Synthesising Research in Education: a case‐study of getting it wrong, Part 2

Abstract

Syntheses of research are influential in regard to subsequent research, policy and practice. They provide the empirical bases for applications for research grants, for higher‐degree dissertations and theses, and for individual and institutional research. They are used by policy makers in designing strategies for development, and they are used to guide practitioners in the enhancement of professional activity. They provide the contents of highly regarded publications in handbooks, encyclopaedias, and textbooks, and become the best‐known statements of the state of knowledge on the topics to which they are addressed. The processes by which syntheses of research are disseminated are equally important, because they determine which syntheses are available publicly for the above purposes. If the authors of the original sources are wrong in announcing their findings, if the synthesisers of that research do not identify the errors, if the referees of the syntheses submitted for publication are lax, if the editors of the reports of those referees are not on guard, then a potentially damaging synthesis can be released. As a result, whole programmes of misguided research, policy and practice can eventuate. The likelihood that a poor synthesis would survive the rigorous refereeing process employed by prestigious scholarly journals must be very small. Nevertheless, the consequences of such a mistake warrant contemplation. It could happen! Indeed, it appears to have happened! In what follows I will give further demonstration that it has happened. In the first part of this case study (Dunkin, 1995), I reported an evaluation of that part of Kagan's (1992) synthesis of research on teachers’ professional growth that concerned preservice teachers. In this paper, I will focus on the synthesis of research on first‐year and beginning teachers.