World Yearbook of Education 1985

Research, Policy and Practice

John Nisbet, Jacquetta Megarry, Stanley Nisbet, John Nisbet, Jacquetta Megarry, Stanley Nisbet

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136167430
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Published in the year 2005, World Yearbook of Education 1985, is a valuable contribution to the field of Major Works.

1. Introduction

John Nisbet

Summary: The relation of research, policy and practice in education is one of interdependence and interaction. There are many ways in which research can make its contribution, and consequently the research organizations which have been established in different countries vary widely. For Part 1 of this volume contributors were asked to describe the provision for educational research and development in their countries and to identify trends. Three themes which appear across many of the reports are the recent growth in educational research, increasing central control, and new paradigms for research. The third of these is developed in Part 2, which leads us to consider the underlying question: what is the function of research in education?

How can research best contribute to policy and practice in education? The chapters which follow give a wide range of answers, and describe varying structures for funding and organizing educational research and development. There are different functions which research can perform, and different provision is needed to perform these functions. People have different expectations of research, and these are often unrealistic. Policy makers and teachers tend to look to research to provide answers to their problems; but research can perform this function only where there is consensus on values, within the framework of accepted policy, or in the context of established practice. Working out the implications of a policy, and evaluating what has been done, are examples of contributions of this kind (though neither of these is unproblematic). Researchers are more likely to see the role of research as identifying new problems, or new perspectives on problems – problem-setting rather than problem-solving (Schon, 1977) – and this is not always a welcome contribution. Researchers are reluctant to accept the limitations of conventional values, accepted policy or established practice; yet they expect their findings to be taken up by others. But implementation will happen only when the findings are seen as relevant to the issues which concern those with the responsibility of action. If it is not to be just an esoteric activity, research in education must have a context. But whose context is it to be?

If research is undertaken in the context of those who are expected to make use of the findings, the likelihood of implementation is greater. The Australian Karmel Report (1973) summarized the requirements for impact:

‘The effectiveness of innovation, no matter at what level it is initiated in a school organization, is dependent on the extent to which the people concerned perceive a problem and hence realize the existence of a need, are knowledgeable about a range of alternative solutions, and feel themselves to be in a congenial climate.’

How people perceive a problem is itself influenced by research publications. Thus research shapes people's perceptions, and provides them with concepts to use in thinking about the work they do. In this way, research creates an agenda of concern:

Thus the most important influence of research is indirect, and long-term. Weiss (1977), for example, described the process as

‘a gradual accumulation of research results which can lead to serious and far-reaching changes in the way people and governments address their problems.’

Taylor (1973) suggested a similar function for research:

‘For the most part, the influence of research has been to sensitize. It has indicated the importance of certain problems and the danger of the unselfconscious use of certain procedures, without necessarily providing clear-cut calculations of advantage or a firm foundation for decision.’

Uncertainty, however, is difficult to reconcile with action and decision, and consequently policy makers and practitioners tend to impose constraints on research:

‘Can national authorities sponsor the generation of uncertainty? … Policy-makers foreclose on issues … Social science can keep open the space.’ (Husen and Kogan, 1984)

The relation of research, policy and practice is therefore one of interdependence and interaction. There is a range of situations in which the relations of research, policy and practice may vary widely. There is a place for policy-directed research; but there is also a place for critiques and for an ordering of concepts which may appear to be academic scholarship but are essential for the analysis of policy or practice. While researchers have agonized over the influence of research on policy and practice, there has been less concern over the growing influence of policy and practice on research. It is perhaps evidence of the impact of research – or perhaps merely the consequence of increased public funding – that the management of research is now considered to be too important to be left to the researchers. The claim of the policy makers to take control of research, allowing policy priorities to determine the choice, design, methodology and reporting, is difficult to refute when they also control funding. In its crudest form, the Rothschild (Rothschild Report, 1971) formula for publicly-supported research expressed the principle:

‘The customer says what he wants; the contractor (the researcher) does it, if he can; and the customer pays.’

The consequence when politicians decide research priorities is vividly illustrated by Taylor in Chapter 3: in England and Wales currently, 52 per cent of government funding for educational research is spent on testing and examinations. Policy-directed research incurs several dangers. It may reduce the research agenda to a series of simplistic problems, dealing with short-term issues, neglecting what Bondi (1983) termed ‘strategic research’:

‘that grey zone of researches that … are not immediately of use to the customer, but lay the foundations for being able to answer questions that may be put in the future.’

Policy-directed research tends to be restricted to what is compatible with existing practice, is liable to be slow and cumbersome and too late with its results, dealing with yesterday's problems and often wrong in its anticipated priorities. Relegating the researchers to a captive or subservient role – ‘all the strings are in the hands of the decision-maker’ (Cronbach et al, 1980) – it overrides their insights and discourages initiative. But researchers must not claim a privileged part in policy decisions: their influence must be through informing and persuading those with responsibility for action. Coleman observed that ‘social policy research is most often used by those without direct control over policy, who challenge the policies of those in positions of authority’ (Husen and Kogan, 1984); and this is perhaps one reason for hostility to research.

Teachers and others involved in the practice of education also influence what research is done or not done. They can restrict researchers from gaining access to an adequate sample, or require that data-gathering techniques be submitted for approval in advance. Teachers often have misgivings about the contribution of research. The researcher is seen as an interloper, seeking influence without accountability, operating a ‘smash and grab’ procedure, out of touch with what are deemed ‘relevant’ issues. The dispute over who should define relevance dates back to Rousseau, who wrote in 1762:

‘People are always telling me to make practical suggestions. You might as well tell me to suggest improvements which can be incorporated with the wrong methods at present in use.’

Pressures on researchers to take account of what is going on in their country's educational system should not be regarded as a threat to academic freedom, though they do impinge on professional standards and may require a shift of attitude. It is sound advice to keep your research perspective but also to remember the genuine concerns of others if you want to make an impact and to receive continuing support and resources. What has happened in recent years is that public funding for research is increasingly directed to applied or policy-oriented research and not to pure, conclusion-oriented research; and in the long term the effect may be to slow the pace of reform. (To be fair, it should be mentioned that the UK Rothschild report referred to above suggested that 10 per cent of public research funds should be set aside for work of the researcher's own choosing, a recommendation which has been forgotten.)

The position adopted in this chapter is a pluralist approach. To regard policy-oriented and conclusion-oriented research as in opposition to each other will only aggravate the problem. The solution does not lie in drawing up a national list of research priorities or in challenging the right of those who are not researchers to say what these priorities should be. Instead, the aim should be to bring all the partners in the research enterprise – research, policy, practice – into closer relationship, so that each may be more responsive to the requirements and perspectives of the others. As educational provision becomes more extensive, more complex and more expensive, there is an urgent need for structures to bring the partners into more effective interaction. We need research institutions which are free and strong and yet responsive. The organizations for educational research and development which have been set up in many countries in recent years differ widely in the way they have attempted to create the necessary interaction. In the belief that a comparative perspective can lead to insights beyond what is possible within a single educational system, contributors to this volume were asked to give a descriptive account of the organizations responsible for research and development, how and why they were established, why they have flourished or declined, and how their work is funded and priorities decided.

Contributors were also invited to identify issues of concern, looking ahead to future prospects and analysing the current assumptions about the nature and function of research in education. Among the themes which emerge in many of the chapters are:

1. the remarkable growth in educational research and development in the past 25 years;
2. increasing centralization and control of research; and
3. new paradigms for research, reflecting changing views on the nature of research and its contribution to policy and practice in education.

1. It is only within the past 25 years that research in education has received public funding on any substantial scale. Prior to 1960, research was mainly a spare-time amateur affair, unorganized and often ignored until its findings had percolated through into generally accepted values – an uncontrolled, slow, inefficient and (to administrators) sometimes inconvenient process. There was growing interest in exploiting the contribution of the social sciences in guiding policy, administration and practice, and in the years 1965–70 public funding of educational research and development expanded at an unprecedented rate. In Britain public expenditure on research in education multiplied ten-fold between 1964 and 1969, while in the USA expenditure doubled each year from 1964 through 1967. Never again can we expect to see such rapid growth. As Coleman points out in a paper on ‘The Institutionalization of Social Policy’ (Husen and Kogan, 1984):

‘Social policy research is a relatively new activity in society, expanding enormously in the 1960s and 1970s from a very small base before that time. As with newly emergent phenomena generally, there has not immediately developed an institutional and normative framework within which it is carried out and used.’

The influence of policy studies on the developing pattern of educational research organizations in the USA is traced by Mitchell in Chapter 2. There is awareness of the need for analysis and evidence in policy and planning, at national and local level. In Sweden (Chapter 15), national commissions precede major legislation; in the UK, reports such as Robbins, Plowden and Warnock are accompanied by extensive national surveys; evaluation is a mandatory element in US federal funding; and local administrators everywhere arm themselves with evidence (usually selected by themselves) to meet the challenge of opposition and pressure groups. Prior to 1960, most researchers in education acted as independent agents; there then followed the establishment (or augmentation) of central agencies for research and development; and now research is an integral part of the regular administrative system in the developed countries. The role of the professional researcher in this is still uncertain. Until the 1960s, there was little money; now, it appears, there is little scope for independence.

2. The trend towards centralization and control of research in education is the second of the themes in many of the chapters. This is a natural consequence of increased central funding of research (as the title of Chapter 14 implies). The question at issue is how to secure an appropriate balance between interests, in both senses of that word: the interests of the researchers and the interests of those who commission research. ‘Commission’ is a relatively neutral word, but it is a commercial term, suggesting a customer-contractor relationship. An alternative term, ‘negotiated research’, implies a more positive role for the researchers, granting them the right to participate in decision-making and perhaps also in defining the research topic. Kogan (in Husen and Kogan, 1984) summarizes the matter by contrasting the technocratic model with a pluralistic solution:

‘Those responsible for promoting policy and practice – the systems managers, the politicians, the heads of professional groups – must take decisions and elaborate policies. So at one level we might have a linear, managerial, cybernetic or technocratic model at work. But increasingly policy-makers might recognize that the research enterprise works best when it works interactively rather than in a linear fashion. In so doing, they might work best in the managerial interest when, as has become the case in government sponsored R & D for Swedish education (quoting Bjorklund) “it is the interaction between researchers and practitioners that is seen as the means whereby new studies are initiated”.’

The concept of ‘co-operative research’ extends the consultative process more widely. The publicly-funded Scottish Education Data Archive (McPherson, 1977) which embodies this concept, seeks to open up research data to any participant who is willing to spend a few hours mastering the computerized retrieval program. But even here, the information available within the data-bank has necessarily been decided in advance. The ‘action research’ movement (Elliott, Cha...