Outlines a taxonomy of six kinds of educational research and their individual impact on educational change. After discussing factors which limit the impact of such research, the author concludes that the social mechanisms for the diffusion of new ideas, rather than the research itself, determine educational change. (AM)

Traditional quantitative-experimental models of evaluation have failed to contribute to educational reform; they should be supplemented by qualitative-subjective models, which can be grouped under the rubric of naturalistic, or non-experimental evaluation. This naturalistic approach does not attempt to be value-free; rather, it recognizes that…