This paper addresses a relatively unexplored area in the field of learning analytics: how analytics are taken up and used as part of teaching and learning processes. Initial steps are taken towards developing design knowledge for this "middle space," with a focus on students as analytics users. First, a core set of challenges for…

If some practitioners are more research minded than others, then promising approaches for bridging the research to practice gap may be developed by describing research-minded practitioners and examining how to locate and support them. This article follows this basic logic in providing an overview of organizational development and practitioner…

Past efforts aimed at promoting a better integration between research and practice are reviewed. These include the empirical clinical practice movement (ECP), originating within social work; the empirically supported treatment (EST) initiative of clinical psychology; and the evidence-based practice (EBP) model developed within medicine. The…

Translational research originated in the medical field during the 1990s to describe taking discovery based research through the steps of applying it to clinical research and patient-oriented care. This model is implicitly linear, depicting the flow of information from researchers' bench, to a clinical trial bedside, to a primary care physician's…

In this 2012 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Presidential Address, the author considers this year's conference theme--how to take what we know from research and put it to effective (policy and practice) use. The essay challenges members individually and collectively to improve the connection. She reflects on the history of AERA as…

The article "Getting lost in translation" by Harris, Chapman, Muijs and Reynolds addresses the engagement of policy-makers and educational practitioners with (the results of) educational effectiveness and improvement research. In this commentary the article is discussed from the perspectives of research utilisation, the solidity of the…

The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED)--which the College of Education and Social Services (CESS) at the University of Vermont has actively been involved in since 2007--has invited us to think carefully about our EdD doctoral program and its role in the improvement of schools and society. Although the EdD program in Educational…

"Impact" is a notion that is not very well understood in research. Within Australian higher education, it has been bandied about within such frameworks as the "Research Quality Framework" ("RQF") and Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). Vocational education and training (VET) research is not immune from these…

Purpose: Evidence-based practice (EBP) describes clinical decision making using research, clinical experience, and client values. For family-centered practices, the client's family is integral to this process. This article proposes that using family paradigms, a family science framework, may help elicit and understand client/family values within…

This article draws on both a cross-sector literature review of mechanisms to promote evidence-based practice and a specific review of ways of improving research use in social care. At the heart of the article is a discussion of three models of evidence-based practice: the research-based practitioner model, the embedded research model, and the…

The concern that educational research is often divorced from the problems and issues of everyday teaching practice, is strongly influenced by the chosen paradigm in which the research is framed. Modelled on design-based research methods, this paper presents the development of a theoretical research framework that accommodates complex…

Discusses six issues faced by members of the Effective School Improvement project carried out in eight European countries. After posing questions that need further resolution, the article concludes that at this moment caution is advisable before transferring the findings from one context to the other. (SLD)

What it means to use research is a potentially contentious topic. With the emphasis on constructivist approaches in teacher education programs, the traditional explanations involving generalizability are inadequate in that there is no consideration of what the user brings to the use. Discussion of the various ways in which use can be framed leads…

A work-study team is the core of a school-university collaboration benefiting everyone involved. (Author)

Develops a model for analyzing the behavior of commissions and discusses the role of social science in the model. Uses the model to examine Boston's Safe Schools Commission, with data on how social science was used by the commission being used to suggest several modifications to the model. (Author/JN)