A framework for approaching policy-oriented educational psychology research

Abstract

As a community of practice, educational psychologists are unpracticed in considering how educational policies might affect the phenomena they study. One reason is the traditional focus of educational psychology research on cross-contextual individual processes, to the practical exclusion of the political context that frames teaching, learning, motivation, development, and achievement. In this article, I argue that policy-oriented educational psychology research is imperative, not only for the relevance of educational psychology to educational policy and practice, but for generating ecologically valid educational psychology theory. To support policy-oriented educational psychology research, I offer a straightforward framework that incorporates policy and the lived educational context into the classic facets of educational psychology research projects. I end with an illustrative example of implementing the framework in designing a proposal for a small-scale investigation around a district policy concerned with a controversial and impactful educational practice—grading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Generally, context refers to “the conditions or circumstances in which a particular phenomenon occurs” (https://dictionary.apa.org/context). This very inclusive definition of context does not specify the multiple dimensions that constitute these conditions and circumstances, their characteristics, and their relationships with each other. Defining those dimensions involves ontological, epistemological, and theoretical aspects, the review of which goes beyond the scope of this article. Throughout the article, I note several possible dimensions that can be considered as contextualizing educational psychology phenomena. Many others are possible and should be considered for each study.

2 The federal policy was eliminated in 2004 following change in the administration.

3 Pending the IES adoption of recent recommendations by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) panel on the future of educational research, which called for an emphasis on research on civic policy and for establishing funding programs for small scale studies (NASEM, 2022).