Improvement Research in Education: Charting a Policy Pathway to a Deeper Research Enterprise

The chapter describes the path that federal policy on education research has taken over the last several decades. Arguing for an expansion of that path, it explores the logics and key features of improvement research: a paradigm that coordinates disciplined methods of iterative design and inquiry to produce and use knowledge for addressing specific problems, needs, and opportunities grounded in education practice. The chapter organizes the claims that education scholars offer for improvement research into two primary categories: methodological warrants and equity warrants. Examples of improvement research follow, along with emerging lessons about what we are learning with respect to the promise of the approach for boosting student experiences and outcomes. The chapter closes with thoughts about the contours of a policy ecosystem that would support the deepening of the research enterprise with federal and field investments in improvement research.

Keywords: education; social science research; school improvement; improvement science; implementation