Why does Research Evidence have So Little Impact on Education Policy?

Abstract

This brief paper looks at the challenges of using research evidence to help formulate education policy. Over the last 30 years, governments and funders worldwide have sought to improve the quality of primary evidence produced by publicly-funded research (NRC 1999). And understanding of effective interventions to inform education policy (and practice) has improved somewhat since the creation of the US Institute of Education Sciences, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in England, and other initiatives. There has also been progress in methods of synthesising research results, with the work of Evidence Centres and others (Davies and Silloway 2016). Evidence of what apparently works in real-life, or not, is increasingly available to research users for the first time. However, there is a long way to go, and many problems remain. Education policy-makers generally say that they want, and use, good evidence, but do not always act correspondingly (Gallway and Sheppard 2015). The paper looks at some of their problems and then at some possible ways forward.