Persuading Teachers to Adopt Academic Theories (Or Deontological Perspectives in Professional Motivation to Translate Academic Theories into Praxis)

Abstract

This article is to encourage debate about the challenges for academics wanting to see our theories translated into practice in schools. Conventional academic articles do not provide information ready for immediate download into daily school practice. Should academics therefore publish in alternative formats and styles as exemplified in the `newspeak' first title for this article? Such formats can catch attention but can over-simplify carefully wrought cautious research. Finding a compromise between these two extremes so that theory can indeed be linked to praxis is part of the debate engendered by the post-modernist disaspora in research methodology. Pluralism in research methodologies has become accepted but pluralism in the ways in which research can be reported is much less common. The article discusses, and provides examples of, professional, traditional and alternative formats and the ethical issues that can arise from these.