Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices of Research Literacy in Professional Development

This paper is the last of three reflections on how teacher research literacy is understood and enacted in the English policy context, with a view to developing the literature base and informing practice. The final BERA-RSA (2014) report into 'Research and the Teaching Profession' proposes that all teachers should be ‘research literate’, which is defined as being able to access and assess existing research. This document also calls for teacher education to provide teachers with the agency to engage in their own research in addition to engaging with external research. It is the understandings and practices of research literacy in teachers’ continuing professional development that are here presented. A survey of in-service teachers (n=66), semi-structured interviews with survey respondents (n=4) and two case studies of primary and secondary teaching schools show convergent understandings and practices of research literacy in professional development depending upon school context and involvement of higher education.