Judy Sebba

Working with users: some implications for educational research

In its emphasis in working with users of research throughout the processes of pedagogic research, the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) has reflected a current interest across disciplines in user engagement to enhance research. The scale of the TLRP and the range of research genres encompassed by it have meant that it has provided a useful site for considering in some detail what is meant by enhancing pedagogic research in this way. The authors draw on a TLRP‐funded seminar series which examined a variety of forms of user engagement, their purposes and their implications. The series attempted to understand the intertwined features of new education spaces where research and policy can meet; the negotiations with policy communities that occur there; and the implications for these negotiations and for research design in the production of pedagogic knowledge in partnership with practitioners. The lessons revealed included the following: user engagement strengthens the warrants of research with p...

The teaching and learning of pupils in low-attainment sets

This study explored the ways in which schools addressed the needs of pupils in low-attainment class groups, or sets, in the context of multiple and contrary government policy directives and inconclusive research findings about setting. In this article we have focused on school and classroom practices as well as the organisational processes through which low-attaining pupils were identified, grouped and reviewed within schools. The empirical data reported here predominantly refer to case studies involving classroom observations and interviews with teachers, pupils and other staff in 13 schools – both primary and secondary – from four local authorities (LAs). In the latter part of the article, however, we also draw on survey data collected from a larger sample of schools in 12 LAs in England. Although the study found ample evidence of innovative school practices and efforts by individual teachers aimed at optimising the learning opportunities for children in low-attainment class groups, the findings also raise important questions about some of the processes of set allocation, the lack of mobility between sets, and the over-representation of particular social groups in low-attainment classes. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for equity and inclusion that moves beyond an emphasis on classroom practice to include questions about the in-school processes of social selection and educational mobility for pupils identified as low-attaining.

Education: Using Research Evidence to Reshape Practice

© CIPFA, 2000 Education Action Zones, New Deal for Communities. It will be difficult to establish which intervention has had what effect. The local programmes vary in what they deliver, so an evaluation will have to look in detail at a rather large sample of local programmes to determine which activities generated the most gains. Finally, because it is for all families in the area, there is unlikely to be a randomized control trial. It would not be possible or desirable to isolate some families from service provision over a number of years in order to see if their children had poorer health, poorer education, and poorer employment opportunities. Sure Start has been built on a body of evidence: what the problem is, and what needs to be done to solve it. It will be quite some time before we know what aspects of the programme are more successful than others, and in what circumstances it is likely to deliver the most gains. Today’s practice experience is tomorrow’s evidence. ■