stratified and light sampling of educational performance across the curriculum, was
able to give a picture of educational standards and their change over time. However,
one difficulty with instituting such research is the necessary size of the cohorts
taking part and the consequent cost of conducting the research. It requires the
financial support of foundations such as the Nuffield Foundation or the ESRC
(Economic and Social Science Research Council) over a period of several years.
Second, the frequent reference to the comparative virtues of medical research has
emphasized the need for a more systematic approach to observation through
experimental and control groups—pioneered in medicine by Professor Arthur
Cochrane in the United States, and replacing anecdotal case description (Cochrane
1972 ). Following this, the Cochrane Centre was established in Oxford to help
policy-makers make decisions on proven effectiveness of evidence-based policy
and practice within the social services. An essential element in this approach was
the systematic review of existing research for the quality of its sampling and its
methodology more generally. The compatibility or otherwise between different
researchfindings would be analysed. Reports would be produced on what con-
clusions were to be trusted. Such a centre in education was established at the
London Institute of Education. And an example would be Sylva and Hurry’s
research into intervention in reading difficulties which compared two different
interventions with a control group, thereby concluding that, if one group scores
significantly more high on reading after the period of intervention, then the inter-
vention itself was a significant factor in the improvement.
Consequently, there have been initiatives, both in the UK and in North America,
to learn from the developments in evidence-based health care and, through sys-
tematic reviews of research (especially randomized controlled tests) to answer
specific policy and professional questions by reference to well-established evidence
(see the series of papers in Thomas and Pring 2004 ).
Similarly, in response to the criticisms of educational research referred to, the
Research Council (ESRC) funded UK’s largest ever research investment in edu-
cation, directed by Andrew Pollard at the Institute of Education, viz.‘Teaching and
Learning Programmes 2002– 9 ’. It addressed many of the criticisms referred to
above, in particular‘quality criteria for the assessment of educational research in
different contexts’.
A third distinction would be that the attraction of a more scientific model of
research (a‘science of teaching’) has created an approach to research into teacher
effectiveness permeating the demands for greater accountability. Within the beha-
viourist tradition, research into‘effectiveness’has required precise behavioural
outcomes together with the claimed practices which either do or do not lead to those
outcomes. In hypothesizing and then measuring the outcomes, one can build up a
body of theory on what teaching methods and approaches‘work’. Thus there has
developed a science of‘deliverology’, pioneered by Sir Michael Barber, and
established in the US Education Delivery Unit. The research which incorporates the
language of delivery and justifies the tools for‘delivering’outcomes, is to be found
in the 2012 McKinsey Report,How the World’s Most Improved School Systems
Continue to Get Better.
616 R. Pring