Author Mike Schmoker argues that data should play a crucial role before staff development begins by helping to select the most results-oriented initiatives. Staff development proposals should be based on data that indicate the initiatives have led to higher achievement. This interview discusses barriers to using data and notes the role of…

Learning organizations must have a shared organizational vision. Schools can develop good vision statements when personnel base discussions on a collective investigation of research; emphasize meaningful, credible improvements; and share their thoughts and hopes while working toward consensus. Indicators that schools can impact through school…

Sets forth guidelines for assessing the economic impact of university research and development and identifies what may become the roles and responsibilities of technology transfer officers in the assessment process. (Author/JOW)

Discusses five major discrepancies in speech and language pathology practices and offers suggestions for reconciling them. Discrepancies include the separation of clinicians and scientists, the definition of language, the role of theory in intervention, the approach as it relates to product for language intervention, and the meaning of best…

This article describes the usefulness of a scientific approach to improving knowledge and practice in special education. Of four approaches to knowledge (superstition, folklore, craft, and science), craft and science are supported and implications for special education drawn including the need to bridge the gulf between research knowledge and…

In attempting to guide both researchers and the federal government in the development of a stronger scientific culture for education research, the National Research Council report, Scientific Research in Education, falls short in its conception of research dissemination. Rather than considering the potential of new publishing technologies to…

Federal educational policy, funding, and legislation are currently forwarding a research agenda described by the current administration as scientifically based. We characterize this agenda, described in multiple official documents as the gold standard, as neopositivist. We consider the ways in which this research paradigm and the methods that…

The field of augmentative and alternative communication's (AAC) missing link is the discrepancy between what the research community identifies as needs and what the clinical community, including the AAC user, believes to be the AAC user's needs. An unrealistic picture of the AAC user occurs, developing a top-down effect of limited outcomes,…

This paper reviews criticism on misinterpretation and overuse of significance testing in the social sciences and examines use of effect size measures to enhance interpretation of significance testing. Review of typical effect size measures and their application is followed by analysis of use of effect size measures in studies reported over 10…

The author presents an investigation of patent-application filings made without external financial support, or "at-risk", based on inventions disclosed to the University of California from fiscal years 1991 to 2000. The success of the at-risk patent applications filed on these invention disclosures is examined from the perspective of…

Over the past few years Research Data Services (RDS), part of the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), has led numerous large-scale, longitudinal projects. Feedback to schools has been provided for all of these projects, and has been in the form of sets of tables and charts and electronic files illustrating pupil performance and…

In this article, the author explores the role of research in education. Unlike medicine, education is not--and likely cannot be--rooted in scientific traditions. It lacks an explicit knowledge base that professionals rely upon. Opinion can be as powerful as evidence; personal experience more relevant than research knowledge. Indeed research…

The implications of the Britain's Jarratt Committee study of efficiency in selected universities and the politics underlying the study are examined and criticized as self-serving. (MSE)

Since 2002, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has funded more than 400 research grants through the National Center for Education Research. This document lists the publications that have resulted from these projects. Publications from IES grantees include articles intended for scientific audiences, as well as articles written for general…

Action research involves researchers and practitioners in collaborative projects and provides a means of integrating evaluation into the reform process. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)