What's the Big Idea? Conceptual Uses of Research in Research-Practice Partnerships

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session Six
  In Roundtable Session: Research Use in Multifaceted Contexts (Table 6)

Abstract

Despite strong policy pressures to increase educational leaders’ use of findings from research, little scholarship has examined how and under what circumstances research-based ideas are taken up. In this paper, we investigate conceptual uses of research in two research-practice partnerships (RPPs). We find that RPPs can indeed serve as effective structures for fostering conceptual uses of research. RPPs where the organization of joint work allows for effective sensemaking create the conditions that allow for “big ideas” to become pervasive among district leaders. Ideas are taken up in distinctive ways based on their positioning in the idea environment of the district. We see this work as setting the stage for future studies tracing conceptual uses of research in RPPs and elsewhere.

Authors

• Eleanor Anderson, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Angel Xiao Bohannon, NORC at the University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• William R. Penuel, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author