Strategic Plan

• Undertake research to resolve key evidence gaps, engaging partners and methods as best suited to each question
• Link and analyse data to better understand education challenges and opportunities
• Ensure rigorous and ethical conduct of research

Output

• An expanded and evolving evidence base exists as to the most effective strategies to address Australia’s education challenges.

• Synthesise existing high-quality evidence relevant to Australia’s education needs
• Curate high-quality resources from other rigorous evidence brokers relevant to these needs
• Translate AERO’s own research into useful resources for practitioners and policymakers
• Develop and test all of AERO’s resources with key audiences to ensure they are engaging and actionable
• Publish resources on AERO’s website, disseminate them proactively and engage partners to extend their reach
• Observe the use of AERO’s publications and resources to continually improve their effectiveness

Output

Evidence to inform decision-making in education is presented in a well-organised, engaging and actionable manner that is valued by practitioners and policymakers. 

• Build a culture of continuous, confident evidence use
• Undertake partnerships with services, systems and sectors to investigate, test and promote the strategies needed to support greater evidence use
• Quantify and monitor the use of evidence in Australian education

Outputs

• Practitioners and policymakers are supported to deepen their understanding of why and how to effectively implement evidence.
• Services, systems and sectors are supported to deepen their understanding of the strategies needed to promote greater evidence use by practitioners and policymakers.

AERO understands the importance of actively engaging and supporting partners at all levels to achieve its outcomes.

AERO engages directly with practitioners. We invite practitioner input into our Research Agenda. Our publications and resources are freely available and are designed and tested to ensure they are relevant, accessible, engaging and actionable. We seek feedback on our resources and observe their use in practice to continually improve their effectiveness.

AERO knows that changing practice in education settings requires time, coherent messaging and resources, and ongoing support. Those who manage and lead early childhood services and schools are best placed to ensure these conditions. AERO takes care to ensure its work responds to the needs of these partners, is produced with their maximum engagement, and can be used by them in their contexts to support improvement.

AERO’s team and partnerships are guided by these values.

• Ambition We have an unwavering commitment to achieving excellence and equity in Australian education.
• Collaboration We work with others to expand the depth, breadth and impact of education evidence.
• Rigour We apply relentless attention and care to ensure our work is of the highest standard.
• Diversity & inclusivity We seek and learn from difference of background, opinion and experience. We ensure the many contexts and experiences of Australian education are embedded in our work.
• Transparency & integrity We build trust by being honest, sharing our work and supporting new ideas. We welcome scrutiny to enhance the integrity of our processes

AERO is committed to making a positive contribution to the success of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people.

As a new organisation, AERO is seeking to build its relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, hear their priorities and understand how these communities would like us to work together. AERO is developing its Reconciliation Action Plan over the course of 2021 to make sure it contains concrete, meaningful actions – regarding both the work we do and the way we do it – that reflect the expectations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

AERO’s research is governed by its Principles for the ethical and responsible conduct of research and the AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research

For each area of research that has been prioritised, AERO starts with what is already known about that topic. For some areas, there may be no, or insufficient, existing research evidence. In these cases, AERO leads the generation of new, high-quality evidence. Research may be conducted by AERO itself, or in partnerships, or commissioned from other research experts.

AERO’s priority is to deeply engage partners so they can learn with us from research projects and drive change as a result of findings. For each research project, AERO convenes a project advisory group comprising representatives of interested systems, sectors and peak organisations, as well as expert researchers and practitioners. These advisory groups will function differently depending on the scope and scale of the project, providing input to ensure the work is relevant to the needs of the education community. Systems, sectors and peak organisations are invited to nominate research sites and can partner in field work. The group reviews and discusses findings, with input into the recommendations and the format in which they are presented.

AERO works to maximise the insights that can be drawn from data about Australian education. It collects, links and analyses data from a range of sources, including longitudinal data sets. This work allows us to identify and better understand trends in education. It also provides correlational evidence on education practices, programs or policies and identifies promising approaches for future causal evaluation.

AERO’s processes to ensure its work is rigorous and ethical have been developed in consultation with established research bodies, systems and sectors, are publicly available on AERO’s website, and include:

• Standards of evidence, which set out AERO’s position on what constitutes rigorous and relevant evidence, and provide a basis for consistent, transparent decisions regarding research design and interpretation
• Principles for the ethical and responsible conduct of research and processes for project approval and oversight
• Quality assurance and peer review processes.

For some areas in AERO’s Research Agenda, robust evidence already exists. In these cases, AERO does not duplicate with new primary research. The task is one of synthesis – analysing the existing research to identify the highest quality findings and presenting them in a way that facilitates their dissemination, adoption and implementation. AERO uses the same standards of evidence in assessing research for inclusion in synthesis projects as it uses to design primary research. AERO convenes project advisory groups for larger synthesis projects or groupings of topics for synthesis work. These processes may be truncated for smaller projects.

Evidence that AERO has generated or synthesised is developed into publications and resources that are relevant and accessible for diverse needs. AERO’s guiding design principles are that resources must be:

• engaging – speaking directly to audience needs and contexts, in accessible language, with appealing design and in a range of multimedia formats
• actionable – containing step-by-step, practical guidance with a range of resources to assist in planning, implementing and assessing the impact of recommended strategies.

Resources may include case studies, reflection guides, work samples, videos and tailored professional learning resources. Project advisory groups provide input into the types of resources that are produced and their design features.

For other topics, not only will substantial evidence already exist, but others will have already transformed it into highly effective publications and resources. Rather than duplicate, AERO seeks to curate and promote this work. AERO uses the same standards of evidence to make determinations regarding the quality of resources considered for promotion in this way. AERO engages other evidence brokers who hold similar standards of evidence to maximise the coverage of topics for which high-quality resources can be made available to the Australian education community.

Resources are piloted with intended audiences prior to finalisation.

All of AERO’s publications and resources are freely available online, organised in an intuitive and searchable platform, centred on key audiences and the needs they have raised with us. AERO promotes those resources and engages with users through a targeted social media strategy.

AERO offers technical workshops to present new findings and resources to practitioners, systems, sectors and peak organisations, including relevant representative and professional associations. These workshops aim to build understanding of the evidence and promote consideration of the implications of research findings for different contexts. Partners are encouraged to share AERO’s work with their networks.

AERO recognises that for many practitioners, their primary source of guidance is their employer, and the most effective means to disseminate high-quality research findings is via the materials, professional learning and policies of their services, systems and sectors. AERO provides technical assistance to enable key partners to adapt resources for their specific contexts, while maintaining fidelity to the research conclusions.

Following publication, AERO seeks feedback on its resources via its website and social media channels. AERO also seeks out services and schools where implementation can be observed. These observations aim to study how the resources are used, whether they lead to improved practice and the factors involved in their success or otherwise. This work allows AERO to continually refine the design of its resources, while learning more about practical challenges in evidence use.

High-quality evidence, made accessible and widely disseminated, will not be enough to achieve AERO’s vision. We must also enhance adoption and effective implementation. This will depend on both the culture that exists around evidence use in Australian education, and the support available for practitioners and policymakers to use evidence effectively.

AERO works to increase understanding of the importance of evidence use in education. We seek to accelerate the national conversation about education evidence by direct engagement with the profession, by building coalitions with partners engaged in education evidence and by thought leadership in education forums and the mainstream media.

AERO also works to increase practitioner and policymaker confidence in using evidence. We produce resources and conduct activities that support practitioners and policymakers to understand what it means to be evidence-informed in their roles and what steps they can take to become more evidence-informed. We promote common concepts and language about evidence use and establish forums in which challenges and successes in working with evidence can be discussed.

The most effective ways in which services, systems and sectors can support evidence use by practitioners are not yet fully understood. AERO will lead an ongoing program of work on the conditions that best support adoption and effective implementation of evidence-based changes in Australian education.

This work will be a collaboration with partners, including professional learning bodies, around Australia. Experiments will test the effectiveness of varying approaches and levels of support offered to practitioners to implement evidence-based practices. AERO and partners will coordinate these experiments to allow comparisons between approaches. Results will be shared to assist partners to plan effective strategies to support sustained, evidence-based change.

AERO is creating and validating measures and instruments to ascertain the current state of evidence use in early childhood and school settings, monitor its change over time, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at enhancing it. This work seeks to determine:

• the level of understanding that there is an expanding and robust evidence base for decision-making in education
• the ways in which practitioners and policymakers engage with evidence and their confidence in doing so
• how widely evidence-based practices are being employed
• the barriers that inhibit greater uptake of evidence-based practices

AERO will use these measures to conduct and publish research on the state of evidence use in Australian education, beginning with a baseline diagnostic in 2021, as well as in AERO’s evaluation of its own impact.