Teachers’ Use of Research in Development Work: Empirical Findings From Switzerland

• In Event: Teachers’ Use of Knowledge Sources to Develop and Improve Practice

Abstract

Objectives and purposes

Studies on research use tend to focus on if and for what school actors use research. Generally, findings, based of self-reported data, suggest that despite the attached relevance, teachers rarely use research in their everyday work (Hetmanek et al., 2015) due to challenges regarding the translation of abstract knowledge into practical contexts and lack of time. This paper focuses on how research is used in different project settings, namely a top-down initiated development project versus a bottom-up development project. Two research questions guide the analysis: 1) What kind of knowledge sources do teacher teams draw upon in development work? 2) What differences can be identified regarding knowledge sources in the two project settings?

Theoretical perspectives

Policy enactment is used as a key analytical perspective since it helps identifying priorities and conditions for local school actors involved in school development in specific socio-institutional settings. Moreover, it emphasises how teachers in the study through creative processes interpret, translate and recontextualise relatively abstract ideas into practice (Braun et al., 2011). Inspired by Weiss’s (1980) work on use of social science research in a political context, the different facets of “use” related to development goals are analysed.

Methods and data

Data gathering methods include interviews with school leaders and teachers in one primary school located in Central-Switzerland and observations of meetings over one school year where teacher teams plan and discuss school development projects. Data sources include transcripts from the conducted interviews, field notes from the observations as well as key documents such as school development plans and material developed by the teacher teams.

Findings

Preliminary findings show that there are major differences regarding use and integration of knowledge sources across the two development projects. Professional development courses represent an important arena for teachers to acquire knowledge in both development projects. Teachers’ use of knowledge sources is more diverse in the bottom-up project and the use of research is manifested more directly compared to the top-down projects, e.g. teachers read research literature, try out strategies in practice, share their experiences in meetings and produce their own documentation. In contrast, they tend to search for available online tools and sources in use by other schools in the top-down project. Applying Weiss' (1980) categories, it is evident that research use is not a dualistic system, but rather represent different stages on a continuum, depending on motivation and engagement with the topic.


Scientific or scholarly significance
The paper offers insights into how teachers use integrate different knowledge sources in different school development settings. Looking at and comparing the contextual dimension of the projects provides further insights opportunities and constraints regarding research use.

References
Braun, A., Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., & Hoskins, K. (2011). Taking context seriously: Towards explaining policy enactments in the secondary school. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(4), 585–596. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2011.601555
Weiss, C. H. (1980). Social science research and decision-making. Columbia University Press.

Authors

• Vera Niederberger, Schwyz University of Teacher Education

• Guri Skedsmo, University of Oslo