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South Africa is a developing country with an education system that remains in crisis, despite three decades of democracy. The vestiges of South Africa's oppressive past continues to plague a system where repeated efforts at top-down transformation and curriculum renewal have failed to create the change required (Roodt, 2018). Extensive country-wide research attests to persistent inequalities linked to poverty, unemployment, and poor educational outcomes, effectively trapping disadvantaged communities in downward spirals (World Bank, 2018). As in most other countries, evidence-informed practice (EIP) has been widely discussed and advocated for in South Africa, with the matric (school leavers') results resurging the conversation annually. Unfortunately, as is the case in many developing countries, it is well documented that the actual implementation of EIP is not as widespread as desired.

This chapter reviews and analyzes the use of EIP in South Africa through an exploration of the various spaces where EIP is reported to occur within the broader education landscape. Examples of teacher and school level EIP innovations, led by a wide variety of actors within the system, are evident – this despite the pervasive lack of resources, support, and effective leadership within the formal education system. Through reflecting on these ‘pockets of hope,’ which were found to exist not only within, but also outside and alongside the system, we hope to gather insights and initiate debate on how the uptake of EIP might be better informed and facilitated within the broader South African public education system.

Evidence-informed practice (EIP), broadly conceived as a data and research-based approach to enhance practice, has recently come to the fore of the Irish education system. With changes to the structure and duration of professional education over the last decade, most notably Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs, coupled with the implementation of a school leadership framework upon which a mandatory data-informed school improvement process of school self-evaluation (SSE) is based, multiple reforms connected to EIP have been introduced. Furthermore, in terms of compulsory education, assessment practices at the lower secondary level have also been significantly reformed. EIP has now become a core element of almost all educational reform initiatives in Ireland. This is a remarkable achievement given that prior to the Education Act (Government of Ireland, 1998) the conception that data and research-informed decision-making should form a core component part of school life was rarely conceived if at all in the policy discourse of educational reform. We draw on the Malin et al. (2020) interpretation of Hoods (1998) social cohesion/regulation matrix to describe and classify the Irish system. The chapter concludes with a discussion of key lessons for policy and practice based on Ireland's experience over the course of the last decade.

This article examines the challenges facing agencies working across social care, health, education and voluntary sector boundaries in leading a drive for evidence‐informed practice (EIP). A study conducted by Research in Practice has identified the competencies and functions that managers deem most important to lead an EIP initiative successfully. Views about agencies' current capabilities and confidence to do so vary. Leadership development opportunities are generally perceived as poor. Plans are outlined for an action learning project within the Research in Practice network to support managers to lead EIP effectively.

The idea of Evidence-Informed Practice (EIP) was introduced in Denmark at a national policy level with the 2013 national school reform. After 10 years of gradual development towards an output-oriented, accountability-based school system, the school reform fully realized the idea of a school system, which was oriented towards learning objectives and based on capacity building and supporting professional capital. One element of professional capital was EIP, and this idea was supported financially both by the parliament and large private foundations (e.g. the Maersk Foundation). However, for different reasons, the national reform created a lot of resistance among teachers and the national teacher union, including a number of pedagogical researchers. Partly, the reform was underfunded, and partly it represented a qualitative change from understanding teaching as craft to observing it as a rational, research-informed professional practice. The result was that EIP was met with scepticism among many teachers. After 6–7 years of EIP development, the current status is that one can identify a small, yet statistical significant positive correlation between teachers' professional, evidence-informed collaboration, and their job satisfaction. However, there have been no significant changes to student achievement, well-being and teaching experiences. Part of the explanation seems to be that EIP has been introduced with a combination of high social regulation and low social cohesion, pointing towards a fatalist system approach. However, this is not an expression of an intentional approach, but rather the result of a lack of teacher acceptance. One important reason for this was that the reform was underfunded. Consequently, it was combined with a labour market conflict followed by an increase of teachers hours without an increase of salary. This resulted in a legitimation crisis, which negatively influenced the teachers' acceptance of the school reform, including the idea of EIP.

The global challenges and growing diversity in schools require an educational system that is responsive and agile, putting evidence-informed practice (EIP) at the center of the policy and research agenda. The rationale behind this is obvious: using data and research evidence should lead to better-informed policy, higher quality decisions, more effective practices, and, in turn, improved and fairer outcomes. Because EIP in schools is likely to be influenced by the educational system in which they are embedded, in this chapter I discuss the (non) use of EIP in the educational system of Flanders. The Flemish educational system can be defined as “the individualist way,” characterized by individual approaches within loosely coupled, competing systems that protect their own norms and beliefs. This chapter discusses how this can influence policymaking and the implementation of EIP. Drawing on institutional theory, I also investigate the impact of drivers and obstacles at the school and individual level. At the school level, evidence seems to be used mainly ad hoc rather than strategically and policy is largely driven by short-term solution-focused actions based on experience and quickly available data. At the individual level teachers strongly rely on their expertise and feel less competent and motivated in using data or research. Key lessons for policy and practice are discussed at the end of this chapter.

This introductory chapter to “The Emerald Handbook of Evidence-Informed Practice in Education: Learning from International Contexts” describes the volume's purpose/intended contribution, analytic framework, and organization. Accordingly, first it provides a definition of evidence-informed practice while also outlining challenges and benefits of broadly bringing it about. This chapter explains how comparative analyses using systems approaches – which have, to date, been scarce and limited – can hold great potential for achieving context-specific insights regarding how to foster EIP. The present volume, as noted in the chapter, aims to do just this: It houses a massive, international comparative study of educators' patterns of evidence use across a range of global contexts. Volume contributors each followed a particular, dual analytic framework, which is detailed in this chapter. The chapter concludes with a description of how the volume is organized and provides a brief thematic analysis to showcase the volume's intended contribution.

Whilst beneficial, the use of evidence to improve teaching and learning in schools is proving difficult to achieve in practice. The purpose of this paper is to shed new light on this issue by examining the applicability of a model of rational behaviour as relates to the notion of evidence-informed practice (EIP). Specifically, exploring the question: “if EIP is rational behavior, why are not all teachers engaged in it?”, the authors examine whether the beliefs and perspectives of teachers in relation to EIP, align with their evidence-use behaviours. The authors then assess what factors prevent teachers/schools from engaging in EIP.

To examine beliefs, instances of, and barriers to evidence use, the authors employ a Gradient Boosted Tree predictive model to analyse data from a survey of 696 practitioners in 79 schools.

The findings suggest that, should they wish to increase EIP within their schools, school leaders need to: first, promote the vision for evidence-use (i.e. actively encourage its use); second, illustrate how research and evidence can be effectively employed to enhance aspects of teaching and learning; and third, establish effective learning environments, in which learning conversations around the use of evidence, can flourish.

Using a new, innovative model of rationality, the authors conclude that despite the focus on EIP in many school systems world-wide, evidence use will never be meaningfully realized unless school leaders prioritize EIP as a school commitment. Simultaneously, given the high-stakes accountability environments facing many school systems it is unlikely that prioritization of EIP will occur until EIP forms part of any education system’s accountability regime.

In this chapter, we discuss the case of the Knowledge Network for Applied Education Research (KNAER) to illustrate the context for evidence-informed practice (EIP) in Ontario, Canada. KNAER (www.knaer-recrae.ca) is an initiative to strengthen relationships between research producers, users, and the communities that schools serve to improve outcomes for students in four priority areas: mathematics, equity, well-being, and Indigenous knowledge. As developmental evaluators for KNAER from 2017 to 2019, we reference and integrate two main sources of data: a research model created to inform the network's planning and activities, and semistructured interviews with network leaders (N = 11) and policymakers (N = 3). Reflecting on our findings, we discuss five key lessons for EIP: the need to build reciprocal streets of engagement, the need to shift data use from accountability and compliance to partnership learning, the need to coproduce and identify specific entry points of change, the need to focus on capacity building and leveraging brokers across partnerships, and the need to use communication as a problem-solving tool to assess and adjust innovations and implementation rather than passive reports of activities.

This chapter examines Massachusetts (USA) public primary and secondary educators' use of evidence-informed practices (EIPs). We pay special attention to the role of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) in this regard while employing the dual analytical frame laid out in this handbook's introduction. The first section provides relevant background/context and tentatively classifies the system according to the matrix. The next sections describe educators' use of evidence, and provide context, insights, and analyses in relation to the patterns presented. We note how certain forms of data are routinely being used (and describe DESE's role in facilitating and shaping such use), and we describe some bottom-up (and DESE-supported) research that is occurring within districts. Applying institutional analysis to this case, EIP in Massachusetts is skewed top-down in important ways, but there is also recognition of, and some earnest efforts also/instead to promote, more bottom-up EIP in and across Massachusetts schools and educational organizations. Overall, we advance this case as providing an example of a robust infrastructure at the macrolevel (DESE) that can facilitate and shape EIP, and especially in relation to providing relevant and timely data and supporting its use by educators. Accordingly, our final section focuses on how/why DESE has been successful in these endeavors, as a way of drawing out key lessons. This chapter also includes an appendix containing links to a variety of tools, reports, and resources, which may be of interest to readers interested in further exploring or applying similar approaches.