Education is both
more contested
and more
expansive than
it appears.
01 / Evidence
There is a large gap between what educational research actually shows and what is often claimed in its name. We look carefully at the research and make clearer accounts available so that teachers, parents, policymakers and the wider public can see what the evidence does, and does not, support.
02 / Education
Education is much broader than schools and universities. People teach and learn from one another in everyday life, at work, in conversation, at public events, and in the ordinary questions they ask about how to live. Our research broadens the understanding of what education can mean.
Who we are and what we do
We started ACPUE without university, government, research or philanthropic funding, and the Centre is not a part of or affiliated with any university. We're still formalising an advisory group and will update this page once confirmed and all relevant processes have been completed.
We’ve both been teaching (schools and universities) for quite a while, and like most people in the job we’re used to the odd educational policy or program that doesn’t add much value. Usually, perhaps like many others, we just get on with teaching and concentrate on the students in front of us.
What is different now is not that people are arguing about evidence, they clearly are, but the scale of what is being required in the name of evidence-based practice, including in initial teacher education, while a more basic question still gets less attention than it should: when influential reports cite sources for specific claims, do those claims actually follow from the sources?
There has already been much academic critique of this and there has also been a lot of public argument about explicit teaching, the science of learning, and the role of bodies such as AERO. Our aim sits somewhere slightly different. We keep finding material that presents itself as evidence-based while the claims do not follow from the evidence presented, or even sit at odds with it. This is concerning if those claims are then used to justify system-wide reform. This is the work we set up ACPUE to do; to provide a resource for educators and the public to see the claims and the evidence for themselves. We began with AERO’s 2023 report How students learn best because it is being used as a basis for other work and policy, and it seemed a logical starting point. Further evaluations will look more broadly, including internationally.
To be clear, we are not against evidence. We are concerned with the basic scientific standard that if a claim is offered as evidence-based, it should follow from the sources attached to it. If it doesn’t, it is hard to see how it can carry the weight now being placed on it in policy and in teacher education.
Critical public engagement with our analysis is welcome and our analyses can be updated. Being open to revision is precisely part of what it means to be educational. In short, the Centre exists to provide the public with clearer analyses of educational research and evidence, and to deepen understanding of education as something that already belongs to public life.David Clements and Nataša Ciabatti
Contact: info@acpue.org