Articles, Evaluations and Reports

A: Evidence-based museums, archives and libraries work

A4: Other requirements for improving evidence use in MAL policy and practice

Sandra Nutley's analysis of requirements for improving evidence use in policy and practice is generally applicable to the MAL context but there are further issues to be addressed within the sector:

4.1 Other dissemination issues

The research dissemination infrastructure across MAL is generally weak. There is probably only a slight likelihood of service managers being aware of the findings and implications of the main research conducted on whatever their current preoccupations are. Further, if they decide to look for evidence on their question there may be no immediately obvious source that will bring together the key research findings. This should present no great surprise since key health service workers (including hospital consultants) have been found to need help in finding research evidence despite their strong information infrastructure.

There is probably a need for:

• short distillations of individuals research projects and of clusters of projects, picking out the messages of relevance to practice
   
• encouraging journals to commission practitioner comments to immediately follow reports of applied research
   
• a 'journal clubs' approach to ensuring that the research literature is being regularly culled for evidence of relevance to practice
   
• exploitation of the Internet to help spread key research messages.
   

4.2 Disciplined reporting of research

Much of the research reporting in the library and information field could be improved by:

• producing shorter and more tightly focused reports
   
• clear and explicit explanation of the methods used and any problems encountered in doing so
   
• clear identification of findings in relation to the stated research questions.
   

EBPP depends upon being able to evaluate the quality of the evidence on offer. Some research reports do not make this easy!

4.3 Encouraging an EBPP climate

The concept of EBPP is still mostly alien to large parts of the MAL community, with the pressure to provide evidence of effectiveness frequently interpreted as another bureaucratic constraint rather than a key to effective working. Resource has an important advocacy role to pursue if this climate is to change. People will only be convinced of the need to shift towards evidence-based policy and practice if they see real potential for improving the services that they provide. They need answers to key questions, such as:

What differences can MAL initiatives make to people?
What tangible benefits and outcomes are possible?
How can MAL staff be persuaded to take responsibility for outcomes?

This potential can best be made apparent by engaging, with the support of other bodies in the MAL sector, in they type of core debate identified at 4.6 below.

4.4 Structure and mechanisms

The extensive Knowledge Utilization research and development programme conducted in the USA in the 1980s, and now being revisited in education, offers insights into the sorts of structures, support mechanisms and success criteria that are relevant to EBPP in the UK. It is interesting to note the extent to which the criteria for a new 'knowledge-use paradigm', as identified by Paul Hood¹, accords with the lessons identified by Sarah Nutley in section 3 above. These criteria require emphasis on:

• Situated learning and communities of practice (the importance of social interaction)
   
• Complex conceptions of information moving to knowledge, which necessitates developing understanding
   
• Regular socialization between researchers and practitioners to share, for example, mental models and perceptions (would field-based collaboration between researchers and practitioners over extended periods of time be useful?)
   
• The difficulties of transferring knowledge between researchers and practitioners. (Should researchers turn to practitioners for inspiration in formulating research questions and for insight in interpreting research results?)
   
• The need to promote different forms of collaboration in any strategic research plan
   
• Continuing education programmes
   
• The need for case studies of improvement/development, identifying what role the results of research played.
   

4.5 Professional development for EBPP

The focus in other sectors has been on:

• finding the research evidence (applying information skills techniques to this field)
   
• appraising the evidence (again, applying information skills techniques)
   
• the role of change agents in promoting EBPP
   

This focus seems equally pertinent to the MAL field.

4.6 Debating the nature and basis of professional knowledge and practice

Efforts to apply EBPP approaches to social care and education, as well as to the public health end of the health service continuum, have brought issues about the nature of professional practice and knowledge to the fore:

• EBPP approaches tend to assume that professional practice follows a technical-rational model (emphasising rules, laws, routines, prescriptions; efficient systems; technical expertise; fixed standards, knowledge seen as graspable and permanent, etc.)
   
• the role of professional judgement may be undervalued
   
• views of good practice arising from experience and peer discussion also tend to be discounted. This raises a real issue about what constitutes the evidence base
   
• uncertainty, messiness, unpredictability and unique situations are part of the working life of most professionals². In such circumstances "wise judgement under conditions of considerable uncertainty³" is the best response available. EBPP makes no allowance for this dimension.

EBPP should seriously engage with professional practice, giving equal weight to each element in the triangle of evidence:

1. HOOD, P. Perspectives on knowledge utilization in education San Francisco: WestEd 2002. [back]

2. FISH, D. and TWINN, S. Quality clinical supervision in the health care professions: principled approaches to practice Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann 1997. [back]

3. ERAUT, M. Developing professional knowledge and competence London: Falmer P. 1994 [back]

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