Scotland’s national education research organisation has hit out at the government for neglecting research into “very topical and high-profile issues”, such as the effect of child poverty on school education.

According to the Scottish Educational Research Association (Sera), there is “serious anxiety” among academics about levels of funding for educational research and the government’s responses to research undertaken.

This, they say, means we do not know what is working well or what areas need to be addressed. Their fears echo the 2015 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report Improving Schools in Scotland. The OECD lamented the lack of “any large-scale research or evaluation projects by either the universities or independent agencies” and called for “more active partnerships with the research community”.

However, the academics point out that even when research evidence is available, it is not always taken on board. The government has, for example, come in for widespread criticism for ploughing ahead with standardised national assessments and education governance reforms, despite critics claiming a lack of compelling research to support such programmes.

The University of Glasgow’s Stephen McKinney is president of Sera. Speaking on behalf of the association’s executive, he said: “There is a serious anxiety, shared by many members of the executive, that there is currently very little government funding for educational research.”

He cited the void left by the defunct Applied Educational Research Scheme, which was credited with breeding a new generation of education researchers in Scotland.

The £2 million programme - set up by the then Scottish Executive and the Scottish Funding Council, and led by the universities of Edinburgh, Stirling and Strathclyde - ran from 2004 to 2009. But there has since been no equivalent scheme.

In 2011, Tes Scotland reported on findings showing that, of the 65 social research projects commissioned by the Scottish government over a year, five had an educational component - the total cost of which was only £122,000.

How government responds to research evidence

Of the current situation, Professor McKinney said: “There is also some anxiety about the ways in which the government responds to research evidence and adopts the findings of research evidence.”

There are “some notable and very welcome exceptions” of funding for research, continued Professor McKinney, such as the Measuring Quality in Initial Teacher Education project, which is being led by academics from Edinburgh and Strathclyde universities. But there is currently a dearth of research into “very topical and high-profile issues”, such as the effect of child poverty on school education and the impact of Curriculum for Excellence, he said.

The concerns come as a well-respected academic, who has been working in higher education for over four decades, has highlighted several under-researched areas in Scottish education.

Douglas Weir - a former dean and vice dean of the University of Strathclyde’s School of Education - unveiled his list as he stepped down from his role as visiting professor at the University of Aberdeen’s School of Education last month. Professor Weir said that the capacity for education research in Scotland had been “considerably reduced” during his time in education - as had the funding.

He added: “We therefore suffer from policy decisions being based on opinion and partial evidence, such as ‘consultations’ rather than systematic evidence collection and analysis.”

Education secretary John Swinney said: “We are firmly committed to creating a world-class education system that helps all of our children to succeed and draw on a range of evidence to inform our policy decisions.

“In line with the OECD’s recommendation, we are taking further action to better understand what is working in our schools and what isn’t - including the major new research strategy for education we launched in April - after discussions with academic and education stakeholders. The resulting research will greatly improve our evidence base as we continue to drive improvement, raise attainment for all and close the poverty-related attainment gap.”