Overview of Changes in Educational Research During the Last 10 Years

• In Event: Integrating Research, Practice, and Design: A 10-Year Collaborative Effort to Improve Middle-Grades Reading Comprehension

Abstract

At the turn of the millennium, educational research was still mired in a model that distinguished basic from applied research, an approach that assumed results obtained under conditions of careful control could rather easily be applied in classrooms and schools to improve outcomes. In 2000, a committee appointed by the National Research Council, motivated by the observation that this approach had not improved educational practice, started work to devise a new model for educational research. The new model was committed to principles that research should begin with urgent problems of practice, should be carried out by researchers and practitioners working in partnership, and should develop mechanisms for accumulating knowledge across sites and domains. We report in this symposium on the accomplishments of one such effort, ten years into its existence. The SERP-BPS Partnership has focused 10 years of effort on the district-selected issue of middle-grades literacy, in the process contributing to theory, to practice, to the design of new instruments, and to the development of two new programs to support reading comprehension.

Author

• Suzanne Donovan, SERP Institute