On the whole I try to post something about events I’ve been to and this week I fully intended to hear the Don and Dusted: Is the Age of the Scholar Over? At the British Library, but events defeated me and I had to miss it.  I listened to the appetiser on the Today programme later and was even more annoyed that I didn’t make it.

Something which completely bemused me when I first left the world of academic English teaching and the scholarship that goes with it, for the world of educational technology, was what that ICT world seemed happy to call “research.” Over the years I’ve still never got used to it. The idea that someone can scribble a few inarticulate pages online, drag and drop a few minutes of video footage showing some exploited child enthusing about the latest gadget, and call it “research” just doesn’t cut it for me I’m afraid. I wasn’t at all surprised when the archetypal example told me he was simply too busy to write any books. He had loads of great ideas, of course, just couldn’t find the time to write.

Even more worrying has been the growing trend for pay-the-piper research. The pharmaceutical industry was the leader in this field but it has slowly crept its way into education too. You know the kind of thing, leading mobile phone manufacturer discovers mobile phones just happen to be responsible for a 50% improvement in GCSE grades. I actually don’t have any problems with that kind of blatant approach, it’s just another form of marketing. But some organisations and commercial suppliers are a lot less honest and their web presence is often supported by what looks at first sight like genuinely independent research. A bit of research about the researcher however, often reveals that their work is anything but objective. 

In a period where a lot of energy, effort and money is being channelled into improving education, the least we should expect is that if someone cites research findings or evidence to back up their proposal or policy, it comes with a bit of integrity.

And on a different note. What a joy to find that John Donne was voted second best poet by the 18,000 people who responded to the BBC’s poll for National Poetry Day. In my view he was actually first because there is absolutely no way half the people who voted for T.S Eliot have read anything he ever wrote…just seen Cats.