In this essay, we explore the tension between research using continuous improvement (CI) paradigms, such as improvement science, and conventional research, and the role and regulation of Institutional Review Board (IRB) oversight. We argue that the current regulatory structure privileges traditional research and hinders collaborative inquiry that…

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 from established literature and his research, Milner introduces a framework for designing consequential research. The framework is constructed to help researchers design, identify, and assess research as potentially consequential. In particular, the framework is developed for researchers to intentionally include essential elements that…

In this essay, two women of Color researchers examine the intersections of race and disability and ask, "What is the power and purpose of positioning and positionality statements?" Informed by Black feminist theory, and drawing from the DisCrit tenets of intersectional oppressions, historicity, and whiteness and ability as property, the…

Teacher professional development (PD) is among the most prominent levers used to improve teaching quality. The findings of research studies examining PD interventions are heterogeneous, with meta-analyses indicating mean positive impacts but also the existence of many ineffective programs. "Educational Researcher" has served as a…

The intensities of the contemporary moment continue to prompt reflections on the strengths and limitations of approaches typically used to study education policy reform. The central contention of this essay is that policy sociology and its application within education offers needed vantage points on contemporary pressing global policy problems.…

Over the past decade, public awareness of transgender people has rapidly increased. Yet people who do not conform to the expectations of their assigned gender often face social prejudice and structural marginalization. Within this context, an increasing number of education researchers have shown interest in taking up questions related to…

Concerns about the conduct of research are pervasive in many fields, including education. In this preregistered study, we replicated and extended previous studies from other fields by asking education researchers about 10 questionable research practices and five open research practices. We asked them to estimate the prevalence of the practices in…

Despite the outsized influence the Catholic school sector in the United States has on policymaking, research into the organization of Catholic schools has not kept pace with contemporary educational research trends. In this brief paper, we diagnose how conceptual and empirical decisions made within the field of Catholic education resulted in the…

Given contemporary recognition of how racialized micro-interactions and the embedded distortions of marginalized and minoritized folk compound over time to produce and reify educational stratification and inequality, this article is an opportunity to think more deliberately about how education researchers can better delineate empirically and…

Education is a complex system, which has conceptual and methodological implications for education research and policy. In this article, an overview is first provided of the Complex Systems Conceptual Framework for Learning (CSCFL), which consists of a set of conceptual perspectives that are generally shared by educational complex systems,…

Although "trauma-informed education" has gained momentum across the United States in recent years, a question remains neglected by the research community: How can education research inform understandings of "trauma-informed" approaches when education itself is trauma-producing for many students? This article (1) explores…

Education researchers use surveys widely. Yet, critics question respondents' ability to provide high-quality responses. As schools increasingly use student surveys to drive local policy making, respondents' (lack of) motivation to provide quality responses may threaten the wisdom of using questionnaires for data-based decision making. To better…

Short comparative interrupted times series (CITS) designs are increasingly being used in education research to assess the effectiveness of school-level interventions. These designs can be implemented relatively inexpensively, often drawing on publicly available data on aggregate school performance. However, the validity of this approach hinges on…

This paper suggests that synergies can be produced by using geospatial analyses as a bridge between traditional qualitative-quantitative distinctions in education research. While mapping tools have been effective for informing education policy studies, especially in terms of educational access and choice, they have also been underutilized and…