In this paper we ask how educational research can support school improvement in a policy-forced implementation process. More precisely we ask how the process of feeding back research results about student participation is assessed by school members and also what effects of this feedback participants perceive. Student participation is a central aspect of school and classroom life because it considers "the norms of social interaction […], and the manner in which teachers and students treat one another." (Coburn, 2003 p. 5) Consequently altering attitudes towards student participation requires a deep change in beliefs. We assume that sustainable change is possible, if the topic is embedded in a thorough school improvement process, where teams collectively construct meaningful ways of students participating (Spillane et al. 2002; Coburn, 2004). School improvement can be understood as a collective learning process where situations are seen from a new perspective allowing new solutions. (Zala-Mezö & Hameyer, 2015) Irritations produced through boundary crossing (Akkermann & Bakker, 2011) can be very useful instruments to stimulate learning. In this study research results are fed back into schools and so the border between school research and school practice is crossed. In this paper we show the data feedback concept used in this study: a condensed, and visualized written report combined with a workshop set inside the school and also results of the analyses of questionnaire and interview data from participants assessing those two feedback forms. Initial results indicate that there are correlations between school improvement capacity and assessment of relevance of feedback. We found that different feedback forms show different correlation patterns.

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