Enhancing the Preparation of Researchers for Transformative Research

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Background: In spring 2023, the Spencer Foundation convened a Task Force on the Preparation for Transformative Research, to explore new possibilities for how we might, as a field, better prepare early career scholars to engage transformative research. We defined transformative research as programs of research that:

● Focus synergistically on the complexity of educational systems and the multiple factors that enable and constrain the quality of teaching and learning.
● Are conducted in generative collaboration with educators, policymakers, practitioners, families, and community,
● Draw on insights from multiple disciplines and methods, and
● Go far beyond solely documenting inequities, to make significant movement toward change in policy and practice in a way that impacts educational systems.

Such research is much-needed given the significant challenges facing our education systems and society, including social and economic inequality, disrupted learning during the pandemic, projected impacts of climate events on education, political polarization and civic disengagement, and new possibilities and threats from Artificial Intelligence. These challenges and opportunities require a reenvisioning of core aspects of education, including policies, schools, and other teaching and learning contexts, and research is central to this work. However, research has too often been siloed, and disconnected from young people, families, and communities (NASEM, 2022).

There are many scholars and scholarly communities which currently do research with the qualities of transformative research, and we view our work on this not as creating a new type of research, but rather as building on the work from scholars that work in traditions, such as improvement science, improvement research, research practice partnerships, design research, social design experiments, YPAR, community and participatory research, and many others. We argue that transformative research, if it were more prevalent in the field, would give rise to a greater uptake and usefulness of research in the important work of creating more spaces for equitable and rigorous learning. However, opportunities to learn to engage in transformative research are woefully inadequate (NASEM, 2022; Nasir, 2024).

The Task Force is issuing a report in the spring of 2025, with the goal of re-envisioning the preparation of education researchers to engage in this work. The report provides recommendations to support those responsible for teaching, learning, enacting, or otherwise enabling or resourcing the preparation of scholars: to take stock of their progress in supporting preparation for transformative research, to imagine and design the next steps, and to envision possible futures. This session shares key recommendations, and seeks to engage the field in considering the recommendations and potential next steps.

Key Recommendations:
The session centers around a set of key recommendations from the report. The report considered 1) the commitment and capabilities researchers need to engage in transformative research; 2) how graduate training and other professional learning opportunities could be more intentional about preparing researchers for transformative research, and 3) how the field might evolve its research infrastructure to better support these efforts.

The report centers on the shared belief that transformative research is necessarily programmatic and multi-perspectival: it involves multiple inter-related studies and research contributors who bring varied perspectives and expertise to the work, supporting inquiry and action that evolve iteratively over time. The preparation of individual researchers for transformative research means being ready to contribute to that collaborative effort and to bring one’s own developing expertise to bear in support of mutual learning.
The report articulates six key learning domains for transformative research, and makes recommendations about how to support these capacities in the context of doctoral preparation and other learning experiences. It recommends that preparation for transformative research address each of the following six inter-related learning domains:

(1) Community Engagement: developing capacities to engage, learn from, and collaborate in research with communities beyond the academy;

(2) Theoretical Pluralism: engaging with a range of theoretical perspectives strategically to understand different aspects of a problem space and foster an expansive understanding of how it relates to elements of the larger system; using theory to inform design;

(3) Methodological Pluralism: collaborating in design and enactment of programs of research that draw on multiple methodological perspectives, including the ways of knowing which underlie them, to understand their distinct affordances and limitations, and how they might complement and challenge one another in enabling understanding and action in research contexts;

(4) Ethics in Research Practice: being aware of and committed to the ethical responsibilities that come with being a researcher, and the nuances of how these ethical commitments play out in work with communities in the research process;

(5) Digital Technologies: Being able to draw on a range of existing and emerging tools for supporting data generation, curation, analysis and visualization, while also considering their inherent limitations and dangers; and

(6) Knowledge Mobilization: Supporting the flow and uptake of ideas, tools, and findings from research by other researchers, brokers and intermediaries, and users of research; enhancing the potential of research to benefit the public and positively impact systems.

The report elaborates each learning domain and offers preliminary suggestions for what it might look like to support these at the program, university and field levels, and considers the infrastructural and resource supports needed.

Session Format & Participants: 90 minute interactive symposium

1. Welcome and overview from session chair (Na’ilah Nasir)- 5 minutes
2. Presentations from Task Force members- 25 minutes:
Pamela Moss (overview & grounding assumptions, Aspect C) Methodological pluralism- 5 min
Louis Gomez (Community Engagement) 5 min
Megan Bang (Theoretical pluralism and use of tech) 5 min
Bill Penuel (Research Ethics and Knowledge Mobilization) 5 min
Andrew Ho (Infrastructure & resource recommendations) 5 min
3. Respondents— 4 min each (16 min):
- Mathew Soldner, Acting Director, Institute of Education Sciences
- Daaiyah Threats-Bilal, Director of Research, National Education Association
- Kimberly Griffith, Dean, University of Maryland
- Current doctoral student/postdoc (TBD)
4. Table Talk w/guiding questions (25 min)
- each table to include task force members who are present (Cynthia Coburn, Carol Lee, Dick Murnane, Kara Finnigan, Ezekiel Dixon-Roman, Alex Bowers)
Guidelines for discussion (3 min)
Within table discussion (22 min)
5. Comments/Questions from Tables and Responses from Task Force (15 min)
6. Wrap up (Na’ilah & Pam)- 4 min

Sub Unit

• AERA Science and Policy Sessions

Chair

• Na'ilah Suad Nasir, Spencer Foundation

Participants

• Pamela A. Moss, University of Michigan

• Louis M. Gomez, University of California - Los Angeles

• Megan Bang, Northwestern University

• William R. Penuel, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Andrew Ho, Harvard University

Papers

• Table One - Cynthia E. Coburn, Northwestern University

• Table Two - Carol D. Lee, Northwestern University

• Table Three - Richard J. Murnane, Harvard University

• Table Four - Kara S. Finnigan, University of Michigan

• Table Five - Ezekiel J. Dixon-Roman, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Table Six - Alex J. Bowers, Teachers College, Columbia University