Education Research-Practice Partnerships: Impacts and Dynamics

ABSTRACT

The emerging literature on research-practice partnerships in education explains the conditions under which these partnerships operate to achieve the desired impact. This study adds to that literature base by exploring variation in the perceived impacts across three partnerships whose goal was improving achievement for multilingual learner students. To examine these partnerships, we posit a conceptual framework that defines partnership impacts and associated supportive dynamics within the partnership. We use this framework to guide our analysis of interviews and observations from three partnerships. Our study finds (1) practitioners and researchers’ motivations to engage in the RPP are different but complementary; (2) practitioners and researchers perceive the RPP as impacting their capacity either to make decisions that change policy and practice or to develop research that is relevant for theory and practice; (3) both researchers and practitioners agree that consistent communication through meetings and reliable funding supports the RPP. Implications for the field and ideas for further research are discussed.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the William T. Grant Foundation for funding this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ We do not identify the names of the individuals and institutions involved in these partnerships to maintain anonymity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Wentworth

Laura Wentworth serves as the Director of the Research Practice Partnership (RPP) program that helps school districts and universities across California work together in partnerships that produce and use research to improve policies, practices and student outcomes, with a focus on supporting students historically underserved by the public school system. Under Laura’s leadership, Ed Partners supports through leadership and coaching the Stanford-San Francisco Unified School District Partnership and the Stanford-Sequoia K-12 Research Collaborative. She helps the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP) launch its first regional subnetwork of 13 RPPs in California. Laura worked with faculty at the Stanford Graduate School of Education launch the first of its kind Certificate in Partnership Research for doctoral students wanting training in partnership research methods.Laura earned a Masters in curriculum and instruction from the University of Colorado, a Masters in the social sciences of education and PhD in Administration and Policy Analysis from Stanford University.

Lindsay Fox

Lindsay Fox is a senior researcher at Mathematica who specializes in designing and conducting evaluations of education programs using quasi-experimental designs and randomized controlled trials. She also provides evaluation technical assistance to foundation- and federally-funded grant recipients and state agencies. Her research focuses on postsecondary education; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; and K-12 teaching and learning.

Sean F. Reardon

Sean F. Reardon is the Endowed Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). His research investigates the causes, patterns, trends, and consequences of social and educational inequality. In particular, he studies issues of residential and school segregation and of racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in academic achievement and educational success. In addition, his work develops methods of measuring social and educational inequality (including the measurement of segregation and achievement gaps) and methods of causal inference in educational and social science research.