Avoiding the thinking traps of research translation in schools

On the importance of cut through voices for teachers engaging with research

When John Dewey first used the term ‘educational confusion’ in 1902, he was describing the public division between what he famously labelled the ‘educational sects’ of traditionalism and progressivism. The respective positioning and vilification is well documented.

So what has changed in 122 years? Nothing apparently.

Those following the educational blogosphere and media this year could be forgiven we are back in 1902, such has been the propensity of colourful exchanges and contestations over evidence-based practice.

Direct instruction as the pathway to equity or the death knell to inquiry? Behaviour curriculum as a necessary mechanism for calmness in the classroom or the insidious inklings of fascism? A particularly notable exchange followed Professor Guy Claxton’s publishing of a blog on the science of learning, prompting  Professor Pasi Sahslberg to label the science of reading ‘a deliberate fabrication’. Could we stroke any broader?

Much of this has been triggered by policy announcements, as state education ministers shift towards explicit instruction. Cue this clickbait article from Christopher Harris declaring ‘teacher wars’ in NSW, while the recent mandating of phonics by the Victorian government was immediately framed as an existential threat to teacher autonomy by the AARE blog who urged teachers to ‘escape oppression now and disrupt the dominance of evidence-based practice’. The blog itself was more nuanced than the title.

A common-sense approach might be to stay off socials and the internet.

But in today’s fast moving educational climate, that is not possible. Like it or not, teachers must engage meaningfully with research from the learning sciences as part of being an informed professional.  In the same way we should be up to date with the sociological research on consent and emerging online digital cultures, because it will be us tasked with designing workable programs on the ground.

Thus, the essential skill is translation.

To that end, educational blogs are a crucial resource (and often necessary lifeline) for instructional leaders in schools charged with research implementation, in addition to teachers who seek to improve their professional knowledge. Peer-reviewed educational research is typically behind paywalls or inaccessible university libraries and is often a laborious struggle for time-poor teachers. Thus, we turn to expert blogs for their (hopeful) clarity, insights and accessibility and potential guidance on how to translate research to our contexts.

And while it is crucial to have a range of opinions as part of a necessary marketplace of ideas, it can also be a frustrating slog when emotions run high, generalisations and straw mans come thick and fast and you get the feeling you’re supposed to be planting your pedagogical flag on one ‘side’ or another.

Cut Through Perspectives

Yet, there have been some lines of flight within the fog of righteous indignation, as several voices in the learning sciences community such as Emina McClean, Jarred Cooney Horvath, Shyam Barr and (in the US) Mark Seidenberg (plus many others not listed here) have offered what I am calling ‘cut through’ perspectives.

This doesn’t simply mean that they say what I agree with. Rather, it’s that in focusing on potential epistemological slippage points (rather than ideological beefs), they provide a ‘cut through’ for teachers to actually progress with the translation process in a cautious, aware, but purposeful way.

How so? First, these authors occupy unique positions dually ‘in field’, meaning (most) have experience in teaching, but also have expertise in the areas many teachers (such as myself) lack, such as cognitive neuroscience, speech pathology, or implementation science. This gives them a unique ‘straddle’ perspective, allowing mediation to take place between the researcher who has little conception of how schools work, and the teacher who is reliant on (often simplified) distillations of research studies or the catch cries of educational gurus.

Second, they are not afraid to critique their own research areas. Thus, in avoiding tiresome tribalistic cliches, the genuine problem at hand is can be addressed, which is the manner in which implementation of research can go astray in schools, primarily due to a range of thinking traps that we are all susceptible to.

In other words, demonstrating the metacognitive steps needed for research engagement is far more beneficial than being directed to ‘escape the oppression’. Clearer lines of flight are needed. Indeed, the more informed we are regarding potential pitfalls in applying research, the more savvy and autonomous we can be about when and how it finds its way into our classrooms.

And here are the main culprits:

Thinking Traps

Photo by Vladyslav Cherkasenko on Unsplash

1.Educational dogmatism and myopia:

Emina McClean’s provocative title: ‘has science of reading become a rampant thought terminating cliché?’ echoed Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English language’, the masterful essay on how bureaucratic language has the capacity to corrupt though through the unthinking adoption of mantras and cliches. The backlash she received (as somehow compromising the ‘SOR movement’) drew further attention to the dangers inherent when educational research is conflated with an educational movement, as teacher thought is stymied by narrow ideological pursuits.  

Mark Seidenberg provided further examples of what this looks like in applying the science of reading, such as an over-reliance on canonical studies alongside the tendency to mandate certain practices regardless of changing contexts (like continuing phonemic instruction when a student is a good reader). Furthermore, Shyam Barr offered a relevant warning regarding myopically focusing only on cognition when using SOL research.

In short, avoid becoming a fundamentalist fangirl.

2. Confusing learning theory and neuroscience with teaching practice

Jared Cooney-Horvath has written on this several times, articulating the error in conflating ‘abstracted, value-free models of learning’ researched in neuroscience with the ‘contextualised, value-laden activities of teaching’. He illustrates this nicely with the use of questions:

What function does attention play in perception? (neuroscientist)

What materials best guide student attention? (teacher)

While the questions are related, each expert can only answer their question. This is a clear case of knowing our lanes. Research findings in neuroscience exists to inform our pedagogical practice, but they are not the same thing and should not be confused as such. So, I cannot strictly practice the science of learning, but I can use findings from the science of learning to deeply inform (and perhaps justify) my practice. Yet, the challenge remains in translating them correctly and there is still a chronic lack of oversight of educational providers in this area.

3. Misunderstanding ‘what works’ by ignoring its contextual focus.

The phrase ‘everything works somewhere but nothing works everywhere’ (or every-time) is an important self-check mechanism, otherwise we risk a ‘what works’ approach transforming into fundamentalism.

As Schon pointed out decades ago, the desire for technical rationality leads us to a false sense that professional knowledge moves neatly from basic science (disciplinary learnings) to applied science (engineering for problem-solutions) and finally skilled performance. This ignores the possibility of outliers, and the complexities inherent in our daily work.

Instead, we deal in contingencies, and our skill as teachers lies in reflective practice which is a pragmatic (rather than purely scientific) form of experimentation, meaning we read our classrooms, move through ‘problem-setting’ stages regarding student outcomes (learning, behaviour, motivation, relationships) and then design interventions for our context which we evaluate. ‘What works’ is what improves things for my students in a specific time and place.

Therefore, by all means subscribe to ‘what works’, but please pay heed to context.

Avoiding the Traps

To admit that we are not scientists or sociologists or psychologists is a necessary first step to finding the most helpful voices to listen to when we engage with these research fields.

Seidenberg further reinforced this when he noted that while ‘teachers were not cognitive neuroscientists’, that on the other side, ‘few researchers have much expertise related to education–specifically, the conditions in schools and classrooms’. This mutual knowledge gap is potentially the reason that translation and implementation can be thrown out of whack so easily by assumptions and thinking traps.

Which is why well informed, cut through perspectives are so important whenever new knowledge needs to find it’s way into classrooms. That way, we can hopefully avoid translation missteps, and our blogosphere can operate like the republic of letters it has the potential to be.