Studying Beneficial Uses of Research Evidence in Higher Education

Colleges and universities offer students opportunities to learn, develop skills, make friends, and connect to work—yet not all students realize these benefits (Ives & Castillo-Montoya, 2020; Rosenbaum et al., 2015).1

For example, first-generation students constitute roughly one-third of the students enrolled at post-secondary schools, but they continue to experience challenges accessing post-secondary education (Ives & Castillo-Montoya, 2020). They also have rates of progression and completion that lag when compared to students who have a parent that graduated from college (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2018). First-generation students report having had teachers who hold low expectations and experiencing sizable disconnects between home and school (Buffy Stoll, 2013; Ives & Castillo-Montoya, 2020).

Using research evidence2 to guide higher education policies and practice may help to promote rich learning experiences and long-term success for all students. Post-secondary leaders, administrators, state agency leaders, regulators, and advocates—a group that I will refer to in this essay as decision-makers—are grappling with how to best support student experiences and outcomes. Decision-makers routinely navigate pressing questions and new mandates around transitioning students from high school to college, promoting student well-being, and delivering high-quality instruction to diverse sets of learners (Ness et al., 2021; Steil & Swan, 2024). To address these questions, decision-makers draw on various sources of knowledge to inform their understanding and action plans, including data and research from within their institution, professional experience, and student input (Hollands & Escueta, 2020). Research evidence, which can mirror the knowledge needs of decision-makers, is also available to inform policy formation and implementation and can offer clues about improving student experiences and outcomes.

Yet, we know little about how to improve the use of research evidence by decision-makers in higher education settings as they design and implement policies and programs with the potential to consistently benefit most students (Finnigan, 2021; Hollands & Escueta, 2020; Kirkland, 2019). Even though research exists to guide efforts to improve higher education student experiences and outcomes, routine and meaningful use of that research evidence remains challenging. Accessing, making sense of, and using knowledge from research unfolds amid political pressure, alumni interests, student needs, legal pressures, and financial constraints (Horn et al., 2020; Scott & Jabbar, 2014; Tseng, 2012). While findings from research on the use of research evidence suggest that more intentional approaches are required that leverage relationships, affect, tools, and routines (Chorpita et al., 2025; DuMont, 2024; Yanovitzky et al., 2024), studies are needed to design and test specific approaches that improve decision-makers’ use of research evidence to promote student well-being and success in higher education.

Studies are needed to design and test specific approaches that improve decision-makers’ use of research evidence to promote student well-being and success in higher education.

The William T. Grant Foundation welcomes proposals that study strategies to improve the use of research evidence in higher education institutions to support, educate, and promote student well-being. Studies can examine strategies that promote the conceptual use of research evidence to add nuance to decision-makers’ understanding, shift ideas, challenge assumptions, reveal new insights, or inform frameworks (Farrell & Coburn, 2016). Other investigations might develop or test strategies to promote the direct application of research theory and findings to solve a problem, make a decision, or advance an improvement effort (Yanovitzky & Weber, 2020). Such studies, which target the instrumental use of research evidence, have the potential to encourage richer engagement with literature about the experiences of first-generation students and studies of policies and supports that propel and thwart the success of students. Understanding how to promote the use of research evidence to benefit students is a necessary next step.

This essay explores paths for research on the use of research evidence in higher education and proposes three considerations for researchers engaging in this work. First, to improve the allocation of resources that aid student experiences, researchers need to study decision-makers and the strategies that support their use of research evidence. Second, researchers need to evaluate specific conditions and strategies with the potential to improve decision-makers’ use of research, making it more commonplace and beneficial for all students pursuing a post-secondary degree. Finally, researchers must examine the consequences of decision-makers’ use of research evidence on student experiences and outcomes. At the end of this essay, I use the literature on first-generation students as a case study to illustrate this third line of inquiry.

Studying strategies to improve decision makers’ use of research evidence

Investigators must move beyond the growing literature about the use of research evidence by classroom instructors (Schweingruber et al., 2012; Singer, 2015; Singer et al., 2019) to also study decision makers’ use of research evidence in the design and implementation of higher-education programs and policies.

Decision-makers create policies that affect students’ learning experiences. They also make other high-level decisions that shape the higher-education funding, accountability, and learning system. Decision-makers include but are not limited to individuals or agencies with formal policymaking or policy implementation authority at the federal, state, and local levels; advocates and student groups who influence policymaking or policy implementation; and intermediaries such as professional associations and community organizations that provide information and technical assistance to inform their members’ decision-making.

Prior research on higher education settings has already studied barriers and facilitators to the use of evidence-based instructional practices (Singer, 2015; Sansom et al., 2023), the use of technology and research in classroom instruction (Martin et al., 2020), and the use of research to inform curriculum (Singer et al., 2019). These studies focus on research-informed practices and tools by educators (Singer, 2015), perceived institutional supports and barriers (Bathgate et al., 2019; Cairns, 2021), and individual motivation and skills (Diery et al., 2020). Findings from these studies are consistent with syntheses of barriers and facilitators of individuals’ use of research evidence in other youth-serving systems and highlight a range of conditions that support and obstruct the use of research evidence in settings affecting young people (DuMont, 2019; Finnigan, 2021; Oliver et al., 2014; Tseng, 2012; Tseng & Coburn, 2019).

By contrast, we have limited research about how decision-makers in higher education use research. A few studies have examined how advocacy organizations and amicus briefs incorporate research to inform state agencies governing higher education (Gándara et al., 2017; Garces, et al., 2019; Horn et al., 2020; Rubin & Ness, 2021). For example, Horn and colleagues (2020) study the use of social science evidence in amicus briefs to shape higher educational policy via the courts, both in the research selected for arguments and in its interpretation. Like findings from other policy spaces, this set of studies illustrate that intermediary organizations, including funders, vendors, community groups, and advocates, inject energy and influence into the knowledge production, sense-making, and use processes (Doucet, 2019; Kirkland, 2019; Neal et. al., 2018; Scott & Jabbar, 2014). Others have described how intermediary organizations underwrite the production of knowledge, elevate frames for interpreting research, infuse resources that broaden or suppress consideration of research findings, and resource processes and tools for integrating knowledge sources (Barnhardt, 2017; Neal et al., 2022; Reckhow & Tompkins-Stange, 2018; Scott et al., 2018; Scott et. al., 2014). In turn, this influence has implications for what knowledge is shared with those who design and implement higher education policy and how research-informed ideas and protocols become embedded into decision-making and routines. For example, most studies frame first-generation youth as students as lacking and not as learners who may offer stimulating viewpoints. Consequently, decision-makers have focused on isolated support for first-generation students and overlooked the benefits of deep integration for all students.

Research is needed to unveil knowledge around strategies that encourage administrators’ use of research evidence in ways that hold promise for positive student outcomes.

Studies regarding how administrators and mid-level managers in higher education settings use research evidence to benefit students are rare. Research is needed to unveil knowledge around strategies that encourage administrators’ use of research evidence in ways that hold promise for positive student outcomes. Building on what is already known from studies in primary and secondary education, child welfare, and mental health settings (Barnes et al., 2014; Chuang et al., 2023; Coburn et al., 2020; DuMont, 2024; Farley-Ripple, 2024; Farrell et al., 2022; Finnigan et. al., 2021; Honig et. al., 2017; Neal et al., 2018; Penuel et al., 2017), investigations might examine how the composition and flow of information through professional networks more uniformly deepens administrators’ and middle management’s use of research evidence.

Alternatively, research teams might investigate how specific elements of a campus’ technical infrastructure and organizational routines enable the time, space, and skills to critically evaluate and incorporate research findings into decision-making, policies, and practices. Still others might investigate student groups’ tactics to improve administrators’ access and engagement with research evidence that deepens understanding of issues at the forefront of students’ minds (Doucet, 2019; 2021). Study ideas like those noted may involve qualitative work to reveal and deepen understanding of key mechanisms or involve hypothesis testing of related work in other settings (Farley-Ripple, 2024). All studies should have clear implications for theory and design of strategies that bolster administrators’ routine use of research evidence in ways that more equitably fuel student progress, well-being, and post-college outcomes.

Evaluating strategies with the potential to improve research use in higher education

Research is also needed to evaluate specific conditions and strategies that improve research use in ways that are likely to benefit students (DuMont, 2024; Finnigan, 2021).

Prior studies in health, mental health, child welfare, and K-12 education settings consistently indicate the importance of relevant tools and infrastructure that assist with locally embedding research use in standing routines and relationships (Bathgate et al., 2019; Becker et al., 2019; Chorpita et al., 2025; Chuang et al., 2023; Coburn et al., 2020; Crowley et al., 2021a; Finnigan et al., 2021; Honig et al., 2017; Yanovitzky & Weber, 2020). For higher education, future investigations have a strong platform from which to launch their work (Crowley et al., 2021b; DuMont, 2024; Finnigan, 2021; Langer et al., 2016; Neal et al., 2022; Yanovitzky et al., 2024). Researchers might design and evaluate tools and technical assistance to ease decision-makers’ assessment of the credibility and relevance of research findings for their specific local contexts. In this example, improved use of research evidence might be defined as an increased use of knowledge from research, shifts in policy that reflect deep understanding and integration of knowledge of research with other knowledge sources, and the evolution of ideas over time (Beyer & Trice, 1982; Farrell & Coburn, 2016; Posner & Cvitanovic, 2019; Rickinson et al., 2023; Squires et al., 2011; Yanovitzky & Weber, 2020).

Research teams could also evaluate intentional efforts to cultivate partnerships between administrators, researchers, and intermediary organizations. These studies could examine their effectiveness in facilitating timely, locally relevant research. Pushing even further, teams could study how research use within these partnerships leads to reconfigured workflows or resource allocation. Equally important are evaluations of strategies that critique the underlying assumptions of the evidence base and to examine how this shifts attitudes and behaviors that have implications for various students and their experiences (Doucet, 2021; Kirkland, 2019; Hatton et al., 2022).

Policy-focused researchers, including political scientists, economists, and regulatory researchers might pursue other lines of inquiry. These researchers could ask questions about whether state or institutional policy mandates increase the use of research, say, about cost structures or approaches to admissions, for example. Teams might consider how this use of research in turn influences subsequent decisions and actions around admission, tuition, scholarship, and aid, and under what conditions the use of research evidence produces the intended changes in practices and outcomes. These questions are distinct from analyzing whether the policy directly affects student outcomes, such as studying how different funding strategies affect student outcomes (Kelchen et al., 2023). Instead, they position research use as a goal or consequence of the policy mandate, which in turn holds potential to inform a range of local policies and practices and student outcomes (Gándara, 2019).

Still others might investigate whether and how different state-offered support and incentives contribute to knowledge exchange mechanisms and institutional norms that encourage research use by decision-makers. Are structured peer-convenings a promising approach for increasing access, deliberation, and use of relevant research? What other strategies or incentives promote these goals? A recent framework offered by Meadow and colleagues (2024) might be useful to guide qualitative and quantitative assessments of shifts in individual and organizational capacity, relationships and their quality, and eventual outcomes.

Our Foundation welcomes studies that evaluate whether and how student-engagement strategies are effective in shaping administrators’ use of research evidence in the design and implementation of campus specific policies.

Our Foundation welcomes studies that evaluate whether and how student-engagement strategies are effective in shaping administrators’ use of research evidence in the design and implementation of campus specific policies. For example, teams might examine processes that result in power structures where students are able to successfully elevate research that communicates more nuanced narratives about their experiences and participate in sense-making activities, such that students help adjudicate what research is and is not appropriate for use in the design and implementation of policy (Doucet, 2021; Welsh, 2023). In the above examples, assessing improvements in the use of research evidence might involve understanding what research is used, who participates in sense-making processes, and how policy or standing routines shift based on a critical review of research. Our Foundation also welcomes additional measurement work to fully assess these concepts (Gitomer & Crouse, 2019).

Examining the benefits of research use on student experiences and outcomes

We need studies that examine how decision-makers’ use of research evidence in the design and implementation of policies affects student experiences and outcomes. Prior studies often overlook the consequences of research use for students (DuMont, 2024). For example, studies examining educators’ use of research-informed practices are largely indifferent to which youth do and do not benefit from the research used and why this might be the case, yet qualities of the evidence base and how that information is used matter (Doucet, 2020; Kirkland, 2019; Scott & Jabbar, 2014). Higher education decision-makers, along with students and parents, are eager to learn about how research-informed administrative decisions about stackable credits, meal plans, and instructional offerings influence student experiences and outcomes. In these decisions, studies might examine how the use of research of evidence might benefit some groups more than others.

But what do such studies of research use look like? In a commissioned synthesis about the use of research evidence in education policy and practice, Finnigan (2021) indicated that studies require “knowledge around a particular problem or set of problems; understanding the policies or strategies; and finally a grasp of who must be involved to implement these policies or strategies and an understanding of why action is required.”

Consistent with this framework and with Doucet’s (2021) recommendation to interrogate whose perspective is prioritized in the production and use of research evidence, we recently engaged in a conversation with our Board of Trustees on questions researchers might consider in studies on improving the use of research evidence in higher education. Of particular interest were studies focused on improving higher education administrators’ use of research relevant to first-generation students. We noted three factors that make this topic ripe for new research on improving evidence use in higher education: First, a robust research base exists about ways to better serve first-generation students. There are qualitative studies that richly describe student experiences, there is research conducted by community members, and there are experimental studies about promising evidence-based practices (Abreu et al., 2019; Castillo-Montoyo, 2021; Ives & Castillo-Montoya, 2020; Schweingruber et al., 2012; Singer, 2015; Singer et al., 2019). Second, a cursory review reveals there is room for using research to improve the quality of higher-education experiences for first-generation students. We readily identified conceptual, instrumental, process, and strategic uses of research evidence that have implications for student experiences. Third, and as described above, we found little research on strategies to improve the administrators’ use of the available evidence and engaged others to inform potential research agendas for this area.

To help us think through this understudied but opportune area for leveraging knowledge from research, we were joined by several experts: Milagros Castillo-Montoya, associate professor of higher education and student affairs at the University of Connecticut; Erik Ness, director and professor of higher education at the McBee Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia; and Susan Randall Singer, president of St. Olaf College, and chair of the Board on Science Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Research can help to reorient from perspectives where first-generation students are monolithically viewed as needing support rather than also being active contributors to the development of disciplines.

We hope that featuring a case study involving questions related to the experiences of first-generation students can spark potential lines of research for applicants to explore improving evidence use in higher education. Below are two study questions about strategies to encourage administrators’ use of research evidence in ways that are beneficial to the experiences of first-generation students.

How does the use of research evidence about first-generation students’ learning experiences contribute to shifts in administrators’ regard and understanding of first-generation students? Are there subsequent changes in admission requirements, professional training, and curriculum choices? What are the reported experiences and observed effects of these changes on student outcomes?

Conceptual uses of research evidence hold promise for disrupting the status quo (Doucet, 2021; Welsh, 2023) and offering richer campus learning experiences. The conceptual use of the existing research base can deepen and alter understanding of higher education system and its relationship with students.

Ives and Castillo-Montoya write: “The literature on first-generation college students largely focuses on the challenges and barriers they may experience in college. … We found a smaller body of literature that conceptualized first-generation college students as learners whose lived experiences, when connected to academic content, can contribute to their academic learning, advancement of disciplines, self-growth, and community development (2020).”

Research can help to reorient from perspectives where first-generation students are monolithically viewed as needing support rather than also being active contributors to the development of disciplines. Research that illuminates student experiences and possibilities has the potential to shift mindsets and shape instructional training to better ensure meaningful involvement of first-generation students as learners within institutions of higher education (Ives & Castillo-Montoya, 2020). Researchers studying the consequences of conceptual uses of research, likewise, need to thoughtfully conceptualize potential outcomes, focusing not just on the classroom outcomes of first-generation students, but also contributions to diversity of thought, knowledge development, and well-being outcomes, like mental health.

What strategies employed by student-led groups encourage campus administrators’ use of research evidence? Do these strategies lead to more research use and changes in campus learning experiences?

Here researchers might investigate whether the consequences of research use are better when students engage in the research effort, as well as whether or how students were able to use research to gain buy-in (Bogenschneider, 2019) from administrative leaders. Others might investigate whether student-administrator partnerships contributed to instrumental uses of research evidence such as new curriculum and more collaborative approaches to instruction or counselors with more culturally relevant skills (Castillo-Montoya & Ives, 2021). In turn, teams could assess changes in organizational routines, policies, and tools and student experiences, peer-networks, learning outcomes, mental health, and connections to internship or employment opportunities. Teams may also wish to assess how using research specific to lived experiences of first-generation students affected other students.

In the case of first-generation students, the literature is ripe for researchers interested in studying research use in higher education and for administrators’ use of theory and empirical findings. In addressing questions like the ones above, researchers would begin testing the long-held assumption that if research evidence is used to benefit young people, better student outcomes will result.

Closing invitation: Studying beneficial uses of research evidence in higher education

This essay encourages researchers to study strategies that facilitate more routine engagement with research by decision-makers who shape the governance and operation of higher education systems. But research use in and of itself is not the end goal.

Decision-makers’ use of research evidence must benefit students’ experiences and outcomes. We lack studies about: 1) how to cultivate the conditions that promote decision-makers use of research evidence, 2) the success of strategies designed to promote research use, and 3) under what conditions does the use of research by decision-makers make a difference to students.

Our Foundation invites applications that have carefully considered which research base has the potential to improve student access, affordability, experience, and success in post-secondary systems. These applications must also articulate which policy, program, or practice is ripe for using embedding research. Further, proposals must have designs that reflect the specific decision-makers in the higher education ecosystem and explain why they matter for the intended research use. Applications must also make a persuasive case that research use by the proposed set of decision-makers will matter for which students and which outcomes. Competitive applications will also articulate what conditions (e.g., trust, technical infrastructure, and/or organizational routines) need to be cultivated to improve research use in a particular program, policy or practice. Lastly, we welcome applications that study whether and how research use by specific decision-makers change outcomes for young people. These questions are distinct from analyzing whether the policy directly affects student outcomes, and instead position research use as a change mechanism enroute to improve student outcomes.

Findings from research studies can provide decision-makers direction on how to enhance student mental health; create high-quality, inclusive learning environments; and transition students into and beyond post-secondary settings.

But we are not there yet. Unless we figure out how to encourage routine and meaningful use of the knowledge research has to offer, it is unlikely that decision-makers will allocate resources, design programs and policies, and implement practices that realize these outcomes. We need studies that shed light on how to promote more beneficial uses of research evidence in higher education. We invite the research community—who themselves play a critical role in students’ success as faculty and administrators—to pursue unanswered questions about how to improve the use of research evidence in higher education.