This keynote address discusses previous and ongoing efforts to reduce the persistent gap between research and practice in social work and offers recommendations for further bridging that gap. Key among those recommendations is the need to conduct descriptive outcome studies of efforts to adapt research-supported interventions in everyday practice…

The Lisbon strategy adopted in 2000 by the European Council considers knowledge to be the key element in ensuring future European Union economic growth and in promoting social cohesion. With this aim in mind, a solid base is needed so that knowledge can not only be produced and but also be used to good effect. For any undertaking based on the…

Many researchers and research funders want their work to be influential in educational policy and practice, but there is little systematic understanding of how policymakers and practitioners use research evidence, much less how they acquire or interpret it. By understanding what does shape policymakers' and practitioners' decision making and the…

Background: Active Support (AS) is an approach for promoting increased engagement in activities by people with intellectual disability (ID). Method: We critically reviewed the available research on AS, and added a commentary to help guide future research and practice. Results: Despite weaknesses in the research design of some studies, there is…

A recent report of the American Educational Research Association Panel on Research and Teacher Education confirms beyond question earlier findings exposing the limited utility of our research base in answering questions pertaining to policy or practice concerning preparation and licensing of teachers. Conditions accounting for this perplexing…

This review paper identifies and captures the major themes from the ACER 2005 Research Conference, distilling ideas and information from the conference papers and also from conversations that took place during the conference. The paper also looks at what are claimed to be effective ways of using data to improve student learning in schools. How…

Twenty-nine elementary teachers participated in a 2-week summer reading institute and received follow-up support. Teachers identified as high implementers, moderate implementers, and low implementers lamented a lack of instructional time, however, high-implementing teachers reported administrative support as their top facilitator, while five…

This article reviews key findings from school-reform studies of the 1980s on sustained use of effective teacher practices in the classroom and explains their relevance to special education. Recent findings are also highlighted and unresolved issues are identified. An appendix lists sustainability factors and issues. (Contains references.)…

This article analyzes variables associated with adherence by parents to recommendations designed to solve common childhood problems and specific corresponding processes that are responsible for poor adherence. Adherence variables include establishing operations, stimulus generalization, response acquisition, and consequent events. (Contains…

In this commentary, we examine the articles in this special issue in terms of a continuum of research to practice strategies currently used in school psychology. On one end of the continuum is the "publish and hope" approach, and at the other end is the "change the organization to fit the innovation" approach. We present the concept of innovation…

Special education research has undergone one of the most significant developments in the history of education during the past two decades (Gersten, Vaughn, Deshler, & Schiller, 1997). These developments can be related to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997 and the resulting knowledge about teaching individuals with…

When implementing institutional strategies to bring research and teaching together, learning occurs. A research-intensive university in Australia put in place institutional strategies to strengthen the relationship between research and teaching.

This chapter uses a case study to develop a set of contexts and conditions for improving the alignment of purposes of alumni survey research within and across higher education institutions. (Contains 2 tables.)

The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) was commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to conduct a study of primary, secondary and special maintained schools in England to assess the use of data in teaching and learning. The study sought to identify how data is used to promote learning in primary, middle,…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on evaluating the impact of human resource development (HRD). "The Politics of Program Evaluation and the Misuse of Evaluation Findings" (Hallie Preskill, Robin Lackey) discusses the status of evaluation theory, evaluation as a political activity, and the findings from a survey on the…