The Practice of Improvement Research in Education: A Comparative Analysis of Improvement Methodologies in Local Contexts

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: The Evolving Landscape of Improvement: Theorizing for the Future of Improvement in Education

Abstract

Over the past decade, improvement research in education (IRE) has emerged as a distinct area of educational research that leverages novel organizational forms and methodological approaches to support locally grounded improvement efforts. In contrast to traditional educational research, which primarily emphasizes the production of generalizable knowledge, IRE seeks to build educators’ capacity for knowledge production and use through rigorous inquiry embedded in practice-based settings (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016; Cohen-Vogel et al., 2025; Russell & Penuel, 2022). To date, scholarship examining IRE as an emerging field remains limited and has largely focused on differentiating IRE from other dominant research paradigms and articulating the broad principles that characterize the field. While this work has helped establish the contours of IRE, there is a need for research that more directly examines how knowledge is produced and used through improvement work in practice contexts. In this theory-building study, we examine and compare how 20 diverse IRE approaches organize, structure, and enact improvement methodologies in local settings. Using a comparative case study methodology, we develop and empirically ground an analytic framework that identifies common domains of improvement activity across approaches. We then use this framework to surface key distinctions in how improvement work is conceptualized and carried out. We conclude by discussing the opportunities and tensions that characterize IRE as a developing academic field.

Authors

• Angela Lyle, University of Michigan

• Daniel Zelig Marks, Vanderbilt University

• Donald J. Peurach, University of Michigan

• Jennifer Lin Russell, Vanderbilt University