Really Useful Research: developing strategies and messages which support policy and practice

1. Really Useful Research: developing strategies and messages which support policy and practice Glasgow Creating connections 29 April Ursula Howard

2. One stereotype: is he thinking what you think he’s thinking?

3. The rise of research • Belief, anecdote, commitment, evidence: changing balances in policy decisions; • Deepening understanding and meanings for educational and social practice. • Return on investment: measuring performance of FE and adult learning • Evidence for skills as basis of economic success • Openness: external scrutiny of government policy; access to information • Improving the quality of teaching and learning • Learners’ experience, achievement, progression: ‘what works’ • Professionalism: tutors and related staff qualifications, CPD; reflective practice

4. Positioning: strategies for research • A published research programme aligned with what policy is trying to do: getting research questions right • Values: impact and change in learners’ interests • Best of all? R & D/D & R embedded in policy and implementation • Independence as critical friend • Promote the value of longitudinal studies • Stretching and bending : flexibility and responsiveness • Make mutual friends and voluntary dependencies

5. Creating the strategy: doing the work • Start with what we know and accumulate: early messages home from a long journey • Beg, borrow, synthesise, summarise • Accommodate change:keeping abreast of policy & practice • Flexibility and responsiveness • Engage practitioners and learners in designing, gathering, analyzing, critically reading, communicating • Numbers with stories and stories with numbers • UK-wide and international dimensions: comparison, sharing, sources of new ideas and evidence

6. Developing from research evidence: working the material, firing findings • Transformation or transfer? • Findings – so what? Being helpful: practical ideas and problem solving for policy development • A social process: supported self help (practice); • Practitioners at the centre: leading projects; action research, development projects, trying out, innovating, adopting, internalizing, using • Guidance: by and for practitioners • Teacher educators and professional developers: key intermediaries

7. Communicating research • Active personal contacts/relationships with users: policy makers, employers, unions, inspectors, funders, advocacy organizations, practitioners • The research community as users: accumulation or reinvention? • Continuous sustained interactions and brokering links • ‘Outputs’ 57 varieties but a single brand: the long, the short and the web • Adequate warning: hard messages ahead • Passive or active? Finding the language(s) of users • Cooperation not competition: networks, joint projects • Synthesise from own and others’ work

8. Pitfalls and challenges • Ourselves • Sticking to the method, or: however did we end up with this report? • Understanding other’ perspectives and constraints • We may be good researchers, but are we good writers? • Making the most of findings without compromising findings • Policy changes passions and motivation: weariness of change and compliance • Research and policy ‘communities’: stand off, civil war or cooperation and complementarity? • Rigour: what is Research? • Seeing the way through the woods at night

9. A glimpse of findings: 6 years of LLN research in England • Trajectories of disadvantage and possibilities for life change • There is evidence to support prioritizing those with the greatest LLN needs. A gulf exists between those with the lowest levels of literacy language and numeracy (LLN) and those at the higher threshold of the government’s target. They are more likely to experience multiple disadvantage from early years but clear evidence of the potential for learning and earning (John Bynner) • Literacy and numeracy learning brings financial gains and better work prospects • (A. Vignoles; J. Vorhaus et al) • Intergenerational transfer: parents’ LLN was correlated with their children’s, evidence that inequality and disadvantage are long term issues. New research shows that parents’ skill development has a positive impact on children’s attainment in tests. (A. De Coulon et al)

10. A glimpse of findings: 6 years of LLN research in England • The value of ‘embedding’ LLN in vocational and other programmes. Evidence from quantitative and qualitative research showing that embedding worked better than ‘discrete’ courses for (mainly young) adults, when vocational and LLN teachers planned as a team, and shared understanding and beliefs (H. Casey et al) • Effective Practice: programmes which strongly featured group work were more strongly correlated with learning progress than those dominated by individual work, though not in ICT programmes (G.Brooks et al; H. Mellar et al) • Writing is overwhelmingly taught at ‘word level’ (spelling) rather than as composition (Sue Grief et al) • Numeracy matters more: people fear maths, they are not complacent about it (DIUS, 2008) Problems with numeracy affect women more than men and are associated with other life issues; learners often want to learn maths, not ‘getting by in daily life’, and that doing it well will make them feel intelligent; people learn maths positively by ‘thinking through problems, rather than getting it ‘right or wrong’ (D.Coben; J. Bynner; M. Swan)

11. A glimpse of findings: 6 years of LLN research in England • Learners are not averse to testing and assessment as long as it is handled carefully and formatively by tutors (Paul Davies; Y.Appleby) • Formative assessment is more strongly linked with success than any other single factor in learning: supporting motivation, persistence, achievement and moving on (J. Vorhaus; K Ecclestone et al) • Progression ‘up’ to qualification bearing courses remains stubbornly at ca. 13% - there are no typical pathways of progression, with some learners moving across, some leapfrogging levels and zig-zagging through learning lives • People dip out rather than drop out: patterns of attendance and persistence suggest we need much more flexibility and support for learners complex life patterns (Litster & Lopez) • More men learn more at work as a percentage of learners than in other settings, especially older men and learning at work engages those who would not otherwise participate (A.Wolf; K.Evans)

12. A glimpse of findings: 6 years of LLN research in England • There is a digital divide associated with LLN skills and practices, with less IT access, proficiency and use by those at Entry 2 and below • Problematic areas for practice include: placing learners on the right course, especially in ESOL/Literacy; the appropriate use of ‘Individual Learning Plans’; making learning support learners lives rather than fit into a system; helping people develop the writing skills they increasingly need at work and in daily life: literacy is not just reading; many if not most teachers of numeracy adre literacy teachers and may not be proficient at maths or at teaching it; external targets can distort teaching and learning; black and minority ethnic groups do less well as learners and are underrepresented among teachers:

14. Where to get more information about NRDC For more information about the National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy please visit our website: www.nrdc.org.uk