When researchers collaborate with educational practitioners or policy-makers, it will be important to establish firm mutual understandings around participants’ motives and aspirations. Mark Rickinson and Anne Edwards have published a paper providing a conceptual framework for theorising and managing such relationships.
Rickinson, Mark, and Edwards. Anne,”The relational features of evidence use.” Cambridge Journal of Education (2021): 1-18.
The paper focuses on the character and quality of human relationships that can be built in these research collaborations. It distinguishes and elaborates ‘relationship expertise’, ‘common knowledge’, and ‘relationship agency’. The conversation below is based upon the arguments put forward in this paper.
Download here a conversation transcript in Microsoft Word format, or in PDF format
Conversation outline
00.00: What is meant by the phrase “evidence use”?
01.59: “Researcher” is probably clear. But who do you see as the principle partners in the role of “practitioner”
05.10: It’s recognised that researcher/practitioner collaborations can be troublesome – where do such tensions arise?
07.37: Explain ‘relational expertise’ is it a form of interpersonal competence?
10.33: Is it thereby a blend of the cognitive competence of empathy and the social competences of communication?
11.43: Is this competence something that is slowly and professionally constructed through experience of collaborating?
13.36: Explain ‘common knowledge’ – is it the product(s) of exercising relationship expertise?
16.21: Explain ‘relationship agency’ – is it the practice reward of building common knowledge?
17.37: What is your view of the interpersonal or institutional strategies that might achieve this greater transparency?
22.17: Is this conceptual configuration here a matter of what might be termed ‘meta-collaboration’?
23.24: Have your interviews with collaborators included the voice of practitioners, and is it resonant with researchers?
27.38: Is there a reality of researchers and collaborators sometimes having different and less-compatible agendas?
34.10: Research relationships have been neglected as themselves a research topic – are you pursuing this?
36.19: Anything to add?
Further references
Rickinson, M., Cirkony, C., Walsh, L., Gleeson, J., Salisbury, M., & Boaz, A. (2021). Insights from a cross-sector review on how to conceptualise the quality of use of research evidence. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1-12.
Rickinson, M., Walsh, L., Salisbury, M., Gleeson, J., & Cirkony, C. (2021). Using research evidence to improve practice. Building Better Schools with Evidence-based Policy, 239.
Rickinson, M., Walsh, L., Cirkony, C., Salisbury, M., & Gleeson, J. (2020). Quality Use of Research Evidence Framework
Rickinson, M., Cirkony, C., Walsh, L., Gleeson, J., Salisbury, M., & Boaz, A. (2021). Insights from a cross-sector review on how to conceptualise the quality of use of research evidence. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1-12.
Rickinson, M., Sebba, J., & Edwards, A. (2011). Improving Research through User Engagement. Routledge.
Authored by:
Mark Rickinson
Mark is Associate Professor in the School of Education Culture & Society, Monash University, Australia
Charles Crook is Emeritus Professor of Education and a member of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham
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