Education and social policy

The EPPI Centre’s work in the field of education and training has included activities in all of our main areas of work, carrying out reviews, providing education and training in systematic reviews, providing support to review groups and on using evidence to inform policy and practice decision making in Education. As in other policy and practice fields our work in education often combines all of these activities and often combines education with other policy and practice issues. We have worked on educational topics and with education groups across the age range, from early years to higher professional and life long learning. We have worked with national and international partners in this field.

The London BEME International Collaborating Centre (London BICC)

A current initiative in the field of education is the establishment of this Centre in collaboration with partners from UCL Medical School; UCL Centre for Health Informatics & Multiprofessional Education (CHIME) and The Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Kingston University London and St George's University of London. The Centre will promote the use of evidence to inform policy and practice in the education and training of healthcare professionals through carrying out and supporting systematic reviews; providing education and training in systematic review methods, and a variety of activities to support the use of evidence in decision making. Work already underway includes; undergraduate medical student learning in General Practice; workplace learning for undergraduate students in health professions and inter professional education. Further information is available here.

Review group support

The EPPI Centre has provided support to many review groups in education. This includes a large scale UK Government Department for Education funded Centre for Evidence Informed Education which ran from 2000 to 2010 and published more than 50 systematic reviews on a range of education topics. Similar projects were carried out for the UK Teacher Development and Training Agency focussing on teacher education and training and the Canadian Council for Learning focussing on inclusive and special educational needs. The EPPI Centre also supported the Danish Education Clearinghouse for Education research when it was being established, providing review group support advice and training for their staff.

Training and education

The EPPI Centre has provided numerous education and training workshops on systematic reviews and evidence use for the education communities in the UK and internationally. Workshops have been provided in New Zealand for the Government Department of Education, in Singapore for the Institute for Adult Learning for example. In addition to our bespoke workshops and Masters programme we also provide education and training in systematic reviews for doctoral students through the ESRC Bloomsbury Doctoral Training Centre. In addition to more general education and training on systematic reviews in education we also provided education and training in meta-analysis for education researchers as part of the ESRC Researcher Development initiative.

Reviews in the field of education by the EPPI Centre

Our staff have carried out a systematic reviews on a range of topics often in collaboration with other experts in the education field, including:

Personal development planning
Secondary school size
School Subject Choices at Age 13-14
Technical and vocational education and training in low- and middle-income countries
Learning impacts for young people engaged in the Arts and Sport
Workplace learning and teaching for healthcare professionals

Many EPPI Centre systematic reviews carried out in other fields also overlap with educational issues, for example:

Adult learning and employment
The provision of sanitary facilities in schools in Low and Middle Income Countries
School-based mental health
Physical activity and nutritional education in schools
The impact of tertiary education on economic growth and development

Evidence use

The EPPI Centre has participated in many projects in evidence use in education both in the UK and internationally. This work is discussed in detail here. Evidence use projects with a specific education focus include the Evidence Informed Policy and Practice in Education in Europe (EIPPEE) project, work on a UK evidence portal for education, working with NHS Scotland on sourcing and synthesising research evidence to support design, delivery and evaluation of healthcare professionals education collaboration with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF); and collaborating with the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme.