Purpose: This paper contributes to a dialogue about the psychoanalytic concept of free association and its application in the context of qualitative research interviewing. In doing so, it also adds to wider discussion regarding the relationship between clinical psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and qualitative research.…

This paper introduces institutional ethnography (IE) as a useful and systematic process for examining organizations and work data through the lens of stakeholders, at different levels, and considering the different forces at play. Drawing from ethnomethodology, IE focuses on how everyday experience is socially organized. Ideological shifts have…

The increasing involvement of philanthropists in education policy has contributed to the emergence of a dynamic sector of intermediary organizations (IOs), entities that serve a number of functions in school reform, including advocacy, consultation, policy design, alternative teacher and leadership preparation, and research. In recent years, many…

Based on a 2010-11 study involving senior researchers from seven disciplines, this article explores critically some of the diverse interpretations of impact in different disciplines, sub-fields and modes of research, and researchers' views about how these interpretations articulate with top-down impact agendas and with university structures…

Despite calls for research-based policies, other types of evidence also influence education policy, including personal experience, professional expertise, and normative values. This article focuses on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative, examining how research use varied over stages of the process and how it was integrated with other…

Research and teaching are supposed to be closely related in universities. Among academics the belief in a symbiotic relationship is strong. However, it is unclear what form this relationship can take. Several authors have presented categories and dimensions to clarify this relationship and the aim of this project was to contribute to this…

Our goal is to deconstruct the text formed by practitioners' narratives about the use of the claim "It's research based" to understand both how this claim is used and received by practitioners and how it may impact on teachers' attitudes. We map a range of differences in these narratives about what is "real" (research versus…

One important aim of social science research is to provide unbiased information that can help guide public policies. However, social science is often construed as politics by other means. Nowhere is the polarized nature of social science research more visible than in the heated debate over charter schools. In "Spin Cycle", noted political…

This article focuses on the impact of research and education evaluation on two universities: Trento State University (Italy) and the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). The article adopts a system approach to evaluation and proposes a model to describe and analyse evaluation systems. The analysis has been carried out by means of in-depth…

Introduction: Studies of health professionals' perceptions of barriers to and facilitators of research utilization in clinical practices suggest that structural and resource characteristics of service provider organizations are key determinants of the capacity of individual practitioners to provide evidence-based practices. In this pilot study, we…

Two evaluation projects conducted for the Minnesota Agricultural Extension Service are examined from a user-focused perspective: (1) a needs assessment of large scale commercial farmers for program development by the Office of Special Programs; and (2) a review of the extension programs in Nicollet County. Each incorporated the focus group method…

A multimethod evaluation of a major Canadian strategic grant program with surveys of 74 funded projects, 4 case studies, and interviews with researchers and grant application staff reveals the favorable effects of partnerships between research and practice on research and dissemination strategies in spite of ideological and pragmatic constraints.…

Teacher knowledge is examined as a joint construction of teachers and researchers by analyzing contrasting narrative practices in the research interview in terms of how two teachers formulate versions of self. Seeing the narratives as representational technologies locates these teachers differently in the knowledge-constitutive networks of…