Module One:
Gathering Evidence
Learning Objective
Learn how to find high-quality research and evidence that addresses your purpose.
What You Need to Know
There are different types of educational research that produce evidence.
Primary and empirical research studies gather “raw” data that can be used for further analysis, but may not focus as much on practice and policy implications.
Secondary research reviews and synthesizes multiple studies by summarizing and further investigating their data and findings.
Theoretical or conceptual research, like secondary research, draws on previous studies to construct new theories.
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Research organizations, online, searchable databases and clearinghouses make journal articles and peer-reviewed research easily accessible to practitioners and policy makers. Peer-review is an evaluation process in which qualified members in the same field assess the quality and scientific merit of research and its evidence.
Steps
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1. Define the Purpose
Research can be used to serve different purposes, from finding out the efficacy of a program, curriculum, or intervention, to discovering a policy’s effectiveness, to gathering critical information about an intervention.
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2. Get Specific
Make a list of all of the questions associated with the topic or larger research question you are trying to answer (e.g., what is the dosage needed for tutoring to be effective? What should the frequency be? The curriculum?)
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3. Identify Multiple Sources
Evidence will be found in many sources, including academic journals, policy briefs, and reviews presented in clearinghouses and databases (see Resources below). You should also consider connecting with researchers or professional organizations and associations to explore research.
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4. Gather the Research and Information
Review the abstracts, which typically restate the purpose, highlight the key points, and describe the results, findings, and recommendations, to find the research that will best answer your questions.
Case Study
A superintendent of a medium-sized district in Pennsylvania, where the majority of students participated in remote learning during the 2020-21 school year, wants to address unfinished learning by implementing a high-dosage tutoring program for high school students in need of additional support in math.
Tutoring is costly so she wants to understand the impact and use the most up-to-date evidence to determine the key elements of the program.
She begins by making a list of questions:
What is the dosage needed to be effective?
What should the tutor student ratio be?
What qualifications and expertise should the tutors have?
When is the optimal time for students to engage in tutoring?
She reaches out to a leader in a neighboring district who shares a research brief on high-dosage tutoring by the Annenberg Foundation. The brief outlines design principles like frequency, group size, and personnel, and links to evidence in research reports and studies.
Wanting more evidence on impact, she searches “high-dosage tutoring” in ERIC, IES’s searchable database. There, she finds additional briefs, studies, and meta-analyses. A 2020 meta-analysis reveals significant average effects across nearly 100 experimental studies on tutoring, but the majority of the interventions focused on the primary grades.
She continues to search for evidence specific to secondary math. She finds several studies and after reading their abstracts, she hones in on a recent study called “Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes Among Adolescents” about 9th and 10th graders who received math tutoring during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years.
Resources
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Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
The nation’s leading source for independent education research, evaluations, and statistics, and offers numerous tools to make evidence accessible to academics, researchers, educators, policy makers and the general public.
ERIC is a digital library of education research that has indexed 1.7 million records that include journal articles, books, and grey literature and date from 1966 to the present.
What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) provides educators with information and evidence to make evidence-based decisions by reviewing the existing research and creating practice guides.
Regional Education Labs (REL) conduct applied research and provide training to support evidence-based education systems. There are ten RELs, each of which works with its region (e.g. Mid-Atlantic, Southwest), to increase the use of research in schools.
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Ed Reports
A nonprofit that evaluates educational materials and provides educator-reviewed reports to increase the capacity of teachers, administrators, and leaders to seek, identify, and demand high-quality instructional materials.
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Jefferson Exchange Exchange (JEX)
Gathers and shares efficacy information collected from peer-reviewed feedback on education technology products and how they work differently in different environments.
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Other Organizations
Hanover Research creates reports and briefs based on research and analytics to help administrators make evidence-based decisions to improve effectiveness.
Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization that conducts in-depth research that leads to solutions at the local, national, and global levels.
Annenberg Institute develops actionable knowledge through systematic research and partnering with educators and policy makers to make a local impact.
Research reveals that leaders connect to research primarily through their professional networks and connections. Education Associations, Organizations, and Conferences, such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), to name a few.