When Ben Goldacre mentioned Journal Clubs in his keynote speech at researchED 2013, my husband Howard, who works for the NHS, became very enthusiastic about the opportunity for me to introduce something like that at my school. Journal Club became part of my pitch to become Research Lead and I’ve had a series of regular meetings that are gaining support.
After Sam Sims’ theory based presentation at the September national researchED conference, I wondered whether a more practical session would have a place. The December Leads Network day confirmed that it might and I realised that if I was going to make the suggestion, I’d better be prepared to do it myself. That is how I ended up running a Journal Club with a bunch of Research Leads and other interested parties at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Most of the session was given to the discussion of a paper as practical experience of taking part in a Journal Club. I used my brief presentation to outline a few basics and how I run my club in school. Along with some additional points that came from talking with people afterwards, that’s what I’ll outline here. If you fancy looking at the presentation, it’s here – researchEd Journal Club
What is a Journal Club?
A journal club is essentially a book club for reading research. Widely used in medical settings, journal clubs form part of professional training and CPD for more senior members of staff. This is an informal and social way to discuss new research that may otherwise sit unread after publication, keeps practitioners up to date and acts as an opportunity to develop critical analysis skills.
Why start a Journal Club?
A significant theme at the December Leads’ Network was about how we can familiarise staff in school with research. I think journal clubs are a great way to start engaging with research, facilitate evidence based practice and get people used to how it all looks in its raw form. It may not be that everyone has the time to hunt down research papers, but having the chance to develop skills that mean they have the choice can be valuable. This is especially the case where staff have studied subjects where research in this format isn’t touched.
Journal clubs are a way for staff to keep up to date, improve morale and network in ways they might not during a normal school day. In addition to this, you don’t need to have a large number of people to start off, so unlike some other routes into research engagement, you can adapt your club to meet the needs of your members and timetable.
Who is Journal Club for?
I’m a firm believer that journal clubs are for staff at all levels and across the whole school. I have members from leadership to TA and everyone contributes to our meetings. I’m lucky enough that our school is small enough that if they wanted, we could probably accommodate everyone if they chose to come, but I realise that this isn’t necessarily practical for everyone. I think there’s the opportunity for clubs in a range of settings – key stage, department, around a particular school focus, within a group of schools (federation/ teaching school alliance etc.), and I also suggested that it might be useful as part of the ‘expert input’ element of Lesson Study.
If you’re more confident in working with research, Dr Gary Jones (@DrGaryJones) has written more information about critical analysis and evidence based practice in a series of blog posts, including introducing journal clubs. To be honest, the way we run journal club is very similar to some INSET activities I’ve taken part in; given some information and asked to evaluate its worth and whether we could apply it in school. Those were attended by all staff, journal club can be too!
How to run a Journal Club
Space and time is something to think about, and not just in a Timelord way. Finding somewhere with room for everyone and not picking a Monday or Friday afternoon is my advice. In my experience, illness, unexpected meetings, detentions, will all get in the way at some point and you just have to keep going. I’ve seen varying advice about how often to hold a meeting. I’m trying to go for one a month at the moment. Some have been closer together than others, but I think if you could only manage one a half term, that would be great. Definitions of a successful journal club being 50% of staff, weekly for more than two years are perhaps a bit ambitious, but go for it if you want!
There are various ways you can find something to read in your club. I’ll write about access in more detail further down, but one of the joys of journal club is that you can go for anything. I have so far gone with a variety of different topics in our’s. We all work across a 7-16 school and work with a primary model (one teacher to a class for most subjects). This means we can look at maths, behaviour, literacy, PE and keep everyone interested. You may want to select a theme to build a knowledge base, or fit a department. It’s completely up to you.
A crucial rule for our journal club meetings is that they are NOT a policy meeting. If we think something we’re looking at is worth trying out, we need a separate meeting for that. This means we keep to the task of analysing the text and don’t get bogged down in the details of how we’ll get it going in school before we’ve even decided if the evidence is strong enough.
You need to have a designated leader or facilitator for your club. Someone to keep up the enthusiasm, send out reminders, provide access to the chosen paper, write a summary of the paper (bit more detail than the abstract), and keep your discussion on track. This is also the person who needs to provide the biscuits. You will learn to appreciate the importance of the biscuits.
Structure of a meeting
- Biscuits (I have actual evidence for this).
- Read out summary of paper to familiarise everyone with key points.
- Discuss and analyse paper – use guide questions to keep on track.
- Pick next paper (I tend to choose two abstracts and print them on different coloured paper for easy reference).
- Disseminate notes (I type up our notes and whack them on the shared drive).
Things that might go wrong
- People think it’ll be too hard
- No one reads the paper
- No one turns up
- Too many people turn up
- No one wants to go home
- You forget the biscuits
The only one I’ve not had is the bit about too many people. The important thing is that it really can be for everyone and keep plugging away. There is always the Co-Op for emergency biscuits.
Access to Research
Types of research
- Academic papers
- Blog posts
- researchEd briefings
- Self published
The joy of journal clubs is that you can use anything you like. If you were conducting a formal literature review then you’d have to worry about things like bias etc. With a journal club, this actually gives you something to discuss. Briefings and blog posts are a great place to start, but a quick warning, they tend to be written in a more balanced way so they might not be as easy to argue for/against.
Where to find it
- Open access – will stay available
- Free access – available as part of a promotion probably, limited time
- Subscription/ Membership – often a cheaper way of subscribing to a single journal
There are lots of ways to find things to read for free (links below). Increasing amounts of research funded by the Research Councils UK is being made available as open access. There is a timetable for this to reach 100% eventually. Education Arena‘s promotions are a wonder for Journal Club so have a look there.
Links
- My list of free and not-quite-free ways to get research – https://impressionthatiget.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/access-to-research/
- researchEd – http://www.workingoutwhatworks.com/en-GB/Magazine/2015/2/Accessing_education_research
- SUPER Blog – https://schooluniversitypartnership.wordpress.com/access-to-research/
researchEd Journal Club
Effects of an emotional literacy intervention for students identified with bullying behaviour. (Knowler & Frederickson, 2013)
I picked this as an Open Access paper that people could look at in advance. It covered a topic that was fairly wide-reaching, had a few statistics but was suitable for all levels and was hopefully a relevant place to start.
- Pre-read paper
- Read out summary – rED summary
- Discuss using sheet to guide/ questions on screen – rED record sheet
- Decide on ‘next’ article
- Feedback
- Biscuits
Things to think about
- What type of literature?
- What are the hypotheses based on?
- What is being claimed?
- Are the claims supported?
- Agree/Disagree
- Contradictions/ Competing hypotheses
- Ethical issues/ bias
- Relevance to own setting
- Further research/ changes
It seemed like the people who attended got something out of the practical experience and had lunch not been on the horizon I think the discussions could’ve carried on for longer. There were some interesting comments around peer-nomination and the ethics of labeling pupils as bullies, and I know there was much more mentioned than this! Perhaps there is room on the researchED forum for something journal clubby? I enjoyed putting myself out of my comfort zone for a bit and would love to do it again, so who knows, maybe I will.
References
The basic concept of journal clubs is fairly straight forward – read paper; discuss. There is a wealth of research on journal clubs in medical settings and some of the ones I’ve looked at are here. Most importantly, of course, evidence in favour of biscuits.
Alguire, PC (1998) ‘A review of journal clubs in postgraduate medical education.’ Journal of General Internal Medicine 13(5), 347-53
Denehy, J. (2004) ‘Starting a Journal Club’ The Journal of School Nursing 20(4), 187-188
Golde, C. M. (2007) Signature Pedagogies in Doctoral Education: Are They Adaptable for the Preparation of Education Researchers? Educational Researcher 36(6), 344-351
Linzer, M. (1987) ‘The journal club and medical education: over one hundred years of unrecorded history’ Postgraduate Medical Journal 63, 475-478
Mazuryk M, Daeninck P, Neumann CM and Bruera E (2002) ‘Daily journal club: an education tool in palliative care.’ Palliative Medicine 16(1), 57-61
**BISCUIT ALERT**
Sidorov, J. (1995) ‘How are internal medicine residency journal clubs organized, and what makes them successful?’ Archives of Internal Medicine. 155(11), 1193-1197
Part 2: In which I talk about the SUPER Network, some CPD, and what was going to be my thoughts on the next ResearchEd Leads Network but ended up being a brief conclusion due to me waffling on for too long.
One of the things I was interested in looking into at that first ResearchEd in the hazy, drawn out summer of 2013, was the potential for links between school and universities. I had just had my first year for a while without any academic study and I wanted to find out what was out there and where I could start.
During the session with Kay Yeoman from UEA I met, sorry, networked, with the lady next to me who happened to be Bethan Morgan (@morgteach) who works for the SUPER Network. We’ve tweeted about a few things, namely access to research and she recognised me at ResearchEd 2014 as doing a lot of pub quizzes (we run one, Thursdays at the White Horse in Ruddington if you’re in the area) and she was there with the SUPER (School-University Partnership for Educational Research) Network gang on Saturday to present a session and workshop on how Universities and Research Leads can work together.
Based at the University of Cambridge, they have a number of projects with partner schools including Masters programmes, research projects, dissemination of research and seminars. They host inquiry group meetings of their Teacher Research Co-ordinators (their Research Leads) six times a year and provide critical friendship to schools. From the university’s point of view, the programme enables larger scale, collaborative research, a wide reach for their work, and helps to keep the university staff grounded and up to date with the realities of working in schools. The schools involved benefit from an increased research culture and staff are able to maintain a dialogue post-MEd.
We heard from various people involved in the network – both university and school representatives. Every one of them was incredibly enthusiastic about what the network had done for them and their professional status. There was a reading list from Ruth Pineda which I scribbled notes on but thankfully took a photo of too – 
and there was a reminder that research and practice should inform each other equally.
The session had a workshop style answering questions in groups part which was great (but lacked tables). The focus was on bridging the gaps between theory and practice, and school/university partnerships. Whilst we aimed to answer the questions, almost every group fed back that they had accidentally answered the questions whilst having a good chat. I have to say, that’s the bit I like most about the day – just chatting about what we’re doing in our roles with other people. I don’t think it mattered if we answered everything well enough, we were there to learn from each other and debate, and that’s what we did. I have made some initial links with one of our local universities and I think I should probably look into it again.
Another thing I think the research lead role could be of benefit for in our school is our CPD. I’m being realistic with this – I don’t plan on hurling academia at everyone and expecting to get my own way, but the way things seem to be going, I think if I make suggestions they’re at least likely to be listened to. I think useful CPD with research flavour is a good way to get it in there as a natural way of working rather than heavy handed.
Daniel Harvey had CPD at the centre of his session. He outlined how he is changing the way his school, John Henry Newman Catholic College, is transforming their CPD by introducing a programme of action research, and the up and down process he has gone through to make it a success. In small groups we were asked to answer several questions about the relationship between evidence and CPD in our own settings, including the use of ‘research partners’. I have to say, I don’t think our school is ready for this, but whether schools scout out their own partners as Daniel Harvey has, or are part of an organisation like the SUPER Network, opportunities for schools and universities to work together are good thing.
As far as using action research goes, I have mixed feelings. I quite like the idea of action research as part of being a reflective practitioner or even for trying things out in a setting in a controlled, evidenced based way, but I understand the reluctance to call it ‘research’ as there’s very little that will be transferable to other settings apart from providing catalysts of ideas. The cycle of trying out, changing, trying out, is better than doing everything at one as far as I’m concerned. I do wonder if introducing something like lesson study might be a more gentle way of getting staff involved in using evidence to change their practice that could lead to more rigorous research projects in due course. It’s easy to get carried away with ideas at a ResearchEd event as everyone there is enthusiastic and opting to spend their free time with the converted but of course not everyone in school will have research as a priority.
Actually, through all the talk of how the whole-school CDP action research programme had developed – the recognition of bad research questions, levels of participation and group dynamics; I rather thought that the most interesting and relevant piece of action research they are doing is in fact their action research. It’ll be good to see how they ingrain it into their school culture.
After all that, what am I taking away from the Leads Network? Well I could probably write another four posts on the day. The whole spirit of ResearchEd is bringing people together to find out what there is to find out and the first Leads Network was a brilliant extension of the more general conferences. I really like the idea of smaller, more focussed groups and even though the groups here ended up quite large, there were opportunities for discussion. I had wondered if having some sessions on more than once, to allow for everyone to attend but in smaller numbers might work? Maybe with tables next time though…
I think I seem to be on the right track with the Research Lead thing. I’m not quite on the scale of Skyping Harvard, but a handful of staff in my little learning pod is all coming from the same point. I might investigate the partnership thing a bit more next year but my main concern is not to rush anything. Professor Rob Coe started the day off by reminding us that there’s no evidence Research Leads work – a reminder to challenge our thinking, but also that we’re the first lot doing this on a wide scale and we’re making it up as we go along. At one point in the day I was told I was being a librarian for hunting down and saving articles for people to use. I’m quite happy for that to be part of my role at the moment. If we get to a point where access to research becomes a budget priority then that would be a wonderful thing. Maybe it will take some time, but whilst we’re getting there I think there are a lot worse things than getting together from time to time and learning from each other.
So in a garbled, tacked-on-to-the-start-of-the-staff-meeting speech, I’ve managed to introduce my new role as Research Champion (name change pending) to most of the staff at our school. I thought it might be useful to set out in writing how I see my role and how I hope it will develop following all the ResearchEd conferences, but particularly Saturday’s national conference.
The role of ‘research champion’ in schools is fairly new – certainly on any sort of scale. So new in fact that the title is still under discussion, as it turns out most of us think ‘Champion’ sounds a bit silly. When I muscled my way into the role last summer I asked to be Research Champion because that was the term I had seen bandied about online and at the ResearchEd events. I have a few projects on the go in school and my hope is that having an official title (and mention in the operational handbook) will give what I have to say a bit of clout.
Over the past six months there have been more and more people taking on in-school research roles and everyone is at different stages and doing different things. A suggestion was made on Twitter that it might be useful to form a network and to use the ResearchEd 2014 national conference to meet and discuss our roles over lunch. A fine idea; I said I was in. It turned out to be a rather surreal affair – suspended in a glass box above all the other conference attendees, with the great and good of education and me. Others have blogged about the lunch and to be honest, in the whirlwind of it all I don’t think I can remember it all too well, so I’ll brush over it. I did however choose my programme on Saturday with championing research in mind.
Having read several articles and blog posts recently, I have decided what I want my role to be about and not about. This is for both my own clarity of position and that of my colleagues who I really don’t want to scare off. This is what I came up with:
It is about: quality/ evaluation/ empowering/ expertise/ networking/ scepticism/ familiarity of research methods/ engagement/ consuming and producing research.
It is not about: scrutiny/ accountability/ politics/ ‘tainted ideology’/ everyone doing research.
I see my key role as facilitating access to research, encouraging an environment of critical evaluation and reflective practice, creating links between the school and researchers, and helping to provide ways that our school can be part of research. So this is my plan so far:
Closing The Gap: Test and Learn
My enthusiastic leaps following the first ResearchEd gig prompted our Executive Head to put me forward to lead on this. CtG is a scheme from the National College of Teaching and Leadership providing grants to schools within a teaching school alliance to take part in a series of RCTs. These have to focus on ‘Closing the Gap’ in literacy and numeracy. I won’t go into vast amounts of detail, but our school was allocated Lesson Study. This was piloted last year and at some point in the near future I hope to find out what will be expected of me.
In June I attended an event at Swiss Cottage Development and Research Centre focusing on developing research in special schools and nurseries. This was organised by CfBT and we worked through the possibilities of starting our own research and were provided with practical advice to having a small cohort, accessibility of post/pre-tests etc. Hopefully this will prove to be a continuing network and as I scribbled in my notes for the day, they have some money to spend and non-CtG schools are welcome to join in if interested.
University Links
One of the things I have been keen to do is create links with our local universities. I started by looking through the biographies on the University of Nottingham’s website and found someone I thought might be both valuable to us and us to them. The name was familiar and it turns out he was a governor a while back, so I emailed him. I now have a contact, a free course on restorative approaches for two staff, and we have re-engaged with their student volunteer programme. Sometimes a brazen emails work wonders.
Journal Club
Howard, my husband, works for the NHS and whilst his job isn’t clinical, his office is opposite the room where they hold their monthly journal club. He has always encouraged me to start one at school and I’m hoping this can become a reality soon. The hospital journal clubs are held every 4-6 weeks but in between this they hold patient case reviews in which they apply the knowledge covered in journal club to individual cases. I’m planning that this could be a feature of the way we use journal clubs in schools eventually.
After announcing it as a proposal in the staff meeting I have had a couple of people express their interest, including one person who was unsure as they might not be ‘academic enough’. I really hope this isn’t too common a feeling and I can open this up to everyone as I see that as the main reason for the whole job.
Introduce EEF and ResearchEd Websites
My first moves are going to be introducing the EEF and ResearchEd websites. I mentioned them briefly in my hasty introduction to staff but I will make a point of going round and showing people individually. As a taste of what this is all about, they are clear and undaunting sources that will get people interested. I haven’t settled on an article for our first journal club yet, but I am contemplating using some of the EEF reports to kick us off before delving into something more intensive.
I’m also hoping to be able to contribute some things to the ResearchEd website. I’ve sent emails anyway.
ResearchEd 2014
I won’t go into much analysis of my day at the conference but I should mention the sessions I attended.
- Session 1: Prateek Buch – Evidence Matters – getting the public and the teaching profession to stand up for evidence in the classroom.
- Session 2: John David Blake – What’s class got to do with it? Education research in the UK is obsessed with class.
- Session 3: Michael Cladingbowl and Sean Harford interviewed by Andrew Old.
- Session 4: Martin Robinson – The teacher and researcher: the time has come to talk of many things…
- Lunch of Champions
- Session 5: Toby Greany and Chris Brown – Schools, universities, evidence and partnerships: Getting it all to work.
- Session 6: Wayne Holmes – The lure of the next miracle cure. Thinking about the evidence base for educational technology.
- Session 7: Rebecca Allen (and the House of Cards man whose name I didn’t write down) – Can teacher journal clubs improve classroom practice?
- Pub session: Several pints of real ale and a few lovely chats with some lovely people before winding our way home.
There were clashes with almost everything I fancied seeing so I’ll be an avid viewer of the filmed sessions.
Some things I learnt:
- If you are reporting about impact of social class, have a good definition of social class. Also, one of the best differences between ResearchEd and a normal INSET is the chance of witnessing academics having a scrap.
- Scientific rhetoric is everywhere and we need to be careful about how we present the research agenda in schools.
- School-university parnerships need a bit of work.
- Journal clubs are proven to work in medicine for a number of reasons so let’s give ’em a go in education.
- Everyone loves a flashy pen.
Some things for next time:
- A journal club focus with smaller, seminar style sessions would be great.
- Larger print on name badges.
- A couple of blank pages in the programme for notes.
- More drinks (not necessarily real ale).
There are exciting times ahead for ResearchEd and I think they’ll be some exciting times for me too. I’m looking forward to seeing where all this takes us.
Impression That I Get 