‘Teaching is not at present a research-based profession. I have no doubt that if it were, teaching would be more effective and more satisfying. … It is this gap between researchers and practitioners which betrays the fatal flaw in educational research’ (Hargreaves, 1996, p. 3).

In his 1996 Teacher Training Agency Annual Lecture, the sociologist and professor of education David Hargreaves criticised what he saw as a weak connection between educational research and classroom practice. Long before Tom Bennett championed empirical evidence in Teacher Proof (2013), Daisy Christodoulou published her polemic Seven Myths About Education (2014) or David Didau questioned teacher education in What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong?, Hargreaves had already argued that educational research – as he assessed it in the late 1990s – was a ‘private, esoteric activity, seen as irrelevant by most practitioners’ (ibid., p. 3). Citing clinical researchers Sackett and Haynes (1995), he suggested that classroom teachers really need ‘evidence about what works, with whom, under what conditions, and with what effects’ (Hargreaves, 1996, p. 8).

Hargreaves argued, therefore, that teaching should move towards becoming a research-based profession, similar to medicine, in which practitioners both consume and contribute to a shared evidence base of tried and tested practices. To achieve this, he called for better research training for teachers – beginning with initial teacher education and induction as well more general professional development for experienced teachers – alongside national bodies capable of interpreting, synthesising and disseminating evidence. He also called for school cultures in which inquiry forms part of everyday professional life. 

Almost three decades on, it is timely to examine how closely today’s system resembles this vision, which is – I’d argue – largely what he hoped to see. However, there are weaknesses in the direction we have taken and, arguably, his wider vision of an enriched research base remains somewhat limited, even constrained, by a one-size-fits-all approach to evidence-based practice.

Progress since 1996

Several policy developments since 1996 map directly onto Hargreaves’ proposals. A key theme of his lecture was the need for structures that would make research accessible and usable for practitioners in schools, and particularly in classrooms. He argued that educational research needed structural change so that it could become ‘far more relevant, and far more accessible, to teachers’ (Hargreaves, 1996, p. 4). He also insisted that the profession required a stronger evidence infrastructure, including ‘more powerful evidence about effective professional practice’ (Hargreaves, 1996, p. 5). The subsequent growth of the Education Endowment Foundation, the Research Schools Network, teaching school hubs and major evidence reviews produced by organisations such as the Sutton Trust (see Coe et al., 2014) can all be read as institutional responses to the very gaps he identified.

This is in addition to the establishment of professional bodies and institutes designed to promote research-informed practice, such as the Chartered College of Teaching and the more recent National Institute of Teaching. These developments parallel Hargreaves’ suggestion that the system needed coordinating capacity at national level: ‘I would therefore propose the establishment of a National Educational Research Forum’ (Hargreaves, 1996, p. 6). He envisaged a body that could organise priorities and mobilise knowledge in usable forms for the field – anticipating the later growth of organisations tasked with synthesising, translating and disseminating evidence.

Likewise, the emphasis on research engagement in initial teacher education – reflected in the Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework (DfE, 2019a) and the Early Career Framework (DfE, 2019b), now merged – aligns with his belief that teachers needed a stronger grounding in evidence from the outset of their careers. Hargreaves argued that this would require more than surface ‘tips’ or generic upskilling, but a deeper professional formation: ‘teachers’ inservice education should focus not on updating their classroom skills but on “learning to teach”’ (Hargreaves, 1996, p. 7). He also proposed that evidence production should not be limited to universities but increasingly involve practitioners, noting that ‘teachers need to develop not only the skill to evaluate research but the confidence to use it’ (Hargreaves, 1996, p. 7). Even the increased focus on evaluation and impact in schools reflects his call for a more systematic and evidence-aware profession, in which inquiry is not episodic but embedded in professional life.

The table below links Hargreaves’ key proposals with the policies, organisations and networks that now reflect them. I think the parallels are striking, making his original wish list appear almost prophetic.

Hargreaves’ 1996 Suggestion	What It Looks Like Today (2023)
National strategy for educational research	DfE claims to place evidence at the centre of policy; EEF heavily influences major frameworks like the ECF.
A national forum for research and policy dialogue	No single forum, but many organisations (EEF, Chartered College of Teaching, CUREE, ResearchED, Teacher Development Trust) collectively play this role.
Teacher training grounded in research	ITT, ECF, and NPQs all explicitly based on ‘best available evidence,’ with EEF input.
Teachers funded as research-practitioners	Chartered College and teaching school hubs, amongst others, offer research qualifications and inquiry-based professional development.
Research-literate mentors for trainees	ITT and ECF now require mentors to understand research and support research-informed practice.
Ofsted research division	Ofsted now has a research arm informing frameworks and inspections.
Practitioner-focused research journal	Journals like Impact now link research to classroom practice for teachers.
Shift research funding beyond universities	Significant funding goes to agencies like the EEF to run trials and produce guidance.
Political engagement with evidence	Ministers increasingly reference evidence-based approaches and researchers (for example, see Gibb, 2017; or even the 2024 Labour and Conservative election manifestos).
A stronger evidence base for teaching	Growth of influential researchers, teacher-facing evidence summaries and popular frameworks – but debates on methodology remain.

Yet progress has not been straightforward. The expansion of research infrastructure does not automatically guarantee meaningful practitioner engagement. Although the profession now has access to far more evidence than in 1996, the level of autonomy, time and support required for sustained inquiry remains uneven across schools, trusts and authorities.

Persistent challenges

Hargreaves also warned against overly narrow definitions of educational research, arguing for a richer methodological mix capable of addressing the complexities of teaching. This concern remains highly relevant. The dominance of quantitative and scientific research methodologies – whilst valuable – can crowd out qualitative and practitioner-led research that offers insight into contexts and specific settings teachers find themselves in (Wrigley, 2018; Mooney Simmie et al., 2024). The profession has embraced evidence-based, or informed, practice, but often within a restricted notion of what counts as ‘rigorous’. Too often, some of the loudest advocates of evidence-based or evidence-informed practice adopt a positivist view of research, operating in paradigmatic silos rather than embracing a more holistic and inclusive understanding of educational research – one that acknowledges the value of all its sub-disciplines, rather than privileging, in particular, cognitive science and developmental psychology.

Similarly, Hargreaves highlighted structural issues that would hinder progress towards a research-based profession, including restricted professional autonomy and the pressures created by accountability frameworks. Despite rhetorical commitment to research engagement, the day-to-day realities of workload and performance measures often limit teachers’ capacity to engage in the deeper, iterative inquiry he envisaged. Moreover, just because a senior leader has sat through an engaging presentation at researchED – often delivered by another ambitious senior leader – does not mean they fully comprehend the complexities of the research or the interventions they believe will ‘fix’ the problems in their schools.

That said, some critics of Hargreaves’ original lecture argued that he adopted the language of clinical or medical research too readily (Hammersley, 1997). This, in turn, has contributed to a narrowing of his otherwise more nuanced view of evidence and research design in education, as well as a tendency – already discussed – to impose a science-centric notion of ‘what works’ on a profession that operates within social and cultural contexts, rather than in a universally applicable domain of straightforward replication. It is worth remembering here that Hargreaves’ most significant work was qualitative and sociological in nature (see, for example, Hargreaves, Hester & Mellor, 1975).

A prophetic reality?

Taken together, the picture is mixed. Many of Hargreaves’ recommendations have found real expression in policy and practice, and teaching is undoubtedly more research-informed than it was in the mid-1990s. Very few school leaders, let alone classroom teachers, forego insights of advocated by educational consultants, popular edu-influencers and organisations concerned with evidence-informed practice. 

Yet the deeper cultural and methodological shifts he called for – particularly around teacher-led inquiry, methodological diversity and practitioner autonomy – remain only partly realised. The research-based profession he envisioned is visible in outline, but still incomplete.

This blog offers an overview of a  full peer-reviewed article, which provides a more detailed account and a fuller critical analysis:
https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/prism/article/view/2685/1363

Hargreaves lecture can be read here: https://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Portals/0/PDF%20reviews%20and%20summaries/TTA%20Hargreaves%20lecture.pdf

References

• Bennett, T. (2013) Teacher Proof: Why Research in Education Doesn’t Always Mean What It Claims, and What You Can Do About It. London: Routledge.
• Christodoulou, D. (2014) Seven Myths About Education. London: Routledge.
• Coe, R., Kellogg, S., Silver, E. & Alcock, L. (2014) What Makes Great Teaching? Review of the Underpinning Research. London: Sutton Trust.
• Department for Education (DfE) (2019a) Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework. London: DfE.
• Department for Education (DfE) (2019b) Early Career Framework. London: DfE.
• Didau, D. (2015) What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong? Carmarthen: Independent Thinking Press.
• Gibb, N. (2017, February 17). Nick Gibb: The importance of an evidence-informed profession [Speech transcript]. Department for Education, GOV.UK.
• Hammersley, M. (1997). Educational research and teaching: a response to David Hargreaves’ TTA lecture. British Educational Research Journal, 23: 141-161. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141192970230203
• Hargreaves, D.H. (1996) Teaching as a Research-Based Profession: Possibilities and Prospects. Teacher Training Agency Annual Lecture. London: TTA.
• Hargreaves, D.H., Hester, S. & Mellor, F. (1975) Deviance in Classrooms. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Mooney Simmie, G., O’Meara, N., Forster, A., Ryan, V., & Ryan, T. (2024). Towards a model of teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD): A border crossing journey with embedded contradictions, ethical dilemmas and transformative possibilities. Professional Development in Education, 50(1), 46–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2023.2283420
• Sackett, D.L. & Haynes, R.B. (1995) Evidence-Based Medicine. New York: Churchill Livingstone.
• Wrigley, T. (2018, June 28). ‘Evidence’ and the EEF toolkit: Reliable science or a blunt set of tools? British Educational Research Association (BERA). https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/evidence-and-the-eef-toolkit-reliable-science-or-a-blunt-set-of-tools