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Research-Practice Partnerships at the District Level: A New Strategy for Leveraging Research for Educational Improvement
Coburn, Penuel, and Geil define research-practice partnerships, identify the major types of partnerships that operate at the district level, describe challenges partnerships face and strategies for addressing these challenges. The authors draw on a review of existing research and interviews with participants in research-practice partnerships across the country.
Use of Research EvidenceEducation -
Systemwide Reform in Districts Under Pressure: The Role of Social Networks in Defining, Acquiring, and Diffusing Research Evidence
Published in the Journal of Educational Administration, this essay examines the way in which low‐performing schools and their district define, acquire, use, and diffuse research‐based evidence.
Use of Research EvidenceEducation -
The Research Says: Definitions and Uses of a Key Policy Term in Federal Lay and Local School-Board Deliberations
"Focusing on “research” as a key term in debates over U.S. education policy, this article compares the definition of research in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) with the meanings and uses of research in school-‐board deliberations in three local districts in Wisconsin. While NCLB articulates a narrow view of research and a hierarchy of methods, the school boards operated with an expansive meaning of research and combined its use with other evidence types. Appreciating the role that values play in crafting public policy, these local debates balanced technical and public modes of reasoning."
Use of Research EvidenceEducation -
Evidence Use and the Common Core State Standards Movement: From Problem Definition to Policy Adoption
"Despite calls for research-based policies, other types of evidence also influence education policy, including personal experience, professional expertise, and normative values. This article focuses on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative, examining how research use varied over stages of the process and how it was integrated with other types of evidence. By drawing on elite interviews, we find that CCSS promoters and developers used evidence in much the way that policy analysis research would predict and that while research evidence was a major resource, it was combined with other types of evidence depending on political and policy goals at different stages of the CCSS process."
Use of Research EvidenceEducation -
Studying the Use of Research Evidence in Policy and Practice
In this essay, Vivian Tseng and the William T. Grant Foundation senior program team describe the Foundation's interest in generating studies that focus on understanding the use of research evidence in policy and practice affecting youth and how to improve its use. The authors begin by defining what the Foundation means by research evidence and use of research evidence, acknowledging that research evidence is only one of several forms of evidence important to policymakers and practitioners. Tseng and colleagues then discuss reasons for studying the use of research evidence, and offer some early thoughts about fertile ground for future studies.
Use of Research Evidence -
How State Agencies Acquire and Use Research in School Improvement Strategies
This brief is based on an exploratory study that examined: "1) where state education agency staff search for research, evidence-based, and practitioner knowledge related to school improvement; 2) whether and how state education agency staff use research and these other types of knowledge to design, implement, and refine state school improvement policies, programs and practices; and, 3) how state education agencies are organized to manage and use such knowledge."
Use of Research EvidenceEducation -
Learning More About How Research-Based Knowledge Gets Used: Guidance in the Development of New Empirical Research
In this paper, Davies and Nutley provide a primer for those unfamiliar with prior work and conceptual frameworks for understanding the use of research in policy and practice. They critique the over-emphasis on a rational, linear model of research use that focuses on the instrumental use of research by an individual decision-maker, who begins with a policy or practice question, goes searching for information, appraises and weighs that information, and then applies it to a decision. They argue for better understanding of what Carol Weiss termed the conceptual use or enlightenment function of research. In this model, research broadens or challenges people’s understanding of issues and potential remedies. Davies and Nutley also call for increased study of the social processes and social contexts involved in research use. How is research diffused through policy networks? How do policymakers and practitioners come to interpret research through their interactions with colleagues, advocates, and other experts? How does research become embedded in organizations and systems? How is use of research influenced by local contexts?
Use of Research Evidence -
Partnerships: Shifting the Dynamics Between Research and Practice
Vivian Tseng discusses the Foundation's learning community of research-practice partnerships, writing, "Successful partnerships enable researchers to develop stronger knowledge of practitioners’ challenges, their contexts, and the opportunities and limitations for using research. And they allow practitioners to develop greater trust of the research and deeper investment in its production and use."
Use of Research EvidenceResearch-Practice Partnerships -
Improving the Connections Between Research and Practice
The prevailing research-to-practice model suggests a one-way street of moving research to practice. To strengthen research-practice connections, however, we need to build a two-way street with reciprocal exchanges.
Use of Research EvidenceResearch-Practice Partnerships -
The Uses of Research in Policy and Practice
This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding the uses of research in policy and practice, findings from recent empirical work, and early lessons from the field. The framework describes the ways policymakers and practitioners define, acquire, interpret, and ultimately use research.
Use of Research Evidence -
Partnership and the Politics of Care: Advocates’ Role in Passing and Implementing California’s Law to Extend Foster Care
"This report traces the history of [California’s Fostering Connections to Success Act] from when it was first introduced in the California State Assembly, through its passage and signing, and ultimately to its innovative and extensive implementation planning process. Thus, it covers the period of time from December 2008 through December 2011. The aim of this report is to document the California experience, highlighting its successes and challenges, so that other states may benefit, potentially smoothing the legislative and implementation processes there."
Use of Research EvidenceChild Welfare -
Toward a Research Agenda for Understanding and Improving the Use of Research Evidence
"Many researchers and research funders want their work to be influential in educational policy and practice, but there is little systematic understanding of how policymakers and practitioners use research evidence, much less how they acquire or interpret it. By understanding what does shape policymakers’ and practitioners’ decision making and the role of research evidence in those decisions, the research community may be able to improve the likelihood that their work will be used to directly inform policy and practice."
Use of Research EvidenceEducation
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