Noeline Alcorn

The last few years have seen a burgeoning of official interest in educational research as the Ministry of Education espouses evidence-based policy making and teaching. A number of best evidence syntheses have been commissioned and published. These are encouraging trends even if the definition of best evidence is sometimes narrower than some of us would wish. At the same time the research imperative for academics across the country has sharpened following the Tertiary Education Commission’s research assessment exercise the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF).