Engagement with research, teacher learning and educational leadership: towards an interpretive-ecological approach

Abstract

This article is concerned with teachers’ engagement with educational research. It presents a subset of data from a larger study, which explored teachers’ responses to educational research published in a peer-reviewed journal. In this article, I discuss four ways of reading that the participants employed while addressing the validity and usability of research findings. Collectively, these ways of reading challenge the dominant applied science model of research use. Based on insights gleaned from the participants’ ways of reading, I propose an interpretive-ecological approach to educational leadership. This approach would ask educational leaders to facilitate the creation of spaces where teachers may be able to actively interpret the meanings of research-based evidence. It is hoped that such interpretive readings will help teachers gain contextually relevant knowledge and practical wisdom in the contemporary culture of evidence-based practice, which leaves little room for personal judgement and interpretive practice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=jpme.

2. While Noah’s assumption that giving opinions is the ‘right’ way may be interrogated from critical and cross-cultural perspectives, my focus in this article is on how he drew upon his prior experiences.