Making educational research work for you
Have you ever sat and read a research paper?
I’m a PE teacher, in a world where the volume of research and investigation into the field has never been so prominent. There are swathes of valuable research being done across the world into fields spanning the whole spectrum of teaching and learning and childhood development through Physical Education.
I am certain that across the whole of education, in every subject area, there are similar levels of research and knowledge being shared by universities and academics to support the development of different aspects of teaching and learning.
The challenge for practitioners looking to develop their understanding and practice by utilising all of this information is the vast quantities of information at our fingertips now, and translating the research into practical application within our classrooms.
Often I will find myself lost in the depth of information provided to me and struggling to translate the language into meaningful development for my curriculum area or context. I am sure many of you reading this will have faced the same challenges.
The fact is, however, that the research being carried out across Universities and the private educational sector is valuable and beneficial, if we can make use of it. The question is how do busy, often stressed, classroom practitioners quickly and efficiently make use of research papers or studies, with the limited time we have to digest it?
This is something I have reflected on for some time now. In the writing of my book ‘Happiness Factories’ I had to digest and consider huge amounts of research material, trying to take the key elements that were applicable to me, from the tens of thousands of words available to me. I developed five rules that I applied to all of my academic reading, to help speed up the process of interpreting what I was reading into practical, usable content. I think these five rules will help anyone also consuming academic literature in their subject area:
Know what you're looking for in the research you read
Go into your reading, knowing roughly what you're looking for. What are the things that are current and relevant to you? Go looking for research and resources that already focus on subject matter you know you want to explore. It's easy to just google “your subject + research” but the more you focus your searches the more narrow your reading list will become. Once you find the things that are genuinely in line with your practice, concentrate your reading on those first.
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Look for summaries and reflections
Often the reading you are doing has already been done by someone else. This is especially true if you look for papers and material that has been available for a while. There are bloggers and article writers who may have done the summary work for you, and simplified the academic writing to present take-aways and reflections that are quicker for you to digest. Look for prolific bloggers and writers in your area of interest and make use of their efforts. They won’t mind I promise!
Take the bits that apply to your context
Whilst it's interesting to read about other people's research in completely different contexts, if you are looking for really relevant information to digest quickly, look for study and research in geographical, cultural or environmental contexts similar to yours. A study into a different type of school, or in a different country, might be far harder to translate into your environment than a study done in a similar school setting. If that doesn’t exist, perhaps there’s an opportunity for you to conduct the research yourself!
Don’t read too much too quickly
With the volumes of material available it's easy to fall down a rabbit hole of reading. If you read too many things at once, inevitably your thought process will become jumbled and you won’t make best use of any of the studies you are digesting. Read, reflect, process, experiment with each piece of literature first, giving it the best chance to be useful, before moving onto the next one
Take notes and translate in your own words
Without doubt the best tip I can give anyone diving into research literature is to translate it. Make notes, annotate, highlight, draw diagrams and summarise in your own words. Take what is written and rewrite it in language that is relevant and meaningful to you. Often the language used in research can be challenging to interpret but once you reflect and summarise it within your own context, the practical applications of it can start to show through. This can be a process that takes time, but if the research seems beneficial to you and your pupils, it's worth giving the time to.
Research and academic study is a critical part of educational development. Whilst much of it can seem daunting on first glance, when you break down the material available and consider it from your own viewpoint, with your own knowledge of your teaching context and apply some or all of the rules of understanding research, I guarantee you that the benefit to your development as a practitioner will become quickly apparent.
Enjoy your reading!
Formerly Senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University
1 年For what it is worth I think is is great you are raising this. For me the processes of scholarship and practice in education are parallel processes. If this idea has any 'legs' then it feels to me that we need to bring those worlds together in genuine partnership as I think there is much to be gained. In the UK teacher education is gradually being shifted from HE and I suspect that one aspect of this is that the government want a compliant sector. CPD is also based on implementing strategy that teachers had no say in developing. My vision for more convergence would be that people like me who worked in HE carry out joint projects with teachers. The teachers do this as part of their job and not a burning midnight oil kind of thing that happens now. I would advocate for the approach that Lawrence Stenhouse suggested all those years ago that teachers are actively involved in research, not just action research, and that I would do literature reviews. data collection, data analysis and present and write papers 'with' the teacher. We need teachers who are empowered and knowing the scholarly field is one way to help them be informed as less compliant!?