Research-Practice Partnerships: Current Practices, Future Possibilities

• In Event: The Power and Possibilities of Research Practice Partnerships and Community Research Collaboratives for Advancing Education Equity

Abstract

There are broad divisions in the different ways in which people talk about the goals of education and the competing strategies for improving education. Such divisions make it difficult to make progress on significant problems facing youth and their families. At the same time, there is a growing movement to pursue approaches to change that are locally-driven and collaborative, with people reaching out across differences (Tseng, Fleischman, & Quintero, 2017). This paper focuses specifically on research-practice partnerships (RPPs), a strategy for collaborative research that has shown dramatic growth in recent years (Arce-Trigatti, Chukhray, & Lopez-Turley, 2018).

This conceptual paper describes the current scope and breadth of RPPs in education. We begin by considering reasons why RPPs have emerged as a promising strategy for supporting educational improvement efforts through long-term, collaborative research. We outline the major changes in the RPP field in the past five years and argue for the need for an updated definition and shared language. To develop this common language, we conducted 50 interviews with educator and researcher representatives from new, hybrid, or divergent forms of RPPs, funders of RPPs, and scholars of RPPs. Using snowball sampling (Patton, 2002), we spoke with individuals who currently identify as part of the RPP field, like research alliances, design partnerships, and networked improvement communities, as well as leaders from other traditions that value collaborative research efforts (Coburn, Penuel, & Geil, 2013) Using a grounded approach to data analysis, we identified themes from these interviews (Miles & Huberman, 2002). After outlining this new definition, we discuss how these partnerships are different from other collaborations.

Next, we describe the diversity of today’s RPPs, outlining the wide range of approaches and designs. We present a list of the most prevalent dimensions along which RPPs vary, and we illustrate this variation (see below).

Diversity in RPPs

Focus and Breadth of Aims:
Focal goals
Meanings of equity and justice
Breadth of aims

Composition of RPP:
Expertise involved
Horizontal breadth
Vertical depth
Characteristics of Joint Work

Types of activities:
Intensity
Infrastructure
Roles

In the final section, we pose questions for the field regarding the future of RPPs, namely, measuring RPP impact; re-envisioning graduate education, learning across RPPs and other collaborative research traditions, and considering the roles for funding and funders.

This paper has implications for a range of stakeholders. For RPP participants, an updated definition can help potential partners when they are at the beginning stages of their collaborative work together. It can also help them consider tradeoffs about who to include and how to organize their collaboration. For those who study RPPs, these ideas can help clarify what is and is not an RPP. The dimensions of variability we identify can also help scholars study under what conditions RPPs are able to helping students learn and thrive in our nation’s educational systems.

Authors

• Caitlin Farrell, University of Colorado - Boulder

• William R. Penuel, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Julia A Daniel, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Louisa Steup, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Cynthia E. Coburn, Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy Human Development and Social Policy