Practitioner Perspectives and Assumptions About Research

• In Event: Research Use in Schools: The Big Picture

Abstract

This descriptive paper describes results from the Survey of Evidence in Education for School-Based Practitioners (SEE-S), focusing on practitioners’ perceptions, and assumptions about research that may drive the gap between the research and practice communities. We apply Dunn’s (1980) five assumptions about the gap between research and policy to issues of knowledge mobilization in school settings. We argue that the five gaps are related to assumptions and perspectives about the usefulness of research products (Finnegan et al., 2014); the nature and quality of research (Coburn & Talbert, 2006; Supovitz & Klein, 2003); problems that research addresses (West & Rhoton, 1994); the structures, processes, and incentives surrounding research production and use (Burkhardt & Schoenfeld, 2003); and the relationships between communities (Lavis, 2003).

Methods and data sources. This proposal presents descriptive results from the second portion of the SEE-S, focusing on items that measure the first three conceptions of the research-practice gap. More than 4,000 school-based practitioners responded to these items. Distributions and measures of central tendency (i.e., means and standard deviations) are presented.

Results.
Usefulness of Research Products. Practitioners responded to questions about the types of products they read over the past year with the intention of informing their practice. The most read products were professional development materials (M=2.53, SD=.85, scale 0-4), conference/presentation materials (M=2.17,SD=.76), and news articles (M=2.11, SD=.99). Least read were traditional research products including research/program evaluation reports (M=1.58, SD=.75) and research syntheses (M=1.55, SD=.75)

Nature and Quality of Research. Respondents replied to questions about the importance of different characteristics of research products. Of greatest value to practitioners regarding the presentation and delivery of the information was that the materials were easy to understand, easy to access, and free to access. Concerning judgements of the trustworthiness of that research, practitioners placed greater value on research they knew to be peer-reviewed (M=2.79, SD=.99; scale 1-4) more so than they valued, for example, whether they knew the researcher (M=2.5, SD=1.0) or how many times the study had been cited (M=2.30, SD=.99).

Problems that research addresses. Practitioners were also asked to indicate their perceptions of the ability of research to attend to problems of practice in schools/districts. Practitioners generally agreed that research suggests actionable steps to take in practice (M=2.94, SD=.62; Scale 1-4) and were more mixed on their opinions concerning research addressing the most important issues faced by schools/districts (M=2.66, SD=.74).

Significance. This paper provides a view of the national landscape of practitioners’ preferences for presentation of research information, and their perspectives and assumptions about the usefulness of research. Data presented in this paper highlight avenues for improving dissemination of and engagement with research, as well as areas where the research and practice communities can improve perceptions of the utility of research.

Author

• Horatio Blackman, National Urban League