Teachers and School Research Practices: The Gaps between the Values and Practices of Teachers

Source: Journal of Education for Teaching, Vol. 41, No. 5, 464–477, 2015.
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)

This article explores the research practices used by teachers and their schools. It also investigates the value that teachers attribute to those research practices.

Method
The participants were 156 teachers from England.
Data were collected through a questionnaire, which designed (Procter 2011) to explore which research practices teachers and their schools used and what value teachers attribute to those research practices.

This research demonstrates a consistent gap between how much teachers value the use of research and how much they use research in their daily practices.
It shows that teachers place a high value on the use of research practices, both their own and those of their school. For example, in the ‘teachers and research’ section, 8 out of the 11 items had value scores above 50% whereas only 2 practice scores out of the 11 items were above 50%. This finding also reveals the importance of asking teachers not just about their practices but also about their value of those practices.

In addition, the results also demonstrate that teachers are unable to use research practices and yet they still place a high value on these practices. For instance, the item ‘you engage in research focused discussion with colleagues’ had the value-practice gap of 34.9% indicating that teachers value this highly but are constrained to do this in their daily work.

In conclusion, this study reveals that teachers are interested in research and research practices and value these things even if they are unable to engage with them in their daily work. If teachers are allowed the time and space to engage with research evidence, to be critical of it and reflect on it, then there is a better chance that they can change their practice based on research evidence.

Reference
Procter, R. 2011. “Knowledge Mobilisation: A Dual Scale Questionnaire to Determine Teachers
Use and Value of Research Knowledge.” Poster presented at Outcomes and Impacts,
University of Bedfordshire, Luton, July 5–6, 2011.