Following on from our previous piece, we explore the necessity for genuine evidence-based education practice to guide teachers’ work. 

What is evidence-based practice in education, really?

By the early 2000s, the medical model had evolved from Sackett’s original concept. New frameworks appeared integrating the patient’s values, preferences, and circumstances and the clinical context, with research evidence and practitioner expertise. Through this evolution, evidence-based practice became an individualised process of decision-making. It relied on professional reflection, situational awareness, and mutual understanding between doctor and patient.

It was never designed as a universal prescription, but as a guide for action within the complexities of human care.

Evidence-based practice in education didn’t emerge through a tradition of reflective professional judgement, as it did in medicine. Instead, it was imported through policy mechanisms, often driven by governments seeking scalable solutions to perceived educational problems. 

In Australia, these “solutions” are provided by the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO). Agencies such as the EPPI-Centre (UK), the EdCan Network (Canada), and the Institute of Education Sciences (USA) serve similar purposes. They promote models of evidence use that emphasise generalisability and scalability at the expense of teacher expertise and local context.

Teachers are not invited to interpret evidence, only to receive it

In these systems, evidence-based practice becomes something done to teachers, not by them. 

The clinician making a judgement for and with a patient is replaced by a teacher required to implement a set of strategies proven “to work” in controlled trial. That’s regardless of the student, classroom, or community. The message is clear: teachers are not invited to interpret evidence, only to receive it.

This pattern of decontextualised, policy-driven “evidence use” is not new. Others have rightly criticised it. In recent posts, authors such as Dean Ashenden, Nicole Brunker, and Nicole Mockler highlight the narrowing of what counts as “evidence,” the sidelining of teacher expertise, and the ideological function of “what works” discourse in Australian education reform. These are essential critiques.

Our aim here is to build on and deepen that conversation. We do so by revisiting the roots of evidence-based practice in its original domain: medicine. By returning to David Sackett’s foundational model, we show just how far education has drifted from evidence-based practice as a reflective, individualised and context-sensitive endeavour.

A fundamental departure

We argue that what AERO presents as evidence-based practice is not simply reductive. By removing these crucial elements, it represents a fundamental departure from the professional logic that EBP was built on.

This departure matters. It shapes how teachers are trained, how their practice is judged, and how their professional expertise is valued, or ignored. It also has deep implications for student learning, particularly in a system where teachers are not supported to think critically with and about evidence. They are instead expected to implement pre-approved solutions that exclude uncertainty, discourage inquiry. These ‘solutions’ bypass the relational dynamics that are central to teaching. This is in a system that is supposed to teach critical and creative thinking in every Australian child.

We write to reclaim it as a tradition of reflective practice, professional judgement, and pedagogical care.

No problem solving for teachers or students

In the foreword to the fourth edition of their book Evidence-based Practice Across the Health Professions published just last year, Australian EBP experts Hoffman, Bennett, and Del Mar cover the current understanding of the medical model of EBP (MEBP). They define it as a “problem based approach where research evidence is used to assist in clinical decision making”. 

This remains consistent with what David Sackett understood when he first articulated evidence-based medicine. Professionals make decisions in uncertain, complex, and relational contexts. They draw on research, experience, and the needs of those they serve.

We argue that this conception of EBP is most suitable for translation into education because both teaching and learning are, at their core, problem-solving practices. Instead we are left with an education ideology that removes the practice-as/is-problem-solving and learning-as/is-problem-solving foundation of Sackett’s concept of evidence-based practice for teachers and students.

A core competency

We call for problem solving to be a core competency for teachers, just as it is for practitioners in MEBP where practice is underpinned by what Hoffman et al call an “attitude of inquiry”. Unlike AERO’s “this works – do it” mentality, the process of MEBP acknowledges that “uncertainty is an inherent part of health care”, and begins with the practitioner identifying a problem in their own context and going to the evidence base with a question. We advocate for an evidence-based practice in education that embraces the uncertainty of our profession. We propose an adaptation of MEBP’s “The five A’s” as a frame for guiding educators to engage in evidence-based practice:

The Five A’s of EBP for Education 

1. Ask a question – convert your information needs into an answerable pedagogical question
2. Access the information – find the best evidence to answer your pedagogical question
3. Appraise the articles found – critically appraise the evidence for its validity (risk of bias), impact and applicability in your unique context, with your specific students
4. Apply the information – integrate the evidence with classroom expertise; the students’ values, preferences and circumstances; and information from your classroom context.
5. Audit – evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency with which steps 1–4 were carried out, and think about ways to improve your performance of them next time.

Embracing a framework like the Five A’s for EBP in education would not be an easy change. 

Time, resources and professional learning

Teachers would need time, resources and professional learning to develop the research literacy to engage in this kind of professional practice. However, it holds the potential for educators to take back the ownership of their profession, reclaiming/reframing teaching as a tradition of reflective practice, professional judgement, and pedagogical care.

If teachers, researchers and educational leaders are respected as the professionals they are, then there is potential to correct the current trajectory of evidence-based practice in education and its undermining of the very heart of effective teaching, empowering teachers as problem-finding, problem-solving, critically reflective teacher-learners committed to individual student needs, rather than as mere implementers of mandates.

Brad Fuller is an educator and researcher with over 35 years of experience in music education and curriculum innovation. He is associate lecturer in music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. James Humberstone is a senior lecturer in music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney. He specialises in teaching music pedagogies, technology in music education, and musical creativities. Rachael Dwyer is a lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Her scholarship is focused on creating social change, through decolonizing, arts-based approaches to teaching, advocacy and research.

The first in a two-part series on AERO and evidence. Tomorrow: Evidence is important, but what is the problem?

The Federal Government has now ordered an independent performance evaluation of AERO, conducted by KPMG. You can provide feedback here.

There have been debates about whether teaching is an “evidence-based” profession, or whether it should be. 

The discourse around evidence-based teaching and learning has been dominated by “effectiveness research”. That’s driven by a neoliberal obsession with metrics, the most convenient metrics being standardised test scores like NAPLAN and PISA.

Declining scores on these tests is most often attributed to poor teaching. Specifically, the blame is attributed to the quality of teachers graduating from university initial teacher education (ITE) programs. Part of the Australian Government’s solution to this  perceived problem is to increase oversight of ITE programs in universities. This has led to the introduction of highly prescriptive “Core Content” for ITE programs from the Strong Beginnings report, and further surveillance of ITE through a new Quality Assurance Board (to regulate the regulators).

The Core Content mandates teaching strategies and approaches that are “shown by research” or “proven” to be effective. 

The evidence for these assertions comes from the Australian Educational Research Organisation (AERO). AERO was established as part of the Gonski 2.0 reforms, as a national evidence body. It was intended to “conduct research and share knowledge to promote better educational outcomes for Australian children and young people”. AERO publishes a range of resources, including “Explainers”, intended to provide advice to teachers about evidence-based practice. But is this evidence-based practice, or a new avenue for governments to further intrude into the classroom?

Should teachers trust AERO to interpret the evidence for them?

As Nicole Mockler and Meghan Stacey explain, it’s hard to argue against ‘evidence-based practice’ but the devil is in the detail. Evidence-based practice as it is understood in medicine, is a far cry from evidence-based practice as it’s currently understood in teaching. Evidence-based medicine was conceived as a reflective practice grounded in individual judgement by the medical practitioner, considering systematic research evidence, their own expertise and the patient’s needs. It emerged from the medical professions in the 1990s and was pioneered by David Sackett, It has since evolved beyond Sackett’s original vision, extended to balance the patient’s values and preferences, the clinical context, the practitioner’s expertise and research evidence. 

Evidence-based teaching has been driven by policy mechanisms, promoting models of evidence use that emphasise generalisability and scalability. It reduces teaching to a set of formulaic strategies. The evidence and resources presented by AERO appear to position teachers as incapable of understanding and interpreting research, then making professional judgments based on their students and the school content. AEROpresents the research as if it was black and white– “proven”, incontestable facts. The evidence is presented as an instruction manual, with no space for professional judgments or critique.

Education researchers know  this is very rarely the case. Let’s look atAERO’s explainer on Managing cognitive load. Drawing primarily on Sweller’s cognitive load theory, the explainer proposes that explicit or direct instruction helps to avoid students experiencing cognitive overload. This can occur when too much new information is presented at once. It can also occur when previously taught knowledge is not regularly revisited. 

Arguments and counter-arguments

There is significant evidence to support the educational psychology of cognitive load theory. But there are also counter-arguments. Sweller argues that unguided learning “does not work”. But others provide evidence that problem-based and inquiry learning can be effective, and that contextual factors must inform pedagogical choices. When we consider these perspectives on the research, we begin to see the selective approach to research on which AERO has built its “evidence base”.

This is not just a concern for practising teachers. It is a concern for the entire educational enterprise. Critical thinking is identified as a crucial skill for the 21st Century. It drives innovation and preparing students for a world we can’t yet imagine.

The Australian Government promotes the importance of critical thinking. But at the same time, AERO recommends strengthening evidence-based practice through highly prescriptive approaches to teaching. It mirrors the same top-down, narrow interpretation of ‘what works’ that characterises AERO’s materials.

The government asks no questions of AERO’s research

The Australian government appears to be not engaging in any critical thinking, taking AERO’s research explainers at their word. An example of this is the full acceptance of the Strong Beginnings recommendations, including the swift implementation of the Core Content for ITE programs.

Content from the Managing cognitive load explainer dominates Core Content areas 1 and 2 from Strong Beginnings, with all ITE programs expected to teach their students:

1.2.3 The most effective teaching practices to reduce cognitive overload, including explicit instruction, scaffolding, and clearly structured content that connects new information to prior learning.

2.2.3 The importance of presenting all information required to complete these chunked tasks in one place and at one time, excluding information not directly related to the task, to reduce cognitive overload.

2.2.6 Why independent problem-solving is only effective once a student approaches proficiency (i.e. after ample opportunities to practise progressively challenging tasks) and why independent problem-solving should not represent a large proportion of teaching and learning time.

(Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2023)

There is no nuance in this policy language. It tells teachers what is effective and what is not. AERO presented the research as black and white, and now the policy does the same. 

Evidenced based teaching is only as good as the evidence itself

Under the present evidence-based regime in education we have lost any consensus on what evidence-based practice even means. Some suggest that evidence-based practice is oppressive, that it is in opposition to good education, leading to pre-determining of teaching practices with no regard for local context.

Others suggest that the problem is narrow definitions of what counts as evidence, and that evidence-informed policy and practice are vital to the profession. The version of evidence-based practice promoted by AERO reduces evidence to prescription, positioning teachers as technicians. This is not what David Sackett envisaged when he first articulated evidence-based medicine: that professionals make decisions in uncertain, complex, and relational contexts by drawing on research,experience, and the needs of those they serve. 

Can teachers trust AERO’s evidence?

So, can teachers trust AERO’s evidence? Maybe they could if trust meant more than compliance. But perhaps the bigger question is why doesn’t AERO trust teachers? What if AERO treated teachers not as technicians, but as thinking professionals in relationship with their students. Maybe AERO needs an “explainer”?

Rachael Dwyer is a lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Her scholarship is focused on creating social change, through decolonizing, arts-based approaches to teaching, advocacy and research. James Humberstone is a senior lecturer in music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney. He specialises in teaching music pedagogies, technology in music education, and musical creativities. Brad Fuller is an educator and researcher with over 35 years of experience in music education and curriculum innovation. He is associate lecturer in music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney.