Janice Tripney

The educational impacts of young people's participation in organised sport: a systematic review

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of young people’s participation in organised sport on their educational outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – Systematic review of the literature. A comprehensive search was used to identify all research evidence about engagement, impact and value in culture and sport. A combination of manual and automated screening was used to select studies for inclusion in this review based on prespecified criteria. Included studies had to use a “high”-quality experimental research design, focus on children and young people and have quantitative educational outcome measures. Results from the individual studies were transformed into a standardised effect size and meta-analysis was used to combine the results from individual studies where appropriate. Findings – Young people’s participation in sport may lead to improved educational outcomes. Young people’s participation in organised sports activities, when compared to non-participation, improves their numeracy skills. Young people’s participation in organised sport linked with extra-curricular activities, when compared to non-participation, improves a range of learning outcomes for underachieving pupils. These findings are based on six “high”-quality studies conducted in the UK and North America. Study populations included young people within the range of four to 16 years old. Originality/value – This paper builds on the existing evidence base in two main ways. First, it focuses specifically on the impacts associated with organised sport whereas previous reviews have had a broader focus. Second, it uses meta-analytic methods to synthesise study findings. This paper provides pooled effect sizes for overall educational impacts and translates these into potential changes in test/grade scores.

Enabling the Use of Research Evidence Within Educational Policymaking in Europe: Lessons from the EIPEE Project

Despite a political climate demanding evidence-informed decision making in education both within individual countries and at the international level, empirically grounded European research in this field is scarce. This paper reports on a European Commission-funded study that sought to identify and analyze different initiatives across Europe aimed at furthering research-informed policymaking in education, one of a number of comparative analyses in this emerging field. The nature and extent of activity in this area is outlined and an analytical framework is developed to assist understanding. Potential reasons for the observed variation among countries are discussed, along with some of the methodological and conceptual challenges involved in undertaking empirical work in this area. Practically, it is hoped that the results of the mapping exercise and the framework provide a platform for further empirical and conceptual research on research use, an area of study that until recently has been largely ignored by education researchers.

Approaches to Assist Policy–Makers’ Use of Research Evidence in Education in Europe

Although it is now widely recognised that education policy and practice should be informed by evidence, little is known about how evidence is used in different European countries. Most efforts to increase evidence use focus on ‘pushing’ evidence out to users through dissemination and communication. However, it is also important to create an appetite for such evidence amongst potential users. This involves considering users’ needs and the different organisational and political contexts that shape their uptake of evidence. Research has shown that focusing on policy-makers’ needs is often a successful way to increase the use of evidence in decision-making. Many approaches can be used to do this including ensuring that users have the knowledge, skills and willingness to be able to use evidence and, building relationships and maintaining interaction between researchers and potential knowledge users. Based on a survey conducted in 32 countries across Europe as part of the ‘Evidence Informed Policy in Education in Europe’ project, this paper will analyse the range of approaches used to support evidence use in educational policy-making. Although based on a non-exhaustive survey, the paper will draw out implications for international cooperation, showing any overlaps between the efforts of different agencies or countries and, setting out areas of potential learning across Europe. Although little evidence is available on the effectiveness of different strategies to increase evidence use in education in Europe, the paper will draw on research conducted in other sectors such as health to suggest lessons that can be learned for assisting users in using evidence.