Teaching Education

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cted20

Generating enabling conditions to strengthen a
research-rich teaching profession: lessons from an
Australian study
Simone White
To cite this article: Simone White (2020): Generating enabling conditions to strengthen a
research-rich teaching profession: lessons from an Australian study, Teaching Education, DOI:
10.1080/10476210.2020.1840545
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2020.1840545

Published online: 26 Nov 2020.

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TEACHING EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2020.1840545

ARTICLE

Generating enabling conditions to strengthen a research-rich
teaching profession: lessons from an Australian study
Simone White
Faculty of Education, Queensland, University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
ABSTRACT

ARTICLE HISTORY

The increasing datafication of teachers’ work and schooling prac­
tices as evidenced through various metrics of student testing and
school improvement measures have continued to grow unabated
across many OECD Countries. Such practices have been fuelled by
global competition for league tables such as the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) with ‘big data’ having
a major impact on how teachers are expected to gather, analyse
and report data. For schools in Australia, the turn of the millennium
has heralded the ‘high stakes’ data trend and the roll-out of stan­
dardised testing. This paper reports on an Australian study’s find­
ings, against such a backdrop, to explore the impact and challenges
of an overly data-rich environment for educators, teachers and
system leaders and what might be the enabling conditions to
move towards a more research-rich teaching profession. The find­
ings suggest that perhaps standards and data are not the enemy for
teachers, rather it is standardisation and the datafication of stu­
dents that creates an amplification of the effects of institutional
rankings and league tables. Enabling conditions are offered to
adopt a more comprehensive and inclusive view of what counts
as research and who conducts research, key to enabling a mature
teaching profession.

Received 7 May 2020
Accepted 18 October 2020
KEYWORDS

research literacy; researchrich; teaching profession;
data

Introduction
Schools today are complex, evolving, educational contexts which are constantly affected
by societal and technological changes and thus require teachers to have ‘adaptive’ rather
than ‘routine’ types of expertise (Timperley, 2015). The nature of ‘adaptive expertise’ is for
teachers to be well equipped to respond appropriately and creatively to diverse students’
needs in a constantly changing and unpredictable world, as is currently evident with the
COVID-19 global crisis. This view of teachers as adaptive experts is consistent with the
definition of a mature teaching profession (Sachs, 2003, 2016), being one where teachers
feel a sense of autonomy, trust and take an active role in their own professional devel­
opment. A mature teaching profession is also one where teachers are able to draw from
a broad range of information sources in making informed curriculum and pedagogical

CONTACT Simone White
simone.white@qut.edu.au
Office of International and Engagement, Faculty of
Education, A Block, Level 3, Room 320A, Kelvin Grove, Brisbane, Australia
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

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S. WHITE

decisions, while being acutely responsive to their distinctive school contexts (Sachs, 2016;
Timperley, 2015).
Being able to utilise a range of sources requires teachers to be able to not only easily
access data and information, but also synthesise, critically analyse and adapt resources for
their students, as researchers. Developing research literate teachers, discerning consu­
mers and producers of research is thus key to creating a mature profession (Sachs, 2016).
Unfortunately, the notion of what counts as important sources for teachers to access and
use has narrowed in recent times, alongside a ‘what works’ and ‘evidence-based’ rhetoric
and an intensified data-driven reform agenda. Current trends highlight a move towards
an over reliance on standardised test results driving schools’ decision-making. This
change has caused shifts to teachers’ work with current debates into the role teachers
should play in responding to and producing the large data sets emerging for the learners
they seek to serve. In short, questions are being asked (Biesta, 2014; Lingard, Martino, &
Rezai-Rashti, 2013; Mockler, 2011) if we are creating an overly data-rich profession where
teachers end up beholden to ‘big data’ sets or a research-rich teaching profession where
teachers take an active approach to collecting, producing, critiquing and best using data
for their students and their specific contexts.
Such a backdrop was the catalyst for an Australian study, titled: Strengthening
a research-rich teaching profession White, Down, Mills, Shore & Woods (2020); White
et al., 2018) that investigated the current barriers and enablers in moving towards
a research-rich teaching profession. The study built upon the British Educational
Research Association (BERA) and Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) Inquiry into research
and the teaching profession in the United Kingdom that found:
A research literate, research engaged profession is likely to be one that is more self-confident,
creative and adventurous – those qualities that it is often claimed have been stripped away
from teachers’ identity and practice in recent decades. (BERA-RSA, 2014, p. 21)

This paper reports on the Australian study’s findings, in particular focusing on the
qualitative data responses to understand what might best support teachers to thrive in
a research-rich profession, rather than survive in a data-rich environment. To better
understand the study’s findings, a closer examination of the current implications for
what has been described as the ‘datafication of teachers’ work’ (Lingard et al., 2013) is
discussed to further set the backdrop to the Australian study.

The increasing datafication of teachers’ work?
The production and collection of large sets of information or what has been coined as ‘big
data’ has had a major impact on teachers’ work and the various ways expected of teachers
to gather, analyse and report on it. As Jacobs, Gregory, Hoppey, and Yendol-Hoppey
(2009) note:
Using data to make instructional and curricular decisions is part of the work of teachers in
today’s classrooms. With the high stakes attached to standardized tests, using data has
become even more visible and surrounded by much greater urgency. (p.52)

The work of teachers using and generating data has been increasing for some time. As
Little (2012), writing from the United States context, has explained:

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In recent years, teachers have been invited or required to engage with one another, with
administrators and with a variety of others (instructional coaches, consultants, parents) to
review and interpret data derived from standardised tests, interim or benchmark assessments
and administrative records charting attendance, graduation, dropout and other metrics.
(p.144)

For schools in Australia, the turn of the millennium heralded the ‘high stakes’ data trend
and the roll-out of standardised testing. Testing now begins in Year One (6 year olds) and
continues every alternate year, through to the end of post-compulsory schooling in Year
Twelve (18 year olds). Performance-based metrics and data-driven decision-making
requirements for teachers and schools have also increased exponentially over the past
two decades. As an example, ‘data-walls’, where student results are publicly displayed,
have emerged in most Australian schools as a way to organise a collective evidence of
student learning over time. Data-walls are now highly prevalent in staffrooms as a way of
making student learning (and by implication, the teachers’ impact) evident, public and
visible.
Teachers are increasingly required to prepare and constantly update these ‘data walls’
as a way of both monitoring student results and measuring progress. Research is now
beginning to highlight an issue with the time it takes administratively to do this type of
work, and questioning if perhaps this time spent is actually taking away from the very
time teachers require to implement pedagogical interventions (Adie, Wyatt-Smith, &
Harris, 2018). In short, questions are being raised on the extent to which such data
practices are either supporting or limiting a teacher’s capacity to ensure all students are
learning.
While such questions and research explore the impact of the datafication on teachers’
work and schooling practices, various metrics of student and school improvement have
continued to amass unabated across many of the OECD countries, as the competition for
league tables such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has
heightened. This education ‘datafication’ phenomenon is a component of what has been
coined as the era of the Global Education Measurement Industry (GEMI) by Biesta (2015).
He has written about the seductive nature of ‘numbers, measurement and comparison’
that appeal to politicians and policymakers within a global ‘reference to social justice as
a key motivator for wanting to know how systems work and perform’ (p.348).
Biesta (2015) has explored how PISA, as an example, has been used as a simplistic way
to communicate objective information through quantitative measures about the appar­
ent quality of educational systems. He specifically explains:
Quantitative measures that can easily be transformed into league tables and into clear
statements about gain and loss between different data-trawls which, in turn, provide
a clear basis for policy-makers to set targets for ‘improvement’ – such as gaining a higher
place in the league table than apparent competitors, increasing national performance by at
least a certain number of points or articulating the ambition to score ‘at least above average’ –
give PISA a simplicity that is absent in complicated discussions about what counts as good
education. (p. 350)

Data have thus become a powerful tool for teachers to create and use and, on the flip side,
a potential weapon to be used against them, when league tables do not reflect nominal
improvement. In Australia, as Lingard and Sellar (2019) note, from 2006 onwards political,

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policy and media conversations about Australia’s declining PISA performance have been
an important backdrop to national reform.
Teachers are thus in the precarious position as ‘policy linchpins’ (Cochran-Smith, 2003)
within an ever-increasingly competitive, global education reform movement (Sahlberg,
2016), intent on raising the measurable learning outcomes of all students. What then
follows is that education systems, under intense pressure, then move to raise the ‘pro­
fessionalism’ and quality of teachers and teacher education, with this purpose being
progressed through further accountability and standardisation measures. This dilemma
speaks to the very nature of the future of a mature teaching profession and the place of
research and data within it.
Utilising rich data, which means a wide use of different types of data and inclusive of
research that teachers produce is vital for the teaching profession, but an overly narrow
data-rich profession reduces teachers’ capacity to meet their students’ needs. The ques­
tion now becomes: how can we move beyond a data-rich environment to a research-rich
one for the teaching profession? Before looking more closely at the study’s findings to
respond to this question, it is important to look carefully at the literature to date in this
regard as a backdrop.

Teacher professionalization: data-rich or research-rich?
As discussed above, teachers have greater access to data than ever before and arguably
they also have more opportunities to connect and utilise large data systems. Teachers can
either drown in data or be empowered to use rich data in agentive ways to ensure they
maximise students’ learning. These choices provide a crossroad for the teaching profes­
sion: to be data-rich or research-rich. Various research studies and commentaries have
emerged about these two options already. Judyth Sachs (2016) viewed the two as a fork in
the road for the profession to consider. The BERA-RSA Inquiry (BERA-RSA, 2014), on the
other hand, described the options as points on a professional continuum. Both acknowl­
edge that a research-rich position should be the preferred destination.
The data-rich cross-roads metaphor is described by Sachs (2016) in a cautionary way.
She suggests that the profession risks becoming dominated by a performance culture
agenda, increasingly data-driven and focused on standardized testing and accountability
measures. The data-rich pathway also limits teachers' capacity to use all information at
their disposal. As Mills and Goos (2017) note:
At best, research engagement is conceptualised in terms of teachers collecting and analysing
student achievement data in order to adjust and improve teaching strategies. While this
could create a data-rich environment that supports school improvement, such an approach
would not necessarily immerse teachers in a research-rich environment that draws on multi­
ple forms evidence from multiple sources. (p.647)

Following a data-rich pathway, while viewed by some policymakers (see, for example, the
Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group report, 2015) as a way to drive consistency,
ensure quality and deliver results, has to date been argued as contributing to a growing
culture of performance anxiety against global league tables, suffered by teachers and
students alike (Furlong, 2013). It has also been argued that such a pathway has already
contributed to teacher burnout and staffing challenges in ‘harder to staff’ communities

TEACHING EDUCATION

5

across many OECD countries, as the metrics do not reflect socio-economic and cultural
differences (White, 2016). While advocating for a more equitable society, an overly datarich environment has also appeared perversely to disadvantage diverse learners, espe­
cially those from rural, remote and low socio-economic backgrounds who are not
reflected in the production of standardized curriculum and tests (Green, Noone, &
Nolan, 2013).
A research-rich teaching profession pathway, on the other hand, is where teachers
drive their own school context-appropriate reform agendas based on rich data and their
professional judgements and trust (Sachs, 2016). This option, Sachs argues, is essential to
enabling a mature teaching profession. Such a pathway, with its focus on developing
teaching strategies in response to diverse students’ needs, while more challenging to
quantify and assess, appears more desirable to enable all students and their teachers to
thrive. Choosing such a pathway requires a re-examination of the enabling conditions to
foster such a mature profession (Sachs, 2003).
The BERA-RSA Inquiry into research and the teaching profession took a slightly differ­
ent view adopting a continuum of engagement approach rather than a fork in the road.
Data-rich is thus viewed as a point along the way of moving towards a research-rich
profession. The inquiry indeed offered three ‘points’ along a continuum of research
engagement; namely, ‘data-poor’; ‘data-rich’ and ‘research-rich’. They identified different
conditions to move the profession further to a research-rich position, noting that in the
UK, many teachers, while actively working with data, were not as engaged as both
consumers and producers of research data. As the BERA-RSA (2014) report notes in
thinking about the differences:
While many teachers are now much better at working with data, they typically do so from an
institution-specific, rather than system-wide, perspective. Further, while this new confidence
with data is to be welcomed, it is only one pillar of a broader research-rich culture. (p.24)

Choosing a research-rich pathway or extending beyond a simplistic data-rich point along
the professional continuum requires a new set of signposts and enabling conditions to be
created and fostered. Such was the focus of the Australian, two-year Strengthening
a research-rich teaching profession study (White et al., 2020, 2018). In keeping with
a ‘systems’ notion of the broader education profession, three groups were invited to
participate in the study. They were: teachers and educators; teacher educators and
academics; and system leaders (i.e. principals and department leaders). Key questions
asked of the participants helped to understand the contribution that research currently
makes to the education profession and to explore the challenges, untapped opportunities
and recommendations for the future. This paper focuses on what the participants identi­
fied as the barriers and enablers to a research-rich profession and the recommendations
and suggestions they identified that would help them best respond to the needs of their
own context and communities within a global backdrop.

Strengthening a research-rich teaching profession: an Australian study
As noted, the project Strengthening a research-rich teaching profession took its impetus
from the similar inquiry into the state of research in the teaching profession across the
United Kingdom, titled Research and the Teaching Profession: Building the capacity for

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S. WHITE

a self-improving education system. The report developed from the inquiry envisaged the
future required for a repositioning of teacher professionalism. The report framed a vision
of the profession, noting that:
In a new environment of self-improving education systems teachers will need to become
research literate and have opportunities for research and inquiry. This requires that schools
and colleges become research-rich environments in which to work. It also requires that
teacher researchers and the wider research community work in partnership rather than in
separate and sometimes competing universes. (BERA-RSA, 2014, p. 5)

The Strengthening a research-rich teaching profession project used this vision from the
BERA-RSA Inquiry to stimulate a national conversation and posed an overarching question
into what conditions would best promote a ‘self-improving’ and ‘research-rich’ teaching
profession in the Australian context (White et al., 2018). While the BERA-RSA project was
an inquiry, the Australian study was a research project and followed an ethics protocol.
More detailed discussion of the methodology adopted in the study is outlined in previous
papers (see White et al., 2018, 2020). It is important to note that the study is not
representative. Data collection occurred in two stages. Phase one of the study involved
gathering data from various Australian state and territory-based jurisdictions as an
attempt to include a number of voices and perspectives from diverse contexts. A total
of seven workshops with 21 roundtables with representatives from all stakeholder groups
were held. A total of 72 participants attended workshops in Brisbane and Toowoomba
(Queensland), Adelaide (South Australia), Perth (Western Australia), Darwin (Northern
Territory), Sydney (New South Wales) and Launceston (Tasmania).
Four central questions, consistent with the aims of the study, were asked of the
workshop participants. Namely:
● How do education professionals encounter research in their professional life?
● What are the barriers to participation and engagement with research for education

professionals?
● What unrealised opportunities are there for participation and engagement with

research for education professionals?
● What are the recommendations of education professionals for overcoming these

barriers and realising these opportunities?
Analysis of the themes from the field notes taken at these workshops using grounded
theory (Bryant & Charmaz, 2012) provided the basis for the design of the national on-line
survey instrument administered in phase two (see White et al., 2018). The survey design
process involved rigorous consultation with the Reference Group members who repre­
sented the 13 national education professional bodies across Australia as well as trialling
and discussion within the research team. The national survey was administered via the
peak representative bodies to their members and networks memberships but survey
responses themselves were anonymous to the research team. The survey was designed to
gain the perspectives of a wider group of participants to inform recommendations made
in the reporting and dissemination phase.
The survey (see White et al., 2018 for survey instrument) consisted of three sections. In
the first section a number of demographic details were collected. In the second section,

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participants were presented with 23 statements about research and asked to indicate
their level of agreement (from 1 = low agreement to 5 = high agreement). In the third
section of the survey, participants were asked to rank their top three recommendations
from a list of 10 recommendations drafted from data collected during the roundtable
workshops. Finally, participants were provided with the opportunity to provide openended comments or recommendations for policy and practice. It is the data drawn from
the qualitative open-ended responses in particular that are discussed in this paper, to
enable the participants’ voices to be heard.
The survey was administered using Qualtrics online survey software and was open to
participants for four weeks. While over 500 surveys were completed, a total of 389
participants completed the entire survey and it is from this group the data is reported.
It is acknowledged, given the sample size, that the findings are not representative of the
views of the teaching profession and that those who both attended the workshops and
participated in the survey were probably more likely to have a bias in valuing research.
Key findings and themes are discussed in relation to the responses to barriers and
enabling conditions. Particular reference to the recommendations that emerged from
this study as well as to the BERA-RSA report is made as a way to explore next steps as
enabling conditions for the profession to take along the research-rich continuum.

Moving from data rich to research rich: barriers and enabling conditions?
The study revealed, from the perspective of those who participated in the study, that the
Australian teaching landscape is indeed awash with data. The study revealed that the
teaching profession is no longer data poor and is keen to move further along the
professional continuum towards a research-rich teaching profession. A number of barriers
and key enabling conditions emerged from the study as summarised by this system leader
who looked across stakeholder engagement and noted:
Education Departments need to value teachers with research degrees and encourage schools to
use this expertise. Schools need to be encouraged to engage with research outside of account­
ability discourses and be assisted to identify opportunities to engage in research that is in
partnerships with universities addressing specific school needs. Academic researchers need to
move beyond writing for other academics if they want teachers at large to be consumers of their
work. (System leader, open-ended survey response)

This quote highlights an acknowledgement that all stakeholders have a role to play in
building a research-rich teaching profession and points to areas where improvements can
be made by each.
In this spirit and for the purposes of this paper, three key themes focusing on both the
barriers and enablers are explored. Each theme uses the data identified across the
stakeholders to delve into the current issues of being ‘data-rich’ and identified enabling
conditions as ways to move to a research-rich profession for all. The first theme explores
some of the different views and understanding of research that emerged from the study.
Evidence points to the ways in which different stakeholders currently view research in
very different and often competing ways as a current barrier. A key enabling condition to
address this is to embrace a more inclusive definition and understanding of research to
shift the momentum along the continuum.

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The second theme highlights the current state of teachers drowning in data and
emphasises the need for teachers to be both consumers and producers of research. This
theme also discusses the importance of teachers having a greater agency to utilise a range
of rich data sources both within and for their own school and community context. The
enabling condition here is for teachers to build their research literacy and become more
active as researchers within their own contexts.
The third theme revealed a challenging lack of incentives for teachers to be researchers
as a barrier and offers as a way forward, ironically drawing on standards and the better
utilisation of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) as a tool to ensure
all teachers and leaders across the various stages of their career can build research into
their professional learning development. The key enabling condition here is to embed
research skills and practices at all stages of the APST and build lead teachers as research
capacity builders within schools. An overarching consideration is that each theme is
viewed together to create a bigger picture rather than in isolation. An underpinning
argument is made that to move along the continuum, an overarching enabling condition
is for all stakeholders to take a shared, joint responsibility in developing a research-rich,
connected, joined-up systems approach.

Valuing, participating in and understanding research: taking a shared
professional stance?
Qualitative data from both sources (workshops and survey) revealed common ground
across the participants with all highly valuing the notion of research and desiring more
opportunities to engage with research (White et al., 2020). Differences, however, emerged
across the three stakeholder groups, in the ways they understood what counted as
research and how those with research expertise were actually valued. For example,
systems people (principals, deans and education policymakers) were more likely to
value what they described as ‘evidence-based’ research, while teachers were more likely
to value ‘education(al) research’ (Whitty, 2006) as research that they identified as most
helpful to them in ensuring the learning needs of their particular students were met.
These differences between highly valuing research and valuing particular types of
research are consistent with the implications in the rise of data metrics and a ‘what
works’ evidence base rhetoric being applied to education as part of the GEMI noted by
Biesta (2015) earlier. Policymakers to date have tended to take a ‘clinical’ approach to data
in education, drawing from a scientific paradigm that has valued numbers over voices as
more reliable in making objective decisions. As Slavin (2008) noted:
there have been many calls for education to follow other fields in placing far greater reliance
on evidence as a basis for adoption of programs and practices... A key requirement for
evidence-based policy is the existence of scientifically valid and readily interpretable synth­
eses of research on practical, replicable education programs. (p.5).

Consistent with this ‘evidence-based’ reform movement, differences also emerged across
the three groups’ responses with system leaders once again more likely to value research
that can be objectively measured and scalable. Quantitative research, such as randomised
control testing (RCT) and clinical trials were thus viewed as more reliable (and thus more
highly valued) than qualitative research conducted by teachers or teacher educators

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themselves. Teachers, on the other hand, lamented their lack of opportunity to play
a greater role in understanding and researching their own students and communities,
rather than being presented with objectified data sets. They indicated that they struggled
making sense of research when presented as data and numbers and that such findings
were not relevant to them or their students. As one teacher implored, seeking to make
sense of data:
Also have more training in how to interpret data particularly statistics, as unless you are
a statistician inferences made from data can be inaccurate. (Teacher, open-ended survey)

Teachers also expressed a greater desire in engaging with data as it applied to their own
students.
How to honestly and positively include classroom teachers in decisions that affect their teaching
roles and application of their individual expertise and understandings of a variety of methods
and practices of teaching a specific range of students. (Teacher, open-ended survey)

Another teacher used the survey to express a frustration with the lack of agency in
utilising data as it related to their own students. This person explained:
The most important aspect is to have an open mind listening to teachers. Too many staff
meetings are cut off by experts telling us we are wrong because “the research shows . . . ” this
is not helpful. Please let research be about listening not preaching. (Teacher, open-ended
survey)

At the workshops, there was a similar sentiment from teachers of mistrust of data
delivered from ‘on high’. What emerged was a creeping distrust of those in academia
who were deemed ‘experts’ or ‘education gurus’ who had appeared to have turned their
research into commercialised products in the education marketplace and the ways it was
rolled out in a ‘one size fits all’ approach. There was also a mistrust of those ‘researchers’
largely in universities, removed from practice, writing about schools and classrooms in
such a way that was not relevant or easily accessible to teachers.
Such differences reveal a significant barrier and further disconnection across the
system, again fuelled by the data-rich position embedded in the GEMI (Biesta, 2015)
and the seductive nature of numbers (quantitative data) over voices (qualitative data),
which has emerged in accountability-driven reforms. Some of the participants identified
this disparity as a further barrier in itself. As one academic explained, it is important to:
Recognise that educational research is complex and context specific so requires different stan­
dards of ‘reliability’ etc. than other forms of scientific research. Rich, qualitative data, even from
small scale studies, should be valued for the insights it can bring, rather than large scale
statistical studies (Academic/teacher educator, open-ended survey)

Valuing all types of research and enabling all stakeholders to participate appears as a key
enabling condition in promoting a research-rich teaching profession. The BERA-RSA
Inquiry offered a deliberately inclusive and wide-ranging definition of research that
could be adopted by all stakeholders to move the teaching profession further along the
continuum. They define research as follows:
By research, the report’s authors mean any deliberate investigation that is carried out with
a view to learning more about a particular educational issue. This might take a variety of
forms and be concerned with a range of issues, for example: the secondary analysis of

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published data on school exclusions, interviewing a range of colleagues about examination
performance in the English Department, taking part in a national Randomized Control Trial
concerned with the teaching of Mathematics, responding to a survey about teachers’ use of
the internet to inform curriculum planning, working with a university department of educa­
tion on a study into teachers’ use of new technology. (BERA-RSA, 2014, p. 40)

Taking on board this inclusive definition will work as an enabling condition for a mature
profession to embrace, in that it supports teachers to return to a more comprehensive
approach to utilising a range of sources in their daily decision-making processes. In this
definition, rich data are inclusive of both qualitative and quantitative methods. All
stakeholders are valued and teachers and education(al) researchers and policymakers
are all then viewed as contributing collectively to a research-rich profession. The second
theme that emerged from the data links closely to the first: the importance of positioning
teachers as active researchers for their own students’ learning and responsive to the
contexts in which they find themselves, for example, rural, regional, remote, low socioeconomic or high cultural-linguistic contexts.

Teachers as active and agentive consumers and producers of research
In response to one of the questions, ‘How do you engage with research?’, the data
highlighted that university-based participants were more likely to be engaged as both
consumers and producers of research, whereas school-based and systems-based partici­
pants were more likely to be consumers of research. This is an issue and indeed a barrier to
a mature teaching profession. This issue is not new. Such findings are consistent with prior
studies that have highlighted a long-held divide that has existed between academic or
university research and that of teacher research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990; Zeichner,
1995). As Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1990) highlight:
That few teachers participate in codifying what we know about teaching, identifying research
agendas, and creating new knowledge presents a problem. Those who have daily access,
extensive expertise, and a clear stake in improving classroom practice have no formal way to
make their knowledge of classroom teaching and learning part of the literature on teaching.
(p.2)

Teachers within the Australian study expressed a clear desire to be more active research­
ers and also critiqued research by those outside schools that was not easily accessible to
them and their students. There was also a widespread view that school leaders also need
to be more creative, imaginative and proactive in fostering research and knowledge
exchange within and across schools. As one system leader noted as a remedy to this
barrier:
Build school leader capability to lead research-engaged schools, so the right conditions are in
place to enable practitioner engagement in/with research. (Systems leader, open-ended survey)

This view from this system leader perspective is consistent with the BERA-RSA report
recommendations that highlighted the importance of teachers becoming researchers as
an enabling condition to creating a research-rich, self-improving education system. They
recommend:

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Commissioners of education research build teacher engagement into commissioning pro­
cesses, so that wherever possible teachers are active agents in research, rather than passive
participants.

and
Producers of new research knowledge, including universities, teaching school alliances,
academy chains and local authorities, as well as individual schools, endeavour to make
their research findings as freely available, accessible and usable as possible. (BERA-RSA,
2014, p. 8)

Becoming discerning consumers and producers of research also requires teachers to have
agency to be able to apply research to their own context. This is supported by research, as
Mills and Goos (2017) explain:
However, we propose that supporting teacher adaptability, especially in relation to support­
ing the most highly marginalised students within a school, requires enabling teachers to
become competent consumers of research, to use this research to apply it to their own
contexts and to delve deeper into that context through sound research skills. (p. 647-648)

The participant data concurred that teachers need to be able to apply research to their
own contexts. This view was particularly expressed by those outside cities. As an example,
participants based in regional/rural/remote settings were more likely to express concern
that research translation did not meet their particular local and nuanced needs; they
wanted less commercial research and more locally responsive research approaches. As
one teacher briefly stated:
Evaluations are city-centric (Teacher, workshop)

This view is consistent with findings from McLaughlin (2017) who noted:
This exploration of the research on teacher learning shows that it must be rooted in practice
and in the community of school, as well as creating the conditions for disequilibrium and
support. (p. 587)

This was especially the case for teachers based in regional locations who attended the
workshops, dealing with complex cultural and Indigenous issues. In these communities
teachers noted that much research was Euro-centric, irrelevant and culturally inappropri­
ate. Two different teachers from regional workshops by way of example explain:
Research needs to look at language learning, move away from a top-down view. This denies
language learning for these communities. Denial of children’s home language as soon as they
enter education. (Teacher, regional workshop)

and
There are ethical and moral dilemmas with NAPLAN in remote communities. As we do not allow
indigenous children to succeed in these communities (Teacher, regional workshop)

System leaders in regional/rural/remote settings also shared similar concerns but also
spoke about the constraints of limited funding, shifting policy goalposts, casualization of
the workforce, the robustness of existing data, and the costs of attending conferences and
building research networks. As one noted:

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S. WHITE

There needs to be an Australian Education and Teacher Development Fund which is a nationally
competitive research fund. This is needed to build research capacity and provide a pool of funds
for teachers, practitioners and academics. This fund should aim to assist facilitate world class
research and develop partnerships with universities, school systems, and business. Research
which informs and includes the teaching profession at all levels should be a priority. This is an
urgent priority. (System leaders survey).

These findings, while not representative, do indicate a strong desire for teachers and
indeed all stakeholders to be actively involved in all aspects of research. Doing so links to
the final theme which highlights the importance of embedding research literacy skills into
all stages of a teacher’s career development. In particular, the skills and knowledge
teachers need relate to their ability to draw from a wide range of sources of rich data
and to apply this to their own contexts, as one teacher educator identified:
My experience is that teachers have difficulty in (a) identifying ALL sources of data to inform their
practice; and (b) how to interpret that data to meaningfully personalise learning for their
students. (Teacher educator, open ended survey).

Raising standards not standardisation: embedding research literacy into all career
stages
In returning to the data, participants shared common ground in their views that developing
teacher research capacity as an enabling condition would lead to an improvement in the
status of teaching. There was a general consensus that building teacher research capacity
would increase the power and professional standing of teachers in ways that would give them
greater confidence, motivation and incentive, as well as the ability to make linkages between
classroom practices, policies, research and theory. For a research-rich teaching profession to
thrive, teachers, therefore, need to be research literate. As one participant noted:
It is crucial that all teachers’ complete degrees with a strong research component to help them
develop critical insights and engage with current educational research findings, rather than
relying on newspaper/magazine articles to inform their views of Education. It is also important to
highlight the positive impact that in-school research can provide in giving new directions to
leadership. School administrators currently rely almost exclusively on standardized tests to
inform their decisions. (System leader, open ended survey)

Research literacy refers to the extent to which teachers and school leaders are familiar
with a range of research methods, with the latest research findings and with the implica­
tions of this research for their day-to-day practice, and for education policy and practice
more broadly. To be research literate is to ‘get’ research – to understand why it is
important and what might be learnt from it, and to maintain a sense of critical apprecia­
tion and healthy scepticism throughout. While there was much consensus that teachers
wanted to be research literate and more involved and active as researchers, there was also
healthy scepticism about doing so, on top of teachers' heavy workloads. Teachers also
expressed that the system itself needed to value and reward teachers who had gained
research qualifications. This teacher noted:
It is important that teachers in schools are encouraged and more importantly given the
opportunities to be involved in research. Time out of the classroom doing so should be a part
of our role as teachers. I learnt so much when studying for my Master of Education degree but

TEACHING EDUCATION

13

had to do so part time while working full time. None of the research and study I did was
acknowledged in my job. I thought this was/is a lost opportunity for both school, the system and
myself (Teacher, open ended survey)

Participants revealed a particular barrier to becoming research literate as teachers were
not always encouraged or incentivised to complete Masters or Doctoral programs. Some
participants revealed fears about openly discussing completing their further studies as
principals might not always view this in a positive light.
Leaders are frightened of teachers who ask questions, they seem threatened. Micro-managing.
No questioning. Controlling leadership (Teacher, workshop)

When it came to encouraging teachers to further their own formal research studies, how­
ever, a general lack of support for such endeavours emerged. One teacher described it as:
A major problem for teachers participating in research or completing their own is time. The load
is continuing to build for classroom teachers and becoming more and more difficult to complete.
Time needs to be made available. Whilst I have been fortunate enough to achieve a scholarship
to study my Masters I am not eligible for any work time to study unless I take Long service leave.
The result is working all day, completing school work at home and then finding another 10-20
hours each week. (Teacher, open ended survey)

A remedy to these barriers and issues is to embed research literacy into all stages of
a teacher’s career. As this participant recommends:
That the next revision of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers strengthens
expectations on teachers (at all levels) as research consumers and as inquirers into their
own practice. That pre-service teacher education programs in Australia develop a stronger
emphasis on teachers and educators as research consumers and active inquirers into their
own practice. That education systems take a stronger role as brokers in establishing
research collaborations and networks across education institutions. (System leader, open
ended survey)

The current Australian Professional Standards for Teachers offers a career development
progression framework whereby research can be embedded at all stages (for example,
graduate, proficient, highly accomplished and lead) and also explicitly into the various
standards. There was also general agreement about the importance of building colla­
borative and generative research across schools, systems and sectors. This idea involved
forming local partnerships between schools, universities and systems. Based on these
partnerships teachers would be then better placed to articulate their theories of practice
or ‘what works’ best for them and their students within a community of learners.
This proposal is also consistent with the vision for a research-rich, self-improving educa­
tion system put forward by the BERA-RSA Inquiry whereby:
Teachers share a common responsibility for the continuous development of their research
literacy. This informs all aspects of their professional practice and is written into initial and
continuing teacher education programmes, standards, and in registration and licensing
frameworks.

and
During the course of qualifying and throughout their careers, teachers have multiple oppor­
tunities to engage in research and enquiry, collaborating with colleagues in other schools and

14

S. WHITE

colleges and with members of the wider research community based in universities and
elsewhere. (BERA-RSA report p.7)

The notion of utilising standards to embed research literacy skills is also given with
a cautionary note. As one teacher explains:
Although I highly value work based research I find the idea of yet another standard for pre-service
and in-service teachers to tick is just too much. At the university level research is already part of
study throughout the four years of an undergraduate degree and also embedded in the Master of
Teaching for post-graduate students. Imposing such a standard will not lead to better research
just as what already exists does not lead to better teachers.

The Strengthening a research-rich teaching profession Australian study helped reveal that
perhaps standards and data are not the enemy for teachers. Rather, it appears as though
a standardisation agenda with a ‘one size fits all’ approach to policy reform and the
datafication of students is creating the barriers for teachers. The narrowing of what counts
as data causes a disconnect for teachers of what counts as meaningful research for their
students. Standardisation creates a one size fits all approach that has thus far proven not
to work for all students, especially those further from the normative band for example
those in non-metro or in low socio-economic contexts, or students outside the middle bell
curve. Datafication has clearly led to teachers being engaged in practices that take them
further away from the important role they play in supporting all students’ learning.

Moving along the research-rich continuum
In conclusion, this study has highlighted potential dangers in remaining in a data-rich
rather than research-rich position for Australian schools. Clearly, global trends have
moved Australian education towards a ‘policy of numbers’ (Lingard, 2011) and this is
reflected in the ways in which the findings revealed how some research is valued and
enacted upon more than others. As the Strengthening a research-rich teaching profession
study highlighted, an over reliance on testing, quantitative data and evidence-based
reform can lead to a negative impact on teachers’ ability to respond to the very diverse
needs of their students and contexts. The study also revealed a greater interest in further
positioning teachers as research literate and active consumers and producers of research
as key to addressing the current barriers and issues.
A number of enabling conditions are proposed as key to enabling a mature teaching
profession. In summary, these are, to take a more comprehensive and inclusive view of
what counts as research and who conducts research. Teachers want to be active produ­
cers of research as well as critical consumers and have their research count. Teachers need
to be given opportunities to develop their own research expertise and literacy and to
have their own research highly valued. Those currently producing research need to
ensure their findings are more publicly and readily accessible and affordable.
Interestingly, standards are offered as a key enabling condition to enable research to be
embedded at all stages of a teacher's and leader's career. The Australian Professional
Standards for Teachers (APST) is viewed as an effective professional tool to build up
teachers’ research literacy practices and the suggestion is made to embed research
literacy at all stages of development, inclusive of pre-service teachers as they move
towards the graduate stage. These approaches, when viewed collectively, offer signposts

TEACHING EDUCATION

15

with respect to moving further towards a mature teaching profession.

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the three funding bodies for their financial support of this work, namely the
Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA), Australian Association for Research in Education
(AARE) and the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE). I would like to acknowledge all my
fellow team members of the Strengthening a research-rich teaching profession study. Professor
Joce Nuttall, Professor Barry Down, Professor Sue Shore, Professor Annette Woods, Professor Martin
Mills, Dr Katherine Bussey. I would also like to thank Professor Ian Menter (Oxford University), who
was a member of the BERA-RSA Inquiry steering committee and later became a critical friend to the
study and was crucial in its early conceptualisation and design. We also thank the many teachers,
teacher educators and academics, system leaders, and teacher education students who gave their
time, perspectives and trust to the research team. Finally, I would like to thank the members of the
reference group and the associations who they represented for their support of this research.
I would particularly like to thank Professor Martin Mills for advice in finalising this paper and to
the reviewers for their very helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Professor Simone White is the Associate Dean (International and Engagement) in the Faculty of
Education at QUT, Australia. She is a leading expert in teacher education and the best ways to
prepare teachers for diverse contexts. Her research is focused on the areas of teacher education
policy, professional experience and teacher learning.

ORCID
Simone White

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5014-2977

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