Kate Wall

Practitioner Enquiry Tip of the Week: contradictory evidence. Over past few weeks I've established that education is complex, answers are unlikely to be neat and we need to look for exceptions, but what about if your evidence says different things?/1🧵#PractitionerEnquiryTotW

For me the contradiction and disagreement common in education research is a reflection of the complexity of thing we study: people. If we accept it is complex, we can't expect simple answers. It takes the pressure off to not look for the simple. Share it. Model it. Normalise it/8

Third, recognise successful enquiry breeds more enquiry, from contrasting evidence with no simple answer, new questions emerge that will prompt your next enquiry cycle. Maybe we need to recognise new questions as the most useful answer in career long prof learning /7

Second, share evidence and how it contradicts as well as how you're interpreting it to allow you to move forward. Yes, that bit of evidence might say one thing and that other piece say something else, but you will have an opinion on which one you trust more/ give more weight to/6

First, don't gloss over the disagreement or pretend that it doesn't exist. We need to acknowledge and normalise the challenge of exploring real life in all its complexity as a practitioner-researcher. It was never going to be simple and difference is fundamental part of it /5

If we include outliers as well as different forms of evidence, contradiction or at least mild disagreement is to be expected. But how do you report this when sharing your enquiry? If you can't answer your question succinctly, how can you feel confident to move practice forward?/4

Teachers are naturally mixed method, we think about learners simultaneously in attainment (quant) and vignettes (qual). Accepting complexity means we're also drawn to multi method designs. As mixed or multi method is likely in enquiry so we have to face these critiques head on/3

The main critiques of multi-method (more than 1 source of evidence) and mixed method (quant and qual) research centre on how you bring everything together into a holistic study and what you do with contradictory results: if one evidence source says yes, and the other says no.../2

Practitioner Enquiry Tip of the Week: contradictory evidence. Over past few weeks I've established that education is complex, answers are unlikely to be neat and we need to look for exceptions, but what about if your evidence says different things?/1🧵#PractitionerEnquiryTotW

Practitioner Enquiry Tip of the Week: simple answers. I know it is frustrating but the complexity of education, of classrooms, and even of one conversation between teacher and child, is so complex that simple answers to any enquiry are unlikely. /1 🧵
#PractitionerEnquiryTotW

Enquiry answers are usually partial and temporal: will that thing work in same way for same content for similar class in 5 years? Almost definitely not. And so enquiry breeds enquiry. We need to strive to understand by asking questions but accepting the non-simple answers/8

So we need to take the pressure off ourselves that worthy research has simple yes/ no answers and admit education is almost defintely more complex than that. We need to report areas of clarity in enquiries, but also the caveats we have observed and what we are not sure about /7

Rather we're looking for part of a jigsaw puzzle. Enquiries tend to lead to partial answers at best. But they will always lead to more questions to fuel your next cycle(s). You may get your jigsaw piece but where it fits and what it is next to will remain worthy of exporation /6

Therefore when engaging in an enquiry project we need to accept our question (if useful) is unlikely to have a simple or definitive answer. Its just unlikely to work the same for all children, for every time or across all curriculum learning. Share the doubt and the complexity /5

Learning is a complex, non-linear process where sometimes learners need to go back to go forward. Some children will be going forward at pace, while others are stuck or unravelling concepts, all at the same time, and with the same input. Neat processes are few and far between./4

One of the joys (and challenges) of being a teacher is that we're constantly having to dance on our toes and react to the unexpected. Things sometimes go to plan, but often they don't. Sometimes the learning is predictable and sometimes its not. Enquiry has to acknowledge this/3

Last week I talked about the importance of the outlier and this is part of why simple answers don't work. Yes, that thing might have worked for the majority on that day in February when it was raining, but did it work for all equally and would it work again in the same way?/2

Practitioner Enquiry Tip of the Week: simple answers. I know it is frustrating but the complexity of education, of classrooms, and even of one conversation between teacher and child, is so complex that simple answers to any enquiry are unlikely. /1 🧵
#PractitionerEnquiryTotW

Practitioner Enquiry Tip of the Week: don't discount the outliers. A lot of research focuses on finding commonality, themes, averages and generalisable trends, but as teachers we deal with more than the majority. We also have to focus on the outliers/1🧵
#PractitionerEnquiryTotW

Be wary of thinking that 'proper' research only speaks to big ideas that work for most of the population. We also need to share those groups and individuals or even subjects or times of day, when it doesn't work so well and normalise it. These are where next questions come from/7

One of a teacher's most fundamental and important skills is being able to differentiate and support all learners in their classroom. This is often done thoughtfully and carefully with deep seated social justice aims. So when sharing your practitioner enquiry do the same. /6

Similarly, when you're reporting enquiry outcomes, be wary of just talking about majority big findings to detriment of the ones for whom it didn't go as expected. We need to report warts and all. For another teacher to take your approach into their classroom they need to know/5

Practitioner enquiry is useful for finding out about that thing that Prof What's-her-face suggested as having an impact but in the context of your group of learners. Your purpose is to find out what elements of the approach are useful in your classroom and for whom. /4

I am wary of one size fits all approaches, of people who think they've THE answer, of rolling out and scaling up. The real educational world is more complex. Even the best ideas need to be adapted to context, to learner need. That's why we need practitioner enquiry to explore /3

Obviously the learning of majority is important and I'm not discounting useful research with generalisable outcomes. But as teacher researchers who work in real classrooms, we know that for every trend or big idea, there is a group or individual for whom it doesn't work as well/2

Practitioner Enquiry Tip of the Week: don't discount the outliers. A lot of research focuses on finding commonality, themes, averages and generalisable trends, but as teachers we deal with more than the majority. We also have to focus on the outliers/1🧵
#PractitionerEnquiryTotW

Practitioner Enquiry Tip of the Week: assessing quality. A lot is written in research textbooks about what makes quality research with words like generalisation, validity and reliability often banded around. But it does depend on what you are doing/1 🧵
#PractitionerEnquiryTotW

Use terms that work for you and don't be crippled by a feelings of what might be 'proper'. But don't brush this aspect under the carpet, consider quality in a way that speaks to your type of enquiry, remembering you're a teacher first, so addressing learner need is priority/8

So quality is a contested term and too often I see it used to undermine teachers enquiry activity. You do need to consider quality in your work - why is that the best evidence for answering that question? But quality is not something you have (or not), rather it is a dynamic/7

In practitioner enquiry realm then context and pedagogical appropriateness are just as important as these other research terms. How does the research process fit with target learners' needs (capabilities/ experiences/ understandings)? How does it evoke a real life context?/6