ABSTRACT
Ask about the source of these improvements and research will soon be mentioned. Within fields like medicine and engineering, research is considered central to developments in practice. Indeed, the whole rationale for research in these areas is its potential to yield enhanced understanding and refinements in strategy which improve the effectiveness of practice. This does not mean that research is the sole spur for change-politics, fashion and economics also play their parts. Nor does it imply that research is invariably sound or fluently feeds into practice. The point is simply that, in these fields, research plays a significant role in the development of professional practice and in determining the standards by which practitioners’ practice will be judged. If robust research evidence indicates that treatment X has a better success rate than treatments Y and Z, then prescribing treatment X will be regarded as better practice than its alternatives, other things being equal.
