Carrying Out Education Implementation Research in Refugee Settings: A Practical Framework

• In Event: Improving Quality Implementation of Learning through Play Across East African Refugee Contexts: Implementation Research Findings from PlayMatters

Proposal

This paper presents a framework for conceptualizing a contextualized yet complementary regional research agenda and plan featuring implementation research in a multi-country education project situated in the humanitarian-development nexus. PlayMatters (2020 – 2026) seeks to strengthen existing education systems to support refugee and host community teachers to integrate active teaching and learning through play into their teaching practice in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. Considering the diverse contexts that PlayMatters operates in and the 6-year implementation timeline for an education project situated in the nexus, we developed a research agenda and plan that builds on the Pathway to Scale, a framework for ensuring that interventions are both evidence-building and evidence-based. This framework includes various methodologies and designs to generate evidence that an intervention has potential, is promising, and is proven. We share lessons learned in applying this framework to implementation research.

Additionally, PlayMatters considers the different education policy priorities and refugee education policies, particularly as it relates to refugee integration, in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. Given the different policies of refugee integration, and the multi-lingual and multi-cultural refugee communities that PlayMatters collaborates with, target research sites and populations were refined. We utilized a framework for refugee inclusion in national education systems as a spectrum (UNHCR, 2021) to build a complementary global evidence base given different policy stances and practical implementation of global and regional commitments.

Carrying out implementation research can be challenging. We propose four interrelated pillars to the effective execution of implementation research: collaboration, relevance, adaptability, and application. These four pillars can be applied in each phase of the Pathway to Scale and each study design. We propose that these four pillars are critical for local capacity sharing and capacity building, policy influence and change, and program refinement. We find this is embodied in our collaboration with national university-based researchers as external co-Principal Investigators, the alignment of research questions with national and sub-national policy priorities, and internal project and organizational feedback loops to ensure findings are applied and actioned accordingly. This paper presents the opportunities and challenges for applying these four core pillars across a dynamic research portfolio situated across the humanitarian-development nexus.

Author

• Jonathan Kwok, International Rescue Committee