Elizabeth N. Farley-Ripple
University of Delaware
Hilary Mead
University of Delaware
Katherine Tilley
University of Delaware
Who Really Cares about Using Education Research in Policy and Practice?
Developing a Culture of Research Engagement
Educational Research and Innovation
10. Organising for research use: Lessons from four deep-use schools
Abstract
This chapter presents findings from case studies of four schools in the United States classified as “deep users” of research. Using data from the national administration of the Survey of Evidence in Education, schools were identified based on their reported engagement with research evidence in organisational decision making. Drawing on interviews with school staff, this chapter shares lessons learnt about how schools organise for “deep use” of research. The discussion focuses on what we call the virtuous diamond – the synergistic relationships between culture, leadership, processes and structures – which appears foundational to deep-use schools. Through rich examples and quotes, this chapter provides insight into understanding and building schools’ capacity to use research to drive improvement efforts.
Introduction
Expectations for using research evidence to inform school practice are growing globally, and evidence-use policies often reflect assumptions about how schools use research, including assumptions about individual and organisational capacity to engage in research use (Farley-Ripple, 2012[1]; Honig and Coburn, 2008[2]). Research suggests many aspects of capacity are important. Studies report challenges based on teachers’ limited confidence in their evidence-use abilities (Hill and Briggs, 2020[3]; May et al., 2020[4]; Supovitz and Klein, 2003[5]) and difficulty applying research to their context (Finnigan, Daly and Che, 2013[6]). Accordingly, many efforts to strengthen research use focus on improving the relevance and accessibility of educational research. In the United States, this tendency is reflected, for example, in the What Works Clearinghouse and state-created tools that facilitate the selection of interventions based on evidence (see, for example, Wei and Johnson (2020[7])). Accordingly, guidance tends to focus on how to identify and understand high-quality research and other technical aspects of use.
However, the process of using research evidence requires teachers to make sense of evidence in their own context and practice, which means it entails more than technical skills. Practitioners’ individual experiences and beliefs impact the way they process evidence (Corcoran, McVay and Riordan, 2003[8]; Jabbar et al., 2014[9]; Neal et al., 2018[10]; Penuel et al., 2018[11]). Both experiential factors and technical skills shape where teachers look for and whether they choose to use information (Birkeland, Murphy-Graham and Weiss, 2005[12]; Honig and Coburn, 2008[2]; Corcoran, Fuhrman and Belcher, 2001[13]). Furthermore, organisational factors that shape use include human and financial resources to support evidence use; time for using evidence; a culture that features trust, collaboration and norms for evidence use; leadership; and structures and processes that facilitate communication of and about evidence (Asen et al., 2013[14]; Brown and Zhang, 2016[15]; Coburn and Talbert, 2006[16]; Coburn et al., 2020[17]; Farley-Ripple, 2020[18]; Penuel et al., 2017[19]; Supovitz and Klein, 2003[5]; Coburn, Toure and Yamashita, 2009[20]). Research also suggests that the individual capacities described above are shaped by the organisation, including the level of investment in skill development and professional learning, structures that enable collective sensemaking, and the nature of work in different parts of the organisation (Coburn, 2001[21]; Coburn and Talbert, 2006[16]; Honig and Coburn, 2008[2]; Kennedy, 1982[22]; Supovitz and Klein, 2003[5]).
In light of this literature, research use is likely to be a local and contextualised practice. This variation in research-use practices – and lack of understanding of what those practices look like – poses a significant challenge for developing guidance and providing assistance to schools. Not surprisingly, there is not as much guidance available to help schools understand and create conditions that support the use of research in their improvement efforts.
This chapter shares lessons learnt from four United States elementary schools that were identified by survey data as “deep users” of education research. Importantly, these schools are not very different than any other US schools on many criteria. They are not especially high-performing nor in affluent communities. They serve diverse student populations. The types of problems they faced and the types of decisions they took in response were not especially unique, including adopting early literacy curriculum, working to ensure students have equitable opportunities to learn and supporting teachers’ professional growth. They also represent different communities, governance arrangements and visions for their work. So what distinguishes these schools from others? They see research use as the work of their school, and underlying their practice is what we refer to as a virtuous diamond (Figure 10.1), which consists of organisational processes, structures, culture and leadership. This chapter explains how we went about learning from these four elementary schools then dives into lessons learnt about strengthening organisational capacity for the use of research evidence.
While the cases described are all embedded in the US education policy context, and our interpretations reflect our knowledge of that context, we believe that schools around the world will be able to see themselves in these findings and that the virtuous diamond and its four pillars are likely easily translatable to many other systems and contexts.
Box 10.1. The Center for Research Use in Education
The University of Delaware’s Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE), funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, seeks to expand the study of research use. CRUE produces a more holistic picture of what drives research use, from the production of knowledge by researchers to the sharing or brokering of knowledge between the two communities of research and practice, and the application of research in local decision‑making processes. Our research includes the development of survey instruments that capture the production and use of research, a national survey of schools and a national survey of education researchers, and case studies that help deepen our understanding of the survey findings and generate new insights about practice. The centre also engages in outreach and advocacy for improving how research is generated and supporting its use in policy and practice. This chapter presents findings from CRUE case studies of “deep-use” schools and features rich data on schools’ use of research.
Source: Center for Research Use in Education (2023[23]), “Education and Human Development”, https://crue.cehd.udel.edu.
What are deep-use schools?
Research use is far more than a simple, administrative task. We cannot simply post a check mark after reading research and say “done!” and expect our schools and systems to improve. Rather, using research is a practice, situated in the work of teachers and leaders (Farley-Ripple et al., 2018[24]). The idea of “deep use” describes the complex ways in which research use can be meaningful, systematic and likely to generate improvements in policy and practice. Depth of use then is a way of understanding the extent to which research is used in a superficial or symbolic way or whether research is engaged in “deeper” or more authentic ways that are likely to generate change. Based on literature on research use, we consider depth in terms of:
the use of different forms of evidence, including, but not limited to, education research
the extent to which teachers search for evidence to inform their work
the extent to which use involved interpretation in the context of practice
the extent of participation in research-use activities
the stage of decision making at which evidence is relied upon
the frequency of use in schools’ practice (Farley-Ripple et al., 2018[24]).
We can imagine each of these aspects of use as a continuum, from lesser to greater, with schools’ research‑use practices varying along each. Deep-use schools, then, are those with practices that favour the greater, or deeper, end of the continuum.
Finding and learning about deep-use schools
From 2018 to 2020, CRUE conducted a national survey of more than 4 000 teachers in 134 schools to better understand research use across US schools (Box 10.1). One section of the survey focused on measuring depth of use. Our conception of depth of use acknowledges the complexity and multidimensionality of evidence use as an organisational practice. Attending to this complexity, we focus on evidence, search, interpretation, participation, the stage of decision making at which evidence is relied upon and frequency as indicators of depth of use. We used those items to create scores for each dimension of depth (see Farley-Ripple et al. (2022[25]) or May et al. (2022[26]) for more about the survey and measures). Using those scores, we identified schools whose staff reported significantly higher use of evidence and whose scores on at least two other dimensions of depth were significantly higher than those of other schools. It is important to note that no school was consistently at the “greater” end of the continuum on all dimensions. In other words, no school was perfect and there is opportunity for all schools to improve their practices. Nonetheless, these data help identify deep-use schools and are a starting point for learning.
To better understand what deep use looks like in practice, we reached out to these schools; four agreed to participate (Box 10.2). We also note that this study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which demands on teachers reached exceptional levels. We were grateful for the time and consideration of those willing and able to participate. We spent (virtual) time with the staff of each school in the 2020-21 school year, speaking first with the school principal and teachers, other school leaders, and, when appropriate, external partners or school district staff, ultimately interviewing between three and five staff members per school. Moving from conversations to lessons learnt took several steps, including coding, memoing and synthesising codes to develop an understanding of patterns and noteworthy practices. Our analysis covered many aspects of research use, and we learnt a great deal about the practice of deep use of research, which we have shared elsewhere (Farley-Ripple et al., 2022[25]). However, here we focus on key takeaways that help us understand how schools can organise for deep use of research.
Box 10.2. Features of the four “deep-use” case study schools
Table 10.1. General characteristics of the four schools
Fairfield Elementary
Special features: The principal and assistant principal had been working together for seven years at the time of the interviews. Multiple collaborative structures are in place (school leadership team, teacher‑based teams/professional learning communities [PLCs], positive behavioural interventions and supports team). The Director of Teaching and Learning provides hands-on support. The school has several ongoing, multi-year partnerships with external consultants. Literacy and mindset are strong focuses for professional learning. The school struggles with low performance but has an above-average record for growth and for closing gaps among demographic groups. It is located in an area with high mobility, so improving attendance rates and student culture and climate have been a major focus in recent years.
Research use: Fairfield Elementary was selected based on scores for using external research (0.24) and interpretation (0.47).
Ivy Institute
Special features: The Ivy Institute is a college preparatory public charter school. Research and data use in planning and improvement efforts is considered “the core of the school,” and engagement is expected of all school staff. The charter organisation’s central office is located within the school building, but the central office staff take a mostly “hands-off” approach and are there to support school staff should they request assistance. A high value is placed on collaboration, and decision making is an inclusive, concerted process. There is a high prevalence of student exposure to trauma according to school staff. Achievement data reveal students are “on track” for achievement across subject areas and sub-groups, although some declines in performance have been seen in recent years.
Research use: This school was selected based on scores for use of external research (0.31), internal research (0.66), and its engagement in search (0.22) and interpretation (0.47).
Clark Elementary
Special features: Clark Elementary is an inquiry-based science, technology, engineering, and mathematics magnet school where teachers have substantial autonomy for curriculum and instructional decisions. It only has one administrator, a principal. There is relatively high staff turnover, but generally experienced staff, with 63% having 6+ years of experience. The school is located near major engineering and military employers, resulting in a fairly well-educated professional community. Student achievement is comparable to the state average, as such, Clark is neither recognised for its performance nor identified for additional support.
Research use: Clark Elementary was selected based on scores for use of external research (0.31) and engagement in search (0.29).
Willow Grove Elementary
Special features: Willow Grove Elementary is a Title I school, meaning that, due to the number of students considered low-income, it receives financial assistance from a federal education programme. It is uniquely located between two major universities, resulting in a high number of staff attending graduate school. District-level staff, including the superintendent, assistant superintendent and various co-ordinators, interact with the school on a regular basis and are instrumental in supporting teachers in evidence-based improvement efforts. Student mobility is high. Student achievement data indicate students slightly outperform other schools in the state and are in the top 10% for growth. The school is described as “beating the odds” – performing better than schools with similar characteristics and student populations.
Research use: Willow Grove Elementary was selected based on scores for use of external research (0.33) and internal research (0.63).
Organising for research use in deep-use schools
Even before talking with school staff, we noticed from the survey data that the schools identified as deep users of research are indistinguishable from other schools in some ways. The four schools in this case study did not have additional specialised organisational structures or processes to facilitate research use. They did not offer any incentives to encourage research use. The types of problems they faced and the types of decisions they took in response were not especially unique. So, what were the mechanisms and conditions that enable them to shine as deep users of research? Our findings show that it is not necessarily what these schools have or do that is unique, but how they do things. This how appears to boil down to four key, mutually reinforcing conditions that we describe as a virtuous diamond: organisational processes, structures, culture and leadership (Figure 10.1).
Figure 10.1. The virtuous diamond representing synergistic relationships among leadership, culture, processes and structures
Deep-use schools embed research use into organisational processes
Integrating evidence into school processes and routines makes using it the work, not more work. In deep‑use schools, research use is embedded within common school processes: instructional processes focused on meeting student learning needs, learning processes centred on improving teacher knowledge and skills, decision-making processes addressing school-wide needs and issues, and human resources processes related to staffing the school. These processes are not unique to deep-use schools and are, in fact, present in all schools, yet the expectations of and support for research use within them appears to be a defining feature of how these schools work.
One strategy for embedding research use is by using processes to introduce research into school practice. We saw this most often in instructional and decision-making processes. A coach at the Ivy Institute described visiting a PLC and hearing teachers describe challenges with teaching students to read. As she described her practice, “I’m going to check it out ... I have a lot of teacher books that are going to give me some ideas, do some research on it, and then try to get back to them as quickly as possible.” In this case, research was introduced as one of the resources that supported teachers’ learning about and implementation of literacy instruction. In Fairfield, a committee introduced research into school decisions about social-emotional learning supports for students returning to in-person learning.
Deep-use schools also use processes to reinforce norms and expectations for research and data use. Across cases, school processes reflected norms and expectations, for example asking for evidence behind decisions or sharing research as part of discussions. Two schools described how hiring and supervision processes were carried out. For example, an Ivy Institute teacher explained:
It’s kind of included in that process, that interview process, you know, how do you use the data? How do you use the research? What are you going to do with this information? … teachers have to believe in that. And they’re not going to hire a teacher ... who isn’t into the data or the research, because that’s just kind of the core of the school.
In this situation, teaching candidates completed a data analysis activity during the interview. Another Ivy teacher described expectations for her own learning: “When we build our professional development plans, we do have to include … our action steps, why we’re going to take those action steps and then the research behind those action steps.”
A final strategy for embedding research is to adopt processes that reflect research-based practices. For example, in Fairfield, district administrators engaged in monthly walkthroughs (e.g. Rouleau and Corner (2020[27])) with school leaders to support research-based literacy instruction. At Clark, a district administrator described a push for instructional coherence (e.g. Newmann et al. (2001[28])) across the district, activities which included refocusing teachers on their core math curriculum and convening teacher representatives in the summer to prioritise standards.
Two prominent examples of research use in school processes are worth noting. First, all four schools described the importance of adopting curricula or programmes with research bases, though it took different forms. In Willow Grove, district leaders were most often responsible for identifying and evaluating evidence behind curriculum to be adopted, and teachers at the school level expected that of their district and trusted that process. At the Ivy Institute, however, school staff were charged with identifying potential research‑based programmes. A district administrator in Clark articulated how a strong research basis could justify district-wide expectations for implementation:
We’ve been very loath to do a new adoption because of how the expectations and instruction change and we don’t want to, you know, drop three-quarters of a million dollars on textbooks and only have teachers use them half the time or half the teachers using them some of the time. So, we’re really trying to find more again research-based approaches that we feel confident that we can have as a district-wide expectation: “Here’s why you need to use this, because this is what the research supports will happen if we do.”
Second, all four schools have book study processes for teachers – and also, in some cases, for administrators. Book studies are a clear example of introducing research into school practices, and books themselves are a common way for teachers to engage with research. Further, a high level of engagement was expected. Teachers reported making posters to showcase learning from a given book, preparing lessons to teach each other about the book, working in teams to read and present on a chapter, and hosting online discussion boards that were the basis for in-person discussions. One described it as “just like a college class basically when you’re assigned all that fun stuff to do.” One variation was article studies. For example, one school purchased a subscription to Education Leadership and asked teachers to bring an article to every meeting. Book studies were enacted thoughtfully as part of school improvement and professional learning initiatives, and often book studies were successful when they mapped closely to the school’s new initiatives or programmes. Importantly, book studies were not considered additional work but part of the improvement and learning work itself.
Deep-use schools leverage common structures to ensure participation and protected time for research use
The processes described above are often enacted within larger school structures, which provide important space and support for research use. Importantly, deep-use schools rely on common structures found in most US schools to support research use – not new, additional structures but existing structures that helped organise the day-to-day work of the school. Table 10.2 highlights some of those structures and how they supported not only improvement work, but research-informed improvement work. Furthermore, by leveraging existing and not special structures, schools can support widespread engagement with research, as all staff participated in at least one of these structures and ensure protected time for research use within the regular school schedule. Like processes, structures ensure that research use was part of the work of the school, not in addition to it.
Table 10.2. Common organisational structures of deep-use schools and examples of support provided
Although using common school improvement structures is a powerful way to support widespread use of research, a few research-use specific structures, when present, can be valuable support for engaging in research use, as we found in our four elementary schools. These specialised supports were often facilitated at the district level and often took two forms: research-based products adopted system-wide and relationships to external resources and expertise. Research-based products adopted district-wide became system-wide supports for research use. For example, Fairfield’s district offered Panorama, a research‑based programme for collecting and analysing school climate data, which plays a significant role in school decision making according to the teachers and administrators. Teachers engaged with these data at staff meetings, in PLCs and as individuals reflecting on their own practice. The district in which Clark Elementary is housed offers an online library.
Access to external resources varied by school. Although all schools mentioned a local university, Clark Elementary appeared to leverage its relationship with the university to strengthen research and data use. This effort included arranging for credit for school-based professional learning, collaboration on innovative teacher preparation programmes, solving problems of practice, and getting assistance with instructional coherence and alignment. Additionally, external speakers were brought in as experts on local initiatives in Fairfield and Clark to discuss mindset and literacy research and standards-based grading, respectively. External consultants also played a significant role in Fairfield. These were former teachers brought in to work with the entire staff as well as individual teachers on at least a monthly basis. The role of these consultants was widely recognised as beneficial for improving literacy instruction in the school. Specifically, the consultants brought research and research-based practice, with teachers appreciating that they “break it down for us” and “make it practical.” Fairfield teachers especially noted that the partnership was ongoing, not just a one-day training but regular, consistent time.
Deep-use schools develop an organisational culture of improvement and trust that centres on “doing what’s best for kids”
School cultures have a profound effect on teaching and learning and shape the everyday actions of school staff. In deep-use schools, culture is central to their use of research, frequently understood simply as “how we do it.” In fact, several teachers expressed surprise that our team was interested in how they work, not recognising their schools as different from others.
First, deep research use requires a growth mindset among adults and a commitment to improvement and change. Teachers believed deeply in the need for continuous instructional improvement at the individual and school level. They were often proactive about improving their practice or expressed that their practice is always evolving. Describing Willow Grove, one administrator stated:
In general, the culture here is, we’re going to push it. Yeah. Because that’s what's best for us in our practice, but also it’s what’s best for kids to grow them. So, we’re going to always be questioning whether we’re doing enough, [whether] we’re doing what’s best.
One way of thinking about this drive toward instructional improvement is as a “growth mindset,” which is reflected in high levels of commitment among staff to the often-challenging work of instructional change. Improvement work is hard and is not a short-term engagement: deep-use schools saw improvement work as the long game.
Consistent with a growth mindset and commitment to continuous improvement, deep use means believing in doing what is best for kids. As the principal of Willow Grove explained:
I think that it’s just continually wanting to get better … End of the year conferences are going on right now. And so, we’re talking to teachers about how their years have been. And they constantly ask, “Well, what can I do? What can I do to get better?” Or “I haven’t been able to get this kid, what can I do?” And so … the teachers are really willing to try whatever it is if they think that it will pay off in terms of student achievement. And so, I really just think it kind of goes to just the culture that we’ve built here, and just wanting to really do what’s best for kids.
“What’s best for kids” entails work that promotes student learning, growth and performance, not test-based accountability. In deep-use schools, teachers hold themselves accountable to children, to each other and even to the public. It is also closely aligned with the use of research in deep use schools. A Willow Grove administrator articulated this connection well:
And for us, when we’re talking to teachers about it ... we kind of use the analogy of like, a medical term of when you go to the doctor, and you’re being told you have cancer or something like that. You don’t want something that worked 10 years ago, you want like, “What is it now?” Because things are changing. Technology changes. And that’s the same thing with education. We want what the research is showing right now is working with kids and what’s being effective … so that kind of goes along with … everything that we do here.
Growth mindsets and commitment to doing what’s best for kids can lead to a virtuous cycle: research‑driven improvement boosts teacher buy-in and reinforces cultural commitment to using research and becomes a strong incentive for the continued use of research. Fairfield Elementary experienced such a cycle in its experience working with issues of school climate, behaviour and attendance. This commitment was also evidenced in Willow Grove’s implementation of the evidence-based curriculum Bookworms, cultivating teacher buy-in with improvements in student learning. A teacher from the Ivy Institute summed it up best: “[Other teachers] see you know, I’ve done this research. This is what’s going to help my kids, this is what I’m going to do and then you see the kids thriving with it.”
Most importantly, deep use of research is built on a strong foundation of trust and professionalism, often reflected in the use of “team” or “family” or “we”. Trust goes well beyond friendliness and collegiality and has direct implications for research use. In deep-use schools, trust enabled a sense of collective responsibility, the notion that the student body is “all our kids.”
Trusting relationships also create a supportive working environment, one where colleagues actively help one another and in which leaders and coaches are there to support, not merely evaluate, their practice, as we saw across deep-use schools. The supportive environments in deep-use schools improved access to and the flow of research-based practice across the school. When teachers trust one another, they often seek new ideas and strategies for particular challenges, and it is acceptable to need help. A teacher in Fairfield illustrated the rich culture of sharing in their school:
And it’s just really cool how we work together. We scaffold off each other’s ideas and in PDs we give, sometimes other teachers will present on topics of what they do really well so then they can share it with the other teachers ... Everyone really loves the research and new ideas, and even veteran teachers are open to learning from others, and just new research that comes out.
Trust also means transparency or openness, whether to new ideas and feedback or to having difficult conversations. For example, using data in faculty meetings or PLCs can lead to difficult conversations, which can only take place in an environment of trust, and extend to using research. At Clark, teachers engaged with racial inequity and social justice by reading Other People’s Children by Lisa Delpit. One teacher called this book study a success:
Just because of the openness and the community that it created for school. It was a safe zone as we discussed the study. And I think it brought more clarity to some people, and yes, we didn’t all agree, I will definitely put that out there. And we didn’t agree with it, but we could appreciate each other and understand where people come from. Because maybe I don’t agree with you, but I can see why you’re thinking the way you are now because you were open with me.
Lastly, trust manifests in autonomy and flexibility in both school and teacher decision making, which was evident in each of the four schools. Autonomy and flexibility empower schools and teachers to engage and experiment with research in their practice as well as advocate for research-based practices that meet students’ needs. For example, in Willow Grove, an administrator explained that they had worked to build teachers’ capacity to self-lead PLCs, while in Fairfield, administrators valued staff input in all manners of decisions. Autonomy and flexibility characterised school relationships with the district as well; in all schools, teachers reported being able to provide feedback or pushback on district initiatives. For Clark, in particular, the superintendent acknowledged that the school’s strong teachers drove the focus on research and improvement, and a Clark teacher explained that the district offered school autonomy to decide what is best for the school and then “see how it works.”
Ultimately, research use reflects the professionalism of school staff. The cultures of these elementary schools held teacher professionalism in high regard. This is expressed among teachers, through collective responsibility and improvement mindsets, but also from administrators at the school and district who not only created opportunities for teacher feedback and leadership, but valued them as well. In such cultures, structures and processes that involved teachers in a meaningful way were able to thrive.
Deep-use leaders model research use, create conditions for use and distribute leadership
Many of the factors that shaped research use in deep-use schools can unequivocally be traced back to leadership. We learnt that leaders contribute in specific ways to the use of research in their schools: through their own use, by designing or shaping organisational supports for research use, and by creating broader conditions that supported research use.
Leaders engage with research to inform their own practices, which also served as a model for others. They “walk the talk” of research use. An administrator at Fairfield, for example, used Panorama data to reflect on her own effectiveness as a communicator, and acted based on what she learnt. Participants interviewed for this case acknowledged this example as well. Other district and school leaders reported ways they had used research to shape their own practices, whether looking for “how to be an effective coach and an effective school leader” or reading books as a district administrative team.
Leaders’ own use of research also made them key research “brokers”: they frequently found and shared research resources with each other and with staff. In Fairfield, an administrator explained:
That can be as simple as I walked down to my [colleague’s] office and I sat down with her one morning, and she may be “Hey [name] have you read this article?” And I’ll be like, “No, what article?” and we start having a conversation, and then we openly discuss, you know, what are the findings of this, what are our concerns of this, what can we do as a building to kind of help the impacts that are going to happen to these kids?
As a result of sharing research, leaders were often a “go-to” resource for teachers in these schools.
In addition to their own use, leaders contribute directly to the organisation’s use of research, reinforcing an evidence-informed improvement agenda and allocating key resources to evidence use, including time, and financial and human resources.
First, leaders set a vision for evidence-informed improvement. In our four elementary schools, leaders framed issues in terms of evidence, asking what strategies would help them achieve goals, or questioning why the school was engaging – or should engage – in a particular practice. Both questions invoked research and data as supporting evidence. Leaders also align improvement goals and actions with evidence and build buy-in for improvement initiatives by bringing research to the table. An administrator of Willow Grove provided a clear example:
With anything, teachers are a little hesitant again, they want to know that it’s going to pay off for them … Like what do you have that shows it’s going to work? … if the research says that this is what’s working, and you can’t tell me, you can’t show me anything better than that, what’s it going to hurt you to try? And so that’s really kind of how we got the buy-in …
Second, leaders in deep-use schools directly support the use of research through staffing and professional learning. Some schools specifically incorporated expectations for research and data use into hiring decisions to ensure staff embraced evidence-use norms. Similarly, leaders select staff to serve on teams, share work in staff meetings or attend professional learning. Leaders of the four schools shaped the content of professional learning, whether bringing in experts or consultants or selecting presenters in professional learning sessions. Leaders in deep-use schools are intentional with staff time. For example, in Fairfield, the principal “tapped” a teacher to provide professional development to her peers after seeing this teacher's skill in implementing an intervention and using data to track progress and adjust instruction. In Willow Grove, the principal encouraged staff in graduate school to share what they were learning.
Finally, leaders in deep-use schools cultivate a broader set of enabling conditions that indirectly contribute to organisational capacity for research use. Leaders of deep-use schools were visible in all aspects of the school’s work and participated in a supportive, rather than evaluative, role. Further, leaders were available and open to their staff, which contributes to trust but also to transparency. And leaders actively encouraged collaboration and sharing, between teachers and administrators as well as among teachers. Relatedly, leaders modelled change and vulnerability and positioned themselves as constantly learning and growing. A helpful example came from Clark, where an administrator identified ways in which they had grown as a leader:
When I came here the teachers wanted to definitely be a part of the decision-making process and they always … asked me, “So where’s the data for that?” you know? And [I responded] like, “I don’t know I just feel that way.” “You can just feel that way, that’s wonderful you feel that way, but [name], you’re the leader. You can’t just feel that. You’ve got to tell us where’s it at,” and so it changed my perspective, a lot.
One of the most notable supporting conditions for research use evident in our deep-use schools – and evidenced in many other studies of research use – is distributed leadership. This phrase implies not only that leadership is shared among multiple teachers rather than concentrated in the positional leader(s), but also reflects a dynamic view. As defined by Spillane (2005, p. 145[29]), in “a distributed perspective, leadership practice that results from the interactions among leaders, followers and their situation is critical”. Both school and district leaders practised distributed leadership across many domains of school functions, including engaging staff in decision making, soliciting feedback on practices and programmes, engaging teachers in key processes like curriculum adoption, encouraging teacher autonomy and professionalism, and promoting teacher advocacy. Distributed leadership in these instances fostered collective responsibility for improvement and school-wide participation in evidence use. Not surprisingly, in all of the interviews, leaders almost exclusively used “we,” rather than “I” or “they,” when describing their improvement work, and they publicly recognised and valued teacher contributions (e.g. through invitations to lead professional learning).
The virtuous diamond: Bringing it all together
In deep-use schools, each of these four organisational dimensions is inextricably connected and equally important, creating a virtuous diamond, as shown in Figure 10.1, in which each supports and is supported by the other.
The culture of a school permeates everything within these cases. The case study schools shared important cultural characteristics that impacted their use of research, including a growth mindset, commitment to improvement and change, and trusting professional environments. We found that this culture is strongly influenced by leadership. In these cases, school and district leaders modelled research use in their own practice and shared research with staff, providing an example of research-based improvement for others. Additionally, leaders in case study schools often served as key research brokers themselves, not only sharing how they had used research to improve their practice but also directly sharing research evidence. Further, we heard from leaders that the culture of their school shaped their leadership as well, demonstrating a reciprocal, synergistic relationship.
Organisational leadership and culture directly impact the two other points of the diamond: organisational structures and processes. For example, school leaders influence how structures are used and what resources are available to support. For example, leveraging structures such as leadership teams of staff meeting for evidence use protected time for those practices and ensured widespread engagement, reinforcing a culture of research use. Furthermore, leaders set explicit expectations for the role of research in school processes – such as curriculum adoption or professional learning – which were enacted in the context of school structures. Again, these relationships are reciprocal: processes and structures become spaces where the school culture is enacted and reinforced, contributing to the notion that research use is simply “how we do things.” Furthermore, they become opportunities for leaders to both model research use and distribute leadership.
This synergy among the four points of the virtuous diamond facilitated many aspects of research-use practices in the four schools we studied, from participation to interpretation and search, ultimately creating conditions for deep use of research.
How can we build from these lessons?
Deep-use schools provide actionable evidence for how organisational conditions can be used to support research use and research-informed practice. This chapter provided specific strategies and examples of organisational processes, structures, culture and leadership, and teachers can take from these starting points for their journey to becoming deep users of research. But beyond these actions, our lessons offer a few broader takeaways for building capacity for deep use across the system.
Context matters in enacting deep research use
First, although the virtuous diamond supported research use in each school, how those dimensions were enacted or leveraged varied, reflecting local norms, contexts, needs and resources, as we can see in the different examples from each school. School and district leaders may need support and guidance on developing contextually appropriate approaches to evidence-informed improvement and tailored strategies for building local capacity. In developing that guidance, we highlight the importance of the collective capacity of the organisation and that investments that focus only on individual or technical capacity building will be unlikely to achieve the deep use we found in these schools.
Research use should not be more work, but the work
Further, research use should not be more work, but the work. One implication of this is that support for research use is not incidental but intentional and strategic. This embedding is true within the school: the structures, processes, culture and leadership, which we call the virtuous diamond, work to reinforce each other. But this finding is also likely true with respect to district support. While we did not focus on the district role, it was a significant, supportive factor, often the source of research-specific structures and expertise. These findings affirmed the importance of taking a systems perspective on research use (Honig and Venkateswaran, 2012[30]) and a need for thoughtful design across levels of the education system.
Develop leaders to become leaders of evidence-use
Third, a high leverage starting point might be to prepare school and district leadership for roles as evidence‑use leaders. Although we emphasise collective capacity for research use, leaders have a high degree of influence on the conditions that most seem to support research use – the virtuous diamond. Further, they were often key brokers that facilitated access to research or to resources that supported research use. However, leadership for research use does not figure strongly in existing frameworks for leader preparation or effective leadership, though we have called for it elsewhere (Farley-Ripple, 2020[18]).
Culture, processes, structures and leadership need to be nurtured for evidence-informed improvement
We conclude with a reminder that the elements of the virtuous diamond – culture, processes, structures and leadership – are conditions of every school. Nearly all have structures for collaboration. All buildings have leaders. And although our work is not longitudinal, we suspect that this virtuous diamond has evolved and strengthened over time and has not always been present. In fact, multiple principals explained that it has been a journey, and that these schools had not always functioned the way they do presently. We imagine many elementary schools could see themselves across these cases, and that what is happening in these schools might be possible in theirs. What we take from this finding is that the potential for a virtuous diamond exists in most schools – that capacity for evidence-informed improvement is present yet untapped. It is our hope that in describing these schools and their work, we can begin to imagine ways of tapping that potential across the educational system.
References
[14] Asen, R. et al. (2013), “Research evidence and school board deliberations: Lessons from three Wisconsin school districts”, Educational Policy, Vol. 27/1, pp. 33-63, https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904811429291.
[12] Birkeland, S., E. Murphy-Graham and C. Weiss (2005), “Good reasons for ignoring good evaluation: The case of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program”, Evaluation and Program Planning, Vol. 28, pp. 247-256, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2005.04.001.
[15] Brown, C. and D. Zhang (2016), “Is engaging in evidence-informed practice in education rational? What accounts for discrepancies in teachers’ attitudes towards evidence use and actual instances of evidence use in schools?”, British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 42/5, pp. 780-801, https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3239.
[23] Center for Research Use in Education (2023), Education and Human Development: Center for Research Use in Education, https://crue.cehd.udel.edu/ (accessed on 5 July 2023).
[21] Coburn, C. (2001), “Collective sensemaking about reading: How teachers mediate reading policy in their professional communities”, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol. 32/2, pp. 145-170, https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737023002145.
[17] Coburn, C. et al. (2020), “The role of organizational routines in research use in four large urban school districts”, Technical Report No. 5, National Center for Research in Policy and Practice, https://www.colorado.edu/research/ncrpp/sites/default/files/attached-files/NCRPP-Study-1-Technical-Report-No-5-FINAL-Dec-20201.pdf.
[16] Coburn, C. and J. Talbert (2006), “Conceptions of evidence use in school districts: Mapping the terrain”, American Journal of Education, Vol. 112/4, pp. 469-495, https://doi.org/10.1086/505056.
[20] Coburn, C., J. Toure and M. Yamashita (2009), “Evidence, Interpretation, and Persuasion: Instructional Decision Making at the District Central Office”, Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, Vol. 111/4, pp. 1115-1161, https://doi.org/10.1177/016146810911100403.
[13] Corcoran, T., S. Fuhrman and C. Belcher (2001), “The District Role in Instructional Improvement”, Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 83/1, pp. 78-84, https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170108300116.
[8] Corcoran, T., S. McVay and K. Riordan (2003), “Getting it right: The MISE approach to professional development”, CPRE Research Reports, Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania, https://doi.org/10.12698/cpre.2003.rr55.
[18] Farley-Ripple, E. (2020), Leading Research Use in Schools: Leveraging Principals’ Capacity and Contributions, Research Brief, Center for Research Use in Education, University of Delaware, IES Grant R305C150017.
[1] Farley-Ripple, E. (2012), “Research use in central office decision-making: A case study”, Education Management, Administration, and Leadership, Vol. 40/6, pp. 784-804, https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143212456912.
[24] Farley-Ripple, E. et al. (2018), “Rethinking Connections Between Research and Practice in Education: A Conceptual Framework”, Educational Researcher, Vol. 47/4, pp. 235-245, https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x18761042.
[25] Farley-Ripple, E. et al. (2022), How Is Evidence Use Enacted In Schools? A Mixed Methods Multiple Case Study of “Deep Use” Schools?, Center for Research Use in Education, University of Delaware, http://www.research4schools.org/how-is-evidence-use-enacted-in-schools-a-mixed-methods-multiple-case-study-of-deep-use-schools.
[6] Finnigan, K., A. Daly and J. Che (2013), “Systemwide reform in districts under pressure: The role of social networks in defining, acquiring, using, and diffusing research evidence”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 51/4, pp. 476-497, https://doi.org/10.1108/09578231311325668.
[3] Hill, H. and D. Briggs (2020), “Education leaders’ knowledge of causal research design: A measurement challenge”, Annenberg EdWorking Papers, No. 20-298, https://doi.org/10.26300/vxt5-ws91.
[2] Honig, M. and C. Coburn (2008), “Evidence-based decision making in school district central offices: Toward a policy and research agenda”, Educational Policy, Vol. 22/4, pp. 578-608, https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904807307067.
[30] Honig, M. and N. Venkateswaran (2012), “School–Central Office Relationships in Evidence Use: Understanding Evidence Use as a Systems Problem”, American Journal of Education, Vol. 118/2, pp. 199-222, https://doi.org/10.1086/663282.
[9] Jabbar, H. et al. (2014), “How policymakers define ‘evidence’: The politics of research use in New Orleans”, Policy Futures in Education, Vol. 12/8, pp. 1013-1027, https://doi.org/10.2304/2014.12.8.1013.
[22] Kennedy, M. (1982), “Evidence and decision”, in Kennedy, M. (ed.), Working Knowledge and other Essays, pp. 59-103, The Huron Institute.
[26] May, H. et al. (2022), Survey of Evidence in Education for Schools (SEE-S), Technical Report, Center for Research Use in Education, University of Delaware, Delaware.
[4] May, H. et al. (2020), “Individual and school-level capacity to critically evaluate research: A multilevel organizational analysis”, virtual poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Research on Educational Effectiveness, March 11-14, 2020, Crystal City, Virginia.
[10] Neal, J. et al. (2018), “What makes research useful for public school educators?”, Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, Vol. 45/3, pp. 432-446, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-017-0834-x.
[28] Newmann, F. et al. (2001), “Instructional program coherence: What it is and why it should guide school improvement policy”, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol. 23/4, pp. 297-321, https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737023004297.
[19] Penuel, W. et al. (2017), “How school and district leaders access, perceive, and use research”, AERA Open, Vol. 3/2, pp. 1-17, https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858417705370.
[11] Penuel, W. et al. (2018), “What research district leaders find useful”, Educational Policy, Vol. 32/4, pp. 1-29, https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904816673580.
[27] Rouleau, K. and T. Corner (2020), Classroom Walkthroughs: Where Data-gathering and Relationship Building Meet for School Improvement, McREL International.
[29] Spillane, J. (2005), “Distributed Leadership”, The Educational Forum, Vol. 69/2, pp. 143-150, https://doi.org/10.1080/00131720508984678.
[5] Supovitz, J. and V. Klein (2003), “Mapping a course for improved student learning: How innovative schools systematically use student performance data to guide improvement”, CPRE Research Reports, Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania, https://repository.upenn.edu/cpre_researchreports/39.
[7] Wei, T. and E. Johnson (2020), “How states and districts support evidence use in school improvement”, Study Snapshot, NCEE 2020-004, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED605885.pdf.