In contrast, major research projects which had produced output in the form of curriculum resources and teaching materials were commonly mentioned as ways in which research informs everyday practice. In over half of all interviewees and focus group discussions, one or more research-based projects such as CASE (Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education), AKSIS (ASE and King’s College Science Investigations in Schools) and CLISP (Children’s Learning in Science Project) were spontaneously mentioned, and also Concept Cartoons – a project which is based on research into children’s ideas and common misconceptions. Other research projects which were mentioned less frequently as being influential on practice included the APU, SPACE and the Nuffield curriculum projects (though many would see these as curriculum development projects rather than research). e AKSIS project, mentioned by several interviewees, reported research findings and also produced teaching materials designed to help teachers address these. Eve (SEP) reported that its findings made her look more closely at pupils’ work:
Well, when you hear … that the AKSIS research project showed up that a large proportion of children’s graphs are inaccurate ... you say ‘oh, I need to go and look at pupils’ graphs.’ So you go and look and see how that applies. [Eve, SEP, para. 9]
Although Eve’s comment is on her response to the research findings, it is the publicity associated with the published curriculum materials that we believe has played an important role in drawing the project to teachers’ attention — and providing an immediate solution to the problem of what to do in response.
e Children’s Learning in Science Project (CLISP), which ran in the 1980s, was also mentioned by several interviewees as having an impact on their everyday practice:
I found the CLISP idea very useful. I have used that quite oen, ever since I started teaching, and lots of my lessons certainly in tricky subjects like energy and electricity and kinetic theory matter are based on the things that I learned whilst reading up on CLISP. [Rob, S1, para. 21]
e most frequently mentioned project was CASE, which was seen as hugely influential in science education, by secondary science teachers in particular. For some it was the only example of the influence of research on practice that they could think of:
e only thing I can cite is …… I think vaguely along what I’ve picked up as CASE lines. But that’s the only thing. I’ve never been on any proper CASE training. I’ve seen a video about it, and I’ve spoken to a few people about it and the students sometimes talk about it.
[George, S1, para. 5]
For George, the influence of CASE was that he sometimes thought along what he regarded as ‘CASE lines’. Given that the researchers who developed CASE regard it as very important that individuals attend a recognised course of training to learn how to use the materials and the scheme properly, the influence of this research would appear in George’s case to be very indirect. Others pointed to more specific influence on their teaching style:
Originally, CASE … came to us just as … thirty lessons … ey were a very different style to the way that most of us were used to teaching. But gradually we learned, and from going and finding out about the research, we learned that it had the biggest knock-on effect if it affected your whole teaching strategy. [Patrick, S1, para. 21]
Lawrence, a provider of CPD for science teachers, attributed the impact of CASE to the fact that it had made the research findings accessible by building on research to provide something that schools ‘could go out and use’:
[In] the mid 70s … I came across the first research findings which indicated that, if you were doing Nuffield Chemistry, then the materials we were placing in front of the children were inaccessible to all but 15% of the population. And it only improved to 25% of the population by the time you get to 16 years of age … the people who made those findings became the CASE people. By the early 80s, Shayer had come out with ‘Towards a Science of Science Teaching’, and then they worked further and … the CASE project was born round about 1990, as something that the schools could go out and use. … they made those findings accessible and more widely known within the teaching force than probably anything that had gone on before.
[Lawrence, SEP, para. 56]
Lawrence’s comment also highlights a point to which several other interviewees (mostly science education practitioners who were not teachers, or teachers with lengthy experience) referred, namely the long lead time from the original research showing there might be a problem, to the clarification of that problem, to the development of teaching materials and approaches that might
address the problem, to the testing and evaluation of the effect of these materials when used is considerable. Without this ‘translation’ of the research findings into usable materials that teachers could use, it is doubtful that the underlying ideas from research could have had as significant an impact on practice.
e examples of CASE, AKSIS, and the work undertaken in EPSE Project 1 on diagnostic
assessment, suggest that significant impacts of research can come through providing materials and instruments whose value teachers recognise and adopt, and in so doing adapting their practices. Research whose output fails to make this important step is unlikely to have much effect on practice. e problem for researchers, however, at least in the UK, is that their work is assessed largely by publications in academic journals which teachers never read, and not by the significant effort of translating their ideas into usable materials for teachers.
Whilst CASE was mentioned spontaneously by many interviewees as an example of the impact of research on practice, it was specifically introduced into the focus group discussions by vignette 1, which described one of studies providing evidence of the impact of CASE. For several teachers, in focus groups and interviews, their initial scepticism decreased when they appreciated the scope of the research:
I was very sceptical to start with. I thought the claims must be exaggerated. And then I went to a conference and heard a talk on it and I actually started to look into the results that they’d found and they certainly seemed to back up the claims with a lot of empirical evidence over a wide range of different schools. And that, for me, made a lot of difference. So, although I haven’t taught it myself, I’ve certainly become very interested in it and I would certainly want to use it because I’ve become convinced that it has value. [secondary focus group 3, para. 95]
e point of interest here is that although the information has changed this teacher’s values about practice, it has not as yet, changed his practice. For others, however, it was their perception of how the materials might be used in their classroom that changed their view:
I was very sceptical to start with, about CASE, because at my previous school you weren’t given any training. You were told to go and teach CASE. And although my style of teaching was very CASE styled, that wasn’t true for a lot of other staff …and so you didn’t see any improvement. Until I’d gone on a training course, and I could see where it was coming from and how I was meant to be in the classroom, that’s when I noticed the difference.
[secondary focus group 3, para. 101]
is comment also supports the view advanced by the developers of CASE that the materials alone are insufficient to change teachers’ practice.
ese issues of what teachers find persuasive or convincing about research are explored in more detail later, in section 7. e frequency with which CASE was mentioned in the interviews suggests that a necessary requirement for the dissemination of research is that the findings are embodied ‘implicitly’ in curriculum materials and training packages, which are seen as attractive to teachers and capable of being implemented successfully with their classes. is may not be sufficient of itself, however, and additional training may be needed for teachers to understand the underlying approach and principles.