Alis Oancea

Education for all : The future of education and training for 14-19 year olds

1. Introduction: Why a Review? 2. Aims and Values 3. Context 4. Measuring System Performance 5. Learning 6. Teaching 7. Curriculum Framework for the 21st Century 8. From Qualification Reform to a Framework for Learning 9. Employers and the Labour Market 10. Progression to Higher Education 11. Insitutional Arrangements and the Wider Governance Landscape 12. Policy and Policy Making in 14-19 Education and Training 13. Conclusions and Recommendations

Criticisms of Educational Research: Key Topics and Levels of Analysis.

The article is an exploration of the meanings and worthiness of criticism as a significant phenomenon in the evolution of educational research during the 1990s. While drawing on an overview of the vast amount of documents expressing criticisms of educational research in the UK, western and eastern continental Europe and the USA, it summarises the findings of a study based on the analysis of some of the most influential texts that criticised educational research in the UK during the mid-1990s: Hargreaves (1996), Tooley and Darby (1998), Hillage et al. (1998). An understanding of the targets, sources, solutions and actors that are characteristic of the recent criticisms of educational research is proposed, together with an exploration of the rhetorical devices employed in expressing criticism and of some of the philosophical themes that underpin the recent debates.

Expressions of excellence and the assessment of applied and practice‐based research

Critics of education research in the recent years have pointed the finger at what they saw as its low quality, impact, and ‘value for money’. In the context of the Research Assessment Exercise, particular concerns have been raised about applied and practice‐based educational research and how best to assess its quality. This contribution refines the ideas originally developed as part of a project commissioned by the ESRC in 2004 and completed in 2005. It argues that quality in applied and practice‐based research cannot be reduced to narrow definitions of ‘scientificity’, ‘impact’ or economic efficiency. It proposes an account of quality in applied and practice‐based educational research which encompasses methodological and theoretical solidity, use and impact, but also dialogue, deliberation, participation, ethics and personal growth. Drawing on Aristotelian distinctions between forms of rational activity and their expressions of excellence or virtue, our account emphasizes the synergy between three domains of excellence in applied and practice‐based research: theoretical (episteme); technical (techne); and practical (phronesis). The thrust of the contribution is not to set any standards of good research practice, but simply to make progress towards recapturing a cultural and philosophical dimension of research assessment that had been lost in recent official discourses.

The contribution of educational research to teachers’ professional learning: philosophical understandings

In this paper, we argue from principle that teacher education must enable a positive relationship between educational research and teaching knowledge and practice. We discuss two popular conceptions of good teaching, which conceive of the teacher as craft worker and as executive technician, and suggest that, while each of these aspects of knowing reflects something of the qualities that good teachers need, any one on its own is insufficient. In contrast to such mono-dimensional conceptions, a research-based textured notion of professional judgement encompasses a complementary and mutually enriching relationship between different aspects of professional knowledge and practice. We identify three interconnected and complementary aspects of teachers’ professional knowledge: situated understanding; technical knowledge; and critical reflection. Accordingly, teaching as professional endeavour demands of teachers practical know-how, conceptual understandings of education, teaching and learning, and the ability to interpret and form critical judgements on existing knowledge and its relevance to their particular situation. We conclude that in principle research can both enrich and be enriched by teachers’ professional knowledge and practice but that to build this relationship in a holistic way into teacher education programmes and partnership models presents considerable practical challenges.

Assessing research impact in academic clinical medicine: a study using Research Excellence Framework pilot impact indicators

BackgroundFunders of medical research the world over are increasingly seeking, in research assessment, to complement traditional output measures of scientific publications with more outcome-based indicators of societal and economic impact. In the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) developed proposals for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) to allocate public research funding to higher education institutions, inter alia, on the basis of the social and economic impact of their research. In 2010, it conducted a pilot exercise to test these proposals and refine impact indicators and criteria.MethodsThe impact indicators proposed in the 2010 REF impact pilot exercise are critically reviewed and appraised using insights from the relevant literature and empirical data collected for the University of Oxford’s REF pilot submission in clinical medicine. The empirical data were gathered from existing administrative sources and an online administrative survey carried out by the university’s Medical Sciences Division among 289 clinical medicine faculty members (48.1% response rate).ResultsThe feasibility and scope of measuring research impact in clinical medicine in a given university are assessed. Twenty impact indicators from seven categories proposed by HEFCE are presented; their strengths and limitations are discussed using insights from the relevant biomedical and research policy literature.ConclusionsWhile the 2010 pilot exercise has confirmed that the majority of the proposed indicators have some validity, there are significant challenges in operationalising and measuring these indicators reliably, as well as in comparing evidence of research impact across different cases in a standardised manner. It is suggested that the public funding agencies, medical research charities, universities, and the wider medical research community work together to develop more robust methodologies for capturing and describing impact, including more valid and reliable impact indicators.

From Procrustes to Proteus: trends and practices in the assessment of education research

This article is a reflection on an area of particular interest in the current research environment, but which has not yet been explored satisfactorily in the education literature: the evaluation of educational research. The particular focus is on the UK context, but the article is informed by comparative evidence from six countries (gathered through analysis of policy and administrative documents, literature review, informal discussion and written requests for information from key persons). It identifies eight recent trends in the evaluation of education research (from performance‐based funding and institutionalisation of assessment, to the de‐sensitivisation of research assessment) and it explores the benefits and perils of three types of assessment procedures (peer review, bibliometrics and econometrics) as they operate at a micro, meso and macro level. The article argues that current evaluations of educational research (particularly those aimed at supporting funding decisions) tend to operate from an instrumental standpoint that largely ignores the epistemic specificity of the various fields, modes or genres of research, the assumptions about knowledge with which they work, and the cultural and social dimensions of research evaluation as a practice.

Philosophy of education in the UK: the historical and contemporary tradition

Questions of a philosophical nature are central to every significant debate in the field of educational theory, policy, practice and research. Of all disciplines, philosophy is perhaps the one in which analysis, argumentation and critique are given most central, systematic and comprehensive attention. In addition, philosophy is connected with practice and policy through nurturing democratic conversation about education, and supporting practical deliberation at all levels and on all aspects of educational practice. In the UK, although systematically excluded from initial teacher education and much reduced in masters level programmes under the current funding regimes, the discipline has maintained considerable vitality and international reputation. Using data from the RAE and PESGB, supplemented with bibliometric data, we note that the important contributions from philosophy of education to education and education research do not, however, always reflect a thriving infrastructure. We conclude with a brief discussion of a number of key relationships which the philosophy of education community needs to develop further: with teacher education, educational research, ‘mainstream’ philosophy and educational policy communities.

The ecologies and economy of cultural value from research

This study explored conceptually and empirically the ways in which those engaged with university-based arts and humanities research (researchers, managers, partners, beneficiaries) construct and respond to the challenges of generating, interpreting, and demonstrating the cultural value of research. Cultural value is a contested concept, beset by philosophical, practical and political tensions. We argue that interpretations of value – cultural or otherwise – are part of complex ecologies of cultural life, creation and understanding, while at the same time underpinning economies of description, prescription, inscription and ascription. Meaning, expression, narrative and practice, combined and recombined in experience, are core themes in our participants’ description of the arts and the humanities. However, more needs to be done across all levels of the research governance system so that meaningful engagement is sustained and narratives in cultural terms are not perceived as a risk in accountability contexts.

Teachers’ professional knowledge and state-funded teacher education: a (hi)story of critiques and silences

This paper traces long-standing philosophical, sociological and political tensions that have been at the core of narratives about state-funded teacher education, since its inception in England. These tensions are still visible today in debates around the professional knowledge of teachers, such as those described in Furlong (2013). Historiographical evidence leads to questioning the new ‘truce’ being forged at the moment around acceptable ways of settling disagreements about teacher professionalism and teacher education, for example through the discursive redeployment of terms such as ‘common sense’, ‘resilience’ and ‘craft’. From ‘virtuous common sense’, in the mid-19th century, through ‘scientific pedagogy’ near the turn of the 20th century and ‘the science of lighting a fire’ in the mid-20th century, and to the ideological clashes surrounding the turn of the millennium, there have been numerous attempts to construct public accounts of teacher knowledge and attributes, and of teacher education. The absence of teachers as powerful participants in this construction is palpable. Philosophers can contribute to the ‘untelling’ of these stories by carefully picking discursive threads that were not foregrounded in the policy and political filtering of public accounts of teaching, and reconnecting them to traditions of argument about teaching as a practice.

On the Role of Philosophical Work in Research in Teacher Education

The paper begins by arguing for the importance of the contribution of philosophy to educational research in general and then goes on to illustrate the contributions it can make to teacher education research sepcifically. Section 36.2 considers philosophy ‘of’ teacher education which might be concerned with epistemological, ontological and ethical questions about teacher education. It discusses epistemological questions around the kinds of knowledge teachers need, whether these relate to their subject or theoretical knowledge and ongoing questions around the theory practice relationship. Section 36.3 explores philosophy ‘as’ teacher education research. Examples of teacher educators’ own philosophical work argue for the importance of practical grounding in experience for both philosophical and empirical enquiry into teacher education. Finally, Sect. 36.4 reflects on the role of philosophy ‘in’ inter or multidisciplinary teacher education research.