Social Networks in Schools: Promising Intervention ApproachesLinking Schools and Universities: Using SNA to Develop and Evaluate Inter-organisational Engagement Strategies for Collaborative Improvement

Research Practice Partnerships are now prominent collaborative structures in the Research and Development infrastructure of education systems. These long-term arrangements focus on key dilemmas and challenges facing practitioners. Importantly, they are mutualistic and include carefully designed rules, roles, routines, and protocols that structure interaction to support school improvement. This presentation will cover the efforts of a three-year RPP between researchers at the University of Glasgow and practitioners working at a local secondary school as they attempted to implement an approach to professional learning known as practitioner enquiry with all school staff. Practitioner enquiry is a cyclical process of professional learning where educators identify problems of practice and engage with relevant research and embedded evidence from their own classrooms to inform changes in their teaching. This presentation will explore how Social Network Analysis can be used to evaluate the engagement strategy (e.g. the roles and routines for structured interaction) between researchers and school-based educators working to maintain an RPP for knowledge exchange and adoption of a new approach to professional learning. Furthermore, the network analysis was used to inform changes to the engagement strategy to strengthen the inter-organisational links between the University and secondary school. Specifically, the network analysis encouraged the university team to engage with formal middle leaders at the school instead of the senior leadership team. Implications for knowledge mobilisation and fidelity in the programme implementation will be discussed.