This article discusses what we know about the underlying social and political conditions shaping research evidence use in education and how this applies to Research-Practice Partnerships (RPPs). It discusses types of use, political dynamics and processes, brokers and intermediaries, and racial dynamics and lenses. It also recommends strategies for…

A broad range of methodologies is routinely employed to track and analyse use of research evidence in public policymaking. However, available methods and tools are mostly equipped to track 'evidence' but are less equipped to capture and represent 'use' of evidence. In particular, existing methods overlook policymakers' frequent use of evidence for…

The Evidence to Action project (2019-2021), led by MDRC and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) and supported by Arnold Ventures, initiated a body of work designed to disentangle the barriers that exist between research and state-level higher education policy and partnered with state higher education agencies to…

There is an ongoing debate about how best to infuse "evidence" into school evaluation and reform efforts, and what role education researchers can play in this effort. A lot of support has been garnered for evidence-based reform or policies that place a premium on practices that have been proven effective using rigorous research methods;…

Every year the federal government spends more than $600 billion on grants to fund programs and services in education, social sectors, and health. When deliberating such commitments, policymakers weigh evidence from research, practice, and their own experience while also navigating political pressure, the demands of their constituents, and…

Quantitative social science (QSS) has the potential to make an important contribution to public policy. However it also has a number of limitations. The aim of this paper is to explain these limitations to a non-specialist audience and to identify a number of ways in which QSS research could be improved to better inform public policy.

Calls for evidence-based policy often fail to recognise the fundamentally political nature of policy making. Policy makers must identify, evaluate and utilise evidence to solve policy problems in the face of competing priorities and political agendas. Evidence should inform but cannot determine policy choices. This paper draws on theories of…

Currently, when there is a lot of political talk about the need for "evidence-based policy", and when public policy seeks to calibrate research quality and impact, there is a pressing need to reconsider the relationships between education/al research and education policy. This article seeks to do this, beginning with considerations of the…

Evidence Check, a programme managed by the Sax Institute in Sydney, Australia, assists Australian policy makers to commission quality reviews of research to inform health policy decision making. The programme involves an iterative knowledge brokering process to formulate and refine the scope of and questions for the review. The knowledge brokering…

This book is a report of a systematic study based on interviews with 120 school principals that addresses questions about the utilization of knowledge from social research. It offers evidence that challenges allegations about the "awful reputation" of educational research and its supposed lack of impact. The Untested Accusation: (1)…

Presents a case study of a curriculum project in an Ontario school board to illustrate how researchers can intervene appropriately in the policymaking activities of practicing educators. After discussing and rejecting two traditional models of involvement, illustrates and justifies two practical principles to guide researchers in these situations.…

In its role as a broker between the scientific community and the Congress, the Office of Technology Assessment evaluates the soundness of scientific conclusions for policy makers and ensures that research findings are included in formative policy analysis. (Author)

Discusses the characteristics of educational research in Poland and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe under communism and the implications of the postcommunist changes for the future of educational research. Educational researchers could play an important role in developing more informed educational policies. (SLD)

Using five research topics mainly in educational administration as illustrations, the author describes some of the processes of Chilean educational research and questions concerning its impact on educational policy. (SJL)

Develops a model for analyzing the behavior of commissions and discusses the role of social science in the model. Uses the model to examine Boston's Safe Schools Commission, with data on how social science was used by the commission being used to suggest several modifications to the model. (Author/JN)