Based on a literature review, Dagenais et al. (2012) concluded “that the use of research-based information is hardly a significant part of the school-practice scenario” (p. 296). According to Barnat (2019), teachers are more likely to actively search for information when faced with a problem, which is probably why their use of current evidence is not a daily routine. In addition, seeking out the best available sources of research can be a complex and time-consuming task (Thomm et al., 2021a) which also might hinder teachers from using evidence.

There is a variety of individual reasons that might be responsible for the limited use of educational research findings in teaching practice. National and international research has until now identified some specific factors that can be considered as necessary prerequisites for teachers to make use of evidence-based information that can help improve teaching and learning. So motivational variables and subjective beliefs are crucial when it comes to performing specific actions (Bandura, 1993; Liljedahl, 2011). More specifically, teachers’ beliefs influence their perceptions and judgments, which will affect their behavior in the classroom (Pajares, 1992, p. 307). This link between attitude and behavior can be explained by the theory of planned behavior, “designed to predict and explain human behavior in specific contexts” (Ajzen, 1991, p. 181) and postulating “that behavior is a function of salient information, or beliefs, relevant to the behavior” (p. 189). According to that, Kiemer and Kollar (2021, p. 13) showed in their study that negative beliefs about the utility of educational evidence play an important role. They have a negative effect on the use of evidence-based information. Thus, when teachers are using evidence in their daily activities, their beliefs about the relevance of evidence are at least as important as their skills to do so (e.g., Thomm et al., 2021b). Previous studies show that teachers’ beliefs about the relevance of educational evidence vary considerably (Hemsley-Brown and Sharp, 2003; Dagenais et al., 2012; van Schaik et al., 2018). Thus it is not possible to paint a uniform picture (Thomm et al., 2021b).

Relevance can be seen as “a personally meaningful connection to the individual” (Priniski et al., 2018, p. 2). Thus, the more likely a topic or activity, such as using educational evidence, plays a meaningful role for an individual, the higher the perceived relevance. According to the relevance continuum of Priniski et al. (2018), a teacher might perceive a study on the topic of flipped classroom as relevant because the teacher has long wanted to try out the concept in the classroom, but not necessarily because the reading of educational evidence per se is of relevance, which is an example of the lowest level of personal meaningfulness (personal association). The next level on the relevance continuum is personal usefulness: a teacher, for example, might consider reading educational studies to be relevant because scientific findings can help to prepare lessons and ultimately improve student learning as an essential target of the teacher’s work. An example of the highest level of relevance (identification) is that a teacher might consider reading educational studies to be relevant because orientation to scientific knowledge is perceived as an essential part of professional responsibility.

Stuckey et al. (2013) offer a broader perspective on the meaning of relevance by focusing more strongly on the consideration of consequences. Applying their theory to the present issue, evidence-based information becomes relevant if its use has (positive) consequences for the teachers. These positive consequences can be both intrinsic and extrinsic and they can relate to current situations and decisions or the future. The intrinsic components relate to personal motives and the teacher’s interest, while the extrinsic components relate to expectations from their personal and professional environment as well as from society (Stuckey et al., 2013). Following this idea, appropriate evidence-based information can support the teacher in lesson planning and thus be perceived by the teacher personally as a reduced workload. Another example of the intrinsic component is that the use of evidence on effective teaching strategies can increase the learning outcomes of students and thus contribute to the achievement of predetermined competence goals (e.g., KMK, 2022). The political and social demands for evidence-based practice in schools, and the related expectations of politicians or parents “that educational research will make a difference in what students learn, what teachers know, and what they teach” (Greenwood and Mabeady, 2001, p. 334), are an example of an extrinsic component. Regarding consequences that relate more to the future, the development of the teaching profession toward a scientifically based profession and the associated greater effectiveness as well as recognition can also serve as an extrinsic example here (Knogler et al., 2022).

However, even if a teacher considers the use of evidence to be relevant, various conditions must be met to successfully utilize evidence, which is, for example, a supporting environment at the school (Brown and Zhang, 2016), access to sources as well as the skills to read and interpret educational research findings (e.g., Bauer and Prenzel, 2012; Lysenko et al., 2014), or adequate time resources (Mosteller et al., 2004). Thomm et al. (2021a) examined the relations between such conditions and showed that better source access had no significant effect on the perceived irrelevance of results from education research. A plausible reason for this is, that teachers often miss clear and applicable implications of educational research studies (e.g., Lysenko et al., 2014). Finally, teachers are primarily interested in answers to typical everyday problems in the school context and practical applicability (Beelmann, 2014). This lack of applicability as well as the various challenges they face when using evidence stresses that specifically processed information has the potential to support evidence-based practice. Hence, specific ways of communicating and disseminating relevant evidence-based information to teachers are required that are appropriate for the target group and which according to Fleischman (2009) encompasses in particular an adequate format and a reasonable language. Regarding the use of educational research findings as an essential prerequisite for establishing an efficient evidence-based practice, researchers are assigned a key role in implementing change (Fleischman, 2009).

In short, to understand the claims and needs of teachers, it is therefore not only important to what extent teachers use evidence in their everyday work but also, as an essential prerequisite for this, to what extent and why they see evidence as relevant to themselves and their work as teachers.

Teachers begin to deal with the concept of evidence during their coursework at university, e.g., by reading scientific studies. However, teacher educators are still confronted with various challenges when it comes to translating evidence into their practice (Georgiou et al., 2023). Moreover, the demand for evidence-based practice goes beyond higher education, and teachers themselves should be able to bring it into their daily work routine.

To date, there has been little research on how teachers select different sources of information (Kiemer and Kollar, 2021) as well as on ways of transferring scientific knowledge into practice (e.g., Gräsel, 2019). Thus, not much is known about how relevant knowledge must be prepared for teachers so that they can use and implement it in classroom practice.

So far, different formats have been developed which aim to promote the use of evidence-based information by practitioners in the field of education. For example, Wenglein et al. (2015) examined how specific training can enhance the argumentative use of evidence by pre-service teachers. In addition to such formats, efforts are made to promote evidence-based practice through science communication. According to Burns et al. (2003), science communication can be defined as “the use of appropriate skills, media, activities, and dialogue” (p. 191) to produce personal responses to science such as awareness as well as the familiarity and understanding of (new) research findings. Practitioners could thus be directly and regularly informed about school-relevant research findings based on primary studies (Fuchs et al., 2021) or research syntheses such as meta-analyses or systematic reviews (Hillmayr et al., 2017; Diery et al., 2020a). Intermediary organizations such as clearing houses (e.g., the What Works Clearinghouse in the US) deal with the question of what works and aim to bridge the research-practice gap in education by using the method of research synthesis (e.g., Joyce and Cartwright, 2020). This method allows the existing evidence to be summarized based on an overall balance and thus improves the generalizability of the findings (Beelmann, 2014). The pyramid of evidence (e.g., Bromme et al., 2014) shows different sources of evidence-based information, which helps to assess their quality. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are presented at the top of the pyramid, as they yield the most valid research findings for evidence-based practice and, at the same time, are less error-prone than individual experimental studies. Case studies or practice guidelines represent the lowest level of the pyramid, as their results are not generalizable, and confounding variables cannot be controlled.

Short reviews and plain language summaries are specific formats to provide summaries and ratings of current meta-analyses for practitioners (Diery et al., 2020a; Benz et al., 2021). Some formats focus on the specific target group and prepare scientific content directly for school practice (Hillmayr et al., 2017). Regarding the teachers’ request for better applicability of evidence (e.g., Beelmann, 2014), the combination of specifically processed information with evidence that is based on research syntheses seems promising to strengthen evidence-based practice. In all of these rather long-term endeavors, it is important to “involve educators at every step of the way” (Fleischman, 2009, p. 80) and to “consider how evidence is currently used in education” (Fleischman, 2009, p. 72).

The teacher sample was compiled in cooperation with the Bavarian State Institute for School Quality and Educational Research (ISB), an institution commissioned by the Bavarian Ministry of Education to contribute to the qualitative improvement of the school system in Bavaria. We used purposive sampling (Cohen et al., 2007) to access a group of teachers who are expected to have a similar understanding of the concept of evidence due to their teaching subjects (STEM). Moreover, they have a high level of teaching routine because of their teaching experience (13.17 years on average).

The teachers were notified by email of the planned interview and invited to participate.

Twelve teachers (three of them were male) agreed to take part in the interview study. Since the sample was chosen regarding the focus on teaching mathematics and science within the present study, all of the interviewees taught at least one science subject (i.e., biology, chemistry, physics, or natural sciences in general) or mathematics at a secondary school in Bavaria, Germany. Seven of them taught at a Gymnasium (highest track), three of them at a Realschule (middle track), and two at a Mittelschule (lower track, where students receive a basic general education). Additional background information on the teacher sample is presented in Table 1.

In the written request, teachers were informed that the interview was about the relevance of research from the perspective of practitioners. To ensure comparable interview conditions, all interviews were conducted by the first author—who did not know the interviewees beforehand—using a pre-developed semi-structured guideline. The interviews were carried out between March and July 2020. Due to the conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, all interviews had to be conducted via telephone. The interviews were recorded as audio files and transcribed afterward.

The interview consisted of the following questions, divided into three parts:

For the present study, we were interested in anything that teachers considered to be evidence or evidence-based. To avoid misunderstandings and ensure a consistent understanding among the teachers, the more commonly known terms research findings or research-based information were used as forms of evidence. Explanations regarding our understanding of evidence were given if needed. Whether the respective basis to which the teachers referred was generated according to the usual standards of scientific practice cannot be verified in detail, and is not initially relevant to the purpose of the present study.

The average duration of the interviews was 25.67 min (SD = 10.23). First, the audio records of all interviews were transcribed verbatim. The text material was then analyzed following the method of thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006). This method is primarily intended to gain insight into the complexity of teachers’ beliefs and behavior, as it is “a flexible and useful research tool, which can potentially provide a rich and detailed, yet complex, account of data” (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p. 78). It allows us to identify, analyze, and report (different or similar) themes within our data. A theme “captures something important about the data in relation to the research question” (p. 82).

While the main themes (beliefs about relevance, usage behavior, barriers) were identified theory-driven (Diery et al., 2020b; Kiemer and Kollar, 2021; Thomm et al., 2021b), the detailed data analysis was carried out inductively, so that sub-themes could be identified primarily based on the available data material, i.e., on the specific content expressed by this individual group of teachers (Braun and Clarke, 2006).

According to the method of thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006), the analysis process consisted of the six following phases:

Overall, the teachers rated an orientation toward evidence in practice as very important (n = 10). One teacher said:

Another teacher said:

In several cases, however, the relevance was seen depending on the feasibility and applicability (n = 4). One answer was:

Accordingly, three teachers added:

In one case, the gap between theory and practice was strongly emphasized: conditions of everyday school life seemed to be insufficiently considered in research and thus findings were claimed to be not beneficial for practice. One teacher also emphasized the importance of orientation toward evidence in the context of teacher training—but then the feasibility of the content was decisive.

Three teachers stated that relevance and the orientation toward evidence depended on individual needs. If an existing concept—from the teachers’ perspective—had been successful so far, it should not be completely modified even if this was recommended based on scientific findings. In this case, selectively changing concepts that have proven successful was more sensible.

Whereas several teachers regarded teaching experience as at least equivalent to scientific findings, one of the interviewed teachers mentioned that experience and initiative should always be consistent with current research findings. Another interviewee saw it as an obligation of teachers to place their trust in science.

In two cases, the relevance was seen as dependent on the type of school. These teachers stated a great need for orientation toward scientific knowledge especially for the lower track Mittelschule: “At the Mittelschule, of course, research results are not as present, as perhaps at the Gymnasium.”

Four of the interviewees justified the relevance of evidence for practice with the associated opportunity for personal and school development. They argued that schools are subject to permanent change and need to constantly adapt to the lives of their students. To enhance student learning, instruction must be continuously improved. Only by knowing relevant prerequisites, high-quality teaching can be guaranteed. A lack of orientation toward evidence may thus risk a standstill of development.

In seven cases, the potential of orientation toward evidence was seen in the fact that it offered support and guidance to teachers: specifically, lesson planning and design were mentioned here, as well as the interaction with students. In two cases, a special need for the Mittelschule was addressed, since these teachers usually also teach subjects for which they have not completed a university degree. Additional subject-specific knowledge in a form suitable for the target group would therefore be helpful to the respondents.

Moreover, it was mentioned that a scientific basis could facilitate the acceptance and attractiveness of innovations and enable objective discussions, decisions, and conclusions. In one case, the added value of an orientation toward evidence was seen in the fact that different federal states of Germany or school systems could be compared with one another, and thus successful concepts could be adopted.

Four of the interviewees stated that their teaching was influenced by evidence-based information, from strongly to selectively:

In three cases, the influence was more indirect, for example, via the curriculum or subject-oriented educational teacher training. In these cases, research did not directly influence teaching. Regarding teacher training, however, one teacher said:

Another teacher said:

Five other respondents stated that their everyday work was hardly or not at all influenced by evidence-based information, for example:

Another answer was:

This was supported by another teacher:

When asked for specific examples of when teachers used research-based information, the topic of using digital tools was mentioned most frequently (n = 8), and two teachers referred specifically to the handling of digital tools:

Evidence for the purpose of individual support and differentiation of students was mentioned five times, for example, regarding learning difficulties or gender-specific support:

Evidence was also taken into account in lesson planning and design (n = 3), more specifically, teachers incorporated student feedback, flipped classroom, or learning goal-oriented basic models:

Three times, students were reported to engage in research-based learning themselves, such as experimenting in research labs:

The curriculum itself and its competency-based nature were mentioned by three teachers as an evidence-based example:

Only one teacher did not have any specific example of using or considering evidence.

The majority of the respondents stated that they obtained evidence-based information in magazines, such as subject-oriented educational journals, some of which contained practical examples (n = 9). Eight teachers gained their knowledge from teacher training. In seven cases, the teachers used the Internet for information retrieval, with three of the respondents citing specific social media channels in which they regularly and actively obtained information. Six teachers reported that they obtained information from their school environment—for example, by exchanging ideas with the teaching staff or via relevant information portals. In five cases, higher education institutions were named as sources of evidence-based information. For example, these teachers took part in specially offered lectures or acquired their knowledge through collaboration with the university. Two teachers also used offers from the state institutes as well as classical news formats. One of the teachers regularly visited education fairs.

The most frequently mentioned quality indicator of research-based information was its direct feasibility in the classroom (n = 10). The interviewees attached importance to the fact that the effort required for appropriate preparation and practical implementation should not be too high. One teacher stated that evidence-based information should always be aligned with the curriculum to better assess advantages and disadvantages. Three of the teachers considered the conciseness of evidence-based information to be an important characteristic: information should be available in a bundled manner. It was also important to the respondents that the research-based information offered concrete ideas or subject-specific examples that could be implemented directly in the classroom. Two of the interviewees stated that the top criterion was the subject specificity of the material. Practical feasibility should be given not only in terms of content. Relevant information should have the potential to be implemented according to the respective situation (federal state, type of school). In four cases, the expected learning success of the students was mentioned as the top quality indicator. Evidence-based information should help to ensure learning success and to convey the subject matter in such a way that the students remain motivated and interested. In addition, the teachers’ own experience played a role in the assessment of the evidence: for three of the respondents, the material should be plausible based on their own experience. In five cases, the source played a role in the assessment of quality. Various indicators were named here that can be assigned to the common scientific quality criteria (e.g., generalizability, validity). One of the interviewees stated not to use any specific indicator for assessing the quality of sources.

Nine of the respondents saw time resources as a barrier to using evidence-based information in the classroom. There seemed to be a lack of time and resources for preparation as well as a lack of available teaching time. For the implementation, for example, the search for suitable material, the examination of scientific knowledge, the weighing of advantages and disadvantages within the individual conditions as well as the adaptation to the learning environment of the students were required and seemed to be too time-consuming.

Also, nine of the 12 teachers mentioned organizational conditions as a barrier to using evidence-based information. Most of the time, teachers mentioned constraints regarding the technical equipment or the curriculum. Especially teachers of the Mittelschule, due to the heterogeneous student body, saw little capacity to use evidence-based information in class.

Further, the question of accessibility of scientific findings was raised. Half of the teachers mentioned a lack of usable material as a barrier to integrating evidence-based information in their classroom work. On the one hand, the particular development of suitable evidence-based material was seen as enormously time-consuming, therefore the teachers used to rely on existing material. However, they claimed that adequate material was difficult to find and available material—such as scientific papers or research summaries—in most cases was too unspecific in terms of both the subject and individual teaching conditions. They noted a lack of concrete examples as well as subject-specific information in the material, so it was not directly applicable in the classroom.

In several cases, teachers called for more consideration of scientific findings, especially in in-service teacher training, which should convey relevant findings more practically. According to the interviewees, teacher training was often rather based on experience and is not sufficiently scientifically sound.

Although most teachers state that evidence-based teaching is important, our data put this into perspective and suggest a certain reluctance of teachers to adopt evidence-based practices in their classrooms. Several teachers emphasized the significance of aspects related to the particular teaching situation.

Although an orientation toward evidence in practice turned out to be of personal meaningfulness for some of the interviewed teachers, the actual relevance seemed to depend on the feasibility in the classroom as well as on individual situations of the teacher and school. The greatest potential of evidence was seen in its offer of support and guidance, specifically for lesson planning and design. However, only a few teachers intentionally used evidence in their work routines. According to most of the teachers, their work was either indirectly—for example, via the curricula—or hardly, or not at all influenced by evidence. Specific examples of the use of evidence were mostly related to teaching methods such as the use of digital tools or differentiation of learners. Subject-specific content was rarely mentioned. The teachers mainly gained new research insights from magazines, teacher training, or the internet including social media channels. Barriers regarding the use of evidence that teachers faced were organizational conditions such as inadequate technical equipment at school or the curriculum. Moreover, a lack of (subject-)specific material seemed to be problematic. The comment that limited time resources were responsible for the rather rare use of evidence-based information is a quite general aspect that is known from other contexts as well (e.g., Diery et al., 2020b). The most important quality indicator of evidence-based material was its feasibility in the classroom followed by the type of source itself and the expected learning success of students. Furthermore, the conciseness of information, as well as subject-specific examples, were considered crucial.

Particular demands for additional subject-specific knowledge for the lower track Mittelschule were mentioned several times throughout the interviews since these teachers often did not have a sufficiently content-related qualification in all subjects they teach. Because of various difficult conditions in these low-track schools, increased support for teachers should be provided to allow the use of evidence-based practices.

Whereas the use of evidence-based information by teachers as well as the development of appropriate formats to enhance evidence-based practice is still under-explored (e.g., Dagenais et al., 2012; Gräsel, 2019; Georgiou et al., 2023), the present case study provides insights into mathematics and science teachers’ views on the relevance as well as the use of evidence-based information by a thematic analysis of the current interview data. The aim of our constructivist approach was not to generalize the findings, but to highlight the individual beliefs and thoughts of the specific group of STEM teachers. To find out, if the findings may be transferable to teachers in other disciplines, further studies should be conducted.

There are several limitations of this study. As the teachers participated voluntarily, the findings might rather represent the claims and needs of an upper bound, and thus the perceived relevance, as well as the usage of evidence, could be substantially lower regarding other teachers on the secondary school level. Although we addressed our interview request to several teachers through various communication channels, only 12 teachers attended. This may indicate that evidence-based teaching is not yet the focus of teachers although evidence is considered an important criterion in the classroom, studies on student performance provide concrete results, and—at least partly—curricula have included this aspect.

Furthermore, the method of thematic analysis is assigned to hermeneutics (Devi Prasad, 2019) and thus in this case aims to understand what teachers think whereas possible explanations for their behavior and beliefs might be better analyzed within other study designs. Finally, the responses from our interviewees might have been biased by social desirability since the demands for evidence-based practice in the school context are commonly known these days (Bromme et al., 2014). As already stated by Thomm et al. (2021a) future studies should therefore consider “process data that mirrors teachers’ actual behavior when engaging with educational research” (p. 7). In this way, the appropriateness of different science communication formats could also be examined more directly.

The interview data show that—according to the answers of most of the teachers—the use of currently available evidence-based information seems to go along with an additional effort regarding lesson planning as well as teaching time. Moreover, a lack of appropriate material is problematic. Thus, it seems crucial to provide specifically processed evidence-based material for teachers (Thomm et al., 2021a). As feasibility was the most mentioned aspect regarding quality indicators of evidence-based material, formats such as the mentioned user-oriented practice brochure (Hillmayr et al., 2017) can potentially support the use of evidence-based information. The fact that respondents rarely use evidence concerning specific subject content may be related to a lack of available material. Such formats should therefore contain subject-specific examples that can be implemented directly in the classroom (Hetmanek et al., 2015).

Furthermore, the subjective experiential knowledge of teachers seems to play an important role when it comes to using evidence. The theory of conceptual change describes that subjective beliefs may be based primarily on a person’s experience and do not necessarily consider accepted scientific theories (Liljedahl, 2011, p. 103), which sometimes leads to robust misconceptions. As “conflicts between prior beliefs and scientific evidence may foster and stabilize a strong preference for experiential over scientific sources” (Thomm et al., 2021b, p. 1,058), it is essential to fundamentally change inaccurate beliefs—ideally during pre-service teacher training. Therefore the theory of conceptual change should be considered in interventions to change beliefs regarding teaching (Liljedahl, 2011).

As organizational conditions were mentioned as one of the two most significant barriers to the use of evidence-based information, the implications of further studies should be more closely aligned with the curricula. School-related factors such as the implementation of a culture of using evidence to improve practice (Thomm et al., 2021a) seem pivotal and implications of studies should therefore offer concrete guidelines for different types of schools to optimize their current framework conditions—regarding special needs particularly for the lower track Mittelschule. According to Brown and Zhang (2016), “evidence use will never be fully or meaningfully realized unless school leaders prioritize evidence-informed practice as a school commitment” (p. 780). In line with that, Bathgate et al. (2019) suggest that stakeholders should pay more attention to identifying and strengthening conditions that promote evidence-based practice while reducing challenging factors.

Besides the mentioned challenges, the interviewed teachers also identified potentials regarding the use of evidence-based information, namely the opportunity for support and guidance in terms of their daily work. Typical everyday problems in the school context should hence be the subject of future studies. Therefore, it is necessary to get teachers more involved in the research process (Fleischman, 2009) and to consider their specific and current needs when planning and designing research studies. Stronger collaboration between researchers and practitioners could also help to illustrate the importance of scientific information—even if it conflicts with experiential knowledge—and that evidence is primarily intended to support as well as optimize existing teaching and learning processes instead of requiring additional efforts. To promote a user-driven research culture, teachers’ awareness should be raised that not only scientific input is important for practice, but also vice versa. The problem that practitioners often see teaching and research as two unrelated activities (Medgyes, 2017) could be addressed in dialogic formats of science communication (Burns et al., 2003). Here, teachers could work with researchers to promote evidence-based practice through the generation of practice-based evidence (Bryk, 2015). This may also increase teachers’ sense of relevance by being part of an evidence-generating practice.

Evidence-based practice is not a sure-fire success (Bromme et al., 2014), and thus more research on the topic of using, processing, and finally sharing evidence-based information is needed, and with it, more collaboration between interdisciplinary-oriented and subject-oriented researchers as well as practitioners (van Schaik et al., 2018). The themes identified within this case study can offer directions for further research questions which should be examined based on representative samples as well as samples of teachers from other disciplines to find out under which conditions evidence-based practice and hence ultimately learning and teaching processes in school can best be strengthened.