This paper will question the notion of research, evidence and tools within a practitioner enquiry orientated practice. Basing the discussion within the current education research and policy context in the UK and the wider Global Education Reform Movement, I will ask questions about how a practitioner enquiry frame as located within Scottish education professional learning model, encourages thinking about how teachers engage with research. Focusing on how we judge the tools we use (in research and teaching and learning) and how both perspectives might provide helpful insight into judgements of quality, a productive space will be created. With origins in my own pedagogical repertoire, examples of visual tools will be used to exemplify this thinking demonstrating how the data arising from their use can be translated into the research domain. I will conclude by suggesting that for practitioner enquiry to be perceived as more realistic for the majority of the profession then a productive synergy is needed between research methodology and pedagogy, where assumptions about 'good practice' on either side are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary in supporting practitioners' reflective and strategic thinking.