What is a systematic review?
Over time, a lot of research is carried out in any particular domain. The research varies by relevance and by weight of evidence. You get very small studies in a single school on a few students up to large scale multi-site randomised control trials. Literature searches. which purport to round up the existing knowledge on a given topic, can suffer from confirmation bias (where the researcher only sees the studies which support his/her hypothesis). Systematic Reviews try to avoid this by following a strict protocol which attempts to find everything published on a given subject (often thousands of journal articles and the like) and then filtering that material down using a hierarchy of 'weight of evidence' tests. Other measures are put in place a) to ensure that selection is as objective as possible and b) to keep an audit trail through the process so someone else could, theoretically, replicate the process and validate (or not) the selections being made. This process is explained in greater detail on the EPPI Centre website here.
The outcome of a Systematic Review should be a sythesis of the most comprehensive, reliable evidence on a given topic available at that time
Systematic Reviews of CPD
CUREE is the registered coordinating centre managing an EPPI-sponsored Review Group looking at the impact of CPD. The Group's aim is to use systematic reviews of literature to identify the characteristics of effective CPD. Our approach to the EPPI process is to involve practitioners in the reviewing process and we are supported in this by a group of retired and serving classroom teachers with an interest in CPD and research.
The first EPPI registered review of the impact of collaborative CPD on teaching and on learning was published in July 2003. It was widely welcomed by practitioners and policy makers because, for the first time, the review provides evidence of links between specific CPD processes and improvements in teaching and learning processes and outcomes. The second review builds upon and updates the first review and looks at collaborative and individually oriented CPD. The third in the series examines studies of sustained, collaborative CPD in studies which focus on teacher only impact data.
The fourth review set out to establish the nature of specialist inputs in effective CPD.
The reviews have helped to inform the DfES National CPD Strategy and the Primary National Strategy, as well as the NCSL to inform professional development processes. The NUT, the main sponsor of the first review and another sponsor, the GTC, made extensive use of the first review in supporting their CPD strategies and programmes.
According to the EPPI Centre, finding out what is already known is a science as well as an art. Reviews synthesise research findings in a form which is easily accessible to those who have to make policy or practice decisions. In this way, systematic reviews reduce the bias which is potentially an element in other approaches to reviewing research evidence.
The four CPD reviews are available here:
How does collaborative CPD for teachers of the 5-16 age range affect teaching and learning?
What do teacher impact data tell us about collaborative CPD?
Impact of Networking
In the 'noughties' the National College for School Leadership (as it was then called) ran a large scale programme exploring the benefits of supporting schools working together in groups or networks. The programme, called Networked Learning Communities, generated a lot of evidence before it closed in 2006. For the programme, CUREE undertook a Systematic Review of the evidence on the impact of these kinds of networks the report of which can be accessed below
Impact of networks on pupils, practitioners and organisations
For more information, contact paige.johns@curee.co.uk
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The first EPPI registered