Evidence-Based Practice
VUE Number 6, Winter 2005
Audio Clip 3:
An interview with Meredith Honig and Cynthia Coburn
The complexities involved in evidence use.
Click on the 
bar below to start the audio.
TRANSCRIPT:
MH: I'd say that based on our review, central office administrators seem quite sophisticated in the sense that they recognize that there are many ways to use research in their decision making, in ways that aren't always one-to-one. For example, if you look at the federal legislation that requires evidence use, there's almost an assumption that if you use evidence then that will point to an almost unambiguous path to improvement. And, that's not the reality of central offices.
These are complex workplaces; the research base itself is riddled with conflicts about what it means to say a program is successful. And these conflicts are not inherently problematic. Often a program that's successful in one place, but not successful in another, varies in those ways for good reason. The context is different, the resources are different.
CC: There are issues of availability and accessibility of different forms of evidence. District administrators find themselves with decisions about all sorts of really pressing problems that there simply is no research to address.
MH: So I think one of the things that's emerging in the picture of central office administrators as really trying to grapple with more than just evidence about what works or doesn't work.
MH: There are many stories in the literature of the use of research to justify certain decisions to different constituent groups. Without that kind of support, no decision could be made at all.
CC: I think that the political stakes associated with evidence make it necessary in a way to use those kinds of arguments to move work forward. This is part of making decisions in a complex politicized atmosphere. And, in fact, in terms of moving programs forward, moving policy forward, it maybe really is an essential skill.
MH: We're also seeing a strong role for organizations outside of the central office in supporting evidence use. There's also quite a bit of documentation of how central offices are inviting experts in, bringing people in who have some information themselves to share with the central office, either on a one-time basis to consult with central office staff or actually establishing a contract with an organization to come in and provide a variety of research-based assistance.
