Evidence‐based practice and e‐learning in Higher Education: can we and should we?

Policy makers are increasingly looking to evidence‐based practice as a means of ensuring accountability and validity in education and more recently in e‐learning. In this paper, the origins of evidence‐based practice are reviewed, and considered in relation to the emergence of e‐learning as an area of policy, research and practice. The close links between these three activities within e‐learning are described, and a critique is presented that raises methodo‐logical, epistemological and moral questions about this approach. This analysis identifies a number of implications for e‐learning, including the problems facing practitioner‐researchers working on project funding and the potentially distorting effect of e‐learning policy on research in this field. Possible alternative approaches are suggested, advocating a more inclusive conception of evidence‐based practice in which any single model (such as the hierarchy of evidence developed within medicine) is prevented from dominating evaluation by explicitly adopting a commitment to inclusivity and empowerment within evaluation and research.