Evidence-based practices have been a central focus in promoting educational quality during recent decades. In contrast to evidence-informed educational practices that primarily draw upon existing theories and preliminary research results, evidence-based practice necessitates practitioners to incorporate evidence throughout all stages of their professional practices to enhance the validation of instructional interventions (Owen et al., 2022). Within teacher education, different forms and scopes of evidence-based enquiry activities have been employed across the globe to enhance instructional quality. These emphasise the significance of teachers leveraging evidence from multiple sources (e.g., empirical research findings, policy documents, and contextual data) to inform their educational decision-making processes (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990, 2011).

Despite the theoretical and methodological advancements of evidence-based enquiry, significant challenges persist in teachers’ implementation. One widespread tension is that teachers may perceive enquiry being situated in formal projects or grants that are separated and disconnected from their everyday practice (Berger et al., 2005). Moreover, teachers’ current evidence-based practices primarily rely on established theories, prior research results, guidance from external experts, and summative student assessment data, with limited attention to students’ thinking processes (e.g., Kretlow & Helf, 2013; Zembal-Saul et al., 2002). Nevertheless, evidence generated by students in real-time interactions is often undervalued, hindering the effectiveness of teacher reflection and the development of their “knowing-to” (Mason & Spence, 1999) required for in-the-moment responsive instruction. Another significant challenge is teachers’ confusion when interpreting and negotiating various sources of evidence that emerge in classrooms, such as curriculum requirements, pedagogical principles, and students’ diverse behaviours and engagement patterns that occur simultaneously (Altinyelken, 2011). These challenges hinder the full realisation of teachers’ evidence-based enquiry initiatives, necessitating significant attention to how teachers can more effectively leverage various sources of evidence to incorporate student thinking into their evidence-based practices.

Therefore, this study aims to characterise how teachers engage in evidence-based enquiry through a student-focused professional learning programme. Specifically, it examines how teachers leverage diverse sources of evidence to investigate student thinking within their instructional practices. The research objective can be unpacked into two questions: i) What constitutes the evidence that teachers leverage when investigating student thinking during enquiry? ii) How do teachers leverage diverse sources of evidence to inform their instructional practice?

This study employs cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) as its analytical perspective. Building on Leontiev’s notion of “activity” that involves both materialistic processes as external activities and mental processes as internal activities (Leontiev, as cited in Cong-Lem, 2022), Engeström and Sannino (2021) conceptualise activity system as a dynamic network comprising six interconnected components: subject, object, artefacts, community, rules, and division of labour (Cong-Lem, 2022; Engeström & Sannino, 2010, 2021).

This study specifically centres on the role of “artefacts” and their dynamic interplay with the subject, object, and community across different stages in teachers’ research processes. Artefacts are operationalised as the evidence that teachers leverage during their enquiry into student thinking. For instance, during the planning stage, these involve established theories, prior research results, and curricula that teachers employ to develop their research plans. During the data analysis stage, artefacts involve the empirical evidence that teachers collected during implementation for their analysis and reflection. By examining the various sources of evidence, this study aims to uncover how teachers leverage evidence to investigate student thinking within their instructional practices.

This study was conducted in the research site of a professional learning programme implemented in China designed to support teachers in learning about and conducting task-based clinical interviews (Confrey, 1990) with students. The programme was collaboratively organised by a group of university-based researchers and involved 15 high school mathematics teachers as participants. The main activities involved lectures, workshops, hands-on individual practice and group discussions, through which the teachers were supported in designing and implementing task-based clinical interviews with students. Throughout these activities, the teachers were supported to identify and reconstruct pedagogical problems, develop interview tasks and protocols, implement interviews with students, collect relevant data, and analyse students’ mathematical thinking to inform their future instructional practices. Six teachers were selected through purposive sampling (Denzin et al., 2023) as the research participants based on their active engagement in the programme and willingness. The selection criteria included: (i) completion of the entire enquiry process; (ii) attendance at the majority of key programme sessions; (c) consent to be involved, observed and recorded throughout their enquiry process. The research data were collected throughout the programme from multiple sources. All programme sessions were video- and audio-recorded to capture teachers’ activities both within the programme site and their interactions with students during the implementation of interviews. Upon completion of the programme, one-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with each teacher participant and university-based researcher, each lasting for around one hour. Teacher interviews focused on eliciting insights into their experiences of conducting evidence-based enquiry and their evolving understanding of student thinking. Concurrently, interviews with university-based researchers explored their perspectives on teachers’ evidence-based enquiry practices. All documents associated with teachers’ enquiry processes, including task design, interview protocols, presentation slides and student work, were collected. To characterise how teachers engage in evidence-based enquiry to investigate student thinking, thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was employed to identify a comprehensive suite of themes representing the evidence leveraged by teachers. The analysis started with familiarisation with the dataset through a holistic review and the generation of memos and analytical notes (Yin, 2013). Then the data went through iterative rounds of coding to systematically label relevant segments and shape categories and subcategories to identify emergent patterns of and interconnections among different codes. By specifying the various sources of evidence and ways that teachers leverage, these results provide insights for understanding how teachers bridge evidence-based enquiry with instructional decision-making.

The analysis revealed the teachers leveraged evidence from three primary sources to inform their enquiry into student thinking: theories, curricula, and real-time student-generated cues. Some teachers operationalised educational theories, such as constructivism, behaviourism, and social learning, as frameworks to inform their task design, protocol development and data analysis. They regarded theories as specialised evidence that offer insights into how students think and learn, what motivates student thinking, and how to facilitate students’ engagement and meaning-making in classrooms. Another vital source of evidence was the curricula, such as extension tasks in nationally standardised textbooks and school-based curriculum exercises. Curricula inspired teachers’ task design, specifically the task scenarios, the sequence of learning activities, and expected learning outcomes. By utilising curriculum frameworks, teachers drew upon a systematically organised body of pedagogical principles developed to promote students’ effective learning. The utilisation of curricula as evidence ensured that teachers’ enquiries into student thinking were well grounded in established educational frameworks and aligned with external guidelines. The most immediate source of evidence was real-time student-generated cues, including students’ expressions and actions. During the implementation of interviews with students and data analysis, teachers engaged in careful observations of students’ verbal responses, body language, and behaviours to gain nuanced insights into students’ cognitive and emotional processes. For instance, students’ active participation, thoughtful questions, and articulate explanations may indicate their comprehension and genuine interest, while signs of confusion, disengagement, or frustration, such as lack of eye contact and withdrawal offered potential cues that students needed additional support or alternative instructional approaches. While each source of evidence offers unique insights, their triangulation creates a robust framework for teachers’ enquiry into student thinking. The integration of theories, curricula, and student cues allows teachers to move beyond a single perspective, facilitating their more responsive, personalised, and effective instructional decision-making.

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