Evaluating impact of educational research on teachers’ practice: a teacher expectations intervention

Educational research that generates new knowledge can have a positive impact on teaching practice, yet few methods have been developed to show if, and how, knowledge-based research translation has any impact on teachers’ professional practices. The research reported in this paper evaluated the impact of a Teacher Expectations Intervention on teachers’ practice. The intervention disseminated new knowledge about teaching practices that communicate high expectations to students. Graham et al.’s (2006) Knowledge-to-Action Framework provided a conceptual framework to develop, implement and evaluate the intervention with the participant teachers. The findings show that 61 secondary-school teachers experienced overall positive impact on their professional practice. The contribution of this study is the development of original methods that other researchers can use to translate knowledge for impact on teachers’ practice. The model offers new, original ways to explore practical research impact, addressing the urgent need for ways of discussing impact beyond traditional citation metrics.