Do medical and nursing practitioners make greater use of research findings than heads and teachers?
Studies that aimed to make specific comparisons between teachers and other professionals tended to conclude that educationalists were less likely to use research literature than other professionals. Two studies were identified that set out to compare the behaviour and attitudes of different professional groups, including professionals in education alongside those in medicine and other fields (Latham, 1993; Hannan et al., 2000). One study (Hannan et al., 2000) attempted to find out whether doctors make more use of research than teachers by administering self-completion questionnaires to a small sample of 17 general practitioners (GPs), teachers (35) and surgeons (25). Key findings from research by Hannan et al., (2000) and Latham (1993) are summarised in the following paragraphs Educators made little use of professional literature compared with general practitioners and surgeons (Hannan et al., 2000). The authors found that compared with surgeons, the GPs and teachers appeared to be les
