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How can we use research evidence to help inform our practice? PDF Print E-mail
Research taster
When science lessons are based on evidence from research they can give teachers opportunities to structure their students’ learning more effectively and open the way to better conceptual understanding. However, for a variety of reasons there are barriers to engaging with research. Image  How far have you been able or willing to see what research says about science learning? Do you feel tempted to dismiss it as irrelevant?
 
Your evidence
Barriers to engaging with research may include:
 
  • Defences built up against threatening messages from outside
  • Seeing thinking about change as someone else’s job
  • Hostile relationships among staff
  • Seeking safety in numbers (a ring-fenced mentality)
  • Research is about somebody else’s school
  • Research can’t be trusted

Consider the above examples: do you recognise any of them in yourself or in teachers you know?  Discuss with a colleague ways in which those blocks might be overcome. 

Moving forward
You might find it helpful to explore how some specific educational research findings related to science might help you enhance your lessons by exploring points made in other research tasters.  Some questions that you could use to assess their usefulness might be:
  • Is the question the research is addressing a useful and relevant one?
  • Does the underpinning theory help you understand why things worked the way they did – and how you might go about adapting the strategies for a different context?
  • Could you identify a problem or issue about the way your students learn science and turn it into a question you could research yourself, perhaps with support from a colleague with research experience or from a specialist from higher education?
 
Find out more
 
 
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