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Objectives: Nurses' understanding of the value of prioritizing psychosocial care and developing skills for psychosocial care have an important place in all areas of nursing. This research was carried out to determine the nurses with postgraduate education their psychosocial care proficiency self-assessment and the factors related to them. Methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with 56 nurses with postgraduate education working in a research and practice hospital. Research data were collected with a descriptive information form, the psychosocial care proficiency self-assessment scale (PCPSAS). Results: The mean score of the nurses participating in the study was 75.23±11.20 in PCPSAS, and the scores they got in the sub-dimensions of "Symptom diagnosis," "Using information," "Intervention" and "Diagnostics" were 21.50±2.87, respectively; 21.05±3.51; 16.14±3.09; It was determined to be 16.53±2.76. It was found that the total score of PCPSAS and the sub-dimensions of using information, intervention, and diagnosis differed significantly according to the level of postgraduate education, and the scores of the intervention sub-dimension differed significantly according to age and gender (p<0.05). Conclusion: As a result of the study, it was determined that nurses with postgraduate education considered themselves competent in psychosocial care, while there were significant differences in terms of competence in using information, intervention, and diagnosis according to education level, and in self-assessment of competence in psychosocial interventions according to age and gender. It may be recommended that education and evidence-based practices that emphasize the value of prioritizing psychosocial care be added to all graduate nursing programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research with economic utility and social value has been increasingly valued. Such an emphasis can be evidenced by the newly included assessment element of 'societal impact' in performance-based research funding (PBRF) schemes in different higher education systems around the world. This paper investigates how the non-academic impact is constructed and perceived in the Hong Kong Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020, taking into account the local socio-cultural characteristics in the context of Hong Kong. Data sources include 13 impact case studies in the education panel submitted for the Hong Kong RAE 2020 and semi-structured interview with 17 education academics in Hong Kong. Findings revealed that the non-academic impact was constructed through a narrative pattern: (1) problem identification: tensions and synergies between local and international discourse; (2) problem resolution: prioritization of the evidence-based applied education research (with funding); (3) resolution dissemination: strategic employment of promotional genre. The paper discusses how decolonization, academic entrepreneurialism and collectivist culture have characterized the framing and understanding of the non-academic impact in the Hong Kong academia, contributing to the discourse on neoliberalism in higher education by providing a nuanced, local perspective on the impact agenda. Policy implications for a more localized and flexible impact agenda are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine the ways in which words such as "evidence" are used inappropriately to support policy that may be formulated for convenience, cost or political dogma. I interrogate the processes by which this happens, as words and terms are bestowed with symbolic power to support and promote favoured policy. I examine the ways in which such power may be acquired and deployed by exploring the use of the word "evidence" and its derivatives in education discourse. Via corpora and discourse analysis of extracts from policymakers' statements, speeches and assertions I examine how "evidence" – a powerful word in lay use because of its association with research and reason – is used habitually as a proxy for the specification of actual evidence, simply to add weight to an argument or to impart legitimacy on a policy position. I conclude that the idea of "evidence-based" persists only because of its value in enabling and promoting particular policy agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing movement in education towards closer collaboration between researchers and practitioners and research-practice partnerships (RPPs) are seen as one promising approach. However, some challenges still exist. To work in a new collaborative context such as RPPs, researchers and practitioners must adjust their roles in relation to each other. To better inform this movement, we conducted a systematic literature review of 80 articles investigating what roles researchers and practitioners are described to assume in RPPs. The results demonstrate eight different roles for researchers and practitioners, respectively, which reflect variations in both the main processes and tasks for school improvement in RPPs, as well as how these tasks are divided between the participants. Further, based on how tasks are distributed, the different roles provide varying opportunities to pursue a democratisation of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we contest globalised notions of data as 'universally' beneficial, necessary and 'evidence-based'. We do so by drawing upon narrative accounts of the problematic ways data impact educators researching and working in university and schooling settings over time and in varied national contexts. We reveal how data are transient and often erroneous, even as data appear omnipresent and omnipotent. Employing an auto-ethnographic storytelling approach, we draw upon our diverse experiences as educators working within and across multiple national and subnational contexts – in England, Singapore, Bangladesh and Australia – to reflect on how data have reconstituted and recalibrated our experiences in school and university settings. We seek to break the 'myth' of data – that we cannot live without the supposedly complete construction of work and life that dominant, reductive assemblages of data provide. In doing so, we argue for the reimagination and demystification of broader data regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although evidence-based practices can enhance educational outcomes, a persistent gap exists between research and practice. Advancing the understanding and use of implementation science among educational researchers has potential to close this gap. This study uses person-centered approaches to identify profiles of educational researchers (N = 140) according to interest, knowledge, and use of four implementation science constructs (determinants, strategies, outcomes, theories). We examined whether profile membership was predicted by researcher career level/type and project topic and type. Participants were moderately to very interested to learn more about implementation constructs, but were only a little to somewhat likely to be knowledgeable about them or incorporate them into their research. Three profiles were identified: High Knowledge/High Use/High Interest, Low Knowledge/Low Use/High Interest, and Low Knowledge/Low Use/Low Interest. Profile membership was not predicted by project type, topic area, or career level. Implications for enhancing implementation science training for educational researchers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased focus on and interest in Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) in schools justify a stronger focus on research literacy and implementation knowledge. This article presents two complementary perspectives on the transfer of educational research to practice. The "research literacy approach" focuses on the general competence and capacity of teachers to critically assess research before it is put into practice. The "school-wide implementation approach" has a broader perspective including organizational factors and the context of teaching. A review group which examined relevant research literature on implementation in schools identified six core components that advanced EBP. An example of a school-wide implementation in Norway is presented, which illustrates how a school-wide model was put into practice based on guidelines produced by experts in the field. In conclusion, both the "research literacy" and the "wholeschool" approach can advantageously strengthen their emphasis on implementation knowledge in order to promote EBP in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I investigate the place of philosophical literacy in teachers' research literacy. Drawing on Pring, Bridges and Winch, I ask what the relationship is between being "research literate" in the field of education and understanding key philosophical debates in the field. I hold that properly implementing research findings in educational practice depends on a philosophical understanding of (a) normative, (b) conceptual and (c) methodological matters and that, therefore, "research literacy" in education must also include "philosophical literacy". I question whether it is too much to expect that, in order to become research literate, teachers must also become philosophically literate. However, I demonstrate that questions of the utilisation of research cannot be separated from questions of the production of research. In the end, I hold that "research literacy" is simply a different way of looking at deep methodological questions that have always been part of the discipline of Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of a gap between educational research and practice, resulting in research that makes only a limited contribution to the improvement of professional practices in education, has been a topic of much discussion. There is widespread agreement among researchers that practice in education should be informed by research evidence. At the same time, other authors have voiced concerns about giving evidence-based practice too prominent a place in educational settings. In this article, we assess the views of expert researchers in the field of education regarding the linking of research and practice in education. Individual, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with twelve experts from Pakistan and the UK, contrasting countries where the issue of the utility of research for educational practice has been much debated. In both countries, there was a strong consensus among the researchers that there are important gaps between research and practice in education. The interviewees made a range of suggestions as to how these gaps might be filled, and we examine these suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado is the property of Asociacion Universitaria de Formacion del Profesorado (AUFOP) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article interrogates the kind of research that is useful for teachers. The teacher is a reflective practitioner who draws on research findings, but also uses personal reflection, to work with students, with a focus on evidence-based practice. The strengths, but also the controversies of this research paradigm are discussed. The role of context in all educational practice is highlighted, and research approaches that take this context into account are discussed. A reflection on the singular in education is conducted, with a focus on the term transduction, which concerns the passage from a singular to a singular by analogy. It is a type of logic, of reasoning, of mental approach that is not reduced to deduction and induction, and which allows the passage from one singular situation to another, from close to close, while leaving a good place to the imaginary. This article advocates an articulation between research aimed at the general and contextualized research, thereby allowing the teacher to grasp the singularity of a pedagogical situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Helping students learn how to interpret themes in text can be, without a doubt, challenging. Students benefit from knowing different aspects/textual elements within stories to look for when constructing themes. In this teaching and learning guide, we share seven concrete ways to help students anchor their theme thinking. These seven elements can help students gather evidence when considering themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

he aim of this study is to investigate the trends in research related to problem posing in mathematics education. The study focuses on the articles on problem posing in the Web of Science database between 1990 and 2021. The term co-occurrence map, which was created depending on the data in the text with the bibliometric analysis of the articles on problem posing that met the specified criteria, revealed a fourcluster structure according to the degree of relations between the terms. These clusters are called effect (the effect of problem posing on various variables), creativity (the relationship between problem posing and creativity), construct (understandings of how it is thought in the problem posing process and the nature of problem posing) and intervention (opportunities provided by changing existing teaching by including problem posing). This study provides evidence on trends in problem posing related studies. Knowing the research trends on this issue will help researchers obtain information about the areas where more research is needed and plan their future work in that direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greater attention than ever is being placed on how universities enable their graduates to achieve their career goals as a key return on significant private and public investment. Scholars in two distinct fields of research have explored the characteristics and conditions that promote or constrain graduates' career success: graduate employability and career development. In this article, we present visualisations of direct citation networks among 4068 journal articles focused on graduate employability and career development and consider the disciplinary landscapes that they reveal. Our findings show that despite a clear alignment of research concerns and educational goals, there has been limited theoretical or practical exchange between the two fields. We argue that purposeful exchange between the two fields will enrich both and, when applied to practice, could inform an evidence-based, integrative pedagogy of careers and employability learning in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares and contrasts two versions of the Education Endowment Foundation's (EEF) Teaching and Learning Toolkit ('Toolkit'), a web‐based summary of international evidence on teaching 3–18 year‐olds. The Toolkit has localised versions in six different languages in Australia, Cameroon, Chile, Jordan and Spain. The initial Toolkit, created in 2011 with funding from the Sutton Trust and updated since then with funding from EEF, drew upon over 250 meta‐analyses across 30 areas of education research. An updated version, drawing on a database of over 2500 single studies from these meta‐analyses was launched in Autumn 2021. This change was motivated by increased interest in evidence‐use in education, and a desire to engage in more rigorous synthesis of primary studies. The article presents the rationale for these changes, outlines the methods adopted to populate and analyse the Toolkit database and presents results from this analysis. Findings indicate that although the broad picture of the relative benefits of the different approaches is similar, a more fine‐grained analysis is possible. This deeper synthesis can provide more specific guidance about what has been successful in the different areas of the Toolkit in research studies and offers opportunities for further refinement and improvement. This increased specificity, however, comes at the cost of greater complexity in the findings and the implications for policy and practice, and it increases the challenge of ensuring findings are both accurate and accessible. A final section reflects on the challenges of summarising evidence from research to inform decision‐making in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, due to scarce resources and the need to provide an evidence-base for healthcare professions' education (HPE), HPE research centres internationally have turned to identifying priorities for their research efforts. Engaging a range of stakeholders in research priority setting exercises has been posited as one way to address the issues around reducing researcher bias and increasing social accountability. However, assigning individuals to single a priori stakeholder groups is complex, with previous research overlooking cross-category membership and agreement between individuals across groups. Further, analyses have pitched stakeholder groups against one another in an attempt to understand who prioritises what, and often fails to grasp rationales underlying priorities. A deeper understanding of who prioritises what research areas and why is required to consider applicability of results across contexts and deepen social accountability and transferability. A web-based Q-methodological approach with n=91 participants (who) from ten pre-classified stakeholder groups was employed with post-sort interviews (why). Sixty-seven Q-set items (Chinese/English languages) were developed from previous research (what). Participants were mainly from Taiwan, although international researchers were included. Q-sorting was undertaken in groups or individually, followed by post-sort interviews. Eighty-six participants' Q-sorts were included in the final analysis. Intercorrelations among Q-sorts were factor-analysed (Centroid method) and rotated analytically (Varimax method). Interviews were thematically analysed. Six Viewpoints with eigenvalues exceeding 1 were identified (range = 3.55–10.34; 42% total variance; 35/67 topics), mapping high/low priorities for research foci: Workplace teaching and learning; Patient dignity and healthcare safety; Professionalism and healthcare professionals' development; Medical ethics and moral development; Healthcare professionals' retention and success; Preparing for clinical practice. Eighteen rationales for prioritisation were identified: impact, organisational culture and deficit of educators/practitioners were most highly cited. Each Viewpoint, held by multiple stakeholders, comprised a unique set of topic-groupings, target study participants, beneficiaries and rationales. The two most prolific Viewpoints represent how different stakeholder groups highlight key complementary perspectives of healthcare professions' education in the workplace (efficacy of teaching/learning practices, application of knowledge/values). By illuminating the detail around each Viewpoint, and presenting an holistic description of the who-what-why in research priority setting, others wishing to undertake such an exercise can more easily identify how stakeholder Viewpoints and their epistemic beliefs can help shape healthcare professions' research agendas more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational policies and research funding sources in many nations, including the United States, promote the use of evidence-based practice for school development, with evidence most often defined by standardized tests. Scholars and educators have engaged in debates regarding the use of evidence defined by tests and the underlying assumptions about universal knowledge and education values, particularly in increasingly culturally diverse nations like the U.S. This paper presents a school development project aimed at building leadership capacity for continuous school development that attempts to use "evidence-based" ideas from the standpoint of education values in persistently underperforming Arizona and South Carolina schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Success for All (SFA) is a school improvement project promoted by the team of Professor Robert Slavin of Johns Hopkins University. This paper reviewed the development process of SFA and analyzed its characteristics. By comparing with China's "New Basic Education" project, we summarized the reference value of SFA for China, and further discussed the possible path of China's evidence-based school improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the new century, the quantity and quality of empirical education research in China have been greatly improved, and more people are paying attention to and engaging in evidence-based research and practice in education. In this context, Professor Robert Slavin, a wellknown expert in evidence-based education at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, contributed greatly to the guidance and assistance to the development of evidence-based education in China. He clarified some vague understandings of Chinese scholars on the research and reform of evidence-based education, trained and instructed Chinese scholars and students, and built a platform for exchanges between Chinese and foreign scholars, which has played an inestimable role in promoting the development of evidence-based education in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This discussion first highlights novel aspects that the individual articles contribute to the special issue on (future) teachers' choice, use, and evaluation of (non-)scientific information sources about educational topics. Among these highlights are the conceptualizations of epistemic goals and the type of pedagogical task as moderators of the selection and use of scientific evidence. The second part raises overarching questions, including the following: How inclusive do we want the concept of evidence to be? How should teachers use research evidence in their pedagogical problem-solving and decision-making? To what extent is multidisciplinary teacher education contributing to epistemological confusion, possibly leading to (pre-service) teachers' low appreciation of educational research? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this commentary, I seek to join the ongoing conversation about evidence-informed educational practice that has been threaded through this special issue. I do so by drawing on related insights from the fields of teachers' beliefs and epistemic cognition and considering the roles of teacher education and educational research in improving (preservice) teachers' use of educational research. In particular, I focus on the merits of explicit research-based practice in teacher educators' teaching and ways that they can encourage preservice teachers' interactions with educational research in class, and methods of changing the beliefs that may underlie (preservice) teachers' engagement with educational research evidence, and finally, the need for clearly communicated research, including details of implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers' reception of educational research is considered important for improving teaching and student learning. Yet, it is a challenging task requiring teachers to have access to scientific sources, the skill and time to find and exhaust such resources, and the capacity to interpret retrieved information. If such essential conditions are not met, teachers have hardly any chance to engage in research reception and, consequently, may question the value and relevance of research findings to their practice. Prior research has suggested that teachers are indeed critical of educational research findings and rarely refer to them. Based on data from the field trial (N = 674) and main study (N = 2,549) of a national extension study of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 in Germany, this study explored the role of (a) teachers' access to scientific sources, (b) perceived lack of skill and time to search for research findings, and (c) their familiarity with research methods/statistics as potential predictors of their appreciation of evidence-based practice, and perceived irrelevance of educational research findings. Structural equation models demonstrated that perceived lack of skill and time to find research findings, in particular, substantially affected participants' irrelevance perceptions. The more participants assessed their sourcing skill and time to be too constrained to engage in research reception, the more they judged research findings to be irrelevant to their practice. Though source access and familiarity with research methods/statistics indicated only small or even no effects, they strongly correlated with participants' perceived lack of sourcing skill and time. Better source access and greater familiarity were associated with less concern about one's skill and time resources to search for relevant research findings. These findings potentially underline the relevance of strengthening both teachers' access to scientific sources and individual capacities to understanding research contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of connecting research evidence with practice referred to as evidence-informed practice (EIP) has received considerable critical attention in the field of education. However, assessment literature has failed to fully acknowledge the significance of this issue. This conceptual paper concentrates on the process of informing classroom assessment practices by policy-makers, researchers, and teachers. It draws on the important literature on EIP in education and its scarce literature in assessment to highlight a possible productive relationship between assessment research and practice. The paper aims to propose a set of principles as to address the tension between AfL research and practice by defining the roles of each party in the process based on cultural and contextual issues. Accordingly, a cyclical process of collaborative research conduction is proposed. This process provides policy-makers, researchers and practitioners with important implications for practicing AfL research evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of research evidence to inform practice has become an expectation of those working in many professions. There is a dearth of research on teacher use of scholarship to inform their practice. While there is an abundance of research that can be used to inform teacher practice, there are unknowns about how much teachers seek, access, read, apply and share evidence from research to inform their teaching. We address this gap in the literature by surveying inservice teachers about their perceptions and practices for using education research. In our analysis of the data collected from 452 teachers, we found teachers are interested in research and perceive value in research to inform their work. However, we also found that teachers struggle to identify sources of quality research and how to translate research to inform their teaching. Our findings have implications for school administrators seeking to promote teacher engagement in evidence-based practice and educational researchers hoping to have their research translated into K-12 teacher practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When used appropriately, non-significant p -values have the potential to further our understanding of what does not work in education, and why. When misinterpreted, they can trigger misguided conclusions, for example about the absence of an effect of an educational intervention, or about a difference in the efficacy of different interventions. We examined the frequency of non-significant p -values in recent volumes of peer-reviewed educational research journals. We also examined how frequently researchers misinterpret non-significance to imply the absence of an effect, or a difference to another significant effect. Within a random sample of 50 peer-reviewed articles, we found that of 528 statistically tested hypotheses, 253 (48%) were non-significant. Of these, 142 (56%) were erroneously interpreted to indicate the absence of an effect, and 59 (23%) to indicate a difference to another significant effect. For 97 (38%) of non-significant results, such misinterpretations were linked to potentially misguided implications for educational theory, practice, or policy. We outline valid ways for dealing with non-significant p -values to improve their utility for education, discussing potential reasons for these misinterpretations and implications for research. • Non-significant results are common in education research and often misinterpreted. • We examined the "no-effect"- and "difference in significance"-misinterpretations. • Misinterpretations are linked to implications, affecting theory and practice. • We outline ways to handle non-significant results appropriately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence-based reform in education refers to policies that enable or encourage the use of programs and practices proven to be effective in rigorous research. This article discusses the increasing role of evidence in educational policy, rapid growth in availability of proven approaches, and development of reviews of research to summarize the evidence. A highlight of evidence-based reform was the 2015 passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which defines strong, moderate, and promising levels of evidence for educational programs and ties certain federal funding to use of proven approaches. To illustrate how coordinated use of proven approaches could substantially improve educational outcomes, the article proposes use of proven programs to populate each of Tiers 1, 2, and 3 in response to intervention policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Beiträge zur Lehrerinnen - und Lehrerbildung is the property of Schweizerische Gesellschaft fur Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung (SGL) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The term evidence based intervention has been increasingly used in educational research. Calls for the use of intervention programs based on supportive empirical evidence rely in the recognition that the likelihood of achieving positive results when implementing such programs increases. Nevertheless, the gap between research and practice remains al so in Spanish speaking countries. Using examples from the area of reading research, this work aims at promoting the reflection and discussion about the relationship between scientific evidence and school practice, particularly in the context of Spanish speaking countries. On the one side, there is the importance of generating evidence through the design of high-quality studies based on both sound theoretical background and high methodological standards. On the other side, there is the value of professional experience gathered by the teachers in very diverse school realities. How can we build a bridge to connect these two indispensable parts in order to be able to better serve the populations of interest? We defend the need of developing a sustainable collaborative system between the research com munity and the educational centers that enables continuous exchange and reciprocal support in longer lasting relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the "what works" agenda, the case for replication studies in education has strong proponents and supporting arguments. This paper outlines some of their key claims and argues that replication studies, whilst potentially making an important contribution to the "what works" and evidence-based agenda, and education more widely, face several challenges in the context-dense, variable-rich field of education. The paper indicates key challenges facing replication studies in education, from definitions to conception, conduct, interpreting, and drawing conclusions from findings. It sets out how replication studies in education might be improved and developed, and how to address challenges. What replications bring to education is important and useful, but exacting, and, like other research in education, they are not straightforward. Changes of mind-set of researchers, publishers, and funders are needed in order to enable replication studies to prosper, together with attention to what constitutes valid and reliable replication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the penetrating social influence of digital media popularizes teaching methodologies, proposals and recipes, which, in many cases, lack academic credentials to justify its validity, or even, have already been refuted by the scientific community, becoming in mere educational hoaxes. Given this current reality, this research article reviews and reflects on the training of teachers (general and of science) proposing that it should be based on accredited research results, to achieve high educational standards. The proposal is articulated around several educational elements: some, contributed by the didactics of science, such as scientific and technological literacy, education in context and training model of science teachers, and others, contributed by general educational research, such as professional teaching knowledge, test-based research, cognitions, educational neuroscience and critical thinking. The reflection emphasizes the themes and needs shared between these elements, proposing the concept of critical literacy, which is developed in a taxonomy of critical thinking skills, considered essential for teacher training in the digital information space, common to all current education. Finally, an empirical model and some general features are suggested, such as the integration of knowledge and the development of critical thinking skills during teacher training, to meet current teaching and learning requirements in relation to critical literacy in science and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This issue highlights problems with the neoliberal research regime in education policy—one that marginalizes, homogenizes, and dismisses communities, critical voices, and methodologies that could improve educational practice. We argue for greater methodological diversity in policy studies when engaging in research conceptualization, applying theoretical frameworks, collecting data, undertaking data analysis, and critiquing the researcher's epistemological standpoint and positionality in order to redress these deficits in understanding and representation. Indeed, we suggest that qualitative research plays an important role in also contesting the positivist regime in that it empowers those affected by policy, particularly voices often placed in the margins of policy, and contests a methodological hegemony that privileges a neoliberal paradigm in education. Each article in this issue situates a methodological approach within the praxis of education research, describes an essential departure from the quantitative "gold standard" in policy analysis and research, and provides pedagogical evidence of its application to a specific policy. The introduction of this special issue underscores the need for diverse methodological approaches to understanding the complexity of education policy, provides overviews of the articles, and ends by considering the significance of the issue to researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the insistent claims by advocates of evidence-based teaching that it is a rigorous scientific approach. The paper questions the view that randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses are the only truly scientific methods in educational research. It suggests these claims are often based on a rhetorical appeal which relies on too simple a notion of "science". Exploring the tacit assumptions behind "evidence-based teaching", the paper identifies an empiricist and reductionist philosophy of science, and a failure to recognise the complexity of education and pedagogy. Following a discussion of large-scale syntheses of evidence (Hattie's Visible Learning; the Education Endowment Foundation's Teaching and Learning Toolkit), it examines in detail one strand of the latter concerning sports participation, which is used to illustrate flaws in procedures and the failure to take seriously the need for causal explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The growing influence of implementation science has resulted in educational researchers exploring what occurs within schools to support intervention effectiveness. This paper provides an overview of existing research so that practitioners can understand the extent to which measures of implementation are associated with the outcomes of school-based interventions. Method: This paper systematically identified studies which correlated or directly compared the implementation of school-based interventions with pupil outcomes. Effect-sizes are reported and the strength of evidence appraised using a weight-of-evidence framework. Findings: The 13 studies reviewed reported 32 quantified effect sizes which represented the strength and direction of the relationship between measures of implementation and intervention outcomes in schools. The review also identified gaps in current evidence which have implications for further research and practice. Limitations: This review did not explore factors which supported staff to implement interventions effectively. As such, this review focusses on the effects of implementation, rather than detailed practices. Conclusions: This review found that educational researchers rarely measured fidelity of programme implementation. When fidelity is measured, there are indications that proper execution and co-ordination of evidence-based interventions is positively related to pupil outcomes. However, the measurement of implementation fidelity can be undermined when data is transformed into arbitrary categories, such as 'good' and 'bad'. The practicalities of effectively transporting evidence-based interventions into school settings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interview study explores in what kind of settings people broker at the boundary of educational research and school practice and what kind of learning they experience. Learning mechanisms (identification, coordination, reflection, transformation) were related to three settings (research projects in schools, network activities, professional development). Responses by 18 individuals indicate that all three settings allowed for learning via identification, reflection, and coordination. Still, respondents that solely broker in the setting of professional development were less likely to learn via all three mechanisms. Transformation was only realized in settings that enabled people to establish forms of joint project work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent efforts to improve the quality and availability of scientific research in education, coupled with increased expectations for the use of research in practice, demand new ways of thinking about connections between research and practice. The conceptual framework presented in this paper argues that increasing research in educational decision-making cannot be simplified to an issue of dissemination or of motivating practitioners to access evidence-based research but rather is a bidirectional problem in which characteristics of both the research and practice communities must be understood and addressed in order to strengthen ties between research and practice in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the importance of evidence-based practice (EBP) and clinical practice such as neuroscience with approach of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in education research. Topics discussed include role of teachers in translation for classroom practice, promoting education evidence in medicine and healthcare, and understandings of medical practitioner's interaction with patients.

The article explains the contested nature of educational research in Great Britain. The authors reflect on their invitation to edit the "British Educational Research Journal" by the British Educational Research Association (BERA). They discuss the rising international interest in evidence-based educational policy and the public debate about the accessibility of educational research.

The newest federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA), reflects a recent turn toward basing social policy on research evidence. Proponents suggest that evidence-based policymaking in education and other social policy areas can help cut through ideological debate and provide meaningful limits on the choices made by the federal executive branch, states, and localities. This Essay argues that such hopes for evidence-based policymaking are overambitious. It first analyzes the evidence provisions in ESSA and demonstrates how little they constrain policy choices. It then assesses the limits of the research base in education, showing how little agreement there is on major research findings, how difficult it is to conduct this kind of research in the first place, and how challenging it is to implement the findings that exist. The Essay concludes by arguing that a major challenge for evidence-based policymaking is the deep divide among citizens and policymakers about the underlying purpose of education and other social policies in the first instance; many important policy debates are about values and cannot be resolved by appealing to research at all. This critique of evidence-based policymaking does not suggest that research is unimportant or that facts are only in the eye of the beholder but rather that claims for what evidence-based policymaking can accomplish in education and other social policy areas should be treated skeptically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The push for evidence-based practice in education has led to a range of initiatives aimed at bridging the gap between research, policy and practice. Among these are the establishment of brokerage agencies with a mission to synthesise the findings of educational research. This development has been the subject of extensive controversy over the last decades. Critics emphasise that brokerage agencies in most fields prioritise experimental designs that measure the impact of interventions. However, the use of different methods for systematic reviews has increased over the last decade. In education, this development has included a growing interest in configurative reviews. Configurative approaches have been promoted as suitable for synthesising complex bodies of research and for pursuing questions that go beyond what works. This study explores the use of configurative reviews in two brokerage agencies that acknowledge the need to work with different kinds of reviews in education. However, the overall result shows that configurative reviews are rarely used. Less distinctive configurative elements can be identified in many reviews, but generally they operate within the frame of the conventional methodology and tend to be subordinated to an aggregative logic. These findings are discussed as threats to the relevance and quality of systematic reviewing in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The case study presented in this paper was motivated by a teacher's desire to understand better the conceptual difficulties his students were experiencing with the topic of the Mohr Circle in a materials engineering course. To gain such an understanding, a phenomenographic study was undertaken based on student interviews. The findings of the study identified four categories of qualitatively different conceptions about the Mohr Circle that were evident among the students. These, together with a number of subcategories, provided a conceptual structure for modifying the way the course was taught and also highlighted particular aspects of the topic that required pedagogical attention. Although the study derives from a specific group of students and relates to a specific context, the insights reported in the paper may have relevance to other contexts and groupings of students. In particular, it demonstrates the utility of phenomenography as a useful methodology in research-led engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of ‘what works’ is currently dominating educational research, often to the exclusion of other kinds of inquiries and without enough recognition of its limitations. At the same time, digital education practice, policy and research over-emphasises control, efficiency and enhancement, neglecting the ‘not-yetness’ of technologies and practices which are uncertain and risky. As a result, digital education researchers require many more kinds of questions, and methods, in order to engage appropriately with the rapidly shifting terrain of digital education, to aim beyond determining ‘what works’ and to participate in ‘intelligent problem solving’ [Biesta, G. J. J. 2010, “Why ‘What Works’ Still Won’t Work: From Evidence-Based Education to Value-Based Education.”Studies in Philosophy and Education29 (5): 491–503] and ‘inventive problem-making’ [Michael, M. 2012, “‘What Are We Busy Doing?’ Engaging the Idiot.”Science, Technology & Human Values37 (5): 528–554]. This paper introduces speculative methods as they are currently used in a range of social science and art and design disciplines, and argues for the relevance of these approaches to digital education. It synthesises critiques of education’s over-reliance on evidence-based research, and explores speculative methods in terms of epistemology, temporality and audience. Practice-based examples of the ‘teacherbot’, ‘artcasting’ and the ‘tweeting book’ illustrate speculative method in action, and highlight some of the tensions such approaches can generate, as well as their value and importance in the current educational research climate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reports on the findings from a literature review of research on data use in education published in English, German and Scandinavian languages. The review is inspired by methods for systematic mapping. The analysis illustrates how the characteristics of the total corpus of 129 articles on data use in education vary across different contexts, countries and regions. In all contexts, the studies primarily investigate structures and systems around data use. While the Anglophone studies are mainly empirical and often concerned with implementation and effectiveness in terms of data use, the studies published in German and Scandinavian languages focus more heavily on discussions and analytical reflections upon the developments of data use in education. Six investigative modes of studies on data use that can contribute to creating a more nuanced understanding of research on data use in education are identified, presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]