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Most universities have relied on student evaluations as a source of evidence in their assessment of teaching performance. However, a complete evaluation of all dimensions of a faculty member's teaching requires multiple sources of evidence. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the sources of evidence that accounting chairs report they currently use to assess teaching. Calderon and Green first examined this issue in their 1997 study. However, their results may be outdated due to changes in accreditation requirements, teaching delivery methods, and the continued evolution of assessment tools. Responding department chairs report that peer observation followed by course syllabus, exams given in class, and instructor course notes are the most frequently used evidence types, with an average of 3.16 sources beyond student evaluations. The source and quantity of evidence vary across different types of institutions. While Calderon and Green reported that most schools use ad hoc and subjective sources of evidence, respondents in this study focus more on instructor-supplied materials and direct evidence from inside the classroom.

This chapter discusses the development of evidence-informed practice in Australian education. It highlights growing system-wide aspirations and support for Australian teachers, school leaders, and jurisdictions to be engaging productively with research and evidence. Our aim here is to step back from these developments and consider them in the context of: (1) the nature and distinctive characteristics of the Australian school system; (2) what is known (and not known) about Australian educators' use of research and evidence; and (3) recent insights into enablers and barriers to research use in Australian schools. We argue that the development of evidence-informed practice in Australia needs to take careful account of the complex history and fatalist nature of the wider school system. This will make it possible to identify and work with the productive places that exist within a system of this kind. It is also important to recognize that research use in schools is a topic that has been investigated surprisingly little in Australia relative to other countries internationally. Current policy aspirations around evidence-informed approaches therefore need to be matched by greater efforts to understand the dynamics of research engagement in Australian schools and school systems.

A translation framework and associated processes and activities for bridging the research-to-practice gap in early childhood intervention are described. Translational processes and activities include methods and procedures for identifying evidence-based practices, translating findings from research evidence into early childhood intervention procedures, and promoting practitioners’ and parents’ routine use of the practices. The framework includes four interrelated processes and activities. Type 1 translation uses research findings to develop evidence-based practices. Type 2 translation involves the use of evidence-based professional development (implementation) practices to promote practitioners’ and parents’ use of evidence-based early childhood intervention practices. Type 3 translation includes activities to evaluate whether the use of evidence-based practices as part of routine early intervention have expected benefits and outcomes. Type 4 translation includes activities for the dissemination, diffusion, and promotion of broad-based adoption and use of evidence-based practices. Examples of each type of translation are described as are implications for practice.

Teachers across the globe have been called upon to employ evidence-informed practices to guide instructional decision-making. Using a social regulation/cohesion matrix and institutional theory analytic lens can help illuminate the barriers and enablers shaping teachers' efforts to use evidence in different policy contexts. In the US, there is social cohesion with respect to public schooling as well as a high degree of regulation with respect to accountability. In this chapter, we closely examine the work of a teacher team in a California middle school that we studied for four years using case study methods. While teachers on this team shared an interest in evidence use and were open to trying research-based practices in their own classrooms, doing so consistently was challenging. The teacher team's use of evidence to inform practice was shaped by three themes. First, several capacity-building opportunities provided teachers with support for drawing on research-based practices as well as eliciting student thinking as a form of evidence on student learning. However, lack of cohesion across these opportunities functioned as a barrier to effective implementation of strategies. Finally, a strong focus on accountability ultimately constrained the team's ability to consistently use evidence to inform daily practice. Lessons for policy and practice are discussed.

This chapter describes the Chilean market-oriented educational system, which has a marked individualist culture while simultaneously introducing policies and strategies to encourage collaboration among teachers to use research evidence to improve their practices. Using Hood's (1998) cohesion/regulation matrix, we argue that two system approaches are in place in Chile. First, a fatalist way where cooperation among peers is mandated solely to meet rule-bound approaches to regulate schools' and teachers' practice. Second, an egalitarian way promoted by a political discourse that has highlighted the importance and value of collaboration and support among peers to promote effective teaching practice. In this chapter, we inquire how teachers navigate this complex scenario to use evidence to inform their practice by conducting a systematic literature review of studies about Chilean teachers' use of evidence for their teaching practice. The systematic review addressed the following research questions: What is the nature of the literature on the use of evidence for teaching practice among Chilean teachers? What type of evidence is used by Chilean teachers to support their teaching practice? And, to what extent do Chilean teachers engage with peers while using evidence for their teaching practice? Findings show that research on the use of evidence for teaching practice in Chile is still scarce and quite recent, and that teachers face significant challenges to collaborate in a context that systemically rewards competition.

Public education is an important institution in any democracy, and the significant resources invested form a critical pillar in its provision. The evidence used to manage said resources is, therefore, an important issue for education leaders and a matter public interest. The purpose of this paper is to consider the role education finance leaders in Ontario, Canada, and what types of evidence they are using, how they are being employed and how much priority is given to each.

The paper employs a review of Ontario’s K-12 education funding policies/reports, and interviews with five K-12 funding model experts/leaders – four business superintendents from school boards of varying sizes (based on enrollment) and one system leader (to introduce perspective from the two levels of governance in resource management) to understand how these experts use evidence to inform resource decision making. This sampling strategy was also grounded in a key assumption: School boards with larger enrollment – and consequently larger budgets – will have greater capacity to use all forms of evidence when managing resources, as the majority of board revenue comes from grants that are mostly based on enrollment.

The findings bring important definition and prioritization of evidence that inform leaders’ resource decision making in education. The results point to two tacit, normative, unacknowledged and, yet, competing evidence frameworks driving resource management. The government is the most influential, prioritizing strategic policy, performance data, fiscal context and professional judgment; values embedded in policy and research were mentioned only in passing, while local anecdotal types of evidence were given less priority. Compounding this challenge is that all sides in debates on school resource needs face issues of access to, transparency in the use of and the prioritization given to various evidence types.

Governments, with the assistance of academics, should formally articulate and make public the evidence framework they use to drive resource decision making. All sides of the resource management debate need to value a wider range of evidence, notably evidence that speak to local concerns, to reduce information gaps and, potentially, improve on the effective delivery of local educational programming. Education finance researchers could help to address access gaps by distilling research on the effective use of resources in a manner that is timely, tailored to the fiscal climate and to system- or district-level readiness for the implementation of a particular initiative.

Resource management driven solely by “facts” can support student achievement outcomes and effective system operation, but alone will not satisfy local-level aspirations for education or inspire public confidence; a key ingredient for the sustainability of this public institution. The results could be used to improve the balance of “decent information” used to inform resource deliberations and establish a shared understanding across stakeholder groups to facilitate compromise. The current state of affairs has all sides in advancing claims for resource needs based on what they understand to be evidence all while portraying competing claims as uninformed, undermining public confidence in education.

The paper draws from interviews with business superintendents and a system-level funding model expert, both lesser studied leaders on this topic in the Canadian context; offers a clear articulation of the evidence frameworks at play and the priority given to each type and how they are being used; presents definition and prioritization of evidence from the perspective of leaders in the Canadian context (most of literature is from the USA) – experts acknowledge that resource knowledge is contextually contingent and insight generated from other contexts will help to advance the field.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether healthcare leaders use evidence-based management (EBMgt) when facing major decisions and what types of evidence healthcare administrators consult during their decision-making. This study also intends to identify any relationship that might exist among adoption of EBMgt in healthcare management, attitudes towards EBMgt, demographic characteristics and organizational characteristics.

A cross-sectional study was conducted among US healthcare leaders. Spearman’s correlation and logistic regression were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 23.0.

One hundred and fifty-four healthcare leaders completed the survey. The study results indicated that 90 per cent of the participants self-reported having used an EBMgt approach for decision-making. Professional experiences (87 per cent), organizational data (84 per cent) and stakeholders’ values (63 per cent) were the top three types of evidence consulted daily and weekly for decision-making. Case study (75 per cent) and scientific research findings (75 per cent) were the top two types of evidence consulted monthly or less than once a month. An exploratory, stepwise logistic regression model correctly classified 75.3 per cent of all observations for a dichotomous “use of EBMgt” response variable using three independent variables: attitude towards EBMgt, number of employees in the organization and the job position. Spearman’s correlation indicated statistically significant relationships between healthcare leaders’ use of EBMgt and healthcare organization bed size (r_s = 0.217, n = 152, p < 0.01), attitude towards EBMgt (r_s = 0.517, n = 152, p < 0.01), and the number of organization employees (r_s = 0.195, n = 152, p = 0.016).

This study generated new research findings on the practice of EBMgt in US healthcare administration decision-making.

A substantial amount of research argues that built environmental interventions can improve the outcomes of patients and other users of healthcare facilities, supporting the concept of evidence-based design (EBD). However, the sources of such evidence and its flow into healthcare design are less well understood. This paper aims to provide insights to both the sources and flow of EBD used in three healthcare projects, to reveal practicalities of use and the relationships between them in practice.

Three healthcare case study projects provided empirical data on the design of a number of different elements. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify the source and flow of evidence used in this design, which was subsequently quantised to reveal the dominant patterns therein.

Healthcare design teams use evidence from various sources, the knowledge and experience of the members of the design team being the most common due to both ease of access and thus flow. Practice-based research and peer-reviewed published research flow both directly and indirectly into the design process, whilst collaborations with researchers and research institutions nurture the credibility of the latter.

The findings can be used to enhance activities that aim to design, conduct and disseminate future EBD research to improve their flow to healthcare designers.

This research contributes to understandings of EBD by exploring the flow of research from various sources in conflation and within real-life environments.