Educational Research in Scotland and the Rest of the UK:

Diversity and Opportunity?

Donald Christie

University of Strathclyde

ESCalate Conference:

Tackling Educational Complexity across the UK, Glasgow, 17 December 2003.

Outline

• The legacy of RAE 2001 – performativity profile across UK

• ‘Big research’: ESRC Grant Funding and the Teaching and Learning Research Programme

• The Scottish response: SEED/SHEFC Applied Educational Research Scheme

• Practitioner Research across UK and the Chartered Teacher Programme in Scotland

• Educational research - diversity and opportunity?

RAE 2001 and Education Research

Number of Research Active Staff – Unit 68

rated ‘4’ rated ‘5’ rated ‘5*’

Total number of Research Active Staff

England 539 538 43 1767

N. Ireland 18 39

Scotland 154 163

Wales 22 77

‘Big Research’ in Education- ESRC Research Grant Success Rate

% Success rate

Discipline (2001/02) Rank

Statistics 50 1/16

Linguistics 44 5/16

Economics 40 7/16

Education 28 14/16

Psychology 27 15/16

Educational Research perceived as relatively weak

“Three successive Research Assessment Exercises have suggested that rather too much educational research is small-scale, fragmented, autonomous, atheoretical, non-rigorous and not cumulative. TLRP has the potential to address these limitations in a very public way, although we have to be careful to avoid the assumption that it should or could solve all the problems of educational research.” (Brown, 2002)

Answer: Invest £26M in ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme

ESRC Teaching and learning Research Programme

Enlightenment quest: “TLRP: Academic Challenges for Moral Purposes” (Pollard, 2003)

“Our mission is to conduct research to enhance a broad range of learning outcomes of relevance to individuals, educational institutions, workplaces and our society as a whole. Our work will contribute to individual opportunity, economic productivity and social cohesion, and to the new foundations of evidence-informed policy and practice in education.” (Pollard, 2002)

TLRP is a UK-wide Programme

• Networks and Projects (30+) distributed across N.I., Wales, Scotland as well as England

• But Scottish, Welsh and N. Ireland ‘Extension’ Programmes announced

• Thematic groups looking at interface between research and practice and the interface between research and policy across UK, in Europe and beyond

Educational Research in Scotland

• Seven universities with faculties/institutes/schools of education

• Other (new) universities with research interests in teaching and learning

• FE colleges developing research cultures• Schools seen as professional learning communities• Other bodies such as: Learning and Teaching Scotland;

Scottish Qualifications Authority• The Scottish Executive (Ed. Dept. and E.L.L.Dept.)• General Teaching Council Scotland• (Historically) dedicated research organisation – Scottish

Council for Research in Education, now SCRE Centre at Glasgow University

• Charitable bodies with research agenda

SEED/SHEFC Applied Educational Research Scheme

(AERS)Aims:

• To enhance infrastructure and build research capacity in education in Scotland (SHEFC agenda)

• To carry out high quality research to address National Priorities in Education (SEED agenda)

AERS - Enhancing Infrastructure

• Organisation of research– New models of collaboration between HEIs and

between disciplines within and beyond Scotland– Partnership with policy and practice communities

• Theoretical and methodological tools • Skills and expertise of researchers – formal and

informal research training• Create ‘critical mass’ among researchers

pooled across institutions and disciplines• Bring together complementary types of

expertise

AERS - Carrying out high quality research projects

• Establish inclusive research networks to carry out research projects relevant to the National Priorities for Education

• Make use of ‘cutting edge’ theoretical and methodological insights from across the social sciences

• Develop effective and sustainable partnerships to engage all relevant stakeholders at all stages of the research

AERS (2004-2009)

£2M of funding will support creation of four inter-connected research networks:– Network on Learners, Learning and Teaching

(Strathclyde)– Network on School Management and

Governance (Edinburgh)– Network on Schools and Social Capital

(Stirling)– Network on Research Capacity-Building

(Strathclyde)

Potential benefits of AERS

• Educational Research in ‘Pasteur’s Quadrant’• Enhanced research training opportunities• Enhanced opportunities for collaboration• Enhanced opportunities for external funding• Links facilitated with ESRC TLRP• Links to European research

networks/programmes

AERS – opportunity knocks!

AERS presents the Scottish educational research community with unique opportunities:-

• To build our own ‘social capital’ • To create innovative communities of

professional enquiry • Perhaps, to develop new cumulative

models of large-scale research in education?

Practitioner Research in England

• DfES Best Practice Research Scholarships - highly commended, but now to be discontinued

• TTA-funded School-based Research Consortia• NCSL Networked Learning Communities• GTC England

– “committed to being an evidence-based organisation”

• GTCE/DfES/NCSL in various partnerships – National (sic) Teacher Research Panel– National (sic) Educational Research Forum

Practitioner Research in Wales

GTC Wales supporting teacher research and development through:

Teacher Research Scholarships - up to £3,000 Teacher Sabbaticals - up to £6,000Professional Networks - up to £10,000 to

enable a group of teachers from one subject area, school cluster or LEA to work together

Plus- Professional Development Bursaries (£500)International Visits (£2,000)

(Practitioner) Research in Northern Ireland

GTCNI• Aims to collate a database holding details of all

educational research in N. Ireland• Would like to offer sponsorship of research

projects, but does not have control of finances• Co-sponsoring the North of England Education

Conference, January 2004, in Belfast (!)

DENI • Limited support for practitioner research so far

(but TLRP Extensions just announced).

Practitioner Research in Scotland

GTC Scotland is supporting Teacher Research and Development through its

Teaching Scholarship Programme and its

Teacher Research Programme

GTCS has also recently appointed a full-time Research Fellow to develop its research profile and support its Teacher Researchers

[SEED Sponsored Research Scheme: Awards up to £10K – not specifically intended for practitioners]

Research, Policy and Practice

The Chartered Teacher Programme: a Scottish case study of educational research and development

• Political context – New Parliament/ Scottish Executive priority yields ‘historic’ McCrone Agreement

• CPD given high prominence• Professional Development to be incentivised, and

‘promotion’ without management role introduced• Standard for Chartered Teacher created – a

systematic research exercise

Researching the Standard for Chartered Teacher

Grounded theory/content analysis by the hexagonal ‘post-it’ method!

Standard for Chartered Teacher

• Professional values and personal commitments

• Professional knowledge and understanding

• Professional and personal attributes

• PROFESSIONAL ACTION

The SCT

Model

Professional Values and Commitments -Critical reflection, self-evaluation and

development..To ensure that teaching is informed by reading and

research, for example, by:• engaging in professional enquiry and action

research, and applying findings • reflecting critically on research evidence and

modifying practice as appropriate • testing whether a particular theoretical perspective

actually applies in practice • interpreting changes to education policy and

practice and contributing and responding to such changes

Research Opportunities for Chartered Teachers

• Engage in worthwhile professional enquiry and related school development– AND be rewarded for commitment to such enquiry

and development work

• Gain access to potentially powerful networks across schools and local authorities, sharing ideas

• Share in wider research activity, not situationally bound

• Become a member of a community of enquiry?

Roles/Opportunities for Educational Researchers

• Provide expertise and methodological support to practitioners engaged in work-based projects

• Potentially create a network of practitioners engaged in cognate areas of enquiry

• Networks become communities of enquiry?• Mutual access to broader datasets• Multi-trialling of interventions + meta-analysis• New Model of ‘Design Experiment’

Scottish Contexts for Educational Research

• Governance and political accountability– Education and national identity– Consensus and collaboration versus control and

competition– Role of 32 local authorities

• Social inclusion agenda and inter-professional approaches in the Integrated Community Schools

• Children’s rights – Article 12 enshrined in Education Legislation (2000)

Issues for Consideration• Can the four divergent education systems provide

us with a series of large-scale ‘naturalistic experiments’ and/or fruitful comparative studies?

• Being different from England equals being better than England – How can we all avoid such complacency?

• How can we best foster cross-UK collaboration in a competitive environment (e.g. refereeing bids)?

• How can we engage most effectively with broader international networks?

• Can we find better ways to explore the interface between educational research, policy and practice?