The Science–Practice Gap: Why learning does not always change practice.

A mini blog from Dr Suzy Green.

I become genuinely excited by new research, ideas and developments in our field. I sign up for courses with the best of intentions — and then, more often than I would like to admit, one of two things happens: I do not finish the course, or I finish it, enjoy it enormously, and never create the time to think carefully about how it should influence my actual practice.

I know I am not alone. Research on the transfer of training has long shown that only a relatively small proportion of what people learn through formal development is consistently translated into changed behaviour or practice. The issue is not simply whether we remember the content. It is whether we create the conditions to apply it.

For practitioners, that requires more than attending a course or reading a paper. We need time to reflect, to test ideas against real cases, to consider where a finding is useful — and where it may not be — and to integrate it with our existing knowledge, judgement and experience.

Supervision can support this process, although it is often understandably focused on immediate client work rather than on reviewing emerging research. Psychology and medicine have long used another structure designed specifically for this purpose: the journal club. One person presents a paper, and the group critically examines both the research and its implications for practice.

These kinds of structured conversations are still relatively uncommon in coaching and positive psychology practice. Yet they matter, because the gap is not only an individual one. The broader science–practice gap persists when researchers and practitioners attend different conferences, publish and read in different places, use different language and have too few opportunities to work together.

Access is also part of the problem. Valuable research is often hidden behind paywalls or communicated in language that is difficult for a busy practitioner to digest. At the same time, researchers may have too few opportunities to hear what is actually happening in complex, real-world practice.

Closing the science–practice gap therefore needs movement in both directions: research that is more accessible and relevant to practice, and practice-based insight that can inform better research.

That is another reason I created COLLECTIVE+: to bring academics and practitioners into the same conversations; to critically examine research rather than simply consume it; and to ask the question that matters most: what, if anything, should this change in the way we practise? Our Founding Cohort membership opportunity is closing soon, we’d love you to join our growing group of leaders and practitioners ready to learn and share together. JOIN US HERE!