There is increasing pressure for teachers to base their practice on the best educational research evidence. In making professional judgments, it is claimed, they must be guided not merely by knowledge grounded in their own experience, but by knowledge grounded in engagement with scientific evidence and recommendations regarding educational interventions.
This seems to require of teachers at least some familiarity with the relevant science, as well as a range of abilities: for instance, the ability to access, understand and assess relevant research evidence and guidelines; the ability to see how the relevant evidence might bear on their particular practice; and the ability to put it to use responsibly. How should we understand such capacities and competences?
The present workshop addresses this and related questions under the heading of research literacy. This broad notion captures professionals’ capacity to integrate research-based knowledge and broader practical and ethical concerns in their professional practice.
Research literacy can be elucidated from a number of perspectives, across disparate strands of literature in various areas of research; for instance, professional ethics, social epistemology, virtue epistemology, philosophy of science, educational research. The workshop aims to bring researchers from these areas together.
We will discuss the following topics:
- What is the nature of research literacy in the educational domain? What is its normative structure? What are its psychological underpinnings?
- How should we educate for teachers’ research literacy?
- How should research literacy be promoted institutionally?
- What is the relation between research literacy and teachers’ autonomy and accountability?
- What forms can research literacy take in different areas of teachers’ professional practice?
The workshop is part of the project Renewed perspectives on research use in education (RE-POSE).
Program
Thursday 1st September
- 09:00: Introduction and Welcome.
- 09:30-10:50: Martyn Hammersley, Emeritus Professor of Education and Social Research. Comments by Steinar Bøyum, Head of Department, Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen.
- 11:00-12:20: Cecilie Haugen, Professor, Department of Teacher Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Comments by Sølvi Mausethagen, Professor, Centre for the study of professions, OsloMet.
- 12:20-13:20: Lunch.
- 13:20-15:00: Ellen Karoline Henriksen, Professor, Faculty of Education and International Studies, OsloMet. Comments by Mirva Heikkilä, Researcher, Department of Teacher Education, Centre for Research on Learning and Instruction.
- 15:10-16:30: Steen Nepper Larsen, Associate Professor, Aarhus University. Comments by Fredrik Thue, Professor, Centre for the study of professions, OsloMet.
Friday 2nd September
- 09:00-10:20: Terje Ogden, Senior researcher, The Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development (NUBU). Commentator TBA.
10:30-11:50: Ben Kotzee, Reader in Philosophy of Education in the School of Education, University of Birmingham. Commentator TBA.
11:50-12:50: Lunch
12:50-14:10: REPOSE, joint presentation. Comments by Tone Malmstedt Eriksen, Doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo.
14:20-15:40 Roundtable Discussion
