Even for breakthrough research, there is no guarantee that it will instigate changes
to practice in schools. Ideas rarely speak for themselves. People need to be motivated
to be interested in a project, just as happens with any other way of spreading ideas.
Current thinking about how to effect educational change focuses heavily on learning;
it sees continuous learning as a key professional skill and the capacity to learn
as an important organisational attribute.
Sharing the outcomes of school-based research is part of professional and organisational
learning processes.
However, there has to be motivation. People need to construct their understanding,
which involves modifying their existing ideas, and the idea or proposal has to make
sense.
If there are changes to practice, these may need demonstrating, practising and coaching.
Dissemination is not a one-off event; it takes time and repetition.
One other aspect of educational change is worth reporting and that is the stages of change. Change proceeds through:
- Initiation;
- Implementation; and, ideally, to
- Incorporation.
Broadly:
- Initiation involves planning, preparing and agreeing to change;
- Implementation is when the first efforts to change are made;
- Incorporation is when the 'new' practice has become the routine practice.
A school decides that it needs to create an accessible resources and curriculum approach to support pupils with SLD/PMLD/CLDD in developing emotional well-being and mental health. Teachers make visits, go on courses, look at materials and decide on a plan. All this is initiation.
The school starts to pilot the materials with a few enthusiastic class teams, with the plan to refine and then introduce the materials. People talk about 'our emotional well-being resources'. This is implementation.
A few years later, the whole school is using the new materials and teaching to
support emotional well-being in the new way, so much so that the new way is new no
longer; it is simply thought of by the teachers as 'the way we do things around here'.
This is incorporation.
Until a change has become thoroughly incorporated, it can disappear quite easily and
without trace. Even when a change has been incorporated (and, yes, that can take
years), the central practices and underlying rationale need revisiting and renewing.
Cryer, P. (2006) The Research Student's Guide to Success (3rd edn). Buckingham:
Open University Press.
Fullan, M. (2007)The New Meaning of Educational Change (4th edn). London: Routledge.
Fullan, M. (2008) The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their
Organizations Survive and Thrive. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Robson, C. (2002) Real World Research (2nd edn). Oxford: Blackwell.