How do schools engage with research?

The Research-Invested Schools network (RIS) began in 2021 and brings together research leads in schools around Australia to encourage the sharing of practice and collaborative projects. The Pymble Institute is pleased to be a member of the Network as we learn from the work of new and established research programs and research cultures in schools all over the country.

An important audit of how schools engage with research is being conducted by Dr Carl Leonard and colleagues from the School of Education, University of Newcastle. The project has developed in partnership with The Scots College Research Office, under the guidance of Dr Hugh Chilton and Dr Caitlin Munday. Dr Leonard recently presented findings to the RIS Network which help school research leads place our own schools’ work in context. 

We learned that not many schools have ethics committees but at Pymble our committee is constantly growing both in numbers (of students and staff) and in the skills members bring to decision making about research. Recent meetings have included appraisal of Year 12 Extension Science projects which involve human participants. Outcomes focused on recruiting participants and sharing project outcomes as these have potential to be valuable beyond the Extension Science project itself. We have also invited the research team from the University of Technology’s Data Science Institute and School of Education to join us while we discussed their application. Students were able to question the academics and the research team gained valuable insights into the school’s culture.

Our Ethics Committee runs differently from university committees as the focus is on learning how to make ethical decisions and making these collaboratively. We believe the feedback to researchers could be more helpful. Pymble Institute Director, Dr Sarah Loch, will present to the RIS Network on Pymble’s approach to ethics in research at the Term 3 meeting.