Let’s talk about evidence in education: Using and developing collaborative evidence-based practice with schools

The Collaborative Institute for Educational Research and Evidence and Impact (CIEREI) is a partnership between Bangor University and GwE, the regional improvement agency for North Wales. Our vision is to support and expand the use of a wide spectrum of evidence-based practice (EBP) in schools (Tyler, et al, 2019). However, our recent research indicates adoption of evidence-based approaches is generally not widespread in schools (Pegram et al., 2022). The talks in this symposium represent a diversity of approaches to supporting use of EBP, including working with teachers to co-construct a contextually relevant Social Emotional Learning curriculum, investigating student’s use of independent learning strategies through robust survey methods, the innovative use of education economics to help school leaders choose cost-effective interventions, and the use of systematic and robust methods to develop relevant evidence for SEN contexts. The talks in this symposium celebrate the strength of educational research in terms of its diversity in utilising different methodologies to answer diverse questions in the journey to EBP (Owen, Watkins & Hughes, 2022).