Andrew Pollard, Director, TLRP

Teaching and Learning Research Programme

Andrew Pollard, Director, TLRP

The Recent Development of Educational Research Capacity

The case of the Teaching and Learning Research Program (TLRP)


Relevance• Irrelevance to practice in schools • Very little on post-compulsory education• Lack of involvement of potential users of the research

Quality• Theoretical incoherence across the field• Insufficient use of quantitative evidence• Research designs insufficiently systematic• Studies too small to produce convincing answers to ‘what works’

Impact• Poor dissemination• Weak cumulation of research findings

Criticisms of educational research


Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP)

A programme - seen as a portfolio of competitively selected projects which address a particular, shared theme – eg: learning outcomes.

Designed to:

• intervene in the field to enhance research scale, relevance and quality.

• ‘add value’ to the individual projects through coordination, and thus maximise impact.


‘to lead to significant improvements in outcomes for learners at all ages and stages in all sectors and contexts of education and training, including informal learning settings, throughout the United Kingdom’.

TLRP’s overarching aim:


TLRP’s ambition

Low quality High quality

Low relevance

High relevance TLRP?


Early issues

• Lack of trust between researchers and ‘reformers’

• Disempowering emphasis on research ‘deficiencies’

• Methodological and paradigmatic arguments

• Goals and values contested


Strategies for coping with challenge and change

• Compliance

• Creative mediation

• Resistance


Collaborative, ‘reflexive activism’ to build the social capital of educational research:


• Affirming the moral purposes of educational research

• developing relationships and networks, sharing perspectives and building alliances;

• working on politically engaged impact and dissemination strategies;

• attempting strategic positioning on long term issues

• promoting collective, open and reflexive debate and action in respect of new challenges;


• Very large (£43m in ten rounds of funding, 100+ investments, 700+ researchers, projects up to £1.5m each, often with large teams)

• HEFCE and RC funding (+ all UK governments & JISC)

• All sectors of education (pre-school to elderly learners)

• UK-wide (England, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland)

• 2000 to 2008/9, and then to 2011/12

• Directors’ Team of five

• Capacity building (in partnership with BERA, SERA, AERS, SRHE, etc)

Main features of TLRP in 2008


Programme development: through ‘constructive engagement’

1. Early user engagement

2. Knowledge generation by project teams

3. Knowledge synthesis by thematic work

4. Knowledge transformation for impact

5. Capacity building for professional development

6. Partnerships for sustainability


Stage 1: Particular priorities

• design, conduct and management of quantitative studies

• enhancing their theoretical and conceptual bases

• combining quantitative and qualitative approaches

• utilisation of inter-disciplinary theories and methods

• transformation of research-based knowledge for practice

Capacity building for professional development


Research Capacity Building Network (RCBN)



Members of the Cardiff Capacity Building Team


Phase 2: Embedding capacity building in the social practices of researchers

• Project participation

• Capacity building conferences

• ‘Meetings of Minds’ fellowships

• Career development support

• Developing online resources

• Developing networks in learned societies

• Linking with NCRM




Members of the Strathclyde capacity building team


Phase 2 liaison with

ESRC’s National Centre for Research Methods

and with BERA, HEA, UCET, etc


Impact of TLRP on

educational researchers

strongly agreeagreeabout 50/50disagreestrongly disagree

pers: my educational research ways have changed

50

40

30

20

10

0

Co

un

t

‘Mapping the Ripples’ Zoe Fowler and Richard Proctor

2wqResearch programme context

EXPANSIVE RESTRICTIVE

Perceived sense of visibility and value to research programme

Explicit welcoming to the programme

Range of training provision responsive to the needs and existing expertise of the individual

Opportunities for researcher ‘s professional development included in project’s funding and evaluation

Sense of being part of large community of people with shared commitments and values

Perceived anonymity and dispensability to research programme

Lack of welcome or introduction to programme

Fixed training provision – ‘one-size-fits-all’

Professional development of research staff separate to project outputs

Atomisation across projects – no sense of larger community


“I do feel that I learnt a lot through being part of TLRP and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. It’s important that a research career offers spaces for people to actually grow by doing something for a prolonged period of time rather than feverishly generating proposals for £15k at a time and trying to cobble together work [...] through all the trials and tribulations of quite a stormy project, there was lots of healthy debate within the team. There was this sort of blanket comfort that you were secure for 3 years.”

Contract Researcher


“That was fantastic! I really, really enjoyed that... I was in with, how shall I word this? People that I wanted to be my peers, in a way. It was - everybody was singing from the same songsheet, although we were all doing different projects [....] I just felt that there was so much knowledge and potential just in that conference that it really did buoy me up and make me think ‘this is what I want to be doing!’”

Practitioner Researcher

Research project context

EXPANSIVE RESTRICTIVE

Supported engagement with multiple communities of practice

Multidimensional model of expertise with diverse skills of entire research team valued

Balance between project outputs and researcher’s own professional development

Access and encouragement to attend off-the-job training

Ongoing commitment to researchers’ futures beyond the completion of the project

Limited exposure to multiple communities of practice

Hierarchical valuing of skills with privileging of some team members

Prioritisation of project outputs over professional development needs of individuals

Limited access to off-the-job training

Abrupt ending to the project with no further investment in research staff.


Co-authorship

network diagram for project with expansive

publications policy


Co-authorship

network diagram for project with restrictive

publications

policy


Co-authorship

network diagram for project with atomised

publications

policy


Programme development

1. Early user engagement

2. Knowledge generation by project teams

3. Knowledge synthesis by thematic work

4. Knowledge transformation for impact

5. Capacity building for professional development

6. Partnerships for sustainability


Enjoying working together to improve educational outcomes?

TLRP: a collective adventure in ‘constructive engagement’?

Generating and accumulating new knowledge?

Supporting the development of capacity for educational research?

Andrew Pollard, Director, TLRP

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