Background and context
Recent policy documents and reforms in teacher education have led to an ever stronger imperative for teachers and trainee teachers to engage with research. The most recent Ofsted inspection handbook (2020) for initial teacher education (ITE) describes a good curriculum as one which ‘is designed to ensure that trainees engage with up to date or pertinent research findings’. This aspiration is reflected in the Core Content Framework (CCF) for ITE, published as part of the wide-ranging reforms to teacher education in 2020. The CCF lays out a minimum level of core knowledge and skills which all trainees should acquire during their training. It consists of a series of ‘know that’ and ‘know how to’ statements, aligned to the 8 Teachers’ Standards. The ‘know that’ statements purport to be based on the ‘best available evidence’, and the foreword to the CFF (2019) encourages trainee teachers and their mentors to engage more deeply with the detailed bibliography ‘to support their critical engagement with research.’
Alongside this imperative for teachers to engage with research is, somewhat ironically, a body of evidence giving reasons why they are often reluctant to do so. Writing in 1997, Hancock observed that, in terms of research, ‘the great majority of classroom teachers remain uninvolved. They shy away from seeing themselves as researchers and they are reluctant to write about their teaching practice.’ (p86). His study revealed 4 main reasons for this lack of engagement which, in my experience as a teacher educator, resonate every bit as much with classroom teachers as they ever did: teachers’ perceptions of their status, working conditions, teacher confidence and difficulties engaging with outsiders’ research methodologies. A later study by Gitlin, Andrew, et al (2005) also discussed the issue of status – framed as a perceived power imbalance, with teachers seeing themselves as on a lower plane than researchers. The authors also discovered a perception on the part of teachers that researchers were out of touch, and that they tended to produce ‘one size fits all’ solutions which did not acknowledge wide differences between classroom contexts. A study by Guerrero-Hernández, Fernández-Ugalde, Gitlin et al (2020), provides further insights, adding barriers such as a lack of understanding of research methodology and perceptions of conflicting information.
Development of research toolkits
Against such a backdrop, this short paper describes a novel approach to engagement with research which was piloted at the University of Bristol School of Education in 2023-24 and which, it is hoped, may hold the key to removing some of the barriers described above.
Up until 2024, the School of Education ran a subscription-based service called the Education and Policy Research Service (EPRS) which provided monthly summaries of key policy and research documents. I directed this service until July 2024, at which point a decision was made to archive summaries from previous years and offer the existing database as an open access resource. Although I was always aware that the simple fact of producing timely research and policy summaries may go some way to supporting engagement with research, I felt a need to provide something more. To this end, an ‘EPRS toolkit’ was developed in 2021 and was annually updated over the course of the following 3 years. The main aim of the EPRS toolkit was to provide trainee teachers and the staff who train them at school and university with a thematic list of summaries which would be of particular relevance, supplemented by discussion sheets with guided questions for focussed study and group discussion. I have used the EPRS toolkit on a regular basis with my cohort of modern foreign language trainees over the past 3 years with encouraging results. Feedback from my trial session in September 2023 was overwhelmingly positive. Trainees variously commented how working with the toolkit had ‘helped embed what I had been reading’, how it was ‘more dynamic since we were working together in groups and we shared ideas’, and how ‘we were more involved in the task and it encouraged more critical thinking’. All of which was music to my ears.
With the publication of the CCF, I decided to use a similar format to produce a second toolkit with the aim of facilitating engagement with the extensive bibliography underpinning the ‘know that’ statements – a somewhat daunting task in view of the fact that there were 139 articles (111 excluding duplicates) to explore! Working with my colleague Nicola Warren Lee, I read each article and produced a short summary if its contents. My colleague and I then worked on creating a colour-coded index of the articles, ascribing one of 3 colours to each, based on relevance, robustness and clarity. We were aware that this process had a large element of subjectivity, but were keen to provide at least a benchmark which would serve as a starting point for stakeholders in view of their considerable time constraints.
From the reports deemed to be the most robust and relevant (those with a green coding), two were selected for each of the 8 Teachers’ Standards. A two-page summary of the selected article was produced and was supplemented by an additional resource, based on the original EPRS toolkit discussion sheets. This resource contained: pre-reading discussion questions to engage participants with the theme; a reminder of the CCF statements related to the article or report; a set of factual and evaluative questions for group discussion; and a set of follow up questions and/or activities based on the contents of the article.
Toolkit trials
Following the publication of the CFF toolkit in 2023, it was introduced to our Professional Tutors (PTs) (senior members of staff who oversee all trainee teachers within a school) at our annual PT conference in June. Based on positive initial feedback, I proceeded to organise a trial in the autumn term of 2023. PTs from two large state schools agreed to take part. I suggested two items from the toolkit which could be used – these were ‘What makes great teaching?’ (Sutton Trust 2014), and ‘Antecedent strategies to promote appropriate classroom behaviour’ (Kern and Clemens, 2017). The participants were provided with a range of suggestions for running the sessions according to participant numbers and time available. Following the trial, both PTs filled in a short questionnaire and a semi structured interview was conducted with one. Questionnaire responses were overwhelmingly positive: both PTs reported that participants had engaged with the session ‘very well.’ Both felt that the activity was ‘very effective’ in terms of enabling participants to engage with research, and both felt that they would be ‘very likely’ to use the toolkit in the future. Remarks in the open response section of the questionnaire expanded on the potential benefits of using the toolkit. The first PT appreciated ‘the clear links to the CCF, and how the article could be applied to their own practice and experience so far, it felt similar to how I normally present and deliver which is more of a flipped learning approach.’ She also highlighted the value of having a research article on which to base the session ‘so there was more of a theoretical approach.’ The second PT highlighted the way in which the toolkit approach was ‘more interactive’. The in-depth interview conducted with one of the PTs provided further insight into where the toolkits could be used more widely in schools: ‘I’m thinking of where I can use it elsewhere in the school team….. with CPD, I can see how it can be used I think it would be great to use for example….we’ve got a teaching and learning group…, as most schools have at the moment… so finding one (a toolkit item) relevant to one we’re looking at’ (PT1).
Both the questionnaires and the interview yielded valid methodological suggestions for further work with the toolkit. The plan which I had given PTs aimed to cover reading and discussing the toolkit in the same session – one of the PTs commented that this was over ambitious, particularly given the different reading speeds within the group. She concluded that ‘next time I might get them to read it before the session’. This is an idea which I have subsequently adopted with my own cohort and which has worked well. It introduces an element of ‘flipped learning’ to which a toolkit-based approach easily lends itself well.
Integration of the toolkits into the University of Bristol PGCE programme
Since the pilot, both toolkits have been further integrated into the Bristol programme. Within my subject area, I have continued to adapt a ‘toolkit approach’ in place of a traditional lecture. More widely, articles from the toolkits have been integrated into our Educational and Professional Studies programme and into the Intensive Training and Practice Days (ITAPs) which became a mandatory feature of all ITE programmes across England in the academic year 2024-25. Julian Brown, our ITAP development lead at Bristol, states that ‘The CCF and EPRS Toolkits have fed directly into the design of a number of our ITAP sessions in substantial ways’. He goes on to highlight their value: ‘alongside the content of their clear summaries and consideration of research strength, they provide a wonderful set of exemplars of informed, critical engagement with literature, which PGCE students can carry through into their own engagement with a variety of sources, and their structured discussion guides are directly applicable to both group activities in our ITAP sessions and to independent, preparatory engagement with literature. Both content and process have proved to be rich contributors to students’ development’.
It is my belief that the toolkits have proved their worth in removing some of the barriers to teacher engagement with research outlined at the start of this article, most notably perhaps in terms of overcoming time constraints and negative perceptions of relevance. And it is my hope, that moving forward, they may prove to be a cost effective and efficient way of introducing research to teachers at every stage of their career.
End note
The archived summaries which were produced by the EPRS between September 2010 – July 2024 can be accessed here. The EPRS toolkits are available to purchase by following this link to the online shop. A sample of each toolkit (summary and discussion sheet) can be accessed here or email eprs-admin@bristol.ac.uk.
Bibliogaphy
Department for Education and Education Endowment Foundation (2019), ITT Core Content Framework. Available at:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6061eb9cd3bf7f5cde260984/ITT_core_content_framework_.pdf
Gitlin, A. et al. (2005) The Struggle for Legitimate Knowledge: Teachers’ Thinking on Research. Counterpoints, vol. 275, 2005, pp. 111–28.
Guerrero-Hernández, G.R. and Fernández-Ugalde, R.A. (2020) Teachers as researchers: Reflecting on the challenges of research–practice partnerships between school and university in Chile. London Review of Education, 18 (3), 423–38. https://doi
Hancock, R. (1997) Why are class teachers reluctant to become researchers?, British Journal of In-service Education, 23:1, 85-99, DOI: 10.1080/13674589700200009
. org/10.14324/LRE.18.3.07
Ofsted Initial teacher Education (ITE) inspection framework and handbook (2020). Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-education-ite-inspection-framework-and-handbook
Appendices
Link to a sample toolkit items from the EPRS and CCF toolkits
Helen Aberdeen
Senior Lecturer in Education
PGCE Subject Lead, Modern Foreign Languages
helen.aberdeen@bristol.ac.uk