How Should We Communicate Research Findings to Teachers? No Difference in Teachers’ Intentions to Use Evidence Across 512 Versions of a Research Summary

Abstract

Education research is increasingly generating evidence that can inform teachers’ practice. This raises the question: how should researchers communicate research to increase the likelihood of teachers putting the findings into practice? We conducted a vignette survey experiment in which 3,000 teachers were given a summary of a research project. We randomly varied the presence of nine components of the research summary suggested by the expectancy-value-cost model of motivation. Despite generating 512 different versions of the summary, we found no relationship between how it was designed and teachers’ intention to use the focal teaching practice. The findings suggest that improving written research communications may be insufficient to affect teachers’ intentions, let alone their practice.