There is increasing interest in research-based education in the Western World as it is assumed to strengthen school improvement capacity. Previous research shows that school principals play a pivotal role in realising such vision. The aim of this article is to explore the influence of principals on research-based education in their local municipal…

Background: During the past decade, the increasingly heterogeneous field of learning analytics has been critiqued for an over-emphasis on data-driven approaches at the expense of paying attention to learning designs. Method and objective: In response to this critique, we investigated the role of learning design in learning analytics through a…

Purpose: Decades of scholarship have drawn on Weiss's four categories of research use (Weiss, 1980; 2005; Weiss & Bucuvalas, 1980) -- instrumental use, symbolic use, conceptual use, and imposed use -- to examine how research use unfolds in school districts (e.g., Amara et al., 2004; Penuel et al., 2017). In this paper, we theorize a new form…

Systematic reviews have witnessed significant growth across many fields, including education. In this article, we outline the background of this growth, highlight the tendency to focus on methodological considerations, and propose a framework to support education researchers in preparing systematic reviews with broad impact. We draw on our…

Building on the insights of the first two publications in the Strengthening the Impact of Education Research series, this third and final report shifts the focus from policy makers to the field, exploring the pivotal role of knowledge intermediaries. These organisations facilitate engagement with research among policy makers and practitioners,…

Purpose: This article argues that the potential of the vast amount of research, published each year in the history of education, remains untapped. Given the rapidly growing number of academic publications in the field, there is a need for research that is based on articles, chapters and monographs already published. While analyses of existing…

Recent discourse about the impact of university research has focused on "what" research impact is and less on "how" it manifests. To explore these two questions, we draw on knowledge theory and build on the distinction between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. We propose that tacit knowledge and knowing are necessary…

Background: In theory and practice, it is understood that personal relationships play a role in the effectiveness of translational models that bridge research and policy. These models can be made more efficient by understanding factors impacting relationships between policy-making players and third-party knowledge brokers. Aims and objectives:…

In Ireland, as elsewhere, there has been growing recognition around the importance of using research evidence to inform educational policy and practice at both a national government and individual school level. Despite such importance, there is currently a dearth of empirical, peer-reviewed studies regarding the use of research evidence in the…

Practice-oriented educational research is renowned for its impact, both in educational practice and research. Yet, existing studies on the impact of practice-oriented educational research reflect a proliferation of ideas on what impact is, can or should be. This study aims to contribute to an in-depth understanding by establishing a theoretically…

Education leaders know that they should use research when choosing interventions for their schools, but they don't always know how to read the research that is available. David Steiner explains some of the reasons that reading research is a low priority for educators on the front lines and offers some guidance for determining whether research…

By presenting the results of a large-scale international study, this study targets a better empirical understanding of teacher educators' researcherly disposition or the teacher educators' habit of mind to engage with research to improve their practice and contribute to the knowledge base on teacher education. Data was collected from an…

The language wars have driven decision-making and educational options for D/deaf and hard of hearing children for over a century, yet we still have not made sufficient progress in closing the linguistic and educational gaps between D/deaf and hard of hearing children and their hearing peers. Perhaps it is time to abandon the bifurcated approach…

It is a healthy exercise to debate the merits of using effect-size benchmarks to interpret research findings. However, these debates obscure a more central insight that emerges from empirical distributions of effect-size estimates in the literature: Efforts to improve education often fail to move the needle. I find that 36% of effect sizes from…

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…