Through teaching, training, research and service to the community, Canada's universities and colleges are essential to creating a more democratic and just society, driving the economy, and preparing for the future. Canadians need a strong commitment from their federal government to protect and preserve the public post-secondary education system.…

The past half-century has witnessed a dramatic increase in the scale and complexity of scientific research. The growing scale of science has been accompanied by a shift toward collaborative research, referred to as "team science." Scientific research is increasingly conducted by small teams and larger groups rather than individual…

Whether the goal is to identify and describe trends and variation in populations, create new measures of key phenomena, or describe samples in studies aimed at identifying causal effects, description plays a critical role in the scientific process in general and education research in particular. Descriptive analysis identifies patterns in data to…

The rapid change that higher education is undergoing is impacting all of the core mission elements: teaching and learning, research, service, and engagement with the external world (e.g., community engagement and health care delivery). Navigating this environment requires understanding of the underlying dynamics, with particular attention to how…

In 1887, Congress passed the Hatch Act, which formally established and provided a funding mechanism for agricultural experiment stations in each state and territory in the United States. The main purpose of agricultural experiment stations is to conduct agricultural research to meet the needs of the citizens of the United States. The objective of…

Research is lacking about what makes or breaks collaboration between researchers and HIV services providers. This study identified factors that influence providers' levels of willingness to collaborate in HIV prevention scientific research. Survey measures were grounded in in-depth interview data and included providers' "willingness to…

Now, more than ever, it is crucial to address the topic of children and poverty in the U.S., given current scientific knowledge about poverty's influence on children and effective strategies to mitigate its negative impact. In this report, we summarize the best available information on definitions and trends in child poverty, policy responses to…

The United States possesses the most capable research enterprise, the largest economy, and the most sophisticated societal infrastructure in the world, yet it remains notably vulnerable to catastrophic damage and loss of life from natural hazards. Among weather hazards, hurricanes account for over half of the total damage inflicted. Despite their…

Multilingualism is an international fact of life and increasing in the United States. Multilingual families are exceedingly diverse, and policies relevant to them should take this into account. The quantity and quality of a child's exposure to responsive conversation spoken by fluent adults predicts both monolingual and multilingual language and…

The detrimental effects of lead exposure in children have been known for over 100 years. Although a few initial measures implemented about 30 years ago were effective in somewhat reducing levels of lead exposure in children, relatively little has been done recently from a policy perspective to protect children from lead. We now know from recent…

This report critically examines studies of how scientific research drives innovation which is then translated into socio-economic benefits. It focuses on research evaluation insights that are relevant not only to the academic community, but also to policymakers and evaluation practitioners--and particularly to biomedical and health research…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and its reports are a key measure in informing the nation on how well the goal of scientific literacy for all students is being met. The "Science Framework for the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress" sets forth the design of the NAEP Science Assessment. The 2011 NAEP…

This monograph looks first at opportunities provided by research in the adult literacy field and then identifies challenges to scientific research and suggests ways to address these challenges so that better evidence can be generated in the future. It has two goals that support the building of a stronger research base for the adult literacy…

Criticism of the public schools has been unrelenting since "A Nation at Risk" was published in 1983. From that pivotal moment to the present the business community has played a crucial role in setting the parameters of the critique of the schools and shaping the reform agendas that have been proposed and implemented. However, this author has found…

Various issues related to the role of scientific research at American museums were addressed during these hearings. The hearings include the testimony and prepared statement of Robert McCormick Adams (Secretary, Smithsonian Institution) and questions and answers for the record. These questions focus on such areas as the extent to which museums…