Introductory description

The Strategic Research in Professional Educational Practice module is designed to provide individuals working in contexts relevant to the formal education of children and young people the means to receive credit for their professional practice, with a focus on strategic research. The module provides professionals who have relevant experience of, and wish to develop their understanding of, strategic research in close-to-practice contexts, with the opportunity to design their own individualised learning programme relevant to their specific professional context. The module can facilitate deeper critical reflection and analysis of close-to-practice practice enquiry and learning that might include work-place initiatives and CPD or engagement with wider CPD communities through participation in training programmes by external providers.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

• Introduction to the module seminar to discuss participants experience of work-based research and to identify what previous research is appropriate for the purposes of this RPL module.
• Completion of a short personal statement outlining
• Action plan meeting with module mentor to agree focus for module and the evidence to be collected.
• Library Induction, academic writing and referencing workshops.
• Further 30 minute meeting with application mentor to discuss progress towards portfolio completion.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate the ability to identify, analyse, synthesise and critically evaluate sources of knowledge and evidence relevant to the planning and conduct of research in a specific school-based educational context.
• Collect evidence from a range of sources to demonstrate that you have identified and researched a strategic issue pertinent to education in your local, national and / or international context.
• Critically evaluate your rationale and methods for this research carried out into a strategic practice-based problem and / or a contentious education-related topic relevant to your work practice.
• Provide robust evidence to justify your conclusions, demonstrating the ability to identify, analyse, synthesise and critically evaluate relevant sources of knowledge and practice .
• Evidence sources of information and demonstrate origins of ideas with precision by referencing sources using a consistent style.
• Show the ability to write in a way that is clear, concise and persuasive for a range of professional and /or academic communication

Indicative reading list

Anderson, G.L., Herr, K. and Nihlen, A.S., 2007. Studying your own school: An educator's guide to practitioner action research. Corwin Press.
Desimone, L. M. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educational researcher, 38(3), 181-199
Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & Yoon, K. S. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 915-945
Jackson, C.K., & Bruegmann, E. (2009). Teaching students and teaching each other: the
importance of peer learning for teachers. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics,
1(4), 85-108.
Kane, T.J., & Staiger, D.O. (2008). Estimating teacher impacts on student achievement: An
experimental evaluation. NBER Working Paper No. 14607.
Kraft MA, Papay JP. Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience. Educational Effectiveness and Policy Analysis [Internet]. 2014;36 (4) :476-500.
Menter, I Elliott, D Hulme, M. Lewin, J Lowden K. (2011) A Guide to Practitioner research in Education. SAGE publishing
Thomson, P. and Hall, C. (2017) Place-Based Methods for Researching Schools (Bloomsbury)
Waters, T., Marzano, R. J., & McNulty, B. (2003). Balanced leadership: What 30 years of research tells us about the effect of leadership on student achievement (pp. 1-19). Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
Wyse, D., Selwyn, N., Smith, E. and Suter, L.E. eds., (2016). The BERA/SAGE handbook of educational research. Sage.

Subject specific skills

• The purpose of this module is to provide evidence of work-based skills previously gained that have that have already had impact in a professional educational environment.
• The module develops skills in evaluation and critical reflection.
• The module develops skills in academic research and writing appropriate to study within the field of education.

Transferable skills

The skills learnt in this module will be useful for further study and evaluation of practice in fields beyond education.