Author: Claire Lightowler

Practitioners undertake a considerable amount of research, in fact Mitchell and colleagues estimate that ‘Practitioner research in social work probably occupies a major part of the total volume of research activity in this field’ (Mitchell et al, 2010: 8).

There is evidence to suggest that practitioner research can be a valuable approach for strengthening the use of research not just for the individual practitioner undertaking research but potentially for the organisation and perhaps even the sector in which they are based.  These benefits vary depending on the support available for the practitioner and how the research endeavour in structured; which can for instance involve support being provided by other practitioners, academics or research colleagues based in-house or in external organisations.   Some of the benefits of practitioner research for the practitioner and their organisation can include:

• Delivers research of direct relevance to practice concerns
• Improves research capacity of individual practitioners and organisations
• Strengthens the active role of the practitioner in the research process
• Brings the worlds of policy, practice and research closer together
• Helps an organisation develop the capacity for critical inquiry and a “learning orientation”
• Supports the desire for and the use of research done by “outsiders”
• Reduces the distance knowledge has to travel from research to practice
• Provides a starting point for further research-practice collaboration

(Armstrong and Alsop, 2010; Roper, 2002; Anderson and Jones, 2000: 430)

However, across social services and health we are are not necessarily maximising the impact of research undertaken by practitioners for several reasons, including:

1) practitioner researchers often lack professional support and training related to the use and application of research methods and theory.

2) practitioners struggle to access existing evidence related to their work, thus potentially affecting the quality of what they are able to produce.

3) practitioners engaged in conducting research into their own team, service or organisation do not usually have the time or capacity to disseminate their research findings or to support its use in other services or organisations.

Along with colleagues at Edinburgh University (Heather Wilkinson and Catherine-Rose Stocks-Rankin) at IRISS we’ve devised and supported a practitioner research programme, known as PROP (practitioner research:older people).  PROP focused on research about older people in an attempt to respond to some of the challenges outlined above – for further information see https://blogs.iriss.org.uk/prop/2012/05/04/welcome-to-props/. PROP involved practitioners undertaking small scale research projects, supported by research and knowledge exchange training, a research mentor, opportunities to engage with their peers (other practitioners undertaking research), support for disseminating materials (from a graphic designer and the project team) and a project fellow to talk to for support and advice. The PROP project has been incredibly well received, though the contribution analysis report currently being finalised will provide us with evidence of the impact of the project and the reasons for this.

We’re currently writing up some of the learning and reflections from this programme and are exploring how to build on this work. Our reflections are at an early stage and at the moment are more like questions than reflections, but include:

1) Research centric: We started from the idea that the lack of research use was a problem in improving support for older people.  Would this have been the key problem identified if we’d collectively devised our focus between practititioners, researchers, policy makers and older people themselves?  And did this focus encourage an unequal environment for exchange, with one group of collaborators bringing to the endeavour specific knowledge about research?

2) Peer support: Practitioners identified that they particularly valued and benefited from regular contact with their peers, and that they learnt a lot about other health and social care roles and organisaitons. One of the research projects we supported was conducted by two practitioners based across two organisations so we wonder could this type of approach further maximise the learning across sectors and organisaitons?

3) Skills based: Our approach focused on developing research skills and was less concerned with encouraging personal and organisational inquiry and reflection.  Would there be value in also exploring what a reflective, inquiring practitioner looks like and what behaviours and attitudes support this?

Any views or observations on this would be very welcome and we will share our more refined reflections and contribution analysis report once they are finalised on https://blogs.iriss.org.uk/prop/2012/05/04/welcome-to-props/ – watch this space…!
References

Anderson, G. and Jones, F (2000) Knowledge Generation in Educational Administration From the Inside Out: The Promise and Perils of Site-Based, Administrator Research in Educational Administration Quarterly (Vol. 36, No. 3 (August 2000) 428-464

Armstrong, F. and Alsop, A. (2010) ‘Debate: co-production can contribute to research impact in the social sciences’, Public Money & Management, 30 (4): 208-10

Mitchell, F., Lunt, N. and Shaw, I. (2010) Practitioner research in social work: A knowledge review. Evidence and Policy, 6 (1): 7 -31

Roper, L. (2002) ‘Achieving successful academic-practitioner research collaborations’, Development in Practice, 12 (3-4): 338-345

The notion of evidence-based practice emerged in the early 1990s, first emerging in medicine but spreading across a range of practitioner professions (such as social work and education) (Mullen, 2008).   To a large extent consideration of evidence and practice has lagged behind much more prominent and extensive consideration of evidence-based policy, which was paid considerable attention when New Labour entered government in 1997. Nowadays the concept of being informed by, rather than based on, evidence is more widely accepted, as this recognises the numerous influences on practice (and policy), and the importance of these (public opinion, capacity, local context, individual needs etc).  Perhaps the terminology is ready for further development however; for instance Nick Andrews (from the All Wales Academic Social Care Research Collaboration) recently referred to ‘evidence-enriched practice’, which seems to be an even better way to express the desired relationship between evidence and practice.

 

Despite the inevitable evidence gaps (the irony!) there is some evidence about activities which have potential to improve the use of evidence in practice:

• Strengthen links and relationships between practitioners, researchers, citizens, service users and policy makers – who all bring different evidence and different types of evidence.  Personal contact is key to strengthening evidence use.

• Nurture active collaborations where people are involved in actually doing something together (inquiring, thinking, reflecting, planning, doing).  Again potentially involving a mix of practitioners, researchers, citizens, service users, policy makers, and more…

• Produce evidence together, involving practitioners, researchers and others, coming together at the earliest possible stage.

• Strengthen evidence dissemination by developing targeted messages focused on key audiences in their language, walk in their shoes and reach out to them in ways that best meet their needs.  Think about dissemination as opening up further exploration and engagement rather than being an end in itself, so ensure methods support the development of links.

• Provide opportunities to “try out” evidence, perhaps particularly where evidence challenges current attitudes or behaviours.

• Support evidence role models, identify evidence champions, support them and raise awareness of their activities.  Champions need to be credible and although champions are required at all levels of the organisation it is particularly helpful if leaders champion evidence use.

• Incentivise evidence use for practitioners and the creation of useful evidence for researchers.  This can be done through making evidence use/usefulness a required component in documentation (business cases, project plans etc), as a component in job description and as criteria for promotion.

• Designate evidence responsibilities within organisations, tasking people to interpret or synthesise evidence and develop relationships between evidence and practice.

• Set aside evidence time to consult, reflect and discuss evidence, perhaps within team meetings or existing structures.

• Nurture a culture of self-challenge and evaluation, personally value and demonstrate these behaviours, and champion them throughout your organisation.

(this list draws heavily on: Nutley, 2003; and is informed by Lavis, 2002; Buckley 2009; and personal experience)

This list is not comprehensive, and there is a variation in the strength of evidence supporting these activities.  It is also worth reflecting on whether behaviours and attitudes matter more than any particular activity.  This is suggested by Landry and colleagues’ study of 1000 Canadian social science scholars, which identified that the behaviour of researchers and research users had more impact on the use of research than any specific product (Landry et al, 2001).  In terms of specific attitudes and behaviours, the importance of enthusiasm in particular has been identified as having significance for supporting evidence use (Nutley, 2003). My experiential evidence also suggests that factors such as being able to think from someone else’s perspective, being understanding and patient of difference, and demonstrating this in your actions, may also have a significant impact.  I’d be interested to know if others have evidence that supports or contradicts this…

So, this blog is intended as a space to share and reflect on evidence and practice, and to share what improves the relationship between them.  We would love to hear from you and particularly welcome guest posts if you have something to share.

 

References and links

Buckley, H. and Whelan, S. (2009) Putting Research Evidence to Work: Key Issues for Research Utilisation in Irish Children’s Services (CAAB Research: Report No.2) http://www.srsb.ie/Publications/PDFs—Publications/PREW/PREW-Full-Report.aspx

Landry, R., Amara, N. And Lamari, M. (2001) ‘Utilisation of social science research knowledge in Canada’, Research Policy, 30: 33-349

Lavis, J., Robertson, D., Woodside, J., McCleod, C., Abelson, J. (2003) ‘How Can Research Organisations More Effectively Transfer Knowledge to Decision Makers’ Milbank Quarterly, 81: 221-248

Mullen, E., Bledsoe, S., Bellamy, J. (2008) ‘Implementing Evidence Based Social Work Practice’, Research on Social Work Practice, 18: 335-338

Nutley, S. (2003) Increasing research impact: early reflections from the ESRC evidence network, ESRC UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice: Working Paper 16

This blog is intended as a space to share and reflect on evidence and practice, and to share what improves the relationship between them.  We would love to hear from you and particularly welcome guest posts if you have something to share.

Contact: Claire Lightowler(Evidence-informed practice: Programme manager, IRISS)