By ReadingWise team on September 19, 2014

While by no means always the case, working teachers are often among the last canvassed vis-a-vis the efficacy of new classroom teaching and learning initiatives, methods and practices. Obviously, in the case of a piece of research that successfully journeys from peer review to journal to further research to interested policy makers to policy to the classroom, there has no doubt been serious chalk-face involvement, but not, argues Ben Goldacre, academic and doctor, to the extent that practicing teachers are given the opportunity to properly initiate, inform or interpret the research themselves.

Instead, at best involved in piloting this or that piece of research, at worst informed that a new initiative will become mandatory as of (insert date), teachers are generally expected to deliver on ideas that are nearly never their own. Clearly, that teachers are involved – by management, the local authority – in the choices as to whether to adopt A or B or C piece of research does not, whatever the differences between the three, mean real genuine choice. These are all still ideas delivered from outside, from above, from those on high.

The loss, argues Goldacre, as predicated by such an approach, is significant. Alienated from the actual business of idea making and testing, teachers will make choices based not on the evidence (as to the efficacy of this or that piece of research), but rather on their politics, the believability of the initiative’s marketing and branding, anecdotal evidence and tradition. Too many important decisions are being made, says Goldacre, on the basis of impression rather than fact.    

In suggesting a way forward, Goldacre calls for an end the distinction between the frontline teacher and ivory tower researcher. Teachers should, he says, be setting the agenda for research based on their own experiences in the classroom and using the findings of research should be a regular part of school life. He wants ‘what works’ to become an integral part of teaching and for teachers to decide what questions should be asked in educational research. He calls his approach ‘evidence based learning’, and having recently completed a government report, it’s an idea which is gaining currency in Whitehall.

Goldacre argues that the idea of evidence should be introduced from day dot. Teacher training should begin with understanding research methods, so as when the inevitable barrage of new initiatives - to fix disaffected pupils, end teenage pregnancy or teach maths - hits, teachers are well placed to interpret and decide how to apply them. As Goldacre stresses, what works for one group does not necessarily work for all, and this is why each teacher’s own knowledge is so important in understanding research.

In practice, what this means, certainly in the UK, is giving teachers time to think. Too often, the circle of teaching, marking, planning, meeting and preparing for OFSTED leaves little time for ideas and debate. Comparably, in Shanghai and Singapore teachers are invited to get together regularly in so-called Journal Clubs to discuss the latest research in education and decide whether or not to include this to their practice.

Introducing evidence based practice is also, says Goldacre, about having the necessary systems in place. In medicine any doctor can put forward a research suggestion to the National Institute of Clinical Research, yet in education these systems for feeding research from the ground up are insufficiently defined. Crazy as it might seem, those with daily and immediate hands-on experience are denied the opportunity to help improve their children’s education via evidence-based vehicles of discovery. Seen this way, ground-up ideas, ones based on actual teaching experience, rely wholly on informal routes to decision makers, boards and funds.    

Indeed, for many, Goldacre doesn’t go far enough. Read a discussion board on the topic of ‘evidence’ or talk to a teacher, and many remain sceptical. For some, the simple question of ‘what works’ risks conducting research only within the narrow parameters of the status quo - the outcomes of which are mere tinkering rather than anything deeper. Education is, they argue, rife with values, which if we just look at ‘what works’ we may never question. Goldacre’s ideas are powerful stuff, but for many they may not go deep enough. They work well enough in medicine, where what works and doesn’t work – placebo and alternatives suitably accounted for – is largely and universally agreed upon. Not so education.  

Even so, values aside, there is much in what Goldacre has to say, particularly in terms of his championing of bottom-up research, and if his ideas are going to really work, then teachers need the space away from the relentless daily grind, to think and offer ideas for research. Government may sing the right tune, but until there is cash on the table, support for teachers and a formalised method for submitting ideas, much of what anyone will hear is more background noise.

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