Leading Thinking 

DEVELOPMENT AND SHAPE OF RESEARCH IN POST-16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING.

Our initial thinking has been to ensure that the work conducted and the way we work with practitioner research in the sector is ethical.

We are also beginning to consider how ourselves and others can work with the sector using inclusive methodologies that leave a positive legacy for the development of the sector’s capability to research, understand and advocate for itself.

We wish to work in a way that both acknowledges and develops the continuum of practitioners’ research work in post-16 education and training.  We are looking to develop rigorous arguments for the inclusion of reflective work based on practice in our literature reviews so that all practitioner work can be valued and respected in our work.  We are also working to actualise forms of enquiry that are ’fit for purpose’ (Whitty, 2006) to understand and develop our sector.

Our research, which runs across member organisations, aims to develop thinking in areas that are important or unique to the sector and to share this work in an open access format in order to facilitate the sector in speaking for itself on key issues.