We wanted to know what evidence-based practice meant to educators: So we asked

Through a multi-stakeholder workshop, open feedback on a draft discussion paper, a team of participants working on further development for survey, interviews, and further workshops with teacher educators and representatives of teacher, school leader, and school organisations, we have written a discussion paper outlining the problems, assumptions, and silences within ‘evidence-based practice’, how these educators engage in ‘enriched evidence-based-practice’ and what these educators see is necessary to move forward.

• “Practice is determined by evidence from scientific, intervention studies where practice is narrowed to only what can be measured”.
• “Government policies and resources tell teachers what practices are evidence-based rather than respecting teachers’ professionalism/experience/abilities to digest and apply research for their particular contexts
• “Evidence-Based Practice is intended to help but creates another problem” where teachers and students have minimal impact on teaching and learning.

• “Certain research studies are ‘gold standard’ excluding all else”. 
• “School is only about learning”.
• Practice is presented “as singular rather than being a collection of practices”.
• “Literacy and numeracy are the be all and end all”.
• It is possible to determine “What works best” which can only consider the past neglecting opportunities for innovation.

• “Purpose of education”.
• “Contradictory evidence”.
• “Teaching is about people, relationships, personalisation”

• “PERMISSION” (capitalised by participants). “Teachers need permission and the skills to disrupt, pushback, not be gagged”.
• Time is needed for students, teachers and school leaders to collaborate, “to gather (evidence), synthesise, analyse and then plan”, and for professional learning to develop and sustain enriched evidence use across teachers’ careers.
• “Wholesale change” to address the far-reaching impacts of evidence-based practice on beliefs and practice and in turn the future direction of education.
• “Build awareness to the detriments (of evidence-based practice) and the impact of enriched practice”. “Change the narrative” of simplistic solutions for ‘what works’ to embrace the complexity and nuance of teaching and “share stories of enriched evidence practice” demonstrating the much wider benefits that may be achieved.
• Support for more extensive relationships between schools and universities to support the “Need (for) more research by teachers, with teachers; research with students, by students; diverse research; research with diverse schools/students”.