Depth of Use: Characterizing the Role of Evidence Across Decisions in One Central Office

• In Event: Partnerships, Policies, and Parental Involvement

Abstract

The press for “evidence-based” decision-making has elevated expectations for use of research, evaluation, and data in improvement efforts. For educational organizations, however, increasing the role of evidence may be difficult to put into practice: They may encounter difficulties acting appropriately upon evidence, and decisions may seem based in other considerations. Subsequently, evidence use may look different across sites or decisions, making it insufficient to uniformly label decisions as "evidence-based." Drawing on data from a year-long case study of a central office, the paper explores how administrators engaged with evidence across three initiatives. From these decisions, we develop a set of dimensions that help articulate for both research and practice a continuum of practices that can be considered “evidence-based”.

Authors

• Elizabeth N. Farley-Ripple, University of Delaware

• Vincent Cho, Boston College