How and why educators use research and evidence: Insights from the Monash Q Project

Description

Integrating research into Australian classrooms is rapidly becoming a strong priority for those in education. References to the ‘use of research’ and ‘evidence-based initiatives’ are now a feature in various state-level school improvement frameworks (e.g., Department of Education & Training [DET] Victoria, 2021), national guidelines and standards (e.g., Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership [AITSL], 2018, 2019), and professional learning approaches (e.g., Bastow, 2019). There has also been an emergence of new evidence-focused education organisations, the most notable being a national evidence institute – Australian Education Research Organisation [AERO] – whose mission it is to work with teachers, school leaders and other education stakeholders to “generate high-quality evidence, make high-quality evidence accessible and enhance the use of evidence in Australian education” (AERO, 2021). Despite these advances though, very little is known about the challenges and opportunities around how educators find and use different research and evidence in practice.