Best practice research scholarships: An evaluation

The Best Practice Research Scholarship programme (BPRS) was one of a series of initiatives designed by the English Department for Educational Studies (DfES) between 2000 and 2003, to support teachers’ continuing professional development. Each year, around 1,000 Scholarships of up to £3,000 each, were awarded to serving classroom teachers to engage in supported, school‐focused research. This paper reports an evaluation of the national scheme during its last year. Documentation from a stratified random sample of 100 proposals and reports were examined and case studies undertaken in a sub‐sample of 20 schools. The paper describes the major features of the scheme including topics studied, research methods employed, and the occupational position of teachers involved. In order to establish a basis for an evaluation of the scheme, the paper explores the nature of the projects and the extent to which they could be characterised as research. It is argued that for most teachers, the primary purpose of the projects was not to contribute to the public stock of knowledge but to improve practice within their own schools. The criteria for evaluating projects, it is argued, should therefore include their impact on teachers’ own professional development, on their teaching practice, on pupils, on parents, and on their colleagues. Evidence is presented to suggest that projects did indeed appear to have considerable impact on all of these factors though only in a minority of cases was the evidence considered to be robust. The paper goes on to raise questions about the problematic nature of quality in teachers’ research and the associated difficulties with ‘dissemination’. The paper concludes by exploring the different factors that might affect the success of teachers’ research including mentoring, finance and their occupational position within their school.