Engagement with research is about consumption and production. In my previous post I argued that barriers to being effective consumers of research can, and really should, be overcome. The effective production of research is a tougher challenge where the lack of ‘research literacy’ within schools is a more significant obstacle.
Educational research can take a range of appearances. One level, not uncommon in schools, is to undertake action research. There are lots of resources available on line and in print that help teachers to plan and carry out small scale projects to investigate the impact of changes to practice. Sometimes teachers conduct these independently, sometimes as part of a school-wide professional learning community. There are plenty of great examples of schools where this practice is an embedded part of teaching and professional development.
Research purists can get sniffy about the value of this. Certainly, most of it is qualitative, rather than quantitative and by its very nature, action research is limited in terms of wider applicability. All of this is true, but offsetting these concerns is the fact that it represents an effort to think critically about one’s practice, to be open-minded to change and innovation. If the worst case scenario of small scale action research is that it’s a waste of time then the best case is that it can be a direct route into more meaningful and rigorous research.
By this I mean a determined effort to produce a piece of research that is quantitative, methodologically sound, reliable. For schools receiving the pupil premium this is a must. The two questions that Ofsted will be guaranteed to ask about pupil premium are: What are you spending it on? and; What impact is it having? Small scale, anecdotal, qualitative research won’t cut the mustard in response to this questions. But it’s not just applicable to schools with intakes targeted by pupil premium. All schools have a duty to deliver value and to monitor the impact of what they do.
However, designing a piece of research that assesses the impact of an intervention demands a real level of research literacy. For a school that has no one on its staff with the skills and experience of designing controlled research, this is a problem. Notwithstanding the fantastic resources produced by the EEF to help schools design investigations into the impact of interventions, there is a real need for research literate teachers to act as guides and mentors to schools beyond their own. Hopefully this can become a feature of the school-to-school support networks that are now taking off around the country. If you’ve got the skills you’ve got a duty to share them!
Finally, there is the participation in the very highest level of research. By this I mean the sort of multi-school investigation that might involve thousands of students. Here, engagement in the production of research is a partnership between research literate teachers in schools and educational researchers with the logistical experience and know-how to conduct mass experiments. Again, the work of the EEF is ground-breaking here. Partnerships such as those recently announced by the EEF are at the heart of answering the question I posed at the end of my blog about consumers of research. If research is going to be used to inform decisions, then consumers in schools have to see its relevance, applicability and value.
So a hierarchy of research in schools, in terms of usefulness and value. Action research at the bottom, quantitative, rigorous single school studies in the middle, multi-school, professionally coordinated studies at the top of the pile.
Secondary Source 
This reminds me of what happens in the chemical industry. The synthesis of new substances is the life blood of development and growth, and such research is carried out in a way that utilises the resource available according to the likelihood of success.
Mainstream research is conducted along well known lines of enquiry (for example, taking the structure of a substance known to have the characteristics sought and attempting to make small changes to it to improve those characteristics). This is where most of the research resource will be employed.
The second most numerous approach is Grey Sky research. In this case, several good leads (usually closely related to what’s required) already found in the research literature will form the basis for further investigations. Usually, a committee will oversee this type of research and make sure that appropriate targets are chosen and that the appropriate amount of resource is used.
The third type of research is Blue Sky research. This is completely unbounded. The researcher can work on anything that takes their fancy, for any (or no) reason. Usually, a limited amount of time is allowed to work on this (could be 20-5% of normal work time). Any good leads arising from this would then go into Grey Sky, or even the mainstream, with a concomitant amount of resource, depending on the promise of the lead.
The main thing here is that the process is transparent, and everyone knows the strengths and weaknesses of each type of research. Expectations are therefore clear. For example, it is very unlikely that anything useful will arise out of Blue Sky research, but when it does it can be a game changer….for example, Post-It notes.
A similar level of clarity and transparency would be useful for school-based edu-research, with realistic levels of expectation attached.
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