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raises a number of questions. For example, let us imagine a teacher who wishes to become a professional practitioner and who only uses “evidence-based” methods.

If this teacher seeks guidance from a proponent of and expert in “evidence-based practice”, what would this expert suggest the teacher does? Read more relevant books and research journals? Collaborate more with educational researchers or other experts (if this is possible)? Attend different kinds of in-service teacher development courses in order to gain more evidence about certain educational phenomena (if the school can afford it and the school leader allows it)? It remains unclear where the teacher should source evidence, what it is to “have evidence”

and how this evidence should inform teaching in the classroom.

The aim of this article is to highlight and outline these questions so that they can form the basis of future research. We will put forward a nuanced view of evidence-based teaching that recognises the value of practice-based evidence.

Evidence is thus information supporting (or refuting) an assertion, and must pass the test of relevance if it is to move from informational noise, to potential evidence through to prima facie evidence (Thomas, 2004, p.4).

The second criterion is the sufficiency of the pieces of information gathered. As Thomas claims, we have to consider whether there is some corroborating evidence.

In other words, are there other kinds of evidence to support or challenge the asser-tion? Connected to the second criterion of judging evidence is the third criterion of veracity. In this last case, we have to assess the trustworthiness of the evidence;

in other words, to be aware of its possible distortions and social interests that lie behind it.

Thomas continues to discuss the particular social and interpretive context of the evidence, which can vary depending on the kind of professionals we are consider-ing. Lawyers, doctors and teachers do not use evidence in the same way, though there may be some similarities. The acceptance and value of evidence “will rest on the judgement of peers” or a “community of assessors” (Thomas, 2004, p. 7).

This is a particularly interesting point, since teachers often work alone in the school classroom and perhaps seldom discuss evidence in the staff room or at team meetings. Another aspect to consider is that, in the field of teaching, there is rarely (or perhaps never) conclusive evidence of “what works” in the classroom.

As we can see in the passage from the EVA report cited in the introduction to this article, EBT is often associated with the question of “what works”. We will return to this problem later in the article.

It is important to remember that EBT is not simply a case of either having evidence or having no evidence for something (eg. Hammersley, 2013, p. 47).

EBT is also concerned with the degree of evidence or the difference between weak and strong evidence. According to Thomas (2004), evidence can originate from personal experiences, testimonies, documents or archives, artefacts and observa-tions: “We all find pieces of evidence, make links between them, discover patterns, make generalizations, create explanatory propositions all the time, emerging out of our experience, and this is all ‘empirical’” (Thomas, 2004, p. 13). From this perspective, there is nothing special about “evidence” as such. However, Thomas identifies a problem for the proponents of EBT; in his view, the evidence used by teachers lacks strength and rigour. He also claims that it is not based on research, especially not on the “gold standard” of research, which, according to Slavin (2002), is well-designed nomothetic research (such as randomised controlled trials). There appears to be a gap between educational research and educational practice that needs to be closed so that teaching can become a research-based profession (Hargreaves, 2007).

In the same book, Michael Eraut (2004) asks some important questions regard-ing practitioners’ sense-makregard-ing of evidence, with a special focus on medicine.

One of the questions he asks is: “What is the awareness of the research evidence among potential users, and how do they interpret it?” (Eraut, 2004, p. 92). This is also a question we address in this article. Eraut differentiates between research-based evidence, other scientific evidence and practice-research-based evidence. In all these cases, decision-making is a central concern and, in this respect, evidence becomes a matter of credibility and the legitimate reasons why we decide to do A instead of B. It seems that – at least in Denmark – when we talk of evidence in teaching, this refers to research and researchers; in other words, to experts outside the school.

This is what Eraut would call “research-based evidence”. The term “evidence”

is rarely used by teachers themselves in the sense of “practice-based evidence”, understood as evidence “from professional practices recognized by the relevant profession, and performed in accordance with the criteria expected by the relevant experts within that profession” (Eraut, 2004, p. 92). However, it could be sug-gested that this is also included when some teachers talk about evidence in their professional practice. For example, in a recent journal, a Danish teacher describes EBT in the following way:

To teach evidence-based means that the teaching builds on a combination of the available research, the teaching experience of the teacher, and the teacher’s knowledge about the individual student’s developmental possibilities. As a teacher, I have to keep up-to-date with the research field and be capable of integrating this knowledge within my pedagogical and didactical work. You can teach evidence-based in all subjects and themes since it is about how you think teaching, not about content or materials (Vesterheden, 2013, p. 11 - our translation).

This teacher then proceeds to appeal to research concerning feedback, conducted by Hattie & Timperley (2007), as an inspirational source for her work in the classroom. In this case, the research-based evidence can function as a kind of cor-roborating evidence (as mentioned by Thomas) for the practice-based evidence. It is likely that the teacher is already accustomed to providing student feedback and views this as a valuable and effective process. The work of Hattie & Timperley simply offers verification for this and provides her with some new “tools” which can help her begin a conversation about an assignment with her students.

The use of the word “evidence” in teaching can be confusing if it implies that there is no longer any doubt about what is the best practice. As mentioned above,

“global evidence” or “conclusive evidence” is a relatively problematic and rare concept in teaching, provided we are talking about the causality between what the teacher teaches and what the students learn (and if, by learning, we understand

the psychological acquisition of knowledge). If such a conceptualisation of evidence is the premise of EBT, we believe it is wrong and easy to argue against.

The confusion is understandable if you look in the dictionary to make sense of the word “evidence”, because the dictionary lists synonyms such as “clarity”,

“certainty”, “indisputability” and “a form of ‘proof’ you cannot contradict”

(Levinsson, 2013, p. 113). This understanding of evidence is difficult to operate with in teaching. Instead of viewing evidence in this way, we believe it should be viewed as part of an argument. Evidence can form the central element in an epistemic justification, and it can also spark disagreement (Feldman, 2009; Feldman

& Conee, 1985). As stated by Thomas (2004), when assessing the relevance of the evidence, sufficiency and veracity are important criteria to consider. The distinc-tion between research-based and practice-based evidence is also essential, and we will draw upon this in the following discussion.

In terms of this presentation of different types of evidence, we will conclude that, in all likelihood, teachers are already employing different kinds of evidence in their teaching as part of an on-going process, but with different abilities and levels of reflection (Kowalski & Lasley II, 2009; Pollard, 2008). From an educa-tional research perspective, we are interested in the conditions of teaching; at present, we know too little about how the different kinds of evidence play a role in the professional lives of teachers.