One thing that has come up a lot this week is some teacher’s aversion to education research. There are a lot of people on Twitter getting very angry on both sides. One side says, of course education research is vital and we should all be following the results carefully, which of course is true. The other side is saying, they’ve had enough of it, and we can’t all be expected to be 100% research driven all the time, which is also true. It strikes me that just like all good twitter arguments the problem here is much more complex than the character limit allows.
Education research has become a booming field. There are many out there doing some sterling work, the NFER, the EEF and many of our top universities are producing excellent information and resources which teachers can use. Much of this research has some important information which we should endeavour to apply to our own teaching. For example, the EEF’s work into providing effective feedback is invaluable in challenging the way we mark, along with streamlining the process.
BUT it is one thing to read the research and another to apply it in one’s own setting. Too often I have heard senior leaders and conference speakers refer to this research without any clear plan of how we apply it across the whole school. Cynical teachers refer to it as “the book I read on holiday syndrome”. To take the EEF’s work on providing feedback as an example. The report recommends “purposeful, and time-efficient, written feedback” and that “pupils will use feedback”. There are some really good recommendations in the report, and I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
However, when translated into a whole school policy, it can often loose its impact. Schools too often declare ‘non-negotiables’ like books will be marked once per term. How does this end up working in practice? It might be easy for the maths department to provide termly feedback but how does that work for MFL subjects where teachers often have more than 20 classes per week? The type of feedback given needs to be considered also when setting whole school policies. Does a subject like Food Technology need to be providing the same kind of feedback as History? The exam boards don’t think so, non-specialists can be employed to mark Maths GCSE papers while RS requires experienced teachers. So, when it comes to setting the amount of marking teachers should be completing, flexibility and understanding of different needs and workloads must be considered. It may be useful to get departments to set their own marking policy within the school’s framework.
And then we come to the “pupils will use feedback”, again this varies between departments. Drama students may apply their feedback in their performance piece while English students will apply it in writing. Many schools have a policy that responses to feedback should be in green pen so it can be evidenced, but what do you do if Katie in 9Y just writes it in normal pen? Do you go back and make her do it again? I would argue that the evidence students are using feedback is in their progress not in a nice green paragraph.
So, I think the problem many have with education research is not in the research itself but in the application of said research. Schools should be using this research in professional development sessions, giving teachers the opportunity to access it and to plan their responses in departments. However, the research should be carefully selected to have the greatest impact. You cannot implement new research every week, nor can you make a judgement as to its efficacy in a term. Teachers need to be treated like the well-educated professionals they are, they have all been to university and know how to research and they know their own classes and what works with them. Senior leaders must allow teachers the time and resources to apply research in their own classrooms, while bearing in mind pinch points and workload.
In short, keep the research coming but allow teachers the flexibility to apply it in their own settings.
Great content! Keep up the good work!