Education policy continues to press for increased use of research evidence in decision-making, yet decades of research point to weak links between research and practice. We see evidence-informed improvement not as a problem with schools, but with a larger evidence-use ecosystem. As a step toward building and strengthening multidirectional paths…

This replication-extension study (Earley & Galluzzo, 2015) examined the information seeking activities of British Columbia (BC) school trustees in an effort to understand the transmission of research. Trustees were asked to identify the sources they used for acquiring research and information in the process of decision-making. The frequency of…

Ontario's Child and Youth Mental Health (CYMH) program is a provincially sponsored initiative that aims to build school district capacity for developing research-informed school mental health policies. This article reports findings from a mixed-methods study that employs social network theory and analysis tools to explore the centrality of CYMH…

Grounded in critical policy theories and democratic conceptions of research, case studies of three community-based organizations, one in Canada and two in the U.S., were analyzed to determine if and how the groups engaged with research in their efforts to influence education policy. The findings demonstrate that the community-based organizations…

In this paper we compare the use of research and other evidence in the decision-making practices of two groups of education policy elites, situated in different contexts--provincial education ministries and school districts. Data are derived from two pan-Canadian studies: Galway (2006) and Sheppard, Galway, Brown and Wiens (2013). The findings…

Educational effectiveness research (EER) has accumulated much knowledge in the areas of school effectiveness research (SER), teacher effectiveness research (TER) and school/system improvement research (SSIR). Yet many schools and educational systems are not making enough use of the material and their insights. The article reviews evidence of…

This article argues for the importance of broad and on-going research to support initial or pre-service teacher education program admissions. Examples from a large initial teacher education program at one Canadian university illustrate the contributions of research to the evaluation and refinement of admission processes. These examples include…

In this article, the author explores the role of research in education. Unlike medicine, education is not--and likely cannot be--rooted in scientific traditions. It lacks an explicit knowledge base that professionals rely upon. Opinion can be as powerful as evidence; personal experience more relevant than research knowledge. Indeed research…

The French language article analyzes 60 research projects undertaken in an urban Quebec school board in order to describe the research which has actually been incorporated into educational policies. The article demonstrates the importance of the way in which research is produced and adopted to the circumstances at hand. (Author/SB)

Rather than a public good that is freely shared, Canadian university research is increasingly privatized and commercialized and thus rendered accessible only to those who can pay for it. The effects include erosion of collegiality, institutional democracy, curiosity-driven basic research, objectivity, and consideration of disadvantaged groups. All…

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.…

A study was conducted to examine the literature on literacy and adult basic education and to identify various issues, trends, problems, possible solutions, and basic principles that might guide programs and policies in adult literacy and basic education in Canada. More than 120 documents were examined, raising such issues as what is literacy and…

Supports the theory of language policy formulation in a "conflict" paradigm (involving value, resources, and power) with a case example of the development of Ontario's Native language policy. Research and theory were applied to policy formulation when there was significant consensus regarding both societal and educational goals. (CB)

Nineteen articles on the status of the relationship among educational research, policy, and practice around the world are collected in the 1985 edition of the "World Yearbook of Education." Contributors address the development of national policies on educational research in countries in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and…

The educational surveys of which some account is given in this bulletin do not by any means represent all the foreign investigations that have been made; it is believed, however, that they will serve to acquaint American students of education with certain foreign types, and at the same time throw some light on the history of surveys and of…