Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. * Korespondenčni avtor / Correspondence author 52 Prejeto: 21. januar 2024; revidirano: 28. februar 2024; sprejeto: 30. april 2024. / Received: 21st January 2024; revised: 28th February 2024; accepted: 30th April 2024. DOI: 10.37886/ip.2024.003 Bridging Research and Practice: Using Article Analysis to Prepare Practitioners for Research-Informed Practice Tatjana Dragovic * University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 9PQ, United Kingdom td344@cam.ac.uk Abstract: Research Question (RQ): Could a critical analysis of a few relevant research articles prepare practitioners for designing a research-informed improvement of own practice? Purpose: The purpose of the paper was to both explore and test whether a critical analysis of a few relevant research articles could prepare a practitioner for designing a research-informed improvement of own practice. The critical analysis of two articles was carried out on the topic relevant for the author's professional practice i.e. on developing researching professionals enrolled in the Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) at a UK-based university. Method: Some of the features of a systematic literature review were applied to a light version of literature search for relevant articles. The search was limited to social science and educational research databases ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), NFER (National Foundation for Educational Research) own bibliographic databases and CERUK (Current Educational Research in the UK) database to narrow the focus both on educational field and on English-speaking countries thus matching the author’s workplace cultural embeddedness. Results: The critical analysis of the chosen articles showed how important (a) alignment between research aims and design is, as well as (b) between presented evidence and claims/interpretations. Of particular importance is an insight that, in order to (c) avoid circular arguments, (d) data coding and analysis need to be written and presented more elaborately with (e) careful selection of the illustrative examples. This is even more important when aiming to use published work to support a research-informed improvement of own professional practice within the same field. Furthermore, for the research findings' trustworthiness and transferability into similar professional practices, (f) ethical considerations of insider's research need to be thoroughly explored and transparently presented. Organization: Organisations with organisational culture which supports and values research could benefit from their employees' engagement in designing and carrying out research-informed improvements of own professional practice. Society: The contribution to society is achieved through practitioners' application of critical frame to firstly analysing previosuly published work in their field and secondly to designing research- informed improvements of own profesional practice. Originality: The paper's originality lies in its format as it both explores and tests whether a critical analysis of a few relevant research articles could prepare a practitioner for designing a research- informed improvement of own practice. The author, in her role of educational practitioner, tests whether a critical analysis of two articles could provide her with reflective learning about what to consider when designing and carrying out a research-informed evaluation of her own professional practice. Limitations / further research: The paper’s scope was limited to a crticial analysis of only two articles with a rather specific focus on developing researching prfoessionals in the field of the Professional Doctorate in Education. Further research into additional factors aiding practitioners in I Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 53 their attempts to introduce research-informed improvements in their professional practices is needed. Keywords: a research-informed practice, researching professionals, professional practice, professional doctorate in education, EdD. 1 Introduction Professionals from diverse backgrounds and discipline affiliations usually engage in ongoing improvements of their own professional practice. Some practitioners find themselves improving their practices in practical/hands-on ways immediately when they identify a need for further development or upgrade of current practices. Yet, others long for more time and energy to get familiar with existing research findings in their fields in order to utilise them or even to design and carry out their own studies to better inform evidence-based improvements of professional practices. At the end of the 20 th century, during the Teacher Training Agency Annual Conference in the UK, Hargreaves (1996), caused quite a controversial reaction while comparing the use of research to improve professional practice among different professions. He concluded his comparison with favouring medicine as a discipline where, he claimed, ‘professional decisions are based on the best available research evidence’ (as cited in Hemsley- Brown and Sharp, 2003, p.449). Furthermore, Hargreaves (1996) criticised especially teaching professionals for neither utilising research in their professional decisions (e.g. regarding pedagogy) nor carrying out their own studies. His call for better dissemination of research findings was addressed to educational researchers and to their accountability towards educational practitioners while his call for turning teaching profession into an evidence-based profession was addressed to educational practitioners and to their responsibility towards researching own professional practice. In their study on the use of research to improve professional practice, Hemsley-Brown and Sharp (2003) discovered that although medical practitioners might make a greater use of research findings than teachers, there are still common barriers to research use in both fields. One of the striking findings is that there is an urgent need to create an organisational culture ‘which supports and values research’ (p.449). Besides the research-leaning organisational culture and support that comes with it, Watkins (2006) argues that educational practitioners’ motivation for doing research also needs to be present. Her study claims though that the motivation is present and that educational practitioners see researching their own practice as moving from ‘a state of knowing to a state of unknowing and back to a state of knowing again’ (p.16) which ultimately leads to seeing research as a form of professional learning. Yet, these benefits of a research-informed practice are still not overweighing lack of time, energy and above all, in the words of one of the practitioners, lack of knowing how ‘to actually actively go about it’ (Watkins, 2006, p.16) and where to start. In Watkins’ (2006) study on what teacher- Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 54 researchers think about doing research, a few practitioners thought that finding out ‘what other people are doing’ (p.14) could be a good starting point for developing a research-informed practice. Furthermore, according to them, ‘using the sort of critical frame model’ (p.14) while familiarising themselves with what others are doing prepares them rather well for designing their own studies i.e., for research-informed improvements of own practice. This paper thus both explores and tests whether a critical analysis of a few relevant research articles could prepare a practitioner for designing a research-informed improvement of own practice. The author is an educational practitioner leading the Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) Research Community at a UK-based University. The professional doctorate students are themselves seasoned practitioners that embark on their doctoral journey with the aim of improving their own professional practices. During their doctoral journey, they move from being professionals (‘in a state of knowing’) via learning how to be researchers (‘in a state of unknowing’) to researching professionals (‘in a state of knowing again’). The author’s task and aspirations are to keep continuously improving the EdD programme’s features and learning support to aid students’ development as researching professionals. Hence, the topic of interest for the author’s research-informed practice is EdD students’ experience of developing as researching professionals. What follows are the sections that (a) briefly introduce theoretical underpinnings of the concept of researching professionals followed by (b) an overview of how search for and selection of two relevant articles was carried out, (c) a critical analysis of the chosen articles, (d) discussion/reflection on learning and (e) conclusion on whether a critical analysis of a few articles could support practitioners in designing their own studies and introducing research-based improvements into their practices. 2 Theoretical framework The topic of developing researching professionals in a professional doctorate in education (EdD) programme is, after more than 100 years (Perry, 2012) since its inception at Harvard University in 1921, still under-researched (Lindsay et al., 2018). Bourner, Bowden, and Laing (2001) emphasise developing researching professionals as the main aim of EdD programmes in contrast to PhD in education programmes focusing on developing professional researchers. In their chapter on ‘why do a (second) doctorate’, the two University of Cambridge EdD students, Ottewell and Lin (2016), who had acquired PhDs before they embarked on their EdD journey, explain their motivation for the decision. In their words, when they were ‘doctored’ first time around, they aimed for ‘disciplinary’ knowledge (Gibbons et al., 1994) whereas their decision to enrol in the EdD programme was driven by their wish for ‘transdisciplinary’ knowledge generated through own professional practice improvement. The question appears why it is worthwhile to explore how EdD students develop as researching professionals. Prior to answering this question, a question about why a professional doctorate (in education) aims to develop ‘researching professionals’ needs to be addressed. It is argued that developing as ‘researching professional’ can be viewed as intrinsically worthwhile. On the Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 55 other hand, Lindsay et al.’s (2018) study on supporting EdD researching professionals reveals their real value not only for professional practice but also for wider society through building supportive relationships, resilience and making a difference. According to the study’s findings, researching professionals enhance objective and forensic perspectives of their professional contexts thus bringing critical thinking into the workplace and offering an opportunity for the status quo to be challenged (Maxwell and Shanahan, 1997). Consequently, Lester (2004) concludes that the professional doctorates are founded on ‘processes of thoughtful action, leading to advances in practice’ (p.765). According to Butcher and Sieminski (2009), being ‘professionals as insider-researchers investigating their own practice’ is not an easy place to be (p.45). That is why exploring how EdD students experience developing as researching professionals with the aim of improving EdD programme features and learning support is not only justifiable but also urgently needed. The topic has been so far researched mostly in English-speaking countries (USA, UK, Canada and Australia) with findings ranging from seeing development as researching professional as a learning and becoming process (Lindsay et al., 2018), a transition process (Labaree, 2003) and even as a ‘melding and hierarchical integration’ of previously existing identities with newly formed ones (Buss et al., 2014). Lindsay et al. combined three dimensions of learning as presented by Illeris (2002) with the metaphors of learning described by Sfard (1998), Wenger (1998) and Boud and Hager (2012) to create a framework consisting of learning as acquisition (cognitive), as participation (interpersonal) and as becoming (intrapersonal) for exploring how to support developmental needs of EdD students. However, they focused on general EdD students’ developmental needs rather than only on their development as researching professionals. In his work, Labaree (2003) presents the idea that professionals learning to become researchers need to make transitions from normative to analytical perspectives, from personal to intellectual frameworks, and from experiential to theoretical points of view. He further states that ‘like any student, [a practitioner engaged in doctoral study] is faced with the prospect of learning and learning means changing into someone different’ (p.21). However, he does not offer any concrete ideas on how to support the above-mentioned transitions. Despite a wide spectrum of existing studies into the topic, there are not many that address directly the EdD doctoral students’ experience of developing as researching professionals. 3 Method To support the author’s research-informed improvement of own professional practice with a focus on how EdD students experience the process of developing as researching professionals, some of the features of a systematic literature review were employed. As the main aim of the paper is to explore whether a critical analysis of a few relevant research articles could prepare practitioners for designing a research-informed exploration of own practice, the mini literature search for relevant articles including the use of Boolean operators with the following key words: Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 56 “developing researching professionals OR researching practitioners” AND “professional doctorate in education OR EdD” was carried out. The search was limited to social science and educational research databases ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), NFER (National Foundation for Educational Research) own bibliographic databases and CERUK (Current Educational Research in the UK) database to narrow the focus both on educational field and on English-speaking countries and thus match the author’s workplace cultural embeddedness. Only the publications between 2000 and 2024 were considered for the sake of capturing the 21 st century development on the chosen topic. After filtering out theoretical papers, systematic literature reviews, opinion papers, unpublished conference papers, conference proceedings and theses as well as articles without abstracts, the refined search resulted in 116 research articles. The abstracts were then analysed, and the studies not carried out in English-speaking countries were discarded as well as articles not directly addressing development of researching professionals within the Professional Doctorate in Education i.e. EdD programme. The remaining 18 articles were further compared based on, firstly, their similarity in context to the author’s one and, secondly, on the methods they employed. An attempt to aim for diverse data collection methods resulted in the final choice of two articles. Buss et al. (2014) and Taylor’s (2007) articles were selected due to their (a) focus on the topic, (b) research context and (c) research lens. They both address development of researching professionals through EdD programmes (in the USA and the UK). The USA-based study (Buss et al., 2014) examines how one college develops researching professionals during their preparation in an EdD program, which is based on the Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate (CPED) working principles and design features. The college was chosen as research context due to being one of the original 25 that have worked to re-envision and reclaim the EdD as the appropriate professional degree for educational leaders. The authors are affiliated with the college. The UK-based study (Taylor, 2007) investigates how learning to become a researching professional is understood by EdD students at a UK-based University. The author is affiliated with the University as the program leader for the Doctorate of Education (EdD), but not with any project and/or funding which partly mirrors the author’s situation. Buss et al. (2014) employed a mixed-method design combining survey of 32 students followed up by 18 structured interviews whereas Taylor (2007) opted for a case-study approach encompassing 12 semi-structured interviews. The studies’ similar research foci, on one hand, and their differing research contexts, lenses, and methods on the other hand, make the articles valuable sources for informing the design of a research-informed exploration of own professional practice as an EdD programme’s doctoral educator. The following sections provide a critical analysis of both articles with respect to their research aims, framing of the studies, design, their argumentation and the alignment between presented evidence and interpretation of findings. These sections are followed by a reflective Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 57 account of the learning the critical analysis generated and how they could inform a research- informed improvement of own professional practice with a focus on how EdD students experience the process of developing as researching professionals. 4 Results 4.1 Research aims and framing of the studies Taylor’s article sets out clearly the aim of the study as investigating how learning to become a “researching professional” is understood by EdD students. She frames the study’s wider context through arguing for the reason of the emergence of professional doctorates in the UK being due to “pressures to universities” (p.154) stemming from their marketisation and a need to offer several new routes in doctoral education. Servant-Miklos (2020) supports this view while arguing that in the last two decades, higher education institutions around the world often get pressurised by their governing bodies that are, in turn, pressurised by governments, to close the gap between education and the necessary 21 st century labour skills (e.g., critical and analytical thinking skills, problem-solving skills etc.). Taylor further links market’s need for labour skills for an enhanced future national economy directly to the shift of the UK universities’ focus from pursuing “knowledge […] for its own sake” (p.155) to professional doctorates-generated transferable skills. In framing the study with a causal relationship between the focus of societies on “fitness for purpose and cost effectiveness” (p.154) and the emergence of professional doctorates, Taylor overlooks a historical fact that, long before marketisation of higher education, first ever doctorates in the UK were actually professional doctorates (see Buchanan and Hérubel, 1995; Foskett, 2010). Taylor's framing of the study might send a misleading signal of a different quality and type of the knowledge created through professional doctorates. The signal has been reinforced by Taylor’s quote of the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, 2005) Postgraduate Training Guidelines’ requirement for consistency of professional doctorates’ “standard in provision and quality with the traditional PhD” (Taylor, 2007, p.155). Furthermore, Taylor’s article dedicates a large part of literature review to differences between traditional PhD and professional doctorates in general. Although the overall challenges share similarities due to professional doctorate students’ experience of different cultures of learning – the university, the profession, and the workplace (Malfroy, 2003), an opportunity for framing the study with a more specific focus on professional doctorate in education has been missed. Even though the title of the article includes the phrase ‘learning to become researching professionals’, its literature review touches very briefly on how students experience learning and even more scarcely on the concept of identity-formation. A more elaborate presentation of the title’s main topics in the literature review would be needed for its indication of a shift in EdD students’ identity. Buss et al. (2014) state the aim of the study to examine how one institution has attempted to develop researching professionals during their preparation in a CPED-based EdD program quite clearly. Their framing of the study includes a more specific focus on so-called “identity crisis” Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 58 of the EdD (p.138) manifested in its endeavour to distinguish itself from a more traditional PhD in education. Their literature review includes Shulman et al.’s (2006) critique of educational institutions for not striking a balance between “the practice of education and research in education” in EdD programmes. Furthermore, Shulman et al. suggest some specific features to distinguish an EdD from a PhD in education programme, one of them being employing signature pedagogies. This suggestion is utilised by Buss et al. (2014) to frame their study by specific CPED-based EdD programme’s features such as (1) CPED framework consisting of six working principles for re-visioned EdD programmes and (2) signature pedagogies such as cycles of action research (CAR) and leader-scholar communities (LSC). Hence the framing of this USA-based study is more specific and more laser-focused than Taylor’s study due to its close ties to the CPED framework and signature pedagogies. On the other hand, similarly to Taylor’s study, Buss et al. emphasise distinctive professional doctorate programmes’ location at the nexus of the profession, the workplace, and the university. However, they delve deeper into the multiple-layered location’s connotation for EdD students’ shifts in identity/ies. Despite their attempt to justify the tight focus on the EdD students’ three different identities – learner, leader and action researcher - it remains unclear why these three were chosen while the identity of ‘professional/practitioner’ has been omitted. 4.2 Design, conduct, argumentation and evidence-claim alignment Taylor’s (2007) choice of a study design firmly situated within ‘a phenomenological and descriptive/interpretive paradigm using case study methodology’ (p.154) is fully aligned with the research aim to elicit the EdD students’ understanding and perceptions of their learning to become researching professionals. Furthermore, a small-scale case study consisting of semi- structured interviews with 12 students enables a deeper look into lived experience of respondents. Taylor did briefly explore the study’s limited scope and concluded that her study falls into a category of studies focusing on one particular context that might possibly lead, to, according to Bassey (2001), ‘fuzzy generalisations’ relevant to other contexts. Due to the article’s word limits, it is understandable that the discussion of other similar research methods that could also align with the study’s aim (e.g., unstructured interviews, focus groups etc.) was not included. Although voluntary participation was described, further details of sampling strategy were not offered particularly with regards to the achieved wider population representation in terms of gender, professional employment, length of time spent on the programme and age as illustrated in Table 2 (p.159). Apart from confidentiality and participants’ permission to record the interviews, no other ethical considerations, e.g. potential risks of insider’s research, were mentioned. The research was conducted thoroughly with interviews being focused around three questions to provide a similar structure yet enriched by further questions to cater for individual responses. The questions asked included what being a student in the program meant to them; what students thought learning to research meant to them; and what they thought helped them to learn to Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 59 become a researching professional (Taylor, 2007, p. 158). The third question presupposes becoming researching professionals has happened. It does not leave much space for EdD students to express their doubts which may partly skew findings if they felt they had no choice but to confirm that they have become researching professionals. An open-coded framework developed through comparative method analysed all 12 transcribed interviews as one complete data set. This approach has its advantages and drawbacks, the former being easiness of pattern- discovery across the collected data and the latter one being also easiness of pattern-discovery across the collected data. One can argue that treating all 12 interviews as one complete data set rather than 12 separate data sets led to (consciously or unconsciously) coding predominantly for similarities in patterns. Identification of emerging categories and sub-categories as well as clustering and re-clustering led to the discovery of three ways of understanding learning to become a researching professional, namely conformity, capability, and becoming and being. Each of the themes has been illustrated by at least two illustrative extracts from the respondents’ answers but the clarifying definitions of the three descriptors were not elaborated. Consequently, it is hard to see whether and how they were justified by the illustrative examples. For example, conformity is illustrated by a student’s talk about gaining objectivity and distance from their own professional practice. Due to the lack of thorough elaboration of what the descriptor conformity means, the reader cannot necessarily draw immediately any obvious connection between conformity and objectivity/distance. Taylor’s discussion is much richer than presented findings and as such disproportional due to the above-mentioned drawbacks. Consequently, further implications read as based on larger corpus of her work and not only on the presented study. Buss et al. (2014) used a mixed-method approach justifying it by Greene’s (2007) suggestion that mixed-method studies contribute to elaboration and enhancement of the overall interpretations and inferences. Both the quantitative and qualitative part of the study was described in detail. An online questionnaire of 32 EdD students assessing their perceptions of the three identities (learner, leader, and action researcher) was administered first followed by interviews of nine recent EdD graduates and nine students new to the programme. Sampling strategies for the survey was not explained. The survey consisted of 24 statements on three identities (pre-determined by the researchers) to be evaluated on a six-point Likert scale. The enclosed interview schedule lists nine to 11 questions for both graduates and new students. Although both the quantitative and qualitative data analysis processes were thoroughly described, how and whether the quantitative results informed the qualitative data collection was not discussed. The authors claim that three themes occurred in interviews (personal responses, factors influencing their perspectives and changes) but they resemble more nodes than themes as the interview schedule shows that the EdD students were directly asked about these topics so their presence could hardly be referred to as ‘occurring’ i.e. emerging. The themes are richly illustrated by numerous illustrative extracts from the interviews. The presented findings are well matched with the illustrative data, but this may be due to a circular argument indicating Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 60 that what the students were asked about is what the answers were about thus fitting the theme boxes neatly. In the discussion sections, the authors argue for complementarity of the quantitative and qualitative findings and offer their interpretation of all three pre-determined identities (learner, leader, and action researcher) as being merged into a brand-new emerging identity of a scholarly and influential practitioner (SaIP). The authors explain this new identity though the principle of hierarchical integration which is the developmental phenomenon in which skills and/or identities develop separately but later integrate into a more complex entity. Again, in the form of a circular argument, the authors link their findings about identity as an action researcher to the contribution of the CPED-based action research approach in the studied EdD programme. Concluding comments heavily lean towards a praise of the CPED signature pedagogies including cycles of action research (CAR) and leader-scholar communities (LSC) without much evidence to justify such a promotional conclusion. 5 Discussion The critical analysis of the chosen articles showed how important (a) alignment between research aims and design is, as well as (b) between presented evidence and claims/interpretations. Of particular importance is an insight that, in order to (c) avoid circular arguments, (d) data coding and analysis need to be written and presented more elaborately with (e) careful selection of the illustrative examples. This is even more important when aiming to use published work to support research-informed improvements of own professional practice within the same field. Furthermore, for the research findings' trustworthiness and transferability into similar professional practices, (f) ethical considerations of insider's research need to be thoroughly explored and transparently presented. The question about whether a critical analysis of a few relevant research articles could prepare practitioners for designing research-informed improvements of own practice can be answered affirmatively. Firstly, the employment of 'the sort of critical frame' (Watkins, 2006, p.14) towards other researchers/practitioners' work brought insights into how to design a study, how to carry it out and above all, how to write/talk about it i.e. how to disseminate findings. Secondly, a critical analysis of previous research could be seen as a good starting point for designing own studies as it provides practitioners not only with a blueprint of how to design and carry out studies but also with a blueprint of how not to do it: (1) do not create causal relations where they might not exist (e.g. between market’s need for labour skills and emergence of professional doctorates, Taylor, 2007); (2) do not overclaim evidence and thus fall into 'promotional' trap (Buss et al., 2014); (3) do not ignore ethical considerations of insider's research and (4) do not ask presupposing questions that lead to fitting the pre- determined theme boxes neatly. All of these points, if taken into account, could lead to research- based improvements of professional practices or, as Hargreaves said, to '‘professional decisions Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 61 [...] based on the best available research evidence’ (as cited in Hemsley-Brown and Sharp, 2003, p.449). As a consequence of the critical analysis of the two articles on developing researhing professionals, the author of the paper submitted a research proposal for carrying out two focus group-interviews with current and former EdD students at her workplace. The aim of the small- scale qualitative study is to explore the EdD students' best liked features of the Professional Doctorate in Education programme as well as the students' favourite type of learning support on their doctoral journeys. The submission of the proposal for a reseaerch-informed evaluation of own practice demonstrates that testing criticial analysis of previous research as a starting point for designing studies for improving professional practices yielded fruit. 6 Conclusion Watkins (2006) reported that practitioners are not certain about how ‘to actually actively go about [research]’ (p.16) and where to start. The critical analysis of a few relevant articles exploring the same professional practice proved to be a good starting point as it brough about insights about how to carry and how not to carry study into own practice. Practitioners' engagement in designing and carrying out research-informed improvements of own professional practice could bring benefits to organisations with organisational culture which supports and values research. In this paper, the author, in her role of educational practitioner, tested whether a critical analysis of two articles could provide her with reflective learning about what to consider when designing and carrying out a research-informed evaluation of professional practice. The paper’s scope was limited to a criticial analysis of only two articles with a rather specific focus on developing researching professionals in the field of the Professional Doctorate in Education. Further research into additional factors aiding practitioners in their attempts to introduce research- informed improvements in their professional practices is certainly needed. References 1. Bassey, M. (2001). A solution to the problem of generalisation in educational research: Fuzzy prediction. Oxford Review of Education, 27(1), 5- 22. 2. Boud, D., and Hager, P. (2012). Re-thinking Continuing Professional Development Through Changing Metaphors and Location in Professional Practices. 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PhD: Been there, Done that – so, why do a (second), professional doctorate? in Burnard, P., Dragovic, T., Flutter, J. and Alderton, J. (2016) (Eds) Transformative Doctoral Research Practices for Professionals, Rotterdam, Sense Publishers 20. Perry, J. A. (2012). What history reveals about the education doctorate. In Macintyre, M. L. and Wunder, S. (Eds.) Placing practitioner knowledge at the center of teacher education: Rethinking the policies and practices of the education doctorate. (pp. 51-72). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing 21. Shulman, L.S., Golde, C.M., Bueschel, A.C. and Garabedian, K.J. (2006), Reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. Educational Researcher, 35(3):25-32. 22. Servant-Miklos, V. (2020). Problem-oriented project work and problem-based learning:" Mind the gap!". Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 14(1). 23. Sfard, A. (1998). On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One. Educational Researcher 27(2):4–13. Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 63 24. Taylor, A. (2007). Learning to Become Researching Professionals: The Case of the Doctorate of Education. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 19(2):154-166. 25. Watkins, A. (2006). So what exactly do teacher‐researchers think about doing research? Support for Learning, 21(1):12-18. 26. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. *** Tatjana Dragovic has obtained a master and Doctorate degree in Education (EdD) in Great Britain in the fields of adult education, knowledge transfer, professional identity and continuing professional development. Since 2007, she has been affiliated with the University of Cambridge, UK in teaching and researching roles in education, dialogic approach, leadership, coaching and research methods for practice research. In addition, Dr Dragovic has also been teaching qualitative research methods for doctoral (EdD) students and leading EdD research community »Leadership, Educational Improvement and Development (LEID)« at University of Cambridge since 2015. Her research interest lies in the fields of leadership development, professional identity, dialogic approaches, creativity, possibility thinking, coaching, continuous improvement and professional development. *** Tatjana Dragovič je magistrirala in doktorirala v Veliki Britaniji na področju izobraževanja odraslih in na podpodročjih prenosa znanja in profesionalnega razvoja zaposlenih. Od leta 2007 poučuje in raziskuje na Univerzi v Cambridgu, Velika Britanija na področjih izobraževanja, dialoškega pristopa, vodenja, coachinga in raziskovalnh metod za »practice research«. Od leta 2015 na Univerzi v Cambridgu poučuje doktorante kvalitativne raziskovalne metode in vodi raziskovalno skupino »Leadership, Educational Improvement and Development (LEID)«. Raziskovalno se ukvarja s proučevanjem razvoja voditeljstva, profesionalne identitete, dialoških pristopov, možnostnega mišljenja, coachinga in profesionalnega razvoja zaposlenih. *** Povzetek: Premostitev raziskav in prakse: uporaba analize člankov za pripravo strokovnjakov na raziskovalno utemeljeno prakso Raziskovalno vprašanje (RV): Ali bi lahko kritična analiza nekaj relevantnih raziskovalnih člankov pripravila strokovnjake na izboljšavo lastne prakse na podlagi raziskav? Namen: Namen prispevka je bil raziskati in preizkusiti, ali lahko kritična analiza nekaj relevantnih raziskovalnih člankov pripravi praktike na izboljšavo lastne prakse na podlagi raziskav. Kritična analiza dveh člankov je bila opravljena na temo relavantno za avtorjevo poklicno prakso a to je razvoj raziskovalnih strokovnjakov, vpisanih v program strokovnega doktorata na področju izobraževanja na univerzi v Veliki Britaniji. Metoda: Nekatere značilnosti sistematičnega pregleda literature so bile uporabljene za lažjo različico iskanja literature za ustrezne članke. Iskanje je bilo omejeno na družbene vede in zbirke podatkov o izobraževalnih raziskavah ERIC, lastne bibliografske baze podatkov NFER in podatkovno bazo CERUK, da bi zožili fokus na izobraževalno področje in na angleško govoreče države, kar se ujema s kulturno vpetostjo avtorjeve poklicne prakse. Rezultati: Kritična analiza izbranih člankov je pokazala, kako pomembna je (a) usklajenost med raziskovalnimi cilji in zasnovo raziskave ter predvsem (b) med predstavljenimi dokazi in Izzivi prihodnosti / Challenges of the Future, Članek / Article Maj / May 2024, leto / year 9, številka / number 2, str. / pp. 52–64. 64 trditvami/interpretacijami rezultatov. Posebej pomembno je spoznanje, da je treba, da bi se (c) izognili krožnim argumentom, (d) kodiranje in analizo podatkov napisati in predstaviti bolj dovršeno s (e) skrbnim izborom ilustrativnih primerov. To je še toliko bolj pomembno, če nameravamo z objavljenimi članki podpreti raziskovalno utemeljeno izboljšanje lastne strokovne prakse z istega področja. Poleg tega je treba za verodostojnost ugotovitev raziskave in prenosljivost v podobne strokovne prakse (f) temeljito raziskati in pregledno predstaviti etične vidike notranjih raziskav. Organizacija: Organizacije z organizacijsko kulturo, ki podpira in ceni raziskave, bi lahko imele koristi, ko se njihovi zaposleni aktivno vključujejo v izboljševanje lastne strokovne prakse na podlagi raziskav. Družba: Prispevek k družbi se lahko prepozna v uporabi kritičnega okvira s strani praktikov za najprej analizo objavljenih raziskav na njihovem področju in nato za izboljšave lastne strokovne prakse na podlagi analiziranih raziskav. Originalnost: Izvirnost prispevka je v njegovem formatu, saj hkrati raziskuje in preizkuša, ali bi lahko kritična analiza nekaj relevantnih raziskovalnih člankov pripravila praktika na oblikovanje izboljšav lastne prakse na podlagi raziskav. Avtorica v vlogi izobraževalnega praktike preizkuša, ali jo kritična analiza dveh člankov lahko pripelje do refleksivnega spoznanje o tem, kaj je treba upoštevati pri snovanju in izvajanju raziskovalno utemeljene evalvacije strokovne prakse. Omejitve/nadaljnje raziskovanje: Obseg prispevka je bil omejen na kritično analizo le dveh člankov s posebnim poudarkom le na razvoju raziskovalnih strokovnjakov na področju strokovnega doktorata v izobraževanju. Potrebne so nadaljnje raziskave dodatnih dejavnikov, ki praktikom lahko pomagajo pri uvajanju izboljšav na podlagi raziskav v svoje poklicne prakse. Ključne besede: raziskovalno informirana praksa, raziskovalni strokovnjaki, strokovna praksa, strokovni doktorat v izobraževanju, EdD. Copyright (c) Tatjana DRAGOVIC Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.