Written by:
Jordan Hill
Nora Revai
The past 20 years have witnessed an explosion of knowledge mobilisation research and initiatives. What lessons have been learnt for education? Reflecting on a panel discussion at the 2023 European Conference on Education Research (ECER), Jordan Hill (OECD) and Nora Revai (OECD) draw out elements of a more thoughtful and pragmatic approach. Effectively mobilising the knowledge that has been generated on research use over the past decades can help turn our dreams of an evidence-based education into reality.
Knowledge mobilisation research (that is, research on who uses research and how well it is used) has historically been something of a niche area. That isn’t surprising, since the topic is a bit like having a dream within a dream. Thinking about how knowledge generated by work on knowledge mobilisation has itself been mobilised is perhaps even more hallucinatory. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.
A diverse body of work exists to help us understand how we can increase the use of research evidence in policy and practice, but much still needs to be done to engage with the education community and convince them that this is a dream worth having. As we seek to engage educators and policy makers in the future, what lessons have been learnt from the research mobilisation literature and what does quality uptake look like?
Don’t reinvent the wheel but do focus on who is behind it
Knowledge mobilisation research has consistently pointed to the importance of certain principles and mechanisms that can be applied and learnt from. While it may be tempting to search for that “one new thing” that can be brought in to help your organisation, this approach also carries risks.
Firstly, the “new thing” may already exist! In many organisations, there are already trusted and credible individuals who have taken on central roles in searching for, reading, and distributing research. Not as a formal role or as part of their job description, but just because they are interested. The first step is to find, formally recognise and empower these individuals. This requires leadership at senior levels.
Secondly, there are no quick fixes! Knowledge mobilisation requires resources. Even when using what already exists, additional resources are needed if the use of up-to-date research is to become a part of daily working life. For instance, finding ways to help integrate organisational knowledge with research knowledge by blocking out a regular timeslot each week to hear about and discuss the latest research with colleagues. Or, ensuring there is long-term support for professional learning and dedicated capacity building measures for staff to find, understand and use evidence. Not everyone has to be an expert, but these structures should add up to more than the sum of their parts. They also help to share the burden of the practical work of using research more widely. Taking some of these steps can help make dreams a reality.
Prioritise professional pragmatism over research purism
An important and perhaps more recent development in knowledge mobilisation research is to broaden focus from a narrow view about the straightforward application of “proven interventions/programmes”. Focusing only on ‘what works’ and encouraging rigid fidelity may be tempting, but purism in the long-term may not lead to better outcomes and risks stifling innovation.
Those who support research use know that teachers and school leaders using research in real life need to make professional and pragmatic decisions on what they would like to improve and how. They need to understand their context and listen to the voices and aspirations of their colleagues and students as they select and thoughtfully engage with relevant research findings in their context. There are many gaps in the “proven” evidence base and the direct application approach risks downgrading other valid forms of evidence (such as school-level assessment data, qualitative evidence derived from teachers or students, and non-experimental research).
When it comes to policy making, a pragmatic approach recognises that politics mediates which body of research is important and when. Thoughtful engagement with research is sensitive to how politics influences the suitability of different research in different phases of a given policy process, and also aims to seize “windows of opportunity” for using it.
Policy makers and practitioners alike need skills and agency to effectively integrate research with their professional practice. However, it is not a case of “anything goes”. Trusted intermediaries help to identify the value (and limitations) of research, guard against cherry picking and support the use of complementary methods to answer different research questions (e.g. some methods tell us if a programme works, others tell us why it works).
Final thought: Are we preaching water while drinking wine?
A key conclusion of knowledge mobilisation research in education is that the fields of research, policy and practice need to be brought closer together to facilitate research engagement.
It is somewhat ironic, then, that efforts to break down these silos have resulted in a growing gap between those implementing knowledge mobilisation initiatives in organisations and the researchers studying these initiatives. While knowledge mobilisation researchers seek to isolate the impact of a particular tool, like an evidence portal, knowledge mobilisers in organisations talk about the relational work they do with teachers, school leaders, and local policy makers.
Both aspects are crucial. But a close relationship between researchers and implementation specialists is what will ensure that new research is relevant and new initiatives use existing evidence. With such an explosion in knowledge mobilisation research and initiatives over the past 20 years, care is needed if the field is to avoid succumbing to the very pitfalls that our work cautions against.
Sweet dreams!
Nóra Révai is leading the OECD's Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project at the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). In recent years, she played a key role in developing the OECD’s Teacher Knowledge Survey. Before joining the OECD, she was managing EU-funded international projects on school leadership at the Hungarian national agency for European cooperation programmes in education. She has also worked as a secondary school teacher.
Jordan Hill has spent the past three years as an Analyst in the OECD’s Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project. Before joining the OECD, Jordan worked as a Research Manager in a Brussels-based public policy consultancy, delivering a wide range of EU-funded research projects. Previous to this, he worked at a London-based university association as a policy officer.
The content of this blog draws on a panel discussion organised by the OECD at the 2023 European Conference on Education Research (ECER) in Glasgow. Panel participants were Lou Aisenberg (J-PAL and Paris School of Economics, France), Annette Boaz (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom), Toby Greany (University of Nottingham, United Kingdom), Rien Rouw (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Netherlands) and Kari-Elisabeth Vambeseth Skogen (Ministry of Education and Research and University of Oslo, Norway). The authors would like to thank the panellists for kindly reviewing this blog.