Evidence-basedteaching:advancingcapabilityandcapacityforenquiryinschools

Case study

April 2017

Dr Matthew Shepherd, Mr Warren Symes South Essex Teaching School Alliance

Contents

Introduction

Project Overview

Developing a Network

Literature Review

Research Methodology and Data Analysis

Initial Findings: Barriers to Success

Conclusions

References

Appendix 1 – List of schools

Appendix 2 – What is Evidence Based Teaching?

Appendix 3 –EBT Survey

Introduction

The South Essex Teaching School Alliance (SETSA) is a partnership of over 50 primary and secondary schools (see Appendix 1.1). Within the Alliance there are many schools which have a well-established and thriving culture of research-engagement. For example, one of the SETSA schools was designated a ‘NFER research-engaged school’ in 2011. Almost one third of teaching staff have Masters level study in education and there is an historic partnership with FLARE (Forum for Learning and Research in Essex) as well as the Cambridge School Teachers & Research group. As a Leading Edge school (SSAT designation, 2006-2011) a robust programme of action research was conducted by teachers and the findings disseminated to all staff via an in-school journal. Unfortunately, as a result of funding restrictions, this programme is no longer in place. However, classroom practitioners continue to regularly engage in joint practice development (JPD) or individual research study, which is shared at staff and departmental meetings within the school.

At an Alliance level, however, SETSA schools have largely fostered and developed their research-engaged identities discretely. Whilst small numbers of teachers from within these schools have met regularly to consider issues surrounding research-engagement and, separately, in a post-graduate study support group, there have been only limited opportunities to share good practice beyond the confines of their own institution. Therefore, in the first instance, the challenge for SETSA’s initiative was to amalgamate these disparate schools into a local network: to learn from each other, to harness the best developmental practice, to celebrate the existing learning and to promote interchange of approaches and outcomes.

During 2014-15 the project was led by Dr Matthew Shepherd, a Middle Leader within a secondary school and formerly the school coordinator of the national Leading Edge programme, which focused upon extending teacher involvement in action research. Strategic oversight was undertaken by the school Headteacher (Dr Robin Bevan), who has extensive experience in teacher-research as a member of the National Teacher Research Panel, and with David Struthers, Teaching School Manager based at Westcliff High School for Girls. From September 2015, the project was led by Warren Symes, another Middle Leader at a school within the SETSA Alliance, who is currently undertaking a part-time Doctorate in Education at the University of Canterbury.

Project Overview

The initiatives devised for SETSA had a two year focus.

Year 1: 2014/15

The first year focus was upon drawing together the best practice in evidence-based teaching (EBT) across SETSA through staff audits/questionnaires, presentations to schools, word-of-mouth, network meetings, electronic media, visiting schools, CPD (including a ‘festival of best practice’) etc. The overarching aim was to investigate and evaluate different strategies and their effectiveness in promoting engagement through a network of schools where EBT was already established.

Year 2: 2015/16

For the second phase of the initiative, the intention was to use the most effective strategies trialled in the first year to engage educators from the first phase, in order to build capacity across the network. This would be achieved through the lead research teacher working closely with individual teachers in each identified school, with their CPD co-ordinator and with members of Senior Leadership Teams. The lead research teacher’s role would be to adopt a ‘coaching’ capacity: drawing on the varying experiences of schools within the research-engaged network - and expertise regarding the most effective practices - to support colleagues new to evidence-informed practice.

Developing a Network

Auditing existing levels of engagement in research in the classroom

It was deemed appropriate to commence by conducting an audit of classroom teachers across the alliance, in order to ascertain current levels of engagement. To this end, an online questionnaire was randomly sent out to over 20 secondary schools. There was a response from a total of 95 teachers. In addition, a short survey was also conducted at a shared CPD event, garnering 35 more responses from different teachers.

Shared Inset Day

A cross-alliance, Shared Inset Day was held on Friday 13th February 2015 at Belfairs Academy. The overall remit of the CPD event is to provide a large variety of sessions on various aspects of pedagogue, such as collaborative learning to effective revision strategies. In the spirit of this project, it was decided to include a session on EBT, with a focus on developing a stronger network.

There were over 250 participants from three SETSA schools: Belfairs Academy, Westcliff High School for Girls (WHSG) and Southend High School for Boys (SHSB). More schools were invited to take part at the event, however for various reasons, primarily financial constraints, many schools refused to attend.

As stated above, there was a session dedicated to EBT, comprised of an introductory plenary led by Dr Robin Bevan and a marketplace event, where teacher-researchers presented findings from their own research, evidence from published studies and research methods. In this way it served as a ‘festival of best practice’ and provided a prime opportunity to engage in networking. In addition, other sessions were led by teacher-researchers, including workshops using doctoral research on mindsets and research experience on formative assessment and teacher-pupil dialogue.

Webpage

A webpage was created within the SETSA website (SETSA website) dedicated to introducing the concept of EBT and making resources available to interested practitioners.

Twitter Feed

A Twitter feed @SETSA_EBT (believed to be the first EBT-dedicated page in the UK) was created to share latest research findings and to help develop a network of evidence informed teachers.

Information Leaflet

An introduction to EBT information leaflet (appendix 2) was produced that was made available to SETSA colleagues via the webpage, a virtual learning environment, notice boards, at the CPD shared event, at a TSA dissemination event and to teachers across the Alliance through direct email to CPD coordinators.

School Level Support

All schools in the Alliance were offered talks, workshops or face-to-face meetings that would be conducted by the research project lead teacher. These were publicised through the leaflets, website, a presentation given at a Strategic Partners meeting and a display presentation at another TSA’s research event. The underlying aim of this strategy was to engage individual schools in EBT, as a precursor to joining the network.

‘Selling’ the benefits of EBT

This was done in a variety of ways, largely as outlined above. The flyer was designed to show the benefit to students and teachers of certain teaching methods shown by research to have positive impacts on learning.

Evaluating the success of these strategies

A crucial aspect of the initiative was to evaluate each of the strategies adopted and then adapt them as and where required. This facet was essential to the development and enhancement of the network in the second year of the project, as the main prerogative was to identify and overcome barriers to ensuring that practitioners become evidence-informed. However, before conducting any data collection or analysis, it was deemed appropriate to undertake a review of the literature, in order to better understand the field of reference and to evaluate the effectiveness of the aforementioned strategies.

Literature Review

The literature is replete with the benefits of practitioners engaging with and generating evidence based research. This is aptly described in the following quote by Ben Goldacre:

I think there is a huge prize waiting to be claimed by teachers. By collecting better evidence about what works best, and establishing a culture where this evidence is used as a matter of routine, we can improve outcomes for children, and increase professional independence (Goldacre 2013, p.4).

The evidence base in education that Ben Goldacre wants to see utilised is vast. The work of Hattie (2008) has proven to be hugely important in bringing into question many of the teaching methods used routinely in schools. His review of thousands of research projects has shown how the impact of any teaching method, intervention or approach can be measured, called its “effect size”. Similarly influential has been the work of Marzano and Pickering (2003) in identifying classroom instructional strategies that improve student achievement. Such meta-analytical reviews have encouraged teachers to look for techniques and sources of information that they can use to improve the quality of their teaching and, more importantly, of their students’ learning. For example, a significant range of ideas can be found in Petty (2009, 2014), an online community of interested practitioners (the Evidence Based Teachers Network) boasts over 60,000 members and higher education establishments increasingly influence the teaching taking place in schools (the University of York’s Institute for Effective Education circulates its fortnightly briefing summary of new educational research ‘Best Evidence in Brief’ increasingly widely).

It is clear that there is a large pool of educational research available for practitioners, however for many reasons teachers are not always convinced of the benefits of engaging with evidence. Whilst research can tell us the big picture of what is happening, it often fails to suggest why, or in what conditions and contexts valuable results are obtained. For example, Hattie (2008) found that homework does not help raise student attainment in primary schools, but that it can be an effective part of learning in secondary settings. Hence, teachers are not supplied with ‘easy solutions’. Unlike medicine there are not simple, context-free palliatives that can be shown to work in all settings. Teachers need to be critical consumers of educational research, to interact with what the best evidence is saying and translate it through the lens of their experience. In other words, practitioners need to use their professional expertise to interpret and adapt useful research for their own classroom. This has led Bennett (2015) in response to Wiliam (2015) to proclaim that evidence based teaching is dead and that it is more important to be evidence informed.

Similarly, Husbands (2015) argues strongly that providing information about ‘what research says’ does not and cannot change the behaviour of teachers and the practice they employ in the classroom. He goes on to point out that research use and evidence based teaching will not happen by accident or individually and, therefore, roles need to be created in school and subject departments that develop ‘research use leadership’.

Very rarely do teachers talk about their teaching; it’s all about curriculum, assessment and students. Too many teachers believe the essence of their profession is autonomy. We hardly ever get together and look at each other’s teaching. That is a major hindrance in working collectively. I can’t imagine many other professions where that happens (Evans, 2012).

Concluding Remarks

The acclaimed book on school reform, Tinkering toward Utopia (1995), presents a comprehensive analysis of the history and impact of educational policy on American public schooling (Tyack and Cuban, 1995). One of the most fascinating conclusions proposed by the authors is that, in spite of millions of dollars spent on educational initiatives and the substantial investment in academic research, the impact on the nature of educational practice has been minimal (Tyack and Cuban, 1995).

Theory is generated within the context of practice and therefore its unity starts with practice (Elliott, 2005). It has been proposed that education needs to learn from the field of medicine, where journal clubs, academic discussion groups and on online forums have increased the accessibility of theory to practitioners (Henderson, 2012). Unfortunately, many argue that the barrier to this change is the self-motivation of the teacher and that the pressures and work-load of teaching do not permit time for professional development (Davies, 2007). Indeed, rationalist theory suggests that those who theorise are in a position of superiority and hence better informed that those who engage in practice (Carr, 1995). Undoubtedly, practitioners need to embrace theory and that the bridge needs to be built from both sides. Consequently, an increased awareness and a critical perspective on the part of practitioners, researchers and policy-makers can undoubtedly provide the impetus to change.

In the context of this project, the wide body of literature in the field of evidence based teaching leads to important avenues of discussion and investigation, which SETSA’s initiative has, in some small part, sought to address:

  • Why are teachers not using evidence showing what works best in schools?
  • What are the most effective strategies for embedding evidence into schools?
  • What are the challenges and obstacles to establishing the profession as evidence based?
  • What are the best methods for creating networks of evidence based teachers who can share their knowledge and expertise?

Research Methodology and Data Analysis

The methodologies used for gathering data were closely linked to the evaluation questions that had been defined for SETSA’s initiative:

Evaluation Questions / Data Collection Methodologies
Have SETSA’s strategies for sharing knowledge and good practice been successful? / Observations by the lead research teacher in a reflective journal; monitoring the number of Twitter followers attained; questionnaire surveys of staff from Alliance schools.
Has SETSA’s initiative increased teachers’ knowledge base of EBT? / A questionnaire devised by MMU to be completed before and after the initiative.
Did the INSET day impact upon teachers’ perception of EBT? / Analysing feedback given via the event’s evaluation forms.
Conducting interviews with participants.
What are the barriers to forming a network of EBT practitioners? / Observations and personal experience by the lead research teacher in a reflective journal. Interviews and discussions with other key players.
Reflective Journal

Throughout the first and second year of SETSA’s initiative, a reflective journal was kept. This was a useful tool for evaluating the project so far and devising plans for next steps. From this perspective, the development of the initiative was iterative i.e. by evaluating (often through informal observations) during the year, identifying and responding to critical incidents.

Results and Insights from a Questionnaire

It was difficult to get this survey to members of staff across SETSA as there were no established ways of contacting CPD coordinators directly. The project lead had to piece together contacts from a variety of sources, including school website general inquiries addresses. There was little response from contacts, until a reminder email was sent the following week (after which five schools then confirmed that the survey link had been passed on to teaching staff at their schools). One response indicated that the priority to take part may be low: “I will try to encourage colleagues, but as we are expecting Ofsted any day now, it may be that people will not have time. I will do my best!”

A disproportionate number of respondents were Middle or Senior Leaders (55%). From conducting inform interviews at my own school, one of the underlying reasons for this trend could be attributed to the lack of awareness of classroom teachers and teaching assistants of the “value” of EBT. Moreover, many Middle or Senior leaders had undertaken or are currently undertaking postgraduate studies and therefore were aware of the benefits of engaging with EBT.

Two of the most popular responses were in reference to applying academic or personal research to the classroom setting. The second most common was using pupil performance data, which does not relate directly to SETSA’s use of the term EBT.

Interestingly, 80% disagreed with the statement “I do not believe that using information from research will help to improve pupil outcomes”.

Nearly 70% agreed that “information from research plays an important role in informing my teaching practice”. 71% agreed that they use research information to help decide new approaches in the classroom. 64% agreed that they knew where to find relevant research that may help to inform their teaching methods / practice. 83% agreed: “I am able to relate information from research to my context”. In the last year, the vast majority of respondents had accessed and applied research information.

100% of participants reported having used research information to inform their thinking in the last year and to reflect on their own practice. This suggests that teachers are evidence aware and are reflecting on its value to their teaching.

These results indicate that teachers use research in many ways, especially for influencing their own classroom practice and to share with other colleagues. 81% of respondents had shared in a verbal or written format. Few had taken part in externally funded research (11%) or been part of randomised controlled trials (6%). 72% of respondents have continued to use the findings of research that they have done. However, less than 50% report positive outcomes in terms of attainment or pupil response.