Research Mobilities in Primary Literacy Education
Lead Research Organisation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Department Name: College of Social Sciences and Arts
Abstract
Primary school literacy is a foundation of education and yet use of research-based evidence to inform teachers' professional decision-making in this area, while increasing, is piecemeal and varied in quality. This study explores how movements of research are significant to this pressing problem. While much has been written about how ideas move in a networked society, manifesting in concerns about fake news and the rapid, widespread circulation of ill-informed or prejudicial perspectives and practices, little is known about what happens to educational research evidence as it moves through complex and intersecting networks, movements that are complicated further by a shifting landscape for professional learning and changes in communication media facilitated by digital technologies. This study will explore what happens as research evidence moves from research producers to research users, identifying the individual, organisational and technological brokers (such as literacy charities, social media influencers, algorithms and hashtags) that facilitate its movements or halt its progress, and any shifts in key messages as it moves.
We focus on literacy education in the primary phase (age 5-11) because literacy is a foundation of education and because international studies have highlighted the need for teachers to draw on a wide variety of research evidence generated through different research paradigms if literacy education is to be inclusive to all learners and fit for the 21st century. Teachers however must navigate a complex research environment, drawing on multiple sources accessed through diverse channels, often mediated by digital platforms. Against this background, research evidence can be distorted and some kinds of evidence gain greater traction than others - not necessarily in line with research merit but propelled by a proliferation of producers, strategies and channels of communication, diverse methods of uptake, and mixed messages in media discourse. There is therefore a pressing need for a better understanding of how literacy research evidence moves to teachers (or not) and what happens to it as it does so.
This study addresses this need by exploring the movements of research in primary literacy education (RPLE). It will explore how multiple actors combine to mediate, broker, propel or stall research evidence, and investigate the meanings that evidence accrues or drops, the credibility it acquires (or not), and how it gains or loses momentum as this happens. The complexity of researching movements of research has led us to draw from across the social sciences in order to design effective, multi-layered methods, and we are developing our own multidisciplinary instruments to examine the interfaces of networks of individuals, organisations, communication channels and texts.
The project will produce new important knowledge about the impact of movement on what is 'received' as research by teachers, and reinvigorate debate about the relationship between research and practice amongst stakeholders including educators, school leaders, policy-makers, literacy charities, teacher educators and other educational organisations. It will develop new fora for enabling teachers to engage with researchers, and produce professional learning materials for use by teachers, schools and student-teachers that support a critical engagement with research that considers not just research evidence itself, but the broader networks that construct it in certain ways. These findings will also be valuable to researchers when planning dissemination activities and to the bodies, such as UKRI, that fund them. While the focus is RPLE, the study will generate theoretical and methodological resources for understanding the movements of research across education and other social sciences, paving the way for a new programme of research into what we call 'research mobilities'.
We focus on literacy education in the primary phase (age 5-11) because literacy is a foundation of education and because international studies have highlighted the need for teachers to draw on a wide variety of research evidence generated through different research paradigms if literacy education is to be inclusive to all learners and fit for the 21st century. Teachers however must navigate a complex research environment, drawing on multiple sources accessed through diverse channels, often mediated by digital platforms. Against this background, research evidence can be distorted and some kinds of evidence gain greater traction than others - not necessarily in line with research merit but propelled by a proliferation of producers, strategies and channels of communication, diverse methods of uptake, and mixed messages in media discourse. There is therefore a pressing need for a better understanding of how literacy research evidence moves to teachers (or not) and what happens to it as it does so.
This study addresses this need by exploring the movements of research in primary literacy education (RPLE). It will explore how multiple actors combine to mediate, broker, propel or stall research evidence, and investigate the meanings that evidence accrues or drops, the credibility it acquires (or not), and how it gains or loses momentum as this happens. The complexity of researching movements of research has led us to draw from across the social sciences in order to design effective, multi-layered methods, and we are developing our own multidisciplinary instruments to examine the interfaces of networks of individuals, organisations, communication channels and texts.
The project will produce new important knowledge about the impact of movement on what is 'received' as research by teachers, and reinvigorate debate about the relationship between research and practice amongst stakeholders including educators, school leaders, policy-makers, literacy charities, teacher educators and other educational organisations. It will develop new fora for enabling teachers to engage with researchers, and produce professional learning materials for use by teachers, schools and student-teachers that support a critical engagement with research that considers not just research evidence itself, but the broader networks that construct it in certain ways. These findings will also be valuable to researchers when planning dissemination activities and to the bodies, such as UKRI, that fund them. While the focus is RPLE, the study will generate theoretical and methodological resources for understanding the movements of research across education and other social sciences, paving the way for a new programme of research into what we call 'research mobilities'.
Organisations
Publications
Burnett, C.
(2024)
Engaging with research: briefing for teachers
Cermakova A
(2024)
Investigating Research Mobilities: A Methods Resource
Description | (1) Generated significant new insights into the movements of literacy research to, among and around primary teachers in England through: • detailed interviews, lifelogging and focus groups involving 44 teachers working in a variety of settings • creation and analysis of three unique corpora: newspaper media >400 articles; Twitter posts>30k and a small collection of project related interactions with teachers • tracings of 9 examples of research/research-related materials utilising a range of digital and qualitative methods This combination of methods highlighted how research mobilities are diffuse, complex, tangled and often unexpected, mobilised by combinations of a multitude of actors and infected by a range of political, commercial and educational concerns. These include a diversity of: • digital platforms and channels through which teachers encounter research; training events; school/trust led initiatives and accredited courses • individuals/organisations involved in brokering research including government, universities, consultants, charities, associations, school leaders, trusts • forms in which research materialises for teachers such as research articles, reports or reviews, policy, guidance, teaching resources, Powerpoint slides. The project also: • identified opportunities and challenges faced by teachers in accessing research given this complex landscape for research mobilisation • demonstrated how a diversification of channels and brokers can be associated with engagement with a narrow range of research that is unrepresentative of the body of literacy research that has potential value to primary teachers (2) Developed a theorisation of research mobilities that makes an original contribution to the extant work on research mobilisation within education. This explores not only the processes through which knowledge mobilises but the relationship between research mobilities and enactments of teaching, research and literacy. Details of (1) and (2) will be available in an Open Access book for Routledge (manuscript to be submitted 31/3/2024). (3) Developed a suite of methods to investigate of research mobilities in the wild. These draw on varied methodological traditions to examine research mobilities from different vantage points: using interviews, focus groups and lifelogging, corpus linguistics and networked ethnography. Guidance on using these methods is published in Investigating research mobilities: a methods resource (Open Access) launched on 12th March 2024. Journal articles exploring the methodological contribution of the separate methods are in preparation. (4) Developed a rubric for teachers' engagement with research which recognises the multiple ways that research is encountered and promotes open ended discussion to enhance teacher agency and the use of research for different purposes. This rubric is embedded within Research Conversations - Open Access materials co-produced with teachers to support critical discussions about research. This includes a series of Podcasts featuring teachers and researchers. In addition, we have worked with artists, teachers, researchers and other stakeholders to develop and refine materials designed to support critical engagement with the outcomes of our own project, e.g. a set of research briefings for different stakeholder groups; 13 blog posts exploring key themes; and visualisations and an animation designed to invite discussion about the project's findings. |
Exploitation Route | Our theoretical and methodological innovations will be of value to researchers and other organisations interested in research mobilisation across educational phases and topics. They will also be of value to those interested in research mobilisation in other disciplines or interdisciplinary fields. In particular they will be of interest to those interested in the relationship between mobilisation and the types of knowledge that gain traction. Our findings about research mobilisation are of interest to a range of agencies interested in strengthening connections between research and educational practice, including government, research organisations, charities and professional associations. They have potential to inform frameworks for teacher professional learning as well as support materials and events designed to facilitate research engagement. The research engagement materials (Research Conversations) are of interest to those working in teacher training and we are already in discussion with university-based teacher educators to trial these materials. They will also be of use to school-based trainees and to schools/trusts in supporting teacher's professional learning. |
Sectors | Education |
URL | https://research.shu.ac.uk/rmple/ |
Description | Guest speaker - Education Scotland |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Description | Blog |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Project blog and twitter feed hosted on project website Includes 13 posts |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://research.shu.ac.uk/rmple/ |
Description | International Symposium |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | International symposium organised to interrogate relationships between research mobilities and literacy education. Stakeholders in this case were literacy researchers. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Interview for educational media |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Media interview about project; project cited in article in tes, 'What do 'research influencers mean for education?' |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.tes.com/magazine/teaching-learning/general/what-do-research-influencers-mean-education |
Description | Interview for educational media |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Media interview about project; project cited in article in tes, 'What do 'research influencers mean for education?' |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.tes.com/magazine/teaching-learning/general/what-do-research-influencers-mean-education |
Description | Invited seminar for Education Endowment Foundation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
Results and Impact | Invited seminar for Education Endowment Foundation staff (48 attendees) (13/02/2024) How does research mobilise in the wild- Gill Adams and Cathy Burnett |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Invited webinar for Chartered College of Teaching |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Webinar for Chartered College of Teaching webinar series: Research and Teachers: How does (and might) research move to, among and around teachers? (Cathy Burnett, Gill Adams, Parinita Shetty) Delivered live and recorded for upload to CCT website. May be revisited by CCT fellows/members and/or used within future materials and/or resources |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Launch of Methods Resource |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Launch of Investigating Research Mobilities: A methods resource (http://shura.shu.ac.uk/33376/) 12 researchers attended the launch of this interdisciplinary resource, which featured presentations about the 3 methodological approaches used in this project and showcased in this Open Access resource.. The event was recorded to be re-used as part of other engagement events. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Resource for teachers |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Produced web-based 'Research Conversations' resource aimed at teachers, teacher trainees, school leaders, school consultants and others who support connections between research and teaching. Resource was coproduced with teachers. It is designed to support teachers in finding, sharing and engaging with research, with a focus on promoting professional dialogue. The resource includes an interactive game designed by teachers and a series of podcasts featuring conversations between literacy researchers and teachers. These explore possibilities and challengers associated with making connections between research and teaching. The resource completed March 2024. Plans are in place to trial and promote with schools and teacher education programmes. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
URL | https://research.shu.ac.uk/researchconversations/ |
Description | Stakeholder group |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
Results and Impact | Stakeholder group convened to advise on project focus and explore how the project can most effectively feed into policy and practice. This group also included XXX literacy researchers. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | TEL Potager with Julia Gillen. Interview by Philip Moffitt, Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | A YouTube video in which I was interviewed about this project and other work, connected to Technology Enhanced Learning. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXCrAAcFUbPHX2EyOYl76G_BKRAi77w8o |
Description | Teacher panel |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Teacher panel convened to advise on methods involving teacher participation in the project, to reflect on emerging findings and to advise on how to engage teachers with a wide range of literacy research/ |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Website |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Project website established to provide information about the project. Hosts our twitter feed. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://research.shu.ac.uk/rmple/ |