Why is this Evidence-Based Practice not in Widespread Use?

Some of the most powerful evidence-based practices, such as formative assessment / feedback and reciprocal teaching, are not in common use and/or are the least well implemented. International researchers have for a long time raised concerns that these complex interventions are widely misunderstood and prone to ‘fall prey to lethal mutations’^[1] – by both teachers in their classrooms and in online forums. These can produce nil or negative results for our students.

This issue, common in applied science, is centre-stage internationally. Attempts to address it have generated the rise of the new discipline of implementation science.

At a system level, barriers to using implementation science effectively to inform change, have included a lack of funding, a short-term reactive environment for innovation, lack of mechanisms for refining practitioner knowledge into a professional knowledge base, insufficient involvement by school-based leaders, and failure to build relational trust.^[2]

The implication is that attention must be paid to getting it right on the ground. This means that set-up and implementation must be deeply theory-driven, informed by understandings and practices based on ‘improvement science’.^[3] Central to this is informed and determined leadership in a school, and an effective plan for this instructional apprenticeship approach.

The RT3T™ modernised version was developed in response to this situation.