Session Information
23 SES 03 A, Research/Evidence-based Approaches to Policy Making (Paper 2)
Paper Session continued from 23 SES 02 A
Contribution
The context of this paper is the spread of educational research designs which utilize large-scale surveys, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and data mining to supply policymakers and educational leaders in many countries across the globe with strategies for school reform. In England, for example, RCTs are currently promoted as the 'gold standard' of evidence-based policy (Goldacre 2013) and their increasing popularity is partly driven by government funding (Hammersley 2013; Gunter et al 2014). Since the 1990s, the OECD and other supranational organizations have sought to generate education policy drivers through cycles of large-scale surveys such as Teaching and Learning International Survey TALIS (OECD 2009). In the field of educational leadership, a ‘Transnational Leadership Package’ (TLP, Gunter 2014) offers school leaders 'pre-packaged', simplistic recipes for increasing efficiency and improving student outcomes in compliance with centralized government policies, irrespective of local contexts. Within the broader social policy context, ‘big data’ on many aspects of everyday life are being mined and analyzed using new statistical techniques, affirming a reductionist social science ‘where variables are the be all and end all’ (Uprichard 2013: 3). The discursive positioning of these approaches as ‘gold standard’ or ‘groundbreaking’ (OECD 2009) continues to split researchers along the qualitative-quantitative divide characteristic of the ‘paradigm wars’ in educational research in England in the 1990s (Hammersley 2013). Of key concern here is not just whose knowledge is ‘valid’ but also what counts as knowledge, who is doing the counting and for what purpose (Uprichard 2013). Ironically, while many of the ostensibly ‘new’, transformative policy solutions based on the above research designs tend to be simplistic, scientific knowledge about the natural and social worlds has become more nuanced, complex and process-focused.
This paper will, therefore, argue for a different view on the current landscape of educational research, from the ‘third window’ developed within the complexity sciences. The metaphor of the ‘third window’ has been used by Ulanowicz (2009) to explain how the complexity sciences open a new window onto the world, enabling us to see beyond the reductionism characteristic of the ‘first window’ (Newtonian science) and the historicism of the ‘second window’ (Darwinian evolutionary biology). Specifically, knowledge generated within the discipline of process ecology, offers radical new understandings of the processes of change in complex adaptive systems such as education, whereas developments within quantum physics illustrate how scientific measurement may profoundly affect what we consider as ‘real’ (Barad 2007). These developments challenge the validity of research findings based on high levels of complexity reduction characteristic of RCTs, large scale surveys and data mining techniques.
The following questions will be explored:
1. What are the implications of experimental and large dataset research designs for understanding education policy formulation, policy enactment and leadership?
2. What opportunities for renewing educational research can be gleaned through the ‘third window’?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. London: Duke University Press. Bates, A. 2016. Transforming education: Meanings, myths and complexity. Abingdon: Routledge. Biesta, G. 2010. 'Five theses on complexity reduction and its politics'. In 'Complexity, consciousness and curriculum'. In D. Osberg and G. Biesta (Eds.) Complexity Theory and the Politics of Education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 5-14. Byrne, D. and Callaghan, G. 2014. Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: The state of the art. Oxon: Routledge. DfE (Department for Education). 2010. The Importance of Teaching. Schools White Paper 2010. London: Crown Copyright. Elias, N. 1978. What Is Sociology? New York: Columbia University Press. Goldacre, B. 2013. Building Evidence into Education. London: DfE. Gunter, H.M. 2014. Educational Leadership and Hannah Arendt. London: Routledge. Gunter, H.M., Hall, D. and C. Mills (Eds.) 2014. Education Policy Research: Design and Practice at a Time of Rapid Reform. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Hammersley, M. 2013. The Myth of Research-based Policy & Practice. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Haynes, L., Owain Service, Goldacre, B. And Torgerson, D. 2012. Test, Learn, Adapt: Developing Public Policy with Randomised Controlled Trials. London: Crown Copyright. Hill, R., Dunford, J., Parish, N., Rea, S.& Sandals, L. 2012. The growth of academy chains: implications for leaders and leadership. Nottingham: NCSL. Hutchings, M. 2015. Exam Factories? The impact of accountability measures on children and young people. NUT. OECD. 2009. Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments. First Results from TALIS: Teaching and Learning International Survey. http://www.oecd.org/education/school/43023606.pdf. Stacey, R.D. 2010. Complexity and Organisational Reality: Uncertainty and the need to rethink management after the collapse of investment capitalism. London: Routledge. Ulanowicz, R.B. 2009. A Third Window: Natural Life beyond Newton and Darwin. West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: Templeton Press. Uprichard, E. 2013. Big Data, Little Questions? Discover Society (1): 1-6.
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