Research Use in Schools: The Big Picture

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Accompanying efforts to improve research use in schools is a need to understand, at scale, educational decision-making and the role of research in it. This symposium features findings from an IES-funded knowledge utilization center which provide a national landscape of research use at the school level. Beginning with an overview of the Center, the session presents responses to the Survey of Evidence in Education-School from 4,000 educators in 161 schools nationwide through four presentations on: 1) the types of problems and decisions educators report as part of their school improvement efforts, 2) how research is used in decision-making, 3) educators’ perspectives and assumptions about research, and 4) the brokerage processes by which research finds its way into and around schools.

Sub Unit

• Division H - Research, Evaluation and Assessment in Schools / Division H - Section 1: Applied Research in Schools

Chair

• Samantha Jo Shewchuk, University of Delaware

Papers

• Contextualizing Research Use: Problems and Decisions in Schools - Katherine Tilley, University of Delaware; Scott Sheridan, University of Delaware

• Characterizing Schools' Depth of Research Use - Henry May, University of Delaware; Elizabeth N. Farley-Ripple, University of Delaware

• Practitioner Perspectives and Assumptions About Research - Horatio Blackman, National Urban League

• Research Brokerage: How Research Enters and Moves Through Schools - Elizabeth N. Farley-Ripple, University of Delaware

Discussant

• Elizabeth R. Albro, U.S. Department of Education