As spaces for researchers and practitioners to engage in long-term, mutual collaborations aimed at addressing problems of practice in education, research-practice partnerships (RPPs) offer rich contexts for research use. Our study examines how interactions between researchers and practitioners shape opportunities for research use in a professional…

This article discusses how the underlying assumptions and practices of teacher research position it as a distinct form of educational inquiry, and identifies qualitative methodology as a central influence on the work. A discussion of some of the common conceptualizations and processes of PK-12 teacher research, the complex yet continually changing…

This study employed the survey design on a purposive sample of 100 English Second Language (ESL) teachers from Swaziland and South Africa's Eastern Cape Province, to investigate the extent to which they accessed, utilised and conducted research to better their practice. A survey questionnaire and follow-up structured interviews generated…

This article describes an empirical exploration of three initiatives in which teachers in secondary education (learn to) research their own practice in collaboration with university-based research institutes, aiming at professional development and knowledge construction. We found evidence of professional development, mainly at the level of the…

Teacher research is an extension of good teaching, observing students closely, analyzing their needs, and adjusting the curriculum to fit the needs of all. In this completely updated second edition of their definitive work, Ruth Shagoury and Brenda Miller Power present a framework for teacher research along with an extensive collection of…

Written for pre- and in-service educators, this "Third Edition" of Craig A. Mertler's "Action Research: Improving Schools and Empowering Educators" introduces the process of conducting one's own classroom- or school-based action research in conjunction with everyday instructional practices and activities. The text provides educators with the…

Too often, researchers get a bad name for engaging in inquiry that is inaccessible to the practitioner and policy communities who could most benefit from it. Although speaking to others in the scholarly community is important, researchers must also be able to translate their results into more accessible language for multiple audiences. This…

When education issues come to be understood in terms that neatly overlay the standard ideological alignments, they often become proxies for the war between Right and Left. This has been the case in the instance of charter schools, with proponents and critics mustering up researchers and findings to buttress their respective claims and, in general,…

This article presents the author's response to comments on her article, "Will a Clinical Approach Make Education Research More Relevant for Practice?", which focused on the question of whether a clinical research practice might make education research more relevant for practice. The characteristics of a clinical approach are: (1) an overlap in the…

With a view to bridging the gap between elementary (primary) and secondary school second language teachers and researchers, the study reported in this paper identified differences in language register, educators' lack of access to research articles and lack of shared space for researchers and educators to communicate as causes of the gap. There is…

In this article, the "researcher" narrates the issues faced by novice researchers in choosing the correct lenses to conduct research when searching for the truth via the use of qualitative methodology. It is argued that choosing an appropriate research approach and methodology can be described as an "arduous" journey. For the…

Three issues emanating from the Bulterman-Bos article (2008) form the core of this commentary. First, the issue of relevancy is addressed from the standpoint of action research and other forms of practitioner inquiry. From this perspective, the divisions between the cultures of university and school are addressed both ways: Each can potentially be…

Investigation of scientists' actual processes of conducting research can provide us with more realistic aspects of scientific inquiry. This study was performed to identify three aspects of scientists' actual research: their motivations for scientific inquiry, the scientific inquiry skills they used, and the main types of results obtained from…

Many researchers would like to be helpful to out-of-school time programs, and practitioners see a need for good research. Yet communication between researchers and practitioners can be a challenge. In a recent series of Roundtables to discuss program needs and research evaluations held with program practitioners, Child Trends obtained important…

Responding to Bulterman-Bos (2008), the author argues that the effort to make education research more relevant is counterproductive. Teachers and researchers have different orientations toward education that arise from different institutional settings, occupational constraints, daily work demands, and professional incentives. These are not…