The Every Student Succeeds Act builds on prior efforts to bridge the gap between research and practice through the imposition of evidence requirements. This article presents findings from a small-scale micro-process study of three districts in one state during their first year of implementing those requirements. Informed by past conceptualizations…

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…

In educational contexts where many domains subject to improvement are interdependent and causal evidence is frequently lacking it is difficult, if not impossible, for policymakers and educational practitioners to decide which domain should be invested in. This paper proposes a new method that uses Conditional Mean Independent Correlations (CMIC)…

Weaknesses in the field of education that have implications for collaborative research are considered, and education is compared to the more mature professions of health sciences and engineering which have agreed-upon standards and controls. Educational practitioners and researchers are seen as turning to collaborative decision making to bridge…

This paper identifies trends in the population of students with learning disabilities (LD) in the public schools and explores reasons for these trends. It notes that there has been a 198 percent increase in the number of children served as LD between 1976-77 and 1992-93 due to a lack of consensus on the definition of LD and school-level processes…

Discussion of the implications of expert systems technology for decision support in special education uses examples from a programmatic line of research and development at Utah State University. Topics discussed include an explanation of expert systems, their effectiveness, and their roles in training, knowledge clarification, and progressive…

The forms of knowledge that are relevant to education are diverse as well as complex. In 1995 the CERI, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, and the Belgium Flemish Ministry of Education held a conference in Maastricht to examine ways in which educational research-and-development systems functioned in various countries.…

The need for accountability in school psychological services is receiving increased attention. School psychologists are now being asked to demonstrate the effectiveness of their services. Data collection procedures can improve services to clients and systems, enhance the delivery system's psychological services program, validate the need for…

Specific approaches are proposed to increase collaboration between researchers and practitioners to meet the growing research needs of the nation's schools and to assist in data-based decision-making efforts. A research-practice paradigm is described. (TJH)

Issues in the impact of educational research on educational policy and practice in Australian schools are addressed in this paper, which provides an overview of the numerous research and evaluation projects being conducted in Australian education. Specific questions examined are the extent to which: (1) the research subjects (schools) benefit from…

This paper is a review of the research literature related to theories of reasoning and teacher thinking. Judgment theory, decision theory, and problem-solving theory are discussed. Reviews are provided for studies from three major research projects on teacher thinking: The Institute for Research on Teaching, Special Study C of the Beginning…

Selected issues in educational research and development are discussed as they relate to local educational agencies and institutions of higher education. Local education agencies are defined as public supported schools (elementary, middle/jr. high and high schools) and institutions of higher education as state supported colleges and universities…

This paper presents a functional approach to assessment and associated program development for individuals with severe disabilities, with emphasis on informal strategies that target beginning communicative levels. In the first section, form, function, and context (three components of any communicative act) are defined and described. Three…

This paper explores methods of collaboration among countries in order to promote successful development, exchange, and dissemination of international education materials. The discussion emphasizes activities of the Pacific Circle Consortium, which was founded in 1977 and includes Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States. Its…