Abstract
Information from national surveys may take some time to have any impact on a decentralized educational system where, as in Scotland, responsibility for most matters is devolved to the local educational authorities. Surveys carried out as long ago as 1953 and 1963, however, have had sufficient time to influence policy and practice. These technically sound surveys were reported in detail with explicit recommendations arising from them but they seem to have had very little effect. The article concludes that to have influence on policy, research must speak to contemporary issues and be relevant to particular local circumstances. Surveys have curricular implications though it is rarely clear what they are for a particular teacher. Survey findings will inevitably tend to imply centralized control of the curriculum.
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