ABSTRACT

Today’s schools are faced with increasingly complex demands of juggling their core educational tasks alongside multi-dimensional policy bids for reform, development and change. In this paper, we conceptualize our own RCT research on small-group tuition in mathematics in Norwegian lower elementary schools as a policy-relevant measure and part of a broader trend of evidence-based practice (EBP). Taking six of the participating schools as our empirical vantage point, we critically examine how they experience the project enactment against the broader canvas of their everyday, situated realities. Interviews with teachers and school principals show that while there is a near-unanimous agreement about the pedagogical merits of small-group tuition, enacting the RCT in practice creates multiple challenges, problems and tensions that the schools deal with in their unique ways. We argue that safeguarding local flexibility, autonomy and freedom in the face of imposed rigidity, multiple policy demands and changing circumstances are key issues to consider in planning, designing and committing to interventional research in educational policy settings.

摘要

当今的学校面临着日益复杂的需求，既要兼顾核心教育任务，又要多维度地争取改革、发展和变革。在本文中，我们将我们自己对挪威初等小学数学小组学费的 RCT 研究概念化为一项与政策相关的措施，也是更广泛的循证实践 (EBP) 趋势的一部分。以六所参与的学校作为我们的经验优势，我们批判性地研究他们如何在更广泛的日常情境现实中体验项目制定。对教师和校长的采访表明，虽然对小组教学的教学优点几乎达成一致，但在实践中制定 RCT 会带来多重挑战，学校以独特的方式处理的问题和紧张局势。我们认为，面对强加的僵化、多重政策要求和不断变化的环境，维护地方的灵活性、自主性和自由是在教育政策环境中规划、设计和致力于干预研究时需要考虑的关键问题。