Strategic Forum for Research in Education

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• Strategic Forum for Research in Education
• Introductory comments
• The goals of SFRE II

Andrew Pollard, Chair SFRE
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The aspiration behind SFRE?

• Evidence-informed policy and practice
• underpinned by high quality, comprehensive
  knowledge management systems for education in
  England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and
  across the UK as a whole.

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A Knowledge Continuum (Commission of the
European Communities, 2007, after Ben Levin)

• KNOWLEDGE APPLICATION
• Policy
• Practitioners
• Advisers
• Bureaucracy
• Practice
• Leaders
• Practitioners
• Clients

• KNOWLEDGE
• CREATION
• Pure
• Applied
• Developmental
• Quantitative
• Qualitative
• Funders of research

• KNOWLEDGE MEDIATION
• Media
• Mass
• Professional
• Think tanks
• Lobbyists
• Policy entrepreneurs
• Popularisers

• SOCIAL CONTEXT
• Current issues
• Ways of thinking
• Popular prejudices
• Preoccupations
• Conventional wisdom

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• OECD CERI external national assessments
• England
• New Zealand
• Mexico
• Denmark
• Switzerland

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• SFRE internal self-evaluation and supportive
  comparison within the UK

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SFRE aims

• To maintain an overview of the UK system and
  national sub-systems for the production of new
  knowledge in education and for its
  transformation, dissemination and use as a whole
  
• To facilitate exchange of information about the
  organisation, production and use of educational
  research within the UK and the sharing of good
  practice
• To make recommendations for the long-term
  sustainability, development and improvement of
  educational research within the UK
• To consider emerging research priorities and
  propose particular initiatives and investments.

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Three UK meetings of SFRE

• Autumn 2008, context, quality, capacity
• Report national deliberation?
• Summer 2009, pure, applied, developmental, etc
• Report national deliberation?
• Spring 2010, knowledge accumulation, mediation
  and application
• Report and national/UK deliberation?

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Forum I Executive SummaryContext?

• There was broad agreement at SFRE I that
  consideration of the UK and each country within
  it in terms of a knowledge management system
  was a worthwhile exercise in the context of
  contemporary demand for evidence-based and
  evidence-informed policy and practice.
• Reports on each UK country revealed variations in
  provision for knowledge generation and
  application, with common weaknesses in relation
  to provision for knowledge mediation.
• Education as a research field has broadened
  considerably in recent years. As a life-wide,
  life-long field of study it thus requires new
  inter-disciplinary expertise and particular
  attention to contexts and transitions. The roots
  of education research in teacher education for
  schools are challenged by this development.

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Forum I Executive SummaryQuality?

•  By national and international standards, a great
  deal of excellent education research is carried
  out in the UK. There is also a considerable
  amount which was acknowledged at SFRE to be of
  much lower quality.
• Judging the quality of education research is
  itself a challenge, and no single set of criteria
  or indicators can capture the multiple purposes
  for which research and enquiry activities are
  carried out. The way forward was felt to be in
  recognising such different purposes and in
  managing the consequential tensions they create.

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Forum I Executive SummaryCapacity?

• UK capacity to conduct high quality education
  research is significant - but it is also
  vulnerable, particularly in relation to the
  age-profile of researchers and some skill-sets.
  Capacity is a particular issue in the smaller UK
  countries.
• Capacity is interpreted in many ways, but also
  has many dimensions.
• In the development of new capacity building
  provision, there is a need for greater
  understanding of the multiple elements which
  contribute to capacity, of how they interrelate
  together and of how particular stakeholders can
  contribute to the whole.
• Demand is growing in each part of the UK for high
  quality, timely and accessible education research
  on which to base policy and practice. There are
  capacity challenges for potential users of
  research in making best use of the resources and
  knowledge which are already available as well as
  in commissioning new work.

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• SFRE internal self-evaluation an update?
• Northern Ireland Forum
• Scottish Forum
• Welsh WERN, WISERD and HEFCW remit
• English, new DCSF centres and government
  departmental reorganisation, CfBT, IEE,
  coalition
• UK wide strategic coherence ESRC role ?

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ESRCs forthcoming Strategic Plan seven
challenges for social science research

•  A directive mode framework, plus opportunities
  to develop capacity and knowledge transfer.
• For example
• New Technology, Innovation and Skills - e.g.
  lifelong learning, international comparison,
  employer ambition, individual ambition and skills
  providers
• Social Diversity and Population Dynamics - e.g.
  connected communities and digital divides, the
  role of schools in neighbourhood well-being
• Health and Wellbeing- e.g. health education and
  behaviours, childhood obesity, participation in
  sport 
• Understanding Individual Behaviour- e.g. building
  on the insights of neuroscience into learning
• Environment, Energy and Resilience- e.g.
  education and its role in sustainable lifestyles
  and citizenship

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• The goals of SFRE II

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• To support colleagues in each country in
  reviewing their national provision in knowledge
  management system terms

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The main question for SFRE II

• Is there appropriate provision and
  incentivisation for the production of high
  quality and innovative research of the types
  needed in the key sectors of each national
  system?

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(No Transcript)
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The main question for SFRE II

• Is there appropriate provision and
  incentivisation for the production of high
  quality and innovative research of the types
  needed in the key sectors of each national
  system?

• of the types needed
• Pure/basic disciplinary research
• Applied education research
• Developmental and evaluative research
• Practitioner research and enquiry

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The main question for SFRE II

• Is there appropriate provision and
  incentivisation for the production of high
  quality and innovative research of the types
  needed in the key sectors of each national
  system?

• in the key sectors
• Compulsory
• Childrens Services
• Schooling
• 14-19 Education

• Post-compulsory
• Further Education
• Higher Education
• Adult and Community
• Workplace

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Supplementary questions for SFRE II

• Interdisciplinarity Given the growing awareness
  of the interconnections between education and
  other fields, is interdisciplinary research
  supported effectively?
• Priorities How are researchers, policy makers,
  practitioners and other appropriate stakeholders
  engaged in the identification, development,
  application and evaluation of national priorities
  for applied research and for development?

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Resources

• National overviews
• Disciplinary statements
• Country mappings
• Practitioner materials

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The programme

• 3 Contexts and challenges in each country
• 4/5 - Pure research and interdisciplinarity
• 6/7 - Applied research (Pamela Munn)
• Research priorities (Adrian Alsop, Karen
  Whitby, Chris Owen, David Pye, Stuart Fancey)
• 9/10 - Dev and evaluative research (Judy
  Sebba)
• 11/12 - Practitioner research and enquiry (Lori
  Beckett)
• Review (Tom Schuller)
• 14/15 Country review and presentations UK
  review
• 16 Closing comments (John Selby)
• Reporting Forum II and towards Forum III