Evidence-informed teaching : an evaluation of progress in England. Appendices. July 2017

Coldwell, Mike; Greany, Toby; Higgins, Steve; Brown, Chris; Maxwell, Bronwen; Stiell, Bernadette; Stoll, Louise; Willis, Ben; Burns, Helen

Abstract

In August 2014, The Department for Education (DfE) commissioned a two-year study to assess progress towards an evidence-informed teaching system. In this report, the term evidence-informed teaching is used to mean practice that is influenced by robust research evidence. Schools and teachers are referred to as more or less 'research-engaged' depending on the extent to which they support and undertake evidence-informed practice, specifically teaching. Evaluating evidence-informed teaching is complex and challenging, so a pragmatic evaluation approach was agreed that included:

•A continually updated evidence review including two strands: a review of key literature examining the relationship between engagement with research evidence and teaching, and interviews with leaders of seven projects that were all aimed at developing aspects of research use in England.

•A content analysis, to examine the extent to which evidence-informed teaching is discussed in the public domain, of the following materials:

oa set of 75 policy documents produced by government and other policy actors;

owebsites of 65 teaching schools and 100 randomly chosen schools, compared at two time points;

osocial media outputs referencing evidence-informed teaching and specific outputs of known influential educational social media users.

•A set of qualitative interviews in primary, secondary and special schools consisting of:

ocase studies of 15 schools selected to give a range of levels of engagement with evidence-informed teaching (comprising 82 interviews overall) including interviews with the head teacher, a middle leader and a classroom teacher in the first year of the study, and with the head teacher, CPD/research lead and the same classroom teacher in the second year;

ointerviews, in the second project year, with senior leaders and teachers in five schools identified as being highly engaged with research;

ointerviews, in the second year of the project, with leaders from three further schools that had previously been strongly engaged with research but appeared to have poorer outcomes than would be expected.

Prior research, synthesised in the evidence review and discussed in detail in Appendix 1, indicates that strategies and structures to support the development of evidence-informed teaching need to be multi-dimensional: this includes the nature of research and evidence itself as well as effective communication of this research. It should be noted here that whilst the term 'Evidence-based Teaching' was used at the start of the project, much of this research and subsequent comments from interviewees during this study use the term 'evidence-informed' teaching. This term emphasises that teaching, as a complex, situated professional practice, draws on a range of evidence and professional judgment, rather than being based on a particular form of evidence. Synthesis of earlier research undertaken as part of the evidence review indicates that in the study we were likely to find variation in:

(1) Teachers’ needs, experience and skills.

(2) The characteristics of the school contexts in which teachers work.

(3) The wider policy context.

Drawing on this framework, the findings of the study examining the school system in England are summarised below, at a number of system levels:

• Teacher level: analysis of teacher interview data.

• School/organisational level (school context): analysis of highly performing schools; data from interviews with school leaders; analysis of school websites.

• National level (wider context): analysis of policy documents emanating from key policy actors; analysis of tweets; evidence from leader and teacher interviews.

Citation

Coldwell, M., Greany, T., Higgins, S., Brown, C., Maxwell, B., Stiell, B., Stoll, L., Willis, B., & Burns, H. (2017). Evidence-informed teaching : an evaluation of progress in England. Appendices. July 2017

• Report Type: Research Report
• Publication Date: 2017-07
• Deposit Date: Aug 22, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 7, 2025
• Pages: 1-75
• Series Number: (DFE- RR696a
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/34634701
• Publisher URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a749aca40f0b61938c7ece0/Evidence-informed_teaching_-_an_evaluation_of_progress_in_England.pdf
• Related Public URLs: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evidence-informed-teaching-evaluation-of-progress-in-england