Educational practitioners’ conceptualizations of the nature, impact and challenges of educational research in Kazakhstan

Educators and administrators in secondary and higher education in Kazakhstan have experienced significant reforms since 2010. New policies, curricula, pedagogy, assessment practices, accountability mechanisms, and legislation were implemented in an education revolution, to modernize Kazakh education and build human capital for economic prosperity. The development and use of educational research is a component of these reforms but little is known about practitioners’ understanding of and engagement with educational research. This qualitative study employed individual in-depth interviews with ten educational practitioners in secondary and higher education to address the knowledge gap. The findings suggest that practitioner understandings of research remain underdeveloped. While some practitioners both consume and produce research to improve practice and institutional decision-making, issues of access to research, the challenge of time within workload and perceptions of the limited relevance of externally produced research continue to be barriers to more extensive utilization of research. Further research is being undertaken to explore this issue with policymakers and researchers. The findings may be used to improve the mobilization of research to policy and practice, especially in other post-soviet contexts.