In response to a proposal to reframe the 'research into practice' agenda in UK education using partnership working, this paper examines a type of collaborative research known as a research-practice partnership (RPP), drawing on models established in education in the United States. It examines their characteristics and what has been learnt from…

Although there is increased need for closing the gap between educational research and policy to better enable effective practice, addressing the problem remains a challenge. A review of current literature reveals a lack of systematic guidelines which clarify how collaboration between researchers and policy-makers can actually be achieved.…

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) have drawn a great deal of attention as promising structures for bringing educational research and practice closer together. However, promising as RPPs may be, challenges still exist and there have been calls for studies investigating how research can be used within RPPs, and how to include practitioners more…

There is a well-known gap between research and practice. While there are investments in some strategies to address this gap, they are often not drawing from the existing research on how to improve research use. This article shares what we understand about the many ways research is used in education, why educators may use research, and under what…

This paper provides an analysis of a research-practice partnership's approach to supporting equitable K-5 science teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors highlight the strength of the partnership and the diverse methodological and theoretical approaches that allowed for timely and effective data collection and analysis in…

School practices and policies are often influenced by various research, nonprofit, for-profit, and philanthropic organizations. To help understand their influence, this article provides a framework accounting for the variety of school improvement organizations (SIOs) and summarizes debates regarding their benefits and risks. I cluster SIOs as…

This article offers a critical examination of the co-authors' experience developing and delivering a work-integrated learning (WIL) preparation course for communication and media studies undergraduate students in a large, research-intensive Canadian university. As a WIL pre-requisite, this praxis-oriented course was designed to proactively support…

Background/Context: High quality early education, preschool through third grade, has received significant attention as a vehicle for addressing academic disparities. Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) offer a promising strategy for improving early education and closing the gap between research and practice; however, RPPs in the early learning…

This report describes a 15-month collaboration between three Every Learner Everywhere partner organizations (Achieving the Dream, the American Association of Public and Land-grant Universities [APLU], and Digital Promise) and five colleges, all engaged in a research-practice partnership (RPP) around enhancing equity and digital learning in gateway…

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate how educational researchers work together with practitioners in practical research projects. Design/methodology/approach: Mixed-method. Findings: Our findings suggest that researchers recognize their own limitations as well as those of practitioners and policy makers and learn from collaboration,…

This article details the community-engaged research process employed by a researcher-practitioner partnership (RPP) to develop and pilot a common exit survey of teachers from participating school districts at the end of the 2018-2019 school year. This development occurred with input from school district representatives serving on a study team as…

In research-practice partnerships (RPPs), the line between researcher and practitioner can be blurred, and the roles for everyone involved may be unclear. Yet little is known about how these roles are negotiated and with what consequences for collaborative efforts. Guided by organizational theory, we share findings from a multiyear case study of…

A common complaint about teacher education programs is that it follows a linear model--where theory and teaching skills are learned at the university and then applied in practicum experiences--that is inadequate and does not accurately represent teacher candidates'(TC) experiences (Brouwer & Korthagen, 2005; Korthagen, Loughran & Russell,…

Grounding research-practice partnerships in educators' expertise can offer us insight into innovative approaches that schools are using to foster student SEL. Our efforts in facilitating the Boston Charter Research Collaborative (BCRC) educator convenings align with the Aspen SEAD recommendations for forging strong, mutually-beneficial…

This is the third report in the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) Project Plus series of analyses. It presents the findings from an exploratory investigation of the impacts of the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI). The investigation sought evidence of the extent to which TLRI is meeting its three core aims: (1)…