One brokerage to help them all. A research-practice partnership to facilitate teachers' use of research on teaching critical thinking

Facilitating teachers’ use of research is widely recognized as a strategy to improve teaching quality. With the growing global emphasis on fostering students’ critical thinking, research offers teachers an important resource. This study developed a research-practice partnership to co-create a research-informed document through design-based research and to establish a teaching-research network, both supported by brokerage. Using mixed methods, we first analyzed the features and limitations of a previous document on teaching critical thinking to identify ways a new document could better support teachers’ engagement with research. We then conducted a reflexive thematic analysis of brokerage processes to examine how they facilitated collaboration between researchers and teachers. Findings indicate that the new document addressed several shortcomings of the original, was more closely aligned with teachers’ needs, and was more likely to support their conceptual use of research, while providing limited support for instrumental use. The analysis of brokerage revealed its central role in adapting to participants’ evolving needs, strengthening connections between teachers and researchers, and creating opportunities for meaningful research use within the design-based research process and the network. This study underscores the value of integrating research-practice partnerships with brokerage to enhance teachers’ engagement with research. It also highlights the importance of institutional support in sustaining these collaborative processes. By illuminating mechanisms that bridge research and practice specifically on teaching critical thinking, the study contributes to documenting how researchers can help teachers develop students' critical thinking.