Achieving Policy Impact Through Knowledge Mobilization Networks: A Model Encouraging Co-Production and Brokering

• In Event: The Possibilities and Challenges of Data-Sharing to Inform Policy Advocacy and Enactment Across Organizations

Abstract

Background: Emerging evidence has suggested that multi-stakeholder networks are a potentially powerful knowledge mobilization (KMb) mechanism for system improvement (e.g., Briscoe et al., 2015; Farley-Ripple & Buttram, 2015; Liou & Daly, 2016; McKellar et al., 2014). KMb refers to efforts undertaken to enable and accelerate the impacts of research, and in education the promise of KMb-focused networks for influencing policy advocacy and change is growing (e.g., Biag, 2017; Parr & Timperely, 2015; Tseng, Easton, & Supplee, 2017; Turley & Stevens, 2015). At present, however, work to synthesize the empirical basis for these networks is not readily available (Coburn & Penuel, 2016).

Purpose: As such, this scoping review (N=80 articles) explores the theoretical and structural basis for KMb networks in education, summarizes empirical evidence for the efficacy of KMb networks as a basis for professional learning, and explore metrics and methods to evaluate the impact of KMb networks that have been utilized in the K-12 education sector. The research question that guided the scope of our review was, “What is known from the extant literature about the theoretical and empirical basis for KMb networks in education?”

Methods: Scoping reviews use systematic, transparent, and replicable search strategies to “map rapidly the key concepts underpinning a research area and the main sources and types of evidence available” (Mays, Roberts, & Popay, 2001, p. 194). Our scoping review followed the five-stage process described by Arksey and O’Malley (2005): (a) identifying the research question; (b) identifying relevant articles; (c) study selection; (d) charting the data; and (e) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results.

Findings: We propose a model for understanding the organization and work of KMb networks emerging from our review (Figure 1). At the core lies shared goals, co-production, and multi-stakeholder collaboration organized around three dimensions:
(1) Systems and Structures: funding, governance, strategic roles, policy environment, system alignment;
(2) Collaborative Processes: improvement planning and data use, communication, trusting relationships, brokering activities, capacity building;
(3) Continuous Learning: social innovation, implementation, evaluation, and adaptation.
The review also uncovered three evaluation frameworks (Henrick et al., 2017; Kothari, MacLean, Edwards, & Hobbs, 2011; Zornes et al., 2016) and associated metrics being used to assess the effectiveness of KMb networks. Yet, while these frameworks are empirically derived, they remain mostly untested.

Implications: In the end, five lessons emerged for KMb networks to be successful: the need to build two-way reciprocal streets of engagement, the need to shift data use from accountability and compliance to network learning, the need to identify specific entry points of change, a focus on capacity-building and leveraging brokers across networks, and the need to use communication as a problem-solving tool to assess and adjust innovations and implementation rather than passive reports of activities.

Authors

• Amanda Cooper, Queen's University

• Stephen Macgregor, Queen's University