Abstract
This paper explores the notion of evidence-informed policy making and the factors that have hindered its development in the UK to date. It then explores Flyvbjerg’s notion of phronetic expertise and hypothesises that the learning that accrues from engaging with multiple cases could also lead to policy-makers developing competency in relation to evidence use. As a result, I contend that, given the issues that abound with current attempts to embed and enact evidence informed policy making, the phronetic approach presents an alternative and viable way of establishing enhanced levels of evidence use within educational policy development. As such, the paper not only proposes educational change but as a consequence, it also puts forward suggestions for ways of facilitating more effective educational change in terms of the development of educational policy. In particular, the paper spotlights a need for current thought in this area to move away from rational and linear perspectives, to ones where policy makers are continuously incorporating the most up to date evidence into their thinking, enabling it to be intuitively conjoined with other pertinent and salient factors in order to provide a holistic and well-rounded decision in relation to given issues. I argue that this could occur most effectively via the establishment of policy learning communities and processes to facilitate the creation of knowledge within them. I also suggest that expectations of individuals and organizational cultures will need to change to accommodate participation by policy officials within such communities.
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Notes
See: http://www.wsipp.wa.gov.
July 2013.
These were JSTOR; Academic Search Complete; Web of Knowledge; and IngentaConnect.
These included, for example, ‘knowledge mobilisation', ‘knowledge transfer' and ‘knowledge brokering', and were taken from the definitive list provided on The University of Toronto's Research Supporting Practice in Education website (http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/rspe/KM_Products/Terminology/index.html).
These levels are (1) novice; (2) advanced beginner; (3) competent performer; (4) proficient performer and (5) expert.
Dowling notes that “one might cite many examples of instruction: giving directions to a tourist; producing instruction sheets for the consumer construction of ‘flatpack’ furniture or the use of fire escape routes in hotels; ‘teaching to the test’ in schooling. In each of these cases, the transmitter may be understood to mediate a practice rather than being involved in its production” (2010b: 6). As such instruction may be differentiated from Dowling’s other modes of pedagogic action (‘delegating’; ‘teaching’; and ‘apprenticing’) by recourse to both the focus of the transmitter (do they wish to facilitate genuine competence in the audience or simply their ability to engage in ‘one off’ performances) and how the knowledge is mediated (do the audience have direct access to knowledge/the knowledge producer or do they access it via an intermediary such as a teacher or translator).
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Brown, C. Advancing policy makers’ expertise in evidence-use: A new approach to enhancing the role research can have in aiding educational policy development. J Educ Change 15, 19–36 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-013-9224-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-013-9224-7