It is well known that children who read more tend to achieve higher scores in academic reading tests. Much less is known, however, about the link between reading different types of text and young people's reading performance. We investigate this issue using the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 database, exploring the association between the frequency with which teenagers read five different types of text (magazines, non‐fiction, fiction, newspapers and comics) and their PISA reading scores. Analysing data from more than 250,000 teenagers from across 35 industrialised countries, we find evidence of a sizeable ‘fiction effect’; young people who read this type of text frequently have significantly stronger reading skills than their peers who do not. In contrast, the same does not hold true for the four other text types. We therefore conclude that encouraging young people to read fiction may be particularly beneficial for their reading skills. Interventions encouraging fiction reading may be especially important for boys from disadvantaged socio‐economic backgrounds, who are less likely to read this text type.

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Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the immediate and longerterm effects of school closures and ongoing interruptions on children's learning have been a source of considerable apprehension to many. In an attempt to anticipate and mitigate the effect of school closures, researchers and policymakers have turned to the learning loss literature, research that estimates the effect of summer holidays on academic achievement. However, school closures due to COVID-19 have taken place under very different conditions, making the utility of such a literature debatable. Instead, this study is based on a rapid evidence assessment of research on learning disruptionextended and unplanned periods of school closure following unprecedented events, such as SARs or weather-related events. We argue that this literature provides clearer evidence on what helps children return to learning under similar conditions, and in this sense has more direct relevance for schools after COVID-19. A narrative synthesis of key recommendations is presented. Key findings are as follows: (i) that school leaders' local knowledge is pivotal in leading a return to school, (ii) the curriculum needs to be responsive to children's needs and (iii) that schools are essential in supporting the mental health of students. A discussion of the applicability and utility of these findings is provided in light of emerging evidence of challenges faced by schools in the context of an ongoing global pandemic and the disruption to education it continues to create.

This paper argues that direct control of the early years literacy curriculum recently exercised by politicians in England has made the boundaries between research, policy and practice increasingly fragile. It describes how policy came to focus most effort on the use of synthetic phonics programmes in the early years. It examines why the Clackmannanshire phonics intervention became the study most frequently cited to justify government policy and suggests a phonics research agenda that could more usefully inform teaching. It argues that, whilst academics cannot control how their research is eventually used by policy-makers, learned societies can strengthen their ethics policies to set out clearer ground rules for academic researchers working across knowledge domains and with policymakers. A stronger framework to guide the ethical interpretation of research evidence in complex education investigations would allow more meaningful conversations to take place within and across research communities, and with research users. The paper suggests some features for such a framework.

This article argues that policy-related research needs to question the assumption that policy questions can be addressed through the use of research methods that examine the issues through one lens only. It proposes that mixed methods research designs work well when they exploit the potential to see different things, and recognize the limits and the potential that each method offers. In this regard it suggests paying particular attention to team composition, organization, and team work. Drawing on two exemplar studies of policy-related research, the article identifies key ingredients in their mixed methods research designs; the equality of status given to the different research approaches used; the importance of tailoring research questions in relation to their own epistemological and methodological assumptions; the importance of distinguishing between different forms of explanation in the process of comparing and presenting quantitative and qualitative data. Keywords mixed methods, policy-related research, research design, research teamsIn this article we consider the current policy context within which mixed methods are coming to the fore and suggest that this raises a number of important issues for social scientists. In particular, we question the assumption that policy questions can be addressed through the use of research methods which examine the issues through one lens only and adopt one way of framing the research question. In contrast, we argue for a pragmatic approach (Morgan 2007). As Morgan suggests, methodologically we need to connect issues of epistemology and the values underlying policy assumptions with Articles at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on May 31, 2015 abs.sagepub.com Downloaded from