrease in the percentage of male teachers since records of teacher gender began in 1965. This includes classroom teachers, head teachers, and principals.</p>
<p>This rapid decline of men is not limited to primary schools. From 1977, when numbers of primary and secondary teachers were first recorded separately, we find an equally rapid decline of male representation in Australia’s secondary schools. In primary schools, there has been a steady decline from 28.5% to 18.3%; in secondary schools, it has dropped from 53.9% to 40%. </p>
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<hr>
<p>Looking at the data by state and school sector, the lowest representation of men in primary schools is just 12.2% in Northern Territory Independent schools and 36.4% in Queensland government secondary schools.</p>
<h2>Causes of the decline</h2>
<p>Factors that deter men from teaching have been discussed in both the media and <a href="https://theconversation.com/primary-schools-are-losing-more-and-more-male-teachers-so-how-can-we-retain-them-82017">research literature</a>. While some men (and women) may be deterred from teaching because it is perceived to have low <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13598660500286176">salary and status</a>, men also face social pressures to conform to particular masculine ideals. And teaching is often seen as “women’s work”. It is unclear if these pressures have intensified over the last 50 years. </p>
<p>There may also be a social stigma in advocating for more male teachers when women still face adversity in many other fields. In this way, policymakers may assume that declining male representation in schools is not a problem, or of less importance compared to other professions.</p>
<p>Alternatively, hiring policies may play a role. </p>
<p>We have little data on the hiring policies of different teacher employers around Australia. When looking at the percentage of male teachers in government, Independent, and Catholic sectors separately, we see that government schools show the sharpest drop over time. Independent primary and secondary schools and Catholic secondary schools also show a drop in male teachers, yet at a less rapid rate.</p>
<h2>The impact on students</h2>
<p>While teacher gender has little effect on <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775712000209?via%3Dihub">student achievement</a>, and students’ role models are often their <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1468181032000119131">peers</a>, there are important social and psychological reasons for Australian schools to include more male teachers. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09540253.2013.796342?journalCode=cgee20">Students themselves</a> tell us that they want to be taught by both women and men. Just as some boys and girls find it easier to relate to female teachers, others find it easier to relate to male teachers. A teaching workforce that is diverse – in gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation – is most likely to appeal to diverse groups of students.</p>
<p>The decline in male representation in schools also limits opportunities for students to observe men outside their families who are caring, nurturing, and concerned about education. This may lead students to assume that only women are suited for such work, or that such traits are atypical in men.</p>
<p>Finally, for students with risky home lives, male representation may be particularly important. The presence of male and female teachers within the school environment allows students to see men and women interacting in positive, equal, and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00131911.2016.1223607">non-violent ways</a>, and to observe men working with female leaders. In this way, male representation in schools may help to challenge misconceptions of what men can and cannot do.</p>
<h2>The impact on schools</h2>
<p>There are also important workplace reasons for Australian schools to include more male teachers.</p>
<p>Across professions, <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/EDI-03-2015-0020?af=R&">workforce diversity</a> is pursued because it creates an inclusive environment, facilitates multiple perspectives, and ensures that various groups are included in decision-making processes. Importantly, links have also been found to <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.01977.x/abstract;jsessionid=980D497CED4B455C1E319073254A1DBB.f04t03">job satisfaction and performance</a>.</p>
<p>Extending these findings to Australian schools, we suggest benefits for the school community when men and women are more equally represented.</p>
<p>Given the importance of diversity, the <a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/education_and_training_diversity_strategy_20150209.pdf">Australian government</a> has committed to ensuring that the teaching workforce broadly reflects both the student population and Australian community. There are <a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/associated-documents/wdplan2012-17.pdf">policies</a> that aim to increase the representation of Aboriginal people, racial and religious minority groups, people under the age of 25, people with a disability, and women in leadership positions.</p>
<p>But there are no current workforce diversity policies to redress the sharp decline in male teachers.</p>
<h2>What can be done</h2>
<p>We now know where the male teacher population is headed. It is becoming increasingly unlikely that Australian schools will genuinely reflect the student population or broader community. A review of Australian workforce diversity policies is urgently needed.</p>
<p>Fortunately, much can be learned about increasing male representation in schools by looking to professions where the representation of women has been increased. These include STEM and business. As we suggest elsewhere, <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-rethink-recruitment-for-men-in-primary-schools-66670">targeted scholarships</a> could be used to increase the number of men studying education.</p>
<p>Additionally, increasing teachers’ salaries and permanent teaching positions may benefit the profession more broadly, while also providing incentives for men (and women) who consider a career in teaching later in life. Challenging negative perceptions is also important, and may require large-scale campaigns.</p>
<p>Both men and women are capable of being excellent teachers, and we want both in our schools. A more diverse teaching workforce benefits everyone – students, parents, and teachers alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penny Van Bergen has previously received funding from The Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin F. McGrath does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the need for both male and female teachers, male primary school teachers could be extinct by 2067.Kevin F. McGrath, Casual Academic, Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie UniversityPenny Van Bergen, Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/652412016-09-18T19:39:43Z2016-09-18T19:39:43ZGaps in education data: there are many questions for which we don’t have accurate answers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137824/original/image-20160915-4968-jaqqlg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C5536%2C3671&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Education policy can't get off the ground because of a lack of good data.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Too many questions in education remain unanswered.</p>
<p>Without access to good data and evidence we cannot make informed education policy decisions, or invest limited resources where they will have the biggest impact.</p>
<h2>What is the issue?</h2>
<p>Australia generally collects education data in silos. Different data is collected in different ways in each state and territory. </p>
<p>There are differences between the data collected and made available in government, independent and Catholic school sectors, and between different types of early education and care providers.</p>
<p>This makes it very hard to compare data between states and to gain a national picture – and to understand whether particular policies or investments are having an impact.</p>
<p>Privacy is often considered a barrier to using data, but there are ways to use data in meaningful ways while having tight <a href="https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy-law/privacy-act/australian-privacy-principles">safeguards to protect the privacy</a> of individuals and schools – this is the norm in <a href="http://www.phrn.org.au/">health research</a>, for example. </p>
<p>There are also huge gaps in <a href="http://www.mitchellinstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Education-data_harnessing-the-potential.pdf">what data is collected</a>.</p>
<p>This means we cannot always track the impact of policy and practice changes, nor can we answer crucial questions surrounding “what works, for whom, and in what circumstances?”. </p>
<p>This inhibits our ability to <a href="http://www.mitchellinstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Education-data_harnessing-the-potential.pdf">make informed decisions</a> about where to target investment to maximise impact.</p>
<p>We are also not making the best use of the data we have. While we collect a lot of data, it is often not available to schools, the community or researchers. </p>
<p>Government departments, who are custodians of a great deal of Australian education data, can be reluctant to share data (with other parts or levels of government, and with educators and the community) if the results might highlight problems. </p>
<p>Some data custodians experience technical issues in making their data easy to access – for example, if they are still running paper-based systems or older-style databases that have limited functionality.</p>
<p>There have also been challenges with privacy legislation – for example with families not being asked to provide consent for their data to be used for research and analysis when they provide information.</p>
<h2>What do we not have data on?</h2>
<p>Some of the questions that we simply don’t have accurate answers for include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Does early childhood education improve high school graduation rates in Australia (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/455670/RB455_Effective_pre-school_primary_and_secondary_education_project.pdf.pdf">like it has in other countries</a>)? </p></li>
<li><p>How many three year olds attend pre-school and for how many hours a week?</p></li>
<li><p>What are the best ways to <a href="http://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/937-Widening-gaps-technical-report.pdf">reduce the impact of socio-economic</a> status on children’s educational opportunities?</p></li>
<li><p>How do children progress from early education through schooling and tertiary education and into the workforce?</p></li>
<li><p>How are students with disabilities progressing through their education?</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What is the Productivity Commission recommending?</h2>
<p>The Productivity Commission just released its <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/education-evidence/draft/education-evidence-draft.pdf">draft report</a> discussing how to improve education outcomes in schools. </p>
<p>Among other things, the report says we need to make sure education data is easier to access, more transparent, and shared more effectively. </p>
<p>The Productivity Commission makes a number of recommendations for how to achieve this, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Establishing a national coordinating body to ensure high-quality research addresses national priorities, similar to models operating in <a href="https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/">other countries</a>, like the UK’s Education Endowment Foundation.</p></li>
<li><p>Considering <a href="http://www.equalmeasure.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ELN-II-Final-Report-rev.-10.26.pdf">individual student identifiers</a>, a unique reference number for each student, so we can better understand young people’s educational journeys, from early education through to post-tertiary pathways.</p></li>
<li><p>Ensuring privacy legislation is consistent between the states and territories and making de-identified (anonymous) data accessible to researchers.</p></li>
<li><p>Adding new cohorts to the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children at regular intervals, to provide rich data on the experience of Australian <a href="http://growingupinaustralia.gov.au/pubs/asr/2014/index.html">children and young people</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>Including both early childhood education and school education in the national education evidence base, rather than treating them as unrelated sectors and prioritising school education over early education. </p></li>
<li><p>Developing a coherent strategic agenda for research into early childhood and school education, so our investment in research answers the questions that are important to better education policy and practice. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What has the report missed?</h2>
<p>Researchers aren’t the only people who benefit from access to education data. Data should be accessible to all.</p>
<p>Early childhood education providers and schools benefit from knowing the <a href="http://www.mitchellinstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/The_shared_work_of_learning_lifting_educational_achievement_through_collaboration.pdf">academic outcomes of children in their community</a>. And families and communities benefit from accessing information on the <a href="http://www.acara.edu.au/_resources/20150304_Perspectives_on_the_My_School_Website.pdf">effectiveness of our education system</a>. </p>
<p>High impact data collections, such as the <a href="https://www.aedc.gov.au/">Australian Early Development Census</a> have had a significant impact on addressing local issues. </p>
<p>Putting data into the hands of the community has <a href="http://www.aedc.gov.au/resources/community-stories">catalysed collaboration</a> between early childhood educators, local primary schools, and health, wellbeing and family support services to address the most important issues for children in their local area. </p>
<h2>Improve sharing of collected data</h2>
<p>The draft report suggests the <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/education-evidence/issues/education-evidence-issues.pdf">cost of improving data quality</a> might outweigh the benefits.</p>
<p>But open and accessible data is a core requirement for monitoring the ongoing <a href="http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/335168/better_systems_better_chances_review.pdf">impact and long-term outcomes</a> of policy and investment decisions. </p>
<p>This is particularly important in early childhood education and care. The lack of quality data means we cannot track the impact of important policy reforms, like <a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/dae-department_of_education_ecec_collection_review_final_07-09-2015_2.pdf">universal access</a>) to preschool for four year olds. </p>
<p>Ongoing monitoring of impact – at school, regional, state and national levels – remains critical, even once there is high quality research.</p>
<h2>Why we need a national coordinating body for education research</h2>
<p>The Productivity Commission report shows that we spent more than five billion dollars on health research in 2013-14, but <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/education-evidence/draft/education-evidence-draft.pdf">less than half a billion</a> on education research.</p>
<p>As a result, we don’t have enough education research to answer the most pressing questions. </p>
<p>Existing Australian education research often doesn’t use the sorts of methods that can show cause and effect, because measuring impact costs more.</p>
<p>And without a national strategic research agenda, we rely on what individual researchers are able to get funding for – which is neither efficient nor sufficient for a highly effective education system.</p>
<p>The national body recommended by the Productivity Commission would have responsibility for a strategic research agenda. </p>
<p>It should also have a focus on driving improvements in the quality of data collected in all education sectors and across states and territories; and on making that data available and accessible to families, educators, communities and researchers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Education policy in Australia is being held back by a lack of data.Stacey Fox, Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria UniversityMegan O'Connell, Policy Program Director, Mitchell Institute, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/606802016-09-08T08:48:23Z2016-09-08T08:48:23ZWhy urban myths about education are so persistent – and how to tackle them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135659/original/image-20160826-17851-1k8uac9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Old school. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vladislav Gajic/www.shutterstock.om</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As children across England and Wales go back to school, it’s worrying to think that in many classrooms, teachers will be starting the new term believing in teaching “methods” that have been debunked by research evidence. </p>
<p>One of the most persistent “edumyths” is learning styles – the idea that there are a number of styles of learning, such as visual, aural or kinaesthetic – and that certain children respond better if teaching is directed towards their preferred learning style.</p>
<p>Learning styles have been far too easily accepted by some schools and teachers despite the <a href="https://theconversation.com/seven-great-teaching-methods-not-backed-up-by-evidence-33647">lack of evidence</a> of their effectiveness. The prevalence of references to learning styles in School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) programmes from <a href="http://www.durhamscitt.co.uk/page12.html">Durham</a>, to <a href="http://thamesmeadscitt.co.uk/current-courses/3809275">Surrey</a> and <a href="http://www.cornwallscitt.org/subjects/english/">Cornwall</a> shows how ingrained the concept still is. Despite learning styles being debunked, the concept still forms part of the formal school-based training of a number of teachers across a number of subjects.</p>
<p>So why, in the face of such damning evidence, are edumyths still accepted and used by schools and teachers?</p>
<h2>Cat out of the bag</h2>
<p>A simple <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=%22learning+styles%22">Google search for “learning styles”</a> reveals 5.9m links. Many websites are devoted to it alongside other related educational “approaches” and variations on the theme. Sites provide <a href="http://www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/testimonials.php">“testimonials” of effectiveness</a>, but very few provide any solid peer reviewed evidence to back this up. </p>
<p>Studies from the fields of <a href="http://psi.sagepub.com/content/9/3/105.short">psychology</a> and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22691144">medical education</a> have shown the futility of learning styles as an effective teaching approach. A <a href="http://sxills.nl/lerenlerennu/bronnen/Learning%20styles%20by%20Coffield%20e.a..pdf">systematic and critical review of learning styles</a> catalogued 71 different learning styles models, 13 of which were identified as “major models”. Suffice it to say that, as education scholars Myron Dembo and Keith Howard concluded <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10790195.2007.10850200">in a 2007 paper</a> on the use of learning styles in education:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Learning style instruments have not been shown to be valid and reliable, there is no benefit to matching instruction to preferred learning style, and there is no evidence that understanding one’s learning style improves learning and its related outcomes.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Spread of education learning myths</h2>
<p>From the ubiquitous <a href="http://www.skepdic.com/braingym.html">Brain Gym</a> that flourished in schools in the late 1980s and early 90s, to the idea that some people use one <a href="http://www.livescience.com/39373-left-brain-right-brain-myth.html">side of their brain more than the other</a>, or the “fact” that <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-people-only-use-10-percent-of-their-brains/">we only use 10% of our brain</a>, exactly how these myths spread is a complex and difficult to understand process.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137034/original/image-20160908-25249-9n6ckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137034/original/image-20160908-25249-9n6ckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137034/original/image-20160908-25249-9n6ckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137034/original/image-20160908-25249-9n6ckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137034/original/image-20160908-25249-9n6ckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137034/original/image-20160908-25249-9n6ckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137034/original/image-20160908-25249-9n6ckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who is to blame?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monkey Business Images/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The blame has been laid at the door of university initial teacher training courses, as well as commercial companies, individual “education consultants” and some teachers. Even the Department for Education (DfE) <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9330113/Top-graduates-to-get-25000-to-teach-in-tough-schools.html">peddled the view that universities promoted “useless” theories in teaching and learning</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, a survey by the Wellcome Trust, reported by the charity <a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org/blog.php/77/neuromyths-and-why-they-persist-in-the-classroom">Sense about Science</a> showed that teachers were not getting learning styles predominantly from their university teacher training. Instead, they:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Commonly come across neuromyth-based methods by word-of-mouth – from their institutions (53%), individual colleagues (41%), and from training providers (30%), who are often linked to those promoting neuromyths.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Are myths necessary?</h2>
<p>Myths quite often have some basis in reality. For learning styles, there’s no doubt that people will report a preference for how they learn, but this does not mean they learn better using that “style”. Learning styles also gain traction in the education community because of a general conflation with a push to deliver content in the classroom in a variety of ways. How information is presented to children needs to be varied, if only to stop boredom kicking in. The best teachers have a variety of approaches that mix and match the best learning experiences for their children.</p>
<p>Variety in how information is presented and ideas are explored is not a bad thing. The problem is that this can also lead inadvertently to providing evidence that the idea being used, far from being a myth, actually works. On many occasions I have had teachers tell me that learning styles work, regardless of what the research evidence says. At this point, it’s worth remembering <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/12510632">the Hawthorne effect</a>: simply doing something different can have an effect and that effect can be a positive one, but the effect may not be real.</p>
<h2>Training is key</h2>
<p>The way to tackle edumyths surely must be to provide teachers with the evidence and show them that the idea they accept as true is actually a myth. If only it were that simple. The social psychologist <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/sites/780/docs/05_jcr_skurnik_et_al_warnings.pdf">Norbert Schwartz and his colleagues</a> showed that often, when presented with compelling evidence that certain statements were false, people often mis-remembered the false statement as being true.</p>
<p>The move to <a href="https://theconversation.com/counting-the-costs-of-moving-teacher-training-out-of-universities-23157">sideline or even remove universities</a> from initial teacher education and increase school-based teacher training programmes may have the opposite effect to that hoped for by the DfE. Instead of edumyths and “useless” theories dying out, they might become more prominent and even more difficult to remove from teaching. Once misconceptions are implanted, they are very difficult to remove. If teacher education shifts further towards a school-based model of delivery, the potential for implanting misconceptions increases exponentially.</p>
<p>Teachers need two things to improve their practice and eliminate what doesn’t work in favour of what does. First, training in how to look beyond the attractive yet empty claims of the peddlers of educational snake oil and second, time to undertake effective professional on-the-job training that has been shown to be both reliable, rigorous and effective.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A body of evidence has debunked the concept of ‘learning styles’, but some teachers still cling to it.James Williams, Lecturer in Science Education, Sussex School of Education and Social Work, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398862015-04-13T05:31:09Z2015-04-13T05:31:09ZWhat evidence do MPs turn to when they make policy?<p>MPs value the views of constituents and expert opinion more highly than evidence from randomised controlled trials, <a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/what-do-mps-think-of-rcts.html">a new survey</a> has found. However, the majority of the 104 Labour and Conservative MPs from the previous parliament who were questioned support the idea of using randomised controlled trials to evaluate policies and don’t believe they are too expensive.</p>
<p>The survey, conducted by <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/">Ipsos MORI</a> and the charitable trust <a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org/">Sense about Science</a>, also found that MPs were more inclined to act on their own principles than on the results of randomised controlled trials, which involve testing new interventions on a randomly selected group of people and comparing that with a control group of people who get the usual intervention. </p>
<p>Interestingly, the survey found that the views of experts and the opinions of constituents trumped those of practitioners, such as teachers or doctors. It also found that MPs give very little weight to the views of journalists.</p>
<p>There are signs that a lot of MPs harbour some erroneous misgivings about randomised controlled trials, suggesting a widespread lack of understanding of how the trials work and how they might be used to test the effectiveness of policies.</p>
<p>Many thought it unfair that some people would be randomly assigned to not receive the policy being investigated – 35% believed this, including 26% of the 74 MPs who supported the use of the trials. But this is a fundamental principle, and a strength, of this kind of trial. </p>
<p>The MPs quizzed were roughly as supportive of pilot schemes without a comparison group as they were for randomised controlled trials by 67% to 64%, misunderstanding the value that the addition of a randomly selected control group can bring. </p>
<p>Pilot studies also contain an aspect of “unfairness”, for people in areas where the scheme is not piloted. But pilot studies do not have the added benefit of collecting data in those areas to provide a comparison, generating stronger evidence as to whether a policy is effective. </p>
<p>Each word in the name RCT is important. Randomisation of the trial’s subjects mean that, in a health trial for example, there’s less chance of the sickest people being all in one group and warping the findings. Controlled studies compare the new treatment to a baseline group where the usual treatment is given to check whether there’s a real difference between the two. And they are a trial, rather than just implementing a new treatment without testing it first.</p>
<h2>What’s important for MPs</h2>
<p>The survey also highlighted the difference between where politicians think they should look for evidence when making policy decisions, and what evidence they have actually used to justify the decisions they’ve made in the past. Randomised controlled trials were rated as less important than uncontrolled pilot trials in both instances. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77639/original/image-20150410-2122-y4oqtz.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77639/original/image-20150410-2122-y4oqtz.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77639/original/image-20150410-2122-y4oqtz.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77639/original/image-20150410-2122-y4oqtz.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77639/original/image-20150410-2122-y4oqtz.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77639/original/image-20150410-2122-y4oqtz.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77639/original/image-20150410-2122-y4oqtz.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77639/original/image-20150410-2122-y4oqtz.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">MPs put more trust in their own principles than RCTs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ipsos MORI</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Evidence from experts was voted top of what politicians felt they should consider, but this was beaten by “the views of constituents” when they were asked what they have used to justify a policy in the past. In both instances, the MPs’ own principles were rated much higher than evidence from RCTs.</p>
<p>Political decisions will rarely be based on evidence alone. And it should absolutely be the case that politicians want to listen to their constituents and act accordingly. But where the impact of a potential policy change is not known, testing this out before it is widely implemented can save money long-term, and make sure only policies likely to be effective are implemented.</p>
<p>Although the background of the MPs surveyed is not reported, an interest in and understanding of science is somewhat lacking in the corridors of power. In 2010, the Campaign for Science and Engineering compiled <a href="http://sciencecampaign.org.uk/?page_id=1543">a list</a> of MPs with an interest or background in science, and it equated to roughly 10% of MPs in parliament at that time. The implication here is that the other 90% have little or no interest in science whatsoever, let alone a scientific background or understanding of its methods.</p>
<h2>Randomised trials gaining ground</h2>
<p>In medicine it seems obvious to test treatments before rolling them out, and there is a move to apply such techniques to policy too, aided by RCTs. In 2013, the then secretary of state for education, Michael Gove, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/mar/18/teaching-research-michael-gove">enlisted the help</a> of epidemiologist Ben Goldacre to help bring a strong evidence base to educational policy. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/about-us">Behavioural Insights Team</a> work with the government to design and test policies or interventions, and along with Goldacre and David Torgerson have authored a policy paper called <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/test-learn-adapt-developing-public-policy-with-randomised-controlled-trials">Test, Learn, Adapt</a>, instructing how to run trials for policy.</p>
<p>The Behavioural Insights Team have already used randomised controlled trials to investigate the effectiveness of a number of policy changes or interventions. One such trial showed that a small change to a government website led to <a href="http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/publications/applying-behavioural-insights-organ-donation">increases in organ donation</a> sign-up. </p>
<p>A government-backed charity called the <a href="https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/index.php/news/teaching-assistants-can-improve-numeracy-and-literacy-when-used-effectively/?hc_location=ufi">Educational Endowment Foundation</a> have used randomised trials to show that <a href="https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/index.php/news/teaching-assistants-can-improve-numeracy-and-literacy-when-used-effectively/?hc_location=ufi">teaching assistants can improve numeracy and literacy</a> when used effectively, which had been doubted after evidence from earlier largely non-randomised research. Goldacre has himself said that if anyone wants to help bring RCTs to policymaking, he will “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/mar/18/teaching-research-michael-gove">stand on the barricades</a>” with them. </p>
<p>The results of this new survey suggest MPs would be receptive to this. Rather than smirking at politicians’ failure to grasp the complexities of scientific trials, researchers need to explain their importance, design and limitations. Randomised controlled trials have changed medicine for the better, and if done properly can do the same for the way policies are developed. </p>
<p>MPs don’t need a scientific background to value evidence-based policy, but if they need help understanding how to get the strongest evidence, we should provide it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39886/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzi Gage does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new survey has found MPs are largely in favour of randomised controlled trials, even if they don’t understand why.Suzi Gage, Postdoctoral research associate, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385582015-03-10T17:09:45Z2015-03-10T17:09:45ZIn the age of inequality, we must rethink the education status quo<p>A new generation is starting their working life in an age of inequality. The income of 22 to 30-year-olds is projected to be 7.6% lower in 2014-15 than it was in 2007-8, according to new analysis of median incomes from the <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7616">Institute for Fiscal Studies</a>. But they estimate incomes will be 2.5% lower for those aged 31 to 59. And now messages about the problems of inequality from the spheres of <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=41291">global finance</a> and <a href="http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/secular-stagnation-now">economics</a> are converging on a similar path. </p>
<p>There has been a recognition among many prominent financial organisations, institutions and economists that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-inherent-vice-of-capitalism-underpins-the-value-of-piketty-27249">unrestrained capitalism</a> is the source of the world’s widening economic inequality. Resolution lies in a fairer distribution of material and cultural resources among the less well-off in society.</p>
<p>For some time, researchers have <a href="http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book203162">recognised</a> how education systems sustain and reproduce these material and culture inequalities. In a blog post last year on the educational entitlement of troubled and troublesome young people for the British Educational Research Association’s (BERA) project <a href="https://www.bera.ac.uk/project/respecting-children-learning-from-the-past-redesigning-the-future">Respecting Children and Young People</a>, education researcher <a href="https://berarespectingchildren.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/ensuring-and-assuring-an-educational-entitlement-for-the-hard-to-reach-and-teach/">Pat Thomson</a> claimed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Educational researchers, many now derided and dismissed out of hand, have systematically documented how particular curriculum, pedagogies and assessment practices combine with the administrative processes of schooling to produce and reproduce both educational privilege and disadvantage. The same system leads to both success and failure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://berarespectingchildren.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/social-justice-and-evidence-based-education/">Derision of messages</a> from educational researchers by politicians such as the former education secretary <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2298146/I-refuse-surrender-Marxist-teachers-hell-bent-destroying-schools-Education-Secretary-berates-new-enemies-promise-opposing-plans.html">Michael Gove</a> seem symptomatic of a deeper malaise in public life. </p>
<p>This expresses itself as a refusal to acknowledge that the business-as-usual educational policies of government are not going to heal the widening divisions between the privileged and disadvantaged. </p>
<h2>Options on the table would change little</h2>
<p>The proposed solutions to inequality in post-financial crisis educational policy are a continuance of the policies before the crisis. While they might argue about the details, the major political parties were and still are advocating for increased private involvement in state-funded education, and teaching and curricula driven by assessment. </p>
<p>Privatisation and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02680939.2012.710016#.VPyCiY5wZq0">teaching to the test</a> are both practices that we know are more likely to increase rather than decrease social divisions. Of the five highest polling political parties in the UK, only the <a href="http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ed.html">Green Party openly proposes</a> to reintegrate free schools and academies into the local authority maintained system to stem the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02671522.2014.885726#.VPyB2I5wZq0">social fragmentation with which they are linked</a>. </p>
<p>While all the UK’s political parties claim to be committed to reducing widening inequalities, solutions to inequality differ because the aims of education differ from different political standpoints. Standford historian <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/%7Edlabaree/publications/Public_Goods_Private_Goods.pdf">David Larabee’s</a> 1997 work on disputed goals of American publicly funded education helps explain this. Differing political stances might claim to stand for equality, but many merely co-opt its terminology, with the intention of either creating a conservative society where everyone knows their place or providing ladders of social mobility for a privileged few.</p>
<p>If we want a society that promotes “democratic equality”, using Larabee’s term, then we need to <a href="https://berarespectingchildren.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/socially-just-education/">construct an education system</a> that prepares children and young people to participate in that democracy.</p>
<h2>Blueprint for a restructure</h2>
<p>A group of British educational researchers have<a href="https://www.bera.ac.uk/project/respecting-children-learning-from-the-past-redesigning-the-future"> published a new pamphlet</a>, pulling together evidence from a vast body of research on how to reconstruct our education system based upon principles of equality of opportunity and outcome.</p>
<p>Our formal education institutions, such as schools, colleges and universities, <a href="https://berarespectingchildren.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/schools-society-and-social-justice/">cannot solve</a> the problems of an unequal world on their own. A fair and equal education system must work on many fronts. Within formal education, teachers need to understand and recognise how inequalities of race, ethnicity, gender, class and <a href="https://theconversation.com/teachers-show-bias-to-pupils-who-share-their-personality-38018">fixed ideas about ability</a> are perpetuated through their own classroom practices. </p>
<p>Yet, to achieve anything other than ad hoc improvements in teaching, there needs to be system-wide support for change. This should include <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02680939.2012.710016#.VPyCiY5wZq0">redistribution of funding</a> to the most disadvantaged schools and better support for <a href="https://www.bera.ac.uk/project/research-and-teacher-education">teacher’s professional development</a>. </p>
<p>The curriculum must be equally interesting, enriching and challenging for all pupils. A national curriculum that is embedded through extended schools and services in the places and communities in which children and young people live provides the opportunity to <a href="https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/reports/rsa_abc_peterborough_independent_evaluation.pdf">create joined-up</a> and <a href="https://berarespectingchildren.wordpress.com/2014/07/02/childrens-zones-childrens-communities/">transformative educational experiences</a>. </p>
<p>Through our teaching, curriculum and assessments we can do more to build and recognise children and young people’s social and cultural capital: their non-financial resources such as qualifications, interests, understanding and social contacts. </p>
<p>We must also recognise and support meaningful learning that occurs outside of the authorised pathways to employment. This should support <a href="https://www.bera.ac.uk/project/early-years-policy-advice">early childhood education</a> in all its settings, support work-based and <a href="https://berarespectingchildren.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/can-renewed-interest-in-vocational-education-and-training-lead-to-its-revitalisation/">vocational learning</a>, and bring in <a href="https://berarespectingchildren.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/respecting-young-peoples-informal-learning/">informal learning</a> and out-of-school activities. Support for a broad spectrum of educational experiences must extend to society’s beliefs about success, so that children and young people are valued for their effort and long-term achievements as well as their attainment in tests and exams.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Boyask is a convenor of the British Educational Research Association's Social Justice Special Interest Group. </span></em></p>Business as usual in education is not going to heal the widening divisions between the privileged and disadvantaged.Ruth Boyask, Lecturer in Education Studies, University of PlymouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/376672015-02-19T06:13:12Z2015-02-19T06:13:12ZHow school teachers could become the foot soldiers of education research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72355/original/image-20150218-20793-1at6oxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Let's experiment. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Students and teacher via Money Business Images/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Educational strategies and new interventions are being evaluated like never before as emphasis is increasingly put on finding out <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-teaching-great-33858">“what works”</a> in teaching. Many of these studies are randomised controlled trials – meaning children have to be separated into different groups so that the impact of one specific programme or teaching method can be evaluated against their peers who didn’t experience it. </p>
<p>In the past, much of this kind of research has been done by external academics and education researchers. But as demand increases for results, can teachers do this for themselves?</p>
<h2>Boosting literacy</h2>
<p>We have recently analysed the way that trials of two literacy programmes, funded by the Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF) charity in England, were carried out. Both involved pupils in the process of moving from primary to secondary school, who were below expected literacy levels.</p>
<p>One <a href="http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects/accelerated-reader/">was a study</a> of Accelerated Reader – a software-based programme to encourage reading – which found that the pupils on the programme made around three months extra progress in literacy compared to a randomised comparison group from the same schools. Another looked at <a href="http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects/fresh-start/">Fresh Start</a> – a phonics system for poor readers – and also found that the participating pupils made around three months extra progress. </p>
<p>This is good news, but not in itself that remarkable. Many planned interventions turn out not to work when tested, while some will be more promising. What is remarkable is that in both cases the intervention was handled by the schools alone – and evaluation was done at least partly by the schools. </p>
<h2>Pooling resources</h2>
<p>Several schools had independently applied for funding to the EEF to conduct one of these two interventions. Each application was deemed too small in scale by itself, but if the schools involved in each programme were to co-operate and bring in a few more schools then the scale would be sufficient for two aggregated trials. Each trial would assess the impact of its programme, and also help inform whether schools can run their own robust evaluations. </p>
<p>If they can then the general quality of available evidence in education could improve. The cost of robust evaluations could be reduced, making them more feasible across a range of situations. And, perhaps most promisingly, a series of large, ongoing, almost automatic trials could be conducted nationally, similar to those espoused by doctor and writer <a href="http://www.badscience.net/books/bad-pharma/">Ben Goldacre</a> for GP treatments. </p>
<h2>Training the teachers</h2>
<p>Because this was a new idea, the funders appointed Durham University as independent evaluators and guides for both trials. Our role was to advise the school research leads on the process of conducting research, randomisation and testing, and to aggregate the eventual results from all the schools involved. We provided workshops for the schools on the conduct of a trial, how to randomise and how to avoid bias. Schools were also trained in how to analyse and interpret the results. </p>
<p>Schools were surprised to learn how many ways there are to accommodate randomised control trials within normal school life. One of the school research leads involved explained to us that, before the training, they would have thought the priorities needed in a research trial could be a barrier to a school timetable and organising classes. But they then learnt procedures and designs that would be helpful when introducing any further new ideas to the school. </p>
<p>Catch-up interventions often require individual or small-group work, so they are not always suitable for schools to implement across a full cohort of pupils at the same time.</p>
<p>Cue the waiting-list design, which schools had never thought of. If half of the pupils are randomly allocated to the intervention for the first term, and the other half receive the intervention in the second term using the resources now freed up from the first half, then their relative progress at the end of the first term provides an unbiased estimate of its impact. All the pupils get exactly the same treatment, for the same amount of time, but just at different periods in the year. It’s easy, ethical and similar to what schools often already do with resources. </p>
<h2>Advantages of school-led trials</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72356/original/image-20150218-20778-abm6i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72356/original/image-20150218-20778-abm6i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72356/original/image-20150218-20778-abm6i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72356/original/image-20150218-20778-abm6i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72356/original/image-20150218-20778-abm6i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72356/original/image-20150218-20778-abm6i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72356/original/image-20150218-20778-abm6i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ready to be a foot soldier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toy soldier via kai keisuke/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course there are important cautions, which we will discuss more carefully in the future. But schools are reasonably good at implementing new methods – and all appeared to follow the programmes well. Getting permission to innovate was easier than it would have been for an external agency. Schools were also generally good at monitoring attendance and progress. During school visits we observed that the teachers always had in-depth data on pupils’ performance. Teachers were using this to make decisions such as what level of intervention should be introduced to pupils and when to proceed to the next level. </p>
<p>Their involvement meant that pupil drop-out was low in both trials. By giving responsibility for the trials to the teachers, there was no direct involvement from the developer of each programme. This is an advantage because there was no external pressure on the schools to find the interventions beneficial, as usually happens. </p>
<p>In addition, the training helped build the capacity of teachers in reading and critiquing research claims more widely. Teachers routinely make decisions on the basis of pupils’ performances. That’s partly why we need teachers to be research consumers, able to interpret results with appropriate levels of critical skill.</p>
<p>If conducting such research was seen as a part of schools’ regular function then the overall cost of research could go down. It may even be possible to create some nationwide ongoing trials with all willing schools contributing to a growing on-line database. </p>
<hr>
<p>Next read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-important-education-research-often-gets-ignored-33040">Why important education research often gets ignored </a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Gorard received funding from the EEF to conduct the work described here. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nadia Siddiqui is currently conducting research funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the Educational Endowment Foundation, and the National Literacy Trust. </span></em></p>Educational strategies and new interventions are being evaluated like never before as emphasis is increasingly put on finding out “what works” in teaching. Many of these studies are randomised controlled…Stephen Gorard, Professor of Education and Public Policy, Durham UniversityNadia Siddiqui, Research Associate in the School of Education, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/329942014-10-31T09:40:52Z2014-10-31T09:40:52ZMaking sense of the evidence on charter school test scores<p>Imagine a police officer pulls you over and tickets you for speeding. She tells you she measured you going 50.5 MPH in a 50 MPH zone. No, you reply, my speedometer shows that I was going exactly 49.5. The entire discussion would be absurd, since neither your speedometer nor the officer’s radar gun is sufficiently accurate to support the opposing claims, and a 0.5 MPH difference is not practically meaningful.</p>
<p>Welcome to the world of debates about the effects of American charter schools on children’s test scores. This was all underscored last year when advocates of charter schools – which are publicly funded but independent – reacted to a high-profile study released by CREDO, a charter-friendly research unit connected to Stanford University. <a href="http://credo.stanford.edu/documents/NCSS%202013%20Final%20Draft.pdf">The study</a> showed great variation between different charter schools and between states. </p>
<p>The CREDO study also offered an overall national estimate showing students in charter schools scoring approximately 0.01 standard deviations higher on reading tests and 0.005 standard deviations lower on math tests than their peers in conventional public schools (the former being statistically significant; the latter not). These findings were, in fact, highly consistent with an <a href="http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Exploring-the-School-Choice-Universe">overall body of research</a> <a href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED510573.pdf">concluding</a> that the test-score outcomes of charter schools and public schools are almost identical.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding these pedestrian results as well as <a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-credo-2013">some limitations and problems with the study</a> itself, the results were seized upon by advocates and resulted in headlines such as, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-25/stanford-university-study-says-charter-schools-improved.html">Stanford Study Says Charter School Children Outperform</a> and <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/study-minority-poor-students-gain-charters">Study: Minority, poor students gain from charters</a>.</p>
<h2>Bangs for the buck</h2>
<p>Even more recently, the staunchly pro-charter <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/">Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas</a> attempted to shift the discussion to issues of productivity, arguing that charter outcomes look more impressive when we take inputs such as resources into account. In a report called <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/downloads/2014/07/the-productivity-of-public-charter-schools.pdf">The Productivity of Public Charter Schools</a> they put forward the contention that charter funding per child is relatively low compared to regular public schools, so the charter sector is more productive. </p>
<p>This report generated headlines such as: <a href="http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140724/PC1002/140729679">A bigger bang for school bucks</a> and <a href="http://www.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/sherman-frederick/charter-schools-more-bang-buck">Charter schools: More bang for the buck</a>. But huge problems undermined the Arkansas report’s figures for both <a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-charter-funding-inequity">financial inputs</a> into schools and <a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-productivity-public-charter">outputs</a> such as test scores.</p>
<p>This brings us right back to the speeding ticket. The lack of controlled laboratory conditions for this kind of research overwhelms attempts to isolate small differences that might be inherent in charter versus non-charter status. Since many school districts, for example, are called upon to provide services such as transportation to charter schools, any attempt to measure the resources put into the charter system in those jurisdictions should assign a cost to the school districts and a benefit to the charter schools. Yet the Arkansas report does the opposite.</p>
<p>Sensible estimates on school outputs, such as analyses of test scores, would attempt to compare like with like – comparing schools with similar demographics like poverty (measured by free lunch eligibility) or special-needs status – but the Arkansas report fails to do that too.</p>
<p>Even analyses that do try to control for such variables come up short, given that part of the variance is undoubtedly due to non-random but unmeasured factors – such as parental differences linked to motivation for seeking out a charter school.</p>
<h2>More variation between charters</h2>
<p>Some <a href="http://users.nber.org/%7Eschools/charterschoolseval/how_NYC_charter_schools_affect_achievement_sept2009.pdf">researchers</a> have <a href="http://example.com/">attempted to get around</a> these bias issues by studying charter schools that are over-enrolled and that use lotteries to select which students to admit. But these studies suffer from at least two limitations. </p>
<p>First, they only allow for studies of over-enrolled, popular charter schools, thus undermining the ability of the research findings to be generalized to the larger population that includes less popular charter schools. </p>
<p>Second, parents tend to wreak havoc on the control groups in such studies by continuing to seek out other options, whether they be other charters, selective public schools, or even private schools. In other words, it’s difficult to get a clear picture. </p>
<p>In any case, while researchers aspire to make sweeping conclusions that compare the charter sector to the traditional public school sector, the variation among schools of the same type swamps any differences between charter and public schools that we might be able to tease out. </p>
<p>This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Students learn when they have opportunities to learn, and the quality and quantity of those opportunities vary greatly among different charter schools and among different traditional public schools. Our own research at the National Education Policy Center suggests <a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/spending-major-charter">very large resource differences among charter schools</a>. This is in accord with longstanding research showing such <a href="http://www.schoolfundingfairness.org/National_Report_Card_2014.pdf">differences among traditional public schools</a>.</p>
<h2>Feeding research into policy</h2>
<p>None of this means research cannot help us understand charter schools. The fact that the studies that do exist find little overall difference between charters and non-charters is itself important. Even with the limitations of any given study, this finding has consistently held up. The entirely predictable finding of variations within the charter sector also helpfully points us to more useful areas of inquiry. For example, how do well-resourced charters use those extra resources to extend or enrich learning time? </p>
<p>Advocates use research as a tool, and charter school research is inextricably tied to charter school policy. For this reason and others, we can expect that the heated debate will continue even while more research continues. In the meantime, those in charge of education policy need to make decisions about whether to encourage the expansion (or contraction) of charter schools, whether they should be funded at higher (or lower) levels, and whether they should be subjected to regulation (or further deregulation). Keep a close eye on the speedometer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), which Kevin Welner directs, has received a grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies to study issues of access to charter schools. NEPC funding from the Ford Foundation and the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice has also at times been used to commission work related to charter schools.</span></em></p>Imagine a police officer pulls you over and tickets you for speeding. She tells you she measured you going 50.5 MPH in a 50 MPH zone. No, you reply, my speedometer shows that I was going exactly 49.5…Kevin Welner, Professor, Educational Foundations, Policy & Practice, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/330402014-10-16T15:25:55Z2014-10-16T15:25:55ZWhy important education research often gets ignored<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61840/original/39wry7wr-1413381513.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Not just for gathering dust. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?safesearch=1&search_type=keyword_search&extra_html=1&lang=en&language=en&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&utm_source=sstkimages&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=search&searchterm=dust%20book&show_color_wheel=1&media_type=images&page=1&sort_method=popular&inline=77299051">Man blowing dust via Luis Louro/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Teachers’ professional development is “fragmented, occasional and insufficiently informed by research”. These were the conclusions of a recent British Educational Research Association (BERA) and Royal Society of Arts <a href="https://www.bera.ac.uk/project/research-and-teacher-education">inquiry into the issue</a> in the UK. It also found that the most effective teachers were those who used research in their teaching. </p>
<p>It will come as no surprise then that this report is likely to be ignored, like much of the research available to teachers. As a member of the reference group to the inquiry, I tried to explain the reason for the limited take-up of even the best educational research, and drew on an argument put forward by <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Revolt_of_the_Elites_and_the_Betraya.html?id=HG6xWenYZXwC&redir_esc=y">American historian Christopher Lasch</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What democracy requires is vigorous public debate, not information. Of course, it needs information too, but the kind of information it needs can be generated only by debate … When we get into arguments that focus and fully engage our attention, we become avid seekers of relevant information. Otherwise we take in information passively – if we take it in at all.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We can replace “information” with “research” here and argue that educational researchers put the cart before the horse. Get into debate and relevant research will follow and be taken up. I was told that the BERA research would be a cataylst for debates among educators and politicians. Time will tell whether this is right, but in the period since the report came out there has been little debate.</p>
<h2>Debunking ‘learning styles’</h2>
<p>Here are two examples of good educational research that is ignored and why. The first is the 2004 Coffield Report <a href="http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/LSRC_LearningStyles.pdf">into learning styles</a>. Frank Coffield at the Insitute of Education and colleagues examined the research into the 13 most popular learning styles, including for <a href="http://sxills.nl/lerenlerennu/bronnen/Learning%20styles%20by%20Coffield%20e.a..pdf">post-16 learning</a>. They showed the idea of learning styles to be conceptually confused; not one of the models they reviewed passed all of the “good test” criteria of reliability and validity. They also had no effect on teaching. </p>
<p>All pretty damning and you would have thought that, on the basis of this research, the idea of children and young people having identifiable “learning styles” would have passed into the dustbin of intellectual history. But since Coffield’s report came out, “learning styles” have gone from strength to strength. Schools happily label their pupils as “concrete” or “kinaesthetic learners”. As early as a year after the report they were held to be the <a href="http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=2153773">cornerstone</a> of good teaching and were widely used by schools inspectorate Ofsted to the annoyance of <a href="http://www.researched2013.co.uk/why-are-we-still-talking-about-learning-styles/">those</a> who knew of their weaknesses. Many students even come to university seemingly stuck with the idea that they can only learn in one way.</p>
<p>Behind this lies an idea that comes from the wider political world: that ordinary people are limited in many ways. The educational version of this is that children and young people have restricted potential so need to be taught via a particular “learning style”. In reality, students can adapt to a many “learning styles” depending on what subject they are studying, and one of the many things Coffield criticised was the abstraction of “learning styles” from subjects. </p>
<h2>How not to create critical thinkers</h2>
<p>The second example comes from a <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo10327226.html">rigorous 2011 study</a> by American sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa on the ways college students learn. They found that at least 45% of the students they surveyed did not demonstrate any significant improvement in their ability to think critically during their first two years of college. Although these students went on to graduate, they failed to develop the critical thinking and complex reasoning expected from being at university. This does not mean, however, that students need courses in “<a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-stop-trying-to-teach-students-critical-thinking-30321">critical thinking</a>.” </p>
<p>Arum and Roksa identified the reason: the students did less academic work. They also engaged in a lot of social activities, including studying with their peers, something that the findings show had either “no consequences or negative consequences for learning”. Undertaking “projects” and entertaining “active learning” techniques had no impact on learning. </p>
<p>These results challenge the current direction of university education with its focus on varied forms of learning and development of the student experience. The message from their research was that if we want students to do well they must have a more academically demanding curriculum. Arum and Roksa even quantify what this means: students must read more than 40 pages a week and write more than 20 pages a semester.</p>
<h2>Demands to be non-demanding</h2>
<p>This doesn’t sound too demanding to me. But there was no widespread discussion of this aspect of their findings. Instead, universities in the US and UK have taken up the notion of the “student experience”, something criticised in Arum and Roksa’s new <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo19088566.html">book</a>. Since the book was published even more varied forms of group, blog-based and online learning have been introduced globally, the most hyped of which are <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/three_cheers_for_the_mickey_moocs_university/13988#.VD_gjqFwbcs">Massive Open Online Courses</a>. </p>
<p>The reason is the dominance of anti-intellectual culture in wider society. The education version of this is all sorts of therapeutic activities at university from counselling and stress-busting sessions to courses such as the one at the London School of Economics about “<a href="https://apps.lse.ac.uk/training-system/userBooking/course/177219">Overcoming Perfectionism</a>”. </p>
<p>This dominance also exists in the daily interactions between students and staff which are too nice and intellectually non-threatening. All of this creates students who don’t expect demanding work that might upset their beliefs, ideas and assumptions and staff who are so “student-centered” they would never think of setting it.</p>
<h2>Some research getting through</h2>
<p>While much good research is being ignored, some challenging theoretical work is receiving attention in some quarters. An example is a book by the Institute of Education’s Michael Young, <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bringing_Knowledge_Back_in.html?id=T0e99eEuuF4C">Bringing Knowledge Back In</a>. He makes the case for “powerful knowledge” in the curriculum and the need to teach all children, particularly working class and disadvantaged children, a subject-based curriculum. He continues to debate and discuss his ideas outside of the narrow sociological world. </p>
<p>Young regularly addresses trade unionists, think tanks and groups of teachers to present his ideas and arguments. His work is having real impact on educational thought because of this. In some schools, such as Pimlico Academy in London, he is helping to bring knowledge back in through participating in debates and staff development. </p>
<p>The message to academics and researchers is a simple one – they have to get out more and engage in public debate and discussion if they really want to find out what needs to be researched and thought about. If they do this, education research will contribute not only to education but to democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Teachers’ professional development is “fragmented, occasional and insufficiently informed by research”. These were the conclusions of a recent British Educational Research Association (BERA) and Royal…Dennis Hayes, Professor of Education, University of DerbyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/318232014-09-19T03:17:32Z2014-09-19T03:17:32ZTeaching is complex: don’t try to simplify what teachers do<p>Prominent educator Stephen Dinham <a href="http://austcolled.com.au/article/primary-schooling-australia-pseudo-science-plus-extras-times-growing-inequity-equals-decline">recently made some criticisms</a> of primary teaching, some of which I support, but some were too simplistic. His views on educational research and his criticisms of “process” versus product fail to acknowledge the complexity and nuances of developing skilled teaching.</p>
<h2>There are no “lab rats” in education research</h2>
<p>In the 1960s and ‘70s, educational research into effective teaching was dominated by neat “scientific”-looking approaches imported from other areas of research. To test the effect of an approach such as “discovery learning” (where students “discover” ideas and answers for themselves rather than being told by a teacher), a treatment group – where the teacher used discovery learning - would be compared with a control group. </p>
<p>Differences in context and differences in the ways the teachers interpreted and enacted the approach being researched were seen as sources of error to be controlled by careful matching of the two sample sets. This seems neat, but, by around the end of the 70s, more sensitive research showed that the group of teachers who said they were using “approach A” varied in what they were doing. </p>
<p>While these differences were often subtle, they were extremely important. Hence conclusions that began with words such as “discovery learning does/does not …” were often open to serious questioning. </p>
<p>Research shifted to explore the differences in what teachers were doing in ways that were more qualitative and ethnographic and that also reflected growing understandings of the subtly and complexity of skilled teaching. Dinham’s address does not reflect these crucial shifts in research on classrooms. </p>
<p>At one point, for example, Dinham argues for a “scientific” approach to education research that varies only one variable at a time and tests for the effect of this change. This works fine in science, but in classrooms different aspects of teaching are interdependent. It is often impossible to change one and assert that everything else was unchanged. </p>
<p>He also criticises teachers who experiment on their children with untested strategies. This is nonsense. Unlike medicine, there are no rats in education and any new approach must be tried with real students. </p>
<p>In fact, protocols for teacher quality specify that good teachers are regularly exploring ways of improving what they do. The rapid and constant growth of technology is an obvious area where teachers need to be experimenting constantly.</p>
<p>The above provides a context for Dinham’s repeated criticism of “discovery learning” as having been found by research to be less effective than other approaches. There are two problems here.</p>
<p>First, a term like this has a 50-year history and is now used in many different ways by different people. You need to specify which definition you are using. </p>
<p>Second, this is an example of an area where teaching has not stood still. In the '60s, when discovery learning appeared, with students working in groups at their own pace, often with hands-on materials, it was assumed that if students were interested in the activities (they commonly were), then they would also be engaging with the questions and ideas behind these. But research showed that typically the students were not even aware that these questions and ideas existed. </p>
<p>Discovery learning needed to be enriched by approaches where students learnt to think about why they were doing an activity and what could be learnt from it; they needed to learn how to learn more effectively – to become more metacognitive. I have worked with hundreds of primary teachers and report that the phrase “minds on not just hands on” is widely understood and supported. </p>
<h2>Learning how to learn is just as important as what you’re learning</h2>
<p>This leads me to my second problem with Dinham’s address. He criticises primary teachers for being unconcerned about any need to teach particular content, at least in subjects such as History or Science, and being more concerned with students being engaged in an active learning “process”. My current research is suggesting that, in Science, this can be true. However, Dinham trivialises “process” by failing to recognise that it is crucial to unpack how the students are learning.</p>
<p>He criticises a primary classroom where students were asked to research an aspect of Australian history by creating a digital animation of what they found. The teacher did not correct the students for having Captain Cook as leading the First Fleet when he was already dead at this time. </p>
<p>I agree that the teacher should have got the students to check their facts here, but the more important issue is the way the students were (or were not) processing and re-arranging information they had found. Were they merely drawing a pretty digital picture or were they reflecting on what was important in what they had read and thinking how to represent this? </p>
<p>This links back to whether or not the students had learnt how to learn – something Dinham derided. My (primary teacher) colleagues Jill Flack and Jo Osler spent years researching ways of improving the ways their students learn.</p>
<p>They were critical of just asking students to draw a picture about a book or story they had read; they might ask students to construct a “pictogram” where that picture had to reflect the key events and issues in the book. This required considerable analytical thought about what was important and then how to meaningfully represent this on one page. Superficially this might look like drawing a picture, but it required high levels of metacognition.</p>
<p>We need better structures to support and to learn from teachers who are experimenting with better ways of stimulating effective learning. To me, some of Dinham’s criticisms reflected thinking from earlier eras and were distant from much current good practice.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59339/original/7g68vmkv-1411001918.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59339/original/7g68vmkv-1411001918.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59339/original/7g68vmkv-1411001918.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59339/original/7g68vmkv-1411001918.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59339/original/7g68vmkv-1411001918.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59339/original/7g68vmkv-1411001918.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59339/original/7g68vmkv-1411001918.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59339/original/7g68vmkv-1411001918.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is a pictogram of a novel about convict transportation. As they read the book, the students made decisions about what was important in each chapter and how to represent this. For example they decided that the convicts being kept very close together in the bottom of the boat was important; they knew nothing about aspects of rigging and decided that the crow’s nest was important to include. The result is very dense because it reflects this metacognitive thinking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>On September 26 a quote in this article from Stephen Dinham’s paper about surveillance of teachers was removed as it misrepresented the position of the paper’s author.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31823/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Mitchell has received ARC grants in areas relevant to this article</span></em></p>Prominent educator Stephen Dinham recently made some criticisms of primary teaching, some of which I support, but some were too simplistic. His views on educational research and his criticisms of “process…Ian Mitchell, Senior lecturer, Faculty of Education., Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/288682014-08-04T10:13:15Z2014-08-04T10:13:15ZPhonics is not a fix-all drug that will get all children reading<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54250/original/tz5xqfbh-1405681497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Phonics is not the only way. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pearlsofjannah/2379288154/sizes/l">Pearls of Jannah</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How can there be such high profile disagreement about an issue as extensively researched and important as the teaching of reading to young children? In July, a group of teachers and phonics consultants <a href="http://news.tes.co.uk/b/opinion/2014/07/30/open-letter-to-nicky-morgan-39-why-the-year-1-phonics-check-must-stay-39.aspx">wrote to the Times Educational Supplement</a>, defending the Year One phonics check – a test given to all five year olds to examine their ability to decode unfamiliar words. This was in a response to <a href="http://news.tes.co.uk/b/opinion/2014/06/26/open-letter-to-michael-gove-why-the-y1-phonics-check-must-go.aspx">an earlier letter</a> from teachers, academics and representatives of teaching unions who had called for its abolition. </p>
<p>The reason for this disagreement lies not so much in the difficulty or inaccessibility of the research but in some widespread assumptions about the kind of evidence that should inform teaching. </p>
<p>The department for education <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-randomised-controlled-trials-will-drive-forward-evidence-based-research">currently promotes a model of “rigorous” educational research</a> that draws on the use of evidence to inform practice in other sectors, most notably medicine. But rather than helping to select the best possible educational methods, this search for evidence forces educational activity to follow the model of the medical “intervention”. </p>
<p>There are <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/2048-416X.2013.12000.x/abstract">many critics</a> of the department for education’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/phonics">guidance on teaching phonics</a>. None of them denies that some of the advice has a place in the early teaching of reading.</p>
<p>Teaching the regular “phonic” correspondence between letters or groups of letters and particular sounds, as well as the process of blending these sounds from left to right to form whole word units, has <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100526143644/http:/standards.dcsf.gov.uk/phonics/report.pdf">been acknowledged</a> as part of good educational practice. </p>
<p>But viewed as one of a range of approaches to learning to read, phonics cannot be pinpointed as a discrete “intervention”, and therefore as the “best” reading intervention from a range of options. </p>
<h2>Teachers go off script</h2>
<p>An intervention has distinct properties which can be reproduced across contexts. It can be given to one group and withheld from another – the core principle of the “control” in the randomised control trial. It has a beginning and an end so that its effects can be measured. The obvious example is a course of a drug, which has a particular quantity, regularity, and chemical composition. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55515/original/t6j6s64d-1406889574.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55515/original/t6j6s64d-1406889574.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55515/original/t6j6s64d-1406889574.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55515/original/t6j6s64d-1406889574.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55515/original/t6j6s64d-1406889574.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55515/original/t6j6s64d-1406889574.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55515/original/t6j6s64d-1406889574.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Education isn’t as simple as a course of drugs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-208307662/stock-photo-yellow-pills-pouring-out-of-the-brown-bottle.html?src=0a2P82AF5FuERgTK5+zcYQ-1-24">Pills by kamontad999/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>But the problem with transferring evidence-based practice to the educational context is that teachers do not teach through interventions. The interactions between teachers and pupils cannot be broken up into the kinds of discrete activities tested through a randomised control trial. </p>
<p>The only way an educational activity could be given to one group and withheld from another, have a beginning and an end so that its effects could be measured, and then be effectively reproduced, is if the activity could be restricted to a script or reduced to a resource (such as a book or a film). The teacher would have to stick heavily to the script in order for the intervention’s effects to be measured against those pupils who didn’t get taught that way. </p>
<p>But any teacher who has tried to follow a lesson plan knows that classroom interaction cannot be captured in scripted activity. A teacher’s duty to continually monitor the progress of students as they learn means they will be constantly be making decisions in the moment about how to re-phrase questions, encourage particular individuals in their learning, or make use of additional examples. They need to go off script.</p>
<h2>Too many eggs in one basket</h2>
<p>The government’s guidance on phonics is a case in point. It emphasises the introduction of the “first and fast” principle – that in the earliest stages, phonics is to be taught exclusively as the way children read. The introduction of other reading strategies, such as inferring the word from narrative context, or using other clues such as pictures, are determined to be counter-productive to the aim of developing phonic knowledge. </p>
<p>Schools are encouraged to select from a range of available commercial programmes, each of which adhere to core phonic principles set out by the department for education. The guidance implies these programmes will have most value if, like a course of antibiotics, they are seen through to completion without detrimental interaction with other programmes. </p>
<p>Building on this, the year one phonics check is designed – with its incorporation of nonsense-words and words out of meaningful context – to explicitly rule out the possibility that students are employing other strategies. </p>
<p>The result of this, as <a href="http://news.tes.co.uk/b/opinion/2014/06/26/open-letter-to-michael-gove-why-the-y1-phonics-check-must-go.aspx">the first open letter</a> claimed, is that the phonics check tests the application of the intervention rather than its intended result: literacy. </p>
<p>It is easy to see how interventions like these are attractive at a policy level – particularly for those who see widespread problems with poor literacy as an epidemic that governments should be able to cure. But the question remains whether evidence has supported the identification of the best method to teach reading, or whether the desire for an evidence-based solution has forced that solution to take on the character of an intervention. </p>
<p>I believe that teachers are rarely concerned with employing an intervention, far less the “best” one. They are more often concerned with judging how to go on with a particular student, or what to do with a particular student at a particular time. </p>
<p>This is not to say that a teacher’s practice and the learning of his or her students are not enriched through a career-long interaction with the educational research community, as found by a <a href="http://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/BERA-RSA-Research-Teaching-Profession-FULL-REPORT-for-web.pdf">recent enquiry</a>. </p>
<p>The department for education has a responsibility to ensure <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-still-dont-know-what-works-in-education-24382">education research is directed to areas of pressing concern</a> and that this research is made available to teachers. But, the result of identifying and endorsing particular interventions through policy, in the manner of the phonics check, is the homogenisation of teachers, students and their classroom situations. </p>
<p>This will come at the expense of teachers’ freedom to use their practical and professional wisdom to make informed decisions about the best ways to respond to the needs of individual students.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Aldridge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How can there be such high profile disagreement about an issue as extensively researched and important as the teaching of reading to young children? In July, a group of teachers and phonics consultants…David Aldridge, Principal Lecturer in Philosophy of Education, Oxford Brookes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.