Slides from researchED Haninge

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Dr Gary Jones - @DrGaryJones – jones.gary@gmail.com
https://evidencebasededucationalleadership.blogspot.com
Leading the research and evidence-informed school
ResearchED Haninge
Saturday 10 March, 2018

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By the end of this session you will
have
 Reviewed the main findings of a recent report by Coldwell at al
2017 on Evidence-Informed Teaching : an evaluation of
progress in England
 A comprehensive definition of evidence-based practice
 An outline action plan for school leaders wishing to develop a
research and evidence-informed school
 An awareness of a number of different strategies that could be
used to increase research and evidence use
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How was the evidence generated?
 A continually updated evidence review including two strands: a review of key literature
examining the relationship between engagement with research evidence and teaching, and
interviews with leaders of seven projects that were all aimed at developing aspects of
research use in England.
 A content analysis, to examine the extent to which evidence-informed teaching is
discussed in the public domain, of the following materials:
 a set of 75 policy documents produced by government and other policy actors;
 websites of 65 teaching schools and 100 randomly chosen schools, compared
 at two time points;
social media outputs referencing evidence-informed teaching and specific
 outputs of known influential educational social media users.
 A set of qualitative interviews in primary, secondary and special schools consisting of:
 case studies of 15 schools selected to give a range of levels of engagement with evidence-
informed teaching (comprising 82 interviews overall) including interviews with the head
teacher, a middle leader and a classroom teacher in the first year of the study, and with the
head teacher, CPD/research lead and the same classroom teacher in the second year;
 interviews, in the second project year, with senior leaders and teachers in five schools
identified as being highly engaged with research;
 interviews, in the second year of the project, with leaders from three further schools that
had previously been strongly engaged with research but appeared to have poorer
outcomes than would be expected.
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Main findings – research engaged
schools
 Highly effective, well-led organisations within which 'research
use' meant integrating research evidence into all aspects of
their work as part of an ethos of continual improvement and
reflection.
 Senior leaders played a key role,
 Started from a school priority and sought evidence to help meet
this priority
 Leading or taking part in external research projects
 Supported evidence-informed risk-taking.
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7. + 'What are the key influences on the
awareness, engagement and use of EIT by
schools and teachers?’
 Developing a school research evidence culture was a
necessary factor in enabling middle leaders and teachers to
embed research evidence use.
 The strongest evidence cultures (apparent in only a few
schools) were associated with:
 dedicated time across staff groups;
 open learning cultures;
 high levels of research engagement across the school;
 strong, prioritized support structures;
 policies and guidance on EIT;
 strong, deep and multiple external research-related relationships.
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Activity
 On a scale of 1 (low) – 10 (high) rank your school’s evidence
use culture
 dedicated time across staff groups;
 open learning cultures;
 high levels of research engagement across the school;
 strong, prioritiszd support structures;
 policies and guidance on EIT;
 strong, deep and multiple external research-related relationships.
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12. + Brown, C and Zhang, D (2016) How can school leaders establish
evidence-informed schools: An analysis of potential school policy
levers, Educational Management Administration and Leadership
1 – 20
 40 primary schools
 Surveyed 696 practitioners
 Data analysed potentially
successful strategies for the
promotion of use of evidence
 The existence of teacher capacity
to engage in and with research
and data;
 School cultures that are attuned
to evidence use;
 Schools promoting the use of
research as part of an effective
learning environment
(professional learning
communities);
 The existence of effective
structures, system and and
resource that facilitate research-
use and the sharing of best
practice.

13. + Brown, C and Zhang, D (2016) How can school
leaders establish evidence-informed schools: An analysis
of potential school policy levers, Educational
Management Administration and Leadership 1 – 20
 What is key is, however, is that these solutions do not
appear to be either resource intense or complex to
implement relating as they do to school leaders to:
 1) promote the vision for evidence-use (that is,
encourage its use);
 2) engage in actions such as ‘modelling’ , ‘monitoring’
and ‘mentoring and coaching’ in order to demonstrate
how evidence can be employed to improve issues of
teaching and learning;
 3) establish effective learning environments in which
learning conversations around the use of evidence can
flourish. (p15)

15. + BROWN, C. (ed.) 2015. “Conclusion’ in
Leading the use of research & evidence in
schools: IOE Press.
 Does you approach to research and evidence use
demonstrate your commitment as well as facilitate the
efforts of others?
 Does your own approach to research and evidence use
have buy-in throughout the school?
 Does your approach to research and evidence use have
teacher learning and practice at its core?
 Does your approach to research and evidence use ‘start
with the end in mind’ and ensure that progress towards
this end is tracked?
 Does your approach to research and evidence ensure
that the right people are in the room?

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Theme Factor Sub-action
Transformational Does your approach to research
and evidence demonstrate your
own commitment as well facilitate
the efforts of others?
• Promote a vision of research and evidence-informed school
• Make resources available
• Design and implement support structures
• Create time and space for such work
• ·Make it part of everyone’s work (especially leaders)
• Model the use of research and evidence in decision-making
• Develop an enquiry habit of mind – look for new perspectives
• Seek out new information
• Explore new ways to tackle old problems
Does your approach to research
and evidence use have buy-in
throughout the school?
• Adopt a distributive approach to leadership
• Attend to the informal aspects of the school organisation
• Identify and influence key-opinion formers and shapers
• Seek to be consensual
Teaching and
learning
Does your approach to research
and evidence use ‘start with the
end in mind’ and ensure that
progress towards this end is
tracked?
• Articulate what success would look like
• Consider what will need to be done differently
• Question how things will be different for pupils and teachers
• How will you know things are different?
• Evaluate impact of any changes
• Engage in learning conversations – develop theories of action and develop
and trial new actions
• Constantly refine processes and actions
• Stop doing some things
Does your approach to research
and evidence have teacher
learning and practice at its core?
• Continue to emphasise the importance of teacher-expertise
• Use data to help teachers refine their practice
• Create opportunities for collaborative learning both inside and outside of the
school
• Continually focus on evidence
• Draw in external experience and knowledge/theory
• Develop protocols and ways of working
• Create facilitative arrangements
Does your approach to research
and evidence ensure that the right
people are in the room
• Develop middle leaders who are interested in evidence-informed practice
• Identify research and evidence champions
• Involve people with the right mix of skills to support the use of research and
evidence
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The only definition of evidence-
based practice you will ever need
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BARENDS, E., ROUSSEAU, D. & BRINER, R. 2014. Evidence-Based Management
: The Basic Principles. Amsterdam: Center for Evidence-Based Management.

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The RAMMP method
 Reports – is this report to the senior team, governing body or
board of trustees necessary
 Approvals – does this decision need to be approved by so
many people, or can people have a delegated budget
 Meetings – why are we having this meeting and do we need it?
If so, who needs to attend the meeting, do they need to attend
it for the whole meeting ?
 Measures – what performance have you in place, do they
contribute to bringing about improvement
 Policies and practices – do processes such as lesson
observations or CPD events help people to improve, or do they
just get in the way
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Dept Key Stage School MAT Could it be
Reports Eliminated
Partially eliminated
Done less often
Delegated downward
Done in a less
complicated manner
Other
Approvals
Meetings
Measures
Policies
Practices

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Asking well formulated
questions
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Questions about the question
 What is the biggest/underlying issue?
 What are we worried about?
 What is the issue we want/need to address?
 Why is this an issue?
 What are we struggling with here?
 Why do we want/need to do something?
 Who is this an issue?
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The PICO format
 P — Pupil or Problem. How would you describe
the group of pupils or problem?
 I — Intervention. What are you planning to do
with your pupils?
 C — Comparison. What is the alternative to the
intervention/action/innovations
 O — Outcomes. What are the effects of the
intervention/action/intervention?

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Using the PICO format
 For pupils requiring additional learning support (P)
how does the provision of 1 to 1 support (I)
compared with group support (C) affect achievement
rates.

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Now try
 P — Pupil or Problem. How
would you describe the group of
pupils or problem?
 I — Intervention. What are you
planning to do with your pupils?
 C — Comparison. What is the
alternative to the
intervention/action/innovations
 O — Outcomes. What are the
effects of the
intervention/action/intervention?
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The FINER framework
 F: Feasibility are there sufficient resources, be it capacity and
capability – to adequately answer the question
 I: Interesting : Is the question interesting to those given the
task of researching the answer to the question.
 N: Novel Is this a recurring problem/question or something
which is new to the school and may become an on-going issue
 E: Ethical Have ethical issues been identified and considered
(see Chapter
 R: Relevant is it relevant to the school and is going to influence
school policy and practice
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Hulley, S. B., Cummings, S. R., Browner, W. S., Grady, D. G., &
Newman, T. B. (2013). Designing clinical research: Lippincott Williams &
Wilkins.

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So What
 Step 1 - Name the topic: I am
trying to learn/find out about
………..
 Step 2 - Ask an indirect
question about the topic in
order to identify what you do
not know about the topic
 Step 3 - Answer So What? by
motivating your question by
asking a second indirect
questions that explains why you
asked your first indirect
questions.

 I am interested in working on
marking strategies because I
want to find out the most time
effective way of carrying out
marking because I want to
reduce unnecessary work load
on teaching staff
 I am interested in children’s
play because I want to find out
the best way of incorporating
play into my teaching because I
want to increase children’s
independence as learners
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Booth, W. C., Colob, G., G, Williams, J. M., J., B., & Fitzgerald, W. T.
(2016). The Craft of Research (Fourth Edition). Chicago: The University
Of Chicago Press.

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Why take the time to formulate
questions clearly?
 They help you focus your scarce professional learning time on evidence that is
directly relevant to the needs of pupils, school or colleagues.
 They help you focus your scarce professional learning time on evidence that directly
addresses your particular knowledge requirements
 They help you develop time effective search strategies for relevant evidence
 They help suggest the forms that useful answers might look like
 When asking for support from a colleagues or more senior member of staff, they can
help you communicate more clearly.
 When supporting colleagues in their own professional learning, they can help you
model aspects of evidence-based practice.
 When you ask well formulated questions which you then answer, this will increase
your job-satisfaction and your ability to effectively do your own job. (Amended from
Straus et al, p21
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Straus, S., Glasziou, P., Richardson, S., & Haynes, B. (2011). Evidence-based medicine:
how to practice and teach it. (Fourth Edition). Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone: Elsevier.

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Acquiring the evidence
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Questions about what is already
known/not known
 What do we known/think/feel about this situation?
 What do people affected by the situation know/think/feel?
 Do we all know/think/feel the same?
 Have we tried to something about this situation before?
 What do we know about how to address this situation?
 What do we usually do about this type of situation?
 How do we capture what we know?
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Questions about accessing and
using knowledge
 What do we need to know before we can move forward?
 How do we find the knowledge we need?
 Who else might know about this situation?
 Who do we need to talk/listen to?
 Has anyone else tried to do something about this situations?
 Has anyone else dealt with a similar situation
 How do
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Appraising the evidence
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When can you trust the experts?
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How can it go wrong?
 What we take to be signs of authority can turn out not to be
very reliable, if the person is not, in fact, scientifically
knowledgeable.
 We might arrive at a false belief if we misunderstand the
position taken by the expert.
 The person might be a good scientist or researcher, but be in
error because he or she takes a position on a topic outside
their own area of expertise.
 Two people with equally good claims to authority might
disagree on an issue, leaving it unclear which to believe.
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When can you trust the experts
Strip it
Trace it
Analyse it
Should I do it
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Aggregating the evidence
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42. 42Author/sources Description Year Setting Who Commentary
Research
literature
Sims, Moss
and Marshall*
2017 Two mixed 11-
18 schools
Ofsted -
outstanding
10 teachers
in school A
and 7
teachers in
school
The research finds that
journal clubs are a viable,
scalable model of teacher-
led professional
development, capable of
creating sustained increases
in evidence-informed
practice.
School data
(quantitative)
Professional
Learning
Programme
2017 The school All staff Some space in professional
learning calendar for half-
termly journal clubs
Stakeholder views School staff
meeting
2017 The school All teaching
staff including
teaching
assistants
General acceptance of idea
in principle, though
suggested it should be
trialled with a group of 7 -10
volunteers
Practitioner
Expertise
Senior
Leadership
Team
2017 The school HT, 2 DHs
and School
Research
Lead
No direct experience though
school research lead has
attended sessions on journal
clubs at researchED and is
aware of available resources

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Aggregating evidence

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Acting on the evidence
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45. Framework for analysis of context
Participants’ will
Sizing up a context
No
Commitment
Some
Commitment
Strong
Commitment
Extant know-
how limited
Limited
capacity
Very small-
scale test
Very small-
scale test
Very small-
scale test
Good
capacity
Very small-
scale test
Very small-
scale test
Small-scale
test
Substantial
know-how
exists
Limited
capacity
Very small-
scale test
Small-scale
test
Large-scale
test
Good
capacity
Small-scale
test
Large-scale
test
Implement
BRYK, A. S., GOMEZ, L. M., GRUNOW, A. & LEMAHIEU, P. G. 2015.
Learning to improve: How America's schools can get better at getting better.

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Actionable
It specifies the detailed, concrete
behaviours required to achieve the
intended consequences;
it must be crafted in the form of designs
that contain causal statements;
people must have, or be able to be
taught, the concepts and the skills
required to implement those causal
statements;
and the context in which it is to be
implemented does not prevents its
implementation. p8
Argyris, C. (2000). Flawed advice and the management trap: How managers can
know when they're getting good advice and when they're not: Oxford University
Press.

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Assessing the research
evidence?
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After-Action-Review
 What was supposed to have happened?
 What actually happened?
 What went well?
 What could have been handled better
 Why was there a difference?
 What caused the results?
 What can we learn from this?
 What actions can be taken to improve or sustain what went well?
The capture and share
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Just one more thing
 Over the next couple of hours/days reflect on this presentation.
 Try and identify
 Things that worked
 Things that didn’t work
 Things I could do better
 Email me or Tweet to jones.gary@gmail.com or
@DrGaryJones
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Just one more thing
 Over the next couple of days reflect on this presentation.
 Try and identify one key thing that you have learnt from the
session
 On Monday or Tuesday – share that one thing with a colleague
and have a conversation
 Email me or Tweet to jones.gary@gmail.com or
@DrGaryJones

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@DrGaryJones
jones.gary@gmail.com
http://evidencebasededucationalleadership.blogspot.com