Researchers in vocational education (VE) often are not viewed as having made substantial contributions to VE practice. The VE literature and the poor attendance at American Vocational Education Research Association sessions by vocational educators are evidence of the gaps that have developed between VE research and practice, basic and applied research, theory and practice, and practitioners and researchers. Researchers in VE must find ways of overcoming these gaps. Among the related issues that have been raised in the literature since the 1960s are the following: the relative benefits of quantitative and qualitative research studies; the need for research that is simultaneously more programmatic and more applied; the need for university researchers to maintain "private" lines of inquiry while meeting their responsibilities of supervising graduate students' research and researching topics for which funding is available; and the need to find individuals to conduct VE research in the wake of elimination of research coordinating units and staff/funding cutbacks at state/federal departments of education and universities. One way to begin bridging the gap between theory and practice would be to begin research on how to deliver VE teacher preparation and other services through regional centers and distance education. (Contains 71 references.) (MN)