Assessing the impact of Research Learning Communities
Professor Chris Brown, School
of Education and Childhood Studies, University of Portsmouth and author of the newly published book
Introduction
Research-informed
teaching practice (RITP) involves teachers and school leaders engaging with
high quality research evidence, with the purpose of using any insights gained
to improve specific aspects of teaching and learning in their schools (Groundwater-Smith
and Mockler, 2017).
Within this context, Research Learning Communities (RLCs)
are groups of teachers, typically facilitated by a university researcher, who engage
with research-evidence in order to enhance both their practice and also the
practice of their colleagues.
The development of RLCs
RLCs have been developed from a programme of
research undertaken over the last four years, focused on establishing effective
ways of connecting research and practice (e.g. Brown, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017a;
Brown and Rogers, 2015; Brown and Zhang, 2016a, 2016b). The RLC approach thus represents a synthesis of this work and is
grounded in a number of core research-informed ideas. For example, the idea that
RITP is most effective when it involves engaging teachers in a facilitated
process of learning, designed to help them make explicit connections between
research knowledge and their own practitioner-held knowledge and experience.
RLCs are also
grounded in the notion that the effective scale-up of research-informed
interventions will be dependent on there being ‘the right people in the room’ -
those with the influence and authority to lead educational change (see Brown,
2017b for detail on the key factors underpinning the RLC approach).
The practical application of RLCs
In terms of their practical
implementation, the RLC process involves teachers and school leaders engaging
in four workshops held over the course of a school year, each corresponding to
a stage in the RLC ‘cycle of enquiry’.
Specifically, participants engage with
research and are then supported through the four workshops to: 1) relate this
research to their own practical knowledge and knowledge of their context; 2)
develop an intervention, grounded in research findings and their own practical
knowledge, and designed to improve specific aspects of teaching and learning
(i.e. achieve a teaching related goal or vision); 3) trial and refine their
intervention to maximize its effectiveness; and 4) ascertain impact and roll
out impactful interventions within and across schools. In between workshops,
participants are expected to work with school colleagues to share research
knowledge and to enable colleagues to assist with the development, trial and
roll-out and the impact assessment of interventions.
Outcomes
Over the last two years, I have been working
with the reception teachers from the Chestnut learning federation[i]
- a family of three small Church Infant Schools based in Hampshire - who
wanted to use the RLC approach to develop research-informed interventions to
improve the writing outcomes of their summer-born children (those children born between
1 April and 31 August and who typically have lower educational attainment, as
measured by standardized tests, than those born at the start of the year).
The RITP
resulting from the RLC activity appears to be responsible for a substantive
increase in the federation’s summer-born
children’s
outcomes: in 2014-15, 60%
of summer-born children in the federation achieved
the expected level of the Early Learning Goal (ELG)
for writing compared with 87.5% of their autumn born peers and 67.3% of
summer-borns in Hampshire. Following year one of the RLC (2016), 86% of
summer-born children met their ELG for writing: an improvement of 26%. This
improvement was also sustained in year 2 of the RLC (2017) with 82% of
summer-borns meeting their ELG for writing. In comparison, over the same period
the federation average for all children achieving the ELG for writing has
remained at 83%.
Conclusion
Although these figures do not
provide a concrete demonstration of causation, they augment recent
randomised control trial evidence suggesting that the RLC model helps teachers
engage with research-evidence and that research engagement leads to improved
KS2 outcomes.[ii] It
is suggested therefore that this RLC case study provides an example of how
research activity, and the understanding that emerges from it, can be developed
into an intervention (the RLC model) which itself can successfully drive
improvements in classrooms and schools.
References
Brown, C (2017b) How to establish Research Learning Communities, Professional
Development Today, 19, 2, pp. 30-55.
Brown, C. and Rogers, S. (2015) Knowledge creation as an approach to
facilitating evidence-informed practice: examining ways to measure the success
of using this method with early years practitioners in Camden (London), Journal of Educational Change, 16, 1, pp. 79-99.
Brown,
C., Schildkamp, K. and Hubers, M. (2017) Combining the Best of Two Worlds: A
Conceptual Proposal for Evidence-Informed School Improvement, Educational
Research, 59, 2, pp. 154-172.
Brown, C., and
Zhang, D. (2016a) How can school leaders establish evidence informed schools: an
analysis of the effectiveness of potential school policy levers, Educational Management and Leadership, 45,
3, pp. 382-401.
Brown, C., and Zhang, D. (2016b) Is engaging in evidence-informed practice in education rational?
Examining the divergence between teachers’ attitudes towards evidence use and
their actual instances of evidence use in schools, British Educational Research
Journal, 42, 5, pp.
780-801.
Groundwater-Smith, S. and Mockler, N. (2017)
The Study of Education in Australia:
shifting knowledge interests, in G. Whitty and John Furlong (Eds) Knowledge
and the Study of Education, (Didcot, Symposium Books) (pp. 123-144).
[i] As per the ethical
requirements of the project, the name of the federation has been changed to
preserve anonymity
[ii] See: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/light-touch-approaches-unlikely-to-have-impact-on-pupil-outcomes/?utm_content=buffer058f8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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