PRACTITIONER RESEARCH
“It is teachers who, in the end, will change the world of the school by understanding it.”
(Lawrence Stenhouse)
In recent years, schools have become increasingly engaged with education research in an attempt to become more evidence-informed. However, engaging with research is harder than it sounds.
In fact, when schools implement a new change initiative, there’s around a one in three chance they will be making things worse (Mannion, 2017).
This is known as ‘the Bananarama effect’ – as in ‘it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it: that’s what gets results!’
The question is: in the absence of some form of systematic inquiry, how can schools know whether a particular aspect of school life is helping improve outcomes, having zero impact – or making things worse?
We run an annual ‘practitioner research’ programme for groups of teachers and school leaders who want to deepen their practice by engaging with research - and in research.
The practitioner research programme can be run either face-to-face or remotely.
References
Mannion, J. (2017) Evidence-informed practice: the importance of professional judgment. Impact, the Journal of the Chartered College of Teaching, Interim edition, p38-40.