This article is a response to the AATE statement of belief 'We use research and evidence to inform teaching practice and improve the learning of students'. This statement and the elaborating notes focus on the was in which teachers, throughout their careers, use research for the key purposes of informing their teaching practices and improving students' learning. The author maps the territory of research, including some backwards mapping, to explore impact. There are major challenges for researchers seeking to identify the impact of teachers' professional learning on students' learning. The most significant challenge lies in the need for research that takes place over a sufficient period of time to connect evidence of the impact of teachers' professional learning to changes in teaching practices and eventually to changes in student learning outcomes. In considering the statement, the nature of evidence in research becomes a key issue, in terms of the extent to which it is valid and reliable, and in terms of the extent to which the evidence provides a basis for generating findings that are reliable and generalisable. A recent Australian national study used the literacy assessment instruments designed for a longitudinal study to measure the progress of young children in the early years and combined this information with videoed classroom observations of literacy teaching practices. The development of a Classroom Literacy Observation Schedule enabled researchers to observe the literacy teaching practices of a national sample of teachers who, on the basis of value-added analyses of their students' performances in one year of school English literacy teaching, had been identified as being highly effective. A key finding of this study was that the more effective teachers demonstrated a wide range of literacy practices from all dimensions of the observation schedule. The article discusses trends in research in the teaching of English with reference to the range of research activities discussed within the statement of belief.