Creating the family engagement practice guides – brief methodology | Australian Education Research Organisation

About the guides

The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) has released practice guides for practitioners synthesising the research evidence on promoting and supporting family engagement¹ for children’s early learning and development and students’ learning outcomes.

For practitioners to be confident with using recommendations from research evidence, they need to know the research evidence was both created and synthesised using high-quality research methods. This explainer describes the process we followed to synthesise the available research evidence on family engagement. A more detailed description is also available.

What process did we use to create the guides?

To create the guides, we used a rapid review process.

A rapid review uses a specific, step-by-step process for searching the available research literature. The steps are:

1. Planning

Setting a specific question that needs answering
Deciding what types of studies will answer this question (that is, which types of studies should be included and which should be excluded)
Deciding where and how to look for these studies (for example, which databases using which words/search terms)

2. Collecting

Running the searches (running the search terms in the databases)
Screening studies identified through the searches (going through each study to check if it should be included or excluded)
Assessing the quality of included studies
Gathering information from the included studies

3. Reporting

Synthesising the findings from the included studies so they are clear and accessible.

We used a rapid review because it:

makes the findings more rigorous (for example, we don’t just include studies that are easy to find, well-known or politically popular)
makes it easier to update the practice guides (we know exactly where we’ve searched before, so we can run the same search in future to capture any new research evidence)
helps us to focus on the question we’re investigating (there is a vast amount of literature on family engagement, which answers all sorts of questions and includes both high-quality and lower-quality studies)
aligns education search strategies with search strategies used in other evidence-based fields such as health
is more timely than a systematic review (another type of review method), meaning that findings are more current.

What types of studies did we include, and how did we find them?

In 2017, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in the UK searched the research evidence to answer a very similar question on family engagement. Their search was extensive and their findings were published in 2019. We built on their work by using the same search terms and the same databases (where possible).²

We included studies that met the criteria below. Our initial search located 2,254 papers. After removing duplicates, we screened 1,737 papers to see if they met the criteria for included studies. We supplemented our included studies with meta-analyses and systematic reviews from the EEF search. Ultimately, 24 papers were used to inform the practice guides. A full list of criteria is also available in the detailed methodology.

We included studies that

are meta-analyses or systematic reviews (papers which themselves summarise lots of other studies), or rigorous primary studies that show whether an approach causes a change in outcomes
report on activities, practices or processes delivered by early childhood education and care (ECEC) services/schools for promoting and supporting family engagement
involve families with children aged 3-16 years
are designed in a way that allows us to know if the practices have been effective
measure effects on children’s early learning and development/students’ learning outcomes
are published in peer-reviewed academic journals.

We excluded studies that

report on working with communities more broadly
report on family or educator perspectives on family engagement
report only on factors that can help or hinder family engagement
are focused on health (including mental health) outcomes
are specific to particular populations (such as students with disability)
are set in developing countries.

What else did we do?

To ensure that findings from the review were presented in a useful way, we formed a small project advisory group. The group consisted of accomplished practitioners (from ECEC, primary school and secondary school) nominated by the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) and the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). We also sought insights and feedback from ACECQA, AITSL, the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), parent associations and various state and territory jurisdictions.

Our practice guides are designed to be clear, concise, relevant to a range of ECEC and school contexts, and relevant to practitioners with different roles. As such, they are designed to be a starting point. We hope you find them useful in your work with families, and welcome any feedback.

Detailed methodology

This detailed methodology describes the processes we followed to synthesise the available research evidence on family engagement for learning.

Learn more

Two A4 paper sheets with a list of references from an AERO research paper

Annotated reference list

Research evidence cited in the family engagement practice guides is provided in this list.

Learn more

Endnotes

¹For this review, “family engagement” is defined as the process of staff at early childhood services or schools working together with family members to support their child’s early learning and development or student learning outcomes.

²We used Education Research Complete, ERIC, PsycINFO, the Australian Education Index and Scopus.