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1. Objectives
This paper critically examines how partnerships involving research, practice and policy actors should be understood and assessed. We focus on Singapore’s school improvement efforts using research-practice/research-practice-policy partnerships (RPP/Ps) in relation to two network evaluation approaches (Henrick et al,2023; Peurach et al,2016) to address fundamental questions about the partnership dynamics and politics.
2. Perspective(s)
The paper argues that RPP/Ps are complex social-cultural-technological-political configurations that simultaneously create innovative networked learning and bureaucratic governance structures, often in tension (Douglas,1992). Furthermore, any developmental evaluation of partnership efforts involving research, practice and/or policy actors must first address fundamental assumptions about the nature of the entangled relationships between research, policy and practice in education. Drawing on Whitty and Wisby (2016, p.2) who caution that research cannot and should not be the “handmaiden of policy and practice” even while it has to respond to external priorities, policy sociology theories (Whitty, 2002) are used to trace evolving RPP/P interactions and actors. The global rise in the use of data as evidence, fast policymaking, impact ideology, networked learning and improvement efforts have led to an urgent need to consider the distinctions between research for/of policy/practice, and policy/practice of/for research, and their implications for any developmental evaluation of RPP/Ps.
3. Data Sources & Methods
Singapore’s education research funding (2002-current) has resulted in a rich database of findings on educational improvement. This paper uses such findings and the authors’ autoethnographic accounts of their experiences in developing RPP/Ps in Singapore’s context (Ellis et al,2010). Two cases are presented – one of a government-funded, policy-facing empirical study into Singapore classroom pedagogies which has developed a unique RPPP configuration, and the second of a practice-facing, investigator-driven, ground-up school-based RPP focusing on classroom-based assessment innovations. Data and analysis uses autoethnographic methods and Actor Network Theory (Latour, 1987,1999) to show how developmental evaluation of partnership efforts must consider both human actors and non-human artefacts/actors to assess the effectiveness of RPP/Ps.
4. Findings
Our study leverages Henrick et al (2023) to reflect on its applicability to Singapore’s context. Trust is significantly dependent on negotiating the epistemic authority of researchers, the positional authority of policymakers and the praxial authority of teachers, with associated challenges. Contrary to Fischer-Schoneborn & Ehmke (2023), boundary work significantly requires developing competencies among partners, with policymakers needing to understand research methods and ethics, and researchers translating findings for high-stakes policy meetings (Farrell et al,2022; Weddle,2023). Cyclical turnover of partnership actors and demands for fast evidence also affect partnership success. Importantly, partnerships must assess form and substance of relational and professional conversations, and artefacts that bridge partnership differences, and reduce tensions.
5. Study Significance
We propose further dimensions for consideration when conducting any developmental evaluation of RPP/Ps, caution that RPP/P approaches designed to improve teaching need to be mindful of potentially impeding growth because of the relational positioning of practitioners, researchers and policymakers vis-a-vis one another- inexpert, stubborn, overly complicated, uninformed, irrelevant.