Rethinking Research Use: Bridging the Gap between Research and Practice by Angel Xiao Bohannon

The Problem: A Disconnect between Research and Practice

Despite the growing interest in getting educational leaders to use research in their decision-making, educational research often does not inform practice. Policymakers argue that research can support educational leaders in making more informed and effective decisions. In fact, policies like the Every Student Succeeds Act urge educational leaders to use “evidence based” studies that measure the efficacy of different policies and programs. However, research has had a varied impact on how educational leaders do their work. For example, district leaders report the infrequent use of peer-reviewed publications in their decision-making (Coburn, Honig & Stein, 2009). Relatedly, school and district leaders report that they frequently consult other types of evidence, such practitioner books, instead of research (Penuel et al., 2016).

Much of the discussion on research use has been normative; arguing how educational leaders should use research. These normative depictions of research use often put forth certain myths about research use. In this article, I will dispel three common myths about research use, drawing on my involvement with the National Center of Research in Policy and Practice (NCRPP), where our research examines how school and district leaders actually use research in their decision-making across four urban school districts. I then suggest some implications and future directions for researchers.

These myths are:

#1: Educational leaders will only use research to fill a gap in knowledge.

#2: Research speaks for itself.

#3: Research use is a one-way street, where researchers produce knowledge and practitioners consume it.

Myth #1: Educational leaders will only use research to fill a gap in knowledge.

One common myth is that educational leaders will only use research in a direct manner, employing research to fill a gap in knowledge (Coburn, Toure & Yamashita, 2009). This myth claims that educational leaders only use research when they lack knowledge about how to solve a particular problem, with research providing the missing knowledge. This is what scholars call instrumental use of research (Weiss & Bucuvalas, 1980). For example, a superintendent may not know what mathematics curriculum to adopt for her district. She might draw on research to help her decide, choosing a curriculum that research says has demonstrated the most success in improving student achievement.

The Reality:

Although educational leaders sometimes use research to fill a knowledge gap, it is not the only way research use occurs. In fact, educational leaders actually use research in many different ways (Penuel et al., 2016). Educational leaders sometimes use research to justify a decision that has already been made or persuade others about a particular decision; this is referred to as symbolic use (Weiss & Bucuvalas, 1980). For example, school leaders may decide to adopt a new curriculum in response to pressure from the district central office. They may then seek out research that advocates for that particular curriculum in order to persuade parents and community stakeholders that they made the right decision.

Research can also be used to change how an educational leader views a problem or potential solution for that problem; this is called conceptual use (Weiss & Bucuvalas, 1980). For example, a principal may read research on educational leadership that helps them see that leadership as not just the responsibility of a principal, but as a collective effort between formal and informal leaders. In this case, research changed that principal’s beliefs and understandings about leadership.

Implications for researchers:

Ultimately, our research on research use shows that educational leaders don’t just use research to fill a gap in knowledge, but also in many other alternative and multifaceted ways. Educational researchers should consider this multifaceted nature of research when producing or disseminating their work.

More broadly, this myth suggests the importance of more empirical research on the complex process of research use. A better understanding of how research is actually used, rather than normative arguments on how research should be used can support policymakers’ and researchers’ attempts to facilitate increased research use in educational practice. This empirical research should take a broader perspective of what constitutes research use. A narrow perspective that focuses only on research use as filling a gap in knowledge (i.e. instrumental use) fails to accurately capture the myriad of different ways that educational leaders actually use research in their day-to-day work.

Myth #2: Research speaks for itself.

Another common myth about research use is that research speaks for itself. This myth suggests that the meaning and implications of research is self-evident and unambiguous to educational leaders.

The Reality:

Research does not speak for itself. Rather, how research is used depends on how educational leaders interpret it (Coburn et al., 2009). Research use involves educational leaders noticing, interpreting, and constructing meaning around the content and implications of research. Educational leaders come to understand research in light of their previous beliefs, knowledge, and experiences that make up their world views (Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, 2002). For example, individuals with different beliefs can make sense of the same piece of research in different ways. Further, social interactions between educational leaders play an important role in interpreting research, because educational leaders often notice, interpret, and co-construct meaning around research in collaboration with other leaders (Coburn et al., 2009). Educational leaders’ formal interactions (e.g., district meetings) and informal interactions(e.g., informal ad-hoc conversations with colleagues) play a central role in shaping their individual interpretations of research. Ultimately, it is this collective meaning-making, not the research itself, that guides educational leaders’ decision-making.

Implications for researchers:

Researchers can support educational leaders in their efforts to interpret and construct meaning around research. One promising approach are research-practice partnerships (RPPs), which are long-term mutualistic partnerships between researchers and practitioners that investigate and address persistent problems of practice (Coburn, Penuel, & Geil, 2013). One example of a RPP is the Carnegie Math Pathways, where I previously worked, which brought together community college faculty and researchers to improve student completion rates in developmental math. RPPs often involve sustained interactions between researchers and practitioners around research, which can create opportunities for researchers and practitioners to jointly engage with and construct meaning around research ideas (Farrell, Coburn, & Chong, 2018). For example, researchers in an RPP can help practitioners contextualize a particular set of research findings in light of the broader body of research.

Myth 3: Research use is a one-way street, where researchers produce knowledge and practitioners consume it.

This common myth presents research use as a one-way street, where researchers produce knowledge, and practitioners act as passive consumers of this research (Tseng, 2012). This myth assumes that research use could be improved through the production of better-quality research (Tseng, 2012).

Reality:

This myth privileges researcher expertise and does not consider the value that practitioner expertise and experience can bring to fostering research-based decision-making (Tseng, 2012). However, a compelling research base may be insufficient to fostering research-based practice, as practitioners have practical knowledge, expertise, and experiences that can inform their efforts to use research in ways that will meet the unique needs in their particular context (Bryk et al., 2015). As such, both researchers and practitioners can draw on their unique experiences and expertise to jointly inform and improve educational decision-making.  

Implications for researchers:

Here, RPPs again represent a promising strategy for creating more mutualistic, bi-directional relationships between research and practice (Coburn, Penuel & Geil, 2013; Coburn & Penuel, 2016). One example of an RPP is the Carnegie Math Pathways, where I previously worked, which brought together community college faculty and researchers to improve student completion rates in developmental math (Bryk et al., 2015). This partnership is a specific type of RPP called a Networked Improvement Community. Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) are networks of schools and districts that draw on both researcher and practitioner expertise to collectively learn about and address persistent and complex problems of practice (Bryk et al. 2015; Russell et al. 2017). NICs iteratively test and refine research-based interventions across multiple contexts.

Notably, NICs leverage practitioners’ diverse expertise and experiences, in addition to research knowledge, in order to understand what works where, when, and under what conditions (Bryk et al. 2015). In NICs, researchers often act as facilitators and guide RPP work, while practitioners engage in systematic cycles of inquiry where they collect and analyze their own data and test research ideas in their own contexts (Coburn, Penuel, & Geil, 2013). In doing so, NICs blur distinctions between the traditional roles of researchers and practitioners (Bryk et al., 2015; Russell et al., 2017).

Angel Xiao Bohannon is a Ph.D. student in the Human Development and Social Policy program at Northwestern University. Her research interests include the role of partnerships and educational leadership in supporting K-12 policy implementation. She previously worked at the Carnegie Foundation to support the work of the Carnegie Math Pathways research-practice partnership. She previously earned a B.A. from University of Chicago.

Conclusion

Ultimately, using research in decision-making has the potential for supporting educational leaders in making more informed and effective decisions around educational improvement. These suggestions represent a challenging but important first step to bridging the gap between research and practice in ways that consider the complex reality of research use. In particular, these suggestions present a vision of research use where educational leaders use research in multifaceted, complex ways, that are mediated by interpretation. It suggests that research is not the only valuable source of expertise but that educational leaders and researchers can draw on their unique experiences and expertise to jointly inform and improve educational decision-making.  

Citations

Bryk, A. S., Gomez, L. M., Grunow, A., & LeMahieu, P. G. (2015). Learning to improve: How America’s schools can get better at getting better. Harvard Education Press.

Coburn, C. E., Honig, M. I., & Stein, M. K. (2009). What’s the Evidence on Districts’ Use of Evidence. The Role of Research in Educational Improvement, 67-87.

Coburn, C. E., Penuel, W. R., & Geil, K. E. (2013). Research-Practice Partnerships: A Strategy for Leveraging Research for Educational Improvement in School Districts. New York, NY: William T. Grant Foundation.

Farrell, C. C., Coburn, C. E., & Chong, S. (2019). Under What Conditions do School Districts learn from External Partners? The Role of Absorptive Capacity. American Educational Research Journal, 56(3), 955-994.

Penuel, W. R., Briggs, D. C., Davidson, K. L., Herlihy, C., Sherer, D., Hill, H. C., & Allen, A. R. (2016). Findings from a National Study on Research Use among School and District leaders. National Center for Research in Policy and Practice. Technical Report.

Russell, J. L., Bryk, A. S., Dolle, J., Gomez, L. M., LeMahieu, P., & Grunow, A. (2017). A framework for the initiation of networked improvement communities. Teachers College Record, 119(7), 1-36.

Spillane, J. P., Reiser, B. J., & Reimer, T. (2002). Policy Implementation and Cognition: Reframing and Refocusing Implementation Research. Review of Educational Research, 72(3), 387-431.

Tseng, V. (2012). The Uses of Research in Policy and Practice and Commentaries. Social policy report, 26(2), 1-24.

Weiss, C. H., & Bucuvalas, M. J. (1980). Social Science Research and Decision-making. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.