EVIDENCE, POLICY AND PRACTICE

Based on observations from 3 EC/EUN projects: THINK AGAIN, ERNIST & P2P

David Wood

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Evidence-based policy and Policy-based evidence

Attacks on the quality of educational research

• Non-cumulative and doctrinaire• Failure to replicate• Failure to scale-up to a systemic level• Lack of evidence for generalisation • No evidence for sustainability

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Some policy reactions

• Greater ‘stakeholder’ participation in setting the research agenda and evaluating the outcomes

• Prescribed ‘gold standard’ to govern allocation of research funding

• Capacity building in quantitative methods• Criteria for meta-analysis and review to

identify ‘safe evidence’

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Researching the impacts of ICT

• Views on the existing evidence base

• Curriculum aspirations and objectives

• Systems of assessment and accreditation

• Human resource development

• Organisational climate

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Multiple constraint alignment

• A pre-condition for scaling up and for sustainability?

• If so, effective R and D demands systemicsupport to guarantee generalisation – not just the ‘application’ of ‘safe knowledge’

• Stakeholders as partners in collaborative R and D (versus ‘users’ who act as ‘consumers’ of safe knowledge)

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R&D and D&R

• The notion of development-led research

• Conditions for innovation and development

• Possible strategies?• P2P• Learning about learning

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Designing a new balance sheet?

• If ICT becomes mission critical, its impacts likely to be systemic - not restricted to outcomes from learners and learning

• Innovation, change and impact will depend on the alignment of many constraints

• Any added value could be multi-dimensional• Look for models?

• Economist and IBM?

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Partners in the process

Partners in case studies– Denmark– France– Hungary– Iceland– Netherlands– Portugal– Sweden– Switzerland– UK