For teachers in England, the expectations and purpose of research activity has evolved over the last decade in response to structural changes borne of the academisation agenda and the rollback of Local Authorities (LAs) (DfE, 2010; HMSO, 2010). Since 2010, the English education system has undergone several cycles of fragmentation and reformation, and has been described as “messy, patchy and diverse” (Ball, 2012), standing accused of policy borrowing from the charter schools of USA and Sweden (Heilbronn, 2016) which have been critiqued as pushing the neo-liberal agenda by encouraging the privatisation and marketisation of the education system (Au & Ferrare, 2015).

As academisation has forged ahead, teachers have found themselves in a confusing landscape of ‘self-improving school systems’ and ‘evidence-based improvement’ (DfE, 2011; Goldacre, 2013) where the goalposts constantly change, and guidance is perceived as inconsistent (Greany & Higham, 2018). At one stage of system reformation, it was mandatory for teachers in Teaching School Alliances (now disbanded) to conduct research that informs school and system improvement (Walker, 2017), but this was soon reduced to a suggestion (Walker, 2017; DfE, 2015; Warren, 2017). The ‘self-improving school’ was expected to produce evidence and to share it with other schools as a means of understanding ‘best practice’ (Goldacre, 2013). However, this led to a culture of ‘gatekeeping’, with the fragmented nature of the system creating multiple, increasingly marketised models for knowledge exchange whereby some schools sought to protect or sell knowledge (Greany & Higham, 2018). This paper reports on findings from a PhD study of how research is undertaken and managed within school alliances and multi-academy trusts in the context of a ‘schools-led education system’, with a focus on how accountability structures and performativity culture impact on teacher agency and professionalism when engaging in research or evidence gathering activities.

As the education system has continued to evolve, ‘evidence-based’ education has become dominated by the ‘what-works’ model of medical research, advocating for the use of strategic and rigorous methods, such as randomised control trials, that assess the efficacy of interventions in schools (Hargreaves, 1996; Hillage et al, 1998; Hargreaves, 2010; Taylor & Spence-Thomas, 2015; DfE, 2016j; Lortie-Forgues & Inglis, 2019; Dawson et al, 2018). Biesta argues that ‘what-works’ does not work due to education being non-causal in nature (Biesta, 2007, 2010, 2009), and proposes that the ‘culture of measurement’ present within the education system removes opportunities for educators to make value judgements about practice (Biesta, 2015, 2017). Concerns have been raised that policymakers’ enthusiasm for 14 evidence-based education and the use of RCTs serves to control teachers, keeping them in a place of ontological insecurity whereby they are forced to produce numerical data to report on system progress (McKnight & Morgan, 2020).

The push for an evidence base has persevered, with institutions such as the Chartered College of Teaching have attempted to bridge the gap between teaching and research by offering evidence-based practice courses to schools and by making research available to members (CCT, 2020). Meanwhile the EEF, through the vehicle of research schools and implementation guidance, continues to promote a ‘what works’ approach to the generation of evidence in schools (EEF, 2021), and the Government continues to pursue academisation, with the aim of all schools being in a ‘strong MAT’ by 2030 (DfE, 2022). Drawing on evidence from 26 interviews, this paper demonstrate how the culture of performativity affects agency and professionalism when teachers are engaging in research or evidence gathering activities.

Following ethical approval from the University of Greenwich Research Ethics Committee, using purposive sampling, three cases of research groups were selected from MATs or TSAs in the south-east, east and north of England. Cases The first case was a research group within a teaching school, situated at the head of an Early Years Teaching Alliance in an area of poor socio-economic status in the south east of England. The alliance consisted of three schools and was in partnership with approximately forty schools and settings. The ‘research group’ consisted of two teachers, the deputy headteacher and the head of school. The second case was a research group within a primary school situated within a newly established multi-academy trust in an area of high socio-economic status in the north of England. The MAT consisted of three schools: one primary school, one junior school and one secondary school/ sixth form college combination which was the lead school. The ‘research group’ consisted of the head teacher and four teachers from the primary school. The third case was a research group within a primary school situated in an area of low socio-economic status in the East of England which was part of both a TSA and a MAT. The research group consisted of the director of the TSA, the two heads of school, and two teachers. The teaching school alliance was in partnership with nineteen schools and the MAT consisted of six schools. The director of the TSA oversaw research within the school and worked part-time for a public research university. Analysis Overall, 26 interviews were conducted - interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and coded using NVivo with a two-tier code book developed from the project’s conceptual framework, which was devised from the literature review. Through the exploration of educational research, action research, and teacher-led research, an analytical framework of the characteristics of effective schools-led research was developed: Knowledge of Research Methods; Reflective and Problem-Solving in Nature; Encourages Criticality of Practice and Policy; Motivation and Professional Curiosity; Agency/Autonomy and Ownership of the Research Process. Second-tier coding under the heading of ‘Motivation’ explored to what extent teachers were operating within ‘occupational’ or ‘institutional’ modes of professionalism (Moore & Clarke, 2016). Each case was analysed and presented individually according to the conceptual framework. The three cases were then subject to a cross-case comparison to draw out similarities and differences that informed the conclusion of the PhD study.

Barring one project, every participant was found to be engaging in mixed methods research, with a preference for quantitative data, as is typical of evidence produced in the ‘what works’ agenda. In terms of motivation, ‘occupational professionalism’ was at the heart of what teacher participants did and they believed it was this sense of professionalism that informed their research. Specified research aims suggested teachers felt empowered to make changes to their practice, and on a surface level, appeared to be engaging in professional action that is relevant and valuable. However, there were contradictions found within the data, where participants were engaging in research activity because it was mandatory and expected of them by the SLT. There was a sense that research activity was time-consuming and placed additional stress on an already demanding workload. When we pair these two narratives we are faced with what Moore & Clarke (2016) term ‘cruel optimism’. To unpick this further, participants draw on their ‘past’ sense of professionalism, i.e. their ‘occupational professionalism’ that honours their duties as educators, to navigate through policy directives that draw on their ‘current’ sense of professionalism, i.e. their ‘organisational professionalism’ that aims to achieve institution-wide goals determined by neoliberal policies (e.g. Moore & Clarke, 2016). This ‘cruel optimism’ helps participants to navigate a policy landscape based on hierarchy, performativity, and accountability (Moore & Clarke, 2016; Ball, 2018; Greany & Higham, 2018). The statistical nature of the projects reflects the argument that the ‘schools-led education system’ exists within a ‘culture of measurement’ (Biesta, 2009) that lures schools into a sense of ‘coercive autonomy’ (Greany & Higham, 2018), encouraging the idea that policymakers’ enthusiasm for evidence-based education serves to control teachers, forcing them to produce numerical data to report on system progress (McKnight & Morgan, 2020).

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