Tracing Boundary Objects and Project Mobility: A Case Study from Singapore

• In Event: Global Contexts for Research-Practice Partnerships: They Come in All Shapes and Sizes

Abstract

Overview
Internationally, there has been emphasis on Research-Practice Partnerships (RPPs) to bridge educational research and practice (France, 2025; McGeown & Sjolund, 2025). Unique in Singapore is the close relationship between the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE), National Institute of Education (NIE) and schools, working closely together to enact evidence-based educational change (Liu,2022). While previous education innovations have been disseminated mostly through top-down scaling (Looi & Teh,2015), there are growing calls for an ecological model of innovation diffusion recognising the important roles of different stakeholders and organisations for educational transformation (Hung et al.2019).
Drawing on Farrell et al.’s (2022) concept of “boundary infrastructure” and tracing boundary spanners, practices and objects, we identify unique contextual RPP features from one Singapore case study.
Perspectives
This study focuses on the use of boundary objects that bridge between the boundaries of research and classroom practice enacted by boundary spanners and hence, support the continuity in action needed in the long-term nature of RPPs. Boundary objects could be “material and conceptual tools” (Farrell, et al.2022, p.199). According to Akkerman & Bakker (2011), they play “a communicative connection” (p.143), support “efforts of translation between different worlds” (p.144) and allow for “interpretative flexibility” (p. 141). Boundary spanners are typically individuals or groups of people that mediates between different worlds, facilitating the sharing of information and ideas and serving as a resource for managing relationships.
Methods
Case study methodology, including interviews with key actors and document analysis, is used to critically examine boundary objects and boundary spanners that bridge the research-practice divide for the RPP under investigation. This presentation focuses on one self-sustaining Singapore RPP that thrives through a school-centric bottom-up approach. The research questions guiding this study are:
1. What are the types of boundary objects and boundary spanners that are involved in developing and sustaining the RPP?
2. What are their roles in translating and scaling evidence-based practices?
Challenges and opportunities are documented in how such an RPP can thrive in a centralised governance environment where de-centralised infrastructures might be needed to diffuse educational improvements.
Results
We argue that the case exhibits how boundary spanners and boundary objects can leverage on system infrastructures and resources to generate organic, bottom-up partnerships between schools and researchers. In the process of developing the RPP, the researchers must engage in infrastructuring processes (Penuel,2019) with school leaders to create affordances for schools to improve practices and processes. Even though it is a single case study, the sustained nature of this RPP over a decade exploiting limited resources and school relationships, can shed light on how RPPs can thrive in a centralised system by being ambidextrous and agile in managing competing demands within the educational ecology.
Significance
This study highlights how small centralised systems can encourage broader networked partnership approaches to create opportunities for wider improvements within, across and beyond schools. Importantly, this study seeks to demonstrate how such partnerships can become “collaborative efforts [,,,] to humanize and democratize the field of education research” (Penuel et al, 2020,p.663), offering insight for other contexts.

Authors

• Dennis Kwek, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University

• Chin Ee Loh, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University

• Lorraine Ow, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University