ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what has (and what has not) been written about quality use of research within the health, social care, policy and education sectors. Based on a cross-sector systematic review and narrative synthesis of relevant literature, it shows that:
there is a general lack of explicit definitions or descriptions of quality of use across all four sectors;
quality use of research can be seen “as a gap” not only in education but also in health, social care and policy;
there are some important exceptions in terms of a small number of publications that have discussed aspects of quality of use in an explicit way;
these publications are helpful in raising questions about the manner in which evidence is used and suggesting vocabulary with which to capture higher-quality use;
there are also themes cutting across the four sectors that can be seen to have implicit or indirect links to the issue of quality of use;
these themes are helpful in highlighting the importance of practitioner expertise in using evidence and the systems complexity of evidence use improvement; and
all of the above ideas have implications for our task of conceptualising quality use of research in education.
