Research School Network: What does a Research Lead do? Part 1: The Gatekeeper. Examining one of many roles a research lead can play

What role do research leads currently play in schools? And what different kinds of models of research lead are there? In ​‘The School Research Lead’, written for the Education Development Trust, Tom Bennett shares a number of roles that a research lead might take:

• Gatekeeper
• Consigliere
• Devil’s Advocate
• Auditor
• Project Manager
  
  We’ll explore each in turn, but in this blog, we focus on the research lead as gatekeeper.

We have to acknowledge that teachers are busy, and time is a precious commodity. Even with a desire to keep up to date with the latest research, it’s a tough ask. This is where the research lead as gatekeeper steps in. Their job is to act as that conduit, as a bridge, as a filter, taking the evidence base and ensuring that the most relevant and most useful research finds its way to those who need it. A dedicated person filtering and sharing the evidence can help time-poor teachers engage with evidence.

This role can often arise somewhat informally where someone becomes known as the go-to person for research. Increasingly, schools are recognising that having someone in this position is beneficial. They can influence small things such as a colleague’s question about the most effective way to use retrieval practice to influencing whole school policy e.g. on the implementation of a vocabulary program.

Having one person in this gatekeeper role is useful because staff members know who they can ask about such things, but there is a danger that they can be known as the ​‘research person’, suggesting that it’s not something that everyone can and should be engaging with. It can keep research as something outside a teacher’s normal practice, rather than something integral.

In addition, the gatekeeper has to guard against any biases they might have, otherwise the filtering of the evidence is skewed towards personal preferences and pet favourites. We know of a number of research engaged teachers who have come to the subject through engagement on Twitter. In a forum where we tend to follow accounts we agree with and avoid those we don’t, there can be an echo chamber, so the gatekeeper research lead needs to constantly check their own biases. 

A final consideration is how the school allows the evidence to be communicated. When the role is informal, research bulletins emailed to staff can be helpful, but they may not always be read. Some schools have successfully held voluntary sessions where research leads disseminate evidence, but this tends to be attended by those already interested and/​or engaged with evidence. And there are many people who may well like to engage but find other commitments more pressing.

When the research lead is able to share with school leadership and is supported to disseminate evidence by them, that is where the gatekeeper research lead will have most impact.

Next: The consigliere.