Andrew Pollard, Director, TLRP

1. The Recent Development of Educational Research Capacity The case of the Teaching and Learning Research Program (TLRP) Andrew Pollard, Director, TLRP

2. Criticisms of educational research Relevance • Irrelevance to practice in schools • Very little on post-compulsory education • Lack of involvement of potential users of the research Quality • Theoretical incoherence across the field • Insufficient use of quantitative evidence • Research designs insufficiently systematic • Studies too small to produce convincing answers to ‘what works’ Impact • Poor dissemination • Weak cumulation of research findings

3. Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) • A programme - seen as a portfolio of competitively selected projects which address a particular, shared theme – eg: learning outcomes. • Designed to: • intervene in the field to enhance research scale, relevance and quality. • ‘add value’ to the individual projects through coordination,and thus maximise impact.

4. TLRP’s overarching aim: • ‘to lead to significant improvements in outcomes for learners at all ages and stages in all sectors and contexts of education and training, including informal learning settings, throughout the United Kingdom’.

5. TLRP’s ambition

6. Early issues • Lack of trust between researchers and ‘reformers’ • Disempowering emphasis on research ‘deficiencies’ • Methodological and paradigmatic arguments • Goals and values contested

7. Strategies for coping with challenge and change • Compliance • Creative mediation • Resistance

8. Teaching and Learning Research Programme Collaborative, ‘reflexive activism’ to build the social capital of educational research: • Affirming the moral purposes of educational research • developing relationships and networks, sharing perspectives and building alliances; • working on politically engaged impact and dissemination strategies; • attempting strategic positioning on long term issues • promoting collective, open and reflexive debate and action in respect of new challenges;

9. Main features of TLRP in 2008 • Very large (£43m in ten rounds of funding, 100+ investments, • 700+ researchers, projects up to £1.5m each, often with large teams) • HEFCE and RC funding (+ all UK governments & JISC) • All sectors of education (pre-school to elderly learners) • UK-wide (England, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland) • 2000 to 2008/9, and then to 2011/12 • Directors’ Team of five • Capacity building (in partnership with BERA, SERA, AERS, SRHE, etc)

10. Programme development: through ‘constructive engagement’ • Early user engagement • Knowledge generation by project teams • Knowledge synthesis by thematic work • Knowledge transformationfor impact • Capacity building for professional development • Partnerships for sustainability

11. Capacity building for professional development • Stage 1: Particular priorities • design, conduct and management of quantitative studies • enhancing their theoretical and conceptual bases • combining quantitative and qualitative approaches • utilisation of inter-disciplinary theories and methods • transformation of research-based knowledge for practice

12. Research Capacity Building Network (RCBN)

13. Capacity building for professional development Members of the Cardiff Capacity Building Team

14. Capacity building for professional development • Phase 2: Embedding capacity building in the social practices of researchers • Project participation • Capacity building conferences • ‘Meetings of Minds’ fellowships • Career development support • Developing online resources • Developing networks in learned societies • Linking with NCRM

15. Capacity building for professional development Members of the Strathclyde capacity building team

16. Phase 2 liaison with ESRC’s National Centre for Research Methods and with BERA, HEA, UCET, etc

17. ‘Mapping the Ripples’ Zoe Fowler and Richard Proctor Impact of TLRP on educational researchers

18. 2wq Research programme context EXPANSIVE RESTRICTIVE Perceived sense of visibility and value to research programme Explicit welcoming to the programme Range of training provision responsive to the needs and existing expertise of the individual Opportunities for researcher ‘s professional development included in project’s funding and evaluation Sense of being part of large community of people with shared commitments and values Perceived anonymity and dispensability to research programme Lack of welcome or introduction to programme Fixed training provision – ‘one-size-fits-all’ Professional development of research staff separate to project outputs Atomisation across projects – no sense of larger community

19. “I do feel that I learnt a lot through being part of TLRP and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. It’s important that a research career offers spaces for people to actually grow by doing something for a prolonged period of time rather than feverishly generating proposals for £15k at a time and trying to cobble together work [...] through all the trials and tribulations of quite a stormy project, there was lots of healthy debate within the team. There was this sort of blanket comfort that you were secure for 3 years.” • Contract Researcher

20. “That was fantastic! I really, really enjoyed that... I was in with, how shall I word this? People that I wanted to be my peers, in a way. It was - everybody was singing from the same songsheet, although we were all doing different projects [....] I just felt that there was so much knowledge and potential just in that conference that it really did buoy me up and make me think ‘this is what I want to be doing!’” • Practitioner Researcher

21. Research project context EXPANSIVE RESTRICTIVE Limited exposure to multiple communities of practice Hierarchical valuing of skills with privileging of some team members Prioritisation of project outputs over professional development needs of individuals Limited access to off-the-job training Abrupt ending to the project with no further investment in research staff. Supported engagement with multiple communities of practice Multidimensional model of expertise with diverse skills of entire research team valued Balance between project outputs and researcher’s own professional development Access and encouragement to attend off-the-job training Ongoing commitment to researchers’ futures beyond the completion of the project

22. Co-authorship network diagram for project with expansive publications policy

23. Co-authorship network diagram for project with restrictive publications policy

24. Co-authorship network diagram for project with atomised publicationspolicy

25. Programme development • Early user engagement • Knowledge generation by project teams • Knowledge synthesis by thematic work • Knowledge transformationfor impact • Capacity building for professional development • Partnerships for sustainability

26. TLRP: a collective adventure in ‘constructive engagement’? Generating and accumulating new knowledge? Supporting the development of capacity for educational research? Enjoying working together to improve educational outcomes?