Renewed perspectives on research use in education (REPOSE)

Renewed perspectives on research use in education (RE-POSE) is a research project that aims to provide new analytical and methodological perspectives that will support researchers and practitioners in meeting the challenge of making productive use of research in education. We will perform a philosophical inquiry of to what extent teachers' professional knowledge base and agency can and should be informed by research evidence, a historical analysis of the development of Norwegian society’s expectations about the practical relevance of 'pedagogical research' from the 1930s onwards, and we will conduct several empirical analyses of contemporary structures and practices of research use. RE-POSE is an important project as research use in education is a highly contested and debated question, and where contested knowledge claims tend to blur fundamental questions about the characteristics of the knowledge base of education. This is evident, among other things, in an analysis of existing research on the use of research in schools, which shows that there has been surprisingly small changes in the problem framing and solutions over the past 20-30 years - thus also highlighting the need for a new paradigm in the understanding this phenomenon. The findings from the project so far argue that such a paradigm within research on the 'use of research' to a greater extent should adopt concepts and perspectives that are more professionally sensitive. Both 'research' and 'use' are ambiguous terms that are difficult to operationalise. The term 'use' becomes, among other things, a simplification and flattening of complex processes on several levels. This means that a term such as 'research literacy' can be well suited to bring out the complex interaction between structures, competence, and the ability to give meaning to research in a way that will lead to research playing an appropriate role in contributing to shape and challenge practice in schools. A challenge, however, is that the term 'research literacy' so far has been defined in education as relatively ambitious and scientifically oriented, and this term must therefore also be further developed to become more profession-sensitive and thus also into a term that captures both characteristics by the teachers' knowledge work and development over time. Findings from a longitudinal survey show that Norwegian teacher educators' attitudes to research have changed to a more positive approach to research from 2008 to 2021. These changes are to some extent linked to the fact that more staff in teacher education have obtained a doctorate and are thus more oriented towards research in their work, but the changes in attitudes persist even after controlling for this. To a certain extent, these findings also confirm a historical analysis of views on knowledge in teacher education in Norway, which discusses whether recent developments in teacher education may have contributed to the fact that the two traditions within reform pedagogy, the more student-centred and the more scientifically oriented, now seem to coexist to a greater extent. In the past, these two traditions have represented a tense relationship. Despite the fact that these tensions still characterize teacher education, development towards a greater degree of coexistence can lay a new, broader basis for understandings of research literacy in the teaching profession. Despite developments both in research, systems and expertise, there are still many voices who set up such a contradiction between research and professional judgement. In a forthcoming open-access anthology from the project, entitled "A research-based school? Research's place in teacher education and school" (coming December 2023), we argue for the need for a more nuanced view of the role of research in teacher education and school, where one has an eye both for the possibilities and limitations of research-based knowledge. Such an intermediate position between what is often characterized by strong voices on both sides also opens the door to recognizing that professional judgment can be strengthened through the use of research-based knowledge, instead of standing in opposition to it. On this basis, it may also be possible to arrive at a unified perspective on the role research can have in schools and teacher education. Although there are problems linked to the "ideal" of a consistent research basis for the teacher's work, there still seems to be relatively broad agreement that research can to a certain extent inform and improve practice in schools. In this way, we can help transform what at first seems like a deep, principled disagreement into a disagreement about degrees. In the project, we therefore also seek to contribute to a greater degree of exchange and understanding of different positions in such discussions, for example through a special issue in Professions and Professionalism, where researchers within different traditions discuss 'research literacy'.

Renewed perspectives on research use in education (REPOSE) is a combined basic research project and applied project with an ambitious and sophisticated design aimed at providing new analytical and methodological perspectives that will support researchers and practitioners in meeting the challenge of making productive use of research in education. REPOSE combines (1) a philosophical inquiry of to what extent teachers' professional knowledge base and agency can and should be informed by research evidence; (2) a historical analysis of the development of Norwegian society’s expectations about the practical relevance of 'pedagogical research' from the 1930s onwards; and (3) empirical analyses of contemporary structures and practices of research use through three strongly integrated work packages, combining (i) longitudinal survey data, public registers and vignette studies, (ii) comparative analyses of collaborative research development and research use, and (iii) comparative, qualitative analyses of practitioner decision-making. The project is important as this is currently an issue in which contested knowledge claims tend to blur fundamental epistemological questions about the characteristics of the knowledge base of education, including questions about how and to what extent research can or should inform professional practice for it to best meet the needs and rights of students. A recurring problem is also that many studies fail to acknowledge both how practitioners’ use of research is often implicit and how practitioners integrate different knowledge sources in their work and decision-making. Also, there is a frequent failure of mutual understanding concerning what research use ‘is’ among different actors in the sector, and moreover, it is an ambiguous term difficult to operationalise for researchers. To unpack such relations, there is a need for renewed perspectives that can bring research, practice and policy-making on research use in education further.