Learning Together: Evaluating and improving Further Adult and Vocational and Education through practice-focused research

This paper argues that the relationship between educational research and educational practice cannot be reduced to the simple application of knowledge gained from research conducted by others. It contends that far from teachers being passive consumers of knowledge produced by others, often in the form of ‘blueprints’ or ‘recipes’ for good practice, teachers are in fact creators of new educational knowledge as well as potential generators of and contributors to educational theory. It asserts that the new learning involved in putting an idea, concept or theory from educational research into educational practice is a process of inquiry and therefore an important and legitimate form of educational research. The paper discusses how an approach to the continuing professional development of teachers, based upon practice-focused educational research and inquiry-based pedagogy, coupled with a programme of dedicated research support, can enable teachers to produce significant, well-theorised and systematic educational research, leading to improvements in educational practice. This paper concludes that a practicefocused and inquiry-based model of educational evaluation and improvement offers education and policy professionals in the Vocational Education and Training sector (and potentially in the schools sector) an alternative to current technical-rational, top-down approaches to inspection and improvement in educational contexts.