Large-scale analyses are a powerful and increasingly common tool for investigating a range of public health and social concerns (Pienta, O'Rourke, & Franks, 2011). This series will provide a primer on large-scale secondary analysis in school psychology, with this article focusing on considerations for researchers interested in applying and…

By partnering with researchers, state CTE administrators have the opportunity to better understand CTE programming and practices across their states. This is the fourth in a series of six practitioner training modules developed as part of the Career & Technical Education (CTE) Research Network Lead. Designed for CTE practitioners and state…

This chapter provides an example of how one university's institutional research office played an active role in using data from institutional studies to guide the university toward courses ripe for change, faculty toward successful teaching strategies, students toward successful learning behaviors, and the university toward assessing the impact of…

This post is one in a series highlighting MDRC's methodological work. Contributors discuss the refinement and practical use of research methods being employed across the organization. Across policy domains, practitioners and researchers are benefiting from a trend of greater access to both more detailed and frequent data and the increased…

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…

The application of scientific data in the development and implementation of sound public policy is a well-established practice, but there appears to be less consensus on the nature of the strategies that can and should be used to incorporate research data into policy decisions. This paper describes the promise and the challenges of using research…

According to federal data, African American students are more than three times as likely as their white peers to be suspended or expelled. As a school leader, what do you do when your heart is in the right place, but your data show otherwise? In "Solving Disproportionality and Achieving Equity", Edward Fergus takes us on a journey into…

When students, parents, educators, and partners have the right information to make decisions, students excel. By forming research partnerships, state education agencies (SEAs), policymakers, practitioners, and education researchers at universities and other research institutes can work together to use research to provide the best education…

Data-based decision making should be the driving force in any early care and education setting. Data usage compels early childhood practitioners and leaders to make decisions on the basis of more than just professional instinct. This article explores why early childhood schools should be using data for continuous quality improvement at various…

Challenging the "bridge metaphor" theme of this conference, this article contends that current practice-research integration strategies are more like research-to-practice "pipelines." The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the potential of clinical data-mining studies conducted by practitioners, practitioner-oriented PhD…

This report describes how big data and an evidence framework can align across five contexts of educational improvement. It explains that before working with big data, there is an important prerequisite: the proposed innovation should align with deeper learning objectives and should incorporate sound learning sciences principles. New curriculum…

It's not exactly a well-kept secret: Despite the drumbeat for data that has echoed through the jungles of education for over a decade, its nuanced use to make decisions for students is rare. And even though state and national longitudinal data initiatives from the US Department of Education (ED) have increased the pressure, relatively few schools…

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…

In a time of diminishing resources and increased accountability, it is important for school leaders to make the most of every dollar they spend. One approach to ensuring responsible resource allocation is to closely examine the organizational culture surrounding decision making and provide a structure and process to incorporate research and data…

Newly updated and revised, this popular text provides a solid introduction to the foundations of research methods, with the goal of enabling students and professionals in the field of applied linguistics to become not just casual consumers of research who passively read bits and pieces of a research article, but "discerning" consumers able to…