A reply to Charles Clarke by Paul Morris

Citation

Morris, P. (2012), "A reply to Charles Clarke by Paul Morris", International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Vol. 1 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlls.2012.57901caa.004

A reply to Charles Clarke by Paul Morris

A reply to Charles Clarke by Paul Morris

Article Type: Discussion From: International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Volume 1, Issue 3.

Let's not all become consultants

The respected former minister describes the very real gap that exists between the work of educational researchers and policy makers. He makes a plea for researchers to focus on topics that will help to directly answer the general question, “How do we achieve educational success?” He provides a number of very specific questions that pre-occupy policy makers, which he says researchers have failed to adequately address. Although the topics are undoubtedly important, the questions (e.g. What is the best way to organise schools and to teach English?) are deceptively simple.

The suggestion is that researchers do not adequately address these questions because they are not sufficiently committed to improving educational outcomes and have failed to initiate discussions, take the initiative to conduct relevant research and/or engage with policy makers. It is also accurately noted that some educational research seems to address trivial and minor issues. In essence Clarke sees researchers as the problem because they do not focus on finding out “what works” so that policy makers can act on those findings.

It is clearly difficult to respond to an argument which he describes as “unanswerable”; but whilst self-evident propositions are central to the discourse of politics and policy making, they are precisely what researchers should avoid and challenge. Therein lays the crux of the matter: policy making and academic research are distinct activities, and if the latter was to define itself in terms of the priorities and expectations of politicians, as set out in his article, it would result in poor quality research.

Researchers should be wary of defining their role as providers of policy briefs and attempting to provide simple answers to very complex questions; though they may attempt to inform policy and practice. By focusing on the search for “what works” researchers would end up addressing essentially technical questions, which take for granted the prevailing structures of schooling and fail to address the underlying values and political questions about what is desirable.

Extensive research has been undertaken on many of the topics Clarke identifies, but they do not provide the simple answers he seeks. Research on the most effective teaching method or the effect of teaching assistants illustrates the complexity that is inherent in giving answers and the consequent dangers of providing simple and singular solutions.

Effectiveness is a function of the desired outcome/purpose and the recipients. Evidence indicates that it is unlikely that a single teaching method will be the most effective for all pupils all the time and whilst teaching assistants have not been found to improve academic outcomes, they can have a positive effect on pupil behaviour.

Similarly, differentiated schools (academies, free schools, etc.) have been found to achieve better academic results than maintained schools, but they also tend to lower the overall level of academic achievement in an education system. So, despite the recourse to generic terms such as educational “success”, “standards” and “outcomes”, an answer to these seemingly simple questions necessitates choices as to what and who is valued in a society and the trade-offs that those choices involve. Academic research should recognise these complexities, but in so doing will frustrate those seeking a single or simple answer.

The distinctiveness between research and policy making is underlined by the ways the latter uses the former. Given the demands of adversarial politics, the reality is often that academic research is manipulated by policy makers to legitimate a set of established beliefs and actions rather than to search for alternatives based on evidence. The 2010 White Paper is a case in point. It selectively raids and distorts what it describes as “evidence” from high performing overseas systems to justify the creation of a differentiated school system based on academies and free schools, and school-based systems of teacher education. It is notable that the White Paper makes little reference to academic research to promote its policies, but instead draws heavily on the work of the management consulting company McKinsey, and specifically the report by Barber and Mourshed titled “How the world's best performing systems come out on top”. That document is wholly designed to identify for policy makers what works and in so doing it demonstrates the problems inherent in single-mindedly pursuing that goal. Specifically it involves a triumph of form over substance; a selective use of data; a flawed methodology; a lack of engagement with the existing evidence, literature and alternative view points; and a failure to recognise ethical considerations. That is not the future for educational research.

About the author

Paul MorrisProfessor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. Previously he was the President of the Hong Kong Institute of Education and can be contacted at: p.morris@ioe.ac.uk