ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the underlying concepts of best-evidence medical education, highlights the difficulties with this, suggests a pragmatic approach to practising in this way, and provides information on adding to the evidence by undertaking medical education research. The absence of enthusiasm for sufficient, rigorous academic inquiry and the implementation of existing positive evidence, together with the persistence of traditional methods, are limiting development. Just as with the Cochrane Collaboration, where evidence-based medicine, reviews of evidence and meta-analyses of various medical interventions are collated, the beginnings of a series of reviews in the areas of evidence-based teaching, and evidence-based policy and practice, are appearing in education. Life history research provides valuable insights into the way in which teachers comprehend their world and manage the constraints and conditions in which they work. Often this research is undertaken using a series of in-depth interviews over time.
