Special issue: Evidence into policy and practice

Abstract

This special issue of Review of Education on 'Evidence into Policy and Practice' consists of a selection of 12 research papers, selected from 45 abstracts sent in response to the call published in January 2021, and 21 subsequent papers sent for peer review. The call was for papers that improved society's knowledge and understanding of how research evidence is best used in policy and practice.Governments, funders and researchers worldwide report that the use of evidence in education is increasingly important but we have seen no consolidated discussion of good examples, successes and failures, and the challenges and barriers in translating evidence into practice and policy. Above all, we have seen no robust evaluations of the benefits for students and teachers of using research evidence in education, or of how best to get evidence into use (Gorard et al. 2020).There have been improvements in the generation and synthesis of high-quality substantive evidence in education, worldwide, over the past 30 years, with 'What Works' centres and similar organisations. There are now reasonable bodies of evidence available on a range of education topics, although more so for practice than for policy. The money that tax-payers and charities spend on this primary work is largely wasted if it is not used. Most importantly, perhaps, high-quality evidence needs to be distinguished from all of the rest-which obviously provide unsound bases for policy and practice. What we need now is a giant step in the amount and quality of the research on innovative and impactful modes of translating and mobilising primary research evidence into usable formats. This is particularly timely because of policies such as the Pupil Premium in England, which requires schools and teachers to invest their additional funds in educational resources and programmes to improve the schooling of disadvantaged children, and for which there is high quality evidence of their benefits.We were therefore delighted to receive an encouraging response to the call for this special issue from education researchers based in England,