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Evidence-based Practice

Groundwater-Smith, S. (2000). Evidence-based practice: Towards whole school improvement. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Sydney, December. http://www.aare.edu.au/00pap/gro00303.htm

In this paper, Groundwater-Smith (2000) traces work undertaken over a period of three years in a large, independent school for girls. The work used school-based research as a fulcrum for teacher professional development.

Groundwater-Smith traces a history of teacher research in classrooms, culminating with a current form of practitioner inquiry, described as evidence-based practice:

where individual schools identify and work on the identification, collection and interpretation of evidence as a basis for improving teaching and learning for both students and their teachers across the school community. (p. 2)

Evidence comes from worldwide research and literature on education as well as through systematically collecting information about particular phenomena. Associated with the collection of evidence is the concept of acting upon evidence.

Groundwater-Smith presents the notion of 'embedded, systematic enquiry' (p. 2) which involves collaboration informed by ongoing critical and reciprocal dialogue that is made available for public scrutiny. She further comments that teachers need to collect and interpret data.

The author presents a case study in implementing a culture of embedded systematic inquiry using evidence-based practice. A collaboration was formed between teams of practitioner researchers from within the school and an external researcher-in-residence to act as both a critical friend and as an external evaluator. Issues included retaining ownership of the various research projects, developing methodologies appropriate to the questions being asked, and developing capacity in research methods.

Groundwater-Smith argues that 'systematic research on practice will no longer be seen as the province of a few, but as a responsibility for all' (p. 9) for school improvement to occur.