Nurturing a Decade-Long Research-Practice Partnership: Initiating and Sustaining Relationships

• In Event: The PASS Project: Reflections on a Decade of Research (Division J, Vice Presidential Session)

Abstract

Purpose: The success of the [redacted] project would be negligible without the support of our practitioner partners. The second presentation will highlight lessons learned from a decade of collaborating with a wide range of university stakeholders.
Perspective: For the past decade, we have collaborated with three campuses on research and dissemination activities. As we launched the project, it was vital to build trust among research team members and campus partners, relationships that were tended to with great care over the course of a decade. Trust was essential in ensuring that we would learn from each other and remain open to critique. At first, the majority of our relationships revolved around a comprehensive learning community. Then, over time–and as we expanded the focus of research activities–we deepened relationships with diverse stakeholders across campus. In the second phase of the project, we created and implemented Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) focused on learning from previous research, exploring campus data and practices, and then seeking opportunities to enact change.
Methods/data sources: We conducted over 300 interviews with practitioners and faculty, analyzed over 475 practitioner surveys, and observed over 800 hours of activities on campus and via Zoom. Insights shared in this presentation will draw on those data as well as on researchers’ reflections on their role in the research-to-practice process.
Results: Our strong collaboration with campus partners has enabled us to vet emerging research findings and thus enhance the trustworthiness of study findings. We have also created practitioner-oriented presentations and materials that have been well-received by practitioners at our partner universities and more broadly in the field of higher education. While we continue to explore the impact of the PLCs with our campus partners, we have begun to share lessons learned from our collaboration about how to foster cross-functional collaboration, how to spread learning across campus, and how to enact institutional culture change. As one example, we recently published an article that explains why and how PLCs can be an effective tool for institutions seeking to achieve equitable outcomes and foster meaningful experiences for at-promise students attending their campuses.
Significance: This presentation has particular significance for researchers who seek to develop positive, ethical relationships with their research partners.

Authors

• Rosemary J. Perez, University of Michigan

• Liane I. Hypolite, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona