Principles for Effective Pedagogy: International Responses to Evidence from the UK Teaching & Learning Research Programme

The UK Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) worked for ten years to improve outcomes for learners in schools and other sectors through high quality research. One outcome of individual projects and across-Programme thematic work was the development of ten ‘evidence-informed’ principles for effective pedagogy. Synopses of these principles have been widely disseminated, particularly to practitioners. However, the evidence and reasoning underpinning them has not yet been fully explained. This book fills this gap by providing a scholarly account of the research evidence that informed the development of these principles, as well as offering some evidence of early take-up and impact. It also includes responses from highly-respected researchers throughout the world in order to locate the work in the broader international literature, to extend it by drawing on similar work elsewhere, to provide critique and to stimulate further development and debate. Principles for Effective Pedagogy contributes to international dialogue on effective teaching and learning, providing a focus for scholarly comment, sharing of expertise and knowledge accumulation.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Research Papers in Education.

Mary James, AcSS, is part-time Associate Director of Research at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. She is President of the British Educational Research Association (2011-13). She was a long time member of the Assessment Reform Group and founding editor of The Curriculum Journal. From 2002-2007 she was Deputy Director of the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme, and she subsequently held an ESRC Programme Director’s Fellowship. At the same time she was Director of a major TLRP project on ‘Learning How to Learn’.

Andrew Pollard, AcSS, was Director of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme from 2002-09 and Chair of the UK’s Strategic Forum for Research in Education from 2008-10. He is a former school teacher and his research interests include teaching-learning processes, learner perspectives and the development of evidence-informed classroom practice. He has worked extensively on the effects of national and institutional policies on learning and has directed longitudinal studies on the impact of education legislation on primary school classrooms and on pupil experience and learning from age 4-16.