Starting With Partnership: A Framework for Learning About Organizing in Research-Practice Partnerships

• In Event: Fostering Deeper Learning in Research-Practice Partnerships: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives

Abstract

Starting with Partnership: A Framework for learning about organizing in research-practice partnerships

Purpose/objectives
Research practice partnerships (RPPs) are increasingly seen as a strategy for generating evidence of effective interventions for improving instruction reliably and at scale. Generating evidence about what works in varying contexts introduces novel and complex challenges on researchers and practitioners seeking to collaborate, learn together, and produce knowledge for others. In this study, we sought to understand: How do partners organize to implement and scale deeper learning?
Theoretical framework
Scholars of RPPs define these kinds of partnerships as being long-term, mutually beneficial collaborations between researchers and practitioners that bring research to bear on problems of practice experienced by practitioners (Henrick et al., 2017). Yet, research-practice partnerships are not created equal. We do not know how they engage in partnership which makes it difficult to replicate successful RPPs and there are few guides available to new partners.
In this study, we offer a framework for examining enactment of partnership in RPPs. We treat partnership as a verb instead noun to consider the interlocking, interdependent, and conditional behaviors in partnerships (Weick, 1969). Expanding on research of the common dimensions of RPPs (Henrick et al, 2017), we seek to distinguish variability in how RPPs engage in partnership.
Methods
The development of this framework took place within the Hewlett Deeper Learning RPP network. Drawing on organizational and sociocultural theories (i.,e Lave and Wenger, 1991; Orlikowski, 2002) and research on RPPs (Penuel & Gallagher, 2017), as well as, practical experiences of RPPs in this network, this framework was developed using an iterative process to develop and refine the framework. We aimed to be relevant and useful to network RPPs.
Preliminary Results: Conceptual Advancements

There are 4 main dimensions in this framework that characterize RPPs by their urpose, structures, processes, and dynamics. This framework conjectures that relations among these dimensions allow us to understand variability in active RPPs engaged in their work.
Scholarly and Practical Significance
To date, we know that RPPs are meant to inform knowledge-creation for the field, but we know little about what enables members of an RPP to learn together to create that knowledge, nor how they work as partners in partnership. We hope this framework will offer a new way to consider research and practice as distinct actors in an RPP and a lens into the work involved in the practice of partnership.
References

Bryk, A.S., Gomez, L.M., Grunow, A., LeMahieu, P.G. (2015). Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.

Henrick, E.C., Cobb, P., Penuel, W.R., Jackson, K., & Clark, T. (2017). Assessing Research-Practice Partnerships: Five Dimensions of Effectiveness. New York, NY: William T. Grant Foundation.

Lave, J., Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press: United Kingdom.

Orlikowski, W. J. (2002). Knowing in Practice: Enacting a Collective Capability in Distributed Organizing. Organization Science. June 2002.

Penuel, W.R., Gallagher, D.J. (2017). Creating Research Practice Partnerships in Education. Harvard Education Press: Cambridge, MA.

Authors

• Erin Henrick, Partner to Improve

• Felicia M. Sullivan, Jobs for the Future

• Kelly McMahon, Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching