Research and Practice Alignment: How Meaningful Collaboration between Practitioners and Researchers Can Inform Equity-Centered Decision-Making
McMillan, Martha C.
Trout, Emily
:
2022
Abstract
Large school districts across the country are faced with a monumental task -
creating and managing a system that has the capacity to ensure that students can
learn and grow during their time in school. School districts benefit from research
that is closely aligned with their most pressing problems of practice and an efficient
allocation of that research to decision-makers who will take action based on the
results. All of this must be done within the constraints of the K-12 school district.
In order to do this well, districts and researchers must collaborate to ensure that
the end result will be useful and beneficial to both parties. The Central City
Department of Education (CCDOE) is a fertile ground for research and improving
school outcomes.
However, improving practice across the district requires alignment between
research and policy. Currently, research conducted within the district is designed
independently of issues relevant to practitioners. Based on the work of Penuel,
Coburn, and others, we investigated the best practices for establishing
partnerships, systems for supporting research and ensuring equitable research and
why inconsistent sharing across stakeholders occurs.
As a result of insights pulled from the literature and the needs of Central City, the
following research questions were established:
● Research Question 1: What processes and structures are large diverse school
districts using to effectively manage research and data requests?
○ Research Question 1a: How do districts ensure alignment between
district priorities and the larger research community?
○ Research Question 1b: How do districts utilize external researchers to
address pressing priorities?
● Research Question 2: What efforts do large diverse districts undertake to
ensure that research outputs are usable and can inform decision-making?
● Research Question 3: What kind of research evidence and practices would
most effectively guide research decisions at CCDOE?
Research and Practice Alignment 4
● Research Question 4: How might diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice
priorities guide research decisions at CCDOE?