Conference Agenda

Improving the quality of education has become a central global priority, as reflected in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 on inclusive and equitable quality education. To achieve this goal, research evidence has increasingly been positioned as central to educational decision-making and school improvement. A recent UNESCO flagship report explicitly urges policymakers to ‘use solid and reliable data and evidence to ensure that countries progress towards their education targets’ (Steiner-Khamsi et al., 2024). Globally, governments, organisations, and schools have developed evidence infrastructures, training, and roles, such as What Works centres, research charities, professional networks, and school-based champions, to promote research engagement.

However, efforts to promote evidence-informed education have been met with persistent critiques and resistance. One concern is that evidence-based approaches may restrict teachers’ professional discretion and undermine the democratic purposes of schooling by privileging external sources of authority (Holloway & Larsen Hedegaard, 2023). Others have questioned the trustworthiness and applicability of what works evidence in education, noting the uneven quality of available research resources and the risks of oversimplification, misinterpretation, or limited external validity (Allen, 2013; Carrier, 2017; Test et al., 2015). These critiques highlight that access to evidence alone is insufficient, and point to the need for promising approaches that support teachers and policymakers in engaging with research evidence in informed, context-sensitive ways.

This symposium brings together four papers: a large-scale international systematic review, experimental studies conducted in England and China, and a study from Brazil. The symposium begins with a large-scale systematic review on how research evidence is used in education and wider public policy. The review highlights the limited robust evidence on effective strategies for supporting evidence use and identifies two dimensions of evidence use (format and dissemination approach) that help frame later experimental work. These insights provide a shared conceptual point of reference for the studies presented in this symposium.

Papers two and three report randomised controlled trials conducted in China and England, examining the feasibility and effectiveness of a use-of-research-evidence intervention that involved facilitated workshops and the provision of structured evidence summaries. Paper 2 (China) presents, to our knowledge, the first published evaluation of the impact of teachers’ use of research evidence in Chinese primary schools. Paper 3 (England) examines a similar intervention in England. It also reports findings from web crawling and large language modelling on current patterns of evidence use in Pupil Premium funding allocation. Paper four presents evidence-informed policy/decision-making in Brazil, based on iPIPS data collected between 2017 and 2022 in two cities. In total, over 8,000 children were assessed, and the major findings were transformed into booklets to enhance the use of research evidence.

The symposium concludes by reflecting on what can be learned from examining evidence use at different stages of development across national contexts, shaped by distinct policy environments and teaching needs. Bringing together findings from Brazil, China, and England, the discussion highlights both shared challenges and contextual variation in how research evidence is accessed, interpreted and enacted in practice. Across contexts, recurring issues include the importance of teachers’ skills in engaging with evidence and the availability of high-quality, trustworthy research. Meanwhile, the symposium raises further questions about how the structures and processes of evidence use can be better designed to support the effective implementation of research evidence.

Over recent decades, considerable effort has been directed towards strengthening the evidence base on what works in education, and some progress has been made in identifying programmes and approaches with demonstrated effects. However, far less is known about how such evidence is taken up, adapted, and used in practice and policy, or what difference evidence use itself makes. This paper synthesises findings from a large-scale systematic review examining existing research on how evidence is put into use in education and across wider areas of public policy. The review examined 323 relevant studies and assessed their quality and contribution. Only 33 studies were judged to be of sufficient design and rigour to support causal claims about evidence use, and only a small subset of these focused on education. Despite gradual improvements in research on effective educational interventions, robust evidence on how to support the use of such findings remains limited. The reviewed studies were analysed in relation to key dimensions of evidence use, including changes in users’ knowledge and behaviour, impacts on outcomes, and the ways in which evidence is modified prior to use. The review suggests that providing access to raw or lightly summarised research evidence is rarely sufficient to promote meaningful uptake, even when mediated by knowledge brokers or short-term training. More promising approaches involve actively engineering evidence into usable formats, delivering it through trusted and iterative channels, or engaging users directly in the research process. Overall, the findings highlight a substantial gap between the production of educational research and its effective use, underscoring the need for more rigorous studies on evidence-into-use and providing a conceptual foundation for subsequent empirical work.

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In China, the effectiveness of using research evidence in improving teaching remains underexplored. This paper reports findings from a randomised controlled trial conducted in Chinese primary schools, evaluating the impact of teachers’ use of research evidence on students’ Chinese literacy outcomes. The study involved 153 teachers and 6,791 students. The impact analysis shows a modest positive effect of the intervention on students’ Chinese test scores (+0.07), alongside a small reduction in time spent on Chinese literacy homework (−0.06). Further analysis indicates that teachers’ adherence to the intervention was a key driver of effectiveness, with a Complier Average Causal Effect (CACE) of +0.22 on students’ test scores among participating teachers. Drawing on 44 classroom observations, the study illustrates how the adaptation of research evidence unfolded as an iterative process, characterised by ongoing adjustment and reflection. Based on these findings, the paper proposes a conceptual Implementation Cycle operating at the school, individual teacher, and teacher interaction levels. While the estimated impacts are small, the findings suggest that supporting teachers’ engagement with research evidence is feasible within Chinese primary education and can be implemented at relatively low cost. By examining evidence use at an early stage of development within the Chinese context, where experimental evidence has historically played a limited role in informing teaching, this study contributes a distinct perspective to international discussions on evidence-informed practice. The paper concludes by identifying key conditions for strengthening the quality of implementation and supporting more effective use of research evidence in future practice.

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This paper reports findings from a pilot use-of-research-evidence intervention conducted with eight primary schools in and around County Durham, England, alongside an ongoing mapping study of schools’ evidence use in relation to Pupil Premium funding. In the experiment, researchers offered schools a menu of evidence-based approaches to improve attainment for disadvantaged pupils. Schools selected Learning by Questions (LbQ) for Year 4 mathematics and Student Tutoring for Year 5 English. Half of the schools were randomised to each approach for each year group. Data collection, especially of the prior attainment scores, was affected by Covid lockdown. Findings suggested that LbQ proved more feasible and was well received by teachers and pupils, though it showed little short-term impact on attainment. The tutoring intervention was more complex to implement but showed some evidence of greater improvement in the treatment group. In parallel, the paper reports preliminary findings from an ongoing analysis of schools’ Pupil Premium strategy documents. A stratified random sample of approximately 100 primary schools from each of nine regions in England was drawn. Using web crawling techniques and large language modelling, the analysis examines whether and how schools justify Pupil Premium spending with reference to research evidence. Initial results suggest that fewer than 10% of schools explicitly cite specific, directly relevant research evidence to support funding decisions. Together, the findings demonstrate the feasibility of supporting teachers’ use of research evidence through a structured intervention, while also revealing practical challenges in implementation. The pilot trial suggests potential for scaling up the intervention with a wider range of evidence-based options, a larger sample, and a longer time frame. The accompanying document analysis further situates the trial within contemporary policy and practice, highlighting the broader landscape of how evidence is invoked in school-level resource allocation.

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Between 2017 and 2019, researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), in collaboration with Durham University, conducted a set of studies within the scope of the iPIPS project to analyse children’s development during their first two years of compulsory schooling (ages 4–5). Three studies were carried out with different samples in two Brazilian cities, generating longitudinal data for approximately 6,400 children enrolled in 123 schools, including public, private, and non-profit private institutions. The Brazilian iPIPS studies tracked children’s development across three broad domains: cognitive development, motor skills, and personal, social, and emotional development. The data provide a detailed description of what children know and can do at school entry, as well as the learning and developmental progress they make during the first two years of compulsory education. In addition, the studies enabled the identification of patterns of educational inequality and the examination of how education policies, programmes, and school characteristics are associated with children’s learning and development, with particular attention to children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper describes the strategies adopted to strengthen the pedagogical use of iPIPS data by school principals, teachers, and local education authorities in Brazil. These strategies included the production of school- and classroom-level reports; workshops with teachers and principals focused on explaining the assessment, interpreting results, and using data for pedagogical planning; and meetings with school staff and local education administrators to discuss the main findings and their potential implications for local policy design and curriculum reform. To assess the impact of these strategies, UFRJ researchers designed a quasi-experimental study examining the effects of teacher workshops in public schools. Teachers were allocated to two groups that attended the workshops on different dates. A central component of the workshops was the development of teachers’ capacity to interpret the pedagogical ladder using information presented in the reports. One group received the report, participated in a six-hour workshop, and then completed a questionnaire, while the second group received the report, completed the questionnaire, and subsequently attended the workshop. Results indicate consistently positive feedback from participating teachers and principals. Teachers who attended the workshop prior to completing the questionnaire reported fewer difficulties in interpreting graphs and tables and expressed more favourable perceptions regarding the usefulness of the reports for pedagogical planning than those who had not yet participated in the workshop.

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