Translating Educational Research Into Practice: A Cross-Institutional Telephone Game?

• In Event: 70.014 - District Partnerships, Community Collaboration, and Programmatic Innovation: The Impact of Planning, Technology Use, and Building Capacity on School Improvement

Abstract

A perennial challenge facing education – and public policy, generally – lies with bridging the divide between the realms of research and practice. This paper explores one aspect of this challenge – the translation and transmission of research findings across institutional boundaries. Through in-depth case study of a multi-institutional partnership in which researchers, intermediary actors and practitioners engaged in an effort to collaboratively develop a research-based educational innovation, this paper explores this process of translation and transmission. The study also explores the organizational, institutional and cultural factors that mediated this process, as actors worked to make sense of the project’s research findings, and forge them into implementable programs and practices for their schools.

Subsection 3a

School reform, School districts, Partnership

Authors

• Christopher Harrison, Florida Southern College

• Stephanie Brown, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Stacey A. Rutledge, Florida State University

• John Wachen, The Learning Partnership