Background: Knowledge brokering plays an important role in the evidence-to-policy system, but little is known about whether and how it occurs within government departments. Aims and objectives: Using empirical evidence from one UK government department, this article analyses how knowledge brokering takes place inside the policy making process and…

The authors of this position paper argue that there is currently very little evidence-based practice in relation to learners with severe learning disabilities (SLD) and profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD), and that which there is, has often been badly used and/or abused. More specifically, we argue that relevant educational research…

The current study investigated factors that potentially influenced the pedagogic practices of 132 EFL teachers from 28 secondary schools in a large city in Poland. The teachers completed a questionnaire about the factors that impacted their teaching practices. The primary influences on teaching practices turned out to be the course textbook and…

Background: Despite calls for greater use of research and an appetite to do so within adult social care, a gap persists between research and practice. Aims and objectives: To explore views of adult social care staff about research and its application to everyday practice. To understand how these might impact upon research use capacity-building…

This research focuses on how members of the UK Parliament engaged with evidence in relation to the policy decision leading to the Selective Schools Expansion Fund, a policy designed to enable the existing 163 English grammar schools to apply for additional funds to expand their intake. Although a small case study, the narrow focus provides a…

Background: This article comes in response to two gaps within the research use literature: a lack of work on quality of use as distinct from quality of evidence, and a lack of research use models based on practitioner, as opposed to researcher, perspectives. Aims and objectives: The study probes into the views of education practitioners about…

Much cultural capital research has accumulated since its inception in the 1970s and researchers have charted the corresponding development of cultural capital theory in academic communities. This empirical study takes the further step of offering an account of cultural capital as it is interpreted in schools. This 'interventionalist account' is…

An increasingly complex and demanding research landscape has seen university libraries rapidly evolve their services. While research data management, bibliometrics, and research impact services have predominantly featured in the literature to date, the full scope of support libraries are currently providing to their institutions is unknown. This…

Background: Local government (LG) is ideally placed to influence the determinants of public health (PH) and reduce inequalities, but opportunities are routinely missed. Aims and objectives: The aim of the Local Authority Champions of Research (LACoR) study was to explore ways to embed a culture of evidence use in LG. Methods: Five linked work…

Cultures of performative accountability in education have been on the rise globally since the 1980s. Accordingly, teachers have increasingly been encouraged to understand their work in relation to particular forms of 'evidence'. All evidence, however, is not regarded as equal, and sources of evidence privileged within cultures of performative…

There have been few areas in England over the last 50 years where government has drawn more heavily on research to inform policy and practice than in the area of teaching reading. The focus of this article is an analysis of the research and evidence on early reading, in particular the role of phonics, on which government policy in England and the…

This article analyses the use of research evidence (RE) in three policy processes, at the local level, dealing with physical activity. We analysed an extensive number of policy documents and a total of 14 interviews with policymakers. Results show an unsystematic way of using RE, where demographic and statistical data as well as expert…

Despite claims that we now live in a post-truth society, it remains commonplace for policy makers to consult research evidence to increase the robustness of decision making. Few scholars of evidence-policy interfaces, however, have used legislatures as sites of study, despite the fact that they play a critical role in modern democracies. There is…

Education policy continues to press for increased use of research evidence in decision-making, yet decades of research point to weak links between research and practice. We see evidence-informed improvement not as a problem with schools, but with a larger evidence-use ecosystem. As a step toward building and strengthening multidirectional paths…

This research briefing summarises findings from a nationally representative survey of schools and teachers, which investigated teachers' research use. The survey was designed with reference to the principles adopted in an earlier 2014 study in which the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and the Education Endowment Foundation…