Dissemination of research as a tool for school improvement?

This paper addresses the issue of how research on practice can be disseminated to teachers in such a way as to inform improvement initiatives. It reports on a project that followed up the middle managers in 15 schools as to how they had received and used the findings from research into effectiveness at the departmental level. The project found that without specific support departmental managers tended to regard the dissemination process as a form of imposed change. Instead of seeing the research findings as a basis for discussion, they perceived it as setting standards of practice to which they were not only expected to aspire but also to emulate. The paper discusses the problems these perceptions posed and suggests alternative ways of dissemination that may prove more effective. (DIPF/orig.)