Self-Study Activities

 Review: 10 mins

Read the research and practice summary on this week’s topic. As you read, reflect on:

1. the practices that you are already doing well
2. the practices you are doing some of the time, but could do more of / more consistently
3. the practices you do not use in your teaching yet

As you work through the activities in this week’s self-directed study session and mentor meeting, aim to both refine and extend what you already do well, and to build your skill and confidence in using practices which are not yet a regular part of your teaching repertoire.

 Theory to Practice: 30 mins

Analyse artefact and reflection – Find a piece of research evidence that interests you and then critically consider its credibility and applicability to your own context. To help you do this, there is guidance below for each of the stages.

You may want to make brief notes as you go through this process as this will help you when you share your reflections at your next mentor meeting.

Interpret the term ‘research evidence’ broadly. It does not have to be an original piece of research, but it should be clearly linked to research evidence: an article in a reputable journal for teachers would be suitable, for example.

The purpose of this activity is to support you to engage critically with research and discuss evidence with colleagues. In particular, the activity will support you to access research evidence and appraise it using the principles outlined in the research and practice summary.

Stage 1: finding research

As you have already seen, there are many places that you can go to find research evidence. One way to think about finding research is to go to an organisation that publishes research. Examples of these organisations include:

• The Education Endowment Foundation – funds educational research in England. They also synthesise findings for teachers through the Teaching and Learning Toolkit (including an Early Years Version), their Guidance Reports and the Research Schools Network that they fund also publishes views on this evidence.
• The Chartered College of Teaching – publishes the Impact Journal for teachers alongside other evidence-informed resources
• British Educational Research Association – is a membership organisation for people interested in educational research. They publish academic journals as well as a regular blog that focuses on evidence
• ResearchEd – promotes evidence-informed practice and publishes various products including live professional development sessions

Occasionally, you may want to find primary research, which is published by academics where the main audience is other academics. Good starting points for this include: ERIC, Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic.

If you are struggling to choose a suitable evidence source, you may want to start with this short section of the Teaching and Learning Toolkit about Reading Comprehension Strategies

Stage 2: assessing credibility

To assess the credibility of evidence, you should consider the following questions. If you are unable to find the answers to these questions, then it is safest to be sceptical and assume the worst.

• What are the core claims being made? Separating these out from any rhetoric can help you to think about how the evidence supports the claims
• Was the type of research suitable to the research question? It is important that the design of the study generated data that properly addresses the question being answered
• How large was the study? Typically, larger studies are more credible than smaller studies
• Were there threats to the study? For instance, if lots of people withdrew from the research, this is a significant threat
• How trustworthy were the outcomes on which claims were based? Standardised assessments tend to be more credible than in house assessments, for example
• Who funded and undertook the research? If they have potential conflicts of interest this reduces the credibility of the research. It does not necessarily mean the research is not credible, but at the very least it is important to be aware of these potential issues

Stage 3: assessing applicability

If you think that the research evidence is credible, the next step is to consider how relevant it is to your own context. Remember that if you do not think that the claims are credible, then the research is not applicable to you – or anyone!

• Where was the research undertaken and how similar is it your own context? The more similar, the more likely that the research will be applicable
• Does the evidence address a problem or issue that you have? If a study found that mentoring was effective for teachers struggling with behaviour management, the findings are probably not applicable to teachers who have few difficulties managing behaviour
• Is the approach likely to be suitable and feasible for your own context? If an approach does not fit with the culture of your own school, it is unlikely to be applicable

Next Steps: 5 mins

As part of your next mentor sessions, you will briefly summarise what you have done. To support you to do this, you may wish to make brief notes linked to the questions below:

• what piece of research evidence did you select?
• how did you source the research evidence?
• what were the main claims made in the research?
• how credible do you think the research is? And how do you know?
• how applicable do you think the research is in your context? And how do you know?