The Digest Issue 8

The eighth issue of the Digest features insights about where new research might help identify ways to reduce inequality in youth outcomes after COVID-19, as well as how the fields of implementation science and research on research use might learn from each other in ways that yield more transformative research in years ahead.

Reducing Educational Inequality After the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Do We Know, and What Research Do We Need?

By Adam Gamoran, Richard J. Murnane

Today, as the pandemic recedes, its effects are still with us, in education as well as in other domains. We have considerable knowledge about how to respond to growing inequality, yet many questions remain. New research is needed to help ensure that our education system not only overcomes the increase in inequality induced by the pandemic, but reduces the inequality that was already in place prior to 2020.

Emergency Exits: Avenues for New Research to Improve Youth Outcomes After COVID

By Anya Kamenetz

As the effects of COVID linger on, researchers have a crucial role to play in cataloging them. Even more important, by developing knowledge about exactly who is affected and how, researchers can provide evidence that points the way toward successful responses.

Learning Across Contexts: Bringing Together Research on Research Use and Implementation Science

By Lauren Supplee, Allison Metz, Annette Boaz

The fields of implementation science and the study of research use in policy and practice travel on many of the same roads and share similar goals, chief among which is improving societal outcomes through the application of research. But key differences in these two fields of study and the assumptions they make in the empirical work provide opportunities to strengthen the next generation of both.

Building Evidence Systems to Integrate Implementation Research and Practice in Education

By Norma Ming

Whether framed as a problem of practice or research use, understanding implementation is critical for identifying and redressing the inequitable distribution of resources, facilitators, and barriers in our systems, which give rise to disparities in student outcomes.