Criteria for Research
In recent years there has been heated and extensive debate about the quality of educational research, the quality of practitioner research and the relationship between the two.
The Panel has followed this debate closely. In our criteria for research, we have developed an approach which attempts to steer a path through sometimes polarised views, and which is oriented to fitness for teaching and learning purposes.
To help clarify the context for our criteria, we like to draw a distinction between engagement with research (teachers who use others findings to improve their teaching) and engagement in research (teachers who also conduct their own research in a systematic way with the intention of informing the work of others).
The Panel believes that engagement with research always involves skilled professional judgement about the implications of other peoples evidence for ones own working context. It also involves trying things out and responding to evidence from pupils, classrooms and teachers. These are activities that are widely recognised as part of effective CPD and they share many of the characteristics of academic research.
Teacher engagement in research involves all of these processes, but in order to inform other teachers work, especially those in different schools and contexts, it needs to be complemented by more extensive and systematic approaches to gathering, analysing and presenting evidence, and by publication to enable others to test, replicate and critique the work.
We have tried to develop plain language criteria for exploring the quality of research for use by others that can be applied to either large scale or small scale research. We are in the process of developing a similar support mechanism for exploring the quality of engagement with the research of others.
Download our criteria for research here
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