AERO recommends several resources to help education professionals better understand what the research says and how to make decisions about its rigour and relevance.
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Research can provide valuable information to inform teaching practice. Knowing how to use it in your school or early childhood education and care service can, however, be challenging.

AERO recommends several resources to help education professionals better understand what the research says and how to make decisions about its rigour and relevance. These resources include:

  • AITSL’s ‘Informing teaching: navigating and translating education best practice’ Spotlight, which provides an overview of topics to consider when engaging with education research to inform practice. The article covers key considerations related to how robust research is. It explores issues such as reliability, validity, study design, sampling, significance and implementation.
  • AERO’s Research reflection guide, which provides questions that stimulate reflection on research evidence about a particular policy, program or practice. The questions can help practitioners and policymakers decide whether to implement the approach in their context, and how to do so effectively.
  • AERO’s Standards of evidence, which provides guidance on evaluating the rigour and relevance of research evidence. Practitioners and policymakers can use the Standards of evidence to determine the strength of existing research evidence on a particular policy, program or practice in their context.
  • AERO’s Key concepts explained, which provides definitions for common research terms, including those used in AERO’s publications and resources.

How can I use these resources?

These resources can be used in a variety of ways as part of ongoing professional learning throughout your career in education.

No matter whether you are a confident, research-informed practitioner, or you want to brush up on your research interpretation skills, there are resources available to help you engage with research and enhance your practice.