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…

After decades of frustration that education research is irrelevant to practice and that educators do not use research to inform their work, there is reason to believe that the relationship between research and practice is improving. Elizabeth Farley-Ripple describes the how the conversation about research and practice is becoming broader, how…

This chapter calls for researchers to reconceptualize research quality from the perspective of its expected use, attending to power dynamics that influence how knowledge is defined, constructed, and validated through the research enterprise. Addressing these concerns when designing and conducting education research can yield more useful research…

Calls to improve relationships between research and practice abound, among them efforts to help researchers to work in partnership with and communicate more effectively with policy and practice audiences, informing those that govern and design educational policies and those charged with implementation in schools and classrooms, respectively. These…

This article addresses the gap between what works in research and what works in practice. Currently, research in evidence-based education policy and practice focuses on randomized controlled trials. These can support causal ascriptions ("It worked") but provide little basis for local effectiveness predictions ("It will work…

Currently, the issue of inequality is one of the most pressing concerns in education and educational research. Factors such as increased socio-economic inequality, movement of people across national boundaries and refugees create major challenges for local communities and schools. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that teaching and leadership are…

For education reform to move beyond policy rhetoric and find a place in teachers' practice, the critical role of teachers must be acknowledged. Moving beyond a focus on the "what" of educational reform to the "how", this study explores the enabling conditions for implementing learner-centred education in the Maldives. Using…

System-based and collaborative teacher inquiry has unexplored potential that can impact educational policy in numerous ways. This impact can be increased when teacher inquiry builds momentum from classrooms and teaching practices and simultaneously addresses district, state, and national discourses and networks. In this conceptual paper, I…

Poor literacy and numeracy levels in schools have raised questions in South Africa, as they have internationally, on the quality and appropriateness of initial teacher education for preparing teachers for the complexities faced in schools generally and for the mediation of literacy and numeracy in the early years in particular. This paper profiles…

This article presents an overview and discussion of qualitative research in education by analyzing the roles of researchers, the history of the field, its use in policymaking, and its future influence on educational reform. The article begins by describing the unique position that qualitative educational researchers have in higher education, as…

This paper is about the relationship between research, policy and practice in education. It outlines reasons for the increased interest in research and its impact and describe some of the difficulties in studying this relationship. A conceptualization of the knowledge mobilization process is presented that identifies three overlapping and…

Higher education had a predominant national and institutional focus for a long time. In Europe, supra-national political activities played a major role for increasing the interest in comparative research. Comparative perspectives are important in order to deconstruct the often national perspective of causal reasoning, for proving benchmarks, for…

Educational effectiveness research (EER) has accumulated much knowledge in the areas of school effectiveness research (SER), teacher effectiveness research (TER) and school/system improvement research (SSIR). Yet many schools and educational systems are not making enough use of the material and their insights. The article reviews evidence of…

The article "Getting lost in translation" by Harris, Chapman, Muijs and Reynolds addresses the engagement of policy-makers and educational practitioners with (the results of) educational effectiveness and improvement research. In this commentary the article is discussed from the perspectives of research utilisation, the solidity of the…

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…